Chapter 4: The Black Towers Remember
The royal barge Dragon's Grace bumped gently against Harrenhal's ancient stone quay in the late afternoon of the fourteenth day of the fourth moon, 184 AC. Prince Aegon Targaryen, nine years old in body, stepped onto the broad landing stage with the calm of a man who had already calculated every advantage. The air smelled of lake water, wet stone, and woodsmoke from the small town huddled outside the walls. Five colossal towers clawed the sky above him—black, fused, melted in places where Balerion the Black Dread had breathed two centuries earlier. Harrenhal. The largest castle in the Seven Kingdoms. His.
Ser Oswell Whent, the castellan, waited with twenty knights and servants, all bowing. "Welcome home, my prince. The Kingspyre is ready."
Aegon offered a small, princely nod. "We will tour the towers at once. Tommard, Lanna—with me."
Tommard Paege, now eleven and puffed with pride in his new squire's tunic, fell in on the right. Lanna, thirteen, clutched a small basket of journey bread on the left, her new blue wool dress already catching dust. "It's so big," she whispered as they passed under the massive gatehouse. "Like the gods themselves raised it."
"Harren the Black raised these towers to mock the sky," Aegon corrected softly, violet eyes drinking in every fused seam. "He thought stone and blood could defy dragons. But dragons humbled him. And one day, dragons will rule from them again."
They began with the Kingspyre Tower—tallest, its upper floors still open to the wind where the stone had run like wax. Servants had swept the lower halls, but higher up the stairs wound through empty chambers scarred by old flame. In a dusty solar on the fourth level, Aegon paused beside a cracked hearth. His small fingers traced a loose flagstone. It lifted with a scrape.
Beneath lay a flat iron box, rusted but sealed. Inside: only a single brittle scroll, yellowed and tied with faded ribbon.
Tommard's torch flickered. "My prince… what is it?"
Aegon unrolled the parchment carefully. The script was flowing High Valyrian—elegant, ancient. He read it silently: "The dragons of Old Valyria were bound by blood and fire. Their lords whispered secrets to the flames, but the Doom swallowed even those voices. Remember the price of power." A few faded runes followed, hints of lost rites and warnings about the Fourteen Flames, nothing more. No maps. No instructions. Just echoes.
"Old Valyrian writings," Aegon said lightly, tucking the scroll into his sleeve. "Tales of the Freehold. Nothing for children to fear." He smiled at Lanna. "But interesting, yes? The past has teeth."
Lanna shivered despite the warmth. "The curse again?"
"No curse," Aegon replied, voice bright and boyish. "Just stone and stories. Come. More towers await."
They climbed the Tower of Ghosts next, its hollow windows whistling softly even in daylight. Moss slicked the steps. In a collapsed upper chamber they found nothing but wind and a single silver ring half-buried in dust—Valyrian letters etched inside: "Remember who you are." Aegon slipped it onto his smallest finger. It fit perfectly.
By the time they reached the godswood the sun was low, painting the black walls crimson. Twenty acres of wild forest pressed against the curtain wall—oaks, sentinels, weirwood saplings fighting for light. At its heart stood the heart tree, enormous, its white bark carved with a furious face: eyes slits of rage, mouth open in eternal scream. Thirteen long slashes scarred the trunk—Daemon Targaryen's work during the Dance, the histories said. Red sap still wept slowly from the cuts, glistening like fresh blood.
Tommard stopped ten paces back. "The cursed weirwood. Smallfolk say touching it brings dreams that drive men mad. Lord Lothston's heir touched it once and wasted away."
Lanna clutched Aegon's sleeve. "Please, my prince. Let's leave it."
Aegon gently freed himself. "I am a dragon, Lanna. Curses fear us." He walked forward alone, leaves crunching under his boots. The air grew thick, cooler. He placed one small palm flat against the weeping face.
Cold surged up his arm like river ice. Vague dreams flashed behind his closed eyes: a black dragon wheeling over burning fields; a red comet trailing fire; a silver crown melting on a dying king's brow; a woman with one blue eye and one green laughing as blood pooled at her feet. Whispers brushed his mind—not words, but feelings of hunger, rise, claim.
Then the world tilted.
A calm, genderless voice spoke inside his skull alone.
System Interface Online.
Host: Aegon Targaryen – Reborn.
Beginner Gift Package Activating… Knowledge Transfer Commencing.
Knowledge poured in—not as text or screens, but as sudden, perfect understanding blooming in his mind like flowers opening in sunlight.
The dragon-egg rite came first, crystal-clear: Fire and blood. Prick your finger, let three warm drops of Targaryen blood fall onto a petrified egg while speaking the old words. Then sacrifice one living soul—any soul—during the moment the blood touches shell. The egg would hatch. The dragon would know its master. Simple. Final. The knowledge felt ancient, as if House Targaryen had always carried it in their blood, yet it had never been written where others could steal it.
Territory management arrived whole: crop rotations that doubled yields, tax rolls that missed nothing, road repairs that paid for themselves in trade, how to feed five thousand smallfolk from Harrenhal's lands without famine.
Alcohol making: every step of malting barley, distilling clear spirits, aging in charred oak, flavors of honey and spice that could sell for silver in King's Landing.
Perfume making: crushing rose petals and lavender, fixing scents with musk and ambergris, recipes for royal courts that would make highborn ladies desperate.
Printing: simple wooden presses for tallies, sealed contracts, even basic coin dies for controlled minting—gold, silver, copper weights that would not debase.
Basic chemistry flooded back—things Marcus from Earth had learned in school and half-forgotten: how acids react with metals, simple distillation principles that sharpened his alcohol knowledge, why certain herbs fixed scents, the ratios for stronger mortar, the way iron rusts and how to slow it, formulas for soap, for preserving meat. Forgotten snippets of Earth history, algebra for ledgers, even the taste of cheap coffee and the smell of rain on asphalt—all sharp and clear again.
The voice spoke once more, soft and obedient.
Beginner Gift complete. System Store remains locked until Host commands activation. Points will accrue from prosperity, achievements, and… chosen actions.
Silence.
Aegon opened his eyes. His hand was still pressed to the weirwood. A single red leaf had stuck to his palm, warm as blood. The face in the bark seemed almost… satisfied.
He turned, breathing steady, and walked back to his companions with the easy grace of a child who had simply been daydreaming.
Tommard's face was white. "My prince, you stood there for ages. Your eyes were… strange."
Aegon laughed lightly, the sound high and innocent. "Just thinking how pretty the godswood will look with new flowers. We'll plant roses around the tree, Lanna. You like roses, don't you?"
Lanna nodded quickly, relief flooding her freckled face. "I do, my prince. I'll help plant them myself."
"Good." He ruffled Tommard's hair. "And you'll help me measure the towers tomorrow for repairs. This place is going to be strong. Rich. Ours."
They walked back through the lengthening shadows as servants lit torches along the battlements. Ser Oswell met them with mulled wine and the first reports of the harvest stores. Aegon listened, nodding, already seeing in his mind exactly how to double the grain yield with his new knowledge.
That night, alone in the lord's bedchamber high in the Kingspyre, Aegon placed the Valyrian scroll on the table beside the weirwood leaf. The leaf still felt faintly warm. The emptiness from Seattle—the rain, the headlights, the nothing—flickered once, then drowned under waves of possibility.
"Fire and blood," he whispered to the dark room. "The words were always true."
He smiled, small and sharp and entirely his own.
End of Chapter 4