Redemption of the Dragon

Act 2 – Prophesy or Conspiracy · Chapter 19: Frostfyre

The gates of Oros stood open.

For one terrible heartbeat, Tom thought that meant ruin.

Then he saw the guards.

Not dead. Not fleeing. Not red-robed fanatics holding stolen walls. Men stood along the battlements with spears in hand and bows within reach. One of the Ghiscari converts leaned over the gatehouse parapet, saw the company below, and shouted something that vanished into the wind. Another voice answered from deeper within the castle. Then a horn sounded.

Not alarm.

Recognition.

Tom let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

Beside him, Jory said, "There."

Oros rose black and stubborn above them, repaired wall sections catching the morning light in uneven seams. The crater in the yard should have been visible through the gate at this distance, roped off and watched by men who pretended not to glance at it. Tom looked for it without meaning to.

He saw only open stone.

No ropes.

No dark sky-stone.

The absence pulled at his attention, but only for a moment.

Because Vissenya appeared at the castle entrance.

She came running.

For four steps, mayhaps five, she forgot every lesson court, blood, pride, and pain had ever taught her. Platinum hair broke loose from its pins. One hand caught at her side where old wounds must have protested. Her face changed too quickly for dignity to keep pace: disbelief, fury, relief, and something so open Tom could not breathe around it.

Then she remembered herself.

Or tried to.

She slowed.

Straightened.

Gathered her face into something composed enough to satisfy the watching yard.

It might have worked on strangers.

Tom knew better.

So did Cleyton, apparently, because the small former maester ran past her at full speed.

"Oh, for pity's sake," Vissenya snapped, but there was no heat in it.

Cleyton reached Tom before Tom had fully dismounted.

He threw both arms around him.

Tom froze.

Not because he disliked it.

Because Cleyton was small, sharp, disapproving, and deeply unlikely to do anything so openly human where other people might witness it. For half a breath, Tom wondered whether the man had been wounded in the head.

Then Cleyton's grip tightened.

"You idiot," he said into Tom's chest.

Tom looked helplessly at Jory.

Jory's face was solemn. "He learned comfort from me."

"I was beginning to think you had died on the road," Cleyton said.

"We nearly did."

"That is not a correction."

"No."

Cleyton stepped back abruptly, as if remembering he had a reputation to defend. His eyes moved over Tom's face, the shaved left side of his head, the black Ibbenese dragon tattoo, the dried travel grime, the healing cuts, the exhaustion sitting deep in every line of him.

"That," Cleyton said, pointing at the tattoo, "requires explanation."

"Later."

"It had better be an excellent later."

Vissenya reached them then.

She did not speak.

Neither did Tom.

Words had been failing him for days whenever he imagined this moment. They failed him now more completely because she was real before him, alive, standing, thinner than when he had left, yes, and paler around the mouth, but alive. Her eyes moved over him with hunger and anger and fright. The tattoo. The wounds. The road dust. The blood that was not fresh but had once been. His face. His hands.

Then she stepped into him.

Tom caught her carefully and not carefully enough.

She made a small sound when his arms closed around her, half pain, half relief. He loosened at once, but her hands fisted in his torn cloak and held him there. So he held her again, softer this time, one hand against her back, the other buried in her hair.

Her face pressed against his throat.

His cheek rested against her hair.

The yard vanished.

Oros vanished.

The last month vanished badly, imperfectly, like pain sinking under warm water without truly leaving the body.

"You were gone too long," she said.

"Aye."

"That is not an apology."

"I know."

"Good. I would hate a poor one."

His mouth moved against her hair. It might have become a laugh if his chest had not been so tight.

She drew back enough to look at him.

Her fingers lifted toward the tattoo, stopped before touching it, then touched anyway, feather-light over the scabbed lines.

"Jory was right," she said.

Tom blinked. "About what?"

"I have thoughts."

Jory, wisely, became interested in his saddle straps.

Boro said, "I said it suited him."

Vissenya did not look away from Tom. "You would."

"I feel seen."

Ser Kemal crossed the yard from the training side with his usual expression of controlled displeasure, though Tom thought he saw something like relief hiding behind it. Men resumed moving around them. Horses were taken. Darro nearly fell asleep standing while a stable hand tried to take his reins. Qavo limped badly. Nesaro had his arm bound tight and was explaining to a guard that he had been wounded heroically, tragically, and attractively.

"Food," Kemal ordered before anyone asked. "Water. Baths if they can remain awake. Cots if they cannot."

