Baelon waded through the ruins, fingers wrapped around the hilt of his blade, as his eye flicked to and fro.
Helaena stayed close behind him, almost pressed to his back, her hands gripping the folds of his cloak as her gaze flicked from shadow to shadow.
Oros did not greet them as a dead city should have.
There was no wind to stir the dust, no creak of settling stone, no distant cry of birds bold enough to nest among the ruins.
The silence only thickened the deeper they ventured, pressing against the ears until it felt oppressive...eerie even.
For a fleeting moment, Baelon had the thought that the city was some ancient beast that was holding its breath.
Still, even in its ruin, Oros could not fully hide what it had once been.
Baelon saw it in the wide avenues now choked with rubble, broad enough for processions and war-beasts alike.
He saw it in the remnants of tiered foundations, where entire districts must once have risen in quiet harmony.
The city's bones still lay beneath the rot and collapse, testifying to a time when Oros stood as one of the Freehold's crowning achievements…second only to Valyria itself.
Black stone dominated everything. Not the polished, mirror-smooth black of Valyria at its height, but something dulled, scarred, and worn down by centuries of ash and rain.
"Where will we need to look?" Helaena whispered from behind.
Baelon slowed, eyes scanning the distant silhouettes of fallen spires. "The temples, perhaps. Towers as well," he murmured. "The temples might have stored relics or texts for safekeeping. And mage towers…" His gaze lingered on a jagged shape rising ahead. "If any spells survived here, it would be there. Knowledge has a way of being hidden away from fire and chaos."
They moved on, threading through the decayed streets. Statues lay face down in the dust, their features eroded until gods and men alike were reduced to formless stone.
Archways had collapsed into ribs of masonry, and fractured mosaics glittered faintly beneath layers of grime, catching the light like broken glass. The deeper they went, the narrower the streets became.
Then they saw it.
A half-preserved structure loomed ahead, rising from the debris like a broken tooth. Only a fraction of it remained upright; the rest collapsed into a vast scatter of stone that spread across the ground in every direction.
Even so, it was telling enough. The circular foundation, the angled remnants of internal stairways, the thickness of the walls…it had been a tower.
And a great one at that.
Baelon could almost trace its former height with his eyes, imagining it piercing the sky, dwarfing the surrounding buildings.
The sheer quantity of fallen stone spoke of impossible scale.
Once-black stone had faded into something lifeless…almost ashen, as flesh drained of blood.
'If stones could fall sick,' Baelon thought, 'this was what they would look like.'
"Is this a mage tower?" Helaena asked, stepping closer.
Baelon nodded, studying the ruin with open curiosity. "The mages of Valyria favoured towers," he said. "They lived above the world, watching it from on high. It was said to be an homage to the Fourteen Arch-Mages. Each one believed to stand watch over the Fourteen Flames themselves."
A faint spark of admiration flickered in his eyes despite the devastation around them. "Each Arch-Mage devoted decades, even centuries, to their craft. Isolation, discipline, study without end." He let out a quiet breath. "Legends claim some could wield pyromancy so refined they created a small sun in the sky, light and heat born solely from their own strength."
"If such people guarded the flames," Helaena said softly, crouching to pick up a fragment of stone, "why did Valyria fall?"
She turned the rubble over in her hands. The surface was dulled with age, but when she snapped it in half with a sharp crack, its true nature revealed itself.
The interior was a deep, unblemished black. It was the same stone as their estate in Tolos. The same as Dragonstone.
Baelon shrugged as he began shifting through the fallen debris, lifting slabs that would have taken a dozen men to move. Here, unlike Sallosh, their strength made scavenging effortless.
"Not the slightest idea, sister," he said. "But that's precisely why we're here."
He glanced back at her, a crooked, almost boyish tone in his words. "Don't tell me you aren't tempted by it?"
Helaena straightened slowly, the broken stone still in her hand.
"The true reason behind the fall of Essos' most dominant power…?"
***
"This is…" Helaena faltered. The leather distorted slightly as her jaw tightened, her expression half-lost behind the false face. "…vile."
Baelon, beside her, offered no argument.
Time had passed, and they had scoured the ruins of Oros for two weeks, marking this as their second expedition.
Alas, familiarity had not softened the city's rot. If anything, it made it worse.
Now, they had returned to the same ruined tower, the broken stump of black stone rising behind them like a snapped spine.
Most of the rubble had been cleared away now; thrown aside, stacked, or pulverised under their flames.
