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The morning sun painted Prince Doran's solar in shades of amber and gold, but Jon barely noticed the beauty of it. His attention was fixed on the miniature water wheel he'd placed on the Prince's ornate desk, where it sat like a child's toy among treaties and tax ledgers. The carved wood seemed to mock him now—all those late nights reduced to something that looked absurdly simple in the harsh light of political reality.
Prince Doran studied the model with those dark eyes, while Oberyn lounged against a window frame. Arianne stood beside Jon, but she had yet to say a word since he and her walked through those doors.
"Explain it," Doran said simply, his gout-swollen fingers drumming once against his chair's arm.
Jon stepped forward, turning the tiny crank. The miniature pots dipped and rose in their endless circle, water trickling from one to the next with a soft patter.
"The principle is old, my lord," Jon began. "The Rhoynar used similar devices before the dragons came. A wheel, perhaps fifteen feet in diameter when built to scale. Clay pots or leather buckets attached at regular intervals. As oxen walk their circuit—the same motion they use for grinding grain—the pots descend into the well, fill, and rise to pour into collection channels."
"Pretty," Oberyn observed. "And the yield?"
"A single wheel can raise a thousand gallons per hour, continuously, as long as the animals are rotated." Jon found himself falling into the familiar rhythm of explanation, the numbers he'd calculated so many times they'd invaded his dreams. "The Shadow City has six major wells. If each had such a wheel, we could serve twelve hundred families directly, with surplus for irrigation."
Doran's expression shifted minutely—the ghost of a frown. "Lord Yronwood draws considerable revenue from three of those wells. Lord Qorgyle controls the northern districts. Lord Blackmont owns water rights to a quarter of the Greenblood's farming tributaries." His voice was gentle, like he was speaking to a child. "You're not proposing innovation, boy. You're proposing revolution."
Boy. The word stung more than Jon expected. In Dorne, he'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be dismissed, to be less-than. But he pushed the feeling down, focusing on what mattered.
"Revolution suggests violence, my lord. This can be the future." Jon moved to the desk's edge, his purple eyes meeting Doran's directly. "Every additional acre under cultivation means more tax revenue. Every healthy child who survives their first summer because of clean water becomes a future soldier, craftsman, or farmer. The lords lose their water monopoly, yes, but they gain tenants who can actually afford higher rents because they're not spending everything on water."
"Such optimism," Oberyn said, his dagger still dancing. "Tell me, Snow—have you ever seen a lord willingly surrender power for the promise of future profit?"
"No," Jon admitted. "But I've seen Northern lords embrace windmills when they realized ground grain sold for ten times raw wheat. Sometimes greed serves progress better than good intentions."
Arianne moved then. She'd worn deep purple today—Jon suspected deliberately, to match his eyes.
"Why do you support this?" Oberyn asked his niece directly, his playful tone gone sharp. "You've never shown interest in agricultural reform before."
Arianne's smile was political, not the usual seductive smile she gave Jon. "Because a prosperous Dorne is a dangerous Dorne, Uncle." She spun the wheel slowly, watching the water cascade. "The Lannisters think us weak—a land of spices and sand, barely worth considering. Let them think it while we grow strong. Every well that runs freely is one more farm producing grain. Every healthy child is a future spear in our army. When the time comes for justice—" she looked directly at her father, "—would you rather have a Dorne of scattered, thirsty villages, or a Dorne that could feed an army for years?"
The room went still as a crypt. Jon knew of the hatred House Martell had for House Lannister; he had heard the stories, and he still remembered Obara's words about his aunt. Elia Martell's ghost might as well have been standing in the corner, her children's blood still crying out for justice.
"You think small wars," Doran said quietly. "I think in decades."
"Then think of this," Jon said, surprising himself with his boldness. "In a decade, with proper water distribution, Dorne's population could increase by a third. In two decades, you could be exporting grain instead of importing it. In three..." He let the implication hang.
"In three, we could be self-sufficient," Doran finished. "Independent, in all but name."
"The initial cost?" Oberyn asked, practical now.
"Minimal. The wheels can be built by any competent carpenter. The knowledge already exists—I'm not inventing, just recovering. The only real cost is the oxen and the labor to dig collection channels."
"And the political cost?" Doran's fingers had stopped drumming. Never a good sign, Jon had learned.
