The Greyjoy Rebellion raged far from the North, yet the whispers of it carried on every raven's wing and every traveler's tongue. The ironborn had struck fast and cruel, torching Lannisport's fleet, sacking coasts from the Arbor to the Cape of Eagles. Lords marched south to aid the king, and the direwolves of the North howled at the call of war. But at Sea Dragon Point, a different rhythm beat against the cliffs — the rise of a city unlike any other in Westeros.
Alitha had grown from a hidden settlement into something more formidable. Aether alone shaped its bones, and though his hands seemed empty to the onlooker, stone yielded, wood aligned, and towers climbed the sky under his unseen command. The people of Alitha farmed, fished, and mined, their sweat feeding the life of the city, but it was Aether who laid walls in perfect symmetry, carved streets smooth as river rock, and raised spires that touched the gull-haunted air. At night, fires flickered within lanterns hung along even rows, casting an amber glow that made the city seem alive, breathing, like some great beast resting by the shore.
The first wall had been a simple curtain, enough to shield the fishing hovels from wildlings or raiders. Now a second wall rose beyond it, higher, stronger, studded with square towers and gatehouses fitted with iron portcullises. The stone was smoother than any mason's craft, seamless in places, polished as if by magic. Villagers touched it in awe, muttering of sorcery, or else whispering of the Old Gods' blessing. Children scampered on the parapets, chasing one another under the watchful eyes of guards outfitted in armor that gleamed strange hues, their steel etched with faint runes.
At the city's heart, a castle grew, not the sprawling keeps of the Vale nor the soaring halls of the south, but something hard, angular, northern — a fortress of square bastions and narrow windows, designed to endure. Yet here, too, Aether's touch made it uncanny. Its gates were reinforced with strange metal, its halls lit with soft glowing stones that needed no flame. Beneath it, deep mines burrowed into the earth, their shafts braced with timbers and rails of iron. Ore was drawn up not only by mule and man, but by contraptions the people did not understand — wheels that turned without horses, chains that lifted without men pulling. They spoke of it as witchcraft, yet they used its yield readily enough.
The harbor had changed most of all. Where once a handful of fishing boats bobbed, now long docks stretched out, strong enough to hold cogs and knarrs. Slipways birthed new ships, their keels shaped true and fast under Aether's eye. The people labored at them with hammer and saw, but it was his unseen power that joined beams flush, bent planks to curve, and sealed tar tight against the sea. Soon the first broad-bellied trading vessels were sliding into the waters, their sails white against the gray northern sky.
It was then that Aether revealed the banner. Atop the highest tower, where seabirds wheeled, unfurled a field of deep green — upon it, crossed a pickaxe and an axe, simple tools elevated to symbols. To some, it was no more than a craftsman's sigil; to others, it marked the beginning of something greater. Refugees who staggered into the city after long journeys — from Flint's lands, from drowned villages of the western coast, from ruined farms of the Riverlands — looked up at that banner and felt hope kindle. They called Aether lord though he never named himself such, and they spoke of Alitha not as a camp, but as home.
In the taverns that had sprung up along the harbor, sailors sang of the city's bounty. Fish smoked fresh, grain from inland fields ground fine, salted meats packed for voyages. The ironborn raided and reaved, yet Alitha's ships began to trade cautiously, hugging coasts to Barrowton, even sending bold captains as far as the Fingers and Gulltown. Northern merchants marveled at the quality of Alitha's tools — plows that cut deeper, saws that never dulled, nails that did not bend. Some whispered these were touched by sorcery, but coin silenced doubt, and wagons laden with timber and ore rolled from Alitha into the wider North.
Still, suspicion lingered. Shepherds from the hills muttered that no man should wield such power. A crofter from the Lonely Hills swore he saw the walls grow taller overnight, as if giants had set them stone by stone. A fisherman claimed he glimpsed Aether at work by moonlight, shaping a whole dock with no hand but his own. Whether true or not, the tales spread, and in Winterfell's hall, they reached Eddard Stark's ears. The lord listened, grim and thoughtful, as his bannermen whispered of a sorcerer building a kingdom within the North. Some urged he ride and put an end to it; others counseled patience, for Alitha's trade was already enriching the coasts.
The rebellion's smoke drifted southward, but in Alitha, the city of stone and sail, life thrived. Children played in streets laid straight as if measured by gods. Bells rang as ships came and went. And always, above the waves, the banner of green snapped in the wind, axes crossed — a symbol of labor, of survival, of something that was becoming impossible to ignore.
Yet even as the city thrived, Aether's thoughts turned inward, restless. The power within him stirred not only to raise walls and ships, but to dig deeper, to test limits. Beneath the fortress, where torchlight barely reached, he walked the silent tunnels alone, fingertips brushing rough stone. He remembered a world long gone, half-dream, half-memory — of another realm he had once glimpsed in play. A place of fire and brimstone, endless caverns of ash and flame. The Nether, they had called it.
He wondered, in quiet moments, if such a place could exist here. If he gathered obsidian, dark and glassy from the cooled veins near the mines, if he shaped it into the arch he recalled, if he lit it with fire — would a doorway open? Would it reveal a world beyond this one, a hidden plane of peril and promise?
The thought gnawed at him. For all the bounty Alitha gave, for all the safety and order it offered, there was a hunger in him for more — for knowledge, for answers, for proof that his gift did not end at walls and ships. He traced the shape of the imagined portal in the air, seeing in his mind the purple shimmer, the low hum.
But he held back. The city was not yet ready, and neither, perhaps, was he. Still, in the deepest shafts where miners whispered of strange echoes, the idea lingered — that one day, when the need came or the world pressed him to its edge, he would carve that gate and step through, into whatever lay beyond.