Chapter 10: The Gilded Web
The agreement with the North was not signed with grand ceremony, but with the pragmatic scratch of a quill in Lord Medrick Manderly's solar in White Harbor. The "Pact of Ice and Dragon" was a simple, brutal document of commerce. My shipwrights and a significant portion of our coin would go to White Harbor. In return, House Manderly, with the silent approval of Winterfell, would oversee the construction of the new fleet. Profits would be split. The North would have its ships. I would have my foothold.
The first Arbormasters arrived on Dragonstone, grim, talented men with sawdust in their beards and a deep suspicion of southerners. They were partnered with my own engineers, men who understood my strange designs. The language barrier was thick at first, but a shared reverence for craft and the mesmerizing sight of my schematics—the "Leviathan" warship in particular—bridged the gap. The first keel of a Swift-class trader was laid in White Harbor's yard. The empire was expanding.
But a web needs a center. And our center was the "Dragon's Bank."
It started subtly. Yohanna, with her impeccable reputation and growing network, began offering loans. Not to lords—they had the Iron Bank of Braavos—but to the guilds: the Baker's Guild, the Weaver's Guild, the Smith's Guild of King's Landing. Their terms were always better. Their collection methods, overseen by a few of my more diplomatically-minded Dragon's Teeth, were firm but fair. A defaulted loan didn't mean a broken knee; it often meant restructuring, or a payment in kind through goods or services. We were building goodwill, not just debt.
Then came the masterstroke. A harsh winter followed by a spring flooding ruined the harvests for many minor lords in the Crownlands and the Riverlands. Their taxes to the Iron Throne were still due. Desperate, they looked to the capital for relief, but the Crown's coffers, stretched thin by the king's projects and the Hightowers' influence, offered little.
Yohanna's agents were there. The Dragon's Bank offered loans to cover their taxes, with generous repayment schedules tied to their future harvests. The terms were, again, better than Braavos. And the collateral demanded was not land or castles, but a simple oath of goodwill towards Dragonstone.
One by one, they signed. They had no other choice. They weren't swearing fealty; they were securing a lifeline. But a debt owed is a leash all the same. I now had a network of lords, however minor, who were beholden not to the Iron Throne, but to the financial ingenuity of Dragonstone. Otto Hightower, focused on the game of thrones, barely noticed the economic coup happening under his nose. He saw coins, not power.
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My life became a split existence. My days were spent in the design room, refining ship plans, or in the yard, overseeing the Dragon's Teeth. I pushed my enhanced body to its limits, training with them, making their brutal, efficient style my own. I was no longer just their commander; I was their best fighter. The respect in their eyes hardened into something akin to worship.
But my nights belonged to Shadowwing.
The bond was a living thing, a cold fire in my veins. To keep the Cannibal's rage from consuming me, I had to master it. Our flights became a nightly ritual. We would soar over the narrow sea, and I would pour every ounce of my own calculated fury, my ambition, my cold love for my family, into the bond. I wouldn't suppress his nature; I directed it. I made his wild hatred into a focused weapon. He was my anger, given wings and flame. And in turn, his ancient, primal strength seeped into me, hardening my resolve, sanding away the last soft edges of the boy I might have been.
One night, after a particularly long flight where we'd chased a storm, a strange clarity settled over me. Standing on the windy battlements, feeling the dragon's satisfaction echo in my soul, I saw it all laid out like one of my schematics. The trade routes were veins. The Dragon's Bank was a heart. The ships were fists. The Dragon's Teeth were a dagger. And Shadowwing was the unstoppable, terrifying soul of it all.
I was not building an army to win a war. I was building an organism, a self-sustaining system of power that existed entirely outside the traditional feudal structure. I was making the Crown irrelevant by making its currency, its protection, and its authority obsolete for those within my sphere.
A presence beside me broke my reverie. Rhaenyra. She looked tired, but her eyes were sharp. She had been managing the courtly aspects, writing to allies, solidifying our position with the Velaryons.
"You are changing, brother," she said softly, not looking at me, but out at the sea where Shadowwing's massive form circled.
"We needed to change," I replied, my voice quieter, deeper than it had been a year ago. "The game requires it."
"I know," she said. "But sometimes I look at you and I don't see the boy who peed on the Grand Maester. I see the shadow you ride."
I finally turned to her. "The shadow is what will keep you safe. The shadow is what will win you your throne. Never doubt that."
She searched my face for a long moment, looking for her brother. She found him, but he was buried deep. Finally, she just nodded, accepting the price. "The King has called for a family hunt in the Kingswood. He wishes for us to attend. A show of unity."
A show of weakness. A desperate attempt by my father to paper over the cracks with forced merriment.
"We will go," I said. It was not a request. It was a strategic decision. "It is time the court saw what we have become."
The game was about to move from the shadows of Dragonstone to the heart of the Red Keep. And I would bring all my new weapons with me.