Let the play begin

Night of 12th day of 5th Moon, 259AC

Doran stopped his horse a few yards from the Yronwoods. A stable boy quickly ran over and grabbed Rocinante's reins as soon as the prince stepped off his steed.

With a slight smile he approached the waiting group and as he walked the few meters that separated them he analyzed each Yronwood.

`Yon Yronwood is not here` The lord's absence is the first thing the prince notices. His smile falters momentarily as a thousand scenarios run through his mind. `Why isn't he here? Is he up to something? Does he suspect about my visit?`

His attention is focused on the other nobles, looking for anything suspicious in their postures and expressions.

Edgar Yronwood is a man the age of his mother, a little older, with brown hair and caramel-colored eyes. He is of average height (180cm approx) and in good shape. Lord Edgar looks at him without giving anything away in his expression but his eyes are slightly cloudy.

Doran brings his hand to his chest, and as he appears to be adjusting the clasp that attaches his cape to his breastplate, he activates his medallion. This anti-detecting-magic-artifacts medallion is fairly new, a much more advanced version of the first prototype he built during his years at the Citadel. This model is capable of extending a barrier within a radius of a hundred meters in the blink of an eye, and apart from rendering any artifact that detects magic useless, it is also capable of identifying magical artifacts and any trace of magic.

With his protection activated, the prince quickly sends a legilimency probe to Edgar, a quick and easy scan meant to show him only the surface thoughts of the victim.

|"What are you thinking father? With the prince here... If we're not careful, we'll be ruined."|

Unfortunately the superficial thoughts of Edgar do not tell him anything concrete, it only feeds Doran's curiosity even more. The prince is tempted to use proper legilimency to learn what secrets Lord Edgar is hiding, but unlike surface probes proper use of legilimency is detected by the victim (at first it's just a stinging sensation, like a light bump on the head. The more the legilimancer enters the victim's mind, the more that sensation will increase until it becomes a horrible migraine that can cause strokes if the legilimancer is too abrupt and makes its way through the victim's mind in a forceful and crude way. The mind is very delicate and proper exploration requires skill and finesse, and Doran can't do that in the few seconds he currently has).

The prince's eyes move to Lady Brella, a rather ordinary-looking dark-haired, brown-eyed woman. Unlike her husband, Lady Brella's expression is much more open, Doran can tell that she is nervous and anxious.

| "-what if his chambers aren't to his liking? Or the food! I have bought the best ingredients and even hired a cook from Highgarden! But what if he doesn't like-" |

Doran feels a slight relief, clearly Lady Yronwood is just an ordinary lady. The prince is 98% sure that she is not involved with whatever is going on here, but he still won't let his guard down.

The twins are almost mirror versions of each other, with the obvious difference being gender. They both have the eyes and hair of their father, and their physical features appear to be a mix of both parents.

`They are good looking, but nothing very flashy,` observes the mage absently. But the resemblance seems to be only physical. Lord Ormond stands tall with a rigid posture and remains as serious as possible. Doran can read the nervousness in his posture, his eyes betray everything he feels.

`Are you excited to meet me? Interesting...`

A quick probe confirms his thoughts.

|"-I've heard he's a good swordsman. Shall we train together? Or maybe we'll go hunting! Ser Jonos said they spotted quite a large group of deer-" |

`Is he already making plans?` thinks Doran amused.

Lady Nysterica on the other hand looks like she is about to jump out of her skin. She can barely keep still and her eyes dart up and down, looking at him without even being inconspicuous.

Her thoughts are nothing unexpected.

|"He's quite a bit taller than I expected, and more handsome up close. I wonder if he likes anyone, I'll talk to father-" |

"Sorry, we're a little bit late." Doran said as he stood in front of the Yronwood family, giving them his charismatic smile number 2 (that's what Mors called it).

"My prince." Lord Edgar bowed, which was copied by all present. "It's an honor to see you again, welcome to Yronwood Castle. We are at your service."

"Thank you for your hospitality." Doran accepts a piece of bread that a servant gives him, Lord Edgar takes another and after passing it through a plate with salt they both eat it.

