Chapter 34: The Sun King's Amusement, A Dragon Queen's Toil
Seven years passed over Westeros like a slow, indrawn breath after a scream. The continent lay scarred and reconfigured, the old powers shattered, the old game of thrones a bitter, ashen memory. In the North, King Robb Stark, the King of Ash and Light, the Sun King, ruled a vast domain stretching from the Wall to the Trident, an empire forged in unimaginable fire and now held in an icy grip of awe and terrified obedience. Winterfell was his seat, but his true court was often the windswept battlements of the Wall, or the desolate, frozen lands beyond it.
His kingdom was one of paradoxes. Under the shadow of his terrible power, an unprecedented peace reigned. His modern knowledge, filtered through the pragmatic mind of Tony Volante, had revolutionized agriculture and infrastructure. Granaries overflowed. Roads were safe and well-maintained. A system of signal towers and swift riders connected the North and the Riverlands with an efficiency that would have been the envy of Old Valyria. Justice was swift, impartial, and often harsh, but it was undeniably just. Yet, it was a kingdom where joy was muted, where laughter was quiet, where every soul lived with the constant, unspoken awareness that their King could unmake the world with a gesture.
Robb himself had changed. The auburn hair of his youth was now streaked with silver that seemed to catch the light like spun moonlight, though his face remained ageless, his physique honed by years of wielding both Rhitta and the immense power of Sunshine. The raw grief that had fueled his apocalyptic vengeance had cooled into a profound, weary detachment. He was more remote, his emotions buried deep beneath layers of kingship and godhood. Catelyn Stark had found her peace some years prior, her broken mind finally succumbing, and was buried beside her Tully ancestors in Riverrun. Bran, now a young man of unnerving perception, his legs useless but his mind soaring through time and space on the wings of greensight, was Robb's closest confidante, his cryptic pronouncements often holding more truth than the reports of a hundred spies. Rickon, fostered with the Greatjon Umber (who was now Robb's gruff, fiercely loyal, and utterly terrified Warden of the Northern Marches), was growing into a true Northman, wild and strong.
Rhitta was Robb's constant companion, its golden head leaning against his weirwood throne in Winterfell's Great Hall, or blazing in his hand as he stood upon the Wall, its solar energy a weapon against the encroaching cold and the horrors it birthed. His primary focus, his all-consuming concern, was the true enemy his father had always warned of: the Great Other, and the Long Night it sought to bring. He had poured the North's resources into strengthening the Wall, not just with stone and timber, but with his own power, imbuing sections of the ancient ice with concentrated sunlight, creating barriers that glowed with an inner warmth and seared any wight that touched them. He led forays beyond the Wall himself, sometimes alone, sometimes with his elite "Sun Guard" – Northmen who had witnessed his power and pledged their lives to his terrifying radiance. These were not battles of conquest, but desperate holding actions against an encroaching cosmic winter, where Cruel Suns, smaller and more controlled now, would incinerate hordes of the dead, and Rhitta would cleave through ice spiders the size of hounds.
It was into this new, grimly stable world that news of Daenerys Targaryen's activities in the distant South began to filter, carried by Manderly merchants plying reopened trade routes with what was left of the southern ports, by wary Riverlords patrolling their borders, and by ravens from Jon Snow at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, who, as acting Lord Commander of a revitalized Night's Watch, still kept an ear to the whispers of the wider realm.
Daenerys Targaryen, it was said, had finally made her move. After years of consolidating her power in Essos, her three dragons now grown to truly fearsome size (though two still bore the scars of their encounter with Robb), she had landed on Dragonstone. From there, she had launched a slow, methodical campaign to claim the "five southern kingdoms" that Robb Stark had so contemptuously left to the ambitions of others.
Robb received these reports in his solar in Winterfell, often with Bran beside him, the scent of weirwood and old parchment filling the air. He would listen as Maester Luwin, older and frailer but his mind still keen, read out the dispatches.
"…It is said, Your Grace," Luwin would intone, "that the Dragon Queen has secured an alliance with Prince Doran Martell, the Dornish spears now pledged to her cause. They landed at Sunspear and then marched into the Stormlands…"
Robb would nod, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. "Dorne," he might muse. "A land of sun and sand. Perhaps her lizards feel at home there."
Later reports detailed her cautious, bloody subjugation of the feuding Stormlords, her dragons – primarily the two wounded ones, Rhaegal and Viserion, with Drogon held in reserve – making short work of any castle that dared defy her, though their destruction was conventional fire, not the world-unmaking force Robb wielded.
Then came news of the Reach. Olenna Tyrell, the ancient Queen of Thorns, after a token show of resistance to save face, had apparently bent the knee. "She offered the Dragon Queen Highgarden's fealty and its harvests in exchange for a guarantee that no 'Sun King' would ever be invited to 'redecorate' her rose gardens," Luwin read, a slight tremor in his voice.
At this, Robb actually chuckled, a dry, rasping sound that held little mirth but a wealth of cynical understanding. "The old woman has sense. She knows a true threat when she sees one, and wisely chooses the lesser of two fires."
Even Tyrion Lannister, now Daenerys's Hand (a fact that brought another flicker of that cold amusement to Robb's face – a Lannister serving a Targaryen to reclaim Lannister ruins), was reportedly instrumental in her strategy, his cunning mind navigating the treacherous politics of the shattered South. They were, it was said, attempting to rebuild a section of King's Landing far from the vast, cursed crater Robb had made, though few dared to settle there. Dragonstone was her primary seat, her new capital.
