Chapter Three: The Long Wait
♤♤♠︎♤♤
The hundred and ninety-third year.
Ignotus stood at the edge of the Rainwood and watched a farmer mend his fence.
The man was old. Seventy, maybe eighty, with hands twisted from decades of work and a back that bent like a weathered branch. His movements were slow, deliberate. Each nail driven with care, each board set straight.
Ignotus watched him for an hour.
He had been watching people for nearly two centuries now. Not in a strange way—not lurking in shadows or peering through windows. Just observing. Learning. Trying to understand the lives of ordinary people in a world he had only ever read about.
This farmer had been born in the Stormlands. He had lived here his whole life, never traveling more than a day's walk from the cottage where he raised his children and buried his wife. He knew the Rainwood's edge, knew which mushrooms were safe to eat and which would kill a man in hours. He did not know that monsters roamed Sothoryos or that sorceresses trained in towers of white marble or that across the sea, dragonlords dreamed of conquest.
He knew his fence. His garden. His grandchildren, who visited on feast days and called him grandfather in voices that made his weathered face soften.
Ignotus turned away from the treeline.
Ember shifted on his shoulder.
"I know," Ignotus said. "I should be preparing."
He had been preparing for nearly two centuries. His magic was beyond measure. His sword work was competent. His wealth was sufficient to buy small kingdoms.
He had friends, or something like friends. He had knowledge. He had purpose.
He was also, despite all of it, still waiting.
For what, he no longer knew.
♧♧♣︎♧♧
He returned to his tower.
The throne room welcomed him with its painted sky and silver stars. He sat on the mithril throne, Ember settling into her customary place on the armrest, and let his mind drift.
Two hundred years.
In his old life, he had lived thirty-two. He had spent those years reading about this world, memorizing its lineages and battles and quiet tragedies. He had never imagined he would actually see it.
Now he had seen it. He had walked its forests and sailed its seas and stood in its great academies. He had met sorceresses and witchers and merchants and farmers. He had learned its magic and its history and its languages.
He had done everything except the one thing he had always intended to do.
The Targaryens were still in Valyria.
He had checked. Not in person—Valyria was dangerous even now, its dragonlords suspicious of strangers and its politics a maze of shifting alliances. But he had read the reports, consulted the histories, confirmed what he already knew.
Aegon had not yet been born. His parents had not yet met. The Doom was still three centuries away, a catastrophe waiting in the smoking heart of the peninsula.
He had time.
So much time.
He was tired of it.
◇◇◆◇◇
A letter arrived from Aretuza.
Tissaia's handwriting was precise, economical. She wasted no words on pleasantries.
The annual convocation is next month. Several witcher masters will attend. You expressed interest in their combat applications of Sign magic. If you wish to be present, arrive before the twentieth. I will not hold a seat for you.
—T
He smiled.
♡♡♥︎♡♡
The convocation was held at Ban Ard that year.
Sorcerers and enchantresses filled the academy's halls, their robes a riot of color and cut. Ignotus moved through them in simple black, Ember hidden beneath a disillusionment charm, chirping little and observing much.
The witcher masters kept to themselves.
There were four of them—Wolf, Griffin, Cat, and one from a school he didn't recognize. They sat in a corner of the great hall, their backs to the wall, their eyes tracking every movement in the room. They did not mingle.
Ignotus approached them slowly.
"Wolf," he said, addressing the eldest. "I trained at Kaer Morhen for a month, seventy years ago. Your predecessor allowed me to observe."
The witcher studied him. His face was scarred, his eyes pale and cold.
"I remember," he said. "The mage who fought like a scholar."
"That's generous."
"It was not meant to be."
Ignotus inclined his head. "May I sit?"
A pause. Then the witcher nodded once.
He sat.
♤♤♠︎♤♤
They spoke for three hours.
Not about Sign magic—that came later, in the training yards, with demonstrations and corrections and the witcher's patient, brutal instruction. First they spoke about monsters.
The witcher's name was Eskel. He had been trained at Kaer Morhen two centuries ago, had survived the trials when nine of ten did not, had hunted everything from drowners to forktails to things that had no name in any language. He had seen comrades die. He had seen villages burn. He had seen the slow, steady decline of his school as fewer boys came to be tested and fewer still survived the trials.
