Obara Sand woke before dawn, not to the crowing of a rooster—which was drowned out by the industrial background noise—but because of the sudden silence. The great power hammer, that thud-thud-thud that vibrated the glass on her bedside table, had just stopped. Likely for a shift change. The silence that followed was almost more deafening than the noise. It reminded her how far she was from the heat and silent sands of Dorne.
She hated this place. She hated this cold order, this smell of coal, and the indifference of the "Steel Guard" sentries.
A young woman knocked discreetly at her door before entering with a pitcher of drinking water. "Your water for the morning, Lady Obara."
Her name was Lanna. A servant of the keep, assigned to her personal service. She was no more than twenty, her face clean, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, wearing a simple but impeccable grey-blue uniform. That was the third thing that annoyed Obara: the domesticity. In Sunspear, servants were a noisy backdrop, full of gossip and fearful deference. Here, Lanna was silent, efficient, and... dignified. There was no fear in her eyes. Just professional respect.
"Leave it there," Obara grunted.
She rose, naked, her warrior's body muscular and covered in scars. She headed toward the small tiled room, "the washroom," as that buffoon Dontos called it. She turned the brass handle marked "W". Hot water, instant and hissing, burst from the metal showerhead.
She had spent the first two days washing with cold water, out of pure disdain for this invention. But the previous night, curiosity had won out. And now... she couldn't deny the simple pleasure of a hot shower in this cold, damp country. That was perhaps the most insidious part. This comfort. It softened you.
She washed quickly, brutally, then dressed. A tunic of supple leather, trousers, her boots. No silks. Lanna had prepared her spear, cleaning it with a special oil provided by the forges that prevented rust from the ambient humidity.
"Is that your only task? Polishing my spear?" Obara asked, her voice cutting.
Lanna didn't blink. "I am assigned to your service, My Lady. I tend to your quarters, your clothes, and your weapons, if you wish."
"And when you aren't here, playing the maid?"
"I work at the soap factory," Lanna replied. "Many people have two jobs here. The Steward doesn't like people having only one skill."
Obara stared at her. A factory worker playing servant. "And you like that? Smelling like 'Blossom' all day?"
A faint smile touched Lanna's lips. "It's better than smelling like dung, My Lady. And the pay is good." She gave a small curtsy. "Will there be anything else?"
Boredom, mixed with growing irritation, seized Obara. Her father was locked away with Ellaria, analyzing the strange leg of that man Jem. Nymeria was reading, and Tyene... Tyene was probably trying to steal exotic products.
"Yes," Obara said suddenly, on impulse. "You're going to give me a tour. Not the factory. Your home."
Lanna was caught off guard. It was the first time Obara saw uncertainty on her face. "My... my home, My Lady? It's... it's very modest. It's not a place for a princess."
"I didn't ask you if it was worthy of a princess. I gave you an order," Obara said, grabbing her spear. "Walk."
The servant, visibly uncomfortable but too disciplined to refuse, nodded and led them out of the keep.
The city, in the early morning, was already an inferno of activity. Thousands of people walked briskly along the wide cement paths. There was no mud. No excrement. No beggars. Just a tide of well-fed people dressed in similar fashion, heading toward the factories whose chimneys spewed black smoke that sullied the sunrise.
Obara followed Lanna through a maze of residential streets. The houses were all identical. Two-story buildings of red brick, grouped in blocks. It was ugly, functional, and terrifyingly clean.
Lanna stopped in front of a door and took a key from her pocket. A metal key, for a complex lock. Not a simple latch. Obara noted the detail. Private property was a thing here.
"Enter, My Lady," Lanna said, resigned.
The interior... the interior stopped Obara dead.
She had expected a hovel. A single room, dirty straw, a smell of poverty.
The first room was a kitchen, a workshop. There was no open hearth. Against the wall stood a black cast-iron box. A "coal stove," Lanna explained. It had round metal plates on top to heat pots, and a small door on the side: an oven.
