Chapter 37: The Westerosi Chessboard
The Theocracy had entered its age of grand peace. The borders were secure, defended by the silent, watchful presence of the Guardian Fleet in the skies above and the disciplined Legions of the Wyrm on the ground. The chaos of the Century of Blood was a storm that raged beyond their shores, a fire from which they were insulated by a wall of fear, respect, and overwhelming power. The long, patient work of building a civilization was now their primary focus. The Golden Covenant was not just law but life, its principles woven into the very fabric of their society, from the markets of Lysaro to the rebuilt forums of Old Ghis.
But an empire, Kaelen had learned from his god, is never truly at peace. It is merely between conflicts. And the next great conflict was not one of swords and shields, but of shadows and whispers, played on a gameboard a continent away.
The High Council of the Five Prophets was assembled in the War Room of the Lysaro capitol. The chamber was dominated by a new masterpiece from Hesh's workshops: a magnificent map of Westeros, carved from weirwood and stone, its mountains and rivers rendered in breathtaking detail. For months, this map had been their singular obsession. Their great and secret gambit, Operation Dragon's Shadow, was underway, and they now gathered to analyze the first, critical results.
Lyra, her face as serene and calculating as ever, stood before the map. The decades had not touched her features, but her eyes held the vast, weary knowledge of a spymaster who had managed the secrets of an empire for a lifetime.
"The first reports have arrived from our agents in the west," she began, her voice crisp. "As predicted, Aegon Targaryen has made his landing. He has established a crude, wooden fortress on a high hill at the mouth of the Blackwater Rush. The local houses, Rosby and Stokeworth, have already bent the knee without a fight."
Jorah snorted, his arms crossed over his massive chest. He was an eternal, unchanging monument of military might, his beard now long and braided with gold rings. "Fools. To cede ground without testing the enemy's strength? These Westerosi lords have no spine."
"They have no dragons, Jorah," Elara corrected gently. She sat at the table, her hands folded. Her immortal youth was a stark contrast to the deep, maternal wisdom in her eyes. "They faced a power they could not comprehend. Fear is a conqueror's greatest ally."
"This was expected," Lyra continued, placing a small, carved dragon of black obsidian on the newly marked 'Aegonfort'. "His initial landing is a success. But the true kings have yet to respond. The real war is only now beginning."
As if on cue, a junior scribe from the Academy entered, his face pale, and handed Lyra a sealed scroll. She broke the seal, her eyes scanning the contents. A flicker of something—not surprise, but grim confirmation—passed across her face.
"Harrenhal has fallen," she announced. The council was silent. Harrenhal was a legend, the greatest and most impregnable fortress in Westeros.
"Fallen?" Jorah demanded. "No army could take Harrenhal in a year, let alone a few weeks."
"Aegon did not use an army," Lyra said, reading from the report. "He used Balerion. Harren the Black and his sons sealed themselves inside their great castle, believing its stone could not be broken. Aegon flew the Black Dread high above it and unleashed his fire. The reports say the five great towers melted like candles. Harren and his entire line were roasted alive within their own 'impregnable' fortress."
Hesh, the stoic Prophet of the Hand, shook his great head slowly. "A bad craftsman blames his tools, and a bad king blames his walls. The man did not understand the nature of the weapon being used against him. He sat in a stone oven and was cooked for his pride."
"This is a disaster," Jorah growled. "An act of terror on this scale will break the will of the other kings. They will see that their castles are worthless against dragonfire. They will bend the knee before their armies even march."
"Perhaps," Kaelen said, speaking for the first time. His voice was calm, a deep and steadying presence in the room. He stood over the map, his gaze distant, as if seeing the patterns his god saw. "Fear can make a man kneel. But it can also make him desperate. And a desperate man can be a very dangerous and unpredictable opponent. This act changes the calculus, but not the game. What of our own moves, Lyra? Have our… investments… begun to yield a return?"
Lyra nodded, turning her attention to another set of reports. "Our agents in Lannisport confirm the Lannisters have received our aid. The first shipment of Saris-forged steel is being crafted into armor for King Loren's personal guard. The blueprints for the new-model scorpions have been delivered. And our… line of credit… has been used to hire two companies of Myrish sellswords."
"And are they training with the scorpions?" Jorah pressed, his voice sharp with a general's impatience. "Are they drilling their men to face a dragon in the field?"
Lyra's expression tightened almost imperceptibly. "No. The reports indicate King Loren and his generals believe the Targaryen threat is overstated. They see Aegon as a foreign upstart with a few large beasts. They believe their vast army and superior numbers will win the day. They are using our gold to swell their ranks, but they are drilling in the same tired formations they have used for a thousand years. The new siege weapons are, according to our agent, 'collecting dust in a warehouse'."
Jorah slammed a fist on the table, the sound making the wooden map pieces tremble. "Fools! Arrogant fools! We give them the key to surviving dragonfire, and they are too proud to use it! They think a wall of peasant spears will stop Balerion? They will be annihilated! Our investment will be turned to ash along with their army!"
"The Principle of Worth," Hesh rumbled. "A good tool given to a man who does not value it is a wasted tool. The Lannisters have the gold, but not the wisdom to spend it correctly."
"What of Dorne?" Elara asked, her expression hopeful. "Are they wiser?"
