(Part 1)
The winds of Valyr'Nox carried the scent of cooled ash and young stone, the strange halfway-warm fragrance of a city still reborn, still settling into the shape its master willed it to become. Dawn broke over the black cliffs in thin ribbons of crimson, slicing through drifting fog until the first light spilled across obsidian spires and mist-veiled terraces.
Two years had passed since the city's foundation began. Two years of shaping, warding, forging, commanding. Two years of the world pretending not to sense that something ancient had risen again.
Kaine walked along the highest battlement of the citadel, hands folded behind his back. The night chill still clung to his cloak, brushing against him like some quiet, loyal thing. Below him stretched the city — not as ruin now, but as purpose. Towers rebuilt. Streets carved. Wards humming softly beneath the stone like veins carrying fire.
And yet, even with all this, the land remained lonely in its size.
"Valyr'Nox feels… bigger," Sereyna said behind him.
He didn't turn, but he heard her boots approach — a quiet, measured sound. She had grown into her training with an ease he had expected, but the world had shaped her, too. Her steps were lighter than they had been years prior, balanced with the poise of someone who understood her own power now.
Her silhouette stood beside him. Wind pressed her crimson cloak against her legs, revealing the sleek dagger at her thigh and the faint marks of a morning training session. She was sharper than she'd ever been — but there was warmth in her eyes when she looked at him now, something she didn't bother hiding anymore.
She glanced out over the vast expanse of the city with a faint, wry smile.
"It used to feel empty. Now it just feels… waiting."
"Cities wait when they're listening," Kaine replied.
Sereyna huffed. "And what exactly is Valyr'Nox listening for?"
"You," he said.
She blinked — caught off guard — then immediately looked away, cheeks warming despite the cool breeze. Her lips twitched into something halfway between a smile and an attempt to hide one.
"Don't… say things like that so casually."
"It was not casual."
"Kaine—"
A tremor of air cut her off. Heat brushed the stone.
Vaerynna landed on the parapet above them, wings folding with a practiced elegance she'd lacked years ago. Her body had lengthened into adolescent grace — long, sleek limbs, a darker sheen to her scales, horns curved like blades. But her eyes still carried that flicker of youthful mischief.
—You two get sentimental too early in the morning.—
Sereyna shot upward a look. "I'm literally standing here."
—And trying very hard not to blush.—
"I was not—"
—You were.—
Kaine allowed the faintest curve of his lips."Good morning, Vaerynna."
—Annoyingly calm as always.—
She hopped down beside them, stretching her wings lazily before sitting like an oversized cat made of obsidian and arrogance. Her tail curled around her talons.
—So. What impossible task do you have for us today? More scouting? More endurance drills? More lessons about 'discipline' and 'subtlety'?—
"You're learning," Kaine said.
—I hate learning.—
"You enjoy complaining about it."
Vaerynna's chest puffed indignantly.
—That is an entirely separate hobby.—
Sereyna snorted. "She's right."
"I know," Kaine said calmly.
Vaerynna rolled her eyes. —Ugh.—
But despite her theatrics, she leaned slightly into Kaine's presence — just enough that her shoulder brushed his arm with quiet familiarity.
He did not move away.
Sereyna pretended not to notice the flicker of something warm in her chest.
Vaerynna cleared her throat with exaggerated gravitas.
—So. City looks nice. Big. Intimidating. Definitely haunted. When are we going to do something interesting again?—
Sereyna raised a brow. "Training not interesting enough now?"
—Training is torture.—
"You say that like it's new."
—Because it never stops.—
Kaine looked to the horizon. "It is meant to shape you."
—It is meant to kill me.—
"If I wanted that, you would know."
Vaerynna froze. Then she made a strangled gurgle.
"Do not encourage him," Sereyna muttered.
—I WAS NOT.—
But the words didn't carry fear — only dramatic outrage.
Kaine studied the distant coastline, expression turning thoughtful.
