108 AC – Corinth, Summer Isles
Edywn POV
Edwyn stood at the periphery of the courtyard, some distance away from the other alchemists and further still than the guards who watched on concernedly, electing to simply and silently watch on this hallowed eve.
It had been some time since the Prince had made another attempt, at least as far as he knew, though this time the Prince seemed optimistic enough at his chances.
He spared a glance at the darkening evening sky that bore only the evening light of that ill-competed with the bright and flickering orange and red which illuminated the deathly silent courtyard, dancing as they were in spellbound rhythm forced onto the flames by the gusts of evening air.
He turned back towards the centre of the courtyard when the flames grew in size, briefly casting enough light that once could forget that it was sunset and not day, and watched on as the alchemist Fororlan walked over with a lit torch that burned a familiar deep shade of blue to Prince Aegon who'd stood by a large slab of rock set upon a well crafted dais.
Prince Aegon began to raise his wide arms moments after Fororlan came to stop beside him and the torches that hung at the edges of the courtyard dimmed in their light whilst the blue flames of the torch burned with greater intensity, so much so that it was getting difficult to gaze directly upon the blue flame that almost seemed as if it was burning brightly white.
Edwyn heard the noise the blue-white flame was making, a sound that sounded awfully like the sound of hung wet cloth shaking violently amidst violent winds though there was a whine to it, a whine like the whines of two links of thick steel that were on the verge of shattering apart as they were pulled apart with great force.
Prince Aegon twisted his arms and the flame flickered and twisted in response, spellbound to the Prince's will almost like how the reeds of marshlands were spellbound to the howls of nature, and Prince Aegon directed the flames towards the slab of stone, the sounds of flames and whining steel and shaking cloth combining into an awful cacophony that pained the ears and further still unsettled his soul.
Time seemed to stretch on endlessly much like how the flames that were constantly pulled from the torch seemed to last endlessly until finally, the light of the torches of the courtyard returned back to normal and the blue-white flames died out, leaving behind a brightly glowing slab of stone that had melted and pooled slightly at the edges giving it a misshapen form that looked to have fused with the dais.
Everyone seemed to hold in their breath as the glow of the stone faded away until all that remained was blackened stone. Finally, the silence was broken with the sounds of calm but loud clinking boots when one of the guards made his way towards Prince Aegon, war hammer in hand.
The Prince took the war hammer from the guard, his face still firmly fixed onto the slab of stone before he got into a stance a minute or two later and Edwyn frowned slightly as he concentrated his ears moments before the Prince swung with all of his might at the slab of stone.
What came next, shook him down to the core, just as sure as the vibrations that must be shaking the Prince. A great loud ringing emanated from the clash, a ringing that bore the same sounds as that of steel swords clashing at the right angles moments before one or both swords broke or shattered.
Excited murmurs escaped from the jaws of the alchemists as the ringing lost its strength though Edwyn kept his eyes on the Prince who'd set the war hammer aside before he stepped closer to the misshapen stone and seemed to be inspecting it, lowly speaking with Fororlan as he touched the place where the war hammer had struck.
Fororlan called one of the alchemist to bring a torch and Edwyn wasn't sure when he started walking towards the Prince but soon enough he was standing next to the Prince with his eyes fixed onto the stone with the light of the torch allowing them to see everything clearly.
The slab of stone was pitch black, darker than the depths of night and it was of the same depth of blackness as that of the Castle of Dragonstone yet…he thought as he peered closer at the place where the war hammer had struck…it was not the same.
The black stone was only a layer akin to the fragile shell of a hardboiled egg, just as the shell would break when struck, pieces of the black stone had equally fallen off, revealing untouched grey white stone that lined the outskirts of Corinth.
"You're getting closer, My Prince." Edwyn muttered half-shocked.
Whatever it was the Prince had changed the last time he'd seen him try, it was certainly closer to the black stones of Dragonstone than anything before.
And judging from the ringing sound, it wasn't merely appearance either.
"There is something I am missing." Prince Aegon's rumbling voice broke him out of his reverie and he turned to the man. A deep frown was adorned on his bearded face, a frown that was equally contemplative and troubled.
