Chapter 2: The Shadow on the Shivering Sea
The godswood of Winterfell, a timeless sanctuary of quiet reflection, was where Kaelen often sought clarity. The ancient weirwood, its pale bark like bone and its carved face weeping crimson sap, stood as a silent sentinel, its roots delving deep into the secrets of the earth. It was here, beneath its watchful gaze, that Kaelen finalized the intricate details of his audacious plan. The greendream of the Valyrian galley and its obsidian burden had been relentless, a siren call he could not ignore. This was a deviation, a risk taken sooner than his meticulously ordered mind preferred, but the potential reward was a cornerstone for all his future endeavors.
His chosen dozen were men culled from the breadth of the North, each a master of his craft, their loyalty to House Stark an unshakeable bedrock. There was Borin, a hulking Skagosi with eyes like chips of ice, whose savagery in a fight was matched only by his surprising gentleness with the sled dogs he trained. Finn, a fisherman from the Broken Branch, could read the currents and humours of the sea as if they were an open scroll, and his silence was legendary. Garth Stonehand, a stonemason's son from the mountains near the Umber lands, possessed a strength that could rival a bear and an uncanny ability to climb sheer surfaces. And young Brynn, barely a man grown but with the eyes of a hawk and the reflexes of a viper, whose skill with a short bow in close quarters was unmatched. Each man was chosen not just for skill, but for a certain temperament: a capacity for discretion, a history of unwavering obedience, and a resilience to the harsh realities of the North. Kaelen had spent weeks observing them, testing them in subtle ways, before making his final selection.
For himself, Kaelen prepared a disguise that was more than just a change of clothes. He was 'Korr', a taciturn hunter from the Wolfswood, his Stark features subtly altered using Flamel's lesser-known transfiguration techniques – a slight broadening of the nose, a darkening of his hair to near black, a ruggedness to his skin that spoke of windburn and hardship. He even altered his posture, his gait, shedding the regal bearing of the King for the wary tread of a man accustomed to the wilderness. His voice became a low growl, words used sparingly. Only his eyes, those piercing grey Stark eyes, remained unchanged, though often shadowed by the brim of a fur-lined hood.
The ship, christened the Nightfall, was a Northern longship, sleek and swift, its dark-stained timbers designed to blend with the choppy grey waters of the Shivering Sea. Its single square sail was dyed a deep indigo, almost black. It was stripped of any overt Stark markings, though Kaelen had subtly etched nearly invisible protective runes of Flamel's design into its keel and mast – wards against storms, ill fortune, and prying magical eyes. Provisions for a month were stowed, along with grappling hooks, muffled oars, and weapons suited for silent work: dirks, short swords, weighted coshes, and Brynn's collection of precisely crafted arrows.
Kaelen's personal preparations were conducted in the deepest secrecy of his private chambers, which were already beginning to resemble an alchemist's laboratory. He brewed a small batch of Draught of Living Death, potent enough to ensure any encountered Valyrians would not awaken prematurely, should capture be necessary. He prepared several Wiggenweld Potions for healing, just in case. More importantly, he assembled a kit of Flamel's tools for dismantling magical wards: slender silver probes, powdered moonstone, a vial of chameleon ink that could reveal hidden magical scripts, and a small, intricately carved piece of obsidian that acted as a focus for his will when unraveling complex enchantments. He also carried a small, lead-lined pouch containing a powerful soporific powder, easily dispersed. The unforgivable curses and darker spells remained locked away in his mind; he would not resort to them unless circumstances became utterly dire. The Nightingale's creed was efficiency and silence, not wanton cruelty.
He briefed his chosen men in the dead of night within a sealed chamber in the First Keep. He spoke of a valuable prize, an artifact of immense importance to the North that had been unlawfully acquired by foreign traders. He did not speak of dragons or magic, only of a recovery mission vital to the security and future of their homeland. Their reward would be substantial, he promised, but their silence, absolute. He looked each man in the eye as he spoke, Flamel's knowledge allowing him to subtly reinforce their loyalty with a touch of legilimency, ensuring no hidden treachery, and a gentle, almost imperceptible compulsion towards secrecy. These were not mind control, but subtle nudges, strengthening the bonds of fealty already present. They accepted without question, their faces grim with determination.
Under the cloak of a moonless night, with a biting wind sweeping down from the Frostfangs, the Nightfall slipped out of a hidden cove several leagues north of White Harbor. Kaelen, as Korr, stood at the prow, the salt spray cold on his disguised face. The thrill of the hunt, an old, familiar sensation from his past life, mingled with the icy caution that was now his constant companion. This was not a king overseeing a battle from a distant hill; this was the Nightingale, returned to his element, albeit with a far grander prize in mind.
