1st bonus chapter: 100 powerstones
2nd bonus chapter: 150 powerstones
3rd bonus chapter: 200 powerstones
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Days turned into weeks. Mantarys settled into an uneasy rhythm of occupation, reconstruction, and quiet tension. The fires of conquest had burned themselves out, replaced by the constant work of governing a city too large and too strange to ever truly sleep.
Jon rarely left his manorhouse. The building had become the center of a strange enterprise; half temple annex, half research hall. Tables were crowded with scrolls and journals salvaged from the laboratories of the Flesh Alchemists. Shelves held preserved specimens and glass containers filled with murky fluids whose purposes even the surviving Mantaryan alchemists struggled to explain.
Jon had been placed at the center of that effort to gather all the knowledge the flesh alchemist had. This was a knowledge base built over hundreds of years, plenty of records even going back to the times of the Dragonlords and their advance applications and systems.
Most days were spent sorting, translating, and studying the endless flow of discoveries pulled from the city's hidden vaults. Scribes copied manuscripts while apprentices attempted to categorize the various techniques described within them.
Many of the writings were grotesque. Others were brilliant. Some were both. It did not take long for Jon to realize that while the Flesh Alchemists had been monstrous in their practices, their understanding of the body was astonishing. They had spent centuries studying the limits of flesh, bone, and blood. Where most healers treated the body as something to preserve, the Mantaryans had treated it as something to reshape.
Jon began experimenting with their magic. He had no intention of becoming another Flesh Alchemist. What interested him was something different. Integration.
The power he carried came from fire, the divine flame of R'hllor that lived within his chest. It was a force of destruction, purification, and life-giving heat. The Mantaryan knowledge, on the other hand, dealt with flesh; growth, anatomy, and transformation. Two different powers. Two different philosophies. Jon wondered if they could coexist.
His earliest attempts were small. The Red Faith already practiced healing through prayer and fire, though the results were often unpredictable. Flames could cauterize wounds or burn away infection, but it was still fire.
The Mantaryan texts suggested methods to guide biological regeneration. Jon began testing ways to combine the two. Under controlled conditions he practiced channeling small amounts of flame into injured tissue while following the regenerative techniques described in the scrolls.
The results were interesting. Where normal fire would simply seal a wound, the controlled flame that applied the flesh alchemists' methods seemed to stimulate faster recovery. Burns closed faster. Muscle healed with less scarring. It was not perfect but it was promising start.
The surviving Mantaryan alchemists who worked under the Faith watched the process with cautious fascination. To them, the idea of combining fire magic with biological manipulation was unprecedented.
Jon found the concept strangely natural. Fire had always been tied to life. Warmth. Growth. Transformation. Perhaps the connection had been there all along. After all this was a magic that the dragonlords mastered and they were beings of fire.
The next stage involved strengthening rather than healing. The Mantaryan records contained numerous techniques designed to increase physical endurance such as altering muscle density, reinforcing bone structure, or improving resistance to fatigue.
Most of those procedures were invasive and dangerous. Jon had no interest in repeating the grotesque surgeries that had made Mantarys infamous. Instead he experimented with smaller adjustments.
Guiding the body's natural growth through controlled heat stimulation. Encouraging muscle recovery after intense training with thermochemistry reactions in the body. Improving stamina through subtle oxidation burning.
Again, the results were gradual but real. Soldiers who volunteered for the early trials reported faster recovery after drills and minor injuries healing in days rather than weeks. Nothing unnatural. Nothing monstrous. Just… improvement.
Jon found himself working longer hours as the possibilities began to unfold. The Faith had always relied heavily on fire power. But if that power could be paired with physical enhancement. The results could reshape how their followers fought, healed, and survived. The Red Faith would not only wield fire. It would wield mastery over the body itself.
Azula often observed his work.
The scar across her face had healed poorly after the Shadowblade assassination attempt, leaving a jagged line that ran from her cheekbone down toward her jaw. Mantaryan methods could have removed the mark entirely.
She refused. "It reminds me to stay alive," she had said simply.
Still, she watched the experiments with interest. One evening she leaned against the doorway of the laboratory chamber as Jon finished another test. "So," she said, crossing her arms. "You're trying to turn priests into something closer to warriors."
Jon wiped his hands on a cloth. "Not exactly."
"Then what?"