"Why do you want to learn Signs?" he asked. "You have more power in your little finger than most mages possess entirely."
"Power isn't precision," Ignotus said. "And I don't want to fight monsters. I want to understand how you fight them."
Eskel looked at him for a long time.
"You're not like other mages," he said.
"No."
"That's not a compliment."
"I know."
The witcher grunted. Then he stood, drew his silver sword, and gestured for Ignotus to do the same.
♧♧♣︎♧♧
He spent three weeks at Ban Ard after the convocation ended.
Eskel taught him Aard, Igni and Quen. Not the raw, explosive versions witchers used—those required mutations Ignotus didn't have—but refined versions, precise and controlled. A push instead of a blast. A spark instead of a flame. A shield that could turn a blade but not a dragon's breath.
"Practice," Eskel said on his last day. "Every day. Even when you think you've mastered it."
"I will."
"Good." The witcher sheathed his sword. "Don't die. You're more interesting than most mages."
Ignotus laughed. It was the first genuine laugh he'd managed in months.
"I'll try," he said.
◇◇◆◇◇
The four hundred and seventh year brought another letter.
This one did not arrive by raven or messenger or spell. It appeared on his desk, folded and sealed with spiral wax, just as the others had done before.
He broke the seal with steady hands.
Valyria is gone.
The peninsula burns. The Fourteen Flames erupted simultaneously. Every dragonlord within the borders is dead—hundreds of families, thousands of mages, all the power, glory and cruelty of the Freehold, extinguished in a single night.
A few survived. Those who were abroad, those who fled, those whose dragons carried them far enough and fast enough. The Targaryens of Dragonstone are among them. They have lost everything except each other and the five dragons that answered their call.
The world has changed.
You are still not ready.
Be patient.
Ignotus read the letter three times.
Then he set it down very carefully, walked to his diamond windows, and watched the rain fall on the Rainwood.
Ember pressed against his neck, warm and silent.
Valyria was gone.
He had known it would happen. Had read about it in his old life, studied the accounts, memorized the dates and details. The Doom of Valyria was one of the defining moments of this world's history—the catastrophe that ended an empire and made possible everything that came after.
But knowing and witnessing were different things.
Four centuries. He had been in this world for four centuries, and the first great turning point he had anticipated had finally arrived. The Targaryens were no longer one dragonlord family among many. They were refugees on a volcanic island, clinging to their remaining dragons and their dreams of a lost homeland.
Aegon was not yet born. His parents were children, if they had been born at all. The Conquest was still a century away.
Ignotus still had time.
So much time.
He closed his eyes and let the rain fill his ears.
♡♡♥︎♡♡
The four hundred and twelfth year.
He visited Dragonstone.
Not to interfere. Not to announce himself. Just to see.
The island rose from the grey sea like a clenched fist. Its towers were black, carved in the Valyrian style—curves and spirals and dragon motifs that seemed to move in the shifting light. The volcano smoked fitfully, restless but quiet.
He stood on the shore, invisible under his oldest disillusionment charm, and watched the Targaryens live their reduced lives.
Aenar Targaryen had been Lord of Dragonstone for twelve years now. He was old, his silver hair thinning, his face lined with grief for the homeland he would never see again. His daughter Elaena managed the household with quiet efficiency. His son Gaemon trained with the dragons, learning the ancient arts that would be passed down to his own children.
They were not the Targaryens Ignotus remembered. They were smaller, humbler, still reeling from the loss of everything their family had built over millennia. They did not dream of conquest. They dreamed of survival.
He watched them for three days.
Then he returned to his tower and did not speak of it to anyone.
♤♤♠︎♤♤
The four hundred and twenty-third year.
A letter from Tissaia.
Aenar Targaryen is dead. His son Gaemon now rules Dragonstone. The dragons grow restless—there are five still living, but they have not bred since the Doom. Some say the blood magic that sustained Valyria's bond with its beasts died with the Freehold.
I thought you should know.
He wrote back: Thank you.
He did not visit Dragonstone again.
♧♧♣︎♧♧
The four hundred and thirty-first year.
He went to Sothoryos.
Aretuza had changed in the centuries since his first visit. New towers had been built, new enchantresses trained, new alliances forged with the witcher schools and the merchant princes of the eastern coast. Tissaia was still archmistress, still precise and cold and impossibly competent.
