79 AC. Volantis
POV: Corlys Velaryon
I was asleep in my room after an exhausting walk along the shores of the fallen empire when I felt someone disturb the protective wards I had placed on the room. I opened my eyes, let magic flow through my body, and sensed a stranger's presence by the window.
"And how long do you plan to stand there?" I asked my uninvited guest.
The stranger froze for a moment in surprise, then lunged at me. He never reached me. My first spell stunned him, and the second bound him to a chair.
"And who might you be?" I asked the disarmed assassin. "You crept into my room through the window and decided to kill me," I went on with the interrogation.
The man said nothing and kept staring me in the eyes.
"Don't want to talk? Fine, don't. I don't need your cooperation to get what I want," I said with a smirk. It had been a long time since I'd done this; I even felt a pang of nostalgia. "Well then, shall we begin? Legilimens!" I cast the spell and burst into his memories.
What I saw intrigued me. As it turned out, our guest was a Faceless Man, sent for my life under contract.
"So, a Faceless Man," I said, and got my first reaction: his eyes widened, but he quickly composed himself. "What am I to do with you, Simon? Don't look so surprised, I've learned a great deal about you. Perhaps I should just kill you and be done with it? No, I have a better idea. You will serve me."
"I serve only the Many-Faced God," he answered, for the first time during my entire monologue.
"Oh, you will serve me, whether you like it or not," I replied. "If I were you, I'd brace myself. The pain will be hellish."
After raising a soundproof barrier around the room, I forced my way into Simon's mind. He screamed magnificently; if not for the barrier, he would have woken half of Volantis. Ignoring his cries, I began to reshape his mind and perception. Such a process demands mastery of the mind arts, or else the patient risks being left a vegetable for the rest of his days. After an hour of a procedure that was delicate work for me but sheer agony for Simon, it was over.
I untied him.
"Master," he said, sinking to one knee.
The form of address nearly made me shudder. The image of a certain snake-faced man I had sent to the grave immediately surfaced in my mind. Well, at least he wasn't kissing the hem of my robes.
"From this day forth, your name is Aguilar, and to the rest of the Faceless Men, you are dead," I said gravely.
"As you command, Master," he replied with fanatical devotion. "But after my failure, the Faceless Men will send others."
"I'll deal with them myself. Now go and find a criminal whose face you will wear," I ordered.
"It will be done, Master," he answered, and leapt out the window.
I had been meaning to found an order of assassins to serve me and my family. Aguilar could be used to teach the recruits the tricks of the Faceless Men; with that kind of training, my assassins would be even more effective. But what interested me most was something else. Who had paid for my death? What fool thought himself immortal? Of course, I understood that I had made plenty of enemies by expanding my trade, but hiring the Faceless Men to get rid of me? Well, no matter, it could all be dealt with. If the wizarding war hadn't killed me, the Faceless Men wouldn't manage it either.
The matter was settled a week later, when I paid a visit to the House of Black and White. The Faceless Men and I came to an agreement: if anyone ever sought to buy my death or that of a member of my family, I would pay them twice the price for the name of the brave soul. As it turned out, the one who had paid for my head was a magister of Tyrosh from whom I had taken a sizable share of the market. Need I mention that this magister was soon struck down by a heart attack that killed him?
79 AC. Driftmark
My whole family turned out to greet me at the docks of Spicetown. My mother nearly squeezed all the air out of me with her embrace. My brothers and grandfather were more reserved. Grandfather Daemon did not care for sentimental displays, and my brothers often imitated him in public.
"How was your first voyage, Corlys?" Mother asked, her eyes full of worry.
"Better than anyone could have expected, Mother," I answered mischievously.
"Enough. Alice, don't pester the boy with questions. We'll discuss everything in detail in my solar," Grandfather said, coming to my rescue.
Three hours later, after a bath and a family supper, Mother, Grandfather, and I sat in his handsomely furnished solar.
"Now tell me in detail how the negotiations in Volantis went and why you were delayed so long. And please, spare me the tale the whole crew is gossiping about," Grandfather said seriously.
