Rider stood at the edge of the clearing where Fort Despair's shadow met the open plain. Dust drifted around his boots as workers hammered, dug, and shouted over the rumble of carts. What had once been a ruin of broken stone and ash was slowly becoming something alive. Smoke from new forges mixed with the scent of stew from makeshift kitchens. The sound of people—actual people—filled the air.
The fort itself could no longer hold everyone. Soldiers crammed into barracks, refugees slept in stables, traders argued over space near the gates. Every corner was filled.
"We need to expand," Rider said, spreading a rough map across the planning table. Captain Kane leaned over it, eyes narrowing. Torwin sat opposite, arms folded.
"Expand with what?" Kane asked. "We barely have enough coin for salt and nails."
Rider tapped the parchment. "We have land. Labor. And need. That's all a kingdom ever begins with."
Torwin gave a short, skeptical laugh. "You'll be planting banners in sand next, Your Grace. Nothing grows in the Grey Waste."
"Not naturally," Rider said, eyes glinting. "But we can change that." He reached for his notebook—pages filled with rough sketches and half-remembered ideas from the Valyrian texts. "If we redirect water from the hot springs, we can test a water-based growing method. Soil's useless here, but water can carry life."
"Water farming?" Torwin frowned. "You're serious?"
"It's theory," Rider admitted, "but we'll make it practice."
The next weeks blurred into labor and noise. The settlement grew outward—makeshift homes of stone and scavenged wood, new workshops taking shape, paths carved by endless footsteps. Still, the heart of it all was Rider's experiment—the idea of food grown in a place where nothing should grow.
Finding minds capable of helping him was harder than finding hands. The Grey Waste offered plenty of the latter. But when he spoke of numbers, temperature, and flow control, most people stared like he was describing sorcery.
"Announce a test," Rider told Kane. "Anyone who believes they can think better than swing a hammer gets a chance. Pay them if they prove it."
"Half these folk can't even read."
"Then we test them by speech, not script."
Only three answered the call. One could count coins; another claimed to have farmed before the war; the third, a quiet woman with ink-stained fingers, solved every problem Rider posed before the others even understood the question.
"Mera," she said when asked her name.
"Your father taught you?"
"He was a scribe. Died years ago. I've been cleaning houses since."
Rider studied her for a long moment. "Then you'll clean calculations now. You start tomorrow. Same for the others. Triple wages."
They began the first trials with little more than hope and a trough of diverted spring water. Seeds rotted. Plants drowned. Every failure weighed on the workers, but Rider's resolve only sharpened.
"Adjust the temperature," he ordered. "The water's too warm. Try cooling it before channeling."
Days turned to weeks. Then one morning, Mera came running to his quarters, breathless and trembling. In her hand, a small green stem.
"It grew," she said, grinning. "Your Grace—it lived."
The plant was ugly, half-bent and pale—but alive. For the first time, they had proof that life could take root even in this dead land.
"Now we make it not one," Rider said quietly, "but a hundred."
As the system spread—stone troughs, wooden racks, a maze of flowing channels—the settlement began to shift. Refugees who once begged for food now worked to produce it. Traders returned, curious to see how a forgotten fort had become a living town.
New buildings rose. Families claimed corners of the settlement. A marketplace took shape—rough stalls of planks and tarp, but buzzing with energy. A sharp-eyed merchant woman named Kess soon approached Rider with a proposal.
"Governor, if you want this place to survive, it needs order. Stalls, rules, taxes. Structure."
Rider smiled faintly. "Then write it. Bring me a system that works."
Weeks later, Kess handed him a handwritten charter. Primitive, but sound. He approved it with a single line of ink. Soon, trade became smoother. Fort Despair wasn't just surviving—it was functioning.
At night, Rider often sat by candlelight in his study, reading whatever scraps of knowledge Maester Colwyn had salvaged. Reports of distant wars, merchant gossip, royal decrees. The world beyond the Waste was changing fast.
He read about the silver-haired queen who had hatched three dragons in a land across the sea. Daenerys Targaryen. A girl who'd built her strength from ash and exile.
"She had dragons," Rider murmured to himself, tracing the name with his finger. "And I have one."
Vaetrix, still hidden beneath the cavern, was growing faster now—scales darkening, eyes brightening with intelligence. But the dragon was still too small to fly, too young to command. Revealing him now would draw every enemy in the realm.
No one could know. Not yet.
One evening, as Rider and his captains gathered for supper, a lone rider approached the fort, his horse staggering from exhaustion. Mud splattered his armor, and his voice cracked as he handed over a sealed letter.
"For Governor Rider," he gasped.
Rider broke the seal. The ink was fresh, the handwriting unfamiliar:
> King Aldric is dead. Queen Selyse rules as regent. Loyalists executed or in hiding. You are declared traitor and exile. A bounty of one thousand gold dragons is placed on your capture.
The words blurred. For a moment, he didn't move.
"My father…" he whispered.
When he finally looked up, his expression had hardened into steel. "Captain Kane. Torwin. Gather the officers. Now."
Minutes later, the command room filled with tense silence.
"The throne has fallen," Rider said, laying the letter on the table. "Selyse rules the capital. And she's coming for anyone tied to my father—including us."
Kane's face darkened. "Then we fortify."
"And we accelerate everything," Rider said. "The farms, the walls, the army. We need to stand on our own before the storm hits."
He looked around the room, meeting each man's gaze in turn. "From this day, Fort Despair is not a refuge. It's a nation being born."
The following months were a blur of motion. Walls rose higher, towers sprouted watch fires, the hydroponic fields expanded until green stretched where only dust once lay. The townsfolk worked without complaint; fear and purpose fused them into something stronger.
One night, as Rider inspected the growing settlement from the ramparts, Garros approached him quietly.
"You need rest, Your Grace," he said. "If you fall, everything else follows."
Rider stared at the flickering lights below—the homes, the smoke, the people who'd chosen to stay. "Then I'll rest when the walls are stone, and not before."
Days later, he gathered the townspeople in the square. Nearly five hundred now stood before him—soldiers, traders, farmers, children.
"The Queen calls me traitor," he said, his voice carrying over the crowd. "And when her soldiers come, they'll come for this place too. But I will not abandon you. I built this with you, and I'll die before I let it fall."
A hush swept the crowd. Then a soldier raised his fist. "We'll fight with you, Governor."
[ Note : readers please appreciate our work with your power stone support .
Revive : if you feel chapter are placing too fast I can slow down or share other thaught need for improvement .]