Year: 281 AC
Location: Pentos
The sun hadn't yet broken the horizon, but the city was stirring with quiet industry. Pentos exhaled a haze of briny vapor and citrus from its crowded harbor, the scent clinging to the narrow alleys. Aragorn stood at the balcony edge, the chill of the stone under his palms still damp with dew. Below him, carts trundled through the southern causeway, wheels clacking unevenly on misshapen cobblestones, drivers calling to each other in slurred Low Valyrian.
He observed the street calmly, his breath shallow. Sleep had come, briefly, the night before, a stolen handful of hours in the cot, his body too overtaxed to resist rest. But now it was morning, and the work resumed.
His mind was already assembling variables.
At the northern wall, the second aqueduct bend was beginning to bow outward. Hairline fractures spread from the load-bearing curve of the arch, masked beneath algae-streaked stone. He pictured the deterioration cascading: one loose joint, followed by pressure loss, a sagging viaduct, water redirected into the lower wards where the drainage could not handle it. Disease would follow.
He processed the repair sequence rapidly. Clay seals from nearby kilns, he'd already begun drafting the kiln schematics three days prior. Brick relays alternating between herringbone and staggered bonding to handle shear forces. He pictured tools: pine scaffolding jointed with keyed lath pins, men trained in counterweight leverage using iron hooks and cords soaked in boiled linseed oil to reduce friction. Not machines, but precision within medieval constraint. It could be done.
He made a note to send a diagram with measurements to Daros of the Mason's Guild by midday.
Behind him, Willem Darry cleared his throat. Aragorn turned.
"You're up early."
"So are you," Aragorn replied, glancing at the older man's weathered tunic and hastily laced boots.
"I'm too old to sleep through the racket these Pentoshi call a city." Willem rubbed his eyes. "I saw men at the south wall moving scaffolds. Are you already expanding the drydock?"
"Phase one. Phase two will cover the estuary's west bank."
Willem studied him for a moment. "You have to pace yourself. Even Rhaegar knew when to rest."
Aragorn didn't answer immediately. His hands were still against the stone.
"Rest comes when it's earned."
He turned from the balcony, walking back into the villa.
The nursery had warmed with first light. Sunlight slanted through the narrow shutters, brushing pale gold across Daenerys's slumbering form. Her breath was steady, slow.
Aragorn checked the herbal decoction left steeping overnight: willow bark, lemon balm, and chamomile. Measured for weight and absorption rate based on her current development. He noted her pallor was still slightly underweight. He adjusted the blanket gently, fingers lingering for a moment at the curve of her cheek.
He didn't speak. There were no grand declarations this time.
Only routine.
In the main hall, Illyrio awaited with his usual array of citrus, roast duck, and thinly veiled condescension. The room was warm despite the early hour, incense smoldering in a corner brazier. Illyrio sipped from a heavy glass, his rings catching the light.
"Your improvements to the carpenters' mills have raised eyebrows," he said without preamble.
Aragorn accepted a cup of water. He drank before answering.
"Productivity doubled. Timber waste dropped to less than 8 percent."
"Yes, but you also restructured guild dues, removed middlemen, and encouraged direct commissions. You're displacing old loyalties."
Aragorn met his gaze. "Efficient systems create new loyalties."
Illyrio laughed, full and round. "True. But dangerous."
He leaned forward. "Tell me again about your floating dockyards. Not in riddles this time."
Aragorn leaned back slightly, parsing how much to reveal.
"The foundation is modular interconnected pontoons reinforced with iron mesh and sealed pitch. They rise with the tide, making them accessible regardless of sea level. The platforms allow for multi-vessel maintenance simultaneously, reducing backlog by more than half. No dependency on fixed harbor slots."
Illyrio's eyes narrowed. "And cost?"
"Initially high. But over three years, operational savings offset it entirely. Plus-"
He gestured to the window.
"You gain flexibility. Naval power that moves."
Illyrio nodded slowly. The weight of the idea hung between them.
"And the armory?"
"Heat recycling. The forges are enclosed. Exhaust is redirected through pressure chambers to purify the air and temper metal faster. You lose less iron, forge healthier laborers, and increase blade yield per day by over forty percent."
Illyrio exhaled, expression unreadable. "And you give all this freely to Pentos."
"Nothing is free," Aragorn said quietly. "But I'm not here to rule."
"No," Illyrio mused. "But you are shaping."
Later, Aragorn walked the length of the eastern causeway, reviewing ongoing work. Laborers waved. He nodded back, his mind elsewhere. He watched how materials moved: where bottlenecks formed, how men paused, which loads strained the rope pulleys.
He adjusted a few supply sequences in his notebook, tweaking weight distributions across shifts.
At the edge of the square, Nalea waited beneath a sun-bleached awning. Her robes shimmered like molten copper in the morning light, eyes unreadable.
"You have them building temples," she said, stepping into his path.
"Storehouses."
"And temples. To your logic. Your fireless god."
Aragorn regarded her evenly. "Ideas don't need altars."
"Yet people kneel all the same."
She smiled faintly. "The smoke turns west soon."
He said nothing. He didn't need to. She walked on.
By evening, his desk was piled with notes and recalculations. He redrafted his kiln instructions, annotated diagrams for a low-torque pulley assist system, and reworded two letters to merchant guilds in Braavos requesting kiln-suitable clay shipments.
His fingers cramped. His shoulders throbbed.
Still, he wrote.
He finished the last sentence of a proposal for a waste filtration system based on sand, charcoal, and gravity-fed reservoirs.
And then, finally, he stopped.
The room flickered, the lines of ink swam. He lay back on the cot, boots still on, eyes burning. And sleep came again, not as surrender, but necessity. The world did not wait, but for a few hours, he would.
(From now on, there is no title. It's hard to find a title for every chapter.)