Thankfully, they had been fortunate. Amid the collapse and ash, fragments of knowledge had survived.
Most of it amounted to little more than scorched parchment, brittle to the touch and warped beyond recognition. Yet what could be salvaged was…illuminating to say the least.
Helaena knelt on the stone floor, leaning forward. In front of her lay dozens of parchment fragments, each no larger than her palm.
Their scorched margins and ink were assembled together like the fragments of a shattered mirror. Still, her efforts did not elicit any joy. Far from it.
"A ritual performed by the Arch-Mages…" Baelon clicked his tongue as he glanced down at the assembled text. "…It truly is one of the most vile things I have ever come across."
The foundations of the ritual were morbidly familiar.
It drew from the same Life Force Transfer ritual they had uncovered earlier in Sallosh, where a victim had to be put under merciless torture.
Only when their suffering reached its peak was the heart torn from the chest, their life force harvested in its purest, most potent form.
But here, the cruelty did not end with the extraction.
This ritual diverted the stolen vitality through an additional sequence of sigils and invocations, reshaping it into a vast, protective lattice.
A protective matrix which was laid over the volcano itself. A living spell sustained by dying souls.
This, then, was how the Arch-Mages stabilised the Fourteen Flames.
Magic, geometry, and the systematic sacrifice of tens of thousands of slaves. Every year. Brutally tortured, not out of sadism, but out of ruthless efficiency.
Helaena's hands stilled.
"Sometimes I think the Doom was for the best," she muttered. "The atrocities the Freehold committed were countless. I wouldn't be shocked if the Doom was merely retribution for their actions."
Baelon narrowed his eyes, studying her rather than the text. "Retribution? Perhaps." He nodded once, slowly. "But what form that retribution took… that is the true mystery."
He leaned back with a quiet sigh. "It's a shame there's so little left here."
Aside from the reconstructed parchment detailing the spell, the only other object of interest they had found was a flat tablet of dragonglass.
It was unmarked, smooth, and disappointingly plain. Yet Helaena had insisted something was wrong with it. That it was off, in a way she couldn't articulate.
They had tested it as best they could. It reacted to nothing. No script revealed itself, no symbols emerged.
It was merely warm to the touch.
Still, that oddity alone was enough to keep them from discarding it.
Their discussion was cut short by a sudden roar from above, echoing across the ruined streets. It was a warning from one of the three great beasts circling above.
Baelon rolled his eyes. "Here they come again."
Helaena rose to her feet, brushing ash and grime from her knees. Whilst her movements seemed unhurried, Baelon could tell from her tightly clenched fists she was anything but calm.
As the sound faded, silhouettes emerged from between the broken buildings.
Figures. Once human figures.
They approached slowly…unevenly. Men and women, young and old, from a dozen lands by the look of them.
Their clothes were ragged, mismatched, long since stripped of colour and meaning. Yet they all shared the same mark. Dull grey growths that clung to their skin.
The growths were like scales, almost, like those of a serpent, but flakier, rougher, cracked and brittle.
Some faces were half-consumed by it, mouths twisted, eyes peering through hardened flesh. Others bore it across arms, necks, and legs, movement stiff and laboured.
Baelon and Helaena did not need to ask why they looked as they did.
Greyscale.
Among them stood a child.
He was small, too small, his height lost amid the hunched silhouettes of adults hardened by years of decay.
His greyscale was lighter than the others', still patchy rather than consuming, dull flakes clinging to his forearms and creeping along one side of his neck. It had not yet claimed his face. Not fully.
What struck most was how thin he was. His skin clung to him as though it had been melted onto bone, stretched tight over a gaunt frame with no softness left to hide the angles of his ribs.
When he stepped forward, it was with the uncertain gait of someone who had forgotten what strength felt like.
"O–outsider," he croaked, as he stepped forward with an unsteady gait. "F…food."
Helaena trembled.
Behind her goggles, her violet eyes glassed over, fixed on the boy with an expression that twisted painfully between pity and helpless grief.
Baelon sighed softly.
He crossed the short distance between them and laid a hand on her arm, grounding her in the moment.
She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face, but she said nothing.
Baelon closed his eyes for a moment. He knew what she was asking him. After all, following their first encounter with the stonemen, they had come prepared this time.
He turned back to where they had been sitting moments earlier.
A large linen sack rested near the base of the tower, its mouth tightly cinched with coarse twine.
