Aldric's lips quirked into a dry smile. He looked at Alis Waters, his brow arched in amusement. "Miss Alis, the Seven Kingdoms have long forbidden the sale of flesh. You ask for my soldier as if she were a bolt of silk. Surely a woman of your standing knows the Law?"
"Oh, Lightbringer, you mistake me," Alis said, waving her hands in a flurry of silver rings. "In King's Landing, I saw Sandor Clegane many times. The ruin of his face was... unforgettable. But when Friar John called forth a tall, handsome knight and told me it was the Hound, I thought my eyes had failed me."
"Hear that, Sandor?" Aldric called out over his shoulder. "The lady thinks you're a prize."
"Tell her to get her eyes mended," Clegane grunted from his saddle, his voice a low rasp. "Being blind is no way to do business."
Alis turned back to Aldric, her voice dropping to a whisper. "The power you wield makes gold look like dross. John tells me that to wake the Light, one must shed their pride and give their soul to the cause. Is that the truth of it?"
"The Light is a burden, Alis," Aldric said, his expression hardening. "It is a responsibility, not a privilege. It is the weight of the sun, not the glitter of a crown."
Alis sighed, a flicker of disappointment crossing her face. "Then I fear I shall walk in the shade forever. But the capital is a sea of sharks. If I return with these miracles, my 'friends' in the guilds will find ways to bleed me. I need a Sunwalker at my side—someone to guard my neck and witness how I treat your goods. It secures us both."
Aldric shook his head firmly. "The Light was born to guide the smallfolk, not to be a gilded shield for merchants. Martha is a girl of seventeen. If the High Lords learn she can mend flesh with a touch, they will lock her in a cellar and treat her like a captured maester. I will not risk it."
Alis leaned in, her gaze intense. "I swear by the Mother, her secret remains mine. To my men, she will be your overseer. To the court, she will be my handmaid. No one will know her true nature but me."
Aldric hesitated. He had kept the Resonance Crystals under tight lock, fearing exactly this—that his Sunwalkers would become the new "Valyrian steel," prizes to be stolen and enslaved by the Great Houses. When a power arrives that can break the world, the old world will stop at nothing to own it. It had happened with dragons; it would happen with the Light.
"Miss Alis, a person is not—"
"Commander, I'll go," Martha interrupted. She rode forward, her eyes bright with a stubborn fire.
Aldric frowned. "Martha, King's Landing is a pit. The Lords there treat commoners like consumables. You've heard the reports—men eating each other in Flea Bottom, the Queen's justice falling on anyone who breathes the wrong way."
"Is it worse than the Lands of Always Winter?" Martha countered, her jaw set. "Is it colder than the wind that skins a man alive? Is it more terrifying than the Others, with their pale eyes and the silence they bring? Beyond the Wall, every breath is a gamble with the grave. I can handle a city of pampered lions."
"But—"
"Let me go," Martha insisted. "Alis is right. You need eyes on the trade. And besides," she rolled her eyes playfully, "you've kept me minding the Highborn ladies for moons. My spear is getting 'rusty,' and it's been a long time since I've had a proper fight."
Aldric looked to Kevin for help, but the boy only shrugged.
"Fine," Aldric sighed. "If you are set on this, you go. But before you leave the Monastery, see Gendry. Tell him I ordered a suit of fine-link Sun-Steel mail—the kind that can be hidden beneath a silk tunic. If he has none, tell Master Balin to use the water-press to draw the wire."
Aldric's workshops had recently mastered a hydraulic drawing machine. Powered by the rushing currents of the Gods Eye, a massive waterwheel drove a series of wooden gears and crank-arms. The rhythmic thump-hiss of the machine could draw iron rods through decreasing stone dies, producing fifty kilograms of fine wire a day where a man could barely pull five. The wire was snipped into rings and woven by refugees—a labor-intensive process that produced a mail so light and strong it was practically a second skin.
"I'll see it done, Master," Martha said, exchanging a knowing glance with Alis.
Aldric watched them, wondering when exactly his "Spear-Wife" and the "Silk Merchant" had become allies.
"Sandor," Aldric called.
"Aye?"
"The bastards who sacked this town were the remnants of the Brave Companions—the mummers your brother kicked out of Harrenhal. You know these woods. Take twenty horse and smoke them out."
"I only brought a handful of riders," Clegane noted.
"I'll give you twenty more. Sunwalkers among them. Go tomorrow."
The next morning, the reconstruction of Saltpans began.
Aldric stripped off his gilded plate and donned a simple gray tunic. He spent the day hauling blackened timber and clearing the rubble of collapsed homes. The stench of the dead was a thick, physical weight, but the soldiers worked in a grim, respectful silence.
Once the ruins were cleared, they buried the hundred-plus victims on a ridge overlooking the bay. Aldric led the rites, his voice carrying over the salt spray. He spoke not of noble houses, but of the Light that would replace the rot of the High Lords—a world where Law was a shield for the weak, not a whip for the strong.
By dusk, the town was a blank slate of scorched earth. Aldric left two companies of infantry and his steward, Greme, to oversee the building of the new brick-and-timber port. He then led the remainder of his host—and the "captive" House Cox—back toward the Monastery to meet the new recruits.
Farther north, near the Kingsroad, Sandor Clegane sat his horse with a cold, predatory focus.
"How close?" he asked.
Jimmy, one of his riders, kicked a corpse in the brush. "A day's ride. This one was a Mummer—I saw his salt-crusted boots. His mates left him to rot when he slowed them down."
"Move," Clegane commanded.
They followed the trail toward a crossing on the Trident. As they neared the ford, a column of fifty riders and archers emerged from the trees. Three knights led the way.
"Halt!" the lead knight roared, seeing Clegane's well-equipped troop. He signaled his archers to notch their shafts. "Who flies those banners?"
Clegane looked at the red-and-gold sun-stars of the Dawn. "Identify yourself before you ask a man his business, Ser."
"I am Ser Arwood Frey," the knight shouted. "With me are Ser Donnel and Ser Harys Haigh. I have never seen your sigil in these lands!"
Clegane nudged his horse forward, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "I am Sandor Clegane. These are my men. We are hunting rabid dogs."
"Sandor Clegane?" Ser Harys Haigh gasped, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. He stared at Clegane's face—smooth, unscarred, and whole. "I know that voice! But by the Seven... where are your burns, man?"
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