Chapter 118: Back to Winterfell

Harry frowned at the runic array he had come up with for a long time before sighing and burning the parchment away before starting over again.

He was in his quarters in the Liberator, well-rested and nourished. Nothing distracted him, but he couldn't complete the runic array to trace sibling blood relations. There was no easy fix, considering all blood-based magic required precision, leaving no room for error. The unfortunate part was that all bloodline tracing he knew was based on using a blood sample as a root origin and then using it to track descendants.

If he had Rhaegar's or Elia's blood, it would have been easy for the magic to trace genetic markers. He could have easily made the connection if he had the blood of Targaryen and Martell elders, but they were all dead. It was like trying to chart a graph with no common origin point. He could trace the similarities in blood between the two samples, but the results could end up being anything, and he'd have no method to confirm whether it was true or not. To make matters worse, Aegon and Jon are only half brothers, complicating things.

The crux of the matter was the absence of blood samples from an older Targaryen ancestor. Without this crucial link, it wasn't easy to establish a tangible connection between the Young Griff and Jon, a fact that weighed heavily on Harry's mind.

Or maybe he was overthinking this stuff, and all he had to do was express what he wanted through the runes and trust the magic to find it. Usually, children inherited something from their parents and traces of magic were there to map. However, siblings didn't inherit anything from each other, especially when they were only half-brothers. The only way he could make it work was to retrace the bloodline from the bottom up, which was better said than done. The only elder Targaryen blood in his hand was from Maester Aemon. If he could retrace Young Griff's and Jon's blood to somehow connect with Maester Aemon's blood, then a common ancestor could be established.

It was difficult for him to devise a whole new runic array on the fly when he was also sufficiently engaged in making hundreds of snitches for the all-seeing table. Who knew mining the entire Narrow Sea with little snitches was a long, tedious time-consuming days of uninterrupted hard work?

From Dorne to the North, he wanted the entire Narrow Sea mined with the snitches so that he could monitor all shipping lanes. The trick to gaining naval superiority was gaining control over a chain of ports in the many seas, monitoring all sea lanes, and spreading the fleet across those ports and lanes to project military strength. But the work it was taking to achieve that was getting ridiculous, even with help from Elsera, Jon, and the others.

His fingers were getting swollen after carving those runes day after day, and the hard thing was that he didn't have anything else to do. He was also getting bored after getting cooped up in the ship for too long after they left Sunspear.

The only silver lining was that he was not as bored as everyone, all thanks to someone on his bed.

Harry's eyes strayed to the soundly sleeping figure of Alaenera. Her long legs peeked out from the black silk sheet covering her nubile body. Her curly silver hair was sprawled out over the pillow while her chest rose and fell like serene waves of the ocean.

He thought about returning to bed and spending the rest of the night with a warm body lulling him to sleep. It was very tempting, but he tore his eyes away from the sleeping form of his paramour and set them on the trunk that hosted Winter.

He looked between the trunk and the unfinished rune array. Letting out a sigh, he left the array and took the trunk outside. The trunk floated by his side as he silently made his way into the deck of the Liberator. The Liberator was floating high in the sky, which made the stars appear far closer. There was a full moon in the sky, bathing the entire deck of the Liberator in an ethereal silver light. Seeing the night sky so heavenly above his head made it so mesmerising that he forgot himself and watched it for a few minutes.  

'Wow! This view should ease some of the complaints from Winter.' Harry mused.

If he and everyone else on the ship were bored, then it was far worse for Winter. Because of his tight schedule, he was unavailable to visit the ice dragon in her lair as often as he ought to. While Harry had ensured he had filled the pocket dimension hosting Winter hosted other animals, the she-dragon had quickly grown bored because of the need for more intelligent conversation.

Harry cast a spell on the trunk to connect the pocket dimension to the world and send in a messenger patronus. He kept the trunk lid open and directed the exit door safely away from any portion of the ship. Winter flew out of the pocket dimension with a whoosh of air and circled around the ship.

"Wooooo! This is so fun! The moon is so beautiful tonight!" Winter excitedly shouted into his mind.

"Well, you wanted to enjoy the full moon. Now, enjoy!" Harry shouted back through their telepathic link.