Boro lifted one hand. "I choose all."

"You may earn all by walking before you collapse."

"A cruel castle."

"A functioning one."

Kemal's eyes settled on Tom.

"War room," he said.

Vissenya's hand tightened briefly in Tom's cloak.

Tom looked toward the open gate, then the missing crater.

"The stone?"

Cleyton's expression changed.

"War room," he said.

Tom did not like that answer.

He followed anyway.

The room had changed while he was gone.

Tom stopped just inside the doorway.

It had been a bare chamber before, useful and severe, with old walls and a table that had looked as if men argued over it because no one had found a better surface. Now it had become something deliberate.

Maps covered the walls.

Not pinned carelessly, but mounted on wooden backing and marked with colored thread. Oros. Elyria. Ifequevron. The Demon Road. Mantarys. Tolos. Volantis. Slaver's Bay. The Dothraki Sea. Lines ran between them in red, black, blue, and white. Small iron weights held messages flat on a side table. Shelves had been brought in for ledgers and raven copies. A rack near the hearth held signal flags. The central table had been sanded, darkened with oil, and carved along the edge with a border of old Valyrian glyphs Tom could not read.

The room looked less like a place men discussed survival.

It looked like a place where someone intended to direct a world.

Tom glanced at Vissenya.

"Not my work," she said.

Cleyton sniffed. "Not entirely."

Kemal shut the door.

Jory stood near Tom's right shoulder. Vissenya remained close enough that their sleeves touched. Cleyton went immediately to the table and began gathering papers into an order only he understood. Kemal stood with his back to the door as if expecting trouble to knock.

Tom looked again at the map of Ifequevron.

"Tell me."

Cleyton did not make him ask twice.

"We have received ravens every few days from Setzuko," he said. "Some delayed. Some maddeningly vague. Some written in a hand that suggests she finds ink personally offensive. But they arrived."

Tom's tired body straightened.

"She lives?"

"She lives. So do the eight riders you left behind, though Daxos has apparently insulted three merchants, one temple keeper, and an elderly woman who controls more grain than any official clerk."

"So he is well."

"Regrettably."

Tom let himself breathe.

Cleyton watched him do it.

"Based on how long it took you to return," he said more softly, "we feared you dead on the road."

Tom thought of Dothraki horns, thorn scrub, and nights without fire.

"We nearly were."

Vissenya turned toward him sharply.

"Later," Tom said.

"That word is becoming crowded."

"Aye."

Cleyton tapped the Ifequevron map with two fingers.

"The leadership transition is going better than it has any right to. The people appear, by Setzuko's account, more relieved than rebellious. Lo Feng has not resurfaced, though Setzuko believes she lives. The guard is being reorganized. The worst of Lo Buto's men have been dismissed, imprisoned, or placed where they can do less harm. With the Tears riders' help, the remaining guard is improving in skill and, more importantly, in moral quality."

Boro would have made a joke of that if he had been there.

Tom missed it, strangely.

"Moral quality?" Jory asked.

"Setzuko's phrase," Cleyton said. "I suspect she means fewer men shaking coins out of farmers and calling it order."

"Good."

"Good, yes. Stable, not yet."

Tom nodded.

"And the Ibbenese?"

Cleyton shuffled to another paper.

"Word came by way of Braavos. Tears agents from Braavos have arrived in Omber, one of the chief Ibbenese cities. They were accepted. Cautiously. Suspiciously. With enough drinking involved that one report is nearly illegible."

Kemal said, "Accepted."

"Accepted," Cleyton agreed. "Thogg, Norg, Gorn, and Norbo have so far kept to their word. Not happily."

"I did not ask happy."

"No one seems confused on that point. They have bloodied several smaller clans intent on breaking the peace. Setzuko reports fewer raids already, though it is too early to know whether fear of you, fear of the dragon, fear of each other, or simple exhaustion deserves the credit."

Tom looked down at the table.

He had not realized how much of his chest had been held tight around Ifequevron until Cleyton began cutting knots from it.

"Thank you," he said.

Cleyton blinked.

"I did not personally govern the city from here."

"No. But you told me."

"That is a low threshold for gratitude."

"Take what you get."

Vissenya's hand brushed Tom's beneath the table.

Not holding.

Not yet.

Enough.

She took over before the silence could become private.

"Elyria is no longer chaos."

Tom turned to her.

"Aemon?"

"Alive. Angry. Effective."

