ACT I: The Awakening of the Myth and Arrival at Court (58 AC – 59 AC)
Chapter 1: The Shadow Over the New Gift (58 AC)
The frigid Northern air struck Good Queen Alysanne’s face with the violence of a thousand shards of glass.
Even from high atop her riding saddle, swathed in the thickest layers of bear furs and heavy velvet, the queen felt the cold numb her bones.
It was a different kind of cold from the one that blew across Blackwater Bay or around the heights of Dragonstone; it was an ancient, ravenous cold that seemed to whisper warnings within the folds of the wind.
Alysanne looked down at the vast white expanse below and wondered, with a touch of genuine astonishment, how men and women of flesh and blood could build homes, till the soil, and survive in such a frozen wasteland.
Her journey through the North had been planned to bind the Crown closer to the people of the winter lands, but nothing had prepared her for the terrible majesty of the Wall.
Upon visiting the Night’s Watch garrison at Castle Black, the queen had been deeply moved by the misery and austere dedication of those men dressed in black.
They were the guardians of the realm, forgotten by a prosperous, sunlit South.
So touched was she that she unclasped the precious stone necklaces from her own neck and donated her most valuable jewels to help maintain the castles along the Wall.
However, two things from that visit to the far North remained burned into the queen’s mind like open scars.
The first was Silverwing’s behavior.
Three times Alysanne had attempted to ride her dragon beyond the Wall, toward the dark, unknown forests of the Shivering Valley.
And three times the dragon, ever docile and graceful, had vehemently refused to move forward.
The beast had let out sharp hisses, twisting her neck and beating her wings with an almost human terror, digging her talons into the snow and refusing to cross that millenary barrier.
For a Targaryen, accustomed to the notion that dragons were the supreme masters of the skies, Silverwing’s refusal was a disturbing revelation.
The second was the idea that had bloomed in the queen’s idealistic heart: the expansion of the Night’s Watch lands through the New Gift.
Since the days of Brandon the Builder, the Night’s Watch had possessed the original Gift—a strip of twenty-five leagues south of the Wall.
Alysanne had decided that the Crown would grant another twenty-five leagues to the black brothers, doubling their territory so they could till the soil, collect taxes, and sustain themselves without relying on the fickle charity of the lords.
Yet, upon presenting her plan to the officers of the Watch, the queen had not met the feverish gratitude she expected.
Instead, she saw in the eyes of the Lord Commander and the senior rangers a grim hesitation, a veiled dread that seemed to go far beyond the common fear of the Northern lords’ wrath.
There was something more.
Someone more.
Now, flying back to Winterfell beneath a slate-gray sky, Alysanne carried in her chest the unyielding resolve that defined her.
She would convince the Starks.
She would make the will of the Iron Throne prevail.
As Silverwing landed on the snow-covered courtyards of the Winter Kings’ fortress, Alysanne was met by her brother and husband, King Jaehaerys I Targaryen.
The young king stepped swiftly through the soft snow, helping her dismount.
In Jaehaerys’s violet eyes, usually so calculating and serene, there was a transparent relief mixed with profound concern.
Though he knew there was no safer place in the world for dragonblood than atop the saddle of a fire-breathing beast, Jaehaerys had never forgotten the bloody lesson from years past.
The treacherous attack Alysanne had suffered while bathing at Jonquil’s Pool had shown the king a bitter truth: away from the wings of their dragons, Targaryens were flesh and blood, as fragile and easy to kill as any peasant.
“You were long delayed, my queen,” Jaehaerys murmured, pressing Alysanne’s gloved hands against his chest before kissing her cold forehead.
“The air of this place seems to poison men’s patience.
Lord Stark’s chest is full of thorns.”
“Lord Stark will learn that the Crown’s generosity is for the good of the entire realm, my liege,” Alysanne replied, raising her chin with determination.
However, when the great assembly gathered in the Great Hall of Winterfell that very evening, the queen’s generosity was received as a declaration of war.
Great resin torches burned in stone sconces, casting long shadows across the age-old walls.
