Fate's Heavy Hand
For a few moments fire bloomed above the palm of her hand.
It was incredible, breath-taking, exhilarating, and Shiera was grateful to Naruto for teaching her. The heat that did not burn her hand, the life-like flicker of the flame, like a tiny heartbeat of its own, the swirl of colours as the fire changed ever so slightly, from white to yellow to orange to red.
However, it was also incredibly exhausting. Fire disappeared in a wink and Shiera felt like she had been forced to run through King's Landing for hours in full plate. Magical exhaustion was not the same as bodily exhaustion but for the moments immediately afterwards it felt like it was.
Nevertheless, she put it out of her mind. There were more important things to focus on.
Managing the feat once was her limit without being in Naruto's presence, which was already the result of the strengthening she had undergone in her efforts to learn to perform the feat in the first place. Still, summoning flame in such a way, without wresting its strength from obsidian or an existing fire, was beyond what she had expected.
It would have been invaluable in Oros, for the potential to closely inspect one of the firewyrms if nothing else, but there was nothing to be done about that now.
The approach was simple and direct but also costly. By itself the feat was not particularly useful either, except to impress and admire perhaps, but the potential uses could come later.
Once she felt capable of moving again, Shiera walked over to the cushioned couch in the room and laid down on the comfortable surface. It was still early in the day, but any further magical exercise or training would have to wait until the evening at least.
Shadowbinding was not so exhausting a craft in comparison, but she was a master of its intricacies, perhaps more so than any other practitioner in the current age, which she could not say of the fire magic that Naruto was teaching her.
Before he had boarded the ship for Lys, he had declared her finished with the first step of the training, the leaves igniting rather easily in her hands now, but he had admitted himself that there was no easy way to translate the exercise he had used to train his own abilities from wind to fire. Summoning a small flame in her hand from will and magic alone was the compromise they had come to.
It pushed her limits and forced her to transform much energy into fire at the same time. In the first place he could never teach her every possible application of fire magic. His own focus on magic's uses for combat coloured his ideas and the intent of the training was to familiarize the student with their element and allow them to create and shape their own techniques and spells.
Shiera considered using one of the glass candles to look in on Naruto's progress, but she stopped the idea in its infancy. A few weeks of separation and she was considering using such a valuable resource for something so mundane? She was a hundred-year-old sorceress, not some girl barely grown praying her husband returned safe from war. Whatever they really were to each other they could never be that, even if she did miss him.
There was also the sheer practicality to keep in mind.
Even though they had managed to figure out the proper usage of the candles it was still not an easy thing to do, especially without Naruto's strengthening effect on magic nearby. Exhausted as she already was, there was little point in trying.
No, she would refrain. There were enough things to focus her attention on here in Volantis. Books and scrolls she had not studied yet, and preparations to make for the attempts at hatching a dragon. Naruto's success was already a foregone conclusion in her mind, but the theft would be comparatively easy when set against the actual hatching.
Shiera had heard of Summerhall, of the tragedy and the deaths and the burned-out husk left behind in the aftermath. What the exact details were, she could not be certain, but one thing remained consistent between reports. Egg had tried and failed in his attempts to accomplish what she and Naruto now wanted to try.
The basic approach had been sound. Valyria in its glory had been based on two things above all else. Fire and Blood. It stood to reason that any attempt at recreating that glory would need the very same things in some fashion.
Acquiring either was no problem for her. With fire at, and blood in, her fingertips that part was easy enough to manage. The question was just what exactly to do with both. Dump both in copious amounts on the egg and hope for the best? Crude and most likely ineffectual, but Shiera supposed that if worst came to worst, it was worth an attempt as well.
But there were more elegant methods to try first. Placing the egg in a fire as a first attempt sounded reasonable enough to her. There was no need to make anybody bleed so quickly. Shiera had no access to accurate records of all the attempts that had been made to hatch dragons in the past, so she would have to create her own, discarding possibilities only after they did not create positive results.
Not a single dragon had hatched in her lifetime, and the biggest question for her was how those long decades had affected the state of the hatchling contained within the scaled shell. Had it simply died? Was that even possible? An adult dragon could enter a kind of hibernation, conserving energy and sleeping for years on end in some cases. Was the same possible for a hatchling inside an egg? If so, could the ability be stretched to this degree?
She had seen and inspected dragon eggs before. Those of her sire and his siblings, those placed in the cradles of Baelor's and Maekar's children, among others. All different and all the same in many ways. Yet none of them had hatched, not before, not in, and certainly not after Summerhall.
