I had thought of ending the council meeting when a thought born from original Vaegon's memories appeared within my mind.
"What about my uncle and aunt?" I asked, my voice dropping. The thought of Viserys and Daenerys was a strange one. They were the pieces of the family I'd never known, the ones who had been cast out while I was cast aside. "Haven't they tried to rebel against Rhaegar? I mean, Viserys definitely wanted to, but Daenerys... what is she now? Six? Seven?"
Vaelen's expression went neutral. That was his tell when he didn't have a concrete answer, he became a blank wall. "I am afraid no one knows for certain, Your Highness. The trail went cold long ago."
He shifted in his seat, fingers tracing the edge of the table. "There are whispers, of course. The kind that circulate in the darker corners of Pentos and Braavos. Some rumors speak of a marriage between Viserys and one of the Blackfyre descendants. The idea of uniting the two rival branches of the dragon is a tempting one for anyone who wants to see Rhaegar fall."
"And their location?" I prompted.
"That's the problem," Vaelen replied. "They've vanished from the Free Cities. My contacts in Lys and Myr haven't seen so much as a silver haired child in months. If they're still alive, they've gone far into the East. My best guess? They're somewhere near Slaver's Bay."
He paused, his one eye fixed on mine. "But what they're doing or planning? That remains unknown. If Viserys is as volatile as the stories say, he might be building an army of sellswords, or he might be drinking himself into a stupor in some brothel. Either way, they are a variable we can't account for yet."
I stared at the map, specifically the vast expanse of Essos. So there were others like me exiles, ghosts, children of a prophecy that had no room for them.
"Good," I said quietly. "Let them stay hidden. The last thing I need is another Targaryen coming here to tell me how to run my fields."
I looked around at my council, the faces of men who had come to me with nothing and now stood as the pillars of a growing state. The ambition in the room was palpable, but I needed to temper it with caution. We had built a miracle in the Green Hills, but miracles were fragile things when faced with real armies.
"Here's the plan," I said, my voice carrying that authority I'd had to forge in the darkness of the Red Keep. "We're not moving yet. We stay here another year."
I saw Lord Sunglass start to open his mouth, probably to argue about the missed profits of selling our grain in other markets, but I cut him off with a sharp gesture.
"We stay and we fortify. Every wall we've built needs to be stronger, every watchtower taller. We're going to turn these Green Hills into a fortress that would make even the Stormlands look like a summer camp. When we finally return to our proper fief at Dragonstone, I want us to have enough coin and supplies from these harvests to rebuild our strongholds without asking anyone for a single copper."
I tapped the map, specifically the area we'd already cleared. "But we don't stop growing. We keep the expansion going. We produce enough surplus to ensure this place can last on its own, even if we're not here to hold their hands."
"You're talking about creating a breadbasket, Your Highness," Larys Velaryon noted, his eyes gleaming with the strategic implications. "A permanent source of supply that we can retreat to if things go sour elsewhere."
"Exactly," I replied. "I want the Green Hills to be our insurance policy. If the capital burns or the realm fractures, I want to know that I have ten thousand loyal people and enough grain to feed them through a decade of winter." The source of this chapter is novelping dot com.
I looked at Kellan. "Double the training for the militia. I want them to be more than just guards; I want them to be soldiers who can hold a line against any threat. We've given them food and purpose. Now we give them the steel to defend it."
***
The salt spray stung my face as I stood on the deck of the flagship, but for the first time in my life, the sting didn't feel like hardship it felt like victory. A year had passed since Vaelen joined us in that woodden coastal village, and the transformation was staggering. The Green Hills weren't just a settlement anymore; they were a thriving, fortified province.
The docks were a chaos of noise and emotion. A crowd had gathered to see us off, a sea of faces that had grown from starving refugees to proud citizens. As we prepared to depart, the cheers of the people echoed off the newly built stone walls, a thunderous farewell that made the very planks beneath my feet vibrate.
"Farewell, Prince Vaegon!" someone shouted from the pier. "May the gods watch over the Hills!"
We weren't leaving empty handed, nor were we leaving weak. A third of the population the most loyal, the most invested had chosen to follow us back to Dragonstone, eager to help establish our true seat of power. More importantly, we were taking two thousand battle hardened soldiers with us. These weren't the frightened men who had first arrived; they were the Dragonstone Army, disciplined and lethal.
I turned my gaze toward the smaller vessels carrying Lord Celtigar and Lord Bar Emmon. They were departing for their own lands, tasked with securing the trade routes that would connect our new agricultural empire to the rest of the realm. They would be our lifeline, the merchant princes who ensured the gold flowed back to Dragonstone.
"Bye bye, guys!" I called out with a wave, a smirk tugging at my lips. The formality of a prince felt secondary to the satisfaction of a commander who had just completed his first great campaign.
As the sails caught the wind and the Green Hills began to shrink into a green smudge on the horizon, I turned to my council. The wind was picking up, carrying the scent of the Narrow Sea and something else something older.
"Well," I said, looking at Kellan and Larys. "The honeymoon is over. We're going home to Dragonstone. And I have a feeling that when we arrive, the world won't be nearly as happy to see us as we are to see them."