"The Dornish are… different," Lyra said, a hint of admiration in her tone. "They have accepted our 'Quiet Sisters'. The medical aid has been invaluable in their border skirmishes. They lose fewer men to infected wounds and are able to return soldiers to the fight faster. But more than that, they listen. Our agent, Sister Cyrene, reports that the Martells have embraced the tactical advice. They are not planning to meet Aegon in the open field. They are preparing a guerrilla war. They are building a network of hidden scorpion nests in the mountain passes. They are poisoning wells along any potential invasion route. They are not planning to defeat the dragons; they are planning to make the price of conquering Dorne so high that Aegon will not be willing to pay it."
"A sounder strategy," Jorah admitted grudgingly. "To fight like a snake in the sand, not a lion on the plain. But our agents are also being watched. The Martells are grateful for the aid, but they are deeply suspicious of its source. They know the Quiet Sisters are more than they appear."
The strategic picture was now clear: their aid to the arrogant Lannisters was being squandered, while their aid to the cunning Dornish was effective but was also raising suspicion.
It was Elara who brought the moral crisis of their grand strategy to the forefront. She looked at Kaelen, her eyes filled with a century of accumulated sorrow.
"Kaelen, what is it we are truly doing here?" she asked, her voice quiet but powerful enough to silence the room. "I read the reports from Sister Cyrene. I see the lives our healers are saving, and my heart is glad. But I also read the reports from Lyra's agents. We are fueling a war. Every coin we lend to the Lannisters, every spear we sell to the Myrish companies they hire, will be used to kill. We speak of the Covenant, of community and healing, yet we are acting as merchants of death, prolonging a conflict that will burn thousands of homes and create thousands of widows and orphans, all in a land that is not our own."
"It is a regrettable necessity, Elara," Lyra replied, her voice losing its clinical edge and taking on a harder tone. "The Covenant also speaks of protecting our own community. A unified Westeros, ruled by a new dragon dynasty that does not share our values, would be the greatest threat to the Theocracy's existence in the long run. A protracted war there keeps them weak, keeps them focused inward. It is a shield for our children, paid for by the blood of theirs. The calculation is cold, but it is not incorrect."
"And what of the souls of the men we are using as our shield?" Elara pressed. "Are the lives of Westerosi peasants worth less than the lives of our own citizens? Is that not the same calculus the Great Masters of Meereen used? The god we serve is a god of liberation, not of cynical manipulation."
"Our god is also a god of survival!" Jorah boomed. "He did not raise us from the dust to see our work undone by a new line of Valyrian tyrants from the west!"
The room was divided, the five immortal rulers caught in the fundamental conflict of their own doctrine: the compassionate heart versus the pragmatic mind, the duty to protect versus the temptation of power politics.
Kaelen let the debate rage, listening to each of them, weighing the truth in each of their positions. He felt the pull of Elara's compassion, the cold logic of Lyra's strategy, the fierce protectiveness of Jorah. He closed his eyes, not to receive a new vision, but to find the core of the one he had already been given. The goal is not victory for one side. The goal is to prevent a swift victory for the other. The purpose was balance. A bloody, costly balance.
He raised a hand, and the chamber fell silent.
"Elara, your heart speaks the deepest truth of our Covenant," he began, his voice calm and measured. "We are not merchants of death. And we must never become them. Our ultimate goal is to spread the light of a better way of life, not the fire of war."
He turned to Lyra and Jorah. "But your minds speak the truth of the world we live in. We are surrounded by powers that would destroy us if given the chance. To ignore a rising rival is to invite our own doom. Our Principles of Strength and Wisdom demand that we protect our people."
"We cannot abandon our strategy," he continued. "But we can refine it. Our purpose is not to ensure the Lannisters win, nor to make the war as bloody as possible. Our purpose is to prevent Aegon from winning easily. A long, difficult war will force him to negotiate with the lords of Westeros, to compromise, to create a kingdom built on pacts and concessions, not just on fire and fear. A kingdom thus forged will be a far less monolithic and aggressive rival."
He walked to the map. "We will not cut off the Lannisters. Their arrogance is a flaw, but their gold is still a necessary weight on the scale. Lyra, you will dispatch a new message to our agent in Lannisport. He is to leak a new set of documents to the Lannister generals—'captured' Targaryen battle plans that detail the specific weaknesses of dragons in siege warfare and the tactics to counter them. We will give them the knowledge they are too proud to ask for, and hope their desperation forces them to use it."
He then looked to Elara. "Your work in Dorne is the perfect expression of our will. You are saving lives, which is true to the Covenant. But by saving their soldiers, you are making the Dornish resistance stronger and more sustainable. You are bleeding Aegon's conquest with acts of mercy. You will double the resources sent to the Quiet Sisters. We will make Dorne an unbreakable bastion of resistance, a wound in Aegon's side that will never fully heal."
His orders were clear. They were not choosing a side. They were balancing the scales of a distant war, using knowledge and healing as their primary weapons, a strategy uniquely their own.
The council members nodded, their conflict resolved, their purpose unified once more. They were in a dark and morally ambiguous game, but they would play it by their own rules, guided by their own complex Covenant.
Kaelen remained alone in the war room after the others had left. He stared at the great map, at the pieces he was moving in a game of nations. He felt the immense, soul-crushing weight of his decisions. He had freed himself from a master's chains only to place the chains of an empire upon his own shoulders, each link forged of a choice that would cost thousands of lives. The god had given him the power to shape the world, but the burden of that power, he now realized, was a form of servitude all its own. The silence of the room was broken only by the whisper of his own conscience, a sound far more challenging than any divine command.