"That sounds like him."

"He has brought the city to heel," Vissenya said. "Order has been restored in the streets. The docks function again. The guard answers to something resembling command. The ruling factions are no longer openly attacking one another."

"But?"

Her mouth tightened.

"But peace is not loyalty. Many merchant lords are furious. They lost coin, men, influence, and the comforting illusion that Aemon would remain a polite shadow while they tore the city apart. He has restored order by force and bargain both. There is peace, but there will be politicking for months before Elyria becomes functional and stable in any lasting sense."

"Can he hold it?"

"Yes."

She said it quickly.

Then, after a breath, more honestly.

"If nothing larger breaks elsewhere."

Kemal moved to the eastern wall map.

"Something larger is trying."

Tom followed his gaze.

Mantarys and Tolos had been marked with black pins.

"We have word from Mantarys and Tolos," Kemal said. "The unrest in Slaver's Bay has frightened them. So have the rumors coming west."

"Which rumors?"

"A young man from Volantis has sailed toward Westeros and announced himself a Targaryen."

Cleyton's face did something complicated and displeased.

"Another dragon name," Jory muttered.

"A convenient one," Cleyton said.

Tom looked at the map. Slaver's Bay. Volantis. The old Valyrian roads. Cities built from fear and blood and trade.

"And Mantarys and Tolos?"

"Preparing for civil unrest," Kemal said. "If preparation meant arming sensible guards and securing roads, I would approve. Instead, the ruling houses are hoarding grain, locking storehouses, squeezing the villages, and punishing smallfolk for imagined disloyalty before disloyalty has had time to become real."

Tom felt the familiar tightening.

Smallfolk.

Always the smallfolk.

"Many will starve," Kemal said, "if nothing is done."

The room seemed to narrow around the map pins.

Tom had been home less than an hour.

Already the world had found him.

Kemal continued, "I sent ravens to every member of the Tears council. Less than half have answered."

Vissenya looked toward the table.

Cleyton looked at the papers.

Jory looked at Tom.

"Baelys damaged more than Oros," Cleyton said quietly. "Some councilors are cautious. Some are distant. Some may be dead. Some may be waiting to see which way power settles before they discover their principles."

"Leave Aemon to Elyria," Tom said.

All three looked at him.

He heard the authority in his own voice and did not know whether to hate it.

"We do not pull him from his task or his home," he said. "If Elyria slips again, everything east of Volantis becomes harder. He holds there. Setzuko holds Ifequevron. Kemal holds Oros."

"And you?" Vissenya asked.

Tom looked at the black pins.

Then at her.

"Tonight, I sleep."

Her expression softened before she could stop it.

Tom turned back to the others.

"Tomorrow, we meet again and decide the rest. Mantarys. Tolos. The council. The unanswered ravens. All of it."

Kemal studied him for a long moment.

Then nodded.

"Good."

Cleyton looked as if he had several objections prepared and had been robbed of the pleasure of using them.

"Tomorrow," he said at last.

That should have ended it.

Tom should have gone to his chamber, washed the road from his skin, and let exhaustion claim whatever Vissenya did not. He pushed himself back from the table.

Vissenya caught his wrist.

Not hard.

Enough.

"You are not retiring alone," she said.

Jory turned away with impressive speed.

Kemal looked at the ceiling.

Cleyton opened his mouth.

Then stopped.

His eyes sharpened.

"Damn," he said.

Vissenya looked at him. "If this is commentary, choose wisdom."

"No. I had one other thing."

Tom stared at him. "Now?"

"Yes, now. Before you disappear into whatever emotional storm has been gathering in this room since you crossed the yard."

Jory coughed into his hand.

Vissenya's eyes narrowed.

Cleyton ignored everyone with the courage of a man protected by purpose. He left the room, and Tom heard him in the corridor giving a short order to a guard. Footsteps answered. Heavier than Cleyton's. Slower. Then a voice spoke outside the door in a distinctly southwestern Westerosi accent, broad and sun-warmed.

"Mind the cloth. I did not cross half the world for you to knock it against a doorframe."

Tom looked at Jory.

Jory looked back, equally lost.

Cleyton returned and opened the war room door wide.

A large Dornishman entered carrying something long wrapped in dark cloth.

He was built like a forge had decided to practice walking. Broad shoulders, thick arms, brown skin marked by old burns, black hair tied at the nape, and a beard trimmed close around a mouth that looked unimpressed by rooms, lords, mysteries, and possibly weather. The cloth in his hands glistened faintly and dripped oil in thin dark beads onto the stone floor.