The smell of strong ale, roasted venison, and dog sweat filled the stifling air.
Seated at the long oak tables, the lords of the North—men with thick beards, faces weathered by frost, and eyes hard as iron—made no effort to hide their distaste.
Lords Umber, Karstark, Glover, and Mormont whispered and swore openly.
“Double the lands of the Watch?” bellowed one of the lords from the East, slamming his wooden mug onto the table with such force that ale spilled over.
“Twenty-five leagues of fertile land taken from our vassals?
Does Your Grace think the folk of the North eat snow and drink ice?
Do you think we do not need land to plant and feed our own children when the long winter comes?”
“The Night’s Watch is the shield that guards this realm!” Alysanne argued, her voice remaining firm and clear from atop the dais, beside her husband.
“A strong, self-sufficient Watch ensures that wildlings do not ride south to burn your crops, my lord.
The New Gift will secure the future of your grandchildren!”
“Our grandchildren will starve come autumn if the Crown continues to give away what does not belong to it!” countered another noble, backed by roars of agreement that echoed off the roof beams.
The atmosphere in the hall grew hotter by the second.
Jaehaerys observed the scene in silence.
Privately, the king understood the logic of the Northerners; he knew those lands were vital for the North’s sustenance and that Alysanne’s demand, though noble in intent, was a heavy blow to the already fragile economy of that hostile region.
But Jaehaerys was the King of the Seven Kingdoms.
He would never publicly overrule his queen, least of all before a mob of brute Northern men who dared raise their voices against royal authority.
The king extended his hand and made a nearly imperceptible gesture.
Outside, in the ice-covered courtyards, the response was immediate.
Vermithor, the Bronze Fury, unleashed a terrifying roar that shook the millenary stones of Winterfell.
The gut-wrenching sound, originating from deep within the giant dragon’s chest, reverberated through the hall walls, rattling mugs on tables and bringing stone dust cascading from the ceiling.
Silence fell instantly over the Great Hall.
The Northern lords quieted, but Jaehaerys, with his keen ruler’s eye, noticed something that disturbed him deeply.
In the South, a roar from Vermithor would have sent mans and lords to their knees with trembling joints, pale with terror.
Here, in the North, the men did not flinch.
They hardened their scowls, rested their hands on the pommels of their swords, and stared up at the dais.
The silence that fell was not out of fear of dragonfire; it was a silence of respect for the authority of Lord Alaric Stark.
The difference between Southern politics and the proud resolve of the North had never been clearer to the king.
Jaehaerys stepped forward, his voice ringing with the authority of one who wielded absolute power:
“My queen’s vision is a project designed for the long-term prosperity and defense of Westeros,” declared the king, locking his violet eyes onto the Lord of Winterfell.
“And I trust Lord Stark can see the wisdom in this as well.”
Jaehaerys’s gaze left no room for doubt: it was no diplomatic request; it was a royal command disguised as courtesy.
Lord Alaric Stark, a lean man with dark hair flecked with gray and eyes as cold as the ice wells of his castle, rose slowly from his stone seat.
He looked at the king, then at the queen.
“The Night’s Watch cannot cultivate even half of Brandon’s Gift which they already possess, Your Grace,” Alaric said, his voice calm yet razor-sharp.
“Doubling that territory will not bring more men to the Wall; it will only take bread from my vassals’ mouths and leave arable land abandoned.
It is a mistake.”
Alysanne, whose stubbornness could outmatch any king’s when she set her mind to an idea, took a step forward, her face hardening:
“Even so, I insist, Lord Stark.”
This time, there was no longer any hint of a request.
It was the will of the Crown being imposed.
Lord Alaric Stark stared at the queen for a long, agonizing second.
A sepulchral silence took hold of the hall.
The flames of the torches seemed to flicker.
“Very well,” Alaric said finally.
“I understand, Queen Alysanne of House Targaryen…
the Good Queen.”