He hoisted it up and walked toward the stone men.
At once, they recoiled.
They shuffled backwards as though he were the diseased one, fear flaring in their dull eyes, some raising stiffened arms defensively, others retreating behind their companions.
"This is all we can give you for now," Baelon said evenly.
If he were to be honest, he would not bother with any of this. Did he pity them? Sure. Did that mean he would help them? By the Seven no. What did he look like? A Septon of the faith?
Regardless, he tossed the sack forward as it hit the ground with a dull thud.
The stone men hesitated seeing this.
They stared at the bag, then at Baelon, suspicion warring with hunger. Seeing this, Baelon sighed as he stepped backwards and gestured toward it with a curt flick of his hand.
That was all it took.
They surged forward in a sudden, desperate rush, hands clawing at the sack, fingers stiff and misshapen, tearing at the linen.
The twine snapped, and the bag was ripped open. Preserved meat spilt onto the ash-darkened stone. Loaves of coarse bread followed, scattering across the ground.
They fell upon it like starving animals.
Hands snatched and shoved, mouths tore at food without care. Some devoured the meat, teeth worrying at it desperately.
Others clutched bread to their chests as if it might be stolen away, stuffing it into their mouths until crumbs and ash clung to their lips.
One of them, a man whose body was almost entirely claimed by greyscale, lifted his head after eating.
His face was rigid with stone, jaw locked half-open, saliva and crumbs frothing at the corners of his mouth.
He roared at Baelon.
The fear in his eyes was gone, replaced by something raw and ravenous.
"You want more?" Baelon barked out a humourless laugh. "Do you think I'm a walking farm? That is all I have to give you."
The man did not stop.
He edged closer, breath rasping, others beginning to follow him, hunger driving them forward.
Nevertheless, not all.
Some, like the child, had already retreated, clutching what little they had taken and fleeing into the ruins with desperate haste.
Baelon felt no threat from the encroaching figures.
He rolled his eyes, glanced briefly at Helaena's stricken expression, then raised a hand.
"See, sister," he chuckled. "This is the price of needless compassion. Remember it well."
Flame erupted.
The scorching plume roared forward, heat distorting the air as it washed over the advancing stonemen.
They screamed panicked cries as fire licked across hardened skin, scorching but not consuming. They flailed, stumbled, turned and fled, terror overtaking greed as they scattered back into the ruins.
The flames did not pursue them.
Baelon nodded once, satisfied. None of them died.
Whilst he could not care much for their well-being, Helaena did. And, should any of them have died, she would have likely blamed herself.
He returned to Helaena, took her hand firmly, and guided her to sit beside him on a flat slab of stone. He held her hands in both of his, his grip steady and warm.
"I do not blame you for your compassion," he said quietly. "That is simply how you are, and I love you for it."
He met her gaze. "But you must understand this. The only reason we are alive is because of our strength."
"If they had attacked us and we were ordinary people, we would have been wounded. Infected." His voice hardened. "Left to rot in this hell because of their greed."
He paused, then softened. "Not everyone's soul is as pure as yours. Help others, but only within your capacity."
Silence followed.
"I understand," Helaena whispered at last. "I just…" She drew in a shaky breath. "…felt so sorrowful seeing that child. Even we, despite our danger, were fed, raised by our parents, and lived in comfort. But they…"
She shook her head.
Baelon rubbed her palms gently. "I'm not blaming you. I never will. Just be careful, alright?"
She hummed softly, nodding. The dimness in her eyes slowly receded, their usual clarity returning. "I understand. I'll only help people as much as I am able to. Are you satisfied, broth—?"
Her words cut off.
Her gaze had drifted to the obsidian tablet she had left on the ground earlier. Baelon followed her stare, his eyes widening.
It was no longer inert.
Faint crimson lines glowed across its surface, thin and branching, like the molten rivers that once slithered down the flanks of the Fourteen Flames.
"Did my pyromancy activate it…?" He muttered.
They rose cautiously, approaching the tablet. The markings were still faint, barely visible.
Without hesitation, Helaena conjured flame.
A small sphere of fire hovered above the dragonglass, bathing it in heat.
At once, the crimson lines brightened, growing vivid and intricate, snaking across the surface in delicate patterns.
They leaned over it.
There were letters, written in a familiar script. Too familiar.
High Valyrian.
"Do not trust shadows in the corridors of power. Some men walk without name, without voice, and yet their blades strike deeper than fire."