Chapter 6: A Harvest of Fire from a Setting Sun
The grey expanse of the Narrow Sea stretched before the Wraith and the Shadow, a cold, unforgiving canvas upon which a deadly game of patience and predation was being played. For ten grueling days, Kaelen Stark's two ships, marvels of Northern ingenuity and Flamel's subtle arts, had shadowed Aenar Targaryen's small convoy. The Valyrian vessels, though opulent and bearing the proud three-headed dragon sigil, seemed heavy, laden perhaps with the wealth of a noble house uprooting itself, and an air of nervous haste clung to them.
Kaelen, a phantom in his disguise as Korr, spent hours aloft, his consciousness soaring within gulls and albatrosses, observing every detail of the Targaryen fleet. There were indeed adult dragons amongst them – he counted three, their scaled bodies occasionally visible as dark, glistening shapes upon the decks of the larger galleys, or as fleeting silhouettes against the clouds when they were allowed short flights on calming days. They were not the colossal beasts of Valyrian legend, perhaps younger or simply smaller breeds, but dragons nonetheless, a clear and present danger. This complicated matters, but Kaelen's greendreams and his intelligence had been specific: the true prize, the crux of Daenys the Dreamer's prophecy and Aenar's desperate hope, lay within five heavily warded chests, almost certainly aboard Aenar's flagship, The Crimson Shadow. These were the eggs, the future. The adult dragons were a deterrent, a royal guard, but Kaelen's focus remained unwavering.
The Crimson Shadow was a formidable vessel, larger than the others, its dark red sails a stark contrast to the grey sea. Kaelen noted its routines, the watch patterns, the subtle shimmer of magical wards around its sterncastle. Aenar Targaryen himself was often visible on deck, a silver-haired figure, his face etched with worry, frequently conferring with a young woman Kaelen presumed was Daenys.
"They are nervous," Kaelen murmured to his first mate, a grizzled Northman named Torrvald, whose loyalty was as unshakeable as the mountains of his homeland. "Fleeing their own kind, their own destiny. That fear can be exploited."
His plan, refined through days of meticulous observation, was audacious. He wouldn't engage the entire fleet, nor would he openly challenge an adult dragon if it could be avoided. Instead, he would use the treacherous, storm-prone waters south of the Claw, where the Narrow Sea often became a chaotic maelstrom, as his ally. He would encourage a storm, separate The Crimson Shadow, and strike under the cover of darkness and chaos.
The mages Kaelen had assembled, a dozen individuals whose latent talents he had carefully nurtured, were key. They were not powerful sorcerers individually, but together, focused by Kaelen's own formidable will and Flamel's knowledge of synergistic spellcasting, they could weave potent illusions, manipulate localized weather, and counter basic wards.
"The storm will be our cloak," Kaelen briefed his core team in the cramped, lamp-lit cabin of the Wraith. The five stone chests from his visions were seared into his mind. "Our mages will guide it, amplify it. When The Crimson Shadow is isolated, we strike. The Shadow will create a diversion, drawing the attention of any nearby escorts or airborne dragons with illusions of a rival pirate fleet, or perhaps a kraken, if our illusionists are feeling particularly inventive. The Wraith will board the flagship. My team and I will secure the eggs. Speed, silence, and precision are paramount. We are ghosts, leaving only confusion in our wake."
He looked at each face: Torrvald, his stoic first mate; Lyra, a sharp-eyed woman from the Rills whose talent for illusions was remarkable; Garth Stonehand, the immensely strong climber from the first dragon egg heist, now a seasoned veteran; and a quiet, intense man named Finnian, whose control over air currents was surprisingly adept. Brandon, his son, was not here; this was a burden Kaelen would bear alone.
As the Targaryen fleet neared the turbulent waters south of Crackclaw Point, Kaelen gave the order. Finnian and two other weather-workers began their subtle incantations, their hands weaving intricate patterns in the air, coaxing the existing low-pressure system, drawing moisture and energy from the surrounding atmosphere. Kaelen himself lent his will, Flamel's deeper understanding of elemental forces guiding their collective effort. The sky, already bruised and overcast, began to blacken with an unnatural speed. The wind picked up, whipping the sea into a frenzy of white-capped waves.
Rain lashed down in blinding sheets. The Targaryen convoy, caught unawares by the storm's sudden ferocity, began to scatter. Through the eyes of a storm petrel battling the gale, Kaelen watched with grim satisfaction as The Crimson Shadow, its sails reefed, struggled to maintain its course, gradually becoming separated from its escorts. One of the adult dragons, a bronze brute, took to the sky from another vessel, roaring its defiance at the storm, but it was clearly disoriented, fighting to stay aloft in the raging winds.
