Title: The Unveiling of the Board

Title: The Unveiling of the Board

Year and Month: 107 AC, 1st Moon

The raven that flew south from Winterfell carried more than just Lord Rickon's acceptance. It carried the final, essential component for the next phase of my grand strategy. With the northern alliance secured, the formal announcement could be made. The merger was no longer a private proposal; it was about to become public knowledge, a royal decree that would send shockwaves through the political landscape of every kingdom.

I did not announce it in a simple court session. I did it in a manner befitting its significance. Royal edicts were dispatched by raven to every major castle in the Seven Kingdoms. Each was written on heavy parchment, sealed with my own personal seal—the three-headed dragon crowned, stamped in black wax. The scrolls did not merely invite the lords to a wedding. They were a statement of policy, a declaration of a new era.

The text was precise, my own composition. It announced my betrothal to the Lady Lyanna of House Stark. It spoke of uniting the old blood with the new, of honoring the traditions of the First Men, and of a new age of partnership and investment in the North. It commanded every lord paramount and a host of lesser lords to attend the royal wedding in King's Landing in the sixth moon of the year, to pay homage to their new Queen and to celebrate the strength of the unified realm.

It was a summons, an invitation, and a loyalty test all in one. As the ravens took flight, I imagined the scrolls arriving at their destinations. Through my studies and my intelligence networks, I knew the men who would be reading them. In my mind's eye, I watched them, analyzing their reactions, predicting their strategic responses. I was no longer just managing my own court; I was now playing the entire board.

Casterly Rock, The Westerlands

Lord Tyland Lannister read the royal edict in his solar, a chamber carved from the living rock of the great fortress, overlooking the Sunset Sea. He was a man defined by pride and gold, but the former had been tempered by the quiet fear he now held for his young, unnervingly efficient king. He remembered the sting of the royal tax reforms years ago—reforms he now understood had saved his own vassals from ruin and ultimately made the Westerlands more profitable, though it had felt like a reprimand at the time.

He read the scroll twice, his brow furrowed. His son, the young and handsome Ser Jason Lannister, stood opposite him.

"A Stark?" Jason finally said, breaking the silence. His voice was a mixture of disbelief and disgust. "He chooses a northern savage who prays to trees over a daughter of the Rock? Over my own sister? It is an insult!"

"It is not an insult, Jason," Tyland said slowly, his mind working through the implications. "It is… a calculation. This king does not deal in insults. He deals in assets." He tapped the scroll. "He speaks here of 'unlocking the vast, untapped resources of the North.' He sees a mine he wishes to plunder, and this marriage is the key to the quarry."

"So he values timber and iron over gold and influence?" Jason scoffed.

"No," Tyland corrected him, a new understanding dawning in his eyes. "He does not value one over the other. He intends to have both. He already has our gold. Now he moves to acquire the rest. The boy is not building a network of allies. He is building a monopoly."

The Lord of Casterly Rock looked out at the setting sun, which painted the sea in strokes of gold and crimson. He felt a profound sense of unease. He had always played the game of thrones, a game of influence, marriage, and power. But this new king… he was not playing their game. He was playing a different one, on a different board, with rules only he seemed to understand.

"We will attend the wedding," Lord Tyland declared. "We will bring the most magnificent gifts the world has ever seen. We will smile, we will applaud, and we will show this Dragon King that the Lions of the Rock are his most loyal, most valuable partners." And we will watch, he thought to himself. We will watch for any sign of weakness, any miscalculation. For even a king who thinks he is a god can be bled, one golden drop at a time.

Highgarden, The Reach

In the lush, sun-drenched gardens of Highgarden, Lord Martyn Tyrell read the proclamation with a sigh of deep, theatrical disappointment. He was a man who appreciated beauty, romance, and the fine art of political maneuvering through courtly charm. The king's choice was, to him, a brutalist piece of architecture in a world that should be filled with poetry.

His formidable mother, the Dowager Lady Olenna Tyrell—a woman whose sharp mind and sharper tongue had dominated the Reach for fifty years—snatched the scroll from his hand. She read it quickly, her thin lips pressing into a tight line.

"A wolf," she sniffed, her voice like the rustle of dry thorns. "He has the pick of every perfumed, highborn lady in the seven kingdoms, and he chooses a snarling she-wolf from a frozen kennel. I suppose we should be grateful he didn't decide to marry a mermaid or a grumkin."

"It is a slight to our house, Mother," Lord Martyn lamented. "My own granddaughters are famed for their beauty."

"Oh, put your vanity away, Martyn, it's unbecoming," Lady Olenna snapped. "This isn't about beauty. The boy king doesn't care for it. Look here." She jabbed a finger at the parchment. "'A new age of partnership and investment.' 'Standardized weights and measures.' 'Harbor dredging.' Gods be good, it reads like a builder's contract, not a wedding announcement. He isn't marrying a girl; he's acquiring a territory."

She fell silent, her shrewd eyes distant. She saw the game with more clarity than her son. "He is binding the largest and most fiercely independent kingdom to his throne. Not with oaths, but with roads and gold. It is… clever. Brutally, unattractively clever."

