The journey to the Crownlands was swift and silent. We approached the coast near Duskendale under the cover of a moonless night, the Odyssey a silent shadow deep beneath the waves of Blackwater Bay. In the Eye, the city was laid out before us in a stark, holographic display. The situation was exactly as the histories foretold, yet seeing it unfold in real-time sent a chill down my spine.
The banners of the Golden Lion, House Lannister, surrounded the city in a ring of steel. Tywin Lannister, the Hand of the King, was conducting the siege with his trademark ruthless efficiency. Within the city walls, the people starved, and the mood was one of desperate, defiant fear. And inside the city's mighty keep, the Dun Fort, King Aerys II Targaryen was a prisoner, a hostage in a game his own paranoia had started.
"Tywin's patience is wearing thin," Torren observed, pointing to the movement of siege engines near the main gate. "He'll storm the city soon."
"He won't have to," I said, my eyes fixed on the Dun Fort. My sensors were already picking up the tell-tale signs of a singular, elite warrior making his way through the city's secret passages. "Ser Barristan Selmy. The Bold. He's already inside. He'll free the king, and when he does, Aerys's gratitude will be a pyre for House Darklyn."
Our mission was not to break the siege or to fight an army. It was a rescue, a theft from the jaws of history itself.
That night, we launched the black skiff from the submerged Odyssey. The small vessel skimmed the waves, its hull absorbing both light and sound, making it invisible to the Lannister blockade ships that patrolled the bay. We wore our sleek, dark armor, our faces concealed, and moved with the silence of ghosts. Bypassing the city's sea-wall was simple, a matter of finding a gap in the crumbling, ancient stone and slipping through unnoticed.
The Dun Fort was a place of tense, exhausted silence. We moved through its shadowed halls, our systems marking the patrol routes of the castle guard. We bypassed them all, arriving like apparitions in the private solar of Lord Denys Darklyn.
He was a proud, tired man, his fine clothes looking worn, his face etched with the strain of a six-month siege. He was staring at a map of his own city when we shimmered out of the shadows. He didn't shout; his hand simply went to the sword at his belt, his eyes filled with a weary defiance.
"Assassins," he stated, his voice devoid of fear. "Does the Hand's honor now extend to hiring cutthroats to do his work in the dark?"
"We are not here for the Hand," I said, my amplified voice low and calm. I removed my helmet, and Torren did the same. "We are here for you, Lord Darklyn."
He looked at our unadorned armor, our young but serious faces. "Who are you?"
"Friends of the North," I answered vaguely. "Friends who know what fate awaits you. You think you can reason with Aerys. You are wrong. I have seen the path this defiance leads to. I have seen the executioner's block. I have seen the Stranger claim your entire line, from you to the babes in your nursery." I let the terrible certainty of my words sink in. "Ser Barristan the Bold is already in your castle. He will free the king. And when he does, Aerys's only payment will be your head, and the heads of all your kin."
He paled, his pride warring with the cold poison of fear for his family. "Lies. Sorcery."
"Is it?" I raised a hand, and the flickering candlelight in the room steadied, then burned with a brilliant, steady white light, casting sharp, clear shadows. "I cannot save Duskendale. But I can save House Darklyn. I offer you and your family a life. A future for your bloodline, in a safe harbor far from the madness of this king and the wars to come."
It was his wife, the Lady Serala, who made the choice. She had entered silently during my speech, her face a mask of terror. "Denys," she whispered, her hand on his arm. "Our children."
That broke him. His pride crumbled, replaced by the desperate love of a father. He gave a single, agonized nod.
The extraction was a tense, silent affair. We moved through the castle like shadows, gathering the Lord, his Lady, their two young sons, and the heir to House Hollard. We slipped out of the keep and through the sleeping city, back to our hidden skiff. As we pulled away from the shore, they took one last look at the home they would never see again, their faces illuminated by the distant campfires of their enemies.
Two days later, safely in international waters, we monitored the raven-net. The news was spreading across Westeros: Ser Barristan Selmy had heroically rescued King Aerys. In his righteous fury, the King had commanded the utter destruction of House Darklyn. But a mystery had stalled his rage. Lord Denys, his wife, his sons, his entire family... had vanished from their chambers.
The world would believe their house extinguished, their fate a strange historical footnote. But aboard the Odyssey, sailing toward a new life on Aegis, the first passengers of our ark grieved for a home they had lost, blessedly unaware that they had just been saved from a fate far, far worse.