He wondered what the Prince felt he missed.
He had no talent for the arcane…nor the blood.
It seemed as if one had to possess a history of magic in ones' bloodline to do true magic and those were few and far between, at least as far they could tell.
Even Fororlan, for all of his knowledge of the arcane, had not the blood needed to do anything more than create wildfyre.
The Prince had both.
"Closer than any other since the doom" Edwyn pointed out, still half-shocked somewhat. Which was completely true, Edwyn thought to himself.
At least as far as they knew.
It was only a year since they'd found the manuscript and the progress the Prince has made since then when it came to creating flames and dragonstone was astounding.
"My Prince." Fororlan's voice cut through his thoughts and he eyed the Alchemist with wary eyes. The Alchemist was looking towards the Prince with a knowing feel about it, as if he knew why it failed.
He glanced towards the Prince and was almost startled at the coldness of Prince Aegon's expression. His eyes were as hard as gemstones as they bore down onto the Alchemist. Fororlan looked contrite and bowed his head under the chilling look of the Prince and uttered "I understand, my Prince" before bowing fully.
Edwyn was left more than a bit uncertain about the exchange, especially since he suspected that whatever it was that Fororlan was suggesting had thrown the Prince into cold anger…and he had his terrible suspicions.
He'd known Fororlan for over six years and knew the man to be many things, brilliant and driven, but equally he did not have a care much else beyond the arcane.
A combination that churned Edwyn's stomach for he knew the deeds the man was and would be capable of to be terrible. And unfortunately, Edwyn also knew that with the Prince's insistence to learn all things magic, Fororlan was likely the least dangerous alchemist-magician the Prince could squeeze out knowledge from.
The good thing was that Edwyn knew the Prince knew of the man's character – and more – and equally Fororlan knew that he'd die a terrible death before he'd have the chance to betray the Prince, after all, the alchemists were outnumbered with the apprenticing boys and men from Dragonstone that Prince Aegon had handpicked, which Fororlan undoubtedly knew.
"I won't be back for some time to repeat this. Set aside any further research on this." Aegon said to Fororlan and the Alchemist nodded affirmatively.
"Of course my Prince. We'll focus our attentions on production" the Alchemist said and Aegon looked away from the alchemist, dismissing the man in his silent ways, before turned Edwyn and gestured him to follow him as he began to walk away with the four guards who always shadowed the Prince in tow.
"You mentioned you felt as if you were missing something" Edwyn inquired on as they walked through the building where the alchemists resided.
"Hmm" the Prince confirmed as they veered towards the outer doors. The Prince took a look at him for a moment before answering "The manuscript, for all of its usefulness, is by and large useless." Edwyn raised his eyebrows at that.
The manuscript had been bought from one of Fororlan's contacts in Volantis, written by a man named Laziros over a century ago, supposedly a Qartheen in origin, on the premise that it contained the secrets of fire magic – and how to create dragonstone.
One of many such manuscripts and texts the Prince had collected over the years though this manuscript had the air of genuineness about it, according to both Fororlan and the Prince.
He'd gone over the manuscript with the Prince and Fororlan though the words meant little to him. Much of it the text seemed nonsense to him, almost spiritual in a queer and unholy way, with descriptions that ran heavy with alleged connections and weaving or guiding those connections into acting or doing something.
Yet despite all of that, he'd been proven wrong when it came to the nonsense of the text the very first time Prince Aegon controlled flames.
"Useful but useless, my Prince?" Edwyn questioned with a raised eyebrow.
Prince Aegon smiled faintly through his beard, a trace of amusement on his now common usual stone face. "Mayhaps its harsher than it deserves. Nonetheless, the value of the manuscript had long since lost its value" the Prince said.
He glancing at Edwyn when he spoke again. "There are no secrets of how to create dragonstone within the manuscript. Laziros did not know how to create it. Much of his suppositions is only intelligent guesswork. He was however, it seems, at least a fire mage of some modicum of talent, though he did not possess any fundamental knowledge that anyone couldn't have worked out on their own when it comes to fire manipulation with enough time and the luck of talent."
