ACT I: The Awakening of the Myth and Arrival at Court (58 AC – 59 AC)
Chapter 2: The Sorcerer’s Challenge (58 AC)
The march from Winterfell toward the far North unfolded beneath a gray, oppressive blanket of fine snow.
The royal retinue, comprising the king’s personal guard, Kingsguard knights clad in white cloaks flecked with ice, and an escort of Northerners, advanced at a measured and cautious pace.
At the head of the column, riding alongside Jonquil Darke—the queen’s famed Sworn Shield—was the young daughter of Lord Manderly.
The girl from White Harbor, who had accompanied Queen Alysanne since her landing at the mouth of the White Knife, was the only one to volunteer as a guide when the other lords of the North refused to point out the exact trails leading to the domain of the Pale Wolf.
Alysanne, whose gloved hands could barely feel the reins of her mount, had looked up at the skies several times throughout the journey.
The queen had longed to take flight atop Silverwing, wanting to cut through the storm rather than march through the frozen mud.
However, it was Jaehaerys himself who had instilled sense and prudence in his wife’s mind.
The king had been categorical: they were not going to pay a courtesy call to a vassal lord of the realm.
They were marching to the lair of an ancestral sorcerer, an entity that had demonstrated a cold and unknown power within the very hall of Winterfell.
Flying on dragons to the doorstep of a man of that nature could be interpreted as an overt act of war before a single word was even spoken.
Yet, as Lord Alaric Stark had foreseen the previous night, a guide was scarcely needed once the column crossed the edge of the valley.
Emerging from the sea of frost-covered black pines, the landscape shifted in an almost supernatural manner.
The biting cold that punished their bones gave way to a gentle, humid breeze, fed by dozens of hot springs bubbling among the crags.
And there, rising in the exact center of a sacred grove of weirwoods whose red leaves seemed to bleed against the sky, stood the structure.
It was a monumental tower of fused black stone, designed by the impossible engineering of Ancient Valyria.
The structure seemed to stretch into the very heart of the clouds, flawlessly smooth, without joints, mortar, or seams, gleaming like polished obsidian beneath the pale Northern sun.
Its base fused seamlessly into the rock and frozen earth as if it had sprouted from the ground itself, displaying lines that were elegant, imposing, and terrifying all at once.
Upon sighting the fortress, the royal couple knew the time for ground diplomacy had ended.
To meet a dragonlord of the ancient blood, the Targaryens would show that they came not as beggars, but as the living embodiment of Valyrian majesty.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne mounted their respective beasts.
From high in the sky, as Vermithor and Silverwing beat their massive wings, the monarchs could behold the true magnitude of Arthos Vaelarys’s domain.
The tower amid the snow resembled a spike of darkness and power driven deep into the heart of winter.
The dragons descended in a majestic arc, landing with a deafening thud before the black stone gates of the tower, causing the surrounding snow to melt instantly under the hot blast of their nostrils.
Right behind them, the cavalry retinue halted in a defensive formation, with the Kingsguard knights and Jonquil Darke brandishing their weapons, their faces tense with anticipation.
Even before the echo of dragon talons on stone faded, the great doors of the tower swung open without making a single sound.
From within, walking without any haste or escort, emerged the man himself in flesh and blood.
Arthos Vaelarys wore the same light garments his projection had displayed the previous night: fluid white trousers, a cloak with black-trimmed edges, and his tunic immaculately open across his muscular chest, exposing his marble skin and the icy fury of his gray eyes.
He stopped a few feet from the colossal heads of Vermithor and Silverwing.
He looked at the beasts and then up at the monarchs atop their saddles, letting out a sigh in pure High Valyrian:
“Unwanted guests are always inconvenient…” he murmured, his voice echoing like the hiss of a blade.
He then switched to the Common Tongue, maintaining a dangerously calm tone: “Yet, since you have walked to my doorstep…
I must at least show the hospitality my blood demands.”
With a slight wave of Arthos’s hand, a young maidservant in simple robes emerged from within the tower, carrying a carved wooden tray bearing dark bread and a handful of coarse salt.
Despite standing face to face with two adult dragons capable of turning him to ash in the blink of an eye, and before renowned warriors with drawn swords, the Mage of Vaelarys showed not the slightest trace of fear, trembling, or hesitation.