The journey east along the rugged coastline was harsh. The Shivering Sea lived up to its name, its waters cold and unforgiving, its winds capricious. Finn proved his worth, navigating them through treacherous currents and around hidden shoals with an almost preternatural skill. Kaelen, meanwhile, extended his own senses. Daily, he would find a quiet place on deck, close his eyes, and send his consciousness soaring. Not always into Shiver, his direwolf far away in Winterfell, but into the gulls that wheeled overhead, into the skuas that skimmed the waves. Through their eyes, he scanned the horizon, searching for any sign of the Valyrian galley his greendream had foretold. Days turned into a week, then two. The men, though disciplined, grew restless with the endless grey expanse. Kaelen, however, remained patient, his focus unwavering.
He subtly used Flamel's weather-working charms, not to conjure storms, but to guide the existing patterns, to thicken the mists when they needed cover, to nudge the winds to fill their sail when speed was paramount. These were small manipulations, unlikely to draw attention, but they smoothed their passage and conserved their strength.
It was on the seventeenth day, as a pale dawn struggled to break through a thick bank of sea fog Kaelen had carefully encouraged, that Brynn, perched in the flimsy crow's nest, hissed, "Sail! To the northeast! Larger than us, different rigging!"
Kaelen's head snapped up. He sent his mind into a nearby fulmar, soaring high above the Nightfall. And there it was. A trading galley, broader in the beam than their lean longship, its single, large lateen sail a deep crimson, emblazoned with a stylized golden sun – The Sunstone Trader. It matched the vessel from his dream perfectly. It was moving slowly, cautiously through the fog, its crew clearly wary of the unfamiliar, rugged coastline.
"That's our bird," Kaelen rasped, his voice the gravelly tone of Korr. "Finn, how close can we get before they spot us through this soup?"
Finn squinted into the grey. "If this fog holds, and we muffle the oars, we can get within a cable's length, maybe less. They'll be relying on sound more than sight."
"Good." Kaelen turned to the others. "We strike tonight, when the moon is hidden and the fog is thickest. Borin, Garth, you're with me on the boarding party. Brynn, you'll cover us from the Nightfall. The rest of you, secure their vessel, but silently. No alarms. We want what's in the captain's cabin. Nothing else matters."
Throughout the day, the Nightfall shadowed The Sunstone Trader, using the persistent fog and Kaelen's warged reconnaissance to remain undetected. He studied the Valyrian ship's layout, the movement of its crew. He noted the two guards always stationed outside the sterncastle, where the captain's cabin would undoubtedly be. The Valyrians, numbering perhaps thirty, seemed competent but not overly alert, likely relying on the formidable reputation of their homeland and the perceived emptiness of these northern waters. Arrogance. Kaelen recognized it well.
As true darkness fell, the fog, encouraged by Kaelen's subtle magic, grew even denser, a suffocating, silent blanket over the sea. The Nightfall, oars muffled with thick strips of seal hide, glided like a phantom towards its prey. Kaelen, Borin, and Garth, clad in dark furs, their faces smeared with soot and grease, were phantoms themselves.
The gentle bump as their ship touched the hull of the larger galley was almost inaudible. Grappling hooks, wrapped in cloth to deaden sound, were thrown and caught silently. Kaelen was the first over the rail, moving with a fluid grace that belied Korr's rugged appearance. The Nightingale was alive. Borin and Garth followed, massive and menacing shadows.
The deck of The Sunstone Trader was slick with condensation. A lone Valyrian sailor, bundled against the cold, leaned against the mast, humming softly. Garth, moving with surprising speed for his bulk, was upon him in an instant, a massive hand clamping over the man's mouth, another delivering a precise, crushing blow to the temple. The sailor crumpled without a sound. Kaelen nodded once, then gestured towards the sterncastle.
The two guards outside the captain's cabin were speaking in hushed Valyrian, their breath misting in the cold air. Kaelen drew a slender, weighted cosh from his belt. He signaled to Borin. They moved simultaneously from the shadows on either side. Kaelen's strike was a whisper of movement, connecting with the base of one guard's skull. The man folded like a puppet with cut strings. Borin's approach was more direct, a powerful arm snaking around the other guard's throat, cutting off any cry before a swift, brutal twist. Two more down, silently.
The captain's cabin door was heavy oak, banded with iron. Kaelen ran his fingers over its surface. Flamel's senses, honed by centuries of dealing with magical protections, tingled. Wards. Definitely Valyrian, likely fire-aspected, designed to incinerate intruders or at least raise a deafening alarm. He knelt, pulling out his kit. The silver probes danced over the wood, tracing patterns only he could perceive. He sprinkled powdered moonstone; it clung to certain areas, glowing faintly. The chameleon ink, carefully applied, revealed faint, shimmering glyphs that writhed like captive snakes.