"There will be time for… interesting things."
Sereyna shifted, sensing the tone change. "Something wrong?"
"No," Kaine answered. "Something approaching."
Vaerynna tensed, eyes narrowing. —Visitors?
"Pirates," Kaine said. "Twenty ships."
Sereyna's hand went instinctively to her daggers. "Are we under attack?"
"Not in the way they think," Kaine answered.
Sereyna exchanged a look with Vaerynna — the kind that said something is about to happen, and we're going to regret asking questions.
Then Sereyna crossed her arms.
"Well," she said. "You're going to explain it. Slowly. And with details."
Vaerynna nodded fiercely. —Yes. Slowly. Preferably with diagrams.—
Kaine turned to both of them.
"Political tension has been rising across Essos. Volantis and Pentos, in particular, have grown… curious."
"Curious?" Sereyna repeated. "That sounds ominous."
"They seek to test the borders of Valyr'Nox," Kaine clarified. "To see what I will do if provoked."
Vaerynna narrowed her eyes.
—So they sent pirates.—
"Yes."
"Idiots," Sereyna muttered.
Kaine continued, voice even.
"These are not simple raiders. They were hired to probe the waters, to attempt landing points along the coast, and to gather information."
"Spies," Sereyna corrected.
"Some," Kaine agreed.
Vaerynna flicked her tail, expression sharpening into something older — something dragon-deep and protective.
—They come to threaten what is ours.—
That warmth flickered again — stronger now.Sereyna noticed it in herself too, the instinctive bristle of someone guarding a home she didn't realize she'd begun to claim.
Kaine turned to his companions.
"You will not engage."
Both Sereyna and Vaerynna snapped their gazes to him.
"What?!" Sereyna protested.
—Why not?!— Vaerynna added, wings flaring.
"Because," Kaine said simply, "this is a test of the city, not of you."
Vaerynna sputtered. —You are testing the city?! What does that even mean?!—
"The cannons," Sereyna realized, eyes widening. "You're going to use them."
"Yes."
"But… Kaine, those weapons—"
"The pirates will not survive," he said calmly. "But one will."
Vaerynna blinked. —Oh. A message.—
"Yes."
Sereyna exhaled softly. "Of course."
Vaerynna growled low in her throat.
—If one so much as scratches this city…—
"They won't," Kaine said. "The wards will prevent it."
Sereyna stared at Kaine for a long moment, expression shifting.
"…You've planned for this."
He didn't answer, which was answer enough.
She took a slow breath.
"Is this retaliation?"
"No," Kaine said. "This is restraint."
Vaerynna let out a soft, simmering rumble.
—I don't like restraint.—
"You will," Kaine said. "Eventually."
—Lies.—
Sereyna nudged her leg lightly against Kaine's.
"Whatever happens… we're with you."
Vaerynna huffed.
—Obviously.—
Kaine said nothing, but the faint shift in his posture — the smallest softening — spoke louder than words.
He looked toward the faint line of the sea.
"The ships will reach our waters soon."
Sereyna adjusted her gloves, the faintest smile tugging at her lips.
"Then we should prepare."
Vaerynna stretched her wings, eyes alight with fierce delight.
—Finally, something interesting.—
Kaine stepped back from the battlement.
"Stay close. Both of you."
They followed without hesitation.
And far beneath them, the wards of Valyr'Nox stirred — ancient lines carved in forgotten stone glowing faintly, like a heartbeat awakening in the Deep.
Darkness shifted.
Magic flexed.
And the city prepared to defend itself.
—
(Part 2)
No man on the Summer Sea saw the fleet depart. But all who lived to tell of it would later claim they had felt something shift in the air that morning, as if the horizon itself had flinched.
Twenty ships cut across the water, sails proud and black, hulls swollen with greed and promise. Pirates, smugglers, sellsail captains, broken men, and killers all drawn together by one shared rumor:
A city reborn in the Smoking Sea.A fortress rising where even gods once burned.A man who claimed Valyria.