Despite that fact, Shiera did not consider it an impossibility for one to hatch under her watch soon. Naruto was a valuable resource for his presence alone. If magic by itself could bring life to the dragons again then the effect he had on his environment would be incredibly valuable, which was nothing to say of the magical force he could actively use. Should more be required, as was likely the case, things would be more complicated, but the possibility of success enticed her.
Aegon III had commanded nine mages to hatch the remaining dragon eggs of the Targaryens long before the disaster at Summerhall. The accounts of those effort she had read had been written by a Maester, who fundamentally discounted the possibility of magic interacting with a natural birthing process, and was not privy to the exact efforts that had been made or not made in those attempts.
Following Kings had made efforts of their own. Baelor had prayed, Aerys had read, Daeron had tried to use contacts and diplomacy to find the knowledge. Shiera would not be surprised if perhaps her sire had even attempted to get a bastard on one of the eggs. Whatever he had done had not been successful, just like all the others.
Shiera wondered if any of them had dreamed, as she did, and as she knew Daenys, Brynden, and Daeron had done. Had they seen dragons reborn again through some vague effort, or only their flying forms doting the sky once more and thought it to be the future and not the past?
Her own visions from Qarth, many months old now, were still clear in her mind, clearer than they had any right to be. She was still unsure what to do with them, or what all of them had even been.
King's Landing burning was clearly a view of the future. The city had never been conquered much less put to the torch. What force could stand against the combined might of the Seven Kingdoms after all?
Naruto was the man withstanding the crushing pressure of the world, and she now knew the nine tendrils to be the tails of the fox-like being somehow sealed away inside of him. Seeing Valyria had been the easiest to understand.
The Doom was perhaps the most significant event in the more recent history of the world, and if her theories of its effects on magic as a whole were correct, still exerted influence on its state today. The explosion of the Fourteen Flames, the earthquakes, the flood of lava and fire incinerating everything that lived. It had been monstrous and powerful and even beautiful in some queer way, to watch it happen in front of her eyes, but there was no confusion to be had about what it had been. That vision among all of those she had had until now, was clearest, with little room for interpretation.
When she had seen soldiers battling in a field as a winged shadow passed overhead, had that been a vision of the Dance? Of the Conquest? Or maybe even before that, a vision of one of the many wars that Valyria had been involved with? Shiera could not say with full confidence, the view of the soldiers far less clear to her mind than the winged shadow itself.
Seeing the Wall crack, seeing those burning cold blue eyes staring right at her again and again. What was she to do with that information? Was it the past? The future? The present even? Would she know, if right in this moment the Wall crumbled and whatever magic was contained inside was released?
Could that be? Could the Wall crumble into dust, or barely not as had happened in her vision, and usher in darkness and famine and death? Everything she knew of that monolith said otherwise. The Night's Watch dated back far beyond Aegon's Conquest, thousands of years back into the past. Hundreds of thousands of men trained and oaths sworn to do their duty for the realm: Guarding the Wall against whatever lied north of it. Wildlings and direwolves and giant bears, everyone believed, but perhaps in truth against cold and death and Others and whatever else.
She knew the tales of the Long Night, however many thousand years ago it had happened. Of the Others or White Walkers, and months, years, maybe decades or centuries of darkness and cold.
Wives' tales they had been to her, told to misbehaving children to frighten them into compliance in those first few years of youth until they grew up and knew fact from fiction. Yet she felt it in her bones, whenever she thought of those star-blue eyes and their terrible cold, that they were real, as real as the Shadow in the Pit in Stygai, and with that realer than everything else in her life had ever truly been.
An unbidden shiver travelled down her spine, a cool wind blowing through the window making goosebumps break out on her arms, and Shiera absently noted that she had broken into a sudden cold sweat at the mere thought of that scenario. For a short moment she wished for Naruto to be there with her, for the comfort of his presence and embrace. One part of her immediately balked at that fact, a moment of weakness nothing more. Another part of her did not particularly mind.
Naruto was wind and the storm, and the eye of a storm was a comforting place, but what good would wind and comfort do against that ancient evil? Blow away night and dark and cold? Dangerous the storm was, once you left the eye, perilous for any unprepared soul, but that it could not do.
What could stand against that cold and ice and death, but flame and fire and life.