He knelt.

Not to Tom, exactly.

To the thing he carried.

Cleyton moved beside him with a solemnity that made Tom uneasy.

"This is Master Ormund Sand," Cleyton said. "Smith of Dorne. Formerly of several places that argued with his temperament. Most recently persuaded to come here because I asked the correct questions of the correct people and promised him a problem worth his hands."

The Dornish smith snorted. "You promised me impossible metal and a fool who would swing it."

"I implied the second."

"You wrote it."

Cleyton chose not to hear that.

He untied the cloth.

The oil-dark folds opened.

The room went still.

The sword lay across the Dornishman's hands like captured moonlight and storm shadow.

It was neither longsword nor greatsword, but something between, a bastard blade made for one hand or two as need demanded. The metal was pale, not silver, not steel as Tom knew steel, but a cold, luminous grey with faint dark ripples running beneath the surface like clouds trapped under ice. Its edges caught the lamplight too cleanly. The fuller was narrow and elegant. The crossguard swept outward in the shape of dragon wings, not ornate enough to be foolish, not plain enough to be accidental. The grip was dark leather bound over pale metal wire. The pommel was shaped like an egg, smooth and weighted, with faint red veining deep in the metal as if a coal slept inside stone.

Tom forgot every word he had ever learned.

He looked from the sword to Cleyton.

Then back.

"What is that?"

Cleyton's face held satisfaction, terror, and something unguardedly fond.

"Take it."

Tom did not move.

"Tom," Vissenya said softly.

He reached out.

The sword settled into his hands.

It was lighter than it should have been.

Not light. Never that. It had weight, balance, presence. But the weight knew where to sit. His right hand closed around the grip. His left found the space below it. The blade angled down, and for one dizzy instant he felt as if the room had shifted around the sword rather than the sword around him.

"After the stone fell," Cleyton said, "I studied everything I could find about fallen stars, strange metals, and weapons made from them. House Dayne's sword, Dawn, most of all. I sent ravens west. Carefully. Not to the Citadel."

"Someone answered," Jory said.

"Several someones answered. Most were useless. One was not." Cleyton nodded toward Ormund Sand. "Master Ormund has worked repairs near Starfall. Not on Dawn itself, before anyone faints from historical outrage, but near enough to understand what questions make ordinary smiths lie."

The smith grunted. "Your maester sent a piece of sky-metal smaller than my thumb with a letter full of insults disguised as curiosity."

"It worked."

"Aye," Ormund said. "It worked. I am still angry about that."

Tom looked at the blade again.

"The meteor."

"What remained after we cut it," Cleyton said. "Which was harder than cutting should be. The stone from the courtyard was not the same as the Dayne blade, not precisely. But it had kinship enough. Iron, nickel, stranger things, and something that made three good chisels break before Ormund began calling it names in Rhoynish."

"The names helped," Ormund said.

"The sword was made from the meteor that struck Oros after Maegor's defeat," Cleyton said. "Folded with high-quality steel, quenched in oils I was not allowed to identify, worked through methods Ormund refuses to describe where I can hear them, and finished before you returned, which was irritating, as you were not here to be properly examined for grip and balance."

"I guessed," Ormund said.

Tom lifted the blade slightly.

The balance was perfect.

Cleyton saw his face and smiled.

Only a little.

"I named it," he said.

Tom looked up.

"You named it?"

"Someone had to prevent Boro from doing so."

"Wise," Jory said.

Cleyton took a breath.

"Frostfyre."

The word entered the room and stayed.

Tom looked at the blade.

"For your northern heritage," Cleyton said, quieter now, "the life that made you who you are. And for the ancient Valyrian blood that men keep trying to use, claim, fear, or explain before you have chosen what it means. Frost and fire. Not gods. Not prophecy. Not the old dragonlords. You."

Tom could not answer.

The sword was the most beautiful thing he had ever held.

Not because it shone.

Because it should not exist, and yet did. Fallen star. Oros stone. Dornish hands. Cleyton's restless mind. Old mysteries dragged into shape. A blade born from an omen Tom had rejected and a victory he had not wanted made into something that fit his hands as if it had been waiting there longer than he had been alive.

He had not begun to ask what it was worth.

He had not begun to ask what men would say when they saw it.

He had not begun to fear what meaning others would force upon it.

For one breath, he was only in awe.