The sight that met us as our ships cut through the choppy waters of the Blackwater was a bitter pill to swallow. Dragonstone, once the proud ancestral seat of House Targaryen, looked like a corpse that had been picked clean by carrion birds. The black stone walls, though still imposing, were streaked with salt rot and stained by years of neglect. The village at its base was a collection of crumbling hovels, their thatched roofs sagging like broken bones.
Two years of abandonment had taken its toll. The dragon carved gargoyles seemed to leer at us with hollow eyes, and the wind howling through the empty corridors sounded like the moans of ghosts.
I stood at the prow, my jaw set tight. The contrast between the thriving, green life we had built in the Green Hills and this decaying relic was jarring. It was a reminder that power isn't something you simply inherit it's something you have to maintain with blood and stone.
I turned to Kellan, whose lined face had gone grim at the sight of his crumbling home. "We didn't come back to live among ruins, Kellan," I said, my voice carrying across the deck with absolute certainty.
"Start the reparations immediately," I commanded. "I want every crumbling wall patched, every roof re thatched, and every courtyard cleared of debris. But we're not just fixing what was broken we're building what was missing."
I pointed toward the jagged coastline where the waves crashed mercilessly against the rocks. "The castle is a fortress, but a fortress without trade is just a prison. We need to build a proper port. A deep water harbor with stone quays and warehouses big enough to welcome merchant fleets from across the Narrow Sea. If Dragonstone is to be our seat, it must be a gateway, not an island of ghosts."
Kellan nodded, already mentally organizing the work gangs. "I'll requisition the stonecutters and the engineers from the Green Hills immediately, Your Highness. We'll need to establish a steady supply chain from the mainland."
"Do it," I said. "And Larys get the shipwrights ready. We're going to need more docks than we know what to do with."
Larys didn't even wait for a formal dismissal. His eyes were already bright with that familiar, manic energy the look of a man who had just been given permission to play with fire. "Can I test new designs, Your Highness?!" he asked, his voice almost childlike in its excitement. "New hull shapes, perhaps something more aerodynamic for the choppy waters of the Blackwater? I have sketches brilliant sketches!" Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
I watched him practically skip toward the docks, already muttering to himself about displacement and sail ratios. I couldn't help but sigh, rubbing my temples. This one is truly a weird one, I thought. Most lords wanted to talk about taxes or troop movements, but Larys wanted to talk about the hydrodynamics of a keel.
I turned my attention to Vaelen. He was standing slightly apart from the rest, his one visible eye scanning the crumbling battlements with a detached, analytical gaze. He wasn't looking at the beauty of the stone or the tragedy of its decay; he was looking at the weaknesses, the places where a man could climb, and the angles where a crossbowman could hide.
"What do you think of my castle?" I asked him directly. I wanted to know what a man who lived in the shadows thought when he looked at the bones of a dragon's lair.
Vaelen didn't answer immediately. He walked to the edge of the stone walkway, peering down at the jagged rocks below where the sea churned hungrily.
"It is... honest," he finally said, his voice quiet and rasping. "Most castles try to hide their purpose behind pretty carvings and grand halls. But Dragonstone doesn't pretend. It's built to intimidate, to endure, and to remind anyone who steps foot here that they are standing on the throat of a dragon."
He turned to face me, his expression unreadable. "However, Your Highness, honesty has its flaws. It's also predictable. The walls are impressive, but they are old. The passages are known. And the decay you see isn't just weather it's vulnerability. A castle that looks dead invites those who think they can kill it."
His one eye locked onto mine. "But with the work you're planning? With the stone and the new port? You won't just be repairing a ruin. You'll be turning a tomb into a throne."
I shook my head slowly, the wind catching my hair as I looked at Vaelen. "I have no desire for a throne, Vaelen. None at all." I said it without hesitation. "I just want to build a correct life for myself. And since I happened to become responsible for these citizens, I might as well try to improve their lives too."
I gestured toward the docks where the sailors were hauling heavy crates of grain and tools from the ships. "They can keep the ugly Iron Throne. They can keep their positions at the capital and their poisoned wine. I just want to live comfortably, and I want my people to be fed."
Without waiting for his reply, I turned and walked down the gangplank to disembark, my boots striking the black stone of Dragonstone. I walked with the stride of someone who had survived a desert and built an empire out of it, but to anyone watching from a distance, I was still just a small child in a world built for giants.
Unknown to me, Vaelen remained on the deck, watching my retreating form. His one eye tracked me with a strange mix of respect and something approaching awe. "From what I can see," he muttered under his breath, "a nine year old is more worthy of the throne than all those fools at the Capital."
"I concur."
Vaelen nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning around to see Larys, Gareth, and Kellan standing directly behind him. They hadn't been listening to the conversation so much as they had been watching me. All three of them were looking at my small back as I walked toward the castle, their expressions unreadable but their loyalty unmistakable.
Vaelen cleared his throat, suddenly very aware of how much he had just revealed. Larys simply smiled, that familiar, sharp glint in his eyes.
"Don't worry, Master of Whisperers," Larys said smoothly. "We've all come to the same conclusion. The boy doesn't want the throne, but he's the only one among us who actually knows how to sit on one without cutting himself."