"What tale?" Mother asked, suddenly alert.
I swallowed nervously, weighing whether to tell the truth or stick to the "tale" to the bitter end. Grandfather, understanding exactly what position I was in, smirked as though he were watching a mummer's show rather than his own grandson's suffering.
"I'll start with the fact that the Volantenes agreed to our terms. In exchange for increased shipments of our goods, they're willing to cut the customs duties in half," I told Grandfather.
"Considering we already meant to increase our exports, that only works in our favor," Daemon said, pleased.
"Yes, it does," I forced out, knowing what was coming next.
"But you haven't answered my question. Where were you all this time?" Grandfather reminded me.
"In Valyria," I said, and braced myself for the explosion, which was not long in coming.
"I'm sorry, what?" Mother cried out. Seeing that I was perfectly serious, she went on, "Have you lost your mind? How could you go there? Did you not think of me or your brothers at all?" She was barely holding back tears.
"It's not really all that dangerous," I began to defend myself. Seeing their skeptical looks, I added, "For me."
"What do you mean, Corlys?" Grandfather spoke up for the first time since my confession.
"Anyone else wouldn't last an hour there, but for an experienced mage, it's no trouble at all," I answered.
"So you went to Valyria and came back alive," he said, realizing where I was going with this. "And? Did you find anything of interest?"
"You know, not everything there was destroyed," I replied with a smile. "You could say that House Velaryon is now the richest house in both Westeros and Essos. The rest just don't know it yet."
Seeing the shock in their eyes, I began to tell them about my adventure.
"Are you saying that, on top of all our other riches, our house now holds the secret of forging Valyrian steel?" Mother asked in disbelief.
"And not only that."
"What else?" Grandfather asked, understanding that I had saved the grandest news for last.
"Let's just say the Targaryens are no longer the only family that will have dragons," I answered, with a manic gleam in my eyes that Bellatrix Lestrange herself would have envied.
"You mean…" Daemon couldn't finish.
"We have fifty-two dragon eggs, and I intend to bind them exclusively to our bloodline," I replied.
"If the royal family finds out…" Mother began anxiously.
"They won't be able to do a thing!" I said menacingly. "And if they try to harm us, I'll do to the Targaryens what even Maegor couldn't do."
No one needed to be told what I meant.
"Now that we have the coin, we need to invest it," I said, changing the subject, and both of them were glad of it.
"Do you have any worthwhile ideas?" Grandfather asked.
"I propose we expand our merchant fleet and our war fleet, and increase the production of our wines, spirits, and other goods. That will help grow our trade with both continents. We should also invest heavily in expanding the castle and improving the town." In my dreams, I saw Spicetown as something between Renaissance Florence and Venice. "And I propose we break into a new market."
"And which one would that be?" Mother asked.
"Right now, only Myr knows how to make glass. They hold a monopoly on this rare and very expensive commodity," I began to explain. "And frankly, their quality is sh—"
"Ahem…" Mother interrupted. Ah, right, she couldn't abide her sons using foul language.
"What I meant to say is that their product is… how shall I put it… of very poor quality," I said, correcting my slip. "I know how to make far better glass, and we can use that to our advantage: first we lure away their customers, and then we take over the entire market."
"It's a good opportunity for us. I agree with you," Grandfather replied.
We also discussed founding a university to educate the young and promising generation. I had never liked the Citadel's monopoly on knowledge. The maesters were stuck in their dogmas and were holding Westeros back. Westeros lacked educated people who could be trusted to run enterprises and trade ventures. I intended to fix that by founding a place of learning where people could be taught and could hone their skills. For that, I would invite various guilds from Essos and Westeros, and enlist the support of our own maester, a man I could trust.
We discussed many other projects and talked late into the night, but the main thing was done: we had reached an agreement and charted our course for the future.
By the time I returned to my room, it was past midnight. I decided to get a good night's sleep and, starting tomorrow, continue studying the books I had found in Valyria.
"Gods, I'm tired," was all I managed to say before drifting off into the arms of Morpheus.