"And, so…" Kael'thir drawled. "Balerion, consumed by dread at the fate foretold of him, flew into a rage that damned all who walked Planetos. The Gods of his pantheon were devoured by his flame, their corpses left rotting at would later become the Fourteen Flames."
"All the whilst those beyond Valyria could only watch in horror as the God-king unleashed his wrath upon the very world that birthed him."
Baelon watched in muted silence as each angry punch of the titan mercilessly lacerated the earth below in boiling scars, whilst the skies above screamed in agony.
One after another, God's fell in the titan's fury as their carcasses lay bleeding across the Valyrian Peninsula.
"A great many times have you told me this story, yet we both know how it ends." Baelon shook his head, turning towards the genial figure beside him. "Balerion failed. So why should I trust a lick of what you say?"
Six long years had passed.
In that time, he had grown greatly. In body and in magic. Under the Codex's guidance, he had clawed his way towards powers that men of this age could scarcely comprehend.
Yet the chains of fate rendered all of it meaningless.
Only a few years ago, he had heard that Vaemond Velaryon had half his head hacked apart by an enraged Daemon Targaryen.
What was a political exile doing in King's Landing?
Baelon knew the answer well enough.
Rhaenyra had wept into his father's ears, and Viserys, ever the soft-hearted fool when it came to family…had relented.
Daemon had been welcomed back into court, though barred from any true game of power.
Baelon could scarcely bring himself to care.
Was it merely his father's weakness? A softness unbecoming of a king?
Or was it simply fate tightening her grasp once more?
Events throw themselves towards the same inevitable end, no matter what any of them did.
A fate that could not be fought.
A destiny that could not be escaped.
And with every passing year, that truth only deepened Baelon's desire to tear himself free from whatever path had been carved out for him.
"Indeed…" Kael'thir said softly. "The God-king failed."
Then he smiled.
"But was he truly without merit?"
Baelon frowned as he studied the thing before him once more.
Kael'thir clapped once.
The sound rang stark through the chaos of the vision, silencing even the divine fury unfolding before them.
Then—
The world vanished, and once more, they stood within the endless void.
"The reason I showed you Balerion's folly is simple," Kael'thir said, folding his hands behind his back. "Whilst he may have failed in part, his actions were not born from madness alone. There was merit in them."
His smile widened faintly.
"Tell me, Baelon…do you remember what Balerion's plan truly was?"
"To devour the divinity of the Gods," Baelon replied slowly, "then forge an avatar of himself to bear the fate foretold of him. So that he himself could escape it."
"Right. Balerion had drawn much inspiration from the Greenseers of ancient Westeros." Kael'thir paced slowly through the endless void as he spoke. "Even amongst the Children of the Forest, they were considered special beings. Wielders of immense magic. Men spoke of them turning trees into warriors with but a whim, of beasts bending to their will as though they were mere puppets."
A faint chuckle escaped him.
"And, of course, there was their gift of foresight."
Baelon frowned. "So the legends were true? They, too, possessed the gift of prophecy?"
"Ah." Kael'thir smiled. "Because it was not always theirs."
"What do you mean?"
"The Greenseers were born with many gifts, but prophecy was not among them. That particular power…" His smile widened faintly. "They learned."
"By defeating fate?" Baelon raised a brow, remembering Balerion from earlier.
"Perhaps deception would be the better word." Kael'thir shrugged lightly. "The Greenseers of old discovered that fate seeks its due through identity and identity alone."
Baelon remained silent, listening carefully.
"They realised that if one could alter their identity in the eyes of fate…" Kael'thir spread his hands. "Then one could slip its grasp entirely. One could even…manipulate it."
Baelon's eyes narrowed slightly, understanding beginning to bloom within them.
"And how did they achieve that?"
"Weirwoods," Kael'thir answered. "Those trees were…special. Even before the Children carved faces upon them. They possessed an affinity for souls scarcely found elsewhere, capable of housing fragments of consciousness for millennia."
"Thus…one by one, the Greenseers bound fragments of their souls within the trees. Small pieces at that. Merely some emotions and memories. Still, over long years, these fragments grew within the weirwoods, nurtured by the breath of nature herself."
Baelon slowly began piecing it together.
