"What about Dorne?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Vaelen shrugged, the motion surprisingly casual for a spymaster. "They hardly care for a prince the Queen and the King have forgotten. As long as you don't do anything against Aegon, they won't spare you a second thought. They're too busy protecting Elia's children and scheming against the Lannisters to worry about a boy on a rock in the Narrow Sea."
"Good," I said, relief settling in my chest. "Dorne is a sleeping dragon I'd rather not wake. Let them focus on their own grievances."
Kellan stepped forward, his weathered face creased with concern. "What about the Vale? Since Jon Arryn's death after the Rebellion, I heard the place was in a succession crisis. Has it been settled?"
Vaelen shook his head slowly, his expression grim. "Hardly. Jon Arryn left no trueborn son and no wife behind him. The man who held the Vale together for decades is gone, and what he left behind is a vacuum. There are at least half a dozen young Arryns distant cousins, second sons, and ambitious branch families all on the brink of civil war to claim the seat of the Eyrie."
He paused, letting the weight of the situation settle over the room. "The Gates of the Moon are locked down. The mountain passes are being watched by competing factions. Some of the lesser lords have already begun choosing sides. It's not open war yet, but the tension is palpable. One wrong move, one disputed claim, and the Vale will tear itself apart."
I leaned back, my mind racing. The Vale was a powder keg, isolated and impregnable. Whoever eventually claimed it would inherit one of the most defensible positions in all of Westeros.
"Interesting," I murmured. "A fractured Vale means a distracted Vale. No one will be looking east toward Dragonstone while they're busy stabbing each other over a chair made of weirwood."
"No problems at the Green Hills?" I asked, glancing at Kellan. The settlement was the foundation of everything my first real achievement and my primary source of leverage. If something went wrong there, the whole house of cards would come crashing down.
Kellan smiled, a rare expression that softened the harsh lines of his face. "Not at all, my Prince. If anything, the settlement is thriving beyond our expectations. The population keeps rising desperate people from the mainland and refugees from across the sea keep finding their way to us. And since it's not that far from Dragonstone, with only a day or two at sea, we've created a natural flow between the two places."
He gestured toward the harbor. "It's becoming a living system. People travel across regularly. Some come here to work on the new docks or serve in the garrison for a few weeks before sailing back to the Green Hills to spend time with their families. It's created a kind of... loyalty I've rarely seen."
Kellan paused, his voice growing more serious. "What's more interesting is that many are choosing to leave the Hills entirely to settle here on Dragonstone permanently. They're willing to trade the fertile soil for our black stone. They've told me they'd rather live under your direct rule here, even if Dragonstone is a harsher place. They feel safer knowing they're close to you."
I felt a strange tightening in my chest. It wasn't the political power that mattered most though that was significant it was the fact that these people, the broken and the forgotten, saw me as their protector.
"They don't want the grain," I said quietly. "They want the security."
"Exactly," Kellan replied. "You've given them something more valuable than food, Prince Vaegon. You've given them a reason to believe that the world doesn't have to be cruel if you have a leader who understands what cruelty is." The source of this chapter is novelping . com.
I looked at Gareth and Larys, a small smile playing on my lips. They had been working themselves to exhaustion, their lives now entirely consumed by the project we had started together.
"Why not go back for a few days to your seats?" I asked casually. "I'm sure you would love to see your homes again. Take a break. See your families."
Both of them stopped dead. They looked at me with expressions of such genuine confusion that it was as if I had suggested we all move to the Wall and join the Night's Watch.
Larys was the first to speak, his voice rising in pitch as if the very idea was an insult to his intelligence. "My Prince, why would I go there? My whole family is already here on Dragonstone! What point is there in visiting an empty estate when the future of my house is being carved into these docks?" He gestured wildly toward the window. "I need to build that port! It's the most important thing in the world right now! Every hour I'm away is an hour the tide steals from us!"
Gareth looked even worse. He looked genuinely horrified, his face paling as he clutched his ledger to his chest like it was a sacred text. "Where would all that money go if I'm not here to watch it?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly. "The transactions, the interest rates, the grain shipments... the chaos would be absolute! I couldn't sleep for a week knowing there might be a miscalculation in the ledgers while I'm staring at the walls of Sweetport Sound !"
I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing, leaning back in my chair. The two of them were utterly addicted to the game we were playing. They had found something here that their ancestral seats couldn't give them: purpose.
"Alright, alright," I said, wiping a tear from my eye. "Stay here. Keep building your empire and counting your copper. Just don't forget to sleep sometime, or I'll have Olyvar drag you both to bed by your ears."
I turned away from the bickering of my Master of Coin and Master of Ships, my gaze drifting to the window. Outside, everything was black stone, grey sky, and white foam. Even with the construction and the new life flooding into the castle, Dragonstone remained a place of shadows and salt. It was beautiful in its own grim way, but it was also suffocating.