While Harry might've enjoyed and been fascinated with their little talks telepathically, he was also equally put off because he still hadn't developed a suitable Occlumency technique to keep Winter out of his mind. All ice dragons had that natural ability to breach the minds of all mortal creatures for some reason, but he still hadn't figured out how that worked. Frankly, with the number of projects and other matters that took up his time, he hadn't spent much time researching a possible mental defence against Winter's ability.

Winter was a cute, darling dragon. He trusted her with his secrets because she was as much a daughter as a dragon could ever be. After all, he had raised her and taught her about the world. The only reason that he wanted to shield his mind from Winter was because of his memories of certain activities…

"Ewwww!" Winter screeched in his mind as his mind went to the many nights he spent with Alaenera, Nymeria and Arianne.

Harry winced as Winter's loud, squeaky voice screeched in his mind.

"Can't you just stop thinking about what you did to those three for even a minute?" Winter huffed.

"Why should I? It's only natural for a man to think about the women he bedded." Harry said petulantly, "Shame on you for snooping around in my mind."

"Why are you blaming me? You're the supposed great sorcerer of the North. Go find a way to shield your mind, Harry." Winter said, twisting herself midflight and spreading her wings to arrest her momentum and take in the sight of the stars in the night sky.

"You know what? I'm going to do just that. I'm turning around this ship to the North and searching for a way to keep you out of my mind." Harry threatened as he watched Winter circle the Liberator with her silver and blue scales gleaming under the moonlight.

"You do that instead of wasting time in this sea, Harry. Now, leave me to enjoy some moonlight in peace. Woooo!" Winter said as she dived into the sea below.

"Ungrateful ice dragon. No respect whatsoever for her elders." Harry muttered as he watched the she-dragon gracefully pull out of the dive and glide over the sea surface with her talons just gracing the water.

"Show off! You stole that move after watching me perform the Wronski Feint." Harry accused, but he could only hear laughter from the telepathic bond.

But he did listen to her advice. When the morning came, he declared that their mining operation in the Narrow Sea had been suspended and that they were returning home. The very next minute, the people in the Liberator threw a party to celebrate their impending return to the North, showing just how eager they were to leave the Narrow Sea. With this, their three-month-long journey had come to an end.

****

Asha Greyjoy was furious and humiliated beyond her wildest dreams. As a woman, she had faced a fair share of insults, puns and hostility from the men in the Iron Fleet ever since she decided her fortunes lay in the sea. But she had overcome them all by gutting any men standing in her way without mercy. She had proved she was a Greyjoy and, being a woman, had no standing on her skill in the sea.

That was how she became a captain of her own ship.

But now, Asha felt a grave insult was being done to her and her house in the North. She had approached Winterfell on the advice of her uncle to ensure their way of life was no longer suppressed. She wanted the Starks to pull back their fleets from their seas and allow her to confront her uncle. She had even hoped, with Theon's help, she could chart a path to secure an alliance with House Stark to confront her uncle Victarion.

But all her plans were on indefinite hold when she arrived at Winterfell.

At first, it was the absent Lord of Winterfell who made her journey useless. But she could at least understand that Lord Stark was a busy man, and he had to govern a vast kingdom. The demands of his position required a long absence from his seat of power to visit his bannermen.

So, she used that time to get to know her brother, and the more she learned of him, the less impressed she became.

Her wastrel of a brother was having an opulent life in Winterfell while she was working day and night, battling Lyseni pirates and the prejudices of her own people to claw herself into a position of power. Theon spent his days in the whore houses of Winter town while their people were being destroyed day by day. If that was not enough, her brother had no intention of helping her unseat Victarion from Pyke. Instead, her idiot brother was intent on working against her!

'The moron thinks he could just sail into the Iron Isles and take Pyke from Victarion all because he has a cock!' Asha thought with a scowl while staring into the training yard of Winterfell, where her brother was practising archery.

But even if her brother was being a moron, her troubles didn't end there. Because the wandering Lord of Winterfell returned to Winterfell in his horse with fluttering wolf banners on his back. Asha immediately asked for an audience and demanded that the North pull back its fleet from her islands. Not only did Lord Stark deny her accusations, but he also accused the Ironborn of starting all hostilities. Unfortunately, Asha was aware Lord Stark was right on the latter.

