Title: The Growth of Assets

Title: The Growth of Assets

Year and Month: 108 AC, 7th Moon

A year is a short time in the life of a kingdom, but in the life of a corporation undergoing a radical restructuring, it is an eternity. The year that followed my marriage to Lyanna Stark was one of the most productive and profitable in the history of the Targaryen dynasty. The wedding had not been an endpoint; it was the starting pistol for a race towards a new kind of empire, one built not on conquest and fear, but on the unshakeable foundations of logistics, infrastructure, and economic dependency. My reign was the dawn of a new age, and the light it cast was the cold, clear light of a perfectly balanced ledger.

From the Iron Throne, which I now occupied with a comfort that unnerved my council, I managed my continental enterprise with relentless focus. The Dornish initiative was proceeding ahead of schedule. The new trade roads, which the smallfolk had begun to call the 'King's Scales' for the balanced way they brought goods in and out, were complete. Caravans of Dornish sand steeds now trotted north, their saddlebags laden with spices, citrus, and the famed 'King's Peace Red' wine, passing wagons laden with grain, iron, and timber heading south. Lord Yronwood and the other marcher lords, their coffers now swelling with the percentage of the trade tax I had granted them, had become the most zealous protectors of the new commerce. Their ancient hatred for the Dornish had not vanished, but it had been quietly subsumed by their newfound love of profit. Prince Qoren Martell and I were engaged in a slow, careful diplomatic dance through our envoys, negotiating the finer points of a formal trade treaty that would bind our economies together for a generation.

The Northern Prospectus was yielding even greater returns. My royal investment had woken the sleeping giant. White Harbor was being transformed. Under the joint supervision of Lord Manderly and a team of my royal engineers, its docks were being expanded, its harbor dredged. New shipyards were being constructed to build a northern trading fleet, using timber from the wolfswood and financing from my royal bank. In the hills west of Winterfell, a new mining town, which the locals had unimaginatively named 'Aeryn's Hold,' had sprung up around the discovery of a vast iron deposit my geological survey had identified. For the first time, the North was not just a source of hardy soldiers, but a source of raw, industrial power. Lord Rickon Stark, though still a man of few words, sent regular, detailed reports, his initial suspicion replaced by a grudging, pragmatic respect.

In the Stepstones, Lord Corlys Velaryon, his ambition now productively channeled, was proving his worth. The fortress of Aegar's Pride on Bloodstone was nearing completion, a grim, grey bastion that now projected the Crown's power into the heart of the disputed islands. The Dragon Fleet, with my nephew Viserys learning at the Sea Snake's side, had already made the shipping lanes safer than they had been in a century. Piracy had not been eliminated, but it had been rendered an unprofitable and exceedingly dangerous enterprise.

I managed all of this from my solar, a room now filled not with hunting trophies, but with maps, charts, and ledgers. My Small Council meetings were brisk, efficient affairs.

"Lord Beesbury," I would begin, not looking up from a report. "The profit margin on the iron from Aeryn's Hold is seventeen percent higher than projected. Reroute a portion of that revenue to the northern road expansion. I want the Kingsroad paved all the way to the Wall within five years."

"Lord Corlys," I would say, turning to the Sea Snake. "The Triarchy is complaining about your 'piracy suppression' tactics. Send them a formal reply stating that the Crown is merely securing its own trade routes and offer to sell them a convoy protection package at a competitive rate."

Corlys would grin at this, a pirate appreciating a pirate king's methods. He understood my language. We were turning a military problem into a revenue stream.

My relationship with my family had also settled into a new, stable equilibrium. My sister Gael, now the beloved 'Winter Rose' of the city's poor, ran her Office of Royal Almonry with a quiet competence that was a source of immense public goodwill. My nephew Daemon, restless as ever, was a superb commander of the Gold Cloaks. I kept him busy, giving him tasks and challenges that occupied his martial mind and kept his chaotic nature from festering into discontent.

But the most significant development, the one that truly solidified the foundation of my new dynasty, was taking place within the walls of Maegor's Holdfast. My queen was with child.

Lyanna had adapted to her role as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms with a fierce intelligence that continued to impress me. She was not a passive consort. She was a partner. She learned the complex dance of the southern court not by adopting its simpering graces, but by observing it with the keen, analytical eye of a hunter. She was my wife, my Queen, but she also became my most valuable intelligence asset within the court itself.

The highborn ladies who had initially scorned her as a northern savage now found themselves subtly outmaneuvered by her. She did not engage in their games of gossip and veiled insults. She listened. She learned their secrets, their fears, their ambitions, and she would report them to me during our private dinners.