"Now," Kaelen commanded, his voice cutting through the howl of the wind. "Signal the Shadow. Begin the diversion. All hands on the Wraith, prepare to board!"
The Shadow, a ghostly shape in the storm, veered away, its mages already conjuring shimmering, monstrous forms in the mist and rain to the south of the remaining Targaryen vessels, accompanied by terrifying, illusionary roars that were carried on the wind. Kaelen hoped it would be enough to occupy the other dragons and ships.
The Wraith, meanwhile, expertly navigated by Torrvald, closed in on The Crimson Shadow. Waves crashed over their bow, the deck slick and treacherous. Kaelen stood at the prow, a dark, unmoving figure, the Nightingale awakened. His team, clad in black, oilskin-treated leather, checked their weapons: Valyrian steel daggers, short swords, grappling hooks with muffled claws, and small, potent vials from Flamel's stores – sleeping gas, flash powders, concentrated corrosives for locks.
As they drew alongside the laboring Valyrian flagship, grappling hooks were thrown, catching firmly on the ornate railings. Kaelen was the first over, moving with a predatory grace that defied the violent motion of the ship. His team followed, silent shadows in the storm.
The deck of The Crimson Shadow was chaotic. Valyrian sailors, shouting in their musical tongue, fought to control the rigging, their attention on the storm, not on the silent death that had just boarded their vessel. Kaelen and his men moved like wraiths. Sentries were dispatched with swift, brutal efficiency – a silenced crossbow bolt here, a garrote there, a precisely aimed blow from a weighted cosh. No alarms were raised.
Kaelen gestured towards the sterncastle. The five chests would be there, in Aenar's personal quarters or a specially protected hold below. The main hatch leading below deck was guarded by two Targaryen household guards, their elaborate armor gleaming wetly in the flashes of lightning. Garth Stonehand and another Northman engaged them, a blur of motion and muffled impacts. The fight was over in seconds, the Valyrians slumping to the deck.
Kaelen led the way down the narrow companionway into the dimly lit corridor below. The air here was thick with the scent of expensive incense and fear. He could feel the thrum of powerful wards.
"Lyra, Finnian, with me," Kaelen ordered his two primary mages. "The rest, secure this corridor. No one enters or leaves."
The door to what Kaelen assumed was Aenar's main cabin was heavy, carved weirwood, bound with silver, and pulsed with a visible magical aura – shifting, complex Valyrian glyphs that burned with an inner fire. These were far more sophisticated than the wards on the merchant galley.
"Impressive," Lyra murmured, her eyes narrowed in concentration as she analyzed the warding scheme. "Layered, reactive. Tied to bloodlines, it seems."
"Flamel dealt with worse," Kaelen stated, his voice calm. He produced his own kit of arcane tools. For nearly an hour, they worked, a silent, intense battle of wills and magical knowledge. Kaelen directed, his understanding of magical theory, augmented by Flamel's vast experience, allowing him to identify weaknesses in the Valyrian weave. Lyra, with her gift for unravelling illusions and misdirection, worked on the deceptive layers of the ward, while Finnian used his control over air currents to subtly disrupt the flow of magical energy feeding the glyphs, creating minute "dead spots" Kaelen could exploit. It was like untangling a Gordian knot woven from lightning and shadow. Several times, the wards flared dangerously, lashing out with bolts of arcane energy that Kaelen's pre-placed absorption runes (another of Flamel's ingenious inventions) barely contained.
Finally, with a deep sigh that seemed to echo from the very timbers of the ship, the Valyrian glyphs flickered and died. Kaelen pushed the heavy door open.
The cabin was opulent, filled with overturned furniture from the storm's violence. Aenar Targaryen stood defiant, a slender Valyrian steel blade in his hand, his silver hair plastered to his forehead. Beside him, Daenys the Dreamer clutched a struggling, cat-sized dragon hatchling – a flash of emerald green – protectively. So, one egg had already hatched recently, or was brought as a hatchling. This was an unexpected complication, but the five prophesied eggs were still the primary goal.
And there they were. Five stone chests, identical to his visions, lashed to the floor in the center of the cabin, each sealed with heavy silver locks and intricate magical sigils.
"Pirates?" Aenar snarled, his Valyrian accent thick. "You choose a poor ship to raid, dogs of the storm!" He clearly did not recognize them as Northmen.
Kaelen ignored him, his gaze fixed on the chests. "Secure the chests," he ordered his men who had followed him in. Two of his strongest warriors moved forward.