"And when fate sought them…"
"They returned to the trees and reclaimed those nurtured fragments." Kael'thir nodded approvingly. "But those soul-fragments were no longer wholly theirs. Time and nature had changed them. In the eyes of fate, they had become separate beings."
"And by merging with them…" Baelon muttered.
"They became someone new." Kael'thir finished. "A soul neither wholly old nor wholly new. Thus, fate could no longer fully recognise the one it once sought."
Silence lingered between them for a beat.
At last, Baelon spoke.
"Yet the Greenseers are gone."
Kael'thir's smile thinned.
"Aye. Because their method carried flaws of its own."
He turned away slightly.
"Those nurtured soul-fragments often developed consciousnesses independent from the original. Thoughts. Desires. Fears. Some even came to resent the ones who birthed them."
"And when they fused…?"
"Both souls died," Kael'thir said bluntly. "Their memories, emotions, and wills collapsed together into something new. Something…different."
His gaze darkened.
"A soul polluted by two lives. Two selves clawing endlessly for dominion within the same vessel."
"And madness followed?" Baelon concluded quietly.
"Often."
Baelon scoffed coldly. "Hardly an enticing fate. If such a thing awaited me, I'd sooner carve my own throat open."
Kael'thir laughed softly.
"You were not alone in that thought. Balerion found the notion abhorrent as well."
That drew Baelon's attention.
"The God-king refused to surrender himself to such corruption. Thus, he conceived another path." Kael'thir spread his arms. "If the Greenseers could deceive fate through fractured identity, then why not create an entirely separate self to bear fate in his stead?"
Baelon's expression darkened slightly as the implications settled upon him. "An avatar."
"Aye." Kael'thir nodded. "He devoured the divinities of his pantheon to fuel the process. He sought to escape from fate, not merely once, nor imperfectly."
"And he failed."
"Yet, here we stand knowing his name. Perhaps he did break his original fate, simply succumbing to something another machination of fate…" Kael'thir said softly.
"Merit…" Baelon muttered bitterly as he thought of what Kael'thir said before, shaking his head, though his thoughts had already spiralled far beyond caution.
Because what choice did he truly have?
If he remained still, if he simply accepted the path laid before him, then fate would eventually come for all he held dear regardless.
Even his father.
Though Viserys yet endured through Maester Gerardys' strange concoctions and Baelon's own spells, time was plainly winning its war against him.
The king was nearing his twilight.
And Baelon knew that one morning, perhaps soon, word would arrive from King's Landing that Viserys Targaryen was dead.
***
Having left the Codex's visions, Baelon waded through his keep.
It was a modest thing as castles went, sitting just off the Rosby Road that led out of King's Landing.
Here, apple orchards rolled out in neat sweeps around its walls, heavy with blossom and fruit depending on the season, and beyond them a soft, endless sea of wildflowers that bent with the wind in child-like whimsy.
To the east, the land dipped gently toward the northern teeth of Blackwater Bay, where salt air crept inland on quieter days.
It was no grand fortress. Not by any measure that mattered in the histories.
In truth, it paled beside the great seats of the realm in both size and strength. Its walls were low, its towers modest, its gates more welcoming than threatening.
A determined army would not struggle for long against it.
But that had never concerned Baelon. Nor his father.
After all, with three winged calamities at your command, stone and mortar lost much of their arrogance. What was a keep, after all, against dragons in the sky? It made for a pleasant thought, and an even better place to live in peace.
When he and Helaena were not travelling toward Dragon's Bay, they remained here more often than in King's Landing.
The capital was too loud for them and too full of eyes that lingered too long. Here, instead, they could simply live as they wished.
Baelo half-wondered whether he would even have fled to Essos if he had known that his father was building this for him.
Still, the future was a frivolous thing and not something to be so deeply pondered upon like this.
Nevertheless, on the topic of Viserys, their father made the occasional journey to see them, insisting on coming himself whenever he felt up to it.
Helaena, however, treated these visits with endless worry. Any mention of him 'taking the fresh air alone' was usually met with a look that suggested she expected him to expire between one step and the next.
As Baelon indulged in these thoughts, he could already hear laughter drifting from further down the hall.
