Chapter 43: The Fire Within, The War Without
King Baelon I Targaryen's return to Meereen was not heralded by trumpets or public proclamations, but by a subtle yet palpable shift in the city's already taut atmosphere. Whispers, like desert winds, had preceded him, carrying fragmented, awestruck tales from the crews of his escort ships – tales of a new, terrifying power wielded by their ageless King, of a Braavosi warship not merely burned, but unmade by a lance of incandescent, obsidian-laced fire. The fear that Baelon inspired, already a potent instrument of his rule, now acquired a new, almost worshipful, reverence among those who had witnessed this display. His very presence, as he strode once more through the corridors of the Great Pyramid, seemed to radiate an intensified aura, a blend of his familiar icy control and a new, barely suppressed incandescence.
He convened his war council immediately. Lord Larys Strong, his face as impassive as ever but his eyes missing nothing; Lord Randyll Tarly, Marshal of his Essosi legions, his stern features etched with the burdens of command; Lord Roland Crakehall, Governor of Yunkai, summoned for this crucial meeting; and Archmaester Vaellyn, his scholarly curiosity now tinged with a profound apprehension of the powers his King was consorting with. Prince Aemond, still far to the north overseeing the refitting of his battered fleet and awaiting further orders, joined via a shimmering, occasionally unstable, scrying link.
Baelon did not speak of Ignis directly to the wider council, beyond stating he had encountered an ancient, elemental power in the Shivering Sea and had… 'communed' with it, acquiring a token of its regard. But when he produced the Ignis Shard, placing it upon a specially prepared obsidian plinth in the center of the war room, its pulsating, internal heat warping the air around it, its lurid glow casting dancing, demonic shadows on the faces of his commanders, no further explanation was needed for the source of his augmented might. The Shard was a silent testament to a power beyond their comprehension, a power now allied, however tenuously, with their King.
Lord Tarly, a man not easily impressed, merely inclined his head, his mind already calculating the strategic implications of such a weapon in their arsenal. Crakehall looked bewildered, out of his depth. Larys Strong observed the Shard with a keen, analytical gaze, cataloging its properties, its potential, and, undoubtedly, the dangers it represented. Aemond, through the scrying mirror, let out a harsh chuckle. "So, Brother, you brought back a piece of that frozen hell's fire. Vhagar will be… interested to see how it compares to her own."
Harnessing the Heart-Flame
In the weeks that followed, Baelon dedicated a significant portion of his time to understanding and attempting to master the Ignis Shard. He established a secure, heavily warded chamber deep beneath the Great Pyramid, its walls reinforced with Valyrian stone and inscribed with glyphs of containment devised by Archmaester Vaellyn. Here, surrounded by Vaellyn and a select few of his most trusted mages (including Maester Arryk, who had somewhat recovered from his ordeal on Cinderfell), Baelon delved into the Shard's mysteries.
The Shard was not a passive artifact. It pulsed with a life of its own, a slow, rhythmic beat like a colossal, sleeping heart. Its heat was immense, yet Baelon found that by focusing his will, by attuning his own Valyrian fire-blood to its primal resonance, he could direct its emanations, though the effort was considerable. Vaellyn, employing an array of arcane instruments, confirmed that the Shard's energy output was staggering, capable of powering city-sized enchantments or fueling destructive spells of unimaginable magnitude. He also discovered that certain Valyrian steel alloys, when exposed to the Shard's aura under controlled conditions, seemed to absorb some of its properties, becoming unnaturally hot to the touch and capable of cutting through mundane materials with even greater ease. The prospect of arming his elite Dragon Guard with Ignis-tempered blades was an enticing one.
Baelon's personal attunement with the Shard was a perilous dance. He would spend hours in meditation before it, his mind reaching out, not to command, but to listen to the ancient, fiery consciousness that still resonated within the obsidian fragment. He felt echoes of Ignis's aeons-long slumber, visions of a world in its molten infancy, and a profound, elemental connection to the very core of the planet. The Voldemort soul within him, ever seeking to transcend mortal limitations, recognized this as a pathway to a different kind of power, a power rooted not in intricate spellcraft or stolen souls, but in the fundamental forces of creation and destruction.
His existing magical abilities were undeniably amplified. His control over fire became almost absolute; he could shape it, solidify it, imbue it with a chilling, obsidian edge that seemed to consume light itself. His connection to Silverwing, and through her, to the concept of dragonkind, deepened. He found he could project his will to her with greater clarity, sense her moods and intentions with an almost telepathic intimacy. He even suspected the Shard's energies might accelerate her growth, enhance her own fiery breath.