But rumor had a way of sweetening poison into honey. And pirates had a way of believing they were wolves when most were only dogs.
At the prow of the lead vessel, the elected captain — a hard-eyed Lyseni brute named Vhoros the Nine-Fingered — leaned against the rail, peering toward the dense gray fog ahead.
"Two years," he muttered, "and not a whisper from those ruins. If the city exists, it'll be unguarded."
The spy beside him said nothing.
He was not dressed like a pirate. He kept to the shadows. Thin, sharp-featured, with a face made for vanishing into crowds. His employers had paid well for him to join the fleet — and even better for him to return.
Vhoros spat overboard. "Tell your masters we'll drag treasure out by the wagon-load. Dragonsteel, spells, relics… whatever that madman's hoardin'."
The spy's voice was soft. "You speak confidently for a man who has never returned from Valyria."
Vhoros grinned, showing gold teeth."Confidence is all a pirate needs."
The spy thought: No. What you need is humility.
But he said nothing.
━━━━━━━
The Free Cities — One Week Earlier
In the shadowed backrooms of taverns, behind shuttered windows of merchant halls, and within palatial estates filled with silk and smoke, the Free Cities whispered.
Volantis, Braavos, Pentos, Lys, and Qarth.
All had sent spies.All had read the early reports.All had ignored Kinvara's sealed warning.
A man in Volantis drank wine and laughed.
"A city in the Smoking Sea? Built in weeks? Let the fool keep it. If he dies in the ashes we gain nothing; if he lives, we take what he builds."
A Braavosi envoy calmly folded his gloved hands.
"Test him," he said. "Send blades, send ships. Let him reveal his strength."
A Pentoshi prince leaned back in his cushioned chair.
"And if he shows power?"
"Then," said the envoy, "we decide if he must be killed."
Quiet settled.Thin, sharp, calculating.
Then a final voice spoke — a magister from Qarth, jeweled fingers tapping his lips.
"Or," he murmured, "we decide if we should kneel."
They did not know that Kaine heard these councils long before anyone spoke them aloud. Not with ears.
But with the air itself.
━━━━━━━
The Fleet Enters the Mist
The Smoking Sea rose before the pirates like a wound in the world.
Ash drifted over the waters like falling snow. The fog thickened until the ships might as well have sailed through the belly of a cloud. The air tasted of metal and old storms.
One sailor clutched a talisman. Another whispered a prayer. A third claimed he saw shapes beneath the waves.
The spy alone kept calm.
Vhoros strutted across the deck.
"See? Nothing but smoke. No city. No curse. No—"
The horizon lit up.
Not with fire.Not with lightning.
But with power.
The mist parted as if pushed by an invisible hand, revealing glimpses of black stone walls and rising towers — a silhouette born from nightmare and wonder alike.
"Gods…" a sailor breathed. "It's real."
Vhoros grinned, triumphant."Aye. And ripe for plunder."
The spy's heart sank.
He had not expected beauty. He had not expected silence. He had not expected the city to stand like a sentinel carved from shadow and dream.
But most of all…
…he had not expected to watch them.
━━━━━━━
The First Strike
The pirates reached for grappling hooks.
The spy reached for nothing. His instincts screamed.
"GET DOWN!"
The sea itself split.
A sound tore through the fog — a thunderclap of arcane energy — and from the cliffs of Valyr'Nox, a single lance of blue-white light ripped across the sky.
No flame.No smoke.No roar.
Just pure, annihilating force.
It struck the lead ship dead-center.
The vessel did not burn. It simply ceased to exist.
Pirates screamed as the wave of displaced air overturned two ships outright.
Vhoros lurched to the deck, eyes wide. "What—what weapon—?!"
Another pulse. A second beacon of death fell from the cliffs.
Then a third.
A fourth.
A fifth.
