Archmaester Ebrose clung to the rail of the Gulltown barge and retched until his ribs ached. Why me? he thought bitterly between heaves. Why send the oldest man in the Conclave to ride the autumn seas like some green novice? The herbs had lasted half a day. After that there was only bile and the taste of salt.
By the time the cog nosed into Gulltown's outer harbour he was pale, trembling, and furious.
The city that greeted him was not the Gulltown he remembered.
New stone quays jutted into the bay like the teeth of some vast beast. Warships (sleek hulls plated in steel, sky-blue sails furled) rode at anchor in numbers that made his stomach lurch again. Along the breakwaters rose squat, octagonal towers none of the old charts showed. Trebuchets crouched on their summits, engines painted the same cold blue. When he staggered close enough to touch one wall he scraped at the stone with a fingernail and felt his heart stutter.
It looked like mortar poured between wooden forms, yet it rang hard as granite beneath his ring. No seam, no crack. Stronger than anything the Citadel had ever recorded.
A polite cough sounded behind him.
"Quite the sight, isn't it, Archmaester Ebrose?"
The man who spoke was young, clean-shaven, dressed head to toe in matte black wool. A small silver skull—no larger than a stag coin—was pinned at his throat. His smile was friendly, almost boyish, but his eyes were flat and watchful.
"I am Danny," he said, bowing just enough. "Lord Arryn has asked me to be your guide while you are in the Vale."
Ebrose drew himself up, chain clinking. "I had intended to rest one night and pay my respects to Lord Grafton before—"
"Of course," Danny interrupted gently. "The horses are already saddled. Whenever you are ready."
There was no refusal in the words, only certainty.
They rode through streets the archmaester did not recognise. The old crooked lanes of Gulltown had been torn out and replaced by wide, straight roads paved with the same impossible stone—perfectly flat, perfectly smooth, draining rainwater into covered gutters that ran beneath iron grates. New timber-framed houses rose three and four storeys, their windows glazed, their signs painted in crisp white and sky-blue. Everywhere he looked: order. Purpose. Wealth.
"How," Ebrose demanded, "did you pave roads so perfectly? Cities grow crooked for a reason. This is… unnatural."
Danny only smiled. "I work in waste management, Archmaester. Roads are above my station."
"Your department seems to have a great many stations," Ebrose muttered.
Lord Grafton received them in a hall that smelled of fresh plaster. The man himself was red-faced and sweating despite the cool air.
"What brings the Conclave to my humble port?" Grafton asked, eyes flicking nervously to Danny.
Before Ebrose could speak, Danny answered for him. "The Archmaester wishes to discuss the new higher-learning sept with Lord Arryn. I am merely ensuring he arrives safely."
Grafton's smile looked painted on. "Then may you find exactly what you came for."
That night Ebrose slept badly. At dawn came a soft, insistent knock.
He flung open the door ready to blister the innkeeper's ears—only to find Danny standing there, calm as morning mist.
"The horses are ready, Archmaester."
Ebrose felt heat flood his face. "Do you imagine an archmaester rises and rides at the whim of some lowborn—"
"I was told to have you at the Eyrie by week's end," Danny said, utterly unmoved. "The mountain roads are long."
Something in the young man's absolute stillness made the rest of the tirade die in Ebrose's throat.
They left within the hour.
The journey took six days, and every league was a revelation.
The Vale unrolled beneath them like a tapestry rewoven by a mad but brilliant hand. Villages that had been clusters of rotting huts now stood neat around central wells. Fields were terraced with the same seamless stone, irrigation channels glinting like silver threads. Small star-shaped forts—five pointed bastions of that impossible concrete—crowned every rise and river ford, sky-blue banners snapping above them.
Ebrose tried once, on the third day, as they rode beneath a sky so blue it hurt to look at.
"These forts—how long have they stood?"
"All built in the last four years," Danny replied. "Early-warning posts. Mountain clans used to raid three, four times a season. Now they don't dare show their faces below the treeline."
"Bandits?"
"Gone." Danny's smile never wavered. "The roads are the safest in Westeros. You could ride from Gulltown to the Bloody Gate with a purse of gold on your saddle and no blade at your hip. But Lord Arryn insists honoured guests travel escorted."
He gestured ahead, where the Giant's Lance rose like a spear thrust at the heavens by a giant long dead.
"Look on the Vale, Archmaester. Is it not beautiful?"
Ebrose looked. Green valleys, silver rivers, white peaks, and everywhere the falcon's sky-blue flying proud.
Beautiful, yes.
And terrible.
Because every stone of it, every road, every tower, every disciplined smile on every face, spoke with one voice:
This is no longer the kingdom you knew.
And the boy who had made it so was waiting at the top of the mountain.
They passed beneath a vaulted entrance where the falcon of Arryn was worked in sky-blue glass so thin it seemed to flutter. The air inside smelled of fresh lime-wash and beeswax.
In the central atrium stood Edric Arryn.
He was taller than Ebrose had expected (near six feet, and still growing into his shoulders). Sandy-blond hair, almost gold in the coloured light, fell loose to the collar of a simple dark-blue doublet. A livid scar (three pale claw-marks) raked from his left temple into his hairline, the remnant of some mountain-cat or clan axe. The face beneath it was calm, sharp, and far too old for fifteen namedays.
He was speaking quietly with an older man in flowing Lyseni silks the colour of lilac and silver. At their approach Danny snapped to attention, right arm flashing across his chest in a crisp, straight salute .
Edric returned it without looking, the gesture as natural as breathing.
Then his eyes (fierce, dark, unreadable) fixed on the archmaester.
"This must be the Conclave's emissary," he said, voice quiet but carrying easily in the vaulted space. "Archmaester Ebrose, I presume. Welcome to the Higher Sept. What does Oldtown wish to say to me?"
Ebrose drew a steadying breath and launched into the speech he had rehearsed all the way up the Giant's Lance.
"The Citadel has guided the realm's learning for a thousand years, my lord. Standards must be maintained. Curriculum, accreditation, the proper progression of knowledge—these cannot be left to… local enthusiasm. We merely wish to ensure this new institution meets the expectations of all Westeros."
Edric tilted his head, the scar catching the light like a streak of ice.
"So I am a fool, then?" he asked pleasantly. "A boy who cannot run a school let alone a kingdom? Is that the Conclave's judgement?"
Ebrose flushed crimson. "No—no, my lord, of course not! The Citadel seeks only to safeguard the realm's scholarship—"
"By deciding what the Vale may teach its own sons and daughters." Edric's tone never rose, yet every word landed like a thrown gauntlet. "I appreciate the care you take for my people, Archmaester. Truly. But the Vale is mine to govern. I will raise its learning as I raise its walls and its armies—how I see fit."
He stepped forward, close enough that Ebrose caught the faint scent of pine and steel.
"That said," Edric continued, "if the Citadel truly wishes to be part of this work rather than merely police it, my doors are open. Send your most learned men. Let them teach beside scholars from Lys and Tyrosh and Volantis. Let them argue in these halls until the stones themselves grow hoarse. The Higher Sept will take any maester who wishes to add his voice to the chorus—no chains required."
A long silence followed, broken only by the distant song of the wind around the alabaster bridges.
Ebrose found his mouth dry.
Edric's smile was small, sharp, and (for the first time) almost kind.
"Well, Archmaester? Shall we begin a new chapter together, or will Oldtown insist on writing it alone from afar?"