Memory from [YEAR 274 AC]
I was nine years old, and the memories of my past life were like sea wavesm, worn smooth and cloudy by the tides of reincarnation. They washed ashore in my mind at random—short, vivid flashes of things I no longer had names for. The taste of something sweet, cold, and dark called "chocolate." The feeling of moving at impossible speeds inside a metal carriage. The image of a sky filled with more lights than stars. They were useless, beautiful, and frustrating fragments.
But one memory was i felt was more useful than the rest. It came to me not just as an image, but as a process, a sequence of steps I recalled with stunning clarity. It was a memory of watching something—a glowing rectangle, a voice explaining... what was a 'YouTube video'? The word meant nothing, but the memory of the video it showed was everything. It detailed the art of cultivating pearls. The concept settled into my nine-year-old mind with the weight of absolute certainty, a piece of practical, life-altering knowledge in a sea of abstract fragments. This, I knew, could be useful.
We were in the Great Hall. The air was thick with the smell of wet wool and the ever-present chill of the sea. A storm was raging outside, and the mood within Moonsrest was as bleak as the weather. My father, Arthur, sat at the head of the table, his face a mask of frustration as he stared at a ledger book whose numbers clearly weren't adding up.
"Another merchant ship bypassed Saltmist," he announced to the room at large, though his gaze was fixed on the flickering candle flame. "They sailed straight on for Gulltown. We can't compete. Our port is too small, our supplies too meager."
My mother, Lyra, placed a comforting hand on his arm. "We have enough to see us through the winter, my love."
"Surviving isn't thriving, Lyra," he sighed, rubbing his temples. "I am failing this house. I am failing Vulcan."
This was my chance. The idea had been burning in my mind for days, a frantic, desperate solution to our endless poverty. I took a deep breath, marshaling the courage of a boy about to present a madman's scheme to a council of weary pragmatists.
"Father," I said, my voice small but clear in the quiet hall.
He looked up, his stormy eyes softening slightly as they met mine. "Yes, Vulcan? Is your reading done for the day?"
"It is," I confirmed. "I have an idea. For money."
A flicker of amusement crossed his face, the kind a father has for a child offering to help with a grown-up's burden. "Oh? And what is that?"
"Pearls," I said simply.
The amusement vanished, replaced by confusion. Maester Arion, who had been quietly reading a scroll by the hearth, looked up over his spectacles.
"Pearls, my lord?" the maester asked gently. "They are treasures of the sea, it is true. But they are found by chance. One might open a thousand oysters and find nothing of value."
"Not if you don't leave it to chance," I insisted, my heart starting to beat faster. I tried to explain the concept, using simple terms a nine-year-old would know, drawing on the fragmented knowledge from that flash of memory. "We take the oysters from the sea, from the cove on the western shore where the water is calm. We keep them in nets under the water. Then... we help them. We give them a tiny, round bead, and put it inside them. They don't like it, so they make it smooth. They cover it in the same shiny stuff that's on the inside of their shells. Over years, it becomes a pearl. A perfect, round pearl."
Silence. My father stared at me, his expression unreadable. Maester Arion was stroking his chin, his brow furrowed in deep thought. It was my mother who spoke first, her voice laced with wonder.
"Arthur, that's... incredibly clever."
"It's a child's fantasy," my father said, though the dismissal lacked its usual force. "Vulcan, where did you hear such a thing?"
"I... I thought of it," I said, the lie feeling thin. "I watch the oysters in the rock pools. I saw how they make their shells smooth. I just thought... we could help them do it."
He shook his head, the weariness returning. "Even if such a thing were possible, we don't have the resources. We need nets, boats, tools... we need coin to make coin, son. We have none to spare on a gamble."
The finality in his voice was a physical blow. But I wouldn't let it go. For the next two months, I was relentless. I drew diagrams in the sand of the courtyard. I presented my arguments to my mother, who became my staunchest ally. I pestered Maester Arion with questions about the life cycle of oysters until the poor man dreaded my approach.
Finally, my father cracked. It wasn't my logic that won him over, but my sheer, unwavering persistence. He saw it not as a viable business venture, but as a way to indulge his strange, serious son.
"Fine!" he declared one evening, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Seven hells, fine! Caelan will give you ten silver stags. Ten! That's all I can spare. You can have the western cove. But you will not bother the fishermen, and you will not neglect your studies or your training. This is your project, Vulcan. Your 'game'. See it through."
It was a pittance, but it was a start. It was everything. The next year was one of the hardest of my short life. I spent every spare moment in that cove, the cold seawater seeping into my boots. With the help of a single, skeptical guardsman assigned to watch over me, I built crude underwater cages from woven reeds and scavenged nets. The hardest part was creating the nucleus—the tiny bead to insert into the oyster. My memory provided the concept, but not the specifics. I tried polished pebbles, tiny balls of clay, even carved beads of bone. Most of the oysters died or rejected the foreign object.