"You look older," she said.
"I am older."
"Four centuries."
"Yes."
She studied him with those pale, assessing eyes. "And still you wait."
"And still I wait."
"Why?"
He had no answer.
◇◇◆◇◇
The four hundred and fifty-third year.
Another letter appeared on his desk.
Gaemon Targaryen is dead. His son Aegon now rules Dragonstone. He is six years old.
A boy king on a volcanic island with five dragons and no homeland. His mother worries. His uncle schemes. His sister watches the sea and dreams of something she cannot name.
You are still not ready.
Be patient.
He placed the letter in his drawer with the others.
♡♡♥︎♡♡
The four hundred and sixty-seventh year.
He returned to the witcher schools.
Eskel was gone—dead at last, killed by a forktail in the mountains north of Ban Ard. His successor was a younger man named Gerd, scarred and silent, who regarded Ignotus with wary suspicion.
"You trained with Eskel," Gerd said.
"Yes."
"He spoke of you. Said you fought like a scholar."
"He said that too."
Gerd grunted. "He also said you learned faster than any mage he'd ever taught. And that you asked too many questions."
"I haven't changed."
"No." Gerd drew his sword. "Show me what you remember."
♤♤♠︎♤♤
The four hundred and seventy-eighth year.
Aegon Targaryen turned thirty-one.
Ignotus knew this because he made it his business to know. He tracked the comings and goings on Dragonstone through merchants and sailors and the occasional discreet correspondence with mages who owed him favors. He knew that Aegon had married both his sisters—Visenya first, then Rhaenys. He knew that Visenya had given birth to a son, Maegor, three years ago. He knew that Rhaenys was with child.
He knew that the Conquest was approaching.
Fifty-three years since the Doom. Twenty-five years until Aegon landed at the mouth of the Blackwater and began the war that would unite six of the seven kingdoms under the dragon banner.
He had time.
Not as much as before. But still time.
♧♧♣︎♧♧
The four hundred and eighty-second year.
Another letter.
Aegon Targaryen has visited Lys. He has visited Pentos. He has visited Volantis, Myr and Tyrosh. He speaks with merchants, magisters and sellsword captains. He asked questions about Westeros—its kings, its armies, its castles, its weaknesses.
He is planning something.
You are almost ready.
Be patient.
Ignotus read the letter twice.
Then he smiled.
◇◇◆◇◇
The four hundred and eighty-sixth year.
He stood at the edge of the Rainwood and watched the sunset.
Four centuries. Nearly five. He had spent them learning, traveling, preparing. He had mastered his magic and trained his body and built his wealth and his connections and his knowledge.
He had watched empires fall and families rise and history crawl toward the moment he had been waiting for since he first woke in this forest, naked and shivering and afraid.
Aegon Targaryen was thirty-nine years old. His sons were grown. His dragons were mighty. His ambition, nurtured over decades of careful planning, was nearly ready to bear fruit.
In sixteen years, he would cross the sea.
In sixteen years, everything would change.
Ignotus turned away from the sunset and walked back into his tower.
He had preparations to make.
♡♡♥︎♡♡
The four hundred and ninety-first year.
A letter from Dragonstone.
Not the usual spiral wax. This one bore the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen, pressed into crimson sealing wax. The handwriting was elegant, precise—the hand of someone who had been educated by the best maesters Valyrian gold could buy.
Lord Peverell,
My merchants speak of you. My spies speak of you. The sorcerers of Sothoryos whisper your name when they think no one is listening—the mage in black robes, the phoenix on your shoulder, the tower that appears and vanishes at your command. They say you have walked the halls of Aretuza for centuries. They say you trained with the witchers of Kaer Morhen. They say your wealth rivals the Iron Bank and your power rivals anything that survived the Doom.
I am preparing to do something that has not been attempted in living memory. Something my ancestors dreamed of but never dared. Something that will require every advantage I can gather.
I would know whose side you stand on.
—Aegon Targaryen, Lord of Dragonstone
Ignotus read the letter slowly.
Ember shifted on his shoulder, ruby eyes tracking the words.
"He's planning the Conquest," Ignotus said. "Already. He's been planning it for years."
The phoenix trilled softly.
"He wants to know if I'm a threat or an asset."
