Westeros bled.
The war, which in the histories is said to have lasted but a year, had by now entered its third bloody campaign. Entire regions once green and fertile now lay scorched, salted with blood and fire. The Riverlands were a wasteland of ruined towns and broken castles. The Reach burned in patches, fields trampled beneath armies loyal to the Targaryens. Storm's End was under siege. Winterfell had withdrawn its banners to protect the North, wary of overextension.
But Gulltown thrived.
And Edward Grafton, now the unchallenged lord of the eastern Vale, stood at the heart of this silent empire.
He had no formal armies in the field. No banners in the war councils of kings. Yet his gold, his ships, and his silent manipulations shaped every battle, every famine, every desperate move on the board.
He had extended the war, precisely as he had planned.
Every time Robert Baratheon's forces neared a decisive victory, Edward's agents would act: delayed supplies, redirected ravens, mercenary ambushes disguised as loyalist attacks. Edward used loyal Vale merchants and black market smugglers to funnel essential goods to Targaryen-held strongholds—always under the guise of neutral trade.
At the same time, he weaponized famine.
Villages along key roads in the Crownlands and Riverlands received just enough grain to survive—so long as they pledged their loyalty to Gulltown's "independent traders." But rebel forces were forced to seize supplies from the smallfolk. Robert's armies, once welcomed as liberators, became indistinguishable from raiders in the eyes of the common folk.
Desperate and overextended, Robert allowed his men to plunder unchecked. Entire villages were razed in the name of feeding soldiers. The rebellion's noble image blackened.
"Even should Robert wear a crown," Edward murmured one night to Oberyn Martell, who had arrived quietly in Gulltown, "he will find only ash beneath it."
Oberyn had grown more serious since Harrenhal. His laughter still burned hot, but now it was tempered by fury. The news of Elia Martell's growing danger in King's Landing gnawed at him. But he found strange comfort in Edward's cold logic.
"If this war never ends," Oberyn said, "you will become the most powerful man in Westeros without ever drawing a sword."
Edward merely smiled.
In King's Landing, whispers of treason grew. Rhaegar Targaryen, now commander of the Crown's armies, faced increasing pressure from his own lords. Supplies were short. The Dornish refused to march. The Reach was bleeding.
And always, Edward's messengers kept him informed.
He learned when Tywin Lannister held back his legions, watching and waiting. He heard when the Ironborn raided the western coast. He even had agents among the Blackfyre sympathizers in Essos, ready to spread rumors of Targaryen illegitimacy if needed.
But Edward did not want the Targaryens to fall—yet.
Instead, he bolstered their position subtly. He spread coin through Essosi banks to fund mercenaries in service to Rhaegar, but ensured their contracts were short, their loyalties unstable. Enough to win battles, never enough to end the war.
Each delay, each prolonged siege, bought him time.
In Gulltown, his projects advanced.
The harbor had doubled in size. Warehouses rose along the shoreline. New cranes and chain mechanisms allowed faster loading of goods. Trade with Braavos, Lys, and Tyrosh flourished. Gulltown had become not only the richest port in the Vale but one of the key economic centers in the war-torn continent.
Edward began minting his own currency—silver drakes stamped with the seagull crest of House Grafton. Officially, it was temporary wartime scrip. Unofficially, it replaced the weakened Vale currency entirely.
To his subjects, Edward offered security, food, and profit. To his enemies, he offered nothing but quiet extinction.
Those lords and merchants who had opposed him in the early days had either vanished, died in mysterious robberies, or publicly converted to his cause. A few remained under close watch—useful as future scapegoats if things turned.
He met with builders, scholars, and foreign emissaries. He built a naval academy. He financed experimental ship designs from the Summer Isles. His vision stretched far beyond the war.
But he needed the war to last.
In the Vale, House Royce—once proud and unshakable—was on the verge of irrelevance. Edward had appointed Gulltown-trained sheriffs and justiciars in the border regions. Without ever declaring it, he had redrawn the maps of the eastern Vale.
The Mountain Clans were either wiped out, absorbed, or driven deeper into the peaks.
The commonfolk called him the Quiet Storm.
To most nobles, he was merely Lord Grafton, wealthy and neutral. To the people, he was something more—an order in the chaos. A future.
But chaos fed his empire.
And so the fires of war must burn.
From captured correspondence between rebel lords, Edward crafted new crises.
A forged letter suggested a feud between Ned Stark and Jon Arryn over strategy. Another planted rumor claimed that Hoster Tully planned to surrender Riverrun to Rhaegar. Edward sent these whispers through brothels, inns, and septs. Truth mattered little. What mattered was delay.
The rebels grew suspicious of each other. Alliances frayed.
And still, the Targaryens could not win outright. Edward saw to that.
He delayed a Dornish host from marching with forged orders.
He bribed a captain to set fire to a grain fleet headed for Storm's End.
He whispered promises of rebellion in the Westerlands, enough to keep Tywin hesitant.
In his study, overlooking the towers of Gulltown, Edward marked a new map.
The war had lasted longer than expected. Longer than in any song or scroll. But not yet long enough.
When the fighting finally ceased, Edward intended to be untouchable—wealthier than any lord, too vital to destroy, and with enough secrets to blackmail half the realm.
He poured a glass of Dornish red and raised it to the empty room.
"To the fire," he whispered. "May it never go out."