(Part 1)
The Hall of the Triarchs was no place for fear.
At least, that was what Volantis had always believed.
But this morning, before the sun had fully risen, fear clung to the pillars like a living thing. The braziers burned hotter, flames flickering as if caught in a wind that did not exist. Nobles and ministers whispered too quickly. Spies from Braavos, Myr, Lys, and Qohor lingered like vultures, pretending not to watch every door.
Everyone knew why they were here.
The man who humiliated their pits.The stranger the Red Temple treated like a prophecy.The one whose shadow made torches shrink.
The great doors opened without announcement.
Kaine stepped through, and the hall tightened as though the very air drew back from him.
He didn't posture.He didn't glare.He simply entered — and the weight of him settled over the room like a deep ocean current dragging everything downward.
Sereyna walked beside him, quiet, alert, her cloak brushing the marble floor.Above, unseen by all but two, Vaerynna curled along the carved beams, and each soft shift of her wings made the torches tremble violently for half a heartbeat.
Kaine stopped in the center of the mosaic, where tiger and elephant met.
A Tiger Triarch cleared his throat, but the sound came out thin.
"You… summoned us. Speak."
Kaine's voice was low, calm, almost polite — and somehow, that made it worse.
"I am leaving Volantis."
A ripple of relieved breaths spread through the hall — and died when he continued:
"…to return home."
"And where might that be?" the Elephant Triarch asked, forcing a smirk.
Kaine looked him in the eye, and the smirk drained away.
"Valyria."
The word landed like a sudden drop in the floor.
Gasps.Stiffened shoulders.One minister dropped his quill.
"You are lying," someone whispered."No one survives the Smoking Sea.""No one enters Valyria. No one returns—"
"I entered," Kaine said. "And I will return to my city."
The hall erupted.
"A city in Valyria—ha!""Has the madness finally shown itself?""A city of ghosts—"
"It is small," Kaine said, cutting through their laughter. "Only three inhabitants."
Sereyna's lips twitched. Vaerynna whispered in her mind:
"Their ignorance is adorable."
But the Triarchs laughed loudly, desperately, clinging to the idea that he was merely insane.
Kinvara did not laugh.Her pupils tightened, her skin paling as if a cold wind had swept through her bones.Benerro's jaw clenched; he whispered a prayer so fast it sounded like a chant begging for mercy.
Kaine waited until the laughter died on its own fear.
"You will stay away from Valyria," he said quietly. "For twenty years."
The silence was instant and absolute.
"No fleets," Kaine went on."No expeditions. No curious slaves or enterprising merchants. No spies."His gaze sharpened just slightly."Not even a fisherman."
One Elephant Triarch stood, red with fury.
"You dare dictate terms to—"
"Yes."
That single word struck the room like a hammer.
"You presume," the Triarch tried again, voice cracking, "to claim dominion over—"
"I do not presume," Kaine said, stepping forward. "I claim."
"GUARDS!" the Tiger Triarch screamed, voice wild.
Armor clattered.Steel flashed.
But something happened — something none of them could explain.
The hall dimmed.
Not visibly. Not fully.But the light retreated from Kaine as if it had memory and fear.
The guards charged.
Kaine did not shift.He did not ready a stance.He did not even look at the first man.
He simply moved.
A blur, a whisper of something too dark to be shadow and too silent to be air.A throat opened so cleanly the guard tried to shout and found nothing there.Another collapsed with his spine bent at an angle no human body should allow.A third guard swung wildly — Kaine took the blade from him without force, turned it in his hand as if testing its balance, and slid it into the man's heart with surgical precision.
The bodies fell almost in unison.
The remaining guards froze, unable to breathe.
The Triarchs trembled.
Kaine brushed a single droplet of blood from his sleeve with calm, deliberate care.
"You do not understand," he said. "This is not a warning. And it is not a threat."
Something in his tone made two ministers clutch their seats to stay upright.
"It is a law," Kaine said softly. "And laws are obeyed."
No one dared speak.
"In another land," Kaine continued, "I was once a soldier. Then a general."His voice remained steady, but the room felt as if the temperature was dropping."My army was five hundred. The invaders were five hundred thousand."