Aenar lunged, but Kaelen was faster. He didn't draw his sword. Instead, a flick of his wrist sent a small, leaden pellet shattering at Aenar's feet, releasing a near-invisible cloud of concentrated soporific gas. Aenar choked, his eyes widened in surprise, and he stumbled, his sword clattering to the deck. Daenys cried out, trying to shield her father and the hatchling. Kaelen was upon them in an instant, a larger, pre-soaked cloth pressed firmly over their faces. Both Targaryens slumped into unconsciousness, the green hatchling hissing and snapping before succumbing to the fumes that still hung faintly in the air.
"Garth, secure the hatchling as well. Gently. It's another prize, unexpected but welcome." Kaelen instructed, then turned his attention back to the chests. The silver locks were complex, but Flamel's knowledge included methods for bypassing almost any mundane mechanism. The magical sigils, however, required another bout of careful, focused dispelling by Lyra and Finnian, Kaelen overseeing their work, occasionally murmuring a specific counter-charm or tracing a nullifying rune.
One by one, the chests were opened. Inside each, nestled on beds of dark velvet and glowing with a faint, internal luminescence, lay a dragon egg. One was the color of beaten gold, another a deep, sapphire blue, a third a mottled green like jade and moss, the fourth a stark, creamy white, and the last a fiery crimson veined with black. Six eggs in total, counting the small, emerald hatchling. A richer haul than he had dared hope.
"Package them carefully," Kaelen ordered, his voice tight with suppressed triumph. His men had brought specially prepared, wadded containers, lined with fur and imbued with charms to maintain warmth and stability.
As they worked, a sudden roar echoed from outside, even above the storm – the sound of an adult dragon, enraged. One of Aenar's airborne guards must have seen through the Shadow's diversion or been drawn by the flagship's distress.
"Time to leave," Kaelen said, his calmness a stark contrast to the rising tension. "Standard protocol. No identifiable witnesses. Leave them a story of mystery and loss, not Northern aggression."
His team worked with ruthless efficiency. The remaining Targaryen crew on the flagship, already disoriented by the storm and the swift, silent attacks, were subdued with more sleeping gas deployed through the ventilation shafts Kaelen had identified. Important documents, charts, and any easily portable valuables were quickly gathered – spoils of war, and items to further confuse any investigation.
Kaelen personally oversaw the placement of several alchemical charges of Flamel's design deep within The Crimson Shadow's hold – not explosives, but devices that would, over several hours, slowly corrode the hull from the inside out, causing the ship to founder gradually, hopefully far from any major shipping lanes, leaving minimal, untraceable wreckage. He also had his mages subtly alter key sections of the ship's log (the parts not taken) to suggest a sudden, inexplicable outbreak of madness among the crew, or perhaps an attack by mythical sea creatures from the deep, fictions that would be dismissed by Valyrian authorities but might muddy the waters enough to prevent any focused investigation towards the North.
The transfer of the six eggs (five in chests, one live hatchling carefully bundled) back to the Wraith in the midst of the raging storm was a feat of seamanship and sheer nerve. The Wraith and the Shadow then disengaged, their chameleon sails already shifting to a stormy grey, melting into the tempest as if they had never been there.
Kaelen stood on the deck of the Wraith as it clawed its way north, the storm slowly abating behind them as his weather-workers allowed their influence to wane. He looked back towards the last known position of The Crimson Shadow, now a crippled, slowly foundering vessel, its remaining dragons likely too preoccupied with their own survival or the safety of the other Targaryen ships to mount an effective pursuit, especially given the Shadow's earlier, large-scale illusionary battle.
He had done it. Six potential dragons for House Stark. The risk had been immense, the execution near flawless. A wave of profound satisfaction, cold and deep, washed over him, quickly followed by the immense weight of his actions. He had stolen the future of a desperate house, albeit a Valyrian one. But the Nightingale and the pragmatic King in him had long ago made peace with such necessities. The survival and ascendancy of the North, of his bloodline, was his only true morality.
"Set course for the hidden fjords," Kaelen ordered Torrvald, his voice hoarse from the wind and the strain. "And pray to all gods, old and new, that our journey home is less eventful."
Inside his cabin, the five dragon eggs in their chests, and the small, bundled emerald hatchling, radiated a faint warmth, a silent promise of the fiery dynasty Kaelen Stark was forging in the heart of winter. The greatest heist in generations was complete. The wolves of the North now possessed the fire of dragons, and the world would, one day, unknowingly tremble before their hidden might. The long game had taken a monumental leap forward.