285 A.C.

Draconys/Valyria

"The Mistress of Whispers" Faeria "the Siren" Lysandra Marr

It was rather uneventful how she had to leave Sunspear the way she did. Having to find passage back to Essos wasn't going to be difficult, but rather tedious. Luckily for Faeria, Dame Dracaena had ordered an extraction for the Siren before Manfrey could sell her out to his cousin Doran.

Faeria had sent word to all her chief informants in Dorne and the Reach to go into hiding and that it was no longer safe. The ones in the other regions of Westeros were already in hiding so no word to them was necessary.

She had fled Sunspear in the dead of night bound for Plankytown to board the cog "Joyful Pyre", escorted by half a dozen of the squires who originally accompanied her to Dorne but laid in hiding as fish mongers, servants, and guardsmen at both Lemonwood and Sunspear. They each carried something of value. One carried the cage of red ravens, one carried all the missives she's stored until now, two squires carried a decorative box filled with the bones of Rhaenys and Aegon. Though Naela wanted them cremated and smuggled into Dragonstone to be laid to rest with the other dead Targaryens, whispers had reached Faeria that led her to question the legitimacy of these bones. So, she'd take them directly to Naela as she was a primal and primals could see hear and smell what no mortal man could.

The squires are youths who endure the same bone-chilling training of a Dragonguard and were thus deemed as "Dragonguard-in-waiting" by those in Naela's household, much like the ash blond mute, Elaemond, whom is a very promising squire himself who might very well "dawn the red" someday.

Dressed in crimson and scarlet raiments of a noble squire, the displayed some level of insubordination and playful due their young age as well as headstrong and secretive amongst themselves, but they were also clever enough to pick and choose when to act that way. If anything, they can prove their loyalty in spades.

Manfrey had started out as a remarkable man, in spite of the fact that he was related to the less than useless Doran and the overly lustful Oberyn.

Doran was a man who had no business being anywhere near the game of thrones. Many were vocal about how weak a man he is, and soon enough Faeria started to agree with them. Doran was cautious, but somewhere along the way, the line between cautious and craven blurred. Doran only seeks to fight wars he knows he can win.

"Men who take so few a gamble never win the game, as an assured victory doesn't truly exist. The tide of war can, has, and all will change. No matter how large your army is, no matter how many war elephants or dragons you have..." Naela's words rung in Faeria's ears even now.

Oberyn was feisty, stubborn and way too dangerous to allow any leeway and should be under constant watch. Something Faeria saw to when Doran sent his brother to broker a marriage alliance between Arianne and Viserys in exchange for Dorne's support in fighting the usurper and those loyal to him.

Faeria assumed that with Manfrey, Naela could garner Dorne's support for Viserys, free of charge, when the time came for him to take the iron throne. Naela saw a fourth marriage between Targaryen and Martell as a very one-sided deal as well as beneath her.

The alliance pact held by the Red Viper was as follows. The Dornish get a third consort as well as a second queenship, while Viserys gets stuck with Dornish in-laws. They proved to be poor in-laws during the rebellion, and they'd want to renew bonds of kinship in spite of the fact that they were and always will be the most unreliable allies.

Doran also listed that they'd financially see to Viserys' comforts whilst he's in exile. The profits of Sunspear came from the Dornish discreetly engaging in the slave trade with the southern free cities.

Faeria discovered this after establishing an extensive network in Dorne. Prisoners sent to the island of Ghaston Grey were oft never heard from again. Faeria now knew why that was.

Whilst at sea, Faeria thought of her time at Sunspear and how she had grown attached to Manfrey and and the little Jornelle. Had she been allowed to more time stay there she most likely would slept with him or even married him, become the mother that his youngest daughter needed. But then she remembered that he was known as the red widow for the many wives that died in childbed.

She also thought of her tenure as the chief mistress of whisper. The job itself wasn't easy. For starters, building up a network of spies takes years of practice, as one needs to find and train chief informants to move fast, be silent, and funnel as much information back as possible without getting caught, and then said informants have to find and befriend dozens if not hundreds of honest people. Not to mention the chief Mistress of whispers would have to pay the chief informants out of her own purse and the chief informants would have to pay their informants.

It was around dawn when Faeria had reached the shores of her destination.

Many and more had long believed that Valyria was lost in the Doom, but that in itself was a lie Naela had to spread. The Doom have destroyed parts of the Freehold, but wasn't nearly as bad as the maesters told. People and Dragons did die, but only a few dozen or so. It wasn't clear how, but it is widely believed that Naela used some form of magic to lessen the Doom's full might.

When the dust cleared, Naela went about rebuilding, but she did so in secret to keep the rest of the known world from being the wiser, as Naela called in architects, scholars and healers from the parts of the world where primals lived.

It was apparently her intention to make Valyria a superpower once more. The difference, they'd be more advanced than the rest of the world combined, save all the primal settlements in the further east.

With her quick wits, Naela had managed to seize absolute power in 2 years after the Doom, crowning herself as the Dragon Emperor.

She went about fixing things like completely outlawing slavery in the Freehold, public education for all, the complete, lowered taxes which was odd, and something of an isolationist policy, no one leaves the peninsula or enters without an expressed letter of approval writ in Naela's hand and pressed by her seal, a seal that became the new standard of the New Valyrian Empire. A crowned dragon engulfed in a enflamed heart.

Despite her sigil, Naela had no reverence for R'hllor or any other faith for that matter as she considered the gods of men all equally false. Yet she had clergy of half hundred faiths sit upon her counsel.

Naela did however practice the faith of the primals, known simply as the old religion, a faith her youngest sister serves as head clergy to. All that was known was that the god they worshipped went by the name of Aka and was called the poet of Time and Space, Luck and Logic, Blood, Ice and Fire. His idols depicted a Dragon with scales of platinum, silver and gold, mitch-matched eyes, one red the other blue, and holding an hourglass in one hand, and the sun the moon and the stars in the other hand.

After getting past the gates at the docks and into the main Port City of Rhyos, Faeria would need to find passage to the capital city of Draconys where Naela was. The city was somewhere North in the Lands of the Long Summer.