My failures were many, and they were disheartening. But each dead oyster taught me something. The memory fragments would guide me, a whisper of "too rough" or "too large." Slowly, painfully, I refined the process. I learned which oysters were the healthiest, how to handle them gently, how to carve the perfect, tiny sphere of shell from a common mussel to serve as the nucleus.
Then, I waited. An entire year of waiting, of tending to my cages, of protecting them from predators, of hoping.
[The Day Before Vulcan's Eleventh Name Day - YEAR 276 AC]
(Arthur Nocturne's POV)
The sun was setting, painting the stormy sky in hues of orange and violet. I stood in the solar at the top of Moonsrest, a cup of lukewarm wine in my hand, watching the waves crash against the rocks below. The air was cold, but for the first time in years, it didn't feel hostile. It felt... clean.
My father, Alaric, had passed two years ago. He went peacefully in his sleep, his old body finally succumbing to the long years of hardship and a lingering sickness from his soldiering days. He had been Lord of House Nocturne in name, but his illness had left him bedridden for years. I had been the de facto head of the house since I was a boy. His passing was a quiet grief, a final, somber chapter in the founding of our family. It was only then, standing over his grave on the windswept cliffside, that the full weight of the lordship settled onto my shoulders, official and undeniable. I was Lord Nocturne. And for two years, I feared I would be its last.
The door to the solar opened, and my wife, Lyra, entered, carrying a fresh candle. The soft light illuminated her face, chasing the shadows from her silver hair. She came to stand beside me, her warmth a familiar comfort.
"You're brooding again, my love," she said softly, her eyes following my gaze to the sea.
"I am reflecting," I corrected, a small smile touching my lips. "There is much to reflect on."
The door opened again, and Maester Arion entered, followed by Caelan, our loyal steward and the closest thing I had to a friend. He was a man born and raised in Saltmist, his face a testament to a life lived by the sea.
"My lord, my lady," they said, bowing their heads.
"Join me," I invited, gesturing to the chairs by the hearth. "It is the eve of my son's eleventh name day. A cause for reflection, I think."
We sat, the four of us, the core of this small, resilient house.
"It feels like a lifetime ago that Lord Alaric left us," Lyra said, her voice tinged with nostalgia. "He would be so proud of Vulcan."
"Proud and utterly baffled," Maester Arion added, a wry smile on his face. "As am I. The boy continues to be an enigma. His grasp of history and statecraft is beyond anything I have ever witnessed in a child. And his skill with a blade..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "It is not natural, my lord."
"It is a gift from the gods," Lyra insisted, her faith unshakable.
"It is Nocturne blood," I countered, a surge of pride warming me. "He is my son. He is his grandfather's grandson."
"Blood that was no different then other commoners just a few decades ago when lord Alaric was f a simple farmer turned soldier, and through sheer luck , and of course bravery , saved lord arryns life during a raid on the mountain clans. " Lyra replied , with a knowing gaze.
Caelan, ever the pragmatist, cleared his throat. "Gift or blood, my lord, it is his mind that has saved us. I remember the day you told me to give him ten silvers for his 'oyster game'. I thought you'd finally taken leave of your senses."
I let out a short, sharp laugh. "As did I, Caelan. As did I."
We all fell silent for a moment, contemplating the miracle that had unfolded in the western cove. A year ago, Vulcan, barely ten years old, had come to me, his hands trembling with excitement, and opened a small, wet leather pouch. Inside, nestled on a bed of seaweed, were three pearls. They were not large, but they were perfect—flawlessly round, with a deep, lustrous sheen that seemed to glow in the dim light of the hall.
The merchant from Gulltown, the very same one whose ships always bypassed our port, had nearly fallen out of his chair. He paid us fifty gold dragons for those three pearls on the spot, a sum that was, to us, a king's ransom. He also signed a contract for any future pearls Vulcan could produce.
"It's an income," I said, swirling the wine in my cup. "A small one, but it is steady. It is ours. Thanks to those pearls, we have new nets for the fishermen. We have replaced the guards' leather armor with proper steel breastplates. We have food in our stores and hope in our hearts for the first time in a generation." I looked at them, my voice growing stronger with conviction. "And tomorrow, after Vulcan's celebration, Maester Arion and I will use the last of the profits to hire a proper mining surveyor from Gulltown. We will finally see what lies in those hills."
"The boy has a mind for coin, that is certain," the maester agreed. "But it is more than that. It feels as though he is... building something. As though he sees a path none of the rest of us can."
