Chapter 44: The Vulture’s Fortune

Chapter 44: The Vulture's Fortune

Late 299 AC, Month of the Turning Leaf

The Red Wedding was not an end; it was a beginning. For the houses of Stark and Tully, it was the beginning of a long, dark winter of grief and subjugation. For the Seven Kingdoms, it was the beginning of a new, uglier phase of the war, one fought not with honourable armies in the field, but with betrayals, assassinations, and the slow, grinding misery of a land without true masters. For Alaric Blackwood, it was the beginning of the great consolidation. The chaos he had so patiently waited for had arrived, and he moved to capitalize on it with the swift, silent precision of a serpent striking from the shadows.

His first order of business was to bring his own homeland, the now-leaderless Riverlands, to heel. He did not achieve this with banners and conquest. He did it with ledgers and logistics. He ruled from afar, from the dark stone halls of Raventree Hall, his family's ancient seat, which now served as his northern command post. He had installed his father, Lord Theron, as the public face of his new regime, granting him the title "Warden of the Trident."

The conversation in which he bestowed this honour was a brutal lesson in their new family dynamic.

"You want me to govern the Riverlands?" Lord Theron asked, his voice a mixture of shock and horror. He stood in the solar where he had once been master, now dwarfed by his own son's presence. "In your name? While the Freys hold Riverrun? While Hoster Tully still lives? It is a betrayal of everything we stand for!"

"What we stood for was being a minor house with more honour than sense, a position that nearly led to our extinction twice in my lifetime," Alaric replied, his voice devoid of heat. He gestured to a map of the Riverlands, now covered in his own precise markings. "The Tullys have lost. The Starks have lost. Their honour gained them nothing but graves. The Freys are treacherous, murderous scum, but they hold the King's grant to Riverrun. However," he tapped a thick ledger on the table, "I hold their debts. Every toll from their bridge, every bushel of wheat from their fields, is already owed to me for the next fifty years. They are kings of a castle they can no longer afford. They are irrelevant."

He looked at his father, his crimson-flecked grey eyes holding a chilling lack of sentiment. "You will be my Warden. You will use my gold and my grain to feed the smallfolk. You will use my Onyx Legion to hunt down the brigands and broken men—Stark loyalists and Lannister deserters alike—who prey on the countryside. You will bring peace. You will bring order. You will be loved for it. The people do not care which sigil flies from the castle, father. They care if their children have bread and if the roads are safe. You will give them that. And in return, they will give you their loyalty. A loyalty that will belong, ultimately, to me."

Theron Blackwood looked at his son, the boy he had raised, and saw a stranger, a king speaking a language of power he could barely comprehend. He saw the logic, the cold, undeniable truth of it. And so, with a heavy heart, the honourable Lord of Raventree Hall became the reluctant puppet of his own son, the warden of a province his son had conquered without drawing a sword.

With the Riverlands pacified and turned into a personal fiefdom, Alaric's gaze turned to the greater game. His actions had not gone unnoticed. His immense wealth, his control over the kingdom's food supply, and his quiet but absolute military power had drawn the attention of the one institution in the world that truly understood such things. The Iron Bank of Braavos.

The envoy arrived at Serpent's Head Keep not on a warship, but on a single, unassuming black galley. He was a man named Tycho Nestoris, a figure of lean, bloodless austerity, his long, thin face framed by a pointed grey beard. He moved with a quiet precision, his eyes missing nothing, cataloguing the wealth and power of Alaric's court with every glance. He was not a lord or a warrior. He was a banker, which, in Alaric's estimation, made him one of the most dangerous men in the world.

They met in Alaric's private solar, a chamber of black marble and weirwood that overlooked the sea.

"Lord Alaric," Tycho began, his voice as dry as old parchment. "The Iron Bank has been observing your... enterprises... with great interest. Your consolidation of the Crown's debt, your control over key commodities, your establishment of a domain that is, by all accounts, the most stable and prosperous in Westeros. It is an impressive portfolio."

"The Iron Bank's interest is an honour, Master Nestoris," Alaric replied, meeting the Braavosi's gaze. He knew this was a test, a sizing up.

"The Iron Bank believes in stability," Tycho continued. "We invest in reliable partners. We look for predictable returns. The Seven Kingdoms, at present, is a highly volatile market. The Iron Throne, under the stewardship of Lord Tywin Lannister, is a significant client, but also a significant liability. Their gold mines, we have reason to believe, are not as productive as they once were. Their debt grows daily."

"A house built on a failing mine is a poor long-term investment," Alaric remarked coolly, echoing the very thought he had used to justify his own strategies.

A flicker of understanding passed through Tycho's dark eyes. "Precisely. We are therefore seeking to diversify our interests in Westeros. We seek a partner who understands the true nature of assets and liabilities, a partner whose word is ironclad and whose balance sheet is… robust. We believe you may be such a partner."

He was not offering a loan. He was offering an alliance. An acknowledgment that they recognized Alaric not as a mere lord, but as a rival economic superpower within the realm.

"I am always open to mutually profitable ventures, Master Nestoris," Alaric said. "My house believes, as you do, in the sanctity of contracts. And in the predictability of numbers. Perhaps we can discuss a future where our interests might align, to the benefit of the stability and commerce of both Westeros and the Free Cities."