"That depends on the first demonstration," Arianne said. "Show it works, that the benefits are undeniable, and even the lords will struggle to oppose it publicly. They'll look like tyrants keeping water from children."
"They've looked like tyrants before," Oberyn pointed out. "It's never stopped them."
"No," Doran agreed. "But it's made them vulnerable." He was quiet for a long moment, so long that Jon wondered if he'd dozed off. Then those dark eyes opened fully, sharp as the spears his people favored.
"Lord Tharnock Ashaven rules Planky Town," Doran said. "Seventy namedays old, richer than the Lannisters think and more stubborn than a Dornish summer. He controls the Greenblood's largest port outside Sunspear, where half our river trade flows."
Jon's heart sank. An old lord, set in his ways—the worst possible test case.
"You have one week," Doran continued. "Convince Lord Ashaven to implement your water wheel. If you succeed, we'll consider expanding the program. If you fail..." He shrugged, the gesture somehow more threatening than any explicit warning.
"Why there?" Jon asked. "Why not here at Shadow Town, where we could oversee—"
"Because Planky Town has twelve wells and thirty thousand souls," Arianne interrupted. "It's Dorne's largest settlement. If it works there, it works anywhere. If it fails..." She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
Jon felt something cold settle in his stomach. Politics. Everything was politics here, even water, even life itself. In the North, at least enemies declared themselves with drawn steel. Here, they smiled while wondering how much they could take from you.
"I'll convince him," Jon said, because what else could he say?
"We'll convince him," Arianne corrected, and Jon felt warmth.
"Yes," Doran said, and was that approval in his voice? "Go. Prepare. And remember—Planky Town isn't just a test of your invention. It's a test of you."
As they left the solar, Jon carrying his model like a talisman, he caught Oberyn's parting words to Doran: "The boy has stones, at least."
"Stones sink in water," Doran replied. "Let's see if he can swim."
Walking down the corridor beside Arianne, Jon allowed himself one moment of dark humor. At least if I drown, it'll be in something other than politics for once.
"You did well," Arianne said quietly.
"I haven't done anything yet."
"You stood before the Prince of Dorne and told him his lords were standing in the way of progress. Most men would have pissed themselves."
"The day is young," Jon said, and was rewarded with her laugh—not the practiced one she used like a weapon, but something genuine and surprised.
Tomorrow, Planky Town. Tonight, preparation and prayer to gods both old and new. Because Jon was beginning to understand that in Dorne, even good intentions could be deadly if they threatened the wrong interests.
.
.
The maps spread across Jon's desk reminded him of blood vessels, the Greenblood and its tributaries branching through Dorne like veins carrying life to a thirsting body. He traced the river's path with one finger, noting where Planky Town squatted on its banks like a tick grown fat on trade. The town's position was clever—far enough inland to avoid pirates, close enough to the sea to smell profit on every tide.
A knock interrupted his calculations. "Enter," he called, not looking up from the population estimates he'd been annotating.
Arianne swept in without waiting for further invitation, bringing with her the scent of oranges and perfume.
"Plotting our conquest already?" she asked, peering over his shoulder. Her breast brushed his arm, and Jon felt his cock get hard under his breeches.
"Trying to understand what we're walking into," Jon replied, shifting slightly to give her better view while creating distance. "Planky Town has twelve wells but thirty thousand people. That's—"
"Twenty-five hundred souls per well," Arianne finished. "I can count, Snow."
"Can you? Because by my math, that's twice the burden of Sunspear's wells." He turned to face her, noting how she'd changed into practical riding leathers that still somehow managed to emphasize every curve. "Lord Ashaven is sitting on a disaster waiting to happen. You didn't sound happy when your father said his name during the meeting."
Arianne had a look of pure disgust on her face as if she had just swallowed the nastiest poison in the world. "The man's proposed to me three times. Three! He's seventy namedays, Jon. Seventy. His cock probably hasn't worked since Robert's Rebellion."
Jon chuckled. He loved this side of Arianne, the side that did not care and spoke her mind. "Princess—"
"Oh, don't go all Northern on me now." She dropped into a chair like a cat. "We leave before dawn, by the way. The heat between midnight and sunrise is actually bearable."
"Before dawn?" Jon glanced outside where the sun was already painting shadows long as spears. "That's barely six hours of sleep."
"Five, actually. We need to be mounted and moving by the fourth hour." She smiled at his expression. "What, did you think Dornish travel happened under the noon sun? We'd be cooked like capons before we reached the halfway mark."