A gasp rippled through the room.Someone's knees buckled.
"I ordered my men to retreat with the civilians. They refused."He looked at the floor, remembering."I made them leave. Only one of us needed to stay."
A minister whispered hoarsely, "And the invaders…?"
"They died," Kaine said softly.
The torches flickered violently.
"When my soldiers returned with reinforcements," he continued, "they found me seated atop a mountain of corpses."
Silence.The entire hall leaned toward him without meaning to.
"One of my captains," Kaine said, "looked upon the dead stacked higher than siege towers. And when he saw me sitting at the top…"
Kaine paused.
"…he made a sound."He tilted his head, remembering it clearly."A single, terrified gulp."
Someone in the hall involuntarily swallowed — loudly.
Kaine's eyes drifted across the chamber, and men shrank back.
"If you trespass in Valyria," he said softly, "if you come uninvited… I will build another throne."
A chill ran through every spine.
Kaine turned, Sereyna falling into step beside him, silent and steady.
At the doorway, he glanced back once — and the shadows bent inward slightly, like they were listening.
"Valyria belongs to me."
Then he left.
And the hall, for the first time in its history, did not breathe until he was gone.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part 2)
The doors slammed shut behind Kaine, and for several long heartbeats, no one moved.
Then chaos erupted.
Voices rose—argued—collapsed over each other like waves breaking against stone.
"He threatened Volantis—""He butchered our guards!""He claims Valyria—Valyria!—as if it were his personal garden—""What manner of man sits atop five hundred thousand corpses—"
One of the ministerial scribes fainted.A Tiger Cloak vomited into an ornamental bowl.Three foreign spies quietly slipped through side exits, sending swift-footed boys toward ships anchored at the docks.
A Myrish agent whispered to another, "If this gets to the Archon before we do, we're dead men."A Braavosi spy muttered, "If it gets to him after we get back… we're still dead men."
The Tiger Triarch slammed his cane against the marble.
"Silence!"
It didn't help.His voice cracked.His hand shook.
"Summon captains! Bring chains! Bring sorcerers! Bring—something!" he barked, losing coherence.
"Chains?" a Lyseni envoy scoffed. "Did chains help your guards? They died before they blinked."
The Elephant Triarch gripped his forehead.
"We cannot allow this," he hissed. "He threatens our fleets. He threatens our borders. He—he dares lay claim to Valyria. We must respond. We must show strength!"
A trembling minister whispered, "By sending… what? Our armies?"He gestured weakly toward the cooling corpses on the floor."He killed thirty trained guards faster than I could blink."
"Not thirty," someone corrected. "Forty-two."
"By the Seven—""Not the Seven, you idiot—the Red God!""The Red God bows to him! Didn't you see Kinvara's face?!""She bowed lower than she bows before flames!"
The Old Blood Triarch, pale as tallow, tried to steady his breathing.
"We must consult the priests. If the Red Temple knows more—"
He stopped.Because the priests were already approaching.
Kinvara walked first.
Her steps were slow, reverent, almost trembling—not with fear, but with awe.Benerro followed like a shadow of volcanic stone.
The ministers quieted themselves quickly.
Kinvara's golden eyes scanned the hall, landing briefly on the slain guards, then on the Triarchs. Her expression told them what they already knew:
They were no longer the highest authority in this room.
"You heard him," the Elephant Triarch snapped, desperate. "What do your flames say? Is he bluffing? Is he a sorcerer? A demon—"
Kinvara cut him off, her voice a whisper that somehow filled the hall.
"He is exactly what he claims to be."
The hall went dead silent.
Benerro stepped forward. "The Lord of Light forbids us to raise a hand against him."
"Your god is not our king!" the Tiger Triarch shouted.
Kinvara's gaze hardened.
"If the Lord of Light wished you dead," she said softly, "you would already be ash."
Silence.
Kinvara looked toward the doors Kaine had walked through.
"In all my years," she said, "all my visions, all my prayers… never has R'hllor spoken with such clarity."Her voice trembled."He showed me only this: kneel before him, or be unmade."