"Complex," he murmured, more to himself than his companions who stood guard, their eyes scanning the fog-shrouded deck. "Valyrian ward-craft. Crude, but powerful. Focused on punishment, not subtlety."
For nearly an hour, Kaelen worked, his concentration absolute. He used the obsidian focus to draw specific threads of the warding magic into himself, not absorbing them, but redirecting their energy, unknotting the complex weave of spells. It was like defusing an intricate bomb blindfolded, each step requiring perfect precision. One misstep and the entire stern of the ship could erupt in flames. He whispered archaic phrases from Flamel's grimoires, words of unbinding, of nullification, his fingers tracing counter-runes in the air that shimmered and faded. Slowly, painstakingly, the oppressive magical aura around the door began to recede. The shimmering glyphs dulled, then vanished. With a final, soft click that only he could hear, the last ward unraveled.
He nodded to Garth, who inserted a thin pry bar into the doorframe and, with a grunt of immense effort, forced it open with a muted crack of wood. Inside, the cabin was opulent by ship standards: rich tapestries on the walls, a large chart table strewn with maps, and a Valyrian captain, stout and grey-bearded, snoring softly in a large bunk, a half-empty wine goblet on his nightstand.
Kaelen ignored him. His eyes, aided by a touch of Lumos from his fingertip that only he and his companions could properly perceive in the gloom, scanned the cabin. And there it was. On a velvet cushion, inside a reinforced, iron-bound chest that Kaelen suspected had its own set of simpler mechanical traps (which Garth disabled with surprising deftness), lay the prize.
An egg. Larger than an ostrich egg, its surface was a matte, obsidian black, shot through with veins of what looked like solidified magma, glowing with a faint, internal heat that Kaelen could feel even from a distance. It pulsed with a dormant, ancient power, a thrumming that resonated deep within Kaelen's own magical core. It was undeniably a dragon egg. His greendream had been true.
A surge of triumph, cold and fierce, coursed through him, but his face remained an impassive mask. He carefully lifted the egg. It was heavy, surprisingly warm to the touch, almost alive. He placed it gently into a specially constructed padded cask he had brought, its interior lined with fur and charmed to maintain a constant, gentle warmth.
As he secured the cask, the Valyrian captain snorted, stirred, and his eyes blinked open, focusing blearily on the intruders. Before he could utter a sound, Kaelen moved with viperish speed, a small cloth pressed over the man's face. The captain inhaled the soporific powder, his eyes widened in brief confusion, and then he slumped back into a deep, unnatural slumber.
"No witnesses," Kaelen grunted to Borin and Garth. "Ensure any others are… asleep. Permanently, if necessary. But quietly. We don't want the entire crew roused." His ruthlessness was a calculated measure. Survivors meant descriptions, investigations. The North needed this secret kept.
While Borin and Garth moved with chilling efficiency through the rest of the sterncastle, dealing with two more officers with swift, silent finality using garrotes and knives, Kaelen quickly ransacked the captain's charts and logbook. He was looking for any mention of the egg's origin, its destination, and, crucially, any indication that its presence on this ship was widely known or officially documented by Valyrian authorities. The log was sparse on details regarding the egg, merely noting "precious cargo secured from Asshai contacts, for private delivery to Magister Vaelos of Pentos." A private transaction. Good. Less official attention.
He took the relevant pages and a few valuable-looking navigational charts, then systematically destroyed the rest of the logbook with a small vial of corrosive acid from Flamel's stores. He also located the captain's strongbox, relieving it of a hefty amount of Valyrian honors and Pentoshi golden marks – enough to generously reward his crew and further fund his Northern projects. This needed to look like a particularly daring and successful act of piracy, not a targeted extraction by a Northern King.
Within another hour, it was done. The Nightfall's crew had secured the few Valyrian sailors they'd encountered on deck, binding and gagging them before locking them in their own forecastle. Kaelen's team rejoined them, the precious cask handled with utmost care.
"What of the ship, Korr?" Finn asked, his eyes on the larger Valyrian galley. "And the crew?"
Kaelen looked at The Sunstone Trader, a dark shape in the fog. Leaving it adrift with a sleeping crew would eventually lead to discovery, questions. Scuttling it was an option, but that might attract too much attention too soon if debris washed ashore in a recognizable pattern. The Valyrians were fiercely protective of their shipping.
"We disable her," Kaelen decided. "Ruin her rudder, damage her mast enough so she can't make sail easily. Take most of their fresh water and provisions. They'll be adrift for a while, but with the prevailing currents, they'll likely be pushed south, away from the North. If they survive, their story will be one of savage, unknown pirates appearing from the fog, interested only in portable wealth. They won't know what was truly taken." He paused, his gaze cold. "The officers in the sterncastle… met with an unfortunate accident. The rest are merely incapacitated." He tossed a small, heavy purse to Borin. "Ensure the ones below deck remain so for a few more hours." Borin nodded, understanding the implied instruction for the Draught of Living Death. A few drops in their water barrels would ensure they remembered nothing clearly if they were ever rescued.