His Northern and Riverland lords, when they heard these tales, were often more agitated than their King.
"This Dragon Queen, Your Grace," the Greatjon Umber boomed during one council, his grey beard bristling. "She gathers strength! She carves out a kingdom from the ashes you left! Will you allow a Targaryen to sit so close to our borders, with dragons at her beck and call? Should we not send her another… lesson… before she grows too bold?"
Robb looked at his fierce Warden of the Northern Marches, his sun-flecked eyes holding that familiar, unsettling calm. "Lord Umber, she is sweeping up crumbs from a ruined table. The kingdoms she claims are either desolate or ruled by fear of what lies beyond their borders – namely, us. Her dragons? They are impressive beasts, I grant you. But I have found their flesh to be… surprisingly tender."
A nervous chuckle went around the council table. The memory of Robb's threat to eat dragon was still potent.
"As long as her ambitions remain south of the Trident," Robb continued, his gaze sweeping over them, "as long as her dragons do not cast their shadows upon our lands or our people, let her play her game of thrones. Let her style herself Queen of the Ashes. It is of no concern to us. Our war, the only war that truly matters, lies to the True North."
Maege Mormont, her weathered face stern, nodded in agreement. "The dead march, Your Grace. That is where our strength must be focused. These southern squabbles are but a distraction."
"Indeed, Lady Mormont," Robb said. "The Dragon Queen fights for a crown of twisted metal and broken vows. We fight for the dawn."
His amusement at Daenerys's struggles was not born of malice, but of a profound, almost cosmic detachment. He saw her battles, her alliances, her political maneuvering, as the frantic activities of lesser beings, squabbling over trifles while the true, existential threat loomed. Tony Volante, the arch-pragmatist, saw a rival establishing a sphere of influence that did not directly impinge upon his own; it was an acceptable, even predictable, outcome. Escanor's pride, secure in its own unmatched power, barely registered Daenerys as a competitor, more an amusing sideshow.
And Robb Stark, the King who carried the weight of worlds upon his shoulders, simply found it… irrelevant… compared to the howling darkness he faced at the Wall.
He still used his powers, but rarely with the apocalyptic fury of his Southern campaign. At the Wall, he learned to modulate Sunshine, to channel it with greater finesse. He did not need to melt mountains to combat the Others. Instead, Rhitta became a tool of more subtle, yet no less potent, power. He could focus beams of sunlight to incinerate wights from afar, leaving the ice of the Wall itself largely unharmed. He learned to create temporary zones of intense warmth and light in the heart of unnatural blizzards, shielding his rangers. He even found he could imbue weirwood branches with stored solar energy, creating glowing, heat-radiating wards that wights could not cross. His men at the Wall called him "Stark Sunstone," their devotion absolute, for he was their only true shield against the horrors of the Long Night.
One crisp autumn afternoon, Bran Stark, his eyes clouded with the milky white of greensight, was brought to Robb's solar.
"Brother," Bran said, his voice distant, yet clear. "The Dragon Queen has consolidated her rule over the five southern kingdoms. She has taken a new husband, some say a Dornish Prince to seal her alliance, others a Volantene merchant king for his fleets. Her two remaining dragons are healed, and fly as her undisputed symbols of power. She is rebuilding. She brings… order… of a kind, to the ashes."
Robb listened, his gaze fixed on the detailed map of the lands beyond the Wall that covered his table. "And?"
"And she still looks north, Robb," Bran continued. "Not with immediate intent of war. But with… longing. And fear. And a pride that will not let her forget your warning. She believes herself the rightful ruler of all Westeros. She will never truly abandon that claim, not in her heart."
"Her heart is her own concern," Robb said. "As long as her armies and her dragons remain south of my borders, her ambitions are but dreams."
"Dreams can be dangerous, brother," Bran whispered. "Especially dragon dreams. And the Great Other… it also dreams, of an endless night."
Robb finally looked up, his sun-flecked eyes meeting Bran's milky ones. "Then we must ensure our sun burns brighter than her fire, and hotter than its ice."
He knew the relative peace was fragile. Daenerys Targaryen, for all her current pragmatism, was still a Targaryen. The desire for the entirety of her ancestral kingdom would always burn within her. And Roose Bolton, though his house was extinguished, had taught Robb that treachery could fester even in the most seemingly secure kingdoms. He had his own spies, his own network, watching the South, watching Essos, watching the movements of this Dragon Queen.
But for now, his true war was not against her. It was against the encroaching darkness, the ancient enemy that cared nothing for crowns or thrones or the squabbles of mortal kings and queens.
He allowed himself a rare, grim smile. Let Daenerys Targaryen play her game in the warm South, amongst the ruins and the ashes. Let her be Queen of what she could hold. The true King in the North had a far colder, far more desperate battle to fight. And when that Long Night finally descended, all the fires of men and dragons might not be enough to hold it back.
Unless, perhaps, one of them was the sun itself.
The thought, for the first time, brought not amusement, but a sliver of something akin to grim anticipation. The board was set for a different game now, on a far grander, far more terrifying scale. And Robb Stark, King of Ash and Light, was ready to play his part.