However, her understanding aside, she was still left with no solution to her dilemma. Lord Stark refused to do anything until his son, the Lord of Avalon, returned from his trip abroad. To add insult to injury, the Lord of Winterfell had the audacity to claim that he had no knowledge of the activities of the North's fleet nor control over it. She didn't believe such claims. But still, she decided to wait, and she had been nearly in Winterfell for a month with nothing to show for it.

"We should leave Asha. There is nothing for us to do here." Tristifer Botley said, standing beside her.

"Return and do what – wait for a sure death?" Asha snorted.

"I say we face death if that is what awaits us. My father and brother fought the Northmen and died in Lordsport." Tristifer growled with a clenched fist, making Asha roll her eyes.

"If it is revenge you seek, you should travel further north and find my father at the Wall. It was his idiotic idea to snipe at the wolf's tail, forgetting that the wolf had grown wings." Asha said bitterly.

"It was Harrion Stark who rained hell upon us from his monstrous ship, not Lord Balon." Tristifer defended the late lord of the Pyke.

"He might as well have. He brought hell to my life, so he must've done the same for the rest of you lot." Asha sighed.  

"We could spend this time gathering support instead of wasting it on Winterfell. They have clearly no intention of stopping what they're doing. The taking of Blacktyde and Harlaw has shown what they really want, and if the rumours of this canal are true, it makes all the sense why they're doing this."

Asha sighed, knowing her childhood friend spoke sense. They only came to know about the canal because they were in Winterfell, and they happened to hear rumours about it. House Stark planned to build a canal connecting the Saltspear with the Bite. It meant that the Narrow Sea and the Sunset Sea could be connected, and sailing around Dorne was no longer necessary.

Knowing the plans about the touted Sunset Canal made her understand what Harrion Stark was playing at. The Lord of Avalon wanted the Ironborn out of the seas to protect his precious trade. The Lyseni pirates she knew had wanted to strike at the trade vessels of Avalon once they knew that Avalon was supplying glass to the rest of Westeros. But now, the war had ravaged the Iron Isles, and she knew Harrion Stark was intent on pushing the Ironborn deeper into their islands and confining them to the land while his fleet dominated the seas.

It was a dangerous situation. The sea was the lifeblood of the Ironborn. Without the sea, her people would wither and die.

'Is that what Harrion Stark wants? Is he pushing us out of the sea and into the lands so that we'll starve and turn on each other and destroy ourselves?' Asha wondered with a troubled look.

A few months back, she'd have laughed at her own thoughts that a Greenlander would have the stomach to starve her islands and destroy her people. But she had seen and heard the tales of Harrion Stark from her people. The Lord of Avalon was no weak Greenlander foe. He was merciless to his enemies, and he knew where to strike and hurt them the most. Taking the Seastone chair and the remains of the sea dragon from Old Wyk was not done without any planning. It was a pre-planned act to destabilise the legitimacy of any new king in the Iron Isles.

It made her less confident that she was waiting in Winterfell to appeal to the better senses of a boy intent on wiping out the Ironborn. Not even the Targaryens, at the height of their power, had come as close as Harrion Stark, and they had dragons on their side.

'Perhaps, Tristifer is right. I'm wasting my time here.' Asha thought.

Suddenly, a huge shadow fell on the training yard, and the people below were running towards the eastern side of the yard, their eyes pointing to the sky. Asha exchanged a look with Tristifer before they broke out into a run until they came to a portion of the corridor where they could see a massive ship floating in the sky.

"That's him. That's Harrion Stark's warship." Tristifer said with a slight inflexion in his voice.

Asha knew her friend had faced that same ship in battle at Pyke. But she had the fortune not to face the flying ship of the Starks in battle. Despite the word she got from her family, friends and some trusted captains of the Iron Fleet, she had hoped they were exaggerating. But now, the truth was before her as clear as daylight.