Jon considered the question. "Balance," he said finally. "Fire alone destroys. Flesh alone corrupts. But together…" He gestured toward the scrolls spread across the table. "Together they might create something better."
Azula raised an eyebrow. "That sounds dangerously close to what the Flesh Alchemists believed." He could see her point, the flesh alchemist were eager to take part in his experiment. They above all else sought knowledge instead of being driven by faith.
Jon shook his head. "They wanted to control the body completely. Replace it. Reshape it into something unnatural." He looked down at his hands. "I'm trying to help it become what it already could be."
Azula studied him for a moment before nodding slowly. "Fair enough."
Not every experiment succeeded. Some attempts produced nothing at all. Others had to be abandoned when the results proved unstable or unpredictable. Jon kept detailed records of everything. Successes. Failures. Observations.
He worked late into the night most days, candlelight flickering across the endless stacks of manuscripts surrounding him. It was strange work. A strange life. Only months ago he had been marching through the Demon Road toward war.
Now he was sitting in a conquered city studying a new field of magic. Sometimes he wondered what his father would think if he could see him now. The thought never stayed long.
…
Days passed with Jon busy with his work. Sometimes though he found himself staring out across Mantarys' dark skyline, wondering what had become of the people he had grown up beside.
The North felt impossibly distant now. A different life. A different world. He was no longer the boy who had left Winterfell. Now he was the Red Son. A priest of a foreign god. A man with land and authority in a conquered city on the far side of the world. Still, the memories remained. And so did the pain.
What pulled him out of his work was news that filled every corner of the city, spreading like wildfire. At first Jon heard it as a rumor whispered among his aids and the alchemists. Then confirmed by the Faith's own network of informants.
The Slaver Cities had fallen. Astapor. Yunkai. Meereen. All three had been conquered.
Jon read the reports twice before he believed them. But the most astonishing part was not the victories themselves. It was who had achieved them. Daenerys Targaryen. The last known heir of the dragonlords.
She had not only conquered the cities. She had freed the slaves. Everywhere her armies marched, chains were broken. The reports described masses of liberated slaves rising in celebration. Entire cities turning against their masters. Armies of freedmen joining her cause.
Across Essos she was being hailed as something almost mythical. The Breaker of Chains.
And she did not stand alone. She had dragons. Three of them. Young, but growing quickly.
The reports spoke of fire raining down upon slaver armies. Of battlefields reduced to ash. Jon sat back slowly after reading the final dispatch. The world was changing again. Mantarys had been one victory. But what Daenerys had done in Slaver's Bay was something far greater. She had overturned the entire foundation of the slave trade.
Azula looked over his shoulder at the reports. "Three dragons," she said quietly. "If that is true…"
Jon nodded. "Then she may be the most powerful ruler in the world."
As the news spread through the city and beyond. All throughout Essos every faction and city had different reactions.
Merchants who had quietly profited from the slave trade watched the developments with concern. The markets of Essos had long been built upon that brutal foundation, and if Daenerys Targaryen truly intended to dismantle it, entire economies would feel the shock.
Among the slaves and laborers of the lower districts throughout Essos, the reaction was almost jubilant. Word that a ruler had shattered the slave markets of Slaver's Bay spread quickly with carried whispers of rebellion beneath it. In alleyways and crowded markets people spoke her name with hope. Breaker of Chains. To many, she sounded less like a queen and more like a legend.
The Old Blood of Volantis reacted differently. In the halls of the governor's compound and the estates, the reports were discussed with careful interest. Dragons had not been seen in the world for more than a century. Their return meant that the ancient power of Valyria might truly be stirring again.
Some among the Old Blood spoke of opportunity. Others spoke of danger. A dragon queen who had already toppled three great cities could not be ignored.
In Qarth the ruling elites debated how such a force might shift the balance of trade and power. In Pentos and Myr envoys began quietly gathering information about the armies forming in Slaver's Bay. Further east, the remaining Ghis cities watched the reports with growing dread.
Several days later Moqorro arrived. Jon knew immediately that something was different. The Black Flame rarely moved with urgency, but that evening he entered the manorhouse with the quiet intensity of a man carrying important orders.
Jon rose from the table as the priest approached. "You've heard the news," Moqorro said.
Jon nodded his head. Most of the whole world heard of the news by now. Moqorro clasped his hands behind his back. "The High Temple has made its decision," he said calmly. "The Dragon Queen must be approached."
