The silence on the bridge was as vast as the sea before us. The last smudge of Westeros had been devoured by the mist, leaving nothing but an endless expanse of churning grey water. The finality of it was a physical weight, pressing down on my shoulders. I had done it. I had saved my family from the danger of my existence, and in doing so, had severed myself from everything I had ever known or loved.
"So," Torren's voice, rough and steady, cut through my spiraling thoughts. "What now?"
I turned from the crystalline window. He was standing there, his hand resting on the back of the command chair, his expression a mixture of awe and uncertainty. He was a boy from the stone and wolfswood of the North, now standing in a hall of impossible metal, adrift on an impossible sea. He deserved an answer. More than that, he deserved a distraction.
"Now," I said, forcing a sense of purpose into my voice. "You get the tour."
A flicker of curiosity broke through his grim expression. I led him from the bridge, the doors hissing open and closed as we moved. "The ship—the Odyssey—is on a set course. It will take us several weeks to reach the island. In the meantime, this is our world."
I showed him our living quarters first. Two identical rooms, side-by-side. Each contained a bed that was softer than any lord's mattress, a desk of the same dark, smooth metal, and a wardrobe that was currently empty. I touched a panel on the wall, and the soft light in the room brightened.
Torren pressed a hand against the wall. "There's no hearth, but it's warm."
"The ship maintains its own climate," I explained. "It can be as warm or as cool as we want." I opened another door to reveal a small, private chamber with a sleek basin and a showering apparatus. "And it will always have hot water."
His eyes widened. Such a simple luxury was unheard of, even for the highest nobility who had to rely on servants hauling buckets from a boiling cauldron.
Next, I took him to the galley. It was a clean, practical space with gleaming counters and strange, sealed panels. "Hungry?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I could eat."
"What do you want? Anything. A hot meat pie with gravy? The kind the cooks only made for feast days?"
A wistful look crossed his face. "Aye, I could eat one of those."
I walked to one of the panels and placed my hand on it, picturing the pie in my mind—the flaky crust, the rich, savory filling, the steam rising from it. A connection, faster than thought, opened to the infinite dimension. The panel slid open with a soft chime, revealing a perfectly cooked, steaming hot meat pie on a simple ceramic plate.
Torren stared, speechless, his previous awe eclipsed by sheer, unadulterated disbelief. He slowly took the plate, his fingers hesitating as if it might vanish. He took a bite, and his eyes closed.
"How?" he finally asked, his mouth full.
"The ship is connected to my main resource," I explained, leaning against a counter. "It can create almost any food we can imagine, fresh and hot. We'll never go hungry."
We ate there, in the quiet, warm galley, the silence broken only by the low, almost imperceptible hum of the ship's engines. The simple act of sharing a meal, a taste of the home we'd just left, grounded us.
"This island," Torren said after a while, wiping his mouth. "What's it like?"
"Empty," I admitted. "Uncharted. I've only seen it in glimpses, through the curse. It's mountainous, covered in forest, with deep, protected coves. It's a blank slate. A place where no one will ever find us. A place where we can be safe."
The days that followed bled into a new kind of existence. The constant, crushing weight of hiding my power began to lift. Here, surrounded by my own creations, I didn't have to cage the hornets in my chest. I let the power flow freely, a current of energy that hummed in harmony with the ship itself. Torren adapted with a resilience that was pure North. He learned the layout of the ship, marveling at the star charts that bloomed to life on the bridge, displaying constellations no one in Westeros had ever seen. We trained in a designated room that could simulate any terrain, his steel against training constructs I materialized from the dimension.
He was my anchor to the world we'd lost, and I was his guide to the one we were building.
Almost three weeks into our journey, I was on the bridge, watching the endless sea, when a new shape registered on the navigation map. I looked up, peering through the window into the distance.
I felt Torren's presence as he came to stand beside me.
"What is it?" he asked.
I pointed. On the horizon, a smudge of darker grey against the lighter grey of the sky. A peak, wreathed in mist. An isle that appeared on no map but my own.
"That's it," I said, a strange mixture of relief and trepidation welling inside me. "That's our home."