He stared up at the monarchs from the height of his sovereign posture and said, with a subtle smirk at the corner of his lips:
“Are you going to dismount today, or do you intend to spend the whole night staring at my roof?”
Jaehaerys and Alysanne exchanged a quick glance.
The king realized that any attempt to flaunt power or intimidate that man through their dragons would be completely futile; Arthos looked upon Vermithor with the same indifference he would show a hound.
The monarchs dismounted.
As soon as the rulers’ feet touched the ground, Vermithor and Silverwing took flight once more, letting out deep roars before beginning to circle in wide loops around the peak of the black tower.
Jonquil Darke, the Sworn Shield, stepped forward two paces before anyone else.
With a hardened face and a firm hand on the hilt of her dagger, the woman approached the servant, took a piece of bread, dipped it in salt, and ate it, testing the food and securing guest right for her sovereigns.
Her actions betrayed an almost tangible distrust.
Arthos watched the scene and let out a short, ringing laugh.
“If I wanted you dead, girl, you would already be rotting beneath the snow before your dragons even touched the ground,” the sorcerer said, shaking his head.
“Now stop this nonsense and come inside.”
He turned his back to them, taking the lead, and entered the fortress.
Jaehaerys, Alysanne, Jonquil Darke, and the white-cloaked knights followed him immediately.
As they crossed the threshold, the monarchs felt the air shift.
The interior of the tower maintained a pleasant, steady temperature, fed by the geothermal heat of deep thermal springs.
The architecture bore the unmistakable hallmark of Valyria—vaulted ceilings of black stone and tall windows—yet unlike the organic, gargoyle-laden design of Dragonstone, the Black Stone Tower possessed straight, clean, elegant, and symmetrical lines.
It was an older, purer, and more refined structure.
On the walls, tapestries and paintings of an ancestral style adorned the corridors.
Alysanne paused for a moment before a striking canvas: a detailed, vibrant painting depicting the Freehold of Valyria itself at the height of its glory, with its dozens of obsidian towers, flying bridges, and rivers of lava carving through the capital beneath the flight of hundreds of dragons.
Upon reaching the main hall, the royal couple encountered a gargantuan canvas dominating the central wall.
On it, a noble with striking Valyrian features and a haughty gaze stood beside a woman of stern beauty and dark hair, distinctly Northern.
In the woman’s arms, wrapped in cloaks of fur and silk, was a young boy whose gray eyes and pale features matched perfectly with the man currently guiding them.
They were Arthos’s parents.
Arthos led the group to a more secluded chamber, a cozy room illuminated by large bronze candelabras and warmed by glowing embers in a black stone fireplace.
In the center of the room stood two broad couches of dark leather facing each other, separated by a small coffee table carved from noble wood.
“Sit,” Arthos said, settling onto one of the couches with lazy fluidity, resting his elbow on the armrest.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne sat on the opposite couch.
Jonquil Darke and the Kingsguard knights remained standing directly behind the monarchs, hands resting on the pommels of their swords, watchful as statues of iron.
Arthos rested his chin in his hand and stared at the young royal couple, an amused and arrogant glint in his gray eyes.
“So, young king and queen…
what brings you to my tower?”
Jaehaerys adjusted his posture, maintaining a serious tone and royal dignity:
“Your appearance and your existence in Winterfell came as a surprise to the Crown, Lord Vaelarys.
We had no knowledge that another of the great houses of Ancient Valyria had survived the Doom.
And from what I witnessed, you still keep alive the arts and secrets of our homeland.”
Arthos let out a mocking laugh, shaking his head as though listening to the senseless babble of a child.
“Stop this nonsense, boy,” he said, his voice dripping with disdain.
“You are not in King’s Landing, and I am not one of your flattering nobles.
Speak like a man, not like a decree.”
Alysanne could not suppress a quiet chuckle at the sorcerer’s reaction, glancing sideways at her brother-husband’s sour expression.
The queen leaned forward, tilting her head with genuine interest:
“Your story is truly fascinating, Lord Vaelarys,” she said, softening the mood.
“Lord Stark informed us that you were born even before the Conquest of my ancestor, Aegon.”
Arthos looked at the queen, his tone softening slightly in the face of her courtesy:
“Yes.
