Chapter 14: The Prince, The Tower, and The Trident

Chapter 14: The Prince, The Tower, and The Trident

282 AC, Month of the Stranger

The return of Prince Rhaegar from the south was a lightning strike that momentarily galvanized the Targaryen cause. He was the dragon made manifest, his armor of black steel inlaid with the three-headed sigil in brilliant ruby. He was beautiful, noble, and doomed. The loyalist lords, disheartened by the disaster at Stoney Sept, rallied to his banner, their hopes rekindled by the presence of their prince. A great host, the largest seen in Westeros in a generation, assembled in the Crownlands, preparing to march north and crush the rebellion.

Damon observed the renewed fervor with the dispassionate interest of a meteorologist watching a hurricane form. It was a magnificent, powerful, and ultimately predictable system. His intelligence network, now a finely tuned machine, fed him a constant stream of data. He knew the exact number of spears in the Dornish contingent that Prince Lewyn Martell had brought with him. He knew the state of the army's supplies, the mood of the men, and the strategic dispositions laid out by the prince and his counselors. He knew their strengths, and more importantly, he knew their single, fatal weakness: their prince's melancholic obsession with destiny.

While the realm focused on the coming clash of armies, Damon was focused on the one army that had yet to move. The golden host of House Lannister remained coiled at Casterly Rock, a silent, menacing weight on the political map. Both the rebels and the loyalists had sent ravens to Tywin Lannister, pleading for his aid. Tywin, in his stony patience, had answered neither. Damon knew that the Lannister army marching to reinforce Rhaegar would make a rebel victory at the Trident uncertain, a variable he could not afford. It was time to ensure the lions remained in their cage.

He dispatched a priority message to Ser Kevan Lannister, requesting an urgent meeting regarding a 'catastrophic development' within their joint venture, the Golden Lion Mining Corporation. They met again in the same discreet coastal villa, the sea outside churning under a grey, ominous sky.

Ser Kevan looked tired, the strain of his brother's silence and the realm's turmoil weighing on him. "Master Damon," he said, forgoing any pleasantry. "Your message was alarming. What has happened?"

Damon's expression was a mask of grave concern. He presented Kevan with a report prepared by Maester Arlan, a document filled with seismic charts, geological jargon, and dire prognostications. The report was a complete fabrication, a work of fiction supported by Arlan's unimpeachable scientific credentials.

"The news is dire, Ser Kevan," Damon began, his voice low and somber. He felt Kevan's anxiety spike and leaned into it. "My chief engineer, Maester Arlan, has completed his initial deep-seam survey. Our new ventures show promise, just as I predicted." He offered a small morsel of good news first, a classic negotiating tactic. "However, in the process, he has uncovered a catastrophic geological instability in the older mines. Specifically, in the primary lodes of Casterly Rock and the Golden Tooth."

Kevan went pale. "Instability? What are you talking about?"

"I am talking about a series of deep, interconnected faults, likely caused by centuries of aggressive, unsupported excavation," Damon lied, his voice resonating with sincerity. "Arlan believes a major seismic event is not just possible, but imminent. A collapse could be triggered by any number of things—a minor earth tremor, continued mining operations, even the vibration from a large army marching nearby. The result would be the complete destruction of the mines and, Arlan fears, a potential rerouting of the subterranean water table that could poison the wells of Lannisport itself."

Every word was a carefully crafted arrow aimed at the heart of the Lannister pride and pragmatism. He wasn't just threatening their wealth; he was threatening their home, their legacy.

"This is… impossible," Kevan whispered, but his mind was already reeling with the implications. Damon could feel the man's desperate hope for a solution warring with the sheer terror of the scenario presented.

"I hope it is," Damon said grimly. "But to ignore such a warning from a man of Arlan's expertise would be the height of folly. He recommends an immediate cessation of all operations in the old mines and a comprehensive, year-long survey to reinforce the tunnels and mitigate the danger. It will be incredibly expensive. It will require Lord Tywin's full attention and a significant portion of his resources."

He had given Tywin Lannister the perfect excuse. He had handed him a plausible, honorable reason to refuse King Aerys's call to arms. He could not march his army to save the Targaryen dynasty if he was busy saving his own home from a geological catastrophe. It was a masterful checkmate, forcing Tywin to do exactly what he already wanted to do—stay neutral—while making him even more dependent on Damon's "new" mines for the future of his house's wealth.

"My brother must be told of this at once," Kevan said, his face grim. He looked at Damon, a new, grudging respect in his eyes. He believed this merchant had just saved his house from ruin.

As Damon was manipulating the lions, the spiders were growing restless. He received another summons from Varys. The eunuch's spies would have noted Damon's immense, untraceable wealth and his curious neutrality. The meeting was in the same book-lined chamber, but the atmosphere was different. The scent of cinnamon was gone, replaced by the sharp, acrid smell of fear that now permeated the entire Red Keep.

"Master Damon," Varys began, his smile as plump and placid as ever, but his eyes held a desperate glint. "The King is most grateful for your continued service. Your… products… have brought him great comfort in these trying times."

