[Chapter Size: 4200 Words.]
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Third Person POV
White Harbor, 300 AC.
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Things in White Harbor were a bit tense. Wyman was in his solar, reflecting a little on the letters he had received over the last few days.
On one side there were the letters from the order of the maesters, documents that showed they had acted even before the rebellion happened. For Wyman that was even more frustrating, because the letter had arrived in his hands by chance.
He happened to be there at the moment the letter had been received directly for the maester, and he had no way to hide it due to the symbol it bore, with the seal of the very king of that realm who had sent it.
Wyman knew the maester wanted to read it first, and probably hide it, and that left the lord of White Harbor alarmed...
So he ended up reading the document in front of the maester.
The maester certainly saw the expression of surprise on his lord's face, before he turned pale and soon after began to show anger. His gaze fell upon the maester himself, a man who had served his house for more than thirty years.
There had been a letter at the beginning of the confusion of Robert's rebellion, destined for White Harbor that should have been sent to Winterfell. Lyanna Stark had written it, mentioning her marriage to Rheager... but that had never been reported to Lord Manderly. He did not even know that this letter existed...
Because of that he immediately flew into a rage.
"You wretch! I trusted you. How could you do this to me and to House Manderly? I treated you like family! Take him to the dungeons, now!", Lord Manderly finally ordered.
After that came the outburst of rage, while the maester could not understand why his lord was so furious to the point of sending his maester who had served the house for decades, for years...
It was precisely because Wyman believed those papers... because in the documents Wyman held in his hands, there was the very handwriting of the maester of his house, writing to the Citadel, stating that he had received Lyanna Stark's letter and asking that it be delivered personally in Winterfell so that her father could understand the situation, in case her body had not arrived.
The problem is that this letter had been burned, by the maester's own words, who confessed in the letter he sent to the Citadel and to his superiors of the order... and it had never been mentioned.
Wyman had never felt as much anger as he did at that moment toward that man. The man who had served his house for decades, since when his father was still the lord of White Harbor, and the maester had taken part in his education when he was still young.
But the man betrayed them.
And helped create an enormous war.
There was recent information that Lyanna had had a son with Rhaegar at the end of the war, while the prince fell at the Trident... It was none other than Jon Arctic, the war should not even have happened if perhaps it had been nothing more than a huge misunderstanding, at least in its beginning.
Wyman had always carried a weight in his heart because of Lyanna. He had felt some anger toward her in the past moons, due to her not having been kidnapped, but having run away like a girl in love... And that many in the North had died in vain... And Wyman was not the only one who believed that...
But now he realized that perhaps it was not only that.
The maesters... the damned maesters.
They had simply orchestrated the war. They manipulated what they could for the war to happen, their goal was to get rid of the dragons...
He remembered very well the maester himself asking him to raise his banners quickly, saying that Ned Stark would soon arrive in the North to lead the men at that time, after Brandon and Rickard Stark had been killed by the Mad King.
This might be the most controversial case of manipulation by the maesters, but Wyman could not help but wonder if the order of maesters, as the letter declared in detail, knew exactly what they were doing. That was manipulation, and it could also mean that they were trying to influence White Harbor in several areas.
After all, Wyman used to talk about trade, politics, and even military matters with the maester. He always listened to his opinion on various matters, an opinion he had always respected.
But now, he could not help but think that it had all been manipulation. Or everything the order wanted him to do...
The trust he had placed in that man was simply broken the moment he saw those papers... That breach of trust was horrible for a man who took care of White Harbor, but he also could not say that he was not grateful for being freed from his own ignorance.
How many times had they harmed the North? Wyman could not help but ask himself that when he remembered when food began to be bought in Braavos, through Arctic.
His maester always seemed to try to sabotage that decision, until the king's order was finally issued: that they could not buy food from Braavos, as that would finance a kingdom hostile to the Seven Kingdoms, with Arctic already having destroyed 2 fleets of the realm and sacked the Citadel.
"It seems we were deceived...", Wyman murmured to himself.
And as the North was at the moment... there was betrayal and invasion.
The Manderlys were in serious trouble... Wyman knew very well that many of these problems came from Roose Bolton. He held his eldest son, Wylis, as a prisoner, and had already sent a raven saying that if he refused to kneel, his son would be killed, executed in the name of King Joffrey.
The only one who was with him was Wendel, who managed to escape the chaos of the Riverlands.
However, Wyman himself looked at the Boltons' demand with a hard gaze. To him, Roose Bolton was nothing more than a traitor who should receive what he deserved: a sword to the neck.
However, his son was in their hands.
The Boltons were keeping him with them instead of holding him with the other prisoners at the Twins, Roose planned to leave him in Winterfell until the Manderlys fulfilled all of the Boltons' demands.