The Guest Right is a sacred law of hospitality, especially for those who worship the Old Gods. Traditionally when a guest arrives at someone's abode, they receive a piece of bread and a little salt. Both guest and host eat a little in front of each other and a sacred agreement is formed. Neither can harm the other during the guest's stay, in doing so the perpetrator invokes the wrath of gods, both new and old.

This tradition spread throughout the world, even in Essos it is respected although it changed a little over the years. Currently only a few traditionalists still give guests bread and salt as they enter their abodes, simply eating the food and drinking the host's drink is considered enough to invoke Guest Right.

`The Yronwoods have always been pretty traditional in this regard, not even the Starks are that uptight...` Doran thinks as he stifles a grimace at the taste.

After eating the bread Doran greets Lady Brella and the twins.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, my prince." Ormond greeted the prince as appropriately as possible, but a slight tremor could be heard in his voice.

"Likewise, Lord Ormond." Doran smiled and shook his hand.

"I hope you enjoy your stay in Yronwood, my prince." Nysterica leaned too close for Doran's comfort.

"Thank you, my lady. I'm sure I will." The prince's smile tightens as he represses the instinct to take a few steps back, Lady Nysterica is practically in his personal space but taking a few steps back would be seen as an insult and Doran doesn't want to start his stay here off on the wrong foot.

"Lord Edgar, could you tell me where Lord Yon is? I was hoping to meet him..." Doran quickly turns to the Yronwood heir and walks away from the (thirsty) lady.

"My father is not feeling well, my prince. He is already very old and his health has worsened lately." Edgar's tone doesn't give anything away, he seems sincere but his eyes-

`The eyes are the window to the soul,` Doran shrewdly thinks.

Edgar was waiting for that question and he already had the answer prepared, but no matter how good he acted, his eyes still betrayed his tension.

"I will pray to the gods for his speedy recovery." Doran seems so sincere and honest that one could not tell how much he is suspicious of Edgar and his words even if he analyzed his words and posture with a magnifying glass.

Lady Yronwood and the twins seem moved and thank the prince, Lord Edgar also thanks him but he is not as sincere with his words.

"Thank you for your kind words, my prince." Edgar clears his throat. "Would you like something to eat, or do you prefer to rest?"

"We have already eaten on the road, right now what I want most is to wash all the road dust and sleep half a day." Dorian jokes.

There was some laughter and Edgar motioned for Ormond to accompany him to his chambers. Doran says goodbye to the others and follows young Yronwood, Lothar (and Fred) only a step behind him.

Ormond accompanies him to the third floor of the Keep and guides him to some large and luxurious chambers.

"The servants will prepare a bath for you right away, my prince. In the meantime, would you like me to keep you company or would you prefer to wait alone."

To tell the truth Doran does not feel like socializing, he is too tired from the trip but this is an opportunity to learn more about the Yronwood, and the prince will not turn down any opportunity to advance in his mission.

The two spend half an hour talking while the servants prepare a bath for Doran, during that conversation Doran finds out a lot about Ormond and his relationship with his family.

Ormond is the squire of a knight named Jonos, he likes to hunt and ride horses. He prefers the bow to the sword and hates any kind of training that involves maces ever since his sister almost cracked his head as a child with a warhammer (they were playing knights). He is closer to his sister than anyone else in his family, his mother is always busy taking care of the day-to-day administration of the castle. His father and his grandfather are always doing "Lord things" (Ormond's words), so he spent more time with his sister. He wants to have brothers but every pregnancy his mother had in the last ten years ended in miscarriage (Doran is suspicious of that but quickly dispels those suspicions. His grandmother wouldn't be able to-)

***

After bathing Doran changed clothes, he put on a black set (Pants, shirt, leather vest and boots). At his waist he has several bags attached to his belt.

Doran blocks the entrance of his chambers with a spell and walks towards the windows. The prince activates his medallion and opens one of the windows, in a blink his form changes to that of a sparrow. Doran prefers the form of an Owl (which was his animagus form when he was still Harry), but sparrows are smaller and therefore less conspicuous.

