Chapter Text
The building had been a sept once, before the Conquest. Then a storehouse. Then a ruin. Now it was something new entirely, and the sounds coming from within would have horrified any septon who remembered its original purpose.
"Again," Brynden said.
Forty voices rose in ragged unison, reciting the multiplication tables. The children ranged from six to sixteen, drawn from the gutters and orphanages of Flea Bottom, and most of them had never held a quill before arriving here. Now they sat at long benches, scratching numbers onto cheap paper, learning skills that would have been denied them for the rest of their short lives.
Brynden watched from the back of the room as the instructor, a failed maester named Willam, guided them through the exercises. Willam had washed out of the Citadel fifteen years ago, one link short of his chain, and had been drinking himself to death in a Oldtown tavern when Brynden's agents found him. Now he was sober, employed, and doing more good than he'd ever done in his life.
There were three such schools in King's Landing now. Brynden called them academies, because the word had weight to it, gravitas that "orphanage" lacked. The Citadel called them an abomination. The Faith called them suspicious. The smallfolk called them a miracle.
None of them understood what they really were.
"Lord Bloodraven."
He turned to find Ser Roland Crakehall standing in the doorway, looking profoundly uncomfortable. Roland was one of the knights Daeron had assigned to his household, a good man whose loyalty was beyond question and whose imagination was entirely absent. He did not understand why the King's bastard brother spent his mornings watching street children learn arithmetic.
"The lady is here," Roland said. "She's waiting in your solar."
Brynden felt something tighten in his chest. He had been expecting this visit for weeks now. Dreading it, if he was honest with himself.
"Thank you, Ser Roland. I'll attend to her presently."
He took one last look at the children bent over their papers, tongues poking out in concentration, and allowed himself a moment of something that might have been satisfaction. It was such a small thing. Forty children learning to read and count. In the grand scheme of Westerosi politics, it meant nothing.
But he had watched civilizations rise and fall from his weirwood throne. He knew that small things accumulated. That a single idea, planted in the right soil, could grow into something that outlasted empires.
Assuming the Citadel didn't burn it all down first.
Shiera Seastar was the most beautiful woman in Westeros. This was not opinion but simple fact, acknowledged by everyone who had ever seen her. Poets compared her to the Maiden made flesh. Knights fought duels for the honor of her favor. Lesser men simply stared, struck dumb by a face that seemed designed to make the act of looking into something holy.
Brynden had loved her once. Or thought he had. It was difficult to know, looking back across two centuries, whether what he'd felt had been love or obsession or simply hunger. They had been young together, beautiful and brilliant and broken in complementary ways. It had seemed like fate.
It had not ended well.
Now she sat in his solar, dressed in a gown of deep blue samite that matched her famous mismatched eyes, and studied him like a problem she couldn't quite solve.
"You've changed," she said.
No greeting. No pleasantries. That was Shiera. She had never seen the point in pretending to be less intelligent than she was.
"The war changed everyone."
"Don't." Her voice was sharp. "I've known you since we were children, Brynden. I've shared your bed. I've seen you kill a man with a word and a glance. Whatever is happening to you, it is not the war."
He had prepared for this conversation. Rehearsed responses, constructed explanations, built elaborate lies designed to satisfy her curiosity without revealing the truth. Looking at her now, he realized none of them would work.
Shiera had always been able to see through him.
"May I offer you wine?" he asked instead.
"You may offer me answers."
"I have very good wine."
Something that might have been amusement flickered across her perfect face. "You're deflecting. You never deflect. You attack, overwhelm, manipulate. You don't hide."
"Perhaps I'm learning new techniques."
"That is exactly what I mean." She leaned forward, and he caught a hint of her perfume, something floral and subtle and probably worth more than the building they sat in. "Six months ago you were hunting Blackfyre sympathizers through the gutters like a hound after rats. Now you're building schools for orphans. You counsel mercy in the small council. You speak of reform, of education, of the long view. You smile at people."
"Is smiling suspicious?"
"From you? Deeply."
Brynden rose and walked to the window. Below, the Street of Steel rang with the sound of hammers, and beyond it the city sprawled toward the harbor, a maze of alleys and markets and human desperation. He had watched this city burn, in the future that no longer existed. Watched dragons wheel overhead and fire consume everything he'd spent his life building.
"Do you believe people can change?" he asked.
"I believe people can pretend to change. Usually when they want something."
"And if the change is genuine?"
"Then something broke them. Or remade them." Her voice softened slightly. "Which was it, for you?"
He turned back to face her. She was watching him with those strange beautiful eyes, one blue and one green, and he saw something there that surprised him. Concern. Genuine concern, beneath the suspicion and the calculation.
She had cared for him once. Perhaps she still did.
"Both," he said. "I think perhaps both."