Edwyn frowned. "Then how…"
"How did I get accomplish what I did today?" the Prince finished Edwyn's train of thought.
Edwyn nodded. The Prince remained silent for a moment as they reached the outer doors. "I used a different kind of flame but it isn't enough, I don't think, even if I had enough of it. There is more to it, beyond simply wrestling that which exists to ones will and imagination. I will need to discover a better way and what is missing." the Prince said as he began to stroke his beard, his brows furrowing in contemplation.
Neither of them said anything as they made it out of building that sat atop of Alchemist hill, one of four hills that Corinth was situated in between off, and walked down the snaking steps that lead to the town.
Edwyn glanced at the Prince and saw him still deeply lost in his thoughts, a kind of lost that was different to the kind of cold contemplation that had struck him over the past several moons.
An expression he welcomed, to say the truth.
Even if it was on the matters of the arcane. Even if it was fleeting in the face of other more urgent problems that needed solving.
It was the look that he'd seen when they were stuck on a problem with no obvious answers, like how far they'd need to go to redesign their flagships using timber which was heavier and weaker than the ironwood that current fleet of flagships were made out of or the time when they had to find substitute materials in Walano for the liquid stone he and the Prince created.
Edwyn sighed silently and for a moment paused in his thoughts, instead focusing on the pin pricks of light from burning oil lamps that lined the streets of Corinth, pin pricks of lights that seemed like the mirrors of the stars above.
Despite the problems they faced, from the growing sinking feeling that the men they'd sent out west were dead, and the problem of the preying of their trade ships by pirates by Walano, Edwyn couldn't help but focus on the positives despite the shadows those heavy problems cast upon them.
And there were plenty of positives as he gazed upon the town, a town that Edwyn thought was a beacon of hope he'd rarely thought possible.
To this day, he marvelled at the faith the commonfolk formerly of Dragonstone had in the Prince when he'd asked and convinced them to come with him – 'Your ancestors left with Aenar the Exile to escape the Doom. Trust in me as Aenar trusted Daenys when I tell you off the Promised Land' – a faith that had only grown to near zealotry as the town grew in prosperity and opportunity, both things that for many of the commonfolk, had only ever been possible under the guidance of the Prince.
Then came the people and children who'd been born into slavery and knew nothing but chains and misery were welcomed like long lost kin into the homes and hearth of Corinth, and for many, it was the first kind of kindness they'd ever experienced.
Former slave children were raised amongst the children of the commonfolk whilst the adult slaves were granted homes and trained in their choice of duty, be it farming, craftsmanship, soldiery, or otherwise.
There was a sense of community that Edwyn was hard pressed to find anywhere in Westeros and he doubted even the famed Wintertown could compete with the kind of community the Prince and the Princess have created here.
And the people of Corinth knew that too and they loved the family of dragonriders for it beyond measure.
'Keep faith in the young Prince, Edwyn. One day, he'll stop hiding and you'll see.' Grandmaester Elysar's words rang in his mind when he'd asked the man if he should go to the Citadel and earn his links or stay with the Prince.
He'd stayed with the Prince ever since then.
He thought he'd seen what the Grandmaester meant when they were theorising the nature of the world or replicating goods like Yi-Tish porcelain or glass or liquid stone or the many, many other things that now sustained Corinth.
That Elysar had meant to mean his clever mind that seemed as if it drew on divine inspiration and would have seen him forge as many links within the Citadel should he have chosen that route. In less than a decade, they made more progress on the sciences than the last three hundred Edywn estimated. But he'd been wrong.
That had been only one side of the Prince and it was not even most important side.
It wasn't even his talent in magic, a talent that Edwyn knew Elysar did not know, that Edwyn thought to himself.
The Prince himself had not known until years after Elysar's death.
No, it was the Prince's ability to inspire people to follow him, abilities that Edwyn had known the Prince capable of but not to the extent he'd seen in the moons before they'd arrived in the Summer Isles and ever since then.
Yes…
Grandmaester Elysar could see clearer than any man he'd known before and since.
"If you frown any deeper, it may become permanent." Aegon said, his distinctly rumbling voice shaking him out of his thoughts.