"Say, Castellan," I said, looking toward Kellan. "How many courtyards does Dragonstone have?"
Kellan blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift from port logistics to architecture. He took a moment to visualize the layout of the fortress. "Four, I believe, Your Highness. Though two are primarily used for military drills and the other is where we keep the temporary storage for the construction materials."
"I want the biggest one shaped into a garden," I said firmly.
The room went silent. Larys stopped mid gesture, and Gareth actually stopped scribbling. They looked at me as if I had suggested we paint the castle pink. In a fortress built to withstand the fury of the Narrow Sea, the idea of a garden seemed almost absurd a frivolous waste of space and effort.
"A garden?" Larys asked, his voice skeptical. "Your Highness, we have limited space and even more limited soil. The ground here is mostly volcanic rock and salt crusted earth. Nothing grows here except lichen and stubborn weeds."
"Then we import the soil," I replied, turning to face them with a small smile. "We bring in the rich earth from the Green Hills. We bring in the seeds we've already tested. I want trees, I want flowers, and I want something that isn't black or grey."
I looked at Kellan, whose expression had softened. "This place lacks green, Kellan. We're building a seat of power, yes, but I don't want to live in a tomb. A garden isn't just about beauty; it's about life. If we can make things grow here, on this cursed rock, it sends a message to everyone who visits."
"A message?" Kellan asked quietly.
***
Time became a rhythm, a steady pulse of work and growth that transformed the very atmosphere of Dragonstone. My days became a predictable dance between the brutal and the beautiful.
Every morning began with the clash of steel and the taste of sweat. Training under Ser Olyvar was less of a lesson and more of a brawl. Between parries and strikes, I made it my personal mission to insult his lineage, his tactical decisions, and his choice of armor. "Your footwork is like that of a drunken ox, Olyvar!" I'd shout as I dodged a swing. He would respond with a roar and a blow that would send me sprawling into the dirt, grinning down at me with that wolfish satisfaction.
Then came the council meetings. The afternoons were filled with the scratching of Gareth's quill and Larys's endless schemes for deeper berths and faster cranes. We debated taxes, trade agreements with Lys, and the subtle movements of the Vale's succession crisis. But once the ledgers were closed, I found my real peace.
I spent my late afternoons in the courtyard that had once been a storage yard. We had hauled in ton after ton of rich, dark earth from the Green Hills, layering it over the volcanic rock. I didn't just order it done; I got my hands dirty. I planted the saplings myself, feeling the cool soil beneath my fingernails and watering them as the sun dipped below the horizon.
Slowly, the impossible happened. Green began to pierce through the grey. Small shrubs took root, and pale flowers began to bloom against the backdrop of black stone. The garden became a sanctuary, a place where the salt air couldn't reach.
As the months passed, the transformation spread beyond the garden. The fires of the castle, which had been cold for decades, were lit and kept burning. The halls that once echoed with only the drip of water now buzzed with the voices of merchants, craftsmen, and loyal soldiers. The smell of old dust was replaced by the aroma of roasting meat and fresh bread.
Dragonstone was no longer a tomb or a forgotten outpost. It had become a living, breathing city of stone and green the proper seat of the Narrow Sea, and the heart of a power that the world was only beginning to notice.
One day random day, I sat tall in the saddle, my horse's hooves crunching on the treacherous, obsidian flecked path that wound up the slopes of the Dragonmont. The air here was different thicker, warmer, carrying the acrid sting of sulfur that burned the back of my throat. Above us, the mountain loomed like a sleeping beast, its peak crowned with a perpetual haze of smoke and heat.
Ser Olyvar rode beside me, his armor clanking as he shifted in his saddle. He looked around at the desolate landscape the twisted black rock, the steam vents hissing from the ground, and the absence of anything resembling life.
"My Prince, I'll be honest," Olyvar said, wiping sweat from his brow. "I don't know why you wanted to come up here. The place looks like shit."
I rolled my eyes at him, the wind whipping my black hair across my face. "I have to know every inch of my fief, Olyvar. Every cave, every cliff, every sulfur pit. And this isn't just any hill this is where dragons lived. Where they nested and grew. It's an important historical place."
Olyvar didn't look impressed. He glanced at the guards surrounding us, who were all keeping a wary eye on the bubbling pools of mud and the tremors beneath their feet. The knight shrugged, his scarred face grim.
"History doesn't keep you warm at night, and it certainly doesn't win battles," Olyvar countered, his voice flat. "Dragons are dead. They've been dead for over a century. All we've got left are bones and old stories."
I didn't answer immediately. I looked up at the smoking crater of the volcano, feeling the heat pulsing through the ground beneath my horse's hooves. Olyvar was right the world believed the dragons were gone. But I had spent my life being dismissed as a ghost, a child who didn't exist. I knew better than anyone that just because something is hidden or believed dead doesn't mean it's truly gone.