Moat Cailin no longer resembled the drowned ruin we had arrived to. Where once there were sunken stones and rotted timber, there now stood ramparts banded in rune carved stone and carefully placed ironroot. The towers had been raised, some reforged from their ancient bases, others built anew, all towering above like they were reaching for the heavens. Lantern towers burned with marshflame, greenish-blue tongues of fire dancing within rune-inscribed cages. They needed no oil and no tending, only stonework etched by my hand and a miniscule amount of fuel drawn from the veins beneath the mire.
The canal we carved stretched like a spine from the Fever River to the eastern waters of the Bite, cutting through the swamplands with brutal purpose. Watchtowers lined the route, shaped like sharpened fangs, each manned, each bearing the sigil of Moat Cailin, a weirwood growing from a cracked wolf's skull. Trade flowed now through the waterway, but so did steel and tense silence. Toll was collected, ships were inspected, and anything that dared enter without permission found itself turned back, sunk, or taken.
With the lizardlions not liking the saltwater as much, they gave the canal a wide berth.
They had not been tamed, only understood. The eldest ones, gnarled and scarred, were revered more than controlled. When they died naturally, we harvested their hides. Their scales were dark, nearly black, tougher than boiled leather and capable of turning aside blades. Those hides became the armor of my most elite warriors, stitched with rune-thread, layered over ironroot. Their teeth were set into ceremonial weapons and jewelry like some tribal fashion. Their venom and acidic blood were sealed into bonewhite flasks for war.
Their bones were something else entirely.
Dense but flexible, lizardlion bone held a strange resilience, especially in older specimens. Brandon and I experimented for nearly a year, testing heat treatments, rune reinforcement, and shaping techniques. Now, the oldest bones were carved into longbows of uncommon strength, bows that bent like yew but snapped with the force of horn and ash combined. Others became reinforced armor joints and ornamented hilts, with subtle etchings of protective runes that caught the eye and whispered of power. Our scouts wore them. Our captains carried them.
The younger lizardlions served a different purpose. Agile, lighter-scaled, and more adaptable, they were tracked and managed. Scouts wore their armor, flexible, light, and silent. No smith in the South could match it. No lord could afford it.
Moat Cailin had changed.
But so had I.
My limbs were longer now, hardened by years of labor, training, sparring and leadership. I stood just over seven feet tall. My skin had thickened with scar and ritual, my bones tempered by effort and the cold blood of the land. My hair had lost all trace of black, now a storm-washed silver that moved like riverlight. My eyes, gods, even they had changed. No longer a mess of red and green clashing for dominance over steel grey. They had become silver too, laced with pulsing veins of crimson that webbed outward like vines or roots, coiled from the iris and shimmered faintly in the dark
That felt like it meant something like two sides fought and one side one but I wasn't sure who or what fought inside me; just that since the change, I've my senses far keener. The runes etched into my skin had settled from angry red to pale pink, soft but permanent, etched into my body like a reminder of what was and what is to come.
I no longer dreamed alone. The gods whispered to me not in language, but in images, memories, and instincts. I knew where stone would crack before it did. I could feel when the tides would shift or when the ironroot needed rest. When I placed my hand to the earth, it answered.
But I was not alone in this.
My brothers, my circle, my friends stood with me.
Brandon Crowl, towering at 7-foot-5, was the anvil upon which our strength was built. His hands were massive, callused, and blackened by years at the forge. He wielded a hammer with more grace than most wielded a sword. It was he who shaped the first blades of black-green ironroot, who mastered the forge temperatures needed to temper the ore, who forged the spiked shields and curved axes of my new house.
But he was more than a smith, he was a wall. In battle, he carried a tower shield carved with lizardlion fangs and struck like a war elephant. He said little and he didn't need to. His giant mace spoke volumes for him. I knew that well enough from past bruises and broken bones.
Torrhen Locke, at 6-foot-9, commanded the garrison and training grounds. His frame was broad, powerful, but it was his discipline that made him dangerous. Every soldier who passed through Moat Cailin's walls answered to him. He shaped the core of our forces, beat steel into spine, and tested every recruit personally. His cool and collected voice could silence a riot.
He wore ironroot plate reinforced with lizardlion scale, his helm decorated in lizardlion bone and ironroot like some terrifying creature. He said it was because the mind was half the battle and when someone saw his dark figure in bone, plate and scale, they'd hesitate. So that's how he made the warriors under him, monsters that would scare an enemy before dismantling them with precision and skill.
Cregan Norrey, once the youngest, now stood 6-foot-3 and moved like shadow across stone. The scoutmaster of the Moat. He wore light scale armor dyed in rivergrass patterns, and wielded twin daggers curved like fangs and an ironroot axe with a bone handle encrusted with runes for durability and rip. He could vanish into fog and reappear behind you. He mapped the marshlands inch by inch, marking every lizardlion den, every rise in the peat.