They wanted his granddaughters to be taken as hostages as well.
"Roose Bolton wanted to use Wynafryd and Wylla. That damned man dared to demand the Manderly girls just because he captured their father!"
Unthinkable.
"A bunch of traitors," he growled.
Or at least that was how he had thought for a long time, until that letter finally arrived.
At first he almost did not believe it when he saw the symbol. And certainly the anger he felt when he understood what that letter revealed, with the schemes of the maester himself, made him momentarily forget about Arctic.
While keeping the maester in the dungeons, asking questions, the man did not answer easily. He seemed to have already given up on his own life.
But he did not use any mockery. To him, his oath was worth more than his own life.
In any case, that was only the first letter of several that would come from Jon Arctic.
Soon after came another, informing that he was on Bear Island, entering the North with his army, but not to remain there.
He would go straight to Pyke.
That left Wyman radiant. Finally they had appeared.
He had heard about what happened at the Wall with Benjen's return and also about Stannis's fall. The lord of White Harbor had many thoughts about it, but nothing was greater than knowing that they were now finally in the North, with a fleet decimating the ironborn who had been tormenting the North for moons.
He firmly believed it would be a massacre. The krakens seemed to have forgotten what Arctic was capable of, and their arrogance in thinking they were invincible at sea would only lead them directly to a meeting with their Drowned God.
And so a few more days passed.
Wyman also took the opportunity to write to Driftmark. He still remembered very well the visit of Aurane Waters, who had arrived to ask about Arctic some moons ago.
House Velaryon wanted to renew their oaths with House Targaryen, even if it had now changed its name to Arctic. And if the son of Prince Rhaegar was none other than the powerful Jon Arctic, someone who had already proven to be far more than worthy through the kingdom he had built, then they would be among the first to raise their banners.
Wyman felt a small envy of that.
The Manderlys were also inclined to do the same, but not as openly as the Velaryons were demonstrating.
They had never truly supported Robb's claim, but they had to kneel.
Wyman Manderly knew politics very well and knew how to analyze a situation. He knew that, even if the Wall was intact, from the moment Arctic entered the North — especially when Ned himself had declared that the Seven Kingdoms belonged to Aegon Targaryen — the North would have to choose a side.
If the North wanted to follow its own banner and seek independence from the south, then why would they not kneel before Arctic?
Wyman certainly grew irritated when hearing some opinions about this, almost always illogical when they decided to make the lord of Winterfell the King in the North and the Trident...
If the North had formed a bond with Arctic, they would have all the necessary structure for their independence. Food would not be a problem. Power and trade would not either, as long as they knelt and made peace with a people who had been their enemies for thousands of years.
It was far more advantageous for the North to declare for Arctic, making Jon Arctic their sovereign, than to try to maintain a weak crown, especially while also having to rule the Riverlands, which were devastated by war and surrounded by enemies.
How could they take care of that kingdom while the North was being massacred by the ironborn and the Boltons were already acting in the shadows?
But there was someone who influenced things more than anyone else.
Lady Stark.
She was a real thorn in the side throughout the entire war and hindered Robb more than anyone else.
It was she who put the idea of the crown into Robb's head. At the beginning, Robb himself did not seem to want to accept it, but his mother pressured him.
According to some men who were able to hear their conversations, she said that he deserved to be king and that he should never live in the shadow of Jon Arctic. That Robb should prove he was no less than the other king, that he could accomplish things just as great as his cousin had already done...
When Manderly heard that, he mocked it. He wanted to see if Robb could go fight in Yi-Ti, conquer Meereen and all the nearby cities, face the Dothraki, and even, as people have been saying lately, face the army of the dead north of the Wall.
Robb, still immature as he was at the time, ended up giving in.
He would always live as someone inferior to Jon Arctic since the day he left Winterfell. And Jon had never shown any desire to try for a friendship with him, even having visited Bran and even Ned, but never wanting to see him when he appeared at Winterfell, as some people later came to know.
According to what some men said, Bran Stark ended up letting it slip in the weeks that followed after Lady Arya left Winterfell, that it seemed to leave Robb disturbed. In the end, he ended up accepting the crown.
They said Lady Stark was blinded by the ambition of making her son king. Even after the shock of discovering that Jon Arctic was not the son of Lord Stark, they said she wanted to prove that her son was just as worthy of being called king as the boy who once cleaned dirty stables in Winterfell.
In Wyman's opinion, that was pure hypocrisy.
After all, that woman had devised a scheme to send the child to the Wall without any shame. So it was never really about Jon being Lord Stark's bastard son or not. That woman had always shown herself to be a cruel and resentful person.