War cannons.Arcane constructs. Magic bent and reforged by knowledge that did not belong to this world.
Fifteen ships evaporated in minutes.
The spy stared, trembling. This isn't a man. This is something else.
Vhoros shouted orders. Men leapt to oars. Others prayed. Some simply froze.
Then the sea rumbled.
━━━━━━━
The Warship
It rose from the mists like a beast breaching the surface.
Black hull. Runes glowing like coals beneath the waves. A prow shaped like a screaming serpent. Cannons rotating in silence.
The last five pirate ships drifted helplessly.
The warship fired once.
The wave alone capsized two vessels.
A second shot shattered a mast like cracked bone.
The third tore through Vhoros's ship.
His men abandoned him. Vhoros tried to run. The spy didn't.
He jumped overboard the moment the flames reached the deck.
When he surfaced, something cold and enormous passed beneath him — a shadow in the water, too large to be a creature, too silent to be a vessel.
A hand seized him by the collar.
The last thing he saw before he fainted was a doorway opening into the belly of the warship…
…and a pair of void-dark eyes watching him with absolute calm.
━━━━━━━
(Part 3)
Part III — The Cabin of Truth
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
He woke to silence.
Not the silence of calm seas or velvet nights — but the heavy, deliberate stillness of a room that chose not to make sound.
The spy's vision cleared.
Dim lantern-light cast soft gold over polished obsidian walls. A long table sat in the center, papers neatly stacked, quills arranged like soldiers in formation. The air smelled faintly of ink, metal, and something older.
He realized, with a jolt of terror, that the chair he sat in was carved from a single piece of dark stone. It was warm. Alive, almost.
Then he noticed the man seated at the opposite end of the table.
Kaine.
Calm.Perfectly composed. Hands folded loosely.
Not a threat in posture.Not a blade drawn.
And yet… the spy could not look at him directly. Not for more than a second.
Those eyes were wrong. Too deep.Too still. As if they did not reflect light but swallowed it.
"You're awake," Kaine said softly.
His voice was gentle. Almost warm. The spy felt his skin crawl.
"D… did your men bring me aboard?"
Kaine blinked, slow and unreadable.
"I have no men."
"…the… the wraiths, then—"
"They are not wraiths. They are not men. They are not alive in the way you understand life."
A smile touched Kaine's lips — not unkind, but terrifying in its serenity.
"Do not think about them too much. You won't like where the thoughts lead."
The spy swallowed hard.
Silence stretched again, taut as pulled thread.
Kaine rested his elbows on the table, chin against his steepled fingers.
"Tell me," he said softly, "who paid for twenty pirate ships to sail into my waters."
The spy's blood ran cold.
He had expected torture.Screams.Threats.Pain.
Instead, Kaine spoke as if discussing the weather.
"I…I don't know—"
"That," Kaine murmured, "is a lie."
The lantern-fire dimmed.
No wind. No draft. Yet every flame bent toward Kaine as if pulled by invisible gravity.
"You were hired by Pentos," Kaine continued, voice soft as velvet. "Funded by Qarth. Supervised by Braavosi intermediaries. And blessed — quite reluctantly — by Volantis."
The spy's breath seized.
Every detail was correct.
"How…?" he whispered.
Kaine tilted his head.
"I have lived long enough to know the scent of political fear."
The spy trembled.
"You must understand," he gasped, "they—they thought your city was… rumor. They thought you were bluffing. They only wanted to— to test—"
Kaine's gaze sharpened.
"Test my patience?"His tone was mild. Almost amused.
"Test whether I would tolerate trespass? Theft? Violence?"
The spy tried to shrink his body into the chair.
"They… they didn't imagine you could— that you would…"
"Destroy twenty ships?" Kaine finished.
"…yes."
Kaine leaned back in his seat.
"It was necessary."
Another pause.
Then, softly:
"Do you know why I waited?"
The spy shook his head.
