101AC.
A year had passed since the winds of change first howled through the jagged cliffs and shadowed pines of Skagos, and in that time, the island had not merely changed—it had awakened.
At the heart of this transformation stood Norhold. The city Hadrian had raised from nothing had become a thrumming nexus of northern commerce, its docks as busy as a White Harbor quay and its halls filled with the music of hammer, trade, and laughter. Ships now arrived weekly from across the North—sleek Sisterton sloops with salted fish and lacquered bows; thick-hulled White Harbor merchantmen bearing barrels of grain and wool; and Eastwatch cutters delivering obsidian, pelts, and black ice for bartering. These vessels returned laden with Skagos' rising wealth: whisky that burned like mountain wind, glass clear as moonlight, and jewelry carved from ancient stone and salt-crystal.
The heartbeat of Norhold's ascent was its trade guilds, institutions born under Hadrian's strict yet visionary hand. The Stonewrights' Guild cut and shaped the isle's native blackrock and granite, forming great mosaic tiles, hearthstones, and rune-etched keepsakes. The Brewers' Hall, led by red-bearded Ervik the Pale, produced casks of the now-renowned "Stormhorn" Whisky—smoky, strong, and aged in pine barrels charred over kelp fires. Skagosi whisky had found its way into lords' tables in Bear Island, Torrhen's Square, and even the Great Hall of Winterfell.
Meanwhile, the Jewelcutters' Guild, working in a circular hall of crystal glass and polished basalt, shaped stone-inlaid rings, runestone pendants, and obsidian talismans. Some items shimmered with subtle wards—charms whispered to protect against sickness, drowning, or ill fortune. More curious still were the delicate glass trinkets, molded in glimmering kilns, fused with silver dust and powdered quartz. Hadrian had personally taught the first master glazier, and the style bore his mark—elegant, minimal, and filled with symbolic precision.
And while Norhold had grown, so too had its silence—its peace. The old tales of Skagos, the ones passed with a shudder across northern hearths, were beginning to shift. Raiders no longer ruled the waves. The wildness had not been erased but reshaped—channeled into crafts, laws, and lore. Under Hadrian's quiet watch, crime waned. The people prospered, not just in coin but in dignity. There were public forums now—stone amphitheaters where disputes were settled not by blood, but by argument and ancient law. Children learned to read runes and histories in the libraries of Norhold, which Hadrian stocked with scrolls both new and forgotten.
At the edge of Norhold's dockyards, Hadrian's grand shipyards stood as symbols of both readiness and restraint. Built for war, yes—but used only for trade. Long-hulled ships with curved, icy prows were built and launched weekly now. Each bore enchanted figureheads, subtle runes, and reinforced hulls designed for both storm and steel, though none had yet been tested by war. And Hadrian preferred it that way. He had seen enough blood spilled on black shores.
Yet for all its rising strength, what was most remarkable about Skagos was the shift in how others saw it. The Dreadfort, once quick to mutter curses about wildmen, now quietly requested casks of Stormhorn. Barrowton, seat of the Dustins, wrote back to Norhold's jewelcutters for a custom series of hairpins and brooches for their lady's nameday. Even the Manderlys had sent an envoy, curious and skeptical, but impressed by the sophistication of Skagos' law and trade.
Hadrian never declared the old Skagos dead. Instead, he had woven the past into the present, building atop it not to bury, but to honor and shape. The weirwoods still stood, the cliffs still howled, and the stone still bore memory. But now, when the sea winds blew across Norhold, they carried not only the salt of old blood and war—but the scent of pine casks, glass smoke, and rising promise.
If Skagos was the beating heart of the isles, then Molksyr had become its iron sinew—strong, steady, and endlessly productive. Under the command of Lord Torrek Slytheryn, the once-forgotten island now thrummed with the rhythm of hammers and saws, its forests and hills harnessed with a mixture of reverence and precision and the best part they had found a part of the forest that is only ironwood trees.
The crown of the island was Greenspire, Torrek's newly raised hall, nestled atop a forested hill of iron-veined stone. From this seat, he governed not with splendor, but with relentless purpose. He saw the land not as something to be tamed, but partnered with—and the land, in turn, gave back in bounty.
Greenspire's lower slopes housed kilns and forges, their tall chimneys stacked with black smoke, their fires fed by pine and laced with Hadrian's ancient spark-runes. Charcoal-blacked steel, dense, dark, and almost blue in the light, became Molksyr's signature. It was ideal for ship fittings, axe-heads, and armor—practical, heavy, and unyielding.
Above the coast, at the sheltered bay named Darkharbor, Hadrian's ships had arrived: five warships, carved from black pine and reinforced with Skagosi rune-iron, and ten lean trading ships, their sails dyed green and black to honor Slytheryn's new colors. These vessels were not only symbols—they were lifelines. Trade routes blossomed across the Shivering Sea, and Molksyr's timber and steel flowed south and east.
Soon, merchants in White Harbor and Gulltown began asking after Skagosi tools, offering silver and silks for Molksyr axes and ironbound crates of smoked pinewood or ironwood. Stories of the Green Forge spread, and Torrek—once a simple chieftain—was now called "Lord of Iron and Flame" in dockside whispers.
But for all its industry, Molksyr remained Skagosi at its roots. The wild still prowled the hills, and deep within the forests, old standing stones were left untouched. Torrek did not deny the spirits; he simply built his forge beside them.
Farther north-west, surrounded by sea cliffs and haunted winds, Skane had awakened like a blue flame in the mist. Where once only the bones of villages remained, now Stonewake stood—a castle of ash-black stone and sapphire mosaics, risen from the sea-worn rock like a memory reforged. At its head sat Lord Ragnar Ravenclaw, tall, austere, and commanding, a man as sharp as the sapphires he mined.
From the vast quarry above the western cliffs, Skane's lifeblood was drawn—deep blue gems cut straight from the bones of the island. And beside them, the copper ridge burned with life, its smelters glowing like sunset behind the fog. But it was what the islanders made from those materials that brought attention: ceremonial blades with blue-veined handles, brooches etched with runes, and cold rings of sapphire and iron, prized now from Karhold to Winter Town.
To house and support this growing trade, the coastal village of Skathold grew like ivy along the cove. Its people were tough, inventive, and marked by the Skagosi pride of making something beautiful from something bleak. Dockhands, smiths, and miners mingled with scribes and stonemasons, their eyes all turned to the sea—and the sails they now flew.
The Ravenclaw banner, fluttered from ships bound for Eastwatch, the Vale, and even Dragonstone. Skane's fame was rising not from conquest, but from craft.
Yet Ragnar had not forgotten the perils of the past. The cliffs of Skane—long deemed impassable—were being worked into living battlements. With enchanted chisels and ancient tools provided by Hadrian, entire stretches of the coast were reshaped into arrow slits, winding stairways, and warded watch-nests. Towers of basalt stood like teeth above the sea, glowing faintly at dusk with embedded runes that pulsed like heartbeat.
Skane, once whispered of as cursed, was now called the Sapphire Bastion—a place of eerie beauty, slow magic, and the cold clarity of vision. And in the great hall of Stonewake, Ragnar sat like the storm made flesh, shaping his people not with fire, but with stone, patience, and resolve.