The manner in which the Lord of Winterfell uttered those words held such a concentrated venom that, for a moment, the monarchs almost mistook the stone wolf of House Stark for a viper about to strike.
The sting of the insult made Jaehaerys’s blood boil.
Alysanne began to form a victorious smile on her face, believing royal authority had prevailed.
But before she could utter another word, a sinister sound cut through the Northern night.
Coming from outside, echoing across the sacred woods and distant mountains, came a terribly long, sharp howl of dozens of wolves, followed by the deafening, chaotic cawing of hundreds of ravens taking flight from the canopies of the weirwood trees.
The sound made the hairs on Alysanne’s arms stand on end.
On the dais, Lord Alaric Stark’s face transformed.
The tone of bitterness vanished, replaced by a grim, almost amused smile—a dark smile that made the queen’s heart leap involuntarily.
“However, my queen…” Alaric continued, resting his hands atop his ironwood walking staff, “it will not be I who informs the Pale Wolf that his lands have been gifted to the Iron Throne.”
Alaric slowly turned his head and looked directly at the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, who sat a few chairs away.
The commander, a man hardened by decades of fighting wildlings and monsters beyond the Wall, was now pale as a corpse, cold sweat glistening on his forehead.
The man shook his head frantically, refusing to even meet the eyes of the Lord of Winterfell.
Jaehaerys, losing what little patience he had left amidst these Northern riddles, stepped forward, his hand resting instinctively on the pommel of the sword at his hip:
“And who, by the Seven Hells, is this Pale Wolf?” Queen Alysanne demanded, irritated by the shadowplay.
The answer came neither from Lord Alaric nor from the Lord Commander.
With a violent crash that echoed like a thunderclap, the great doors of oak and iron of the Great Hall burst wide open.
A gust of unnaturally freezing wind invaded the room, instantly blowing out half the torches on the walls and reducing the flames of the main hearth to blue embers.
The cold was so intense that even the lords of the North, accustomed to winter’s brutality, swore beneath their breath and huddled into their furs.
The Targaryen monarchs shuddered violently, feeling the air freeze in their lungs.
Outside, the roar of Vermithor and the hiss of Silverwing sounded once more—not in fury, but in unease and panic.
A thick white mist rolled into the hall, crawling across the stone floor like a living creature.
And walking smoothly through the fog, appearing transparent and spectral like a phantom straight out of Old Nan’s darkest tales, a figure emerged.
The man’s footsteps made no sound against the stone.
He advanced without haste, possessing a terrifying elegance.
He wore strange garments, entirely alien to the harshness of a Northern winter: light, fluid white trousers and an immaculately white tunic with edges trimmed in black as night.
Yet the most shocking detail was the chest: the tunic remained completely open at the chest and abdomen, displaying without a shred of modesty an impressively muscular, broad, and defined physique—the unmistakable mark of the vigorous blood of the First Men.
His hair was of a whitened valerian silver, long, straight, and flowing, cascading majestically down his back.His skin was a translucent marble-white, like stone carved in the arcana pits of ancient Valyria.
But when the man raised his head and locked eyes with the dais, it was his gaze that paralyzed the monarchs: two globes of a deep, icy storm-gray, as cold as the heart of Winter itself.
Jaehaerys I did not hesitate.
In a battle-trained reflex, the king drew from its sheath the legendary Valyrian steel sword of his house—Blackfyre.
The dark, rippled metal gleamed beneath the flickering embers as the king leveled the blade directly at the newcomer’s chest.
“Take one more step and I’ll cut you in two!” Jaehaerys roared, his body tense.
The man stopped a few feet from the point of the sword.
He did not blink.
His gray eyes swept coldly over Jaehaerys, lingering for a moment on the Valyrian steel blade, then moved to Alysanne.
“A Targaryen…” the man’s voice echoed through the hall.
It was a deep, smooth voice, weighted with an ancestral authority that seemed to vibrate the very stone structure.
He spoke in a High Valyrian so pure, flawless, and archaic that it made the dialect used by the royal family sound like vulgar babble.
“One of the forty dragonlord houses.
