The morning sun had yet to crest the horizon, but Pentos was already stirring a city that never truly slept. Aragorn pushed himself from the cot, the scant, dream-haunted hours of sleep doing little to dull the bone-deep ache that settled behind his eyes. His body still throbbed with fatigue, each step a quiet rebellion against the relentless pull of exhaustion. The stone beneath his boots radiated with yesterday's trapped heat, already reclaiming the air from the predawn cool.
The alleyways whispered of decay, each structural groan, each hairline fracture a screaming inefficiency to his mind. Cracks in the mortar, fractures spidering out from load-bearing arches, discolorations marking water damage below poorly pitched roofs, each flaw triggered a precise response in his thoughts, like pressure plates in a meticulously designed trap. Solutions formed as instinct, sharp, and immediate. Aqueduct pressure could be stabilized with double-flanged clay joints, cured in local kilns he'd design himself, requiring specific temperatures he could calculate. Labor could be redirected from tedious quarrying to more efficient kiln work by adjusting output flow along the western embankment, optimizing manpower on a scale Pentos hadn't seen. His breath slowed. The Codex didn't pause. It never had. It simply rendered the perfect, scalable solution.
He blinked hard, his vision momentarily overtaken by a flash of cool light and sterile air in James Arden's boardroom. A conference room saturated with tension, a digital projection flickering across glass. Peter's voice cut in, sharp, dismissive: "We're hemorrhaging logistics on vertical integrations. This fantasy needs pruning." The scent of overbrewed coffee, the flick of a laser pointer against laminated charts, a pen cap clicking, then gone.
Aragorn reeled. A hawker's call dragged him back. He tasted dust. Heat pressed in.
He moved quickly through a narrow corridor where a canal's stench leaked upward. A granary loomed on his left, stone warped with moisture, grain stores improperly elevated. Rats would find it within weeks. Mold already had. He mentally restructured it: raised ventilation shafts to promote air circulation, exterior buttresses layered in lime-treated plaster to resist moisture creep, and new silo seals fashioned from pitch-heated larch bark. Labor could be trained in under two weeks with visual diagrams and adjustable scaffolds.
From a balcony above, a sudden, sharp cry. A crack. He turned.
A child, no more than five, stumbled on swollen feet, an amphora of water shattered beside her. The overseer's switch descended again. The girl did not cry. She only flinched.
His breath froze. Inside him, James Arden screamed.
Not in words, but in memory. A protest. A strike line. Blood on pavement. The eyes of a supervisor who'd looked just like this one.
Aragorn's muscles tensed, the instinct to intervene boiling behind his ribs. He could see it one step forward, hand raised. A dozen outcomes unraveled behind his eyes, each a tree of probabilities. Social disruption. Slaveholder retaliation. Collapse in the supply chain. Failure.
He turned his back.
The ache of it settled into his gut like a swallowed blade.
He found the villa's nursery dim and still. Daenerys slept beneath soft linens, a single lock of silver-blond hair curled near her nose. He adjusted her covers, checked her pulse, then lightly brushed his fingers over her brow. The scent of dried lavender lingered from the infusion he'd prepared.
His mind reviewed her herbal regimen. Birch-root infusion for immune support. Fennel for digestion. Crushed willow bark steeped in low heat to ease teething inflammation. Doses scaled to body weight, monitored against developmental projections.
He saw it vividly. Cobblestones washed clean by spring rain. Bread ovens not fueled by ash, but by wood harvested sustainably, precision-cut. Schools built from sun-dried brick and limewash, filled with children born free. Wind towers that cooled air, and tiled aqueducts carrying clear water across rooftops. Trade that flowed unbroken, honest.
Outside, in the courtyard garden, Willem sat sharpening a dagger, expression tight.
"She frightens me," he said as Aragorn approached.
"Nalea?"
"I've heard tales. From a sellsword who served in Lys. Said there's a fire-priest there who walked across burning coals without harm. Eyes glowing like suns." He shook his head. "They call their god the Lord of Light. And they say his servants burn kings."
"I'm not a king," Aragorn murmured.
"You smell like one," Willem said darkly.
Nalea appeared then, gliding barefoot across the stone. Her eyes gleamed like molten copper. She bowed.
"You've begun the work," she said.
"I never stopped."
She smiled faintly. "The smoke turned west."
"A prophecy?"
"A direction."
His mind ticked forward. If she were an asset, her value was psychological: morale-shaping, myth-crafting, and controlling the narrative through symbolism. The Red Temple would become a lever if properly contained.
Illyrio's chambers were thick with citrus oil and velvet hush. The merchant-prince greeted him with open hands.
"You send riddles and mathematics to my carpenters," Illyrio said. "They rave about joints they've never seen."
"They'll see results," Aragorn said. "More ships, faster. Less timber wasted. Stronger hulls."
Illyrio leaned forward. "And your fleet yard?"
"Modular pontoons," Aragorn replied. Each is a dry dock. Scalable. Mobile. They rise with the tide, accommodate vessels of any draft. Cut construction time in half.
"And the breathing armory?"
"Heat recycling," Aragorn said. "Bellows, loop the forge's excess into a sealed system. Air purified. Steel hardened faster. Workers last longer. Output doubles."
Illyrio's eyes glittered. "And what do you want in return?"
"Time. Quiet. Materials."
"And when Westeros stirs?"
"Then I'll build more."
By candlelight, he wrote until his fingers cramped. Each letter is a blueprint. Each page is a gear in a future machine.
Crosscut spiral joints for shipwrights, reducing hull stress by dispersing force. Fish-offal composting for barren soil rich in nitrogen accelerates crop yield within a single season. Lath pinned framing for new construction resists collapse, minimizes load failures, and requires only basic carpentry.
His back ached. His neck burned. He didn't stop.
Ink dried as he sealed the last scroll.
Sleep hit like a hammer. And for a few brief hours, the storm inside him went still.
(For those who are uncomfortable with AI, I prepared this episode using AI at a rate of around 20-25%. If you rate the use of AI in this section on a scale of 1 to 10 and indicate where you are uncomfortable, I will try to correct it in the next episode.)