The Painted Mountains were right in the heart of the New Valyrian Empire, yet they were one of the most remote places in all of Essos.
That is why the mountains with their high peaks, the valleys in between and its numerous large caves formed an ideal retreat for someone who wanted to stay hidden.
Especially if that someone was a dragon rider.
"Fate is not kind to us, Hi-no-uroko", sighed Kenzai Iemochi as he returned to the cave where his huge, fiery red dragon was waiting for him. "It seems that this war has already been decided. Empress Daenerys will not need our help."
The exiled samurai had learned of the Battle of Ar Noy and the ensuing collapse of the League of Free Cities when he was getting supplies from a small settlement on the western edge of the mountains. In the village he posed as a traveler from Yi Ti.
But in truth, Kenzai was from the island of Leng. Of course, he couldn't tell people this without risking annoying questions. Leng had been isolated from the outside world since it became independent from the Yi Ti Empire four hundred years ago. Apart from the fact that the island was ruled by a god empress, not much was known about it.
Above all, nobody suspected anything about the dragons.
The world believed that the Targaryens were the only dragonlords who survive the Doom of Valyria and its aftermath. But while the Targaryens left for Dragonstone years before the disaster, another family had left the Freehold just a day before the Doom. With no fewer than thirteen dragons.
First the refugees went to Sothoryos, but because of the many dangerous diseases there, a longer stay would have meant certain death. But they also did not want to let the rest of the world know of their survival, because it was to be feared that those forces behind Valyria's destruction wanted to exterminate the last dragonlords. This fear later turned out to be unfounded, since no one was chasing the Targaryens.
So Kenzai's ancestors took a long and dangerous detour around the densely populated island of Great Moraq to the island of Leng in the Jade Sea, because there the god empress Khiara had only recently founded a new dynasty and isolated her country from the rest of the world.
Khiara the Great, as she would later go down in the history books, might have been xenophobic, but she was not so foolish as to misjudge the worth of the newcomers. She allowed the dragonriders to settle in her country - on condition of complete assimilation.
And so it happened. The Valyrians gave up their old family name, which was soon forgotten, and gave themselves the name Toyoda. Just a few generations after arriving, the Toyoda clan had become a leading power on the island. Through marriage connections, the blood of the Valyrians soon spread to other families - the Kenzai clan, for example.
The existence of the dragons, however, was kept secret from the world, even if rumors about them kept circulating. These were never really taken seriously. There had never been an attempted invasion of Leng in the past four hundred years, but should it ever happen, the attackers would be in for an extremely unpleasant surprise.
It was tradition that the God Empress of Leng had two husbands: The first husband was the commander-in-chief of the army, called the Shogun. The second held the office of Kaigun-chokan, the commander in chief of the navy.
At present, Toyoda Daisuke was Leng's shogun. Kenzai Iemochi's father had been the Kaigun-chokan until he was accused of treason a few months ago and the Shogun executed him, after which Iemochi fled the island. He and Hi-no-uroko had narrowly escaped the dragonriders of the Toyoda clan.
Even on Leng, Daenerys Targaryen, her dragons and the war she waged against the Westerosi and the Free Cities were known. Kenzai Iemochi had hoped to get the ruler of the New Valyrian Empire, in exchange for his support in fighting her enemies, to help him in his vengeance against the Toyoda clan when her dragon chicks were grown.
Kenzai's dragon Hi-no-uroko, "Scale of Fire" in the language of the western peoples, was significantly older (and larger) than Drogon. His scales were tough enough to withstand a direct hit from a ballista bolt. For the silver-haired Empress he would have been a weapon of priceless value.
But since the Empire had already crushed the Alliance at Ar Noy without Kenzai's help, there was absolutely no reason for Daenerys to give the samurai help against the Shogun.
Kenzai piled up a few twigs and twigs that he had gathered on the way back to the cave and started a fire. He skinned a hunted hare, cut it into pieces, and put the meat and vegetables he had bought in the village in a pot. At least he didn't have to worry about feeding his dragon, there were enough mountain goats and other animals to hunt in the mountains. In theory, he could stay here for years and neither Daenerys nor the Toyoda clan would suspect anything.
But Kenzai Iemochi had sworn by the spirits of his ancestors to take revenge for his father's death, no matter what the cost.
After he had eaten, he crouched down in front of the fire and took out his diary to fill in a few more lines. It helped him keep his goal in mind. Meanwhile, he thought about what else he had heard in the village. The Empress had set sail for Westeros with a large force to end the war.
And she had left all the other dragons in Volantis except Drogon. There were also rumors that there were other unhatched eggs.
The temptation was great to just go there and forcibly acquire the young dragons and eggs. But then Daenerys would try by all means to get them back. When Kenzai returned to Leng, he didn't want another opponent behind him. Plus, it would be years before the dragons were old enough to fight, and Kenzai had to find a way to control them too.
The samurai took his tachi, a sword with a saber-like blade, and pulled it out of its sheath. He began by carefully sharpening and polishing the weapon, as he did every day.
Kenzai had to take out Empress Daenerys before taking his prey. He would kill Drogon too - for all he knew, the dragon's bond with his "mother" was extraordinarily strong.
Although Hi-no-uroko would be clearly superior to Drogon, Kenzai did not want the Empress to find out that a strange dragon rider was in her empire and thus be warned of the threat. So the samurai had to continue to be careful not to be spotted. He would wait for Daenerys to return from Westeros and then confront her in the sky over Volantis or maybe elsewhere.