They spoke for hours, not of armies or kingdoms, but of interest rates, trade tariffs, and commodity futures. It was a conversation between two master predators of the financial world. When Tycho Nestoris left, a quiet understanding had been reached. No formal treaty was signed, but a seed had been planted. The Iron Bank now saw Alaric as the most stable and promising investment in Westeros. When the time came for them to abandon the Lannisters, Alaric knew they would come to him first. He had just secured the quiet backing of the world's most powerful financial institution.

His three pillars continued to grow in the shadow of this new, fragile peace. His family life was a model of aristocratic order. Lynesse, now pregnant with their third child, was the perfect great lady, her court at Serpent's Head a beacon of high culture. Tyber, his heir, was nine years old, his mind already as sharp and analytical as a seasoned cyvasse player. Alaric would spend his evenings teaching him, not from children's books, but from the histories of the Valyrian Freehold and the Ghiscari Empire.

"The Ghiscari built their legions on discipline, but they were inflexible," Alaric explained, moving the carved ivory pieces on the board. "The Valyrians built their empire on a singular, overwhelming magical advantage: dragons. Both grew complacent. Both fell. A true dynasty, Tyber, must possess both the discipline of Ghis and the overwhelming, secret advantage of Valyria. It must be able to adapt. Remember that."

His daughter, Cassia, remained a quiet enigma. Her affinity for animals had grown into something more. The hounds of the keep followed her like loyal subjects. Birds would land on her shoulder. Alaric watched her development with a clinical, fascinated eye. The dragon blood had manifested differently in her, taking the earth-bound magic of her First Men ancestry and twisting it into a strange new form of control over living things. She was a different kind of weapon, one he was still learning to understand.

His own magic was the focus of his secret life. The Red Wedding had provided him with a new source of arcane data. The metaphysical shockwave of the broken guest right was a phenomenon he studied with obsessive intensity. He began to theorize that major political and social events, moments of great betrayal or sacrifice, left permanent scars on the magical landscape, which a skilled practitioner could read, or even draw power from.

His scrying grew ever more powerful. He was no longer just an observer. He was a silent participant in the secrets of the realm. He watched the preparations for King Joffrey's wedding to Margaery Tyrell, the grand political alliance meant to seal the Lannister-Tyrell victory. But Alaric was not interested in the pageantry. He was interested in the poison.

He focused his senses, night after night, on the machinations of the Queen of Thorns, Olenna Tyrell. He watched her subtle meetings, her whispered conversations. He saw the moment she adjusted Sansa Stark's hairnet. He saw the dark purple crystals, the Strangler, and with Prometheus's aid, he analyzed their chemical composition from afar, cross-referencing the information with the restricted alchemical texts he had stolen from the Citadel. He was not trying to stop the assassination. He was learning the formula. The knowledge of such a subtle and potent poison was an invaluable addition to his own personal arsenal.

The day of the royal wedding arrived. Alaric, having sent a gift of a thousand flagons of his finest Blackport wine, declined the invitation to attend, citing the "continued need to oversee the pacification of the Riverlands." He spent the day in his sanctum.

The obsidian bowl showed him everything. The grotesque farce of the dwarf's tourney. Joffrey's cruelty towards his uncle Tyrion. The tension, thick as clotted blood, in the great hall. And then, the final act.

He watched as Joffrey choked, his face turning a horrifying shade of purple, his hands clawing at his own throat. He saw Cersei's scream of rage and grief. He saw the chaos, the accusations. He saw Littlefinger's agent, Ser Dontos, spirit Sansa Stark away. He saw Tyrion Lannister, the clever Imp, standing there, holding the poisoned chalice, his face a mask of shock as the gold cloaks seized him.

The king was dead. The Lannisters were thrown into chaos, their alliance with the Tyrells immediately strained. Their chosen scapegoat was the one man in their family intelligent enough to be a true threat to them. The board, once again, was in turmoil.

Alaric leaned back from the scrying bowl, a feeling of absolute, divine control washing over him. The book he had read in another life was not just a story. It was a script, a predictable sequence of cause and effect, of human folly and ambition playing out exactly as written. And he was the only one who knew the ending.

The death of Joffrey Baratheon was not a tragedy. It was a market correction. It weakened his greatest rivals, created new opportunities for profit, and deepened the chaos from which his own power grew.

A raven would soon arrive with the official news. He would feign shock. He would send condolences. He would offer his support to the "grieving" royal family, along with a new price list for the grain they would desperately need to keep the city from rioting during the succession crisis.

He stood up and walked to the wall where the Valyrian swords hung, their dark steel seeming to drink the candlelight. He picked up Nightfall, its weight familiar and comforting in his hand. The wars of men were so predictable, so… small. Their ambitions were for crowns and titles, fleeting things of gold and iron.

His ambition was for something more. Something eternal. The power that slumbered in the heart of his dragon eggs. The power that hummed in the steel of the sword he held. The power to move beyond the game of thrones and begin a new game entirely, one whose rules only he would understand. The kings could continue to die. The serpent would continue to grow stronger in the shadows they left behind.