Not long before the Conquest, I must admit.
My biological age is quite similar to the one Aegon would have had he still lived.”
“And your father?” Alysanne asked, curious.
“Did he know Ancient Valyria in its glory?
Was he a child when he escaped?”
The sorcerer smiled, gazing into the hearth fire for a brief second before answering:
“No.
My father was already a grown man, an instructed master of sorcery.
He lived so long precisely because of the blood magic he taught me.
And before you ask the question I know is hammering inside your heads…
no, my father did not possess a dragon.
He preferred the deep, mystical arts of our homeland.
He never sought to bind himself to a beast because he was genuinely obsessed with the secrets of magic.”
“Blood magic?” Jaehaerys asked, his tone steeped in cautious distrust.
“Blood magic,” Arthos confirmed without hesitation.
The sorcerer made a casual gesture with his right hand toward the table between them.
Instantly, without friction, flint, or spark, the unlit candle resting on the bronze candlestick ignited with a vivid, bright flame.
“And fire sorcery too,” Arthos added.
“It was that obsession with magic that guaranteed my father’s survival.
Unlike the other thirty-nine dragonlord families, who were arrogant and blinded by their own ego, my father listened to the warnings and visions of Daenys the Dreamer.
He knew her house was packing everything to head for Dragonstone.
So he gathered much of the arcane tomes, artifacts, and knowledge accumulated by House Vaelarys over millennia, locked them in vaults, and abandoned the Freehold before fire and earth swallowed everything.”
The account fell upon Jaehaerys and Alysanne with the weight of living history.
Hearing firsthand the details of how one of Valyria’s oldest bloodlines had escaped the cataclysm gave the monarchs context the Citadel’s maesters could never provide.
“If your father heard the prophecies of Daenys…” Jaehaerys began, brow furrowed, “why did he not claim a dragon to protect his bloodline during exile?”
Arthos stared at the king, his gray eyes narrowing in melancholic wisdom:
“I asked him the same question when I was a boy.
My father answered that he did so not to fall into the same sin of greed that brought ruin to Aurion and all the others who attempted to claim the fallen empire.
He used to say that dragons shit and burn, but blood and mind command eternity.”
A dense, contemplative silence took hold of the room.
Jaehaerys absorbed every word, but his pragmatic, ruling mind soon returned to his political goals.
Arthos leaned back into the couch, crossing his arms over his bare chest:
“Very well.
Now that your curiosity has been satisfied and you have found the stories you sought…
what else do you want from my tower?”
Jaehaerys leaned forward, his gaze firm and authoritative:
“Lord Stark told us your father brought ancient tomes with him, manuscripts containing the arcane knowledge and magical secrets of Valyria.
I want those tomes, Lord Vaelarys.”
Arthos stared at the young king for two seconds and let out a loud, mocking laugh that echoed off the room’s walls.
“Then you shall go on wanting, King Jaehaerys,” the Mage replied, his tone steeped in sarcasm.
“Then come with us to the South!” the king demanded, raising his voice.
“Come to King’s Landing and teach what you know to my blood!
Teach the magic of Valyria to the Targaryens!”
Arthos stopped laughing.
His face transformed instantly, freezing into an expression of pure disdain and coldness:
“If you truly believe I will give away the power, secrets, and sacred heritage of my family to your house for free…
Targaryen madness has consumed you sooner than expected, boy.
Now take your queen, your guards, and begone back to your ugly throne in the South.”
Jaehaerys sprang to his feet, his hand flying to the pommel of Blackfyre.
The king’s face flushed red with indignation:
“I am the King of Westeros and the Seven Kingdoms!” Jaehaerys bellowed, royal authority pouring from his posture.
“As long as you are within the borders of this continent, you stand on my lands and will follow my commands, sorcerer!”
Arthos Vaelarys did not rise.
He remained seated on the couch, gazing up at the young king as though observing a noisy insect.
A deadly silence settled over the room.
“You have no power here, boy…” Arthos murmured, his voice dropping to a frequency so low and cavernous that it made the cups on the table vibrate.
Before Jaehaerys could draw his sword, or Jonquil Darke and the Kingsguard could take a single step forward, Arthos passed his hand calmly before the candle flame lit upon the table.
As if recognizing its master, the small flame crackled and rose into the air, detaching from the wick.