"In the North, we travel during daylight. Easier to see wolves, bandits, Others..." He paused. "Though I suppose you don't have Others here."
"No, just the heat that kills you slowly and the cold that kills you fast."
Jon looked up sharply. "Cold? In Dorne?"
"Desert nights can freeze a man solid if he's not careful. Temperature drops like a stone once the sun dies." She tilted her head, studying him. "There are places—Whitesand regions, we call them—where water actually freezes. Where snow falls in winter."
"Snow? Here?" The irony wasn't lost on him.
"Rare as honor in King's Landing, but yes." Then her face changed a little; she seemed like she struggled with something, her eyes locked with his, and then a small smile spread on her beautiful face. "When I was young, maybe six or seven, I desperately wanted to see it. They say snow brings luck in Dorne—probably because anyone who survives seeing it deserves some fortune."
"If snow brings luck, you should visit Winterfell," Jon said. "We're drowning in the stuff. You'd be the luckiest woman in the Seven Kingdoms."
She laughed, but her eyes went distant. "I used to pray for luck then. Stupid, really."
Jon wanted to ask why a six-year-old princess needed luck so badly, but something in her face warned him off. Instead, he asked, "This Lord Ashaven—beyond his romantic delusions, what's his weakness?"
"Besides being older than the Conquest?" Arianne pulled her legs up, sitting cross-legged in the chair like a child at lessons. "He's stubborn as salted meat and twice as tough to chew. Won't listen to new ideas unless they come perfumed and painted pretty. But his heir, Josefin—he's different. Only fifty-one, practically a youth by Ashaven standards."
"Only fifty-one," Jon repeated dryly. "A mere child."
"The old lord has... let me count." She held up her hands, ticking off fingers, counting the many children he had. Eventually, she ran out of fingers to use. "Too many." she added in the end with a cute smile. "The man breeds like he's trying to populate Dorne single-handedly."
"Sounds like Lord Walder Frey. Eighty-eight namedays and still siring children. Though at least Frey has the decency to marry women who might survive the ordeal."
"Poor Lady Ashaven," Arianne agreed. "Can you imagine? Seventy years old, fumbling at you with spotted hands, breathing like a broken bellows while he—" She shuddered theatrically.
"You paint a beautiful picture," Jon said, trying not to imagine it himself. "So we focus on Josefin?"
"We focus on whoever listens. But Jon..." She leaned forward, serious now. "Lord Ashaven will want to impress me. Use that. He'll preen and posture like a peacock with gout. Let him. While he's displaying his tail feathers, you can be explaining your water wheels to people who actually matter."
"Peacock with gout," Jon mused. "There's an image I'll never unscrub from my mind."
They spent another hour strategizing, falling into an easy rhythm that surprised Jon. Arianne would pose a problem—what if the lord demanded immediate results, what if the workers refused to build it—and Jon would counter with solutions pulled from his weeks of research. Sometimes she'd challenge him just to watch him think,.
"You know," she said eventually, standing to leave, "you're almost fun when you're not being tragically noble."
"And you're almost tolerable when you're not trying to seduce everything with a pulse," Jon shot back.
She pressed a hand to her chest in mock offense. "I don't seduce everything. I have standards. The pulse needs to be strong, the body willing, and the mind..." She looked him up and down. "Interesting."
"Get out," Jon said, but he was smiling.
"Don't oversleep," she called from the doorway. "I'd hate to have to come wake you personally."
"Would you?"
Her grin was pure wickedness. "No. But you might hate how much you'd enjoy it."
After she left, Jon returned to his maps, but his mind kept drifting. Tomorrow, Planky Town. A test not just of his invention but of this strange partnership he'd formed with the Princess of Dorne. In the North, alliances were sealed with oaths and honor. Here, they seemed to be forged from wit and want and the promise of something neither of them could quite name.
Five Hours Later
The stars could still be seen when Jon swung himself into the saddle, his breath misting in air that felt borrowed from the North. The desert's nighttime transformation never ceased to amaze him—the same ground that could make water evaporate within seconds now crunched with frost beneath the horses' hooves.
"Careful with those reins, Snow," Nymeria called out, already mounted on a sand steed that looked capable of outrunning gossip. "Wouldn't want you damaging your best parts before Arianne gets to properly appreciate them."