The sparrow circles the castle and after finding his target, flies to a window. He stands on the windowsill and looks inside, there is no one.

In another blink the bird is replaced with a teenager. Doran dangles with one hand clinging to the sill, the other touch to his vest and activating one of the runes engraved on it.

Some camouflage runes, they did not make him invisible, he had simply taken on the exact color and texture of the castle wall.

Doran puts his other hand on the sill and rises himself, then he rests his left forearm on the sill and moves his right hand in a pattern.

"Alohomora." He mutters under his breath.

The prince pushes open the window and enters the room.

With another movement of his right hand, he creates an invisible bubble around the room that will prevent any noise from being heard from outside.

"Come on, let's see what Yon Yronwood has in his solar." With a shark smile Doran walks over to Lord Yon's desk.

***

4th Moon 259AC

Essos, Naath

The Star King of Naath was startled when an enemy charged at him from one of his blind spots. The king tripped over a corpse and fell to the ground taking a good hit.

"Fuck" He grunted, he hit his head against a fallen soldier's armor and everything is spinning. Two - or maybe one - figure lunged at the enemy that knocked him to the ground, the king can't tell if he's seeing double or if-

`This is no time for this! I'm in the middle of an invasion, I have to get up and keep fighting. For my pups and my home!`

With iron determination guiding his movements the king rises from the ground with considerable difficulty. Everything is spinning around him and his vision is cloudy but even so he will not give up, he will fight until the last breath for his people!

The sounds around him seemed to have been amplified and each crash between swords made the throbbing in his head even worse. The king puts a hand to the back of his head and feels a hot liquid.

'Blood,' he thinks with a grimace.

He mumbles a few words in a foreign language and his blood stops flowing. He rubs his eyes, and with clearer vision, he looks around him. The fight on the beach seems to be coming to an end. Of the 15 pirate ships that attacked his island, 4 have been sunk in the sea by their ballistae, 6 are on fire, 2 have fled, and 3 are more or less intact.

The pirates, seeing that attacking the port of the capital was more difficult than they expected, changed their strategy. They divided up, while some ships continued to attack the port, others headed for different beaches to invade them by land. That is to say, while some of the pirate ships distracted the Naathi, others slipped in to catch them between the hammer and the anvil.

Strategy that would have worked if the Star King had not placed different hidden surveillance posts around the entire island precisely to prevent that kind of situation.

Naath is a huge island, it has the shape of almost a question mark, and since the population does not even reach 100,000, only a part of it is populated (therefore there are many areas that are not monitored as they do not have towns nearby, which makes it easy for invaders to invade through there). The king placed surveillance posts every several kilometers on the coast; they are small posts occupied by one or two rangers who rotate from time to time. The rangers have different ways of transmitting messages, the most used is a flute (the rangers play different patterns to transmit different messages), the sound of the flute is heard only at a certain distance so each ranger transmits the message they heard (such as a chain). The system is so effective that in a few minutes the message reaches the capital, regardless of where on the island it came from.

Thanks to this system, the Naath forces were able to move efficiently to intercept each group of invaders.

On the beach where the king is fighting the largest number of pirates landed, almost 500. On the contrary, the king only had 300 men with him, but thanks to the training of the Naathi army, who since their formation were trained to fight against more numerous enemies, the balance tipped towards them.

The battle lasted more than two hours and in that time hundreds of men died, the once pristine beach is now covered with corpses and blood.

A pirate saw the king alone and immediately went after him. With a malicious smile on his face he charged at the king like a wild boar, screaming.

The king heard the screams and quickly turned around, he saw the pirate running towards him with a mace in his hand and shouting something in a language he did not understand.

The king raised both hands and-

SMASH!

CRACK!

The pirate hit an invisible wall, fell on his ass to the ground and blood began to flow from his broken nose. The king smirked before pulling his dagger from his belt and plunging it into the pirate's neck.

"I was already rammed by a bull today…" he mutters with a grimace. "Not again."

The king picked up a sword from the ground and joined the fight.

He will defend his island no matter what!