A shiver crawled through the bones of every listener.
Benerro finished the thought:
"R'hllor names him rightful master of the Doom."
Several ministers dropped to their knees.
The Tiger Triarch whispered hoarsely, "Gods preserve us."
Kinvara replied, barely audible:
"He does not need their help."
Across the Hall — Shadows Move
A spy from Braavos slipped into a side corridor, parchment already in hand.
The man who defeated the Demon is beyond any warrior recorded.Volantis leadership paralyzed.The Red Temple kneels before him.Danger classification: Unknowable.
He dipped his quill again.
He claims Valyria.And the worst part—I believe him.
He sealed the note, shoved it into a messenger's hand, and whispered:
"Run. Don't look back. If he turns his head toward you, you'll die."
The boy didn't ask questions. He sprinted.
Outside the Hall — Kaine
Kaine walked through the grand courtyard as though he hadn't just shaken a city to its core. He seemed almost peaceful, hands clasped behind his back.
Sereyna followed, keeping pace.
Her voice was low. "You knew they'd react like this?"
Kaine's lips curved faintly.
"I gave them the truth. What they do with it is their concern."
Sereyna let out a quiet breath."…Some people don't appreciate the truth."
"No," Kaine said. "They fear it. That is enough."
Above them, Vaerynna swooped invisibly from rooftop to rooftop, her mental voice sliding into both their minds:
"I enjoyed the part where they stopped breathing."
Sereyna snorted. "They did that a lot."
"They'll do it more," Vaerynna replied smugly.
Kaine's eyes drifted toward the eastern horizon.
"We leave within the hour," he said.
"To Valyria?" Sereyna asked.
"To Valyr'Nox," Kaine corrected quietly. "It is time."
Back in the Hall
The Triarchs sat slumped on their thrones, like men aged twenty years in twenty minutes.
A minister whispered, "What do we do now?"
Kinvara answered before the Triarchs could speak.
"You pray he forgets you."
The Tiger Triarch bristled. "We are Volantis!"
"You were," Kinvara murmured.
She looked toward the doorway, where Kaine's presence still lingered like a fading storm.
"Now you are a footnote."
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part 3)
The city outside the Hall of the Triarchs felt wrong.
Too quiet.Too aware.
Volantis was a city of noise—markets shouting, bells ringing, slaves crying, merchants arguing, priests chanting. But as Kaine and Sereyna stepped out onto the grand steps, the noise receded like a tide.
People moved aside instinctively. No one told them to.They simply parted around him, widening the space, as though approaching within arm's reach felt dangerous.
A woman clutching a basket of fish froze, eyes widening.A merchant who'd cursed loudly minutes earlier covered his mouth and bowed so fast he nearly toppled.
Sereyna noticed. "They're terrified."
Kaine's expression didn't change. "Good. Fear is easy. It prevents mistakes."
Vaerynna drifted unseen overhead, her presence making lantern flames gutter even in the morning air.
"They should fear him," she said lazily in Sereyna's thoughts."Most creatures learn to fear storms. This is no different."
Sereyna folded her arms. "He's more polite than a storm."
"Yes. Storms don't bother with courtesy."
Sereyna bit back a laugh.
The Red Temple Moves
The sound of soft sandals and rustling robes announced the arrival of the Red Temple.
A procession of red-robed acolytes approached, led by Kinvara and Benerro. Dozens bowed as they came near, forming a corridor of kneeling priests in the middle of the street.
Volantis citizens stared, dumbstruck—never had they seen the Red Temple offer such deference.
Kinvara stepped forward.She bowed—not as a priestess greeting a powerful ally, but as a believer addressing something beyond her comprehension.
"My lord," she said softly, "the flames part before you. And they warn us to heed your steps."
Benerro bowed next. Even his stern face held unease.
"The Red Temple stands ready. Speak, and we obey."
Kaine looked at them, calm and indifferent."Continue your work. Spread your faith. Prepare for the time when the world must choose whom it follows."
Both priests lowered their heads in reverence.
Sereyna raised an eyebrow. "You're giving commandments now?"