Silence stretched between them. Shiera was not the sort of woman who filled silences with chatter. She let them breathe, let them do their work.
"You're not going to tell me," she said finally.
"I'm not sure I could explain it if I tried."
"Try anyway."
He thought about it. Thought about telling her everything. The cave, the tree, the centuries of watching, the Long Night, the end of all things. She was brilliant enough to understand. Strong enough to bear the weight of it.
But she was also young. Twenty years old, with a lifetime ahead of her. What right did he have to burden her with knowledge of horrors that might never come to pass?
"I have seen things," he said carefully, "that have given me a different perspective. On what matters. On what lasts. I spent years hunting enemies and building power, and I have come to believe that all of it was... insufficient. That there are threats coming that cannot be met with spies and assassinations."
"What kind of threats?"
"The kind that require a realm united and strong. Not fractured by civil wars and petty rebellions."
Shiera considered this. "And the schools? The reforms? They're part of preparing for these threats?"
"They're part of building something that can survive them."
"That's rather vague."
"I know. I'm sorry."
She stood, smoothing her skirts with a gesture that was pure reflex, a highborn lady's habits too deeply ingrained to abandon. But her eyes never left his face.
"You're lying to me," she said. "Not about the change. That's real. But you're not telling me everything."
"No."
"Will you? Eventually?"
He wanted to promise. Wanted to tell her that yes, when the time was right, when he'd laid the groundwork, when he could show her instead of just telling her, he would share everything. But he had made too many promises in his long life, and broken too many of them.
"I don't know," he said instead.
Shiera nodded, as if this was the answer she'd expected. She walked toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame.
"Whatever you're doing," she said, "I hope it's worth it. The man I knew would have called mercy weakness. Would have laughed at the idea of building schools for gutter rats. If you've killed that man, make sure you've replaced him with something better."
She left before he could respond.
Brynden stood alone in his solar for a long time after, watching the dust motes drift in the afternoon light, and wondered if he had any idea what "better" actually meant.
The small council met twice weekly, and Brynden had come to dread it.
Not because of the politics. He had been playing politics since before most of the men in this room were born, and the game had not grown more complex in the intervening centuries. If anything, it was simpler now. The players were less experienced, their schemes more transparent, their ambitions easier to predict.
What he dreaded was the familiarity.
He knew how this all ended. Knew which alliances would fracture, which families would rise and fall, which decisions made in this room would echo forward through generations. He sat at the council table and watched men argue about grain prices and trade routes, knowing that none of it mattered. That winter was coming, in every sense, and they were rearranging furniture while the house burned down around them.
But he could not say that. Could not explain. Could only sit and smile and nudge, pushing the realm toward strength inch by painful inch.
"The Citadel has lodged another formal complaint," Grand Maester Alford announced. He was a thin, nervous man who had held his position for fifteen years and would hold it for ten more before the Spring Sickness took him. "Regarding Lord Bloodraven's... educational initiatives."
"What complaint this time?" King Daeron asked.
"They contend that the teaching of letters and numbers to the smallfolk is inappropriate. That such knowledge, improperly applied, leads to social disruption. They cite several historical examples."
"Selectively chosen, I'm sure," Brynden said mildly.
Alford shot him a look of pure venom, quickly suppressed. "The Citadel's archives are extensive. Their scholarship is impeccable."
"Their scholarship serves their interests. As all scholarship does."
"You accuse the maesters of bias?"
"I accuse everyone of bias. It is the nature of being human." Brynden spread his hands. "I merely seek to provide an alternative. Surely the pursuit of knowledge benefits from multiple perspectives."
"The pursuit of knowledge benefits from rigor and tradition. Your academies teach half-truths and practical nonsense to children who will never need such skills."
"The children I teach learn to read contracts before they sign them. To count their wages before they're cheated. To write their names instead of making their marks." Brynden kept his voice even. "You are correct that they will never study the higher mysteries. But perhaps that is not the only purpose education can serve."
"Enough." Daeron's voice cut through the brewing argument. "The academies will continue. Lord Bloodraven has my blessing for this project. The Citadel may submit their objections in writing, and I will give them due consideration. Now, can we move to the matter of the Myrish trade delegation?"
Alford subsided, but the look he gave Brynden promised that this was not over. Good. Let the Citadel focus on his schools. Let them waste their energy fighting a battle they couldn't win. Every moment they spent opposing basic literacy was a moment they weren't noticing the other things he was building.
The council droned on. Trade routes, tariffs, a minor dispute between House Bracken and House Blackwood that had been simmering for three thousand years and would simmer for three thousand more. Brynden listened with half an ear, making notes, filing information for future use.
When the session finally ended, Prince Baelor caught his arm.
"Walk with me," the Prince said.