Umbraxys, however, maintained a wary distance from the Shard. The shadow dragon, a creature of cold and void, found the fragment's intense, primal fire anathema. While it remained utterly loyal to Baelon, its presence would often recede when Baelon was actively working with the Shard, a silent acknowledgment of the fundamental opposition between their natures. This created a new, internal dynamic for Baelon, a balancing act between the shadow-magic that had long been a cornerstone of his power and this new, incandescent force. He was becoming a creature of even greater, more terrifying, paradoxes: a king of fire and shadow, of life-consuming death magic and planet-forging primal energy.
One evening, during a particularly intense session of attunement, Baelon achieved a breakthrough. He was attempting to draw upon the Shard's energy not to project fire, but to see through it, to use its connection to Ignis as a scrying lens into the deeper currents of the world. The chamber was plunged into darkness, save for the Shard's pulsing glow. As he focused his will, the Shard flared, and images flooded his mind – not of distant lands, but of energies. He saw the world as a tapestry of telluric currents, of ley lines of power, some bright and vibrant, others dark and corrupted. He saw the lingering, sickly aura of the Drowned God's influence in certain coastal regions of Westeros, like patches of gangrene on the land. And then, for a fleeting, terrifying moment, he saw Braavos – not the city of canals and bridges, but a colossal, shadowy kraken of immense psychic energy, its tentacles wrapped around the foundations of the Titan, its influence a chilling, pervasive blight upon the entire region.
The vision was brief, but its implications were staggering. The Drowned God was not just a deity worshipped by a cult; it was a vast, parasitic entity, and Braavos was its primary host, its Titan perhaps its most potent anchor or symbol. This realization solidified Baelon's resolve: Braavos itself, not just its cultists or its fleet, had to be unmade if this abyssal power was to be truly defeated.
The Cleansing Fire Reaches Westeros
Armed with this new, chilling understanding, and the growing, if still untamed, power of the Ignis Shard, Baelon turned his immediate attention to the Drowned Brethren sanctuaries in Westeros. The maps from Aemond's captured journal, combined with Larys Strong's initial intelligence reports from his agents in the Vale and the Fingers, painted a disturbing picture of entrenched cultist cells, some operating with the tacit approval, or fearful acquiescence, of local, impoverished lords. The Iron Islands, Larys confirmed, were also a hive of suspicious activity, with whispers of a "Sea Witch" of great power offering sanctuary to those fleeing Baelon's Essosi purges – a figure Larys suspected might be "Echo of Stillness" herself, or a high priestess of the Drowned Brethren.
Baelon's orders were swift and brutal.
"Prince Aemond," he commanded via the scrying link, his voice resonating with the Shard's barely contained fire, "your fleet is to proceed directly to the Iron Islands. Your primary objective is Pyke itself. Lord Greyjoy and his reavers have long been a festering boil on the arse of Westeros, their Drowned God a crude parody of the true abyssal entity we face, but a useful distraction and potential ally for our enemies nonetheless. You will make an example of them. Burn their fleets in their harbors. Raze their keeps. And hunt down this 'Sea Witch.' If she is 'Echo,' bring her to me, alive if possible, a screaming ruin if not. Vhagar will feast well in those bleak isles."
Aemond's scarred face split into a wolfish grin. "The Ironborn? Finally, a true battle against savages who understand only strength. Consider Pyke… redecorated, Brother."
To Lord Tarly, Baelon dictated new commands for the Legions of the Iron Throne stationed in Westeros. "You will coordinate with Lord Larys's agents. Selected legions will move into the Vale and the Fingers. They will isolate and eradicate every identified cultist cell. No quarter. These are not honorable enemies; they are a pestilence. Any lordling found complicit will be stripped of lands and title, their line extinguished. We will cleanse my kingdom of this abyssal taint, root and stem."
He knew these actions would cause shockwaves in Westeros, potentially unsettling even loyalist houses. But the threat was too great, the infection too deep, to allow for half-measures. The Drowned Brethren were an extension of the power he had seen clinging to Braavos, and they would be purged with fire and steel.
The Titan's City Awakens Further
While Baelon prepared to unleash this new wave of cleansing fire upon his own kingdom, Braavos was not idle. The Sealord Ferrego Antaryon, faced with mounting pressure from Baelon's ongoing economic warfare, Aemond's earlier victories in the Basilisk Isles, and the terrifying, inexplicable destruction of Villa Antarion, made his most audacious move yet.
Larys's spies, their reports now tinged with a new level of alarm, confirmed that the Titan of Braavos had done more than just stir. On a night of unnatural stillness, with the Lagoon shrouded in a fog so thick it seemed to swallow sound itself, the colossal bronze automaton had taken a single, ponderous step from its plinth, its immense foot crushing a section of the ancient stone quay. Its great head had turned fully towards the open sea, its jeweled eyes, previously dark, now blazing with an eerie, internal green light. And from its depths, the low hum had intensified into a resonant, almost mournful, groan that was felt as much as heard, a sound that caused panic in the city and a deep, unsettling dread among the Braavosi fleet anchored in the Arsenal.