Perhaps that was what she had seen shining atop the Wall, mending the cracks and preventing it from toppling to the ground and in the process burying all of the Night's Watch beneath it. Fire, in some queer form. Perhaps the legends Votar wrote of contained some truth in the end. Azor Ahai, Lightbringer, the Last Hero, all just as much story and legend as the Long Night was. Fitting maybe, that both would feature in her dreams in some way.
The air at the eastern docks was fresh and cool, a stark contrast to the conditions in the bowls of the city, where the heat was trapped between stone buildings and throngs of people, making even walking unpleasant.
Shiera was quite happy that she was not a permanent resident of Volantis. Summers in King's Landing could be unbearably hot, but at least in the winter everything cooled down significantly and sometimes the Blackwater would even freeze shut. Winters in Volantis however, were already unpleasant, still hot and humid and her singular experience of a past summer in the city had been more than enough for a whole lifetime, even hers.
Volantis was as great a port as Qarth, or so near that few would care about the difference, and hundreds of ships brought trade from all the Free Cities, ports of Westeros, and further east into its harbour every day. She meandered about the stalls and shops near the waterfront for a while, simply looking for something to pique her interest before she attended to her original purpose for the day.
Naruto would return from Lys any day now, bringing a dragon egg and a lot of immediate work.
Silks from YiTi, saffron and other spices from Qarth, dyes from Braavos, wines from the Arbor, Dorne, and Pentos, and gemstones and ivory found on the Basilisk Isles. Shiera took some time to inspect the last two but found nothing that fit her current criteria. Gemstones had their uses for sorceries, and were necessary to shape a proper glamour, but the exact type and cut of the stone were particularly important for that. Going to an actual goldsmith would serve her far better in that endeavour.
A few guards were scattered all around the place, on the lookout for troublemakers of any kind, with their tiger striped tattoos and masked helmets, spears and clawed gauntlets at the ready. Guarded by a group of spear-wielding Unsullied, eunuch slave soldiers from Astapor, a man in green robes was advocating for the rise of the Tigers as Triarchs once more, even though the elections would not happen until the beginning of the new year in five moons.
She wondered what the current batch of Tigers even intended to do, were they to gain power. Wage war upon the other Free Cities, Slaver's Bay, the Stepstones? Admittedly she was no seasoned commander but neither of those options seemed sensible to her, not after the past had shown those targets to be foolish ones.
Maybe they could hold Lys or Myr for a few years, but eventually alliances would be created that Volantis could never hope to stand against. Braavos, Pentos, Tyrosh, maybe even Westeros or the Dothraki. Shiera could not see any way for war to end in anything but defeat for Volantis.
The Volantene voters seemed to agree with her, seeing as they had not voted for more than a single Tiger at a time for centuries now and largely ignored the rambling man as they went about their business.
Done with her own browsing, Shiera hailed one of the many hathays waiting for passengers. She would have preferred a palanquin or the simple convenience of her own horse, but neither were available to her for the moment.
The ride was not very long, the streets of eastern Volantis less filled than those on the western side of the city. Even so, they had to wait for a few minutes as a great caravan of palanquins and full-grown elephants made their way to the Black Walls.
Gold and jewels decorated the high-backed saddles, the ivory of the horns near sparkling white and capped with ends of solid gold and silver. Even the slaves carrying the palanquins were decked out in the finest silk, the wooden exterior painted with artworks of many types. Manticores, basilisks, and sphinxes were painted in scenes of battle with both man and beast, but the dragon was the mightiest and most proud of all the beasts depicted. The Old Blood of Volantis based its prestige and power entirely on their Valyrian heritage, and dragons had made the Freehold feared and powerful.
Shiera could not say who exactly was hidden behind the veils and screens, and she did not particularly care for their identity or the display of outrageous wealth. Hundreds of families lived inside the Black Walls and yet none had established themselves as the most powerful or noteworthy since the city's founding. One Triarch or another might be in power for years or even decades at a time but eventually they all faded into obscurity again.
Once the whole procession had passed them by, her own ride could continue, the wheels of the hathay rumbling over the cobbled streets as the dwarf elephant pulled the cart to her destination.
The building was suitably grand but besides the sign dangling above the entrance not a lot distinguished it from the other artisan's workshops littering this street. Talented tailors, glaziers, masons, woodworkers, blacksmiths, and many more. The best craftsmen of the city had their workplaces here.