He raised a brow and quickened his pace.
When he stepped into the room, he stopped.
For a moment, he simply stared.
Helaena stood with one hand lifted, as a large palm of flame danced before her, with no interest in behaving like a fire at all.
Worse yet was the small child nestled on the fiery palm before being thrown up and down, laughing as though she had just been spun on the world's kindest swing.
"Mama! Again! Again!" The child cried, waving her arms frantically.
"Helaena," Baelon said flatly, "care to explain what exactly you are doing with Daenys?"
Both figures froze at once.
The flame vanished immediately.
In its place stood two perfectly composed princesses, as though nothing remotely strange had ever occurred.
"Papa," little Daenys said sweetly, smoothing her skirt with delicate care.
Baelon narrowed his eyes.
At four namedays old, she was already capable of acting out a play by herself.
Damn it. If he had known she would turn out like this, he might as well have named her Alicent and saved himself the surprise.
Helaena, clearly more experienced in being caught in the act than in explaining herself, merely coughed and looked at him with an almost offensively affectionate calm. "Have you finished already? Come, little Daenys was beginning to miss her father."
Baelon almost cursed the Gods.
All other women were said to harden with motherhood.
And yet here was his own wife, who seemed to drift in the opposite direction by the day.
Alas, it was not as though he could truly scold them.
Sighing, he regarded the pair. "The castle here is rather lovely. I would prefer we did not turn it into a second Harrenhal."
"Don't worry, Papa. Mama is very careful. Earlier this morning she—"
"Here, here," Helaena interrupted brightly, already scooping the confused Daenys into her arms.
The child barely had time to protest before she was engulfed in a suffocating embrace that only a mother could justify.
Daenys struggled for a moment, small limbs wriggling in pathetic defiance, before eventually surrendering to cruel fate and going limp in her mother's hold.
With the restless silver-haired bundle temporarily subdued, Helaena's expression shifted into something more serious.
"Have you truly decided to pursue it?" she asked quietly. "A way to break…fate?"
Her gaze flicked briefly toward the direction Baelon had come from. "You must be careful not to be deceived by pleasant words."
"As if we have a choice…" Baelon replied, though the humour in it was hollow.
He glanced at Daenys, now swiftly half-asleep against Helaena's shoulder, bored with the conversation between her parents.
They had waited many years for her before she had come into the world, stubbornly and yet, impossibly alive. And stranger still, she had not come out as…normal.
Whatever of the Blood Bond ritual lingered in them had left its trace in her, too.
Fire did not fear her, nor she it.
A small blessing, perhaps. Or something else entirely.
"So what exactly is it you want to find?" Helaena asked.
"A fragment," Baelon said after a moment, "or rather… a part of Balerion. If we can find it, there is a chance we might draw upon what remains of the divinity he consumed. Use it to do what he could not."
He let out a quiet breath.
"We are not gods. The cost of breaking fate for us cannot be the same as it was for him. Even a remnant might be enough."
"Might?" Helaena echoed softly.
It was not a challenge. Only a question whose answer is already known would not be certain.
Baelon did not look away. "It is a gamble."
"Or rather, a chance," he added more quietly, "to end it. All of it."
Helaena's eyes lowered to Daenys, now fully asleep, cheek pressed into her mother's collarbone.
"And her?" she asked at last.
Baelon followed her gaze.
"We cannot leave her here," he said. "The only ones we could trust with her would be Rhevos and those at Dragon's Bay."
"I suppose…" Helaena murmured.
Her fingers brushed lightly through Daenys' hair. "…I don't think we've been apart from her since she was born."
"I do not like the thought of it," she added.
Baelon's mouth twitched faintly, something almost like reassurance trying and failing to form.
"If we succeed," he said instead, forcing a lighter tone, "she will grow up without ever needing to fear what we did."
A poor comfort. Even he could hear it.
"So…" Helaena asked after a moment, her voice soft again. "Where is this fragment you speak of?"
Baelon sighed in relief, hearing her words. Thankfully, she was not too opposed to the idea.
He looked through the nearby window, at the distant horizon, beyond orchards, beyond fields, beyond the calm of their little keep.
"Somewhere," he said, "in the Smoking Sea."