He trained a dozen others in his craft, but none could match him. When I needed eyes, I trusted his far better than my own sometimes just from all he's seen. Though the stories I got from merchants and travelers often made me chuckle when hearing of the marsh monster. A humanoid creature with scales all over their body, two long claws, and a head with horns and tusks as big as fingers.
Domund Snow, clever and cutting, stood at 6-foot-5 and dressed like a merchant lord. But he had the sharpest blade of all, his tongue. He managed the tolls, the trade routes, the flow of silver and iron into our vaults. When other lords sent emissaries, they faced Domund first. He could smile and bleed them at the same time. Behind the smile, he carried a dagger soaked in venom and a flask of lizardlion blood sealed in bonewhite clay.
Just in case. Though he wasn't just good at getting the lowest price or the best angle. He also had more ears, eyes, and tongues wagging across Westeros and Essos, than only the spider and maybe a couple others could compete. His counter spy network worked wonders and helped greatly in keeping their crafts to themselves while they were often informed well ahead of anyone else regarding important or mild events.
They were my closest. My trusted confidants. Not just tools, not just titles. Brothers forged not by fate, but by choice. Together, we shaped the Moat. And through the Moat, we shaped the North.
And the land responded in turn.
Along the upper stretches of the Fever Canal, where water ran cleanest and deepest, we cleared plots of land and carved terraces into the earth. Most said rice could not grow in the North. They were right, until now. We called it rice for lack of a better word, but it was a variant that took root in the swampy soil, soaking up the water and warmth of the marsh.
In ordinary fields, it would have withered. But here, I walked the rows barefoot, pressing runes into the mud with my palms. I whispered to the soil, bled into it, carved blessings beneath the waterline. The yield? Five to ten times what we should have seen.
What started as an experiment became one of our main harvests. Marsh grain, pale, long, and slightly sweet when boiled. Our people took to it quickly. The traders even more so.
The grain served more than food. We built runed millstones, ancient Northern relics, powered by water wheels and guided by stone grooves, to grind the grain into powder. Though not only that, we made a milky sweet drink, thick and nourishing. Domund coined it "Snowmilk," and the name stuck. When fermented, it created a strong but smooth spirit, clear and slightly floral. We aged it in clay-sealed jugs, and soon it became a prized export.
There was more.
From the thick-barked swamp trees, we extracted marshwood resin. Boiled in rune-lined kettles, it hardened into a waterproof sealant with slight fire-resistant qualities. The Manderly's bought it by the barrel to coat their ships. So did the Mormont's, who prized it for their longboats and coastal defenders.
We also found out the resin could be used in healing balms and the like. Another ingredient shelved for our growing apothecary. An ingredient that would come in handy when mixing with lizardlion venom and a particular glowing marsh moss. A revolting and disgusting drink could be made that when consumed, had a chance of dying by almost seventy percent.
But if taken under guidance and care by a runemaster and healer could increase survival to almost sixty percent. The person who survives, would go through miraculous healing in a two day period and come out of it with a hearty constitution. Nothing supernatural beyond human limits but still, it was a miraculous item none the less. An item that far too many nobles would pay exorbitant prices to have even that chance to fix a condition or illness.
Our dyes, too, became a staple. Harvested from mosses deep in the marsh, they produced rich blacks, dark greens, and a silver-blue that shimmered in torchlight. We used them to color our cloaks, our banners, and our woven cloths. But we sold them too, first in White Harbor, then farther south. It was said a noble lady in Oldtown wore a cloak dyed in Moat Cailin moss to a feast hosted by her House.
Between the tolls from the canal, the scale and bonecraft exports, the resin, the weapons, the salves and tinctures, the fermented marshdrinks, and the moss dyes, Moat Cailin was no longer simply sustaining.
It was thriving.
Our expenses were low. Stone, timber, fuel, we pulled it from the land. Our warriors were trained here, fed here, armed here. We needed no vast network of merchants or lords to sustain us. So all of the extra income?
It made our coffers swell to bursting. Even without selling our prized new metal, weapons or armor all that much other than individual orders from high paying clients or lords in the North who would trade resources. The income, after costs, was staggering. Enough to arm and maintain three times our current strength. Enough to buy oaths if needed, or simply crush those who broke them.
I stood at the edge of the high tower, lantern flame flickering beside me. The wind howled across the swamp, carrying scents of moss, smoke, and salt. To the north, Winterfell. To the east, the Bite. To the south, the green ribbon of the Neck. To the west, the fever river now channels east. All of it is our claim.
This was only the beginning. I knew it deep in my bones as I gripped a railing till my knuckles turned white. But deep down, I could also feel like something was going to happen soon, something I should be ready for. Turning on my heel, I headed for my desk and grabbed the letter I finished before opening the door and pushing it into a young man's hand who quickly ran off only thinking of how I should probably leave on the morn so as to make it where it began.
'Dear beloved uncle, I write to you in belief that my words reach you sincerely and without blind cause....' Only in the time to come would the long faced man know what his Nephew truly wanted. Only in time, would he come to find out something he wished he hadn't.