Kaine shrugged. "They asked."
Vaerynna snorted in Sereyna's mind.
"Mortals always ask him. He rarely answers. They should consider themselves lucky."
Kinvara opened her mouth again, more hesitant now.
"If… if we expand the faith as you command, conflict may come. The old gods, the Seven, the Drowned—"
"Then let them come," Kaine said. "If their gods object, they may speak to me themselves."
Benerro inhaled sharply.Kinvara's eyes widened in something approaching awe… and fear.
The crowd watching from afar took a collective step back.
Kaine turned away. "We're done here."
Volantene Eyes Watch Him Go
As he walked toward the harbor, people whispered in doorways, behind shutters, from balconies.
"He's leaving?""Thank the gods—""No, fool. Fear him when he returns."
A group of Tiger Cloaks stood at attention, hands trembling on their spears. Not one dared move as Kaine passed. Their captain tried to salute, but his hand shook too violently.
Sereyna leaned closer to Kaine."You know they're going to panic the moment we leave, right?"
"They already have."
Spies at the Docks
The docks swarmed with activity—scribes carrying sealed scrolls, messengers sprinting, foreign captains barking to their crews.
A Braavosi spy disguised as a sailor stared as Kaine passed, then muttered under his breath:
"If he claims Valyria… the world map needs changing."
A Lyseni agent didn't bother whispering."By the gods… he doesn't walk, he glides."
"No," the Braavosi replied quietly. "He stalks."
A Myrish spymaster scribbled a report so fast ink spattered.
Subject leaving Volantis.Destination unknown—no, likely Valyria.Advise extreme caution.Do not pursue.Repeat: do not pursue.
His hand paused, then he added one last line:
If he returns… pray he doesn't remember our faces.
At the Ship
The vessel assigned to Kaine waited at the farthest dock.Even the water around it seemed quieter, as if the bay feared rippling too loudly.
Sereyna stopped at the gangplank, giving Volantis one last look.
"Do you think they'll actually listen? Twenty years is a long time."
Kaine placed a hand on the wooden railing.
"They will listen out of fear for half that time. Then arrogance will tempt them."
"And then?" she asked.
"Then I remind them."
Sereyna absorbed that silently.
Vaerynna hovered unseen above them, wings rustling like a distant storm.
"You should be proud," she said in Sereyna's thoughts."Few cities survive speaking to him that rudely."
Sereyna shot upward a suspicious glance."Are you joking?"
"Mostly."
Kaine stepped aboard.
"Volantis will tear itself apart with rumors," Vaerynna murmured telepathically to both of them."No one knows whether to fear him or worship him."
"They always choose wrong," Kaine replied, faintly amused.
Sereyna smirked. "What do they choose?"
"Everything except caution."
Rumors Spread Behind Them
Even as the ship began to pull away from the harbor, the city's hum rose again—only now it was fractured by fear.
"Is he a dragon in human skin?""Did he bind the Demon? Did he resurrect her?""A city in Valyria—absurd!""No, the Red Temple kneels to him. That is no mortal.""Tell the Triarchs I quit. I value my life."
Word spread like wildfire.Children repeated his name with awe.Adults whispered it like a curse.Priests murmured prayers they had not used in a century.
And in the Hall of the Triarchs, leaders stared at each other with pale faces, knowing one thing:
Volantis had been spared… this time.
On the Ship — The Sea Accepts Them
As the vessel entered open water, the city shrinking behind them, Sereyna leaned against the railing.
"Feels strange," she said quietly.
"What does?" Kaine asked.
"Leaving a city that fears you more than its own gods."
Kaine's expression didn't change. "I didn't ask for worship."
"You didn't need to."
Vaerynna's laugh shimmered like heat.
"Mortals always worship or fear what they cannot survive. Often both."
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part 4)
The Smoking Sea ushered them in like a sleeping titan.
Mist curled low over the waves, thick enough to hide the horizon, but the air wasn't poisonous. It was warm — unnervingly warm, like breath exhaled from deep within the earth. The water shimmered with strange colors beneath the surface.
Sereyna stared at it, jaw tight.
