Chapter 40: The Last Kingdoms Fall, The Empire's Dawn
The three days granted by Lord Protector Vorant to the delegations from the North and the Vale passed under a pall of suffocating tension. King's Landing, or 'Vorantgrad' as some were beginning to whisper its new, grimly functional iteration might be called, was a city holding its breath. Columns of Obsidian Guard drilled with relentless, clanking precision in the courtyards of the Red Keep, their hawk helms turning as one, a silent, ever-present reminder of the Hawk Lord's power. Vorhax's "dragon's breath" cannons, their muzzles like the gaping maws of some infernal beast, were ostentatiously repositioned along the city walls, their crews conducting loud, pointed maintenance drills. The message was unambiguous: the time for negotiation was a fleeting courtesy; the time for submission was at hand.
Within their heavily guarded quarters, Queen Sansa Stark and her Northern lords engaged in fraught, desperate debate. The Queen, her youthful beauty now tempered by a queenly resolve forged in unimaginable loss and the brutal realities of the Long Night, argued with a quiet, fierce pragmatism. To defy Vorant was to condemn the North, already grievously weakened and depopulated, to annihilation. Their honor was not served by futile sacrifice. Lord Yohn Royce, the proud Bronze Yohn, initially raged, his voice echoing with the defiance of millennia of Vale independence. But even he, faced with the chilling accounts of Vorhax's conquests, the sheer, brutal efficiency of his war machine, and the subtle, unnerving pressure exerted by Vorant's ever-watchful agents, found his famed stubbornness cracking. Lady Anya Waynwood and the more pragmatic Vale lords counseled acceptance of the inevitable, hoping to preserve what little autonomy they could.
On the third day, at the appointed hour, the delegations were summoned once more to the refashioned Great Hall. Vorhax awaited them, seated not on a throne, but on a stark, elevated dais of black obsidian, Red Rain lying bare across his knees. His son, Edric, stood at his right, a grim, capable commander whose eyes held a disturbing emptiness. Ser Gareth and Brandon Snow, flanked by champions of the Obsidian Guard, formed an impenetrable wall of black iron behind him. Nyx, his goshawk, was perched on a blackened iron stand beside the dais, her golden eyes unblinking.
Sansa Stark, Queen in the North, stepped forward first. Her face was pale but composed, her bearing regal despite the crushing weight of her decision. "Lord Protector Vorant," she began, her voice clear and carrying through the oppressive silence, "the North has known too much war, too much loss. My people have faced the true Long Night, a darkness your southern ambitions cannot comprehend. We have paid for our survival in the blood of our bravest. We will not see that blood spilled needlessly now." She paused, her gaze meeting Vorhax's with a flicker of defiance that he noted with cold amusement. "Therefore, on behalf of the assembled Lords of the North, I, Sansa of House Stark, Queen in the North, will bend the knee and swear fealty to you as Lord Protector of Westeros, on the condition that our ancient customs are respected, our people are not unduly burdened, and the North retains the right to govern its own internal affairs under your imperial authority."
It was a strategic submission, a queen sacrificing her crown to save her kingdom, her words carefully chosen to salvage what dignity and autonomy she could.
Vorhax listened, his expression unreadable. Then, Lord Yohn Royce, his face a mask of granite, stepped forward for the Vale. "Lord Protector," he rumbled, his voice heavy with unspoken bitterness, "the Knights of the Vale do not yield lightly. But we are not fools. We have seen your power. We have… considered your terms." He almost choked on the word. "To avoid the utter destruction of our lands and our people, the Lords Declarant of the Vale will also swear fealty, trusting that your promised 'order' will not mean the enslavement of our ancient houses." Young Lord Robert Arryn, he added, would be presented as a ward, as demanded.
Vorhax rose slowly, Red Rain now in his hand, its crimson ripples catching the light. "Your… wisdom… is acknowledged," he said, his voice like silk drawn across a razor's edge. The subtle emphasis on "wisdom" was not lost on them; it was the wisdom of a cornered animal choosing not to be immediately devoured. "The North and the Vale will indeed find their place within the new order. Your ancient customs," his gaze flickered towards Sansa, "will be tolerated so long as they do not impede Imperial Law or the absolute loyalty owed to your Protector. Your internal governance," he looked at Royce, "will be… guided… by Imperial Legates, who will ensure your productivity and compliance."
The ceremony of submission that followed was a stark, chilling affair. In the vast, echoing Great Hall, stripped of its Targaryen dragons and Baratheon stags, now adorned only with massive black banners bearing the Vorant hawk, Queen Sansa Stark and the proud Lords of the Vale knelt before Ellys Vorant. They swore their oaths of fealty, their voices strained, their eyes holding a mixture of fear, resentment, and grim resignation. Vorhax received their oaths with cold, imperial majesty, his youthful face a terrifying mask of ancient power. As each lord rose, an Obsidian Guard officer presented them with a small, black iron hawk pin, a symbol of their new allegiance, a brand of ownership.