With grim efficiency, his men crippled The Sunstone Trader. The dragon egg, secure in its cask, was transferred to the Nightfall. As the first, ghostly light of dawn began to filter through the thinning fog, their longship, now heavy with its prize and stolen Valyrian gold, slipped away, heading west towards a series of remote, uninhabited islands Kaelen had identified on ancient Northern charts – a place to lie low before making the final, discreet journey back to the mainland.
The return voyage was tense. Every shadow on the water, every distant sail, was a potential threat. Kaelen rarely slept, his senses stretched, warging into seabirds to scout vast distances around them. He kept the cask containing the dragon egg close, feeling its faint warmth, its silent promise. He had done it. The first step, the most audacious one, was complete.
They made landfall not at a known port, but in a secluded, narrow fjord on the eastern coast of the Cape of Eagles, a place Kaelen knew was visited only by seals and the hardiest of seabirds. Here, under the watchful eyes of his most trusted men, the treasure was divided. The Valyrian gold and honors were distributed generously, far more than any of them had ever dreamed of earning. Kaelen, still as Korr, took only a small portion, reinforcing his disguise as a simple member of the expedition.
"What you saw, what we did," Kaelen addressed them, his voice rough, "is a secret we take to our graves. The North rewards loyalty, but it punishes betrayal with a cold, final hand. You are now wealthy men. Live well, but live silently. No tales in taverns, no boasts to women. This voyage never happened." His grey eyes, Stark and kingly for a moment despite the disguise, pinned each man. They swore their oaths on cold iron and the memory of the Old Gods, their loyalty bought with gold and cemented by the shared danger and Kaelen's subtle magical assurances.
Kaelen, with only Finn and Garth, took the cask containing the dragon egg and a significant portion of the remaining gold. They travelled overland, avoiding settlements, using game trails and hidden paths Kaelen knew from his extensive study of the North and his own ranging expeditions. After several days of hard travel, they reached a pre-arranged rendezvous point deep within the Wolfswood. There, a small, heavily armed escort of his most loyal Stark household guards, men who knew nothing of the sea voyage but were tasked with escorting their King on a "hunting trip," met them. Finn and Garth were given fine horses and another pouch of gold each, thanked for their service as "guides," and sent back to their homes with stern warnings of silence about the King's unusual route. They knew better than to ask questions.
Kaelen Stark, King in the North, finally shed the guise of Korr. He rode back towards Winterfell, the precious cask carefully secured. He felt the weight of the future, heavy and exhilarating.
The new chambers beneath Winterfell's crypts were nearly complete, carved from the bedrock, their existence known only to a handful of utterly loyal, magically bound masons. It was here, in the deepest, most secret vault, that Kaelen brought the obsidian egg. The room was circular, its walls smooth and bare for now, but he envisioned it lined with shelves of arcane texts, a place of immense power and knowledge. He had already begun constructing a specialized incubator, based on Flamel's notes regarding the hatching of magical creatures, a bed of sand and coals that could be heated to precise temperatures, shielded by enchantments.
He placed the egg upon a bed of soft furs within this nascent hatchery. It lay there, black and silent, yet radiating a palpable aura of ancient magic. Kaelen stared at it for a long time, the flickering torchlight casting dancing shadows on the walls. Flamel's knowledge provided the theory of dragon hatching – the need for intense, sustained heat, often magical fire, and a connection, a bond. Some said blood was required. Kaelen was prepared for that.
The acquisition of this single egg was a monumental victory. It was proof that his audacious plans were not mere fantasy. But it was only the beginning. He needed more. He needed a clutch, a breeding pair. He needed to understand their magic, to bind them to his bloodline. The path to creating his hidden council of immortal dragon-riding Stark wizards was fraught with peril and would take decades, perhaps centuries.
The Doom of Valyria was still twenty-nine years away. Eighteen years until Aenar Targaryen and his five eggs fled to Dragonstone. Kaelen now had a tangible focus for his efforts, a reason to delve even deeper into Flamel's alchemical and magical legacies. The Elixir of Life was paramount, for himself and for his future dragon. And then, the Philosopher's Stone, forged in the cataclysm he foresaw, to grant that gift to his descendants, his council, and to fuel the prosperity and defense of the North.
A slow smile touched Kaelen's lips, a genuine smile this time, not of predatory intent, but of profound, grim satisfaction. The game was afoot. The North was stirring, and the world, blissfully unaware, would one day reckon with the quiet, cunning King who dreamt of ice, fire, and an unbreakable future. He had a dragon egg. And soon, with the blessings of the Old Gods and the knowledge of Nicolas Flamel, he would have a dragon.