"Thank you," he said.

It was too small.

Cleyton seemed to understand.

"Do not lose it."

Ormund Sand's head snapped up. "Do not chip it."

Jory said, "Do not name anything else tonight."

Vissenya's fingers brushed Tom's arm.

"Come," she said.

This time, no one stopped them.

Tom carried the sword with him because letting it go felt impossible and absurd at once.

The corridors of Oros seemed different on the walk to his chamber. Mayhaps because he had been away too long. Mayhaps because Vissenya's hand rested in his. Mayhaps because men in the hall looked at the blade, then the tattoo, then him, and stepped aside with faces that made Tom want to hide and stand taller in the same breath.

His room had been cleaned.

That should not have moved him.

It did.

The bed was made. A basin of water waited on the table. Fresh cloths had been folded beside it. Someone had placed a small brazier near the window to take the chill from the stone. His old torn things had been removed or mended. The narrow room from his dream had become real again, and Vissenya stood inside it with the door closed behind them.

For a moment, neither moved.

The war room had been easier.

Maps, threats, starving cities, uncertain councils, even impossible swords. Those were things a man could stand before and pretend action would answer.

This was only the two of them.

No audience.

No strategy.

No road between.

Vissenya crossed the room first.

She took the sword from him carefully and set it on the table as if it were sleeping. Then she turned back, reached up, and touched the tattoo again.

"This is terrible," she said.

Tom closed his eyes.

"Aye."

"Crooked in one place."

"I was told my head was badly shaped for honor."

"By whom?"

"An Ibbenese shaman."

"I like her."

"You have not met her."

"I know enough."

Her thumb traced near the dragon's jaw, careful of the healing skin.

"It does suit you," she admitted.

"That sounded painful."

"It was."

He smiled.

She did not.

Not for long.

Her hand moved from the tattoo to his cheek. Her fingers lingered there, then slid down to the collar of his torn shirt, to the edge of a bandage he had changed badly two days before.

"You are hurt."

"Less than I was."

"That is a northern answer. I dislike it."

"It is also true."

"Truth can still be insufficient."

He covered her hand with his.

"So can apology."

Her eyes lifted to his.

"I did not want one."

"What did you want?"

The question changed the air.

Vissenya's mouth softened. Not into a smile exactly. Into something more dangerous because it had no armor.

"You."

Tom drew her close.

Slowly at first, because she was still healing and so was he, though patience became a thin discipline quickly. They kissed like the road had been a thing with teeth between them and had finally been killed. Her hands found his shoulders, his hair, the shaved side of his head, then laughed softly against his mouth when he winced.

"Too much?"

"No."

"Liar."

"Aye."

That made her smile properly.

They talked because stopping completely would have made the wanting too sharp too quickly.

He told her pieces of the road. Not all. Not yet. The thorns. Boro kissing the Demon Road. Jory's terrible comfort. The Dothraki horns in the dark. She told him pieces of Oros. Cleyton refusing sleep. Kemal terrifying sense into former enemies. The way men had watched the empty crater after the stone was taken. The first raven from Setzuko and the silence before the next.

Neither told the worst parts.

Not that night.

There would be time for wounds that needed words.

This night asked for living first.

Vissenya unfastened the clasp at his throat.

Tom caught her wrist gently.

"Your wounds."

"Are mine to measure."

"Cleyton would object."

"Cleyton is not invited."

Tom laughed then, truly, and the sound seemed to surprise both of them.

Vissenya's answering smile was wicked enough to make the month behind him feel briefly unreal.

"Careful," she said. "I am still recovering."

"So am I."

"Then we will be gentle."

"Will we?"

"At first."

The last word undid whatever argument he might have made.

Later, the room grew quiet.

The brazier burned low. The new sword lay on the table in its oil-dark cloth, pale metal hidden but not forgotten. Outside the window, Oros kept its watches. Somewhere below, men spoke softly in a yard where a meteor had fallen and vanished into legend before anyone agreed what it meant.

Tom lay with Vissenya against him, her hair across his chest, her fingers resting over his heart as they had in his dream.

This time, he did not dream her.

He held her.

And for the first time since chains, blood, slavers, arenas, false dragonlords, wild magic, vanished dragons, and roads full of hunger had remade his life, Tom let the world wait outside the door.

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Disclaimer: Frostfyre is a non-commercial fan fiction project inspired by a Realm of Thrones campaign for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. All rights to those original settings and characters remain with their respective owners.