"Your concern for my parts is touching, Lady Nymeria."
"Someone has to protect Dorne's interests," she replied with a grin that would've made a septon blush. "And from what I recall, you're very... interested in Dorne."
Fifteen Martell guards formed up around them.
Arianne emerged from the palace looking impossibly alert for the hour, her riding leathers creaking softly as she mounted her horse. Sarella followed, carrying what appeared to be half a library in her saddlebags.
"Planning to read to Lord Ashaven until he surrenders?" Jon asked her.
"These are genealogies," Sarella replied, patting the bulging bags. "Planky Town has one of the oldest record halls in Dorne. I want to compare their chronicles with what we have in Sunspear."
"Most people go to new places for the food or the sights," Arianne observed. "Sarella goes for the dusty books."
"Books don't try to propose marriage three times," Sarella shot back, and even in the pre-dawn gloom, Jon caught Arianne's grimace.
They rode in comfortable silence as Sunspear fell away behind them, the palace's towers becoming suggestions against the lightening sky. The road followed the Greenblood's course, though at a respectful distance—flooding was rare but memorable when it occurred.
"You're nervous," Arianne said, bringing her horse alongside his.
"I'm calculating," Jon corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there? Because you're gripping those reins like they owe you money."
Jon consciously relaxed his hands. The truth was, he was nervous. In the training yard, mistakes meant bruises. In politics, they meant bodies. And he was about to play politics with a lord who'd survived seventy years of Dornish intrigue.
"Tell me about Planky Town's strategic importance," he said, partly to distract himself, partly because information was armor.
"It's where the Greenblood becomes navigable for sea vessels," Arianne explained. "Everything from the upper river has to transfer cargo there. Pole boats from Vaith, trade barges from Godsgrace, even some boats from Yronwood when they're not being prideful about using roads instead."
"So Lord Ashaven controls the bottleneck."
"Lord Ashaven is the bottleneck," Nymeria interjected. "Old, clogged, and everyone's waiting for him to finally clear."
The landscape changed as they rode, scrub brush giving way to date palms and orange groves. Jon could understand why people fought over water rights here. In the desert, a river was a god.
"Thirty thousand people," Jon mused aloud. "If each wheel serves two hundred families, we'd need—"
"Six wheels to make a real difference," Sarella finished. "Assuming standard family sizes and distribution patterns."
"Show-off," Nymeria muttered.
"Mathematics isn't showing off, it's precision," Sarella replied primly.
"Everything's showing off if you do it right," Arianne said, and Jon caught her meaningful glance.
The sun was beginning to rise when Jon spotted the first outlying buildings of Planky Town. His stomach tightened.
"Remember," Arianne said quietly, "the old lord will focus on me. Use that distraction."
"You're not a distraction," Jon said without thinking. "You're a strategy."
She blinked; she appeared surprised by his words. "Why Jon Snow, I believe that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about my manipulation tactics."
"I live to serve, Princess."
"Liar," she said, but she was smiling. "You live to build a better water distribution. Much less romantic."
"Romance doesn't keep children from dying of thirst."
"No," she agreed, her voice sobering. "It doesn't."
The red walls of Planky Town rose from the riverbank like dried blood against parchment, three meters of baked brick that seemed almost quaint after Sunspear's soaring towers. Jon counted the defensive positions automatically—twelve towers, evenly spaced, manned by guards who looked half-asleep in the growing morning heat. A wall built for river pirates and trade disputes, he thought, not for real war.
The town sprawled beyond those modest walls. It was easily twice the size of Shadow City, Planky Town had simply... accumulated. Buildings leaned against each other like drunks after a feast, their flat roofs creating an uneven skyline.
"Charming," Nymeria observed, wrinkling her nose as they approached the gates. "It smells like someone fermented a fish in horse piss."
"That's the tanneries," Sarella said absently, already craning her neck to spot the record hall. "They use urine in the leather-making process."
"Thank you for that delightful detail," Arianne said dryly.
The guards at the gate wore mail that had seen better decades, their spears more rust than steel. But when Arianne rode forward, they straightened like flowers finding sun.
"Princess Arianne Martell," she announced, though Jon suspected she could have claimed to be the Maiden herself and they'd have believed her. The morning light turned her olive skin to gold, and her riding leathers clung in ways that made the guards' eyes glaze over like poorly fired pottery.