After paying the driver his coin, Shiera entered the building. She was not alone in the entry room for long, the closing of the heavy oaken door reverberating into the bowels of the house and attracting attention to her presence.
"Ah, what can I help you with?" The man was lean and tall, his hair more grey than black from age, and clearly apprehensive about her mask. Just for that effect alone, wearing it and openly displaying her status as a shadowbinder was worth it.
"I need a piece made. A necklace," Shiera said, getting down to business immediately. Whether the man was comfortable or not was of no concern to her, only his craftsmanship mattered. Precision was absolutely paramount.
"Of course, of course." A careful smile appeared on the man's lips, professionalism taking over for a moment. He gestured towards the second doorway in the room, the one he had not come through before. "If you would follow me. There are some pieces there for your inspiration."
Before he had taken two steps Shiera stopped him. "No need. I already have specific details in mind. Coin is no concern," she said curtly. Her funds were certainly not limitless but the necklace she was imagining did not need to show wealth. It needed to work, nothing more.
"Ah. Of course." He hesitated for a moment. "Yes. Of course. If you would excuse me for a moment. One of my apprentices will note down your thoughts. He is well practiced at sketching ideas." He quickly left through the other doorway with a bow and unsure smile, all the while avoiding her eyes and taking care to make it seem like he wasn't doing so.
It was only a thinly veiled excuse for him to leave the room and her presence, but she allowed him that reaction. There was a part of her that even enjoyed the effect she had on most people, especially since it usually got her what she wanted more quickly.
Shiera paid the hushed conversation audible through the doorway no mind and instead spent the time she waited, inspecting the pieces on display in the room she was in. Most of those on display were in the aforementioned connected room, mostly for safety, but a few were still kept in this one. A garnet studded ring with a small ruby as the centrepiece, an elephant made of jade, tusks, saddle, and rider shaped in gold, and a necklace of pearls with subtle copper accents around the biggest three, among others.
The elephant itself had most likely been crafted elsewhere but the gold work was finely detailed, and she could see no faults with any of it.
Hidden among the more extravagant pieces was a small necklace, silver and white gold accentuating a small golden brown gem surrounded by white. A Tiger's eye, Shiera thought, but the white material was far more interesting on closer inspection. Running a finger along the smooth surface quickly revealed its nature. She was quite surprised.
Weirwood was a stark bone white colour and incredibly rare in Essos. The Andals had cut down most of the trees below the Neck, so only the North still harboured a large amount of them.
A few minutes had passed by the time the apprentice stepped into the room. He was young, barely a man grown, with a stubborn set to his shoulders that reminded her of Naruto, and a small drawing board in his hands. There was something about his face, an unnatural unevenness that caught her attention, but she was not quite sure just what caused it.
"Master said you have a design in mind. I'm 'sposed to note it all down." He led her out of the entrance hall and through the attached room filled with jewelry of a hundred different kinds, to a smaller room. Parchments, cleaned skins, and drawings in many varieties scattered all over in a form of controlled chaos Shiera expected of most artists and artisans.
"A woman's necklace, with a central gemstone set in silver, black and as dark as possible. I want the chain to be made of iron links, as pure as you can have it done. Small links, ideally." Shiera had spent quite a bit of time debating over just what kind of gemstone would bring the best results. Rubies, emeralds, sapphires, they all usually served quite well, but this was not something she had ever even tried, much less done successfully.
Still, the theory behind her ideas was sound. A glamour needed some item of significance to hold the illusion, the more important to the owner of the likeness, the better. Jewelry, especially gemstones of some kind, were ideal. Easy to conceal, if necessary, openly displaying it usually did not attract any additional attention, and the piece, and with it the glamour, could last near indefinitely.
Of course, a glamour was only a visual impression of someone, shaped by suggestion and shadows and light. Focusing that into an ordinary object was not unreasonable, focusing and then trapping a full-power shadow familiar in one was definitely impossible. The object needed to be tailor-made for that purpose, for the idea to have any chance of success at all.
The iron was only a substitute, valyrian steel had been her first choice, but melting down either of the daggers for an untested idea was the height of foolishness. She would have needed to travel to Qohor for that in any case.
Using iron for magic and rituals was a First Men belief, but if, as the legends of the Long Night suggested, it could keep Others at bay, using it for a similar purpose here was at least worthy of the attempt.