"You... you bake your bread in that?" Obara asked, touching the cold metal.
"Yes, My Lady. And roasts too. It's much faster. And it doesn't fill the house with smoke."
In the corner, there was a stone basin. And above it, protruding from the wall, a brass "faucet." Lanna turned it. Clear, cold water gushed out.
Obara watched the water flow, then the faucet, then Lanna. "The water. It comes... from the wall."
"From the river, My Lady," Lanna said, as if explaining something obvious to a child. "The Steward built the pumping station and sand filters last year. The dirty water goes into the sewers, the clean water comes here."
Running water. In a servant's house. In Sunspear, people paid fortunes to have water carried up by men from the wells.
She looked at the rest of the room. A solid wooden table. Four matching chairs. Ceramic dishes, stacked on a shelf. Everything was simple, without frills, but sturdy. Standardized.
"And... upstairs?"
"Just the bedrooms, My Lady."
Obara went up. Two small rooms. In each, a bed with a wooden frame. Not straw on the floor. Real beds, with mattresses filled with clean straw and thick wool blankets, stamped with a small logo: an interlaced "V" and "E".
It was cleaner, better equipped, and more comfortable than the quarters of the House Martell guards. It was probably better than the quarters of many landed knights.
She went back down, her brain boiling. This... wealth. This level of comfort for the lowest of society...
The door flew open, and two children—a boy of about ten and a girl of eight—burst in, noisy and full of energy. They stopped dead upon seeing Obara, her dark skin, her leather armor, and the deadly spear in her hand.
"Mother! Who is that?" said the boy, more curious than fearful.
"Hush, Tom," Lanna said, blushing. "Bow. This is Lady Obara, a distinguished guest from the keep."
The children complied awkwardly. They were clean, well-fed, and their eyes were bright.
"What is that?" Obara asked, pointing to the bags they were carrying.
"Our books, My Lady," said the girl. "We're going to school."
Obara blinked. "School?"
"Yes!" said the boy, Tom, his initial apprehension forgotten. "We just finished breaking our fast. Today, Maester Jon is going to show us a sheep's heart! He's going to explain the valves!"
"And we're learning long division," added the girl, visibly less enthusiastic. "Mother! Maester Harwin says I'm the best at spelling in the whole class!"
Lanna swelled with pride. "That's good, my darlings. Hurry up or you'll be late," she said, shooing them out.
Obara Sand watched the scene, her hand gripping the wood of her spear so hard her knuckles turned white.
She understood.
It wasn't the hot water. It wasn't the cast-iron stove or the comfortable beds. It was this.
Val-Engrenage's fierce loyalty, that wall of silence her father had run into, wasn't built on fear, like in King's Landing. It wasn't built on ancient tradition, like in Dorne.
It was built on cast-iron ovens. It was built on running water. And it was cemented by commoners' children learning anatomy and mathematics.
This "Steward" wasn't buying his people with gold. He was buying them with a future.
She left the house without another word, leaving Lanna and her children bewildered. She returned to the keep with a quick stride, her initial anger replaced by a cold, disturbing fascination.
----------------------------------------------
She found her father in the common room, drinking wine and watching the factory smoke through the window.
"Father," she said, her voice harder than she intended. "I saw their houses. I saw their children."
Oberyn turned to her, an eyebrow arched. "And?"
"I want to see this school."
Oberyn's smirk widened, but it didn't reach his eyes. He had sensed the agitation in his daughter, a tension he hadn't seen since she lost her first duel.
"The school," he repeated, savoring the word. "You go to Val-Engrenage, and what impresses you aren't the weapons, but a classroom?"
"There are crossbows at every turn, it's boring, Father. The school seems more exciting," Obara retorted. "Their children are learning anatomy. And mathematics. I want to know why."