"Princess," the senior guard managed after a moment of visible struggle. "Yes. We were... that is, Lord Ashaven... you're expected."
They passed through the gates into streets that couldn't decide if they wanted to be packed dirt or cobblestone. The castle squatted at the town's heart like a toad made of the same red brick as the walls, functional, forgettable, and somehow embarrassed by its own existence.
Jon could see the Greenblood beyond, its brown waters thick with pole boats and shallow-draft barges. The port was busy but small—perhaps a quarter the size of White Harbor's sprawl. No wonder Sarella had said Planky Town wasn't a true port city. This was a transfer point, a place where river met sea but neither claimed dominance.
"My lord! Princess!"
Ten men appeared from a side street, wearing matching tunics in House Ashaven's colors—brown and gold, which Jon thought made them look like well-dressed mud. Their leader, a nervous man with a beard, bowed so low Jon worried he might topple.
"We are here to ensure your safe passage to the castle," the man declared, as if the hundred yards of open street were fraught with danger.
Jon caught Arianne's eye. She was fighting a smile.
"How thoughtful," she said, her tone suggesting it was anything but. "I do so worry about these treacherous morning streets. Why, just yesterday I heard of someone stubbing their toe quite viciously."
The bearded man blinked, uncertain if he was being mocked. Jon took pity on him.
"We appreciate the escort," Jon said. "I'm Jon Snow, here to discuss water management with Lord Ashaven."
"Water management," the man repeated, as if Jon had said 'dragon husbandry' or 'Other negotiations.' "Yes. Of course. This way."
The escort formed up around them, it would have been impressive if it weren't so unnecessary. They processed through streets where merchants were just setting up their stalls. Jon noticed how many water sellers there were—one on every corner, their clay jars sweating in the heat.
"Ten men to walk us a hundred yards," Nymeria muttered. "Does Lord Ashaven think we're going to be attacked by aggressive merchants?"
"He's trying to impress," Arianne said quietly.
"He could be your grandfather. Your great-grandfather, if people started young enough." Sarella mused behind them.
The castle gates were already open when they arrived, which Jon thought rather defeated the purpose of having gates. More guards lined the courtyard, standing at attention like they were expecting a royal visit. Which, Jon supposed, they were.
The castle itself was even less impressive up close. Where Sunspear had been built to inspire awe, this had been built to not fall down. The stones were fitted competently, the towers were straight enough, and the whole thing was held together with hopes and prayers.
"It's very... sturdy," Jon offered.
"You're too kind," Arianne said. "It looks like someone described a castle to a blind mason who'd never seen one."
"At least it has good bones," Sarella said. "The foundations are solid. You could build something impressive on top of—"
"Ladies, my lords!"
A man emerged from the keep's entrance, dressed in silk. He had brown hair and a long chin; if it were any sharper, it would be a dagger attached to his face.
"I am young Ser Josefin Ashaven," he announced, bowing with actual grace. "My lord father awaits you in the great hall."
Fifty-one and still calling himself young, Jon thought.
As they dismounted, stable boys rushing forward to take their horses, Arianne moved close to Jon.
"Are you ready for this?" she asked quietly, her dark eyes searching his face.
Jon looked at the modest castle, thought of the old lord waiting inside, of the thirty thousand people who needed water, of Prince Doran's test and all it implied. He thought of his model, carefully packed in his saddlebags, and the weeks of work it represented. He thought of that woman in Sunspear's market, choosing between water for herself or her children.
"I'm ready," he said. Then quickly added: "I'm glad you're here with me."
Arianne's eyes widened slightly, and then—was that pink creeping across her cheeks? The Princess of Dorne, who'd faced down his resistance with relentless flirtation, who'd stood before him naked and unashamed, was blushing because he'd said he was glad for her company.
She looked away, the blush deepening. "Yes, well. Someone has to make sure you don't bore the old lord to death with your engineering talk."
But her voice was softer than usual. Jon felt warmth spreading across his chest, warmer than the sun above them.
"Shall we?" Ser Josefin prompted, and the moment broke like river ice in spring.
They walked toward the keep's entrance, Arianne still not quite meeting his eyes, that blush still painting her cheeks rose-gold in the morning light. Jon felt oddly powerful, having caused such a reaction with simple honesty.
Perhaps, he thought as they crossed the threshold into whatever political maze awaited them, there's something to be said for truth in a world built on pretense.
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