Kaine looked up at the ceiling, speaking like a man remembering some private joke.
"Because I spent two years training two very stubborn girls who—"He exhaled through his nose, as if the memory amused him."—would have burned the city down by accident if I didn't supervise them."
The spy blinked. He wasn't sure he had heard correctly.
Kaine smiled faintly.
"One is young — loud, reckless, and impossible to control. The other is… difficult in entirely different ways. Both are dear to me."
Something tightened in his tone — something dark, old, protective. The spy felt the air grow colder.
"And now," Kaine continued, voice returning to dangerous calm, "I have rested. My city rises. My people grow. My patience has limits."
He stood.
It was not dramatic. Nor threatening. But when Kaine rose, the room seemed to tilt around him, as if reality itself made space for him.
He walked behind the spy's chair.
A hand — cool and impossibly steady — rested on the spy's shoulder.
Not painful.
Just contact.
Yet the spy felt every soul he had ever wronged crawl to the surface of his mind.
Kaine leaned close, his breath calm against the spy's ear.
"When you return to your masters," he whispered, "tell them this."
The lanterns flickered. Shadows lengthened unnaturally. The spy felt as though something vast and ancient had opened its eyes behind him.
"Thank you," Kaine murmured, each word precise, almost affectionate, "for giving me a reason to respond."
The spy shuddered violently.
"And tell them," Kaine added, voice now soft enough to be mistaken for kindness, "compensation will be required."
His hand tightened slightly — not enough to hurt, but enough to silence breath.
"If they refuse," Kaine finished, "well… imagination is a powerful curse. Let them use it."
He released the spy.
"Go."
The door opened without being touched.
The spy bolted, stumbling into the corridor where silent shadow-servants guided him toward a small boat.
He didn't look back. He didn't dare.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
(Part 4)
The Purple Pearl was alive tonight.
Laughter tangled with harp music. Lanterns glittered in amethyst and gold. Merchants, courtesans, sea captains, and diplomats filled the marble floors with the noise of living people trying to forget the coldness of the world outside.
At the center of it all stood Ellyn Reyne, the Crimson Lady.
Her hair — copper and wine-red — glimmered in the lamplight. Her smile was sharp, charming, and crafted with precision. She laughed with patrons, negotiated with partners, exchanged subtle glances with spies who thought she didn't notice.
Behind the beauty lived old grief. Old scars. A song drowned in stone.
Castamere. The mines flooding. Her family's screams. Tywin Lannister's cold eyes.
She buried those memories deep.
They clawed upward when she least expected it.
Tonight was almost peaceful.
Until a red-robed acolyte stepped through her door.
The room chilled a degree.
He bowed.
"Lady Raen," he said, using her public alias, "I come bearing a message."
Ellyn raised a brow. "From who?"
"From the Revered One."
Her smile froze.
She hadn't heard that title in years. Kinvara had used it once, long ago, during a meeting Ellyn hadn't asked for.
"Give it here," she said, steady.
The acolyte handed her the envelope.
Black wax. Silver seal. A symbol she didn't recognize — or perhaps refused to.
Her fingers shook as she broke it.
She read the first line.
Her blood turned to ice.
Her legs nearly failed her.
Inside, written in clean, elegant script:
"Ellyn Reyne. Survivor of Castamere. I will see you soon."
She stared. The room blurred. Her heart pounded painfully, as if remembering something it had tried to forget for two decades.
"W…where did you get this?" she whispered.
The acolyte bowed again.
"I only deliver," he said softly. "The message came from the Revered One himself."
Ellyn swallowed.
She had built a life from ashes. She had clawed her way to power in Braavos. She had buried her past so deeply even she doubted parts of it were real.
Yet this letter pulled it all back into the light.
And one truth echoed louder than fear:
Someone knew her true name. Someone who should not know it. Someone coming to see her.
She closed her eyes.
"…Seven save me."
But even she knew —the Seven had never saved a Reyne.