She looked at her son. "We will go to this wedding. And you will take your granddaughter, Elinor. She will be on her best behavior. She will befriend this northern savage. This king may have chosen his queen, but a king still requires friends at court. He may be immune to beauty, but no man is immune to influence. The roses of Highgarden have deep roots, and they are patient. We will find a crack in his iron wall. Every fortress has one."

Storm's End, The Stormlands

Lord Boremund Baratheon crumpled the scroll in his massive fist, his face purple with rage. "THE OLD GODS?!" he roared, his voice echoing through the great hall of Storm's End like the thunder that gave his lands their name. "He means to put a tree-worshipper on the throne beside him? Has he taken leave of his senses? The Faith will not stand for it!"

His maester, a timid man, flinched. "Lord Boremund, the King's word is law…"

"The King is a boy who has forgotten the gods of his fathers!" Boremund bellowed. As a grandson of Queen Alyssa Velaryon, he shared a sliver of Targaryen blood and felt a proprietary, if often contentious, connection to the throne. His loyalty was to the institution, and to the Faith of the Seven. This move felt like a betrayal of both.

"He speaks of trade and prosperity," the maester offered meekly.

"I care not for his trade!" Boremund spat. "I care for the sanctity of the Seven Kingdoms. The Baratheons have always been the most loyal of shields to the Targaryen throne. Is this our reward? To see our king wed to a northern barbarian? To see our faith insulted?"

He paced the hall like a caged bull, his fury a palpable force. He had admired the young king's strength, his decisive actions against the Dornish and the pirates. But this… this was an affront to the natural order of things.

Yet, even in his rage, he was a pragmatist. He knew the power of this king. He had seen the cold calculation in his eyes. To defy him openly was unthinkable. He stopped pacing and smoothed out the crumpled parchment.

"We will ride to King's Landing," he growled. "I will attend this… wedding. I will kneel to this northern girl. I will do my duty as a loyal vassal." His eyes narrowed. "But I will also meet with the High Septon. I will meet with the other devout lords of the south. The King may have the dragons, but the gods have the people. And a king who forgets his gods will one day find himself ruling a kingdom of faithless men. He is strong, yes. But no king is stronger than the gods themselves."

Sunspear, Dorne

The scroll arrived in the sun-baked court of Sunspear not by raven, which were often shot down over the treacherous mountains, but by ship, under the care of a royal diplomat. Prince Qoren Martell received it in the cool shade of the Tower of the Sun, his sister, the Princess Meria, at his side.

He read the parchment slowly, his dark eyes betraying no emotion. When he was finished, he handed it to his sister.

She read it, and a slow, dangerous smile spread across her face. "A Stark," she said, her voice like honey laced with venom. "The dragon weds the wolf. How… quaint. The northern savages must be howling with glee."

"They are being bought," Prince Qoren said, his voice a low, thoughtful murmur. "The price is a crown."

"And what is the message for us?" Meria asked, her eyes glittering with intrigue.

Qoren stood and walked to a balcony overlooking the shimmering waters of the Summer Sea. The trade with the Seven Kingdoms, opened by King Aeryn's radical new policy, had already begun to enrich the merchants of Planky Town and Sunspear. Dornish wine and spices were flowing north, and northern grain and goods were flowing south, all at a profit.

"The message is clear," the Prince of Dorne said. "This king is unlike any Targaryen before him. He does not seek to conquer us with fire. He seeks to seduce us with gold. He consolidates his power in the North with a marriage, making them dependent on his investment. He is unifying his realm, making it stronger, richer."

"And therefore, a greater threat to us," his sister finished.

"Perhaps," Qoren mused. "Or perhaps he is creating an opportunity. He has invited me. Me, the Prince of Dorne, to his wedding. Not as a vassal, but as a fellow sovereign. He offers me a place of honor. He does not see me as an enemy to be subjugated. He sees me as a competitor to be negotiated with."

He turned back to his sister, a glint of grudging admiration in his eye. "This Aeryn Targaryen is playing a game we have not seen before. He fights with ledgers instead of legions. It is a game the Dornish understand far better than the honorable fools in the north or the fat lords of the Reach."

"So you will go?" Meria asked, surprised. No Martell had set foot in King's Landing since the time of the Conqueror, except as a hostage or a corpse.

"Yes," Prince Qoren said, a decisive nod. "I will go. I will accept his honor. I will drink his wine and smile at his wolf-queen. And I will look this Dragon King in the eye. I wish to take the measure of the man who seeks to conquer my kingdom not with an army, but with a trade agreement. I wish to see if the wolf is the only one he means to put on a leash of gold."

The invitations had been sent. The board was unveiled. Across the continent, the great lords and ladies, the players in the game, were grappling with the new reality. Their king was not a warrior, not a diplomat, not a man of faith. He was a strategist of terrifying intellect, whose motives were as cold and clear as a winter sky. And as they prepared for their journey to the capital, they all felt a shared, unsettling certainty: the wedding of King Aeryn and Lady Lyanna was not just a marriage. It was the beginning of a new chapter, a new age, a new game. And they were all, whether they liked it or not, merely pieces on his board.