****

Harry lounged on a chair in the Astronomy tower, reading through some of the latest findings and observations gathered by Maester Luwin and the many acolytes the Citadel had sent to Winterfell. The Astronomy tower he had raised had become a hub of space studies, with the Citadel paying exorbitant gold and silver to access the telescopes he developed.  

Of course, the Archmaesters had tried to buy the telescopes from him, promising a large sum of gold. They approached him through House Hightower when he denied them, but again, he denied them a telescope of his design. But he wanted their trade and their ships, which made him grant them access to Winterfell's telescopes.

There was another reason he did this. He got easy access to all their research without spending a dime, which was an advantage, and right now, he was looking into that research. The acolytes studied planetary movements and tracked comets coming in and out of the star system. He was still getting requests from the Citadel to make them a telescope, and it became a ritual to send them letters of denial. Knowledge was priceless, after all.

He assumed the number of letters would only increase once he unveiled the treasure he gathered from Valyria. It would attract all sorts of attention, but the canal would also do the same.

However, he had to deal with some undesirable elements from Winterfell before any of that happened. His mother informed him about Asha Greyjoy's presence in the castle. She mainly complained about the 'arrogant Ironborn girl' setting dangerous examples to Sansa and Arya.

Harry couldn't agree more with his mother. The Ironborn were useless people, and they were not something one could aspire to. It was one of the reasons why he immediately dumped a lot of the rune work on his two sisters. It kept them engaged, and at the same time, it kept them away from the Greyjoy pirate. While his mother intended to send away the Ironborn, his father was another matter. His father's sense of honour tinkled in the most unfortunate of times, usually bringing a lot of needless problems with it. But he had promised his father that he'd have a heart-to-heart talk with Asha Greyjoy and hear her concerns.  

Thankfully, his father didn't ask for more, probably because of the disapproving frown his lady mother shot his father the whole time. At times like these, he thanked his mother's Riverland roots. The Riverlanders knew a good Ironborn was a dead Ironborn.

But Harry knew he was not off the hook. His actions in Myr were still a matter of discussion, and he took his sweet time to return after Myr was burned to the ground despite a direct order from his father.  

Harry was alerted when the intruder ward he set up on the tower's base got tripped. But when he focused his senses on the intruder, he became less concerned. He waited patiently on the topmost chamber of the tower with parchments and records strewn across the table. When the door behind him opened, he cast his eyes out and found Maester Luwin's wisened old grey eyes.

"I had a feeling you might be here when I saw the light in this tower at this hour." said Luwin.

"Maester Luwin, you seem to have something to say to me." Harry frowned at his old teacher, who looked troubled and shifty.

"Ah! You were always very observant." said Luwin.

Harry conjured a chair and gestured at maester Luwin to take the seat.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Harry asked once the old maester made himself comfortable on the chair.

"There was a small change in the taxing code that the king made."

"I see." Harry eyed the maester with a poker face. "What change did the tax code undergo while we just decided to build a canal?"

The troubled look on maester Luwin's face only became more pronounced.

"You understand that the Targaryens made the tax law."

"I understand. Go on." Harry nodded.

"I assume you're also familiar with the taxes King Aegon implemented for building new castles, adding walls to existing castles or other defensive constructs?"

"I'm quite familiar with that particular tax. It was one of those taxes that was intended to keep the minor lords and landed knights underpowered and kept the high lords unchallenged. It kept the high lords in dominance as the Iron Throne preferred not to change the power balance in the kingdoms."

"Yes, that one." Maester Luwin said with a forced smile, "Well, they changed that code to include any construction on the land that could be used for defensive purposes."

"I see." Harry hummed thoughtfully, "They want the canal to be included as a defensive construct because it cuts through the mainland, and we could block an invading army if we destroy the bridge across the canal."    

"Yes, indeed."

"Very clever of them. It's too bad I have no intention of paying tax for such a ridiculous law." said Harry.

"I gathered you might say something like that." Luwin rubbed his forehead with a sigh. "Now, I came here to convince you otherwise."

"Of course you did." Harry chuckled.

No matter who tried to convince him, he was not going to send a dime as taxes for constructing a canal.

AN:

To read ahead of the update schedule; pat(r) eon. C (O) M/Dragonspectre.

For artwork related to the fic:

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