They made their way through the Red Keep's corridors in silence, past guards who snapped to attention and servants who melted out of their path. Baelor was popular in a way that Brynden would never be. The Hammer of the Trident, the heir who had proven himself in battle, the prince who actually looked like a king. Men loved him.
He would die in nine years, killed by his own brother in a tourney accident that Brynden still didn't fully understand.
"You're making enemies," Baelor said when they were alone in a small garden overlooking the bay.
"I've always made enemies."
"Not like this. The enemies you used to make feared you. The enemies you're making now think you've gone soft." Baelor turned to face him. "They're starting to wonder if you're still useful."
"Let them wonder."
"I'm serious, uncle." The word still felt strange. Brynden was only nine years older than Baelor, and they had never been close. "The Citadel has friends on the council. In the Faith. Among the great lords. If they decide you're a threat to their power..."
"Then they'll move against me. I know." Brynden looked out over the harbor, where ships from a dozen nations rode at anchor. "I've been hunted before. By better men than the Archmaesters."
"You were also younger. And you had less to protect."
That brought Brynden up short. He turned to look at Baelor, seeing the prince clearly for perhaps the first time since his return. There was genuine worry in those dark Targaryen eyes.
"You actually care," Brynden said. "Why?"
Baelor was silent for a moment. "Do you know what my father said about you, after Redgrass Field? He said you were the most dangerous man in Westeros. That you had the skills of an assassin, the patience of a maester, and the conscience of a stone. He also said you were the only one of his brothers he truly trusted."
"Daeron said that?"
"He said that you would never move against him because you understood that the realm needed stability, and you would sacrifice anything for the realm. Even your own ambitions." Baelor paused. "I used to think he was wrong. I used to think you were just waiting for the right moment to seize power for yourself."
"And now?"
"Now I think you're building something. I don't understand what, but I can see the shape of it. Schools for orphans. Information networks. Agricultural reforms on Crown lands. You're not seizing power. You're... planting it. Growing it." Baelor shook his head. "I don't know what you're planning, but I want to help. If you'll let me."
Brynden studied the prince. Baelor Breakspear. The best king Westeros never had. In nine years he would be dead, and the realm would be poorer for his loss.
Unless.
Unless Brynden could prevent it. Could save him. Could keep this good, capable man alive to take the throne when Daeron finally passed.
It was such a small thing. One life. One tourney accident. Surely he could change that much.
"There is something you can do," Brynden said slowly. "But I need you to trust me. Even when what I'm doing doesn't make sense."
"That's a great deal to ask."
"I know."
Baelor considered him for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Tell me what you need."
That night, Brynden dreamed.
He stood in the godswood of Winterfell, though he had never been to Winterfell in this life. The heart tree loomed before him, its carved face weeping red sap, its leaves rustling in a wind he couldn't feel.
You have returned, something whispered. The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, ancient beyond measure.
"I died," Brynden said. "In the cave. I felt it."
You died. And you woke. The trees remember what was. What is. What might be. You have walked between them.
"Did you do this? Send me back?"
The whisper might have been laughter. We do not send. We do not choose. We only watch. We only remember.
"Then how am I here?"
You asked a question, at the end. In the moment between heartbeats, between breaths, between the living and the dead. You asked if it could have been different.
Brynden remembered. The cold, the dark, the weight of centuries pressing down on him. He had asked. Demanded, really. Raged against the futility of everything he'd sacrificed.
The trees heard you. The trees answered. Whether this is mercy or cruelty, we cannot say. That is for you to determine.
"And if I fail? If I make things worse?"
Then you will have your answer. And we will remember that too.
The dream began to fade. The heart tree dissolved into mist, the godswood crumbling around him.
"Wait," Brynden called. "How do I save them? How do I stop what's coming?"
But the voice was already gone, leaving only the echo of ancient laughter and a single phrase that might have been blessing or curse:
A thousand eyes, and one. Use them well.
He woke to darkness and the sound of his own ragged breathing.
For a long moment he lay still, staring at the canopy of his bed, feeling his heart pound against his ribs. The dream was already fading, slipping through his fingers like water, but the sense of it remained. The weight of expectation. The terror of responsibility.
He had asked for this. Demanded it, in his final moments. And the old gods, or the trees, or whatever power lurked in the spaces between worlds, had answered.
Now he had to make it mean something.
Brynden rose, lit a candle, and pulled out the journal he'd been keeping since his return. Careful notes on everything he remembered. Dates, names, events. The Second Blackfyre Rebellion in 211. The Third in 219. Summerhall in 259. The Mad King's reign, Robert's Rebellion, the Long Night.
Two hundred years of history, written in a code only he could read.
He turned to a fresh page and began to write.
Baelor Breakspear. Tourney accident. Maekar's mace. 212 AC.
Find a way to save him.
This is where it starts.