"He is a blessing," Lyra whispered, her eyes shining with tears of pride. "Our light in the darkness."
A light in the darkness. Our house motto. It had never felt more true. We spoke for another hour, of Vulcan's quiet intensity, of his strange maturity, and of the simple feast we had planned for the morrow. It would be the grandest celebration Moonsrest had ever seen, not because of lavish expense, but because it was a celebration of a future that finally seemed possible.
(Vulcan's POV)
Sleep was impossible. I lay in my bed, the thin wool blanket pulled up to my chin, and stared at the sliver of moon visible through my window. The hum was back. The strange, subtle vibration that I could only feel when I was near the basement was no longer confined to the tower's foundations. Tonight, it was everywhere. It was in the stone walls of my room, in the air I breathed, in the marrow of my bones. It was a thrumming, expectant energy, a song on the edge of hearing.
Tomorrow, I would be eleven. Tomorrow, the waiting would be over. The unshakable certainty that had been my constant companion since birth had sharpened to a razor's edge.
I slipped out of bed, my bare feet silent on the cold stone floor. I didn't bother with a candle. The moonlight was enough. Driven by an instinct I couldn't explain, I made my way down the winding stairs of the tower, past the guards who nodded respectfully at their young, wakeful lord, and down into the damp, earthy darkness of the basement.
The hum was a roar here, a tangible pressure against my skin. It guided me past the barrels of fish and stacks of old crates to the far corner of the room, to the section of the foundation wall that had always called to me. The moss on the stones seemed to glow faintly in the gloom.
I reached out a trembling hand and pressed my palm against the cold, vibrating rock.
The moment my skin made contact, the world dissolved into a blinding white light. The humming exploded into a symphony of sound, and memories—not fragments, not flashes, but a deluge of clear, sharp, coherent memories—slammed into me. I saw a life, another life, a world of metal towers, horseless carriages, and glowing rectangles of light. I saw my death, a sudden, meaningless end. And then, I saw the being.
It wasn't a god, not in any sense I understood. It was some kind of presence, a formless consciousness of immense power , weither good or evil , i had no clue , just that he had an immense boredom. It had offered me a offer, hardly any choice. A new life in a world of strife and fantasy, in exchange for its entertainment. My power was not a gift. They were the terms of a contract I had been forced to sign. The being had laughed as it explained. You could say yes, or you could go to hell literally.
The knight God's statue , the relic. The power to create an order of warriors with near perfect faith towards me. It all came rushing back, a flood of information that threatened to drown my eleven-year-old mind.
When the light receded, I was on my knees, panting, my forehead pressed against the cold stone. The hum was gone, replaced by a profound silence in my mind. But in that silence, I felt a new awareness. It wasn't a physical sensation, but a certainty, a knowledge that settled deep into my soul. I could feel a temporary storage space, tied to my very being, that held the source of my power: the Knight God's statue. The knowledge was absolute and came with a stark condition: once I brought the statue forth into this world, the space would vanish forever. It was a one-time withdrawal.
My power wasn't behind a wall; it was within me. And it needed a home.
The next morning, the small celebration for my name day felt like a dream. My mother's proud smile, my father's hearty clap on my shoulder, the simple gifts—they were all happening to the boy I used to be. The real me, the new me, was already calculating, planning.
Later that day, after the modest feast, I found my father in his solar, looking over the contract for the mining surveyor.
"Father," I began, my voice steady.
He looked up, a warm, proud smile on his face. "Vulcan. Enjoying your name day?"
"I am. Thank you." I paused, choosing my words carefully. "I have a request. The old cellars in the basement, the ones used for winter storage long ago... they are empty now. May I have one for my personal use?"
Arthur raised an eyebrow, his smile fading into a look of curiosity. "Your personal use? What does an eleven-year-old boy need with a cellar?"
"For my projects," I said, meeting his gaze without flinching. "The pearl farm has taught me much. I have other ideas, experiments I wish to conduct. Things that require privacy and quiet. A place to think, to work, where I won't be underfoot."
My father studied me for a long moment. He saw not a child asking for a playroom, but the same serious, intense boy who had turned oysters into gold. He saw ambition. He couldn't possibly understand the scale of it, but he respected it.
He let out a slow breath and nodded. "Very well. The south cellar is yours. Caelan will have a key made for you." He fixed me with a stern look, though a hint of amusement played at the corner of his mouth. "Just... try not to blow up the tower, son."
"I will be careful," I promised.
He handed me the heavy iron key. It felt like the key to my entire future. That evening, I stood before the thick, oak door of my new domain. The air was cold and still. Behind this door, I would lay the foundation of my power. Behind this door, the real game would begin.