Chapter 19: The Price of Prophecy and the Unseen Border
The Burden of a Dream
The air in Aegon's study crackled with the fading resonance of my power. He remained rooted to the spot, his hand still clenching the Valyrian steel dagger, his dark purple eyes wide with a mixture of terror and dawning comprehension. The conqueror, the visionary king, was for a moment just a man confronted by the impossible.
"You speak of things… things no mortal man should know," Aegon finally whispered, his gaze intense, piercing, as if trying to decipher the ancient truth behind my golden, cat-like slit eyes. He took a hesitant step forward, his voice dropping, laced with a raw vulnerability that surprised me. "I… I did not seek this conquest for glory alone. There is a darkness, an eternal winter… a chilling force I have seen in my dreams. A doom far greater than Valyria's fire. It will come for this world, from beyond the Wall. And I believe only fire and blood, a unified Westeros, can stand against it."
My gaze remained unblinking. He spoke of the Great Other, the ancient enemy I had helped seal away millennia ago. His dream was a fragmented prophecy, a whisper from the deep magic of this world, amplified by his dragon blood.
Before I could respond, the heavy study doors burst open. Visenya and Rhaenys stood there, their faces pale, their eyes wide with barely contained panic. They hadn't seen me, but they had felt the immense aetheric disturbance, the sheer power that had filled the air. They were dragonriders, sensitive to such shifts.
"Aegon! What was that? A… a tremor of magic? We felt it from the Dragonmont!" Visenya demanded, her hand instinctively going to her own sword. Rhaenys, ever the calmer, scanned the room, her gaze sweeping past my still-imperceptible form, sensing the lingering echoes.
Aegon merely stared at me, ignoring his sisters for a moment. "You know of this darkness?" he pressed, a desperate hope flickering in his eyes.
"I do," I confirmed, my voice a low rumble that seemed to reverberate through the very stones, audible only to him. "It is an ancient enemy. A force of death and eternal winter. I have fought them. I have defeated them. And when the day comes, I will do it again."
His relief was palpable, quickly replaced by renewed calculation. "Then you will aid me in uniting this realm. We will stand together."
"My purpose is not to unite your realm, Aegon Targaryen," I stated, my words cutting through the fragile hope. "My purpose is to protect. And my protection extends to the lands of House Leywin. You may do whatever you wish with the rest of Westeros. Conquer, burn, unite under your dragon banner. But understand this: No conqueror, no king, no army, no dragon, will ever graze my domain. My lands, the lands of Leywin, will be independent until the end of time. That is my absolute, unyielding decree."
Aegon's jaw clenched. He was a conqueror, but he was also intelligent. He had felt my power, seen the unwavering conviction in my ancient eyes. He understood the chilling truth behind my words – a threat not of war, but of an inevitable, incomprehensible annihilation. A war with me would mean the end of his house before his conquest even truly began. He weighed the impossible task of conquering an immortal god against the grand, desperate goal of uniting humanity against a greater doom.
His gaze flickered between me and his sisters, then back to the map. He saw the vastness of Westeros, and the relatively small, though impenetrable, shield that was House Leywin.
"So be it," Aegon finally said, his voice strained, a grudging acceptance in his tone. "The lands of Leywin, from the Gods Eye to the forks of the Trident, will remain untouched. A sovereign entity under your… protection. We will respect your borders, Immortal Lord."
With that, I dissolved back into the aether, leaving Aegon Targaryen alone in his study. Visenya and Rhaenys rushed to his side, demanding answers, sensing the immense, lingering presence that had just departed. Aegon, for his part, simply sat, staring at the map, his eyes fixed on the Riverlands, a new, unmovable boundary etched into his grand designs.
Harrenhal: A Line in the Sand
My message had been received. The formal Conquest of Westeros began shortly thereafter, a storm of fire and blood sweeping across the continent. Aegon, his sisters, and their dragons descended upon the kingdoms, forcing knees to bend or castles to burn.
But even before the dragons brought down the mighty strongholds of the Storm Kings or the Kings of the Rock, a colossal monument to defiance was rising on the northern border of my protected Riverlands. Harrenhal.
Harren Hoare, the infamous Black Harren, King of the Isles and the Rivers, had chosen to build the largest castle in Westeros, a testament to his ambition and cruelty, ironically on the very edge of the lands I protected. Its immense, unholy walls, built with the blood and sweat of a thousand slaves, rose like a jagged mountain range, a grim, defiant challenge to any power, mortal or otherwise.
It was a fortress built by a mortal king, yet its shadow loomed directly over the border of my domain. Harren, consumed by his own hubris, had chosen it as his primary seat, the strategic heart of his riverine kingdom. He would soon learn, like so many before him, that there were some things even the grandest mortal power could not defy. The fate of Harrenhal, however, was not mine to deliver. That would be a lesson reserved for the dragons, a brutal display of a power he now reluctantly recognized.
The stage was set. The dragons were unleashed upon Westeros, but a boundary had been drawn, a silent, ancient promise of eternity and destruction for any who dared to cross the sovereign lands of House Leywin.