Jon frowned slightly. "Approached how?"
"As an ally."
The words hung in the air. Moqorro continued. "She is freeing slaves across the east. Destroying the old system of slavery relied upon in Essos. Her cause aligns with the Faith more than you might think."
Jon considered that. "The Faith believes she may serve R'hllor's purpose?"
"Perhaps," Moqorro said. "Or perhaps she simply walks the path that leads toward it." He stepped closer. "We are to travel to Slaver's Bay."
Jon blinked. "To meet her?"
"Yes." Moqorro's eyes gleamed faintly in the candlelight. "The Dragon Queen gathers power. If she is a friend to the Faith, she could reshape the world."
"And if she isn't?" Jon asked.
The Black Flame smiled faintly. "Then we will persuade her otherwise. I am sure she would not enjoy a bunch of fanatic priests stirring up trouble for her."
Jon nodded, he also knew that the young queen was newly ascended and needed allies more than anything. The Red Faith could offer that and so much more.
Jon looked out the window toward the distant lights of Mantarys. The city he had helped conquer. The place that had become his new home. And now he was leaving it behind. For dragons. For queens. For another turning of the wheel that was reshaping the world.
Jon Snow exhaled slowly. It seemed the war was not finished after all. It had simply moved somewhere else.
-
The departure from Mantarys was not a quiet affair. The Red Faith did not travel as a handful of wandering priests slipping through the world unnoticed. When the Faith moved, it did so with purpose, with presence, and with spectacle.
Nearly two thousand souls assembled outside the eastern gates of the city on the morning of their departure. Red banners snapped in the warm wind that rolled down from the Painted Mountains. Braziers burned along the road, carried by acolytes so that the flame of R'hllor never went dark even while traveling.
The new Governor-General was more than happy to see them leave as the city became a tumultuous bee hive thanks to all the cleansing the Red Faith was doing. The Wyvern lord saw them off with plenty of supplies and coins with the presence of the Faith decreased. Now they were unable to have tighter control of the city.
At the head of the column stood Moqorro. The Black Flame wore robes darker than the rest, crimson trimmed with black, his tall staff crowned by a glass lantern filled with living fire. His presence alone commanded silence among the gathered faithful.
Behind him gathered the procession. Red Priests from Volantis and Mantarys alike walked in solemn ranks, chanting low prayers as they prepared to depart. Red Apostles carried scrolls and relics meant to be presented to the Dragon Queen's court. Lines of Red Guards marched beside them, armored in lacquered crimson plates, spears gleaming beneath the sun.
Beyond them followed the Faith militia made up of freedmen soldiers raised from the ranks of Mantarys' former slaves. Their discipline was rougher than the trained Volantene soldiers who remained behind to govern the city, but they marched with fierce pride beneath the banners of the Lord of Light.
Supply caravans stretched behind them. Carts filled with provisions, gifts, and religious relics creaked forward as the column slowly assembled along the road. Jon rode near the front of the procession beside Moqorro. Azula rode with the escort riders slightly behind them, her eyes scanning the horizon with quiet vigilance.
Mantarys' gates slowly opened. The Red Faith began its journey. The Demon Road stretched before them. The ancient black highway cut across the land like a scar from another age, its stone surface still unnaturally smooth despite the centuries that had passed since the Valyrian Freehold built it.
Jon had marched along this road once already on the way to Mantarys. Now he rode it in the opposite direction. The land beyond the Painted Mountains slowly shifted as they traveled east.
The first days were familiar. Ash-colored plains dotted with ruined watchtowers and abandoned villages passed beneath the hooves of their horses. Occasionally they encountered caravans heading toward Mantarys now that the city had reopened to trade.
Most travelers stepped aside quickly when they saw the long crimson procession approaching. The Faith had a presence that few dared obstruct. Weeks passed on the road with the Faith able to handle the demon incursion that opened up.
The land slowly softened. The harsher volcanic plains began giving way to broader river valleys and rolling grasslands where the influence of old Ghiscari lands could already be felt. And then, rising from the distant horizon, they saw the ruins of Bhorash.
Jon had heard the name before. It had been mentioned in several ancient texts in the Faith archives and in the texts recovered from Mantarys. But seeing the place with his own eyes was something else entirely.