He set the letter down. Picked it up. Read it again.
Five centuries. He had spent five centuries waiting for this moment—the moment when the story he knew and the world he lived in finally aligned. Aegon Targaryen was thirty-nine years old. His sons were grown. His dragons were mighty. His ambition, nurtured over decades of careful preparation, was nearly ready to bear fruit.
In nine years, he would cross the sea.
In nine years, everything would change.
Ignotus took out a fresh sheet of parchment. His pen moved steadily across the surface.
Lord Targaryen,
I have spent five centuries learning the arts of magic and war. I have studied at every academy on Sothoryos and trained with witchers who have forgotten more about combat than most armies will ever know. I have walked the slave markets of Volantis and the palaces of Pentos and the streets of a dozen Free Cities. I have made friends and enemies and acquaintances who remember my name even decades after our last meeting.
I have done all of this while waiting for someone to attempt what you are about to attempt.
I stand on the side of ambition. I stand on the side of those who see what the world could be and refuse to accept what it is. If your goal is conquest, I will help you conquer. If your goal is unification, I will help you unite. If your goal is something I cannot yet imagine, I will help you imagine it.
I am not a threat to you, Lord Targaryen. I am, if you will have me, an asset.
I await your invitation.
—Ignotus Peverell, Lord of the Most Ancient and Royal House of Peverell
He sealed the letter with silver wax, pressed his signet—a phoenix rising—into the warm surface, and sent it into the waiting darkness.
Then he sat back in his throne and watched the painted sky shift through afternoon into evening.
Ember nestled against his neck.
"Nine years," Ignotus said. "Maybe less. He'll want to meet me first. Assess me. Decide if I'm worth the risk."
The phoenix chirped.
"Yes, I know. I've been waiting five centuries. What's another few years?"
♧♧♣︎♧♧
The four hundred and ninety-second year.
A raven arrived from Dragonstone.
Come.
The journey took two weeks.
Ignotus traveled by ship from Weeping Town, as he had done five centuries ago when he first crossed the sea to Sothoryos. The vessel was smaller, the captain less nervous, the waters more familiar. He stood at the rail and watched the grey waves roll beneath the hull and thought about everything that had brought him here.
Five centuries.
He had arrived in this world with nothing except confusion and fear and a knowledge he did not understand. He had built himself from the ground up—learned his magic, trained his body, forged connections that spanned continents. He had made a name for himself, a reputation, a place in the world that existed independent of the tower that waited for him in the Rainwood.
And now, finally, he was about to meet the man whose story would define the next three centuries of Westerosi history.
Dragonstone rose from the sea on the fourteenth day.
Black towers. Stone dragons. Volcanic peaks shrouded in permanent cloud. It was smaller than he remembered from his last visit, eighty years ago, but no less imposing. No less haunted by the ghosts of a homeland that no longer existed.
The ship docked at the small harbor. Ignotus disembarked, Ember on his shoulder, sword at his hip. A guard in Targaryen colors approached him.
"Lord Peverell?"
"Yes."
"The king will see you now."
◇◇◆◇◇
Aegon Targaryen was not what he expected.
He had read about this man in another life. Studied his campaigns, his marriages, his careful construction of a dynasty that would outlast him by nearly three centuries. He had formed an image—a conqueror, a strategist, a man who bent the world to his will through fire and blood.
The man who sat in Dragonstone's great hall was all of those things.
He was also quiet. Contained. His silver-gold hair was pulled back from a face that showed little emotion, his violet eyes assessing and calm. He did not rise when Ignotus entered. He did not speak.
He simply watched.
Ignotus stopped at the foot of the dais. Ember remained silent on his shoulder.
"Lord Peverell," Aegon said.
"Your Grace."
A pause. The dragonlord studied him with those pale, unreadable eyes.
"You are younger than I expected."
"I am five hundred and twenty-two years old."
"Yet you look thirty."
"Immortality has certain advantages."
Aegon nodded slowly. His gaze moved to Ember, to the sword at Ignotus's hip, to the silver embroidery on his black robes. Taking inventory. Assessing threat level.
"My spies tell me you have visited every academy on Sothoryos. That you trained with the witchers of Kaer Morhen for over a year. That the archmistress of Aretuza considers you a colleague and the masters of Ban Ard regard you with wary respect."