Edwyn turned towards the Prince, the light of the torches carried by the guards behind them casting onto his face. He smiled a little as he stopped twiddling with the beads of his necklace his wife had made for him that, twiddling that he hadn't known he was doing.
"Just thinking on the town and how far it has come in such a short time." Edwyn elected to say, unwilling to share his thoughts of the Prince.
The corners of the Prince's mouth drove upward, moving his cheeks, the only way to know nowadays if he was smiling or not under the well-kept but thick beard he had.
"Aye. It amazes me as well." the Prince said, a note of pride and affection in his voice before he continued "I can only imagine what we will build once we find our home." The Prince lost the smile and gazed upon the town and his face melted into cold marble stone that seemed capable of stifling any source of warmth.
"Yet there are those that seek to strangle it in the crib" the way the Prince spoke sent chills down Edwyn's spine.
His tone had been calm yet the fury laden within it was undeniable.
The Prince knew those who were taken and knew them by name. And if there is one element that kept Edwyn wary about the Prince, beyond his magic, it was his penchant to never forgive a slight…or threat.
Edwyn remained silent for a few moments as they descended down the last quarter of the steps before glancing nervously away towards the distant lights downstream of the river where the port was and where he knew the captured crew of the pirate ships were located. "Have we discovered who?" he asked.
"Yes. And no." the Prince answered as he peered at Edwyn. "We know who is responsible but I do not believe they are acting without support."
Edwyn thoughts immediately went to the Triarchy when he thought of who that support may be. There was a chance that Myr was acting alone – with the way they were filling Lys' coffers by purchasing slaves, he did not think they would want to risk that now that Braavos was supplying their own gold and ships for Daemon's Conquest – but he wasn't sure of it, not with how heated the affair was becoming.
With Prince Daemon warring with the Triarchy in the Stepstones with the Velaryons and the financial and material backing of Braavos, it was certainly possible that the faction agreed to attack Corinth in this way in retaliation against Daemon.
And, Edwyn thought, the want-away knights sent to join Prince Daemon probably was a good reason to believe that Prince Aegon was not as neutral as it appeared.
Prince Aegon narrowed his eyes before looking away towards the distance.
"It doesn't matter who is supporting them, not right now. We'll answer the offense as is due. Sooner or later." the Prince paused for a moment before adding.
"It will be discussed in the next council meeting."
Edwyn nodded gravely, already suspecting of what the Prince will do.
There was little choice but to.
Soon enough they arrived at the town, passing by the racetrack where carriage races, jousts and melees took place, walking past buildings and homes which still had people going about their business as market shops that sold from spice and herbs to silk and porcelain remained open.
The styles of the homes and buildings was not beautiful, not like the colourful buildings that be found in Tyrosh or the red topped buildings of Kings Landing, and the folk never sought to change it knowing that efforts would be wasted since it was only a matter of time before they left for the lands Prince Aegon promised them.
The Prince often stopped to talk and questioned the people around them about this or that, an act that Edwyn saw delighted each and every one of them, and from the way the Prince spoke with them, it pleased him too.
At times, he wondered if the commonfolk, particularly the men and women who'd been raised with the Faith, would revere the Prince so if they knew of his wants and abilities in magic. He'd never been a pious man, not when he was considered a living sin for merely being born, but that could not be said for thousands of others.
Yet, each time he thought about it, each time he saw the Prince made fire dance to his will, and each time he saw the looks of the commonfolk when he was talking with them, Edwyn knew that the Faith would lose that battle of reverence.
Just as he knew that the freed slaves who came with their queer faiths of Red Gods and a dozen other faiths, though many of whom were converting to the Faith of the Seven, the Faith to which their Prince held himself to, would not choose their faiths over the Prince and his family.
Especially without the presence of priests or septons and septas to argue against the practice and use of magic.
The topic of the crew on the long gone ships came up, a topic that was kept from the majority of people – though it was not a secret to the common folk that the men on those ships were in search for their home, just not where – and how the Prince managed to seem so sincere when he'd answered with 'soon' when in grim truths no one but only the Gods could know of the fate of those sailors, Edwyn knew not.
And as they walked away from the common fo