Chapter 8: The Weirwood's Whisper
The correspondence with Lady Jeyne Arryn became the anchor of my political life. Letters, once a trickle, became a steady stream flowing between Dragonstone and the Eyrie. We wrote of burdens, of frustrating lords, of the quiet loneliness that came with our birthrights. I shared carefully curated pieces of my mind—the intellectual frustration, not the simmering rage of the dragon-bond. She wrote of the biting cold of the mountains and the warm loyalty of her household knight, Ser Corwyn Corbray. A trust, fragile and precious, was being built word by word.
It was through Jeyne that the path to the North truly opened. In one letter, she mentioned the growing concern of her bannermen, the Royces of Runestone, regarding the increasing number of wildling raids along the northern shores of the Vale. The mountain clans, emboldened by something, were becoming bolder.
"The North bears the brunt of this," she wrote. "Lord Rickon Stark has sent word to the Eyrie, asking for aid, but my lords are reluctant to send Vale knights to freeze in a Northern winter for a problem they see as Stark's."
A problem. An opportunity.
I immediately sent a proposal, not to Winterfell, but back to Jeyne. It was a test of our fledgling alliance. "The North remembers, but it should not remember us as idle southerners. Let me solve this problem for Lord Stark. I will clear the shores of these raiders. Not with armies that will eat his harvest, but with a weapon that requires no fodder but its own fury. All I ask in return is an introduction. A chance to speak with Lord Stark not as a prince of the Crown, but as Aemon of Dragonstone."
Jeyne, to her credit, saw the value. Her reply was swift. "Do this, and you will have your introduction. I will make sure of it. Be the dragon, Prince Aemon."
---
The raid was not a battle; it was an execution.
We found the wildling longships beached in a rocky cove, their owners pillaging a small fishing village. From the sky, on Shadowwing's back, the scene was a pathetic scramble of ants. The Cannibal's mind surged with a predatory glee that was becoming frighteningly familiar.
I did not unleash him fully. That would have been a slaughter, not a message. Instead, we came in low and fast. A single, precise blast of black fire incinerated two of the longships, turning them into ash and splinters in the blink of an eye. The second pass was a display. Shadowwing's shadow fell over the raiders, and his roar—a sound that promised extinction—shattered their courage completely. They broke, scrambling for their one remaining ship, fleeing into the icy waves.
We landed on the beach. The few fishermen who hadn't hidden were on their knees, not in thanks, but in abject terror. I slid from Shadowwing's back, the crunch of my boots on the ash-covered stones loud in the sudden silence.
"Tell Lord Stark the dragons remember their allies," I called out to them, my voice amplified by the cove. "The next time raiders come, look to the sky."
The message would travel faster than any raven.
---
The introduction came not by raven, but by a ship from White Harbor. It carried two passengers: a maester from the Eyrie, vouching for me, and a grim, weathered man in the furs of House Stark. He was not Lord Rickon, but his castellan, a man named Medrick Manderly.
He was brought before me in the Stone Drum. He did not kneel. His eyes took in my youth, then flickered to the window, where the massive, black shape of Shadowwing was visible coiled around a tower.
"The tales are true, then," he said, his voice a low rumble. "You and your... beast... drove off the raiders."
"The coast is clear," I replied simply. "For now."
"What does the Crown want from the North?" he asked, his tone wary. "The King has never shown us such... attention."
"I do not come from the King," I said, leaning forward. "I come from myself. And I do not want anything from the North. I want to give it something."
I unrolled the schematics for the Swift-Class trader. "The North has resources. Timber, furs, wool. But you lack the ships to move it efficiently to markets in the south and across the Narrow Sea. I will build these ships for you. In the shipyards of White Harbor. I will send my best shipwrights to work with your Arbormasters. Together, they will create a fleet that will make White Harbor rival Lannisport and Oldtown."
Medrick's eyes narrowed, calculating. "And the price for this generosity?"
"The price is partnership. A percentage of the profits from the trade these ships enable will come back to Dragonstone. And when the time comes, the North will remember the friend who gave them the keys to the sea."
It was a bold offer. It bypassed the Iron Throne entirely. It was not a decree from a king, but a business proposal from a prince.
Medrick Manderly was a practical man. He saw the value. He also saw the unspoken threat—the black dragon on the tower was the guarantee of my power to make good on my promise, or my threat.
"I will take your proposal to Lord Stark," he said finally. "But know this, Prince Aemon. The North does not swear fealty lightly. We are not won with ships alone."
"Good," I said. "I prefer loyalty that is earned, not bought."
---
The meeting was a success, but it cost me. The flight to the North and the exertion of control over Shadowwing had left me drained. The dragon's rage was a constant pressure in my skull, a headache that never truly faded. The Captain America-esque body healed fast, but it could not heal the mind.
That night, the dream was different. It was not of fire and blood, but of ice and silence. A great, white tree with a bleeding face stared at me from a frozen grove. A three-eyed raven watched from its branches. And a voice, ancient and rasping, whispered a single word on the wind:
"Remember."
I woke with a start, the word echoing in my mind. It was not Shadowwing's voice. It was something older. Deeper.
The game was expanding. I was playing for thrones and trade routes, but something else was stirring in the North. Something that saw the dragon and the boy who rode it. And it was watching.