Oberyn drained his glass. Obara's annoyance was a curiosity. The idea that a fifteen-year-old kid had set up an education system for smallfolk was... absurd. A vanity. A way of playing little lord. But his daughter's insistence stung his curiosity. Apparently, the worker he had tried to bribe wasn't exaggerating.
"Very well," he said. "Let's go see this great marvel of education for the common people." He turned to the corner of the room where Dontos Hollard was already dozing, a half-empty carafe of wine by his side. "Lord Hollard!"
Oberyn's voice cracked like a whip. Dontos jumped, nearly knocking over his carafe.
"Prince Oberyn! Yes! At your service!"
"My daughter and I wish to visit your... local school. Lead us."
Dontos's face lit up with nervous pride. "The school! But of course! A marvel, Prince Oberyn! A true marvel! The Steward cares about it more than anything. 'The mind is the first tool,' he says! All the children go. Mandatory, imagine that! From six to fourteen years old!"
"Spare us your platitudes and walk," Oberyn cut him off.
Dontos, stammering excuses, led them out of the keep. The school building was set apart from the factories, a long two-story structure of grey cement, functional and unadorned. The only concession to aesthetics was the immaculate cleanliness of the place and the large glass windows, which flooded the hallways with light.
A man was waiting for them at the entrance, alerted to their arrival. He was elderly, wearing a maester's grey robe, but his chain was thin—barely three or four links.
"Maester Harwin," he introduced himself, bowing. His deference was evident, but tinged with the same nervousness as Dontos. He seemed to fear an inspection.
"Prince Oberyn Martell. My daughter, Lady Obara." Oberyn's contempt for this discount maester was palpable. A man who had likely failed at the Citadel and sold himself to this upstart. "Show us."
"Of course, my Prince. This way. We are just having an anatomy class for the second level."
Harwin led them to the back of a classroom. About thirty children, aged eight to twelve, sat on wooden benches, all facing a younger man in a grey smock standing before a large diagram. This wasn't Harwin, but a "Maester Jon," as Lanna's son had said. The air vibrated with an energy Oberyn didn't associate with learning. The children weren't asleep or fearful; they were... engaged.
The diagram was a detailed drawing of the human digestive system, painted on a large roll of paper.
"...and the stomach acid breaks down the food into chyme," explained Maester Jon, "but the real work of nutrient absorption happens here, in the small intestine..."
Obara, beside her father, stood straight, arms crossed, fascinated despite herself. It was the first time she had seen such a clear representation of what happened inside a man. She knew where to strike to kill, but she had never really known why a gut wound was so slow and painful.
A little girl in the front row raised her hand.
"Yes, Lya?"
"Maester Jon," the girl said, "if the liver, here, filters poisons and toxins, why do some venoms act so fast?"
Oberyn froze.
The young master smiled. "Excellent question, Lya. It's because not all poisons work the same way. The liver is excellent at filtering what comes from the blood after digestion. But some poisons, like Manticore venom or the juice of the Nightshade leaf, are neurotoxins. They don't attack the organs; they attack the nervous system. They bypass the liver and tell your heart directly to stop or your lungs to forget to breathe."
Obara felt a shiver run down her spine. She knew poisons, of course. She was a Martell. But this explanation... this anatomical clarity... she had barely scratched the surface of it. And here, it was being taught to children.
She looked at her father. Oberyn was statuesque in his stillness. His face was a mask of stone. But Obara, who knew him better than anyone, saw the tension in his jaw, the slight narrowing of his eyes. Her father. The man who had forged six links at the Citadel before growing bored. The man who prided himself on his knowledge of poisons. Seeing him like this, listening to his most esoteric knowledge being trivialized, distributed like bread to blacksmiths' children...
Maester Harwin, perhaps sensing the tension, beckoned them to follow. "And here, we have the upper classes. Basic engineering."
They entered another room. The smell of oil and water hung in the air. Older children, perhaps twelve or thirteen, were gathered around a complex apparatus made of glass pistons, tubes, and a lever.
A group of three children stood up to present their project.