To think that the most insignificant house of Valyria was the one to survive the Doom.”
Alysanne, seized by a mixture of shock, anger, and fear, stepped forward:
“Who are you?!” the queen demanded, her voice trembling with indignation.
“How are you doing this?
What trick is this?”
Impelled by frustration, Alysanne grabbed a heavy silver goblet filled with wine from the royal table and hurled it with all her strength at the stranger’s chest.
The goblet flew through the air, passed clean through the man’s body as though he were made of smoke and mist, and clattered loudly against the stone floor behind him, spilling red wine.
The man did not flinch; the ghost-like projection of his form did not even ripple.
Ignoring the queen and the Valyrian steel sword pointed at his chest, the man turned his face toward the Lord of Winterfell.
“Lord Stark,” he said in an almost casual tone.
“It has been a while, how have you been since we last met?
.”
Alaric Stark, remaining still in his seat, merely inclined his head in a nod of respect he had not offered the king or queen all night.
“I am well, cousin,” the Lord of Winterfell replied.1
The stranger then turned his icy storm-gray eyes to the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, who looked on the verge of a heart attack.
“Lord Commander…” the pale man began with terrifying calmness.
“I allow you to hunt in my forests.
I allow you to use my timber to warm your men through winter and render the fat of my deer so your rangers do not starve at the Wall.
And this is how you repay me?
Trying to negotiate and steal my domain with outsiders from the South?”
“N-no!
My lord…
please!” stammered the Lord Commander, his voice choked with primal dread.
“I swear by the old trees!
I tried to convince the queen against it!
I told her those lands did not belong to the Watch!
But she would not listen!”
The silver-haired man let out a low laugh, a melodious, mocking sound that made Jaehaerys’s blood run cold.
“Ah, yes…
do not blame yourself, Commander,” the stranger mocked, casting a glance of pure disdain toward Alysanne.
“It is a chronic affliction in Valyrian blood—this irritating habit of nurturing a God complex and believing the entire world was created to serve their whims.”
“ENOUGH!” King Jaehaerys I bellowed, the vein in his neck bulging with fury as he saw his queen and his house openly ridiculed before all the North.
“Say who you are and how you are doing this!
I am the King of the Seven Kingdoms, and I command you to answer!”
The man looked at Jaehaerys as a giant would look at a noisy ant attempting to bite his boot.
He smiled—a cold smile revealing teeth bright and white against marble skin.
“You command nothing here, silver-haired boy,” the man answered, his voice dropping like a gavel.
“Yet I shall satisfy your curiosity.
I am Arthos Vaelarys, of the blood of Valyria and the blood of the North.
Lord of the Black Stone Tower and true master of the lands you, in your infinite ignorance, intend to slice up and bestow.”
Arthos took a slow step to the side, the phantom outline of his white robes passing through one of the massive stone pillars in the hall.
“And how am I doing this?
Is it not obvious to one who claims to rule this continent?” He pointed a neatly groomed index finger to his own head.
“This is magic, boy.”
He then added immediately, “More specifically, an advanced application of *Greensight*.
My mind walks through the network of the Weirwoods while my body rests comfortably leagues away.”
Arthos locked eyes with the royal couple one last time, his gray eyes gleaming with an arcanely ancient power.
“Now that you know my territory is not for sale for your foolish political schemes…
I shall leave you to continue your little feast of vassals.
Settle your squabbles.
And do not dare covet what is mine again.”
Before Jaehaerys could take a step or utter a single threat, the figure of Arthos Vaelarys began to dissolve into a swirling mist of soft white fog.
The freezing wind abruptly died down.
The heavy doors of the hall closed with a quiet thud, and the silence that followed was the most absolute and terrifying that had ever reigned in Winterfell.
For several minutes, no one in the hall dared breathe loudly.
The Northern lords kept their heads low; the rangers stared at the floor; Alysanne stood paralyzed, her hand clutching her chest as she tried to process the sensation of the goblet passing through that phantom.