"Lady Elinor Tyrell believes she can win my friendship by complimenting my gowns," she told me one evening, her voice dry. "What she truly wants is for me to persuade you to grant her father an exclusive charter for the wine trade with Dorne."

"And Lady Johanna Lannister speaks constantly of the need for a new royal mint to be established at Lannisport," she continued. "A transparent attempt to increase her house's control over the kingdom's finances."

"Their motives are predictable," I said. "Their attempts to use you as a vector for their influence are inefficient, but noted."

Our relationship was not one of love, not in the way the songs described it. It was a partnership built on mutual respect, shared purpose, and a surprising, almost unspoken understanding. The passion of our wedding night had settled into a comfortable, familiar intimacy. In the quiet of the royal chambers, away from the pressures of the court, the King and Queen would be replaced by Aeryn and Lyanna. I found her sharp, pragmatic mind to be a welcome respite from the sycophantic lords of my council. She, in turn, seemed to find a strange comfort in my cold logic, a solid, predictable rock in the shifting sea of southern politics.

She never feigned an affection she did not feel, and I never offered one I did not possess. But there was a bond. A bond forged in shared duty, in the silent acknowledgment of our unique and powerful positions. We were the two most powerful people in the world, and in our solitude, we found a strange, functional companionship.

The news of her pregnancy was received by the realm with ecstatic celebration. An heir to the Iron Throne would cement the new dynasty and put to rest any lingering questions about the succession. For me, the news was not a cause for emotional celebration. It was the successful initiation of the most important product line in the company's history. It was the ultimate long-term investment coming to fruition.

I made the formal announcement myself before the assembled court.

"My lords, my ladies," I proclaimed from the Iron Throne, my voice echoing in the hall. "It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Queen is with child. The gods, both Old and New, have seen fit to bless this union of Ice and Fire. We are securing the future of this House, and this realm, for a generation to come."

The cheer that went up was deafening. Lords who secretly despised each other slapped one another on the back. Ladies wept with joy. It was a moment of genuine, unified happiness, a powerful political tool in itself.

Later that evening, I found Lyanna on the balcony of our chambers, her hand resting on her still-flat belly. She was looking up at the stars, the cool night air rustling her hair.

"The whole castle is celebrating," she said quietly. "They are already placing bets on whether it will be a boy or a girl."

"The gender is a secondary consideration," I said, coming to stand beside her. "The primary consideration is that the asset is healthy. The line will continue. The stability of the market is assured."

She turned to look at me, a searching expression in her grey eyes. "Is that all it is to you, Aeryn? An asset? A move on your great board?"

"It is the most important asset," I corrected her. "The heir to the Iron Throne is the embodiment of the future. The continuation of everything I am building. Their existence is the ultimate guarantee of stability."

"And what of the child itself?" she pressed. "Not the heir, but the baby. Our son. Or our daughter. Do you feel nothing for them?"

It was a question I had considered myself. I had been a son in this life, a stranger in a family I knew only from books. I had never been a father. The concept was an abstraction. I felt a sense of… proprietary responsibility. This child was a product of my will, of my strategic planning. I would ensure it had every advantage. I would provide it with the best education, the best protection, the best possible start in life. But love? That was an emotion I had catalogued as a dangerous variable, one that led to poor decision-making.

"I will feel a profound sense of satisfaction in a project successfully completed," I told her honestly. "I will feel a deep-seated duty to protect and nurture the future of my House. I will ensure this child is prepared for the immense weight of the crown they will one day wear. Is that not enough?"

Lyanna was silent for a long time, her gaze distant. I could see the conflict in her. Her northern heart, raised on tales of family, honor, and love, was at war with the cold, pragmatic reality of the man she had married and the world she now inhabited.

"For a king," she said at last, her voice barely a whisper, "perhaps it is. But for a father?" She shook her head slightly. "I will love our child, Aeryn. I will love them enough for the both of us. I will give them the warmth of the wolf's den. You can give them the fire of the dragon's ambition. Perhaps… perhaps that will be enough to make them whole."

She took my hand, her fingers lacing with mine. It was not a gesture of romantic passion, but one of grim, shared partnership. We were two sovereigns, standing on the balcony of our fortress, looking out at the kingdom we commanded, awaiting the arrival of the heir we had created. She would provide the love, the heart, the humanity. I would provide the power, the strategy, the cold, hard logic of survival.

The assets of the realm were growing, from the mines of the North to the ports of Dorne. But the most valuable asset of all was the one growing within my Queen. It was the future. And like everything else in my kingdom, I would manage it, control it, and ensure it yielded the maximum possible return.