The year was quiet in Westeros, or so the ravens claimed. Old King Jaehaerys still ruled from the Iron Throne, his hand Prince Aemon Targaryen a golden shadow at his side. Far across the sea, the Sea Snake had not yet returned from his voyage into the steaming jungles of Yi Ti. But in Lys, the city of silks and secrets, the world turned as it always had slow, perfumed, and cruel.
In a narrow alley off the Street of Sighs, behind a shuttered perfumery and beneath a sagging blue awning, a rusted bell rang above a warped wooden door. The sign read simply: "Physick."
Inside, the air was thick with the scent of myrrh, boiled mint, and old blood. Vaelros stood over a cot, sleeves rolled to the elbow, hands slick with red. The girl beneath him whimpered as he stitched the gash along her thigh clean, deep, and deliberate. A knife wound, not an accident.
"Hold still, Lira," he murmured, voice low and even. "You'll scar, but you'll walk."
She hissed through her teeth. "He said I was too slow. That I smiled too much."
Vaelros didn't answer. He tied the thread with a surgeon's knot, wiped the blood with a cloth steeped in vinegar, and reached for the salve he'd brewed that morning comfrey, honey, and a pinch of powdered pearl. Expensive, but he never charged the girls. Not them.
In the corner, two more women waited. One cradled a broken wrist, the other a bruised face and a swollen eye. They watched him work with a reverence that made him uncomfortable.
He was nineteen, and already the whispers called him "the ghost-hand" for the way his fingers moved, for the way pain seemed to vanish when he touched you. They didn't know about the sigils he traced in the air when no one was looking. They didn't see the faint shimmer of wards he left on the door at night, or the phantom hands that steadied his own when he was too tired to hold the needle.
He didn't want them to know.
He'd read too much already. Scrolls smuggled from Asshai, fragments of Valyrian grimoires, sailor's tales of shadowbinders and skinchangers. The deeper he dug, the darker it got. Blood magic, sacrifice, binding spells that required a name and a scream. He'd studied them, yes. But he would not cross that line. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
He rinsed his hands in a basin of cloudy water and turned to the next girl. "You're next, Mara."
She nodded, eyes downcast. "It's just a sprain."
He took her wrist gently. "We'll see."
Outside, the city sang its usual song laughter, coin, the slap of sandals on stone. But in this little room, time slowed. Here, Vaelros was not a sorcerer, not a whisper-chaser or a would-be mage. Here, he was just a healer. A boy with a past he couldn't remember and a future he hadn't yet chosen.
But the winds were shifting. He could feel it in his bones.
And somewhere, in the dark corners of Lys, someone was watching.