Jaehaerys, his chest heaving with fury and humiliation, realized he was still holding Blackfyre drawn in the air, pointing at empty space.
The king swallowed hard, feeling the weight of the blade, and sheathed the sword with a sharp click, striving to regain a modicum of royal dignity.
The king turned slowly toward the Lord of Winterfell, his violet eyes flashing with a promise of contained violence:
“Explain yourself, Lord Stark,” Jaehaerys commanded, his voice low and dangerous.
“Who in the Seven Hells is this cousin of yours?
And why was the Iron Throne never informed of a mage descended from one of the greatest Valyrian houses living within the borders of this realm?”
Alaric Stark remained seated.
He picked up his horn mug, took a long swallow of dark ale, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before answering with exasperating calm:
“He has been the master of those lands for a long time, my king,” Alaric said.
“And I know only what the chronicles of my house and the tales of my ancestors tell.
Arthos’s father was the direct heir of House Vaelarys of Ancient Valyria…
a noble line of dragonlords and blood mages who raised the black stone towers of the City of Wonders and were there when Valyrians first bound themselves to dragons.
When the first portents of doom arose and the Doom devastated Valyria, his father somehow survived and fled west, bringing his arcane tomes with him.”
Alaric paused, gazing into the flames of the hearth before continuing:
“He wandered Essos, crossed the Narrow Sea, and ultimately found refuge in the Winter lands.
He fell in love with a lady of House Stark—an ancestor of mine who bore the blood of the Winter Kings.
They married and wed long before Aegon the Conqueror was even born on Dragonstone, long before any Targaryen ever dreamed of setting foot on this continent with their dragons.
And from that sacred union between the Sorcerer of Valyria and the Lady Stark, Arthos was born.”
The silence in the hall seemed to freeze anew.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne exchanged astonished looks at the revelation of the timeline.
“What are you saying?” Alysanne asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“Are you telling us that this man…
this Arthos…
was born before Aegon’s Conquest?”
“Precisely, Queen Alysanne,” Alaric Stark replied solemnly.
“Arthos was born and raised in the North long before your Conqueror ever raised the Iron Throne.
He was already a grown man, fully trained in the ancient arts, when Aegon flew over King’s Landing.
Rumors say he masters and uses blood magic to preserve his youth and vitality, locking his aging in a perpetual state.
No one in the North touches the Valley of the Blessings because those lands belong to him by right of birth and by his Stark mother’s dowry.
So long as no one disturbs him, he allows the men of the North and the Watch to hunt in his forest…
and the game there, I assure you, is more bountiful than anywhere else in the world.”
Jaehaerys ran a hand over his chin, his mind racing with theories, ambitions, and dire warnings.
A man bearing the pure blood of Ancient Valyria and the First Men—which brought to mind Aegon’s dream—born before Aegon I, alive for over a century without aging a single day, hidden in the shadows of the North.
A being of immeasurable power and living sorcery who had just humiliated royal authority before every lord in the realm.
The king looked at his wife.
Alysanne’s eyes were shining—not with rage, but with an overwhelming fascination.
The queen’s curiosity had been ignited in a way Jaehaerys knew he could never extinguish.
“Very well,” King Jaehaerys I declared, raising his head and making his choice.
“Tomorrow morning, I shall ride out to meet this sorcerer with my retinue.
I assume we shall require a guide who knows the paths of that forest, Lord Stark.”
Alaric Stark offered a faint, dry smirk and shook his head:
“No guide will be necessary, my king,” the Lord of Winterfell answered, standing up from the table.
“When Your Grace is flying through the sky atop your dragon, you will know precisely where he dwells.
After all…
a great black stone Valyrian tower standing in the middle of the Northern snows is rather difficult to miss.”
With that final remark, Lord Alaric gave a cold bow to the monarchs and exited the hall, leaving Jaehaerys I and Alysanne immersed in a whirlwind of urgency, apprehension, and boundless curiosity about the man who had defied the rulers of Westeros.
They aren't actually cousins; that's just how Alaric refers to him.