"This place is supposed to kill us," she muttered. "Slowly. Painfully. Horribly."
Kaine rested his hands behind his back."It would have."
She shot him a flat, resigned look.
"…Because you ate the thing causing it," she said. "Right. Good. Wonderful."
Kaine didn't correct her.
Her voice dropped to a low, tired growl."I swear… the pits were easier."
A soft puff of mental laughter floated down from above.Vaerynna glided over the mast unseen.
"The pits didn't come with him."
Sereyna dragged a hand down her face.
"Exactly. Back then, all I had to worry about was surviving the day. Now I have to worry about the sea remembering you ate its heart."
The mist thickened—then parted cleanly before their ship, forming a corridor of open air.
Kaine watched it with mild interest.
"It responds to energy," he said. "Nothing unusual."
Sereyna let out a disbelieving laugh.
"Unusual? Kaine, the ocean is parting for us. Like we paid it."
Vaerynna chimed in—too amused for Sereyna's sanity:"It's being polite."
"Polite?" Sereyna repeated. "The sea is being polite?"
"Magic remembers who devoured its anchor."
Sereyna stared off the bow at the shimmering water."I can't believe this is my life now. I thought I hit rock bottom in the pits… turns out that was just the tutorial level."
Vaerynna's tail flicked invisibly."Welcome to advanced difficulties."
Kaine stepped toward the bow, ignoring both of them.
"The land is stabilizing," he said quietly. "It was wounded. Now it is knitting itself back together."
A tremor rolled beneath the ship — not violent, but deep.Steam burst in a column far to their right.
Sereyna clutched the railing. "That's… normal?"
"Yes."
"For who?!"
Kaine glanced at the rippling water.
"For a landmass realigning after catastrophic magical rupture."
Sereyna glared at the sea.The sea did not apologize.
The Mist Breaks Before Him
The fog ahead drew back again — wider this time, like a curtain pulled open by invisible hands.
Dark cliffs rose in the distance, jagged as claws.Shattered fortresses sprawled along the coast, their obsidian towers catching what little light touched them.Cooled rivers of black glass cut through ravines.Ruined bridges arched like the spines of fossilized beasts.
A shiver ran down Sereyna's spine.
"…It looks alive."
Vaerynna's voice lowered, almost reverent:"It is waking."
Sereyna turned to Kaine.
"So this is what happens after you eat a magical apocalypse."
Kaine corrected softly, "It is what happens when a severed system begins to heal."
Sereyna exhaled the longest breath of her life."I hate how that somehow makes sense. I hate even more that it doesn't."
Kaine didn't reply.His gaze was locked on the horizon, where the last sheets of fog began to dissolve.
The city emerged.
A fortress carved from shadow and ancient flame.Towers rebuilt by heat and time.Bridges reforging slowly into skeletal pathways.Obsidian walls humming faintly beneath the ash.
A graveyard given breath.A kingdom waiting for footsteps.
Sereyna pressed her lips together.
"…What do you call it?" she whispered.
Kaine answered without hesitation.
"Valyr'Nox."
She tasted the word.
A new beginning.A forgotten throne.A place no sane person would claim.
Sereyna thumped her head gently against the railing.
"…I swear to every god that's ever existed. The pits were easier."
Vaerynna purred in her mind:"Too late. You travel with him now."
Sereyna muttered, "Curse me for agreeing."
Kaine finally looked at her, one brow raised.
"You agreed?"
She groaned softly."…This is my life now, isn't it?"
Kaine didn't smile.But the faint, knowing look in his eyes was answer enough.
────────── ❖ ──────────
(Part 5)
The ship glided the final stretch toward the coast, passing jagged cliffs that jutted from the water like broken teeth. The closer they came, the more clearly the ruins revealed themselves — black stone, obsidian towers half-collapsed, bridges snapped in the middle, entire walkways swallowed by ash and hardened magma.
It was dead.
Silent.
A grave monument to an empire that once believed itself immortal.
Sereyna stepped off the ship after Kaine, boots crunching on a layer of pale ash. The dock was little more than a skeleton of warped black pylons, half burned, half melted, the stone fused smooth by long-cooled fire.