Furthermore, Sealord Antaryon, in a secret conclave with the Keyholders of the Iron Bank and the hidden masters of the Faceless Men, had authorized the unsealing of the "Brazen Vaults" – ancient, magically warded chambers beneath the Iron Bank, rumored to hold not just gold, but powerful, forgotten weapons and artifacts from the city's founding, relics of the Valyrian exiles who had first sought refuge there. It was a desperate measure, a sign that Braavos was preparing to unleash its most formidable and perhaps most dangerous assets.
One such asset was soon deployed. A squadron of Velaryon ships, enforcing Baelon's interdiction of Braavosi trade near the Stepstones, was attacked not by conventional warships, but by a flotilla of strange, low-slung, dark vessels that moved with unnatural speed and silence, seemingly unaffected by wind or current. These ships, Larys reported, deployed a new kind of weapon: a focused beam of intense cold, projected from a crystalline device mounted on their prows, that could freeze seawater instantly, trapping ships in newly formed ice fields, or even flash-freeze sections of a hull, causing catastrophic structural failure. Jacaerys Velaryon, commanding the patrol, had managed to drive them off with dragonfire from Vermax and Syrax, but not before two Velaryon galleys were lost, their crews frozen solid at their posts. The young prince, shaken but resolute, sent an urgent report to Baelon, describing these "ice-cutters" and their terrifying weaponry, clearly a product of the Brazen Vaults.
The Iron Bank, too, escalated its financial warfare. They abruptly called in all outstanding debts from the city of Pentos, a major trading partner of Baelon's Valyrian Protectorate, threatening to bankrupt the Pentoshi Magisters unless they immediately renounced all treaties with Baelon and joined Braavos in an anti-Targaryen alliance. This move was designed to create a new war front for Baelon, to stretch his resources, and to demonstrate the Iron Bank's far-reaching power to cripple even large city-states.
The Fire Within, A Storm Approaching
Baelon received these reports in his Meereenese war room, the Ignis Shard pulsing faintly on its plinth beside him, its fiery glow a stark contrast to the chilling news from Braavos. The Titan stepping forth, the ice-cutters, the ultimatum to Pentos – these were not the actions of a foe on the verge of collapse, but of a cornered, ancient power lashing out with all its remaining strength and hidden ingenuity.
He felt the familiar, cold rage stir within him, the Voldemort persona relishing the escalating conflict, the sheer scale of the forces now arrayed against him. But beneath the rage, there was also a new, deeper current of power flowing from his connection to the Ignis Shard, a sense of alignment with a fundamental force that made even the Titan of Braavos seem… manageable.
"They grow desperate, Lord Larys," Baelon said, his voice calm, almost serene, yet his eyes burned with the Shard's reflected fire. "Their bronze giant takes a step, their bankers issue threats, their ships learn new, cold tricks. They believe these are signs of their enduring strength. They are, in fact, the spasms of a dying beast."
He rose, picking up the Ignis Shard. It felt warm, almost alive, in his grasp, its power thrumming in sympathy with his own heightened resolve.
"Aemond will cleanse the Iron Islands of their Drowned God's taint and hunt our elusive 'Echo'," he declared. "Lord Tarly will purge the Vale and the Fingers. The Iron Bank's maneuverings with Pentos will be… addressed. Archmaester Vaellyn, your research into the Titan's Heart-Core and these new ice weapons is now of paramount importance. Find their weaknesses. Find how their cold fire can be unmade, or turned against them."
He then turned his gaze towards a map of the Narrow Sea, his finger tracing a direct line from Meereen towards Braavos itself.
"But their grandest gesture, their awakened Titan… that requires a more personal response." A slow, terrible smile spread across his lips. "It seems my journey north has granted me a new appreciation for… dialogues with ancient things. Perhaps it is time I had a conversation with this 'bound spirit' that animates their colossal guardian. Perhaps it, too, yearns for a different kind of… permanence."
The fire within him, augmented by the Shard of Cinderfell, burned brighter than ever. The war without was escalating, Braavos unleashing its most desperate and dangerous assets. But Baelon Targaryen, the Serpent King, armed with the fury of a primordial god and the intellect of an undying sorcerer, was more than ready to meet their storm. He would not just weather it; he would consume it, and from its ashes, his eternal empire would rise, unchallenged. The Titan had taken a step. Soon, it would learn to kneel.