"Our presentation," began a girl, "concerns Master Tony's principle on the transmission of hydraulic force."
The title alone made Oberyn grind his teeth. Master Tony.
"The principle," continued a boy, "is that water, being an incompressible fluid, transmits pressure equally. A small force applied to a small piston..." he pressed down on a small lever "...is transmitted through this tube to a larger piston."
On the other side of the device, a ten-pound weight rose slowly.
"The force is multiplied," concluded the girl. "This is what operates the Great Hammer, the mine pumps, and the forge presses."
Silence fell. Dontos Hollard clapped weakly, but stopped upon seeing Oberyn's face.
Oberyn Martell stepped forward slowly. His voice was soft, almost a purr. A sound more dangerous than any scream.
"Fascinating," he said.
Maester Harwin and Maester Jon, who had followed them, looked relieved. That was a mistake.
"You teach them to take the world apart," Oberyn continued, "like one takes apart a machine. A little anatomy lesson here, a little physics principle there." He turned to the maesters, his smile no longer reaching his eyes. "Where is the place for mysteries? Where is the poetry? Where is the respect due to secrets that men, at the Citadel, spend decades acquiring at the peril of their souls?"
Maester Harwin, pale, tried to answer. "Prince Oberyn, we... we only teach what is practical. What we can observe and demonstrate. The Steward believes that knowledge belongs to those who can understand it..."
"KNOWLEDGE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO ARE WORTHY OF IT!" Oberyn's voice cracked like a whip, making the children jump. His fury, contained for so long, exploded.
"You are not teaching them knowledge! You are teaching them arrogance! You are raising a generation of commoners who believe that everything can be understood, measured, weighed, and controlled! It is a heresy! You forget yourselves!"
He turned to the children, his piercing gaze fixing them one by one. "You believe this knowledge makes you free? It locks you in a cage of reason, in defiance of the natural order. You will no longer see the beauty of a flower; you will only see its structure! You will no longer admire lightning as the wrath of a god; you will seek to understand it as a tool made by human hands!"
The silence was total, broken only by the distant thud-thud-thud of the factory. The children, intimidated, looked down. Maester Jon had stepped forward to protect his students, but remained frozen by the Prince's sheer venom.
"You," Oberyn said, pointing at the young maester, "you are not a teacher. You are the priest of a cold cult. You strip the soul from the world and replace it with pernicious logic."
Without another word, Oberyn turned on his heel and left the room. Obara, her own shock eclipsed by her father's philosophical fury, followed him like his shadow.
Dontos Hollard, his face undone by panic, trotted behind them stammering excuses. "My Prince... I am sure... they didn't mean... It's just... it's the Steward's method..."
Oberyn stopped on the cement path. He turned so quickly that Dontos nearly crashed into him.
"Be silent, Lord Hollard," Oberyn hissed. "Return to your keep and drink. That is the only thing your rank has ever taught you to do correctly."
Humiliated, Dontos stood frozen, mouth agape, as the two Martells walked away, leaving behind a silent and terrified school.
--------------------------------------
Night had fallen on Val-Engrenage. The noise of the factories had become a constant roar, a beast that never slept. In their apartments in the keep, Oberyn Martell stood before the window, watching the orange glows of the blast furnaces staining the night sky.
He poured two cups of wine, a potent Dornish red he had brought with him, and handed one to Ellaria, who was reading on the bed. She had listened to Obara's report, then Oberyn's, with stony patience.
"This boy is a cancer, Ellaria," he finally said, his voice low and tight. "He doesn't just build walls. He undermines the foundations. He destroys the natural order of things."
Ellaria took the cup. "You are almost as wrathful as after Elia's death. And that was hatred. This... this is fear."
"It is revulsion!" Oberyn spat, drinking his wine in one gulp. "I saw the future today. And it is a cold, mechanical nightmare. Commoners thinking like maesters. Children debating hydraulics. How is a lord supposed to rule subjects who surpass him in knowledge? How can nobility justify its existence when any coal-burner's son can understand the world better than they?"