"There's… nothing here," she whispered.
"Not nothing," Kaine said calmly. "Just sleeping things."
Vaerynna hovered above them, unseen, wings shifting the ash in faint spirals.
"It is a carcass of a city," she murmured into Sereyna's mind."Bones without marrow. Walls without breath. A body waiting to be filled."
Sereyna exhaled slowly."To me, it looks dead."
"Many things look dead before they're claimed."
Kaine began walking up the cracked causeway leading from the docks toward the inner ruins. Sereyna followed closely, eyes sweeping across the devastation.
Massive buildings lay shattered, their rooftops caved in by centuries of heat and collapse. Streets wound through heaps of cooled volcanic stone and ash. Statues of dragons and forgotten heroes toppled in pieces, faces worn smooth by time.
Nothing moved.Not the air.Not the earth.Not the ruins.
Only their footsteps echoed.
"This place…" Sereyna murmured. "No one should be able to survive here."
"No one does," Kaine replied. "Not without preparation."
She raised an eyebrow. "And we have that?"
"Enough."
It wasn't a reassuring answer.
The Frozen Silence
They reached a plaza — or what remained of one. The ash was shallow here, grey-white powder drifting over carved stones. Old Valyrian patterns peeked through in cracked fragments: dragons with wings outstretched, spirals of flame, script no one alive could read.
Sereyna crouched, brushing dust away with her fingertips.
"The ground's warm."
"Residual magic," Kaine said. "A memory, nothing more. It won't harm you."
She stood and surveyed the ruins.The city stretched out before them — miles of devastation, half-buried towers, melted stone, collapsed arches.
"No life," she whispered.
Kaine nodded. "Not yet."
Vaerynna circled above them.
"There are nests of stone bats in the caverns," she said. "And blind lizards. But nothing worth noting."
"So just us," Sereyna murmured."Three people in a dead city."
"Three is enough to begin," Kaine said.
The Broken Citadel
They walked toward the largest structure — an immense citadel perched atop a rise of black stone.
Its towers were scorched and broken, one split clean down the middle, leaving a jagged silhouette against the ash-grey sky. Entire sections had caved inward, creating caverns of shadow inside.
No magic glowed.No stone moved.No energy stirred.
It was not waking.It was abandoned.
They stepped inside.
The hall within was cavernous, yet ruined — cracked pillars, fallen beams, shattered tile mosaics scattered in fragments. The ceiling had collapsed in places, letting shafts of muted daylight filter through drifting ash.
Sereyna walked slowly forward, turning in a slow circle.
"This is… huge."
"It was meant to house their leaders," Kaine said. "Council chambers. Ritual rooms. A throne for the ruling bloodlines."
She looked toward the far end of the hall.
The dais there was broken.The throne was nothing more than a cracked stone frame, half buried under rubble.
So different from what she imagined when he said he had a city.
So… empty.
"…You said you had a city," she murmured. "I thought that meant walls. Buildings. People."
"This is a beginning," Kaine replied."Not the end."
Sereyna stared at the broken hall."This will take years."
"Yes."
She blinked."You're serious."
"I don't say things I don't mean."
She let out a soft, almost disbelieving laugh.
"So this is it.My life now.A dead city, an invisible dragon, and a man who eats magical disasters."
Vaerynna snorted.
"You forgot the part where you willingly followed him."
Sereyna groaned."Don't remind me."
Kaine glanced at her.
"If you regret it—"
"No," she interrupted quickly."It's just… surreal."
He nodded once.
"Surreal is acceptable."
A City Awaiting Its Future
They stood together in the hollowed hall, the wind outside rattling loose stones. No magic stirred. No ancient power awakened. Only the memory of what once was.
Valyr'Nox lay silent.Burned.Broken.Waiting.
Sereyna stepped forward, placing a hand on a cracked pillar.
"…What happens now?"
Kaine looked out across the ruins, expression unreadable.
"Now," he said, "we rebuild."
The ash stirred at his feet as the wind rose.
And the city remained quiet — a ruin with no pulse —but claimed, at last.