"I serve the realm as I am able, Lord Varys," Damon replied.

"And now the realm requires a greater service," Varys said, his voice becoming a silken whisper. "Prince Rhaegar's army is magnificent, but an army marches on its stomach, and its spirit is fortified with steel. The royal coffers are… strained. I come to you now, not as the Master of Whisperers, but as a fellow loyalist. I ask you, on behalf of the King, to make your vast logistical network available to the royal army. Your ships can bring supplies from Dorne. Your caravans can bring food from the Reach."

It was a direct appeal, a command wrapped in the guise of a request. Damon could feel the immense pressure behind the words, the weight of a dying dynasty. He could also feel Varys's own secret loyalties, his belief that if Rhaegar won, the Prince could be guided to be a good king, saving the Targaryen line from Aerys's madness.

Damon met the eunuch's gaze, his own expression one of regretful sincerity. "My lord, you honor me. But I am a businessman, not a general. My contracts are with my investors, my duty to my employees. To commit my resources to one side in a civil war would be financial suicide. My caravans would be burned, my ships sunk by the rebels. I would be ruined. And a ruined merchant is of no use to anyone, not even his king."

He was selling a narrative of pure, apolitical self-interest. It was a story Varys, a cynic at heart, could understand.

"And what of loyalty?" Varys pressed, his voice losing its silken edge.

"My loyalty is to the stability that allows commerce to flourish," Damon said smoothly. "War is the death of commerce, my lord. I pray for a swift peace, no matter who brings it. But I cannot bet my entire enterprise on a single battle."

He walked away from the meeting having given the Spider nothing but platitudes. He had successfully starved the royal war machine of his resources, ensuring that Rhaegar's magnificent army would march on a stomach that was not quite as full as it should be.

As the two great armies, rebel and royalist, marched towards their destiny at the Green Fork of the Trident, Damon made his final play. His bookmaking operation, dormant since Harrenhal, came roaring back to life. His agents, now seasoned professionals, spread out through the camps of both armies, their leather pouches open for business.

The prevailing wisdom favored the Targaryens. Rhaegar's army was larger, contained a significant force of fearsome Dornishmen, and was led by the Prince himself, a warrior of great renown. Damon's bookies offered what seemed like generous odds on a decisive royalist victory, and the soldiers and camp followers, full of hope and loyalty, poured their coin into the trap.

Damon knew the truth. He knew the battle would turn on a single, brutal moment of combat in the rushing waters of the ford. He knew Robert Baratheon's rage was a weapon more potent than any strategy.

From a secure office in Maidenpool, he directed the flow of his own capital. For every ten gold dragons his agents took in on a Rhaegar victory, Damon, through a dozen anonymous intermediaries, placed a hundred on the 'impossible' outcome: the death of the Prince and the total collapse of his army. It was the largest, most audacious bet of his life, a wager that would make his Harrenhal winnings look like pocket change.

He would not attend the battle. His presence was not required. But he would bear witness. As the armies clashed, he sat alone in a quiet, darkened room, his eyes closed, his mind reaching out across the miles. He found one of his own agents, a man he had planted as a simple foot soldier in the Tully ranks. Through the man's senses, Damon was there.

He felt the ground tremble under the charge of knights. He heard the roar of thousands of men, a sound that was less human and more geological. He smelled the blood and the mud and the fear. He saw the chaos of the Ruby Ford, men fighting and dying in the rushing, red-tinged water.

And then, he felt it. He saw through his agent's eyes as the two leaders met. Robert, a giant in his antlered helm, his warhammer a blur of destructive force. Rhaegar, a graceful figure of black steel and red rubies, a hero from a song. He felt the savage, focused fury of Robert and the tragic, resigned determination of Rhaegar.

The final blow was a psychic shockwave that Damon felt in his very bones. Robert's hammer crashed into Rhaegar's chest with the force of a falling star. Damon saw the rubies, like frozen drops of blood, explode from the prince's breastplate and scatter into the river. He felt the life extinguish from the Dragon Prince, and with it, he felt the collective soul of the royal army shatter. The will to fight did not fade; it evaporated. It was a psychic rout, a collapse of morale so total and so instantaneous that the battle was over before the Prince's body was swept away by the current.

The news of the Trident reached King's Landing like a funeral dirge. The city fell into a state of shocked, terrified chaos. The Dragon Prince was dead. The royal army was broken. The rebellion was triumphant.

Damon sat in his study, the city's panic a distant, irrelevant noise. An agent had just delivered two messages. The first was a confirmation of the rebel victory and Robert Baratheon's survival. The second was a preliminary accounting of his winnings, a figure so immense it ceased to have any real meaning.

He looked at the grand map of Westeros that dominated his wall. With a calm, deliberate hand, he reached out and plucked the three-headed dragon marker from the board. He let it fall to the floor. The game had changed. The path to King's Landing was now open. The final act was about to begin. And as the armies marched towards the capital, he knew that the greatest profits were still to be made in the sack of a city and the fall of a king.