Yet for all Baelon's bold designs, his vision for the Watchers remained, in truth, little more than ink and parchment. Grand schemes were easy enough to draft in the quiet hours of night. To make them real, he required something far rarer than clever words.
He required his uncle's consent.
And that, Baelon knew, would not come easily.
King Viserys's thoughts were bound fast to his beloved eldest daughter, as they had been for years. Where once the king had indulged Baelon's growing influence with absent smiles and gentle praise, he now watched it with a narrowing gaze. The lesson had been made plain during the dispute over the Stepstones.
To keep Baelon from gathering too much strength and closing his grip around Tyrosh, Viserys had divided the islands by royal decree. Half were granted to Aegon, the other half to Helena, a deliberate fracturing meant to blunt Baelon's reach.
It had not worked.
Baelon's influence had simply leapt the Narrow Sea instead, spreading westward and northward alike, carried on dragonback and sharpened by patience. The king might divide lands, but ambition was not so easily portioned.
Which meant that Baelon would need to tread carefully now, especially where the Wall was concerned.
He could never openly ask for dominion over the Wall, nor over the hidden or newly claimed lands that clung to it like frost to stone. Such a request would invite suspicion at once. Better to do the opposite. Better to feign disdain.
He would speak of the Wall as a frozen grave, a barren edge of the world fit only for exiles and ghosts. He would wrinkle his nose at the thought of endless snow and starving winds. If he played the part well enough, no one would suspect how closely he watched it, or how carefully he counted its weaknesses.
With that in mind, Baelon began to shape his plan, turning it over and over in his thoughts until each piece lay where it must.
After the night of feasting and celebration, and with the Wall reclaimed, most of the northern lords chose to remain within the castle. Only those pressed by urgent affairs departed at once. The rest lingered, cups ever full, voices growing louder as old rivalries softened into shared laughter.
Though they all named the North as home, many of them met only a few times each year. Some hardly ever.
House Umber, lords of Last Hearth, stood furthest north of the great houses. They rarely crossed paths with their peers unless they rode south to Winterfell. Their lives were bound to snow, stone, and watchfulness.
It was through House Karstark, and through Cregan Karstark in particular, that the Umbers learned what little they knew of the wider world. Without such ties, they might have remained almost wholly isolated, hemmed in by ice and silence.
Baelon had no desire to linger among them.
His original intention was to take to the sky once more, to mount Tyraxes and patrol the Bay of Seals, judging for himself the movements of the ice-bound creatures that haunted those waters.
He was fastening the clasp of his riding cloak when Helaena stopped him.
She did not raise her voice. She did not need to.
"Where do you think you are going?" she asked, stepping into his path.
Baelon paused, one hand still at his shoulder. He looked down at her and offered a faint smile. "Only to stretch Tyraxes's wings," he said lightly. "The sky is clear, and-"
"No." Helaena's hand came up, fingers closing around his wrist. Her grip was firm, her knuckles pale. "You are not going."
Baelon's smile faded. He searched her face, noting the tightness at her jaw, the worry she failed to hide behind her steady gaze. "It is only the Bay of Seals," he said. "I will be back before the hour turns."
Yet even so, Helaena stopped him, barring his way, and refused to let him go.
The urgency in her eyes was not new. He had seen it before, on the day she first arrived at Last Hearth, when she told him of the dragon dream that had seized her without warning. He had listened in silence then as she spoke of falling into a black, endless sea, of a fate swallowed by uncertainty, and of Tyraxes torn apart and devoured in the depths.
Now that same dread lingered in her gaze.
"You still have time," Helaena said, her voice firm despite the tremor she tried to suppress. She stepped closer, lowering her voice as if the cold stones themselves might overhear. "Tyraxes will grow stronger. But as long as you live, you must not head south from Long Lake."
Baelon frowned slightly, his brows drawing together. "You speak as though the road itself means death."
Her hand came up sharply, clutching the sleeve of his coat. Her fingers tightened until the leather creased beneath her grip. "If you die," she said, each word pressed hard, "they will no longer hold back. Whatever watches and waits will move freely. You cannot die. You must not."
For a moment, he said nothing. He looked down at her hand on his sleeve, then at her face, pale from more than the northern cold. The firelight caught in her eyes, and he saw fear there, naked and unguarded.
At last, Baelon sighed, the tension leaving his shoulders. He raised a hand and rested it lightly atop her head, his touch careful, almost gentle. "Alright," he said quietly. "I will listen."
Her grip loosened at once, though she did not pull away.
"Then we prepare immediately," Baelon continued. "We return to King's Landing today. I must report the outcome of this battle to my uncle myself."
Helaena nodded, relief washing over her features, though she still looked as though she feared the ground might vanish beneath them if she dared to breathe too easily.
Baelon did not speak of riding out again. He abandoned the thought entirely.
After bidding farewell to the lords of the North, offering measured words and courteous thanks, Baelon and Helena took to the sky together, turning their dragons southward. The white vastness of the North slowly receded behind them, swallowed by distance and cloud.
Baelon himself endured the cold well enough. He had not lingered long in the frozen wastes, and his body had not yet been worn thin by the endless chill.
Tyraxes was not so fortunate.
The cold gnawed at the dragon relentlessly, seeping past scale and bone. Baelon could feel it through their bond, a constant strain that weighed upon Tyraxes's heart and lungs. Even the air it drew into its chest burned with cold, and the food it swallowed offered no warmth, only further exhaustion. Its powerful wings beat on, but the rhythm had begun to falter.
Its stamina was already waning.
In this, Tyraxes fared even worse than Grey Ghost.
Baelon observed the difference carefully, noting every shudder, every labored breath. The reason soon became clear to him.
Tyraxes's bloodline was too strong.
Dragons were creatures of fire, born from heat and flame, their very nature set in opposition to ice and frost. Tyraxes's lineage was unusually pure, its fire burning hotter and deeper than most. Yet that same purity left it far less tolerant of the cold.
Grey Ghost suffered as well, as did Sheepstealer when the weather turned cruel, but their discomfort never reached this severity. They endured. Tyraxes endured only by force of will.
Baelon rested a hand against the warm scales at Tyraxes's neck, his jaw tightening as he felt the dragon's strain. The North was no place for such a creature.
And, he suspected, it was no place for him either.
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A/N: Advance chapters available on Patreon,
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Send the stones this way. Okay???