After everything, Winterfell already had another lady who was pregnant, whom Ned Stark had married. Wyman Manderly attended the ceremony.
When they learned of the fall of Winterfell and then the death of the boys, they feared the worst. Lady Stark became disturbed when she saw her son signing an official document stating that the next in the line of succession after Bran and Rickon was the baby in Lady Cassandra's belly.
Then the news arrived that a dragon had landed in Winterfell, that Jon Arctic had appeared without any warning, and had examined the boys' bodies, declaring that those bones did not belong to the Stark children.
Many did not believe it. Besides proving that Jon Arctic was still alive, wearing a suit of valyrian steel armor as he entered Winterfell, they said it was a move by the foreign king to manipulate the North... since now they were enemies.
The Manderlys did not see the situation the same way. They believed that if they were not the boys, then they were certainly alive somewhere in the North, and could be found and taken to a safe place.
Even though three moons had passed since that happened.
But the next letter that arrived changed everything.
It was a letter declaring that the ironborn had been eliminated on Bear Island and that Arctic had rid the North of its greatest raiders, having executed Victarion Greyjoy in front of everyone before the Mormont seat.
The next lines gave him even more hope.
The letter also said that Bran would now come to the North accompanied by an army of armored arcticans, ready to fight to bring the North back to the Starks.
And that he hoped House Manderly would renew their oaths.
They were direct in the letter.
Wyman Manderly did not need to think twice.
They had only accepted Robb's crown because they had no choice. They had no desire whatsoever to support it, but they also did not want to be destroyed by the North itself for refusing to accept the new crown.
Or rather, Lady Stark's ambition, as many said.
But she did not seem to foresee that her son would have a crown far too heavy for him to carry. The result was the destruction of almost the entire army of the North, while the rest were now dead, prisoners of the southern houses, or under Bolton control.
According to the reports, Ramsey Snow must have already arrived at Moat Cailin to try to open the way for his father to pass. He had already sent a scout to the city, but Wyman Manderly firmly refused the summons.
Roose still had a few thousand soldiers by his side and now Manderly knew that he would fall into desperation... That if Arctic was coming, facing that army as enemies would be inevitable.
And they would be annihilated.
That immediately brought a smile to Wyman Manderly's face. They would be completely exterminated. Roose Bolton would regret even thinking of destroying his trust with the North, if he had not betrayed Robb in pursuit of becoming the sovereign... they would have had a larger army and better trust, the North was weakened and divided, they would never have any chance against Arctic...
Thinking that Arctic would not return was a mistake. Just because they had not responded for a year did not mean the kingdom had simply disappeared from the world.
And now, even if they wanted to go against Arctic, the North was weakened. All those who believed they could handle independence would pay for it.
They would be seen as traitors before a furious army of the true king.
The Manderlys did not see Arctic's army as a band of domesticated savages, as others said. They saw a powerful people.
Wyman had always seen the free folk as a valuable resource as well. He understood that better than many others in the North, because he understood trade and politics more than most.
He knew how to see beyond the petty hatred of wars that he himself had never fought in the past, with most of the North living with hatred and anger they had never actually lived through...
And what he saw when they arrived in White Harbor, just as Arya had arrived and as she had left the North... He saw that the free folk were no longer undisciplined savages who raided the North. He saw an organized, disciplined, and powerful force.
Even their royal guards were several times better than most of the knights of the Seven Kingdoms and even the White Cloaks who guarded the king.
He still remembered when Ser Jaime had to face the woman and ended up being defeated by her, Jill was her name and she served Arya together with the other royal guard. That happened in front of the king, his own sister, and everyone else who was in Winterfell at that moment.
An army of those soldiers should march in the coming moons to King's Landing.
All those arrogant lords... would see the power of that kingdom. Westeros was about to change. They would tremble and the true king had arrived.
And with him, House Manderly would serve.
He would place his men and his banners to accompany him to King's Landing. Just as the Mormonts had done...
The sides had already been defined, and he knew very well which side he was on long before all that story began.
Robb would lose the right to Winterfell. That was no longer important to Wyman.
Bran would rule as lord of the North. He was also the son of Lord Stark and had been saved by Jon Arctic.
It was better to have Bran in Winterfell than the brother who let the crown break the North.
"Father, you called me?" Someone suddenly opened the door.
Wyman let out a sigh for the first time and watched his son enter.
"Wendel, come. And bring the girls as well," he asked.
As they entered the solar, they all looked confused. One of the girls had green hair, dyed a few moons ago as a protest and anger against the Lannisters and the Boltons.
Their father was in the hands of the Boltons.
"Another raven, father," said Wendel, observing the animal carefully.
Wyman took the parchment and handed it to his daughter. This was a third letter sent from Jon Arctic.