Waiting as the apprentice goldsmith noted down her words and started sketching some ideas gave her the opportunity to understand the unevenness she had noted before. Now that she had had some time to look at his face from up close, the subtle bits of coal and powder on his cheek were easy enough to notice. Shiera could not see the mark underneath, whether it was a teardrop tattoo, or the scar from the removal of one, but what it meant was plain.
Still, a former or hidden slave, working as an apprentice on the eastern side of Volantis? Some of the Old Blood would froth at the mouth if they knew. It was quite fortunate that the boy had done a good job at concealing it.
"Iron links for the chain? Truly? It will rust quickly if you are not careful. We could have it made from silver as well."
"No. Iron. I insist," Shiera said. She had no problem with silver, far less vulgar and demanding than gold, but the iron was about necessity not cosmetics. How much the magic involved would prevent rust from forming she could not say, but if dutifully maintaining the piece was the price, Shiera would pay it willingly. It was a minor inconvenience at most, in the grand scheme of things.
"The Master won't be happy 'bout it, but it will be your necklace in the end. How long it will last depends on you," he said, shrugging. He had a youthful brashness about him, not too dissimilar from Naruto.
"I will need these symbols carved into the silver around the gemstone as well. Precisely," Shiera emphasised. Laid out on a small piece of parchment were multiple Valyrian glyphs. The locking mechanism in Oros had inspired the array of glyphs in use. Locking, containing, trapping. They were all similar enough to overlap.
They went over different designs, materials, and gemstone for some time, before eventually coming to a decision.
When she went to bed that night she dreamed a new dream, of new things, to come in time.
She saw Naruto in one eye, standing near the Wall, watching, waiting. Sunset was reflected on the melting ice behind him in a small red circle. He was older now, by a few years at least, though with his extraordinary magical power who could truly tell. Whatever his age in this vision, he seemed settled in a way he wasn't, currently.
In her other eye Shiera saw herself, but where exactly she was, she could not say, though Essos seemed the most likely answer, as little of one as that was. Qarth perhaps, or Slaver's Bay, and in the air above her dragons roared.
Both dreams, both visions, they were playing out at the same time. Naruto turned away from the Wall, his eyes sweeping over her without seeing, and a small smile appeared on his lips. Shiera could not see what he did, the world around him an empty white void except for a small snapshot of the giant construct of ice that was the Wall, a blue flower growing from a crack in the material. From the other eye she watched herself step forward; head turned skyward. A great shadow loomed above, and a screech split the air.
Shiera saw both at the same time, and belatedly she realised that they were far away from each other, separated by more than just the distance between them. Knowing that it would be made it no easier to accept.
I hope you enjoyed Chapter 17. I'm basically done with number 18 aswell and started working on 19 and 20.
Similar to last chapter this is more about setup and build-up. I had considered putting some of the conclusions from next chapter into this one, but I thought that jumping around time-wise would just make things more confusing, and it is only a week worth of waiting after all.
Shiera treats her dreams/visions very differently than Naruto does. The fact that he has not paid the ones he had in Qarth any further mind is very much intentional. I also tried to make it clear that for Shiera, she is convinced that what she sees is real, and at least for some of the visions, a picture of the future and things to come. In a way she can't just dismiss that so easily, not in the way Naruto does, who rejects the idea of destiny and fate from the ground up.
The relationship between Naruto and Shiera is supposed to be very complicated. There is the gap in age, with a ton of implications, the fact that they are both abnormal when compared to normal people, and for Shiera the fact that Naruto is one of the first real human connections she has made for decades, which is mirrored in her being Naruto's first significant connection after coming to this world.
Old Nan's stories to Bran about the White Walkers and the Long Night mention the fact that the Others hate fire and iron, which ties in neatly with the iron swords in the Winterfell crypts, said to bind the souls of the Winter Kings, a fact that may or may not become relevant much later.
Melisandre uses a ruby to glamour and kind of control Mance, and she has a ruby in the choker around her neck. Brynden uses a moonstone brooch to glamour in the Mystery Knight. Gems are used for sorcery. I imagine that colour, size, and cut would somehow affect their performance/use, which may in part be a result of the user believing that those things would make a difference.
Much of the information on Shiera isn't actually in any of the books but instead supplied by George himself. She dislikes gold according to him.
I'm considering a short break after chapter 20, to sort out how exactly I want the next part of the story to go. I have some ideas already, obviously, but there are a lot of things to consider, especially since there will be a lot of setup for the book timelines and the eventual ending.
As always, thanks for reading and reviewing. Until next week.