Arthos raised his hand above his head, and the flame expanded dizzyingly in a fraction of a second, transforming into a gigantic, terrifying ancestral serpent of fire hovering beneath the room’s ceiling.
The heat emanated by the creature of flames was so brutal and instantaneous that everyone in the room began sweating copiously at once.
The velvet and fur garments of the monarchs seemed on the verge of catching fire.
Simultaneously, Arthos’s blood magic awakened.
On the room’s black stone walls, dozens of arcane glyphs and Valyrian runes ignited in a pulsing blood-red hue.
An invisible, monstrous pressure crashed down upon the room.
Jaehaerys, Alysanne, Jonquil Darke, and the Kingsguard knights felt their bodies grow completely paralyzed, as if the very blood inside their veins had frozen or turned to lead.
No one could move a muscle, take a step, or even raise a sword.
They stood like motionless statues before the presence of a true Master of Sorcery.
The fire serpent hissed above their heads, reflecting in the wide, terrified pupils of the king and queen.
For several seconds—which to the monarchs felt like centuries of agony and dread—the air in the room became unbreathable.
Then, with a simple clenching of Arthos’s fist, the fire serpent extinguished into thin air.
The red glyphs on the walls went out instantly, and the suffocating pressure vanished.
The effect of their release was devastating.
Jaehaerys, Alysanne, Jonquil, and the white knights all collapsed to their knees on the stone floor, gasping, their chests heaving desperately as they struggled to catch their breath and regain control over their trembling bodies.
Arthos remained seated on the couch, gazing down at the fallen king at his feet with terrifying composure:
“Lucky for you that I find this juvenile arrogance endearing…” the Mage of Vaelarys said, his voice icy.
“Now get out of my tower while you can still walk.”
On the floor, her chest heaving and sweat dripping down her forehead, Queen Alysanne raised her head.
Her violet eyes, though filled with shock, still held a spark of cunning.
“And…
and what about our things?” the queen asked, her voice faltering from lack of air.
Arthos frowned, looking down at her:
“What things?”
Alysanne managed to prop herself up against the small couch and sit back up, wiping the sweat from her face with the sleeve of her dress:
“If we have arcane tomes…
ancient manuscripts and magical knowledge that my family brought from Valyria and kept on Dragonstone without knowing how to use…
would you teach us to translate and master them?”
Arthos paused.
For the first time since they had entered that tower, the Mage’s gaze shifted.
His storm-gray eyes gleamed with a spark of pure interest and calculating ambition.
He thought for a brief second, a satisfied and dangerous smile forming on his marble lips.
“If those tomes truly exist in your castle…
I would not mind in the slightest reading them and teaching what lies within,” Arthos replied.
Jaehaerys, who had already regained his composure and pulled himself up with the help of his sword, cast a look of profound relief and gratitude at his wife.
The queen had found the perfect opening.
“In that case…” King Jaehaerys I said, reclaiming his dignity and adjusting his cloak, “I formally request that you accompany us to Dragonstone, Lord Vaelarys.”
Arthos rose from the couch with the lazy grace of a predator.
“Well…
I have always possessed a certain curiosity to see the fortress of Valyria’s weakest family,” he mocked, though the interest in his eyes remained alight.
“I do not mind making the journey.”
The Mage snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the same silent maidservant appeared in the doorway of the room.
“She will show you to the quarters where you may rest tonight,” Arthos declared, walking toward the exit.
“Tomorrow morning, we shall depart for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.
From there, we will sail to White Harbor, and subsequently head to Dragonstone.
Is this itinerary acceptable to you?”
Jaehaerys thought for a brief moment, weighing the logistics and the opportunity to have the Mage under his supervision during the journey:
“Yes.
It is a good itinerary.”
“Excellent,” Arthos concluded, giving a careless wave.
“Have a good night, my rulers.”1
Jaehaerys and Alysanne took their leave and followed the servant down the tower’s corridors, urgently needing a moment alone to discuss the overwhelming experience they had just survived.
What the young king did not see as he turned his back on the hall was the deeply sly gaze and the smirk that formed on Arthos Vaelarys’s fair, pale face.
The Mage of Vaelarys had his own plans for Dragonstone—plans that went far beyond old books in a library.
He says that with irony.