Even in ruin, Bhorash was immense. The city sprawled across the horizon overlooking a wide river basin that had once served as the main trade artery between Valyrian colonies and the heartlands of the old Ghiscari Empire.
From a distance the ruins looked almost like a natural mountain range rather than a city. Stone towers rose at strange angles across the skyline. Massive terraces carved into the plateau's sides formed layers of ancient structures stacked atop one another.
Even centuries after its fall, Bhorash dwarfed many living cities in Essos. "This place was once the spearhead of Valyria," Moqorro said quietly as they approached.
Jon studied the ruins in silence. Bhorash had not been built merely as a colony. It had been a forward base. Long before Mantarys, long before many of the later Freehold settlements in the east, the Valyrians had established Bhorash as their position right at the doorsteps to the Ghiscari Empire. The dragonlord took over this Ghis city in their earliest conflicts with the Harpy Lords and remade it in their image.
From here they studied their enemies. From here they planned their wars. But Bhorash had been more than a military outpost. It had been a center of magical study. Specifically, the study of Ghiscari earthen magics.
The Ghiscari Empire had been one of the greatest rivals the Valyrian Freehold ever faced. While the dragonlords commanded fire and sky, the sorcerers of Old Ghis had mastered the power of stone and metal.
Legends claimed they could shape mountains. Raise fortresses from bare rock. Call forth great earthquakes or sandstorms. Even pull out the rich minerals from the ground with ease.
Bhorash had been the Valyrians' answer. A city where their mages studied the secrets of their enemies. And perhaps learned to surpass them.
The road leading into the ruins descended into a vast valley of carved stone structures. Unlike the smoother black architecture of Mantarys, Bhorash had been built using massive blocks of pale grey rock shaped into impossible forms.
Entire towers appeared to have been grown directly from the bedrock beneath them. Terraces connected by enormous stairways climbed the slopes of the plateau like steps carved for giants.
Jon saw strange patterns etched into the stone walls. Giant markings. Different tribal symbols. It was said, the giants were what taught the Ghis now they were both dead so no one could verify that.
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The Red Faith procession did not go near the city. No one was foolish enough to do so. The rumors were clear, the city devoured all beneath the earth. This was due to whatever forces the dragonlords of old called upon.
Bhorash studied the bones of the world itself. The dragonlords who governed the colony believed the power of the earth could rival even dragonfire. Ghiscari geomancers had once raised walls from stone and shattered enemy armies by splitting the ground beneath them.
The Valyrians did not intend merely to learn this power. They intended to dominate it. So Bhorash became a vast laboratory of earth magic, gravity, metal, mineral, and deep-world forces.
Valyrian mages dug enormous chambers beneath the city. They carved directly into the bedrock and miles deep into the surrounding hills. They attempted to do something no civilization had ever done before. They attempted to bind the living forces of the earth itself. Whatever was here on the surface was just the tip of the iceberg making up the city. There was a lot deep below the earth.
At first it was subtle. Stone shifting without command. Tunnels collapsing in strange patterns. Deep rumbling sounds beneath the city that no one could explain. Some Valyrian scholars believed they had discovered new ancient subterranean lifeforms, beings that had lived beneath the world long before humans ever walked it.
Others believed something worse. That the earth itself possessed a form of consciousness. Whatever the truth was, the experiments continued. And then something broke.
Before the Doom even came the city was destroyed and abandoned. Something beneath the earth had woke up. The mountain range cracked. Entire districts sank as underground caverns collapsed. Other sections of the city were thrust violently upward as the bedrock shifted like the surface of the sea during a storm.
But the worst effect was deeper. The ancient things the Valyrians had tried to bind beneath the earth were suddenly no longer contained. Something stirred in the deep layers below Bhorash. Something vast. Something that had been sleeping long before Valyria existed.
Moqorro ordered the column to move on without delay, they past over the lumbering city outskirts for days. Even from the distant ridge where the Demon Road curved past the mountain, the city felt wrong. The ground occasionally trembled beneath the hooves of the horses, subtle but unmistakable. Once or twice, faint grinding sounds echoed from the depths of the ruined terraces, like stone slowly shifting against stone far below the surface.
No prayers were offered toward the ruins. No braziers were set down. No scholar was permitted to approach the ancient circles carved into the stone. Bhorash was not a place meant for men anymore. The Red Faith passed it by like travelers skirting the edge of a sleeping beast.