"Your spies are well-informed."
"They are paid to be." Aegon leaned back in his chair. "What I cannot determine is why. Why spend five centuries accumulating power, knowledge and influence, only to hide yourself in a forest at the edge of the world?"
Ignotus considered his answer carefully.
"Because I was waiting," he said.
"For what?"
"For someone worth the effort."
Silence stretched between them. The dragonlord's expression did not change.
"And you believe I am that someone."
"I believe you are about to attempt something extraordinary. I believe you have the dragons, the ambition, and the strategic mind to succeed. I believe that with the right assistance, you could build something that will outlast both of us."
He paused.
"And I believe that without that assistance, your dynasty will not survive three generations."
Aegon's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly.
"That is a bold claim."
"I have had five centuries to study history. Patterns emerge." Ignotus met his gaze steadily. "Dragonfire wins thrones. It does not keep them. Conquest is the beginning of a story, Your Grace—not the end."
The dragonlord was silent for a long moment.
Then, slowly, his mouth curved into something that might have been a smile.
"Sit down, Lord Peverell," he said. "Tell me what you know about conquering kingdoms."
♡♡♥︎♡♡
They spoke for three hours.
Ignotus told him about the witcher schools and their combat techniques. About the wards that protected Aretuza from siege and storm. About the alchemical processes that could enhance steel beyond its natural limits and the runic arrays that could reinforce walls against dragonfire.
Aegon listened. Asked questions. Took notes in his own elegant hand.
He did not ask about the future. He did not ask about his descendants, or the dynasty Ignotus had warned would fail, or the patterns of history that supposedly repeated themselves. He was a man who dealt in certainties, not prophecies.
When Ignotus finished, Aegon set down his pen.
"You will stay on Dragonstone," he said. "I have rooms prepared. My sisters will wish to meet you, and my sons will need to understand what you are and why I have chosen to trust you."
"And if I had been a threat?"
Aegon's expression did not change.
"You would not have left this hall."
Ignotus inclined his head. It was not a threat. It was simply a statement of fact.
"Then I accept your hospitality, Your Grace."
Aegon nodded once. Then he rose, signaling that the audience was over.
"We march in nine years," he said. "Be ready."
♤♤♠︎♤♤
The rooms were in the eastern tower, overlooking the sea.
Ignotus stood at the window, watching waves crash against the black rocks below. Ember perched on the sill beside him, her ruby eyes tracking the movement of gulls across the grey sky.
Nine years.
He had spent five centuries waiting. Nine years was nothing.
And yet it felt like everything.
"You were right," he said to Ember. "This is where I was meant to be."
The phoenix trilled softly.
He stayed at the window until the sun set and the sea turned black and the stars emerged one by one above the smoking peak of the Dragonmont.
♧♧♣︎♧♧
The years passed.
He trained with Aegon's swordsmen and advised his strategists and answered the endless questions of his curious, clever sons. He brewed potions for Visenya and discussed philosophy with Rhaenys and learned the names and temperaments of every dragon on the island.
He did not tell them about the future. He did not warn them about Maegor's cruelty or the Dance that would tear their family apart or the slow, steady decline that would follow Aegon's death. Those tragedies were centuries away, and the men and women who would suffer them had not yet been born.
Instead, he helped them prepare for the conquest that would define their legacy.
And he waited.
◇◇◆◇◇
The four hundred and ninety-ninth year.
A raven arrived from Sothoryos.
Tissaia's handwriting was, as always, precise and economical.
I hear you have finally emerged from your forest.
About time.
—T
He smiled, folded the letter carefully, and tucked it into his pocket beside his heart.
♡♡♥︎♡♡
The five hundredth year.
Aegon Targaryen stood at the prow of his flagship, looking west toward the continent that would soon be his. His sisters flanked him, Visenya with her dark hair and darker sword, Rhaenys with her ready smile and her dragon Meraxes coiled patiently on the shore behind them.
Behind them all, the army waited. The sellswords and household knights and dragonlords who would follow their king across the sea and carve a kingdom from the bones of seven lesser ones.
Ignotus stood apart from the crowd, Ember on his shoulder, watching the dawn light catch the three great dragons' scales.
Five hundred years.
Aegon turned, caught his eye, and nodded once.
It was time.