Immediately, the consequences of their submission were made clear. Imperial Legates – high-ranking, fanatically loyal Obsidian Guard commanders – were dispatched north and east, with Vorhax's edicts and substantial military escorts. They were to "assist" Queen Sansa and the Lords of the Vale in integrating their regions into the new Imperial structure. This "assistance" involved the immediate reorganization of Northern and Vale levies into Imperial auxiliary legions, trained by Vorant officers in Vorant tactics. Vast tithes of Northern timber, furs, and minerals, and Vale foodstuffs and horses, were levied for the Imperial treasury and war machine. Young Lord Robert Arryn was brought to King's Landing, a gilded cage awaiting him in the Red Keep, his presence a constant guarantee of the Vale's good behavior. Any murmurings of dissent, any hint of defiance, were met with swift, brutal retribution by the ever-watchful Imperial Legates and their garrisons.
With the last major kingdoms of Westeros now under his heel, Lord Protector Ellys Vorant decided the time was ripe for his ultimate proclamation. From the steps of the partially rebuilt Great Sept of Baelor (which he had renamed the "Imperial Forum of Order"), before a terrified populace and his assembled legions, he announced the dissolution of the Seven Kingdoms and the myriad petty lordships that had plagued Westeros for millennia.
"The age of squabbling kings and feuding lords is over!" his voice, amplified by arcane Sith techniques, boomed across the plaza, carrying to every corner of the city. "The endless cycle of war, famine, and chaos that has defined your existence ends today! A new dawn breaks for Westeros! A dawn of order, of discipline, of strength, under a single, unified, unshakeable authority!"
He raised Red Rain to the sky, its crimson steel gleaming like a bloody star. "By right of conquest, by the will of the strong, and for the salvation of this continent, I hereby declare the founding of the Westerosi Empire! And I, Ellys of House Vorant, First of My Name, shall be its Emperor!"
A new Imperial banner was unfurled – a field of stark black, upon which a terrifying, silver-winged hawk, its talons dripping with stylized crimson drops, clutched a shattered crown. The symbolism was brutally clear.
His first Imperial Edicts followed swiftly: the establishment of a unified Imperial Army, into which all existing military forces would be absorbed; the codification of a single Imperial Law, overriding all regional customs; the centralization of all taxation and resource management under Imperial prefects; the launching of massive infrastructure projects – roads, aqueducts, canals, new fortifications – to be built by Imperial labor corps (often filled with "re-educated" dissidents and prisoners of war); and the founding of Imperial Academies across the land, dedicated to training a new generation of administrators, engineers, officers, and, most importantly, loyal servants of the Emperor and his new order. He even issued a decree concerning the Faith of the Seven, granting it "Imperial Protection" so long as its septons preached obedience to the Emperor and the virtues of Imperial discipline, subtly beginning the process of co-opting or eventually supplanting it with a state ideology centered on himself.
Emperor Vorhax, as he was now known, had achieved what no Targaryen, no Baratheon, no Stark had ever truly managed: the absolute, unified subjugation of Westeros. From the frozen lands beyond the Neck (for even the remnants of the Night's Watch now answered to his Imperial Legates) to the shores of Dorne (whose Prince had wisely sent tribute and oaths of fealty after witnessing Vorhax's swift, brutal conquest of the Reach and Westerlands), the black hawk banner flew supreme.
Yet, as he stood on a high balcony of the Red Keep, his Imperial City, looking out over a land cowed into submission, Vorhax knew this was but a continental conquest, a single world in a galaxy of possibilities. His Sith spirit, ancient and insatiable, yearned for more. Ruling this primitive empire would be a tedious affair of administration and suppression of dissent, necessary but unfulfilling. He had to consolidate his power, eliminate any lingering threats, and begin the long, arduous process of uplifting this world's technology, of shaping its culture into a reflection of Sith ideals, a launching pad for his eventual return to the stars.
He thought of the cyclical threat of the Long Night, the Others. His Force visions, and the ancient Valyrian texts he had plundered, hinted at their inevitable return. Only a unified, technologically advanced, and ruthlessly disciplined galactic empire could truly stand against such an existential cosmic horror. Westeros would be the crucible, the first step.
His son, Edric, was a capable governor of the Stormlands, but he was no Sith. His daughter, Lyra, showed a spark of cunning, but this world's patriarchal constraints limited her overt role. Vorhax knew he would likely rule for centuries, his lifespan extended by the Dark Side and Sith alchemy he was beginning to rediscover. He would need true apprentices, Force-sensitives if any could be found or cultivated on this world, or at least, utterly devoted disciples to carry on his dark legacy.
A report arrived from his new Imperial Spymaster, Will (now Lord William, a title bestowed for his long and loyal service, though he remained as unobtrusive as ever). Agents on Old Wyk had intercepted a strange vessel, a ship of unusual design, its crew speaking a language unknown even to Vorhax's extensive linguistic databanks. They had been blown far off course by a massive storm in the Sunset Sea, and spoke of vast, uncharted lands far to the west, beyond the Lonely Light.
Vorhax's eyes, which had been gazing at the familiar map of Westeros, now lifted, a new, predatory light dawning within them. Lands beyond Westeros. New continents. New worlds to conquer, to bring under his iron order.
The game was far from over. The Westerosi Empire was merely the first piece in a much grander, galactic puzzle. The Hawk's shadow was indeed long, and it was poised to stretch across horizons undreamt of by the petty kings he had overthrown.
(Word Count: Approx. 4400 words)