He poured himself another drink, his hand trembling slightly. "It is a rebellion. A replacement. He renders our world... obsolete."
He set his cup down with a sharp clack. "I could have him poisoned."
Ellaria finally looked up from her book, her snake-like gaze as penetrating as his.
"I have what I need," Oberyn continued, pacing the room. "In my boot. The Tears of Lys. Colorless, odorless. A drop in his wine when he returns from Braavos. Or a slower poison, one that mimics a heart attack. No one would ever prove it was me. That arrogant kid, dead in his sleep. The end of the heresy."
Ellaria looked at him, an amused smile on her lips. "And then?"
"Then?"
"Yes, my love. Then," she said, standing up. "You kill the boy. You create a martyr. And you think this machine will stop? You think these thousands of workers who have tasted hot water and smoke-free homes will willingly return to the mud and misery? You think that Maester Jon will forget how the nervous system works? You think Jem will throw away his mechanical leg? You think this heretical city can prosper in the heart of the Crownlands without powerful protection?"
She moved closer, placing her hand on his chest. "This boy is no longer a man, Oberyn. He is an idea, and there are nobles taking part in it. And you don't kill an idea with poison. You only kill it with a better idea. And for now, I see none."
Oberyn pushed her away gently, frustrated. "So what? We let him do it? We let him transform Westeros into a... An anthill in the image of this city?"
"And I will add," Ellaria continued, her voice turning cold and pragmatic, "that you are being stupid. You are blinded by your Citadel pride. We are in the Crownlands. Surrounded by enemies. You are discovered—and you will be discovered, because it is not Dontos Hollard you are attacking, but an organization that has eyes everywhere—and what happens? You will have given Tywin Lannister the only thing he desires more than gold: a legitimate reason to crush Dorne. You will have started a war we cannot win, all for a wound to your pride."
The mention of Tywin had its effect. Oberyn's fury cooled, solidifying into the calculating hatred he knew so well.
Ellaria saw the change and continued. "You forget why we look to the Throne, Oberyn. You forget Elia. You forget the Mountain. You forget Tywin. And this boy... this Tony... is the best thing that has happened to our vengeance."
Oberyn looked at her, confused.
"Think," she said. "In four years, this kid has done more harm to Tywin Lannister than we have in ten. He took the son Tywin despises most, Tyrion, and made him rich, independent, and arrogant. You know how much of a control freak the old Lion is, and given how this city is, he controls nothing here. If he truly knew what his son was associated with, he would likely have a heart attack."
She took his hand. "You want revenge on Tywin? Then pray this boy lives a long life. Let him grow. Let him build. Let him defy the Throne, the Citadel, everyone. Let the Lion try to tear him down, and watch them tear each other apart in a bloody fight. For sooner or later, that confrontation will happen."
Silence settled in the room, broken only by the distant roar of the forges.
Oberyn reflected, his fingers tight around his cup. Ellaria's logic was relentless. Acting now was stupid, emotional, and dangerous. The humiliation was still there, burning.
"He built a city, Ellaria," he murmured, wonder and disgust mingled in his voice. "In four years. With amenities the Targaryens never dreamed of. And I... what am I? The prince of a desert of sand, reduced to begging for the attention of a fifteen-year-old upstart."
Ellaria smiled, kissing him gently. "You are the prince who has wisdom enough to bide his time. Let this boy defy the established order. We, we prepare to inherit the ruins. Or," she added, her eyes shining with a dark light, "we can ensure we stroke him the right way, use his genius to our advantage. Who knows what he could accomplish in Dorne."
Oberyn finished his wine in one gulp. The anger had not disappeared. But it was now channeled, cold, and pointed in a new direction. He would not kill this boy.
He would study him. He would understand him. He would learn every gear of his machine. For if one cannot beat an idea, one can always learn to direct it.