"What?!"
Wendel became stunned by the contents, leaving his nieces beside him, curious...
Wyman nodded slowly.
"Exactly. They declare that they are about to invade the North from the north... The king is going to Pyke, but Bran Stark is coming, representing Arctic while he goes to unify the entire realm," he said.
"Bran... son of Ned Stark, is alive..." Wendel murmured thoughtfully.
Wyman looked at him. "Yes. And, it seems, he is in Arctic and coming south."
"He must have taken a dragon," said Wendel.
One of the girls beside him raised her eyes, despite only understanding a little of what was happening there. "Wait, they say he has a dragon... Is that true, about the dragon? It was seen in Winterfell."
"We don't know for sure, the people who said that were killed by the Boltons..." Wyman replied.
"But if he has a dragon, he should have brought it south, right? He is a Targaryen..."
"I only know that, according to the very words of the king of Arctic, he is leaving Bear Island and going to Pyke, while a new army will enter the North soon."
He paused before continuing. "As I mentioned, the Wall is with them. So they will have no difficulty at all. Even if they were about to invade by land, they could easily use the sea with the fleet they possess. They could land at Karhold, or even here."
"And we will support them, right? Even though my brother is under the control of the Boltons?" Wendel said carefully.
The girls lowered their heads at that, between fear and anger.
"White Harbor will support Arctic," Wyman replied firmly. "It is no coincidence that we tried to keep good terms with them when Arya left. We knew they were the future. The future of the North and, perhaps, even of the Seven Kingdoms. His claim to the throne only increased that, but we already had an idea that the kingdom would be capable of dominating everything..."
He leaned back in his chair. "I remember that Willis Tyrell and his brother did not like our gift given to Arya very much at that time."
Wyman let out a small laugh, a humor he had not shown in months.
But the taste of knowing that the Boltons would soon be eliminated brought him a certain joy, he only hoped that his son would be rescued alive.
"Willis, despite his physical difficulties, is a good man. Intelligent as well. It is no wonder that he returned all the gold that Arctic had spent on the horses of the Reach — something they initially refused — and still returned it with interest," Wyman said calmly.
"So it is no wonder you offered Wynafryd's hand to him," Wendel commented.
"Wylla would be a good lady for Highgarden," Wyman replied. "But I knew it would not work. Our history with the Reach would not change so easily, even if the Gardeners no longer exist."
He crossed his arms. "Our contacts with Jon Arctic were not made only to benefit the Manderlys. Even if that was a way for us to get closer to Arctic and establish a relationship with the most powerful kingdom in the North, it would still not be enough. Perhaps Arctic would not even care about that."
Wyman turned his eyes back to the window. "But, in any case, the war is only beginning now."
"The stability that some believed existed after a few kings were defeated is about to change."
"Read the letter again..." Wyman said, and as he reread it, it seemed his father wanted him to see something else that they had not mentioned.
Wendel nodded as he scanned the text. "Well, it seems he is determined to exterminate the ironborn..." he murmured, quite satisfied with Victarion's death.
"Now he is sailing to Pyke. That means we will soon receive news about the destruction of another of the islands while he tries to invade the main one."
Wendel thought for a moment before speaking.
"I wonder what size fleet they have and where they managed to build so many ships. Perhaps staying there for eleven moons or even a year gave them enough time to rebuild them."
"May I see the letter?" Wylla asked.
Wendel handed the parchment to her, and she began reading it quickly. Her sister stretched her neck to try to follow along.
"This is good," Wylla replied in a dry tone.
That made her uncle and her grandfather look at the green-haired girl.
"I want the Boltons and the Lannisters to be eliminated once and for all. But if it starts with the ironborn, I will not mind," she said.
She lifted her gaze. "Lady Arya said when she was in White Harbor, after their campaign against the Dothraki in Essos, that no force in the world could stop him. Now we will see if he really is everything she says."
Wyman let out a small smile. "In any case, we will send a letter to Driftmark. Aurane Waters is taking care of the place in the name of his brother."
He crossed his arms. "I heard that his nephew, the heir, is quite debilitated. I also heard rumors that Aurane covets Driftmark and does not want to hand the island over to someone as weak as his nephew."
Wendel shrugged. "Well, it does not matter what happens within House Velaryon. We must do our part, as we promised in the letter to Lord Velaryon when his brother visited us in search of information about Arctic. They were willing to support him."
Wyman nodded. "If something happens, the king of Arctic will resolve it himself." In the end, his son simply agreed.
"Now we will wait to see the outcome." Wyman turned his gaze back to the three letters spread across the table.
While part of the army sailed through the west, the fate of the Seven Kingdoms was beginning to be decided.
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