The Vale of Arryn, 298 AC — The Day the Hand of the King Died
Mist rolled down from the mountain peaks, curling over the silver banners of House Ravenshade that fluttered proudly above their ancestral fortress.
Ravenshade Keep—built of pale stone and black slate—stood as a sentinel between the forests of the lower Vale and the high mountain passes. Its towers gleamed faintly in the dawn light, a ghost of its ancient glory. Once, its name was whispered with respect and awe.
Once, House Ravenshade had stood as the third most powerful house in the Vale, behind the Arryns and the Royces. Their armies had matched steel with the mountain clans, their coffers filled with silver and crystal mined from their own lands. Their spies and scholars were prized across Westeros.
But now?
Now their bloodline was all but spent.
Alderic Ravenshade, age eighteen, stood upon the balcony overlooking the mists. A tall young man with storm-gray eyes and raven-black hair, he wore his family's sigil embroidered over his chest—a silver raven soaring against midnight blue.
Once, that symbol commanded fear. Now, it was merely a memory.
He had the charisma of a born leader—a presence that drew others to him effortlessly. Men followed him not only because of his title, but because of the quiet authority in his voice, the sharpness in his mind, and the steadiness in his hand.
It was why, even after the deaths of his parents, his bannermen remained loyal.
His mother, Lady Mirra Ravenshade, had perished shortly after Robert's Rebellion—struck down by fever during one of her secret journeys to the Eyrie. His father, Lord Thalen Ravenshade, had died years later, commanding his banners during the Greyjoy Rebellion.
Thalen's valor had been legendary. He had sworn fealty to King Robert Baratheon and served under Jon Arryn himself. When Thalen fell, Alderic—barely sixteen—was knighted on the field for bravery and cunning.
"Rise, Ser Alderic Ravenshade," Jon Arryn had said, placing a sword upon his shoulder.
"May your house rise again from shadow."
That day, Alderic had become the youngest knight in the Vale, the youngest lord of a great house… and the loneliest.
Before that day, Alderic had run from duty.
After his mother's death, grief had hollowed him out. He abandoned the Vale, journeying through the Seven Kingdoms—Winterfell's frozen forests, the Reach's golden fields, the Stormlands' tempestuous coasts. He had learned much in those years: diplomacy in Oldtown, swordsmanship in the Westerlands, and the value of silence in King's Landing.
But it was only after his father's death, after standing amid the smoke and blood of Pyke, that he returned to Ravenshade Keep.
Returned… to a home that no longer felt like one.
Now, he ruled a house on the edge of extinction.
Though his bannermen and vassals followed him faithfully—House Darnor, House Bellmire, and House Galdun—they watched with worry. Their lord was brilliant but distant, his eyes often lost in thought, as if staring through time itself.
For all his intelligence and renown throughout Westeros as a knight of unmatched wit and charm, Alderic had lost the will to dream.
Until the letter came.
A Letter from the Dead
It arrived by raven that morning, sealed in black wax. The messenger, an old retainer who had served his father, bowed low before handing it to him.
"My lord… this was found among your father's personal effects. He said it was to be delivered to you only when Lord Jon Arryn passed from this world."
Alderic froze.
Jon Arryn… dead?
The Hand of the King—the man who had knighted him, who had guided his father—gone?
He tore the seal open. Inside, in his father's familiar hand, were only a few words:
"When the Hand falls, the shadow must rise.
Seek the room behind the library's third wall.
And remember, my son: our house was born in fire and foresight."
His heart pounded. A hidden room? His father had never spoken of such a thing.
And "fire and foresight"? What could that mean?
The Hidden Chamber
That night, torch in hand, Alderic descended into the old library of Ravenshade Keep—a vast, dust-covered hall filled with scrolls, tomes, and relics of forgotten ages.
He counted the walls. One, two… and the third—
His fingers brushed against a faint ridge in the stone.
Pressing it, he heard a click.
The wall shifted.
Behind it, a narrow staircase spiraled downward into the darkness.
He followed, heart racing, until the tunnel opened into a circular chamber lit by faintly glowing crystals. The air was heavy with age. Upon a central pedestal rested an iron chest—sealed, ancient, engraved with the silver raven sigil of his house.
On the wall behind it were words carved in a flowing, foreign script—Valyrian, perhaps—and beneath them, in the Common Tongue:
"To those of my blood who remember the shadow:
We were not made by the world. We came before it burned."
— Alaric Ravenshade
Alderic's breath caught.
Alaric Ravenshade.
The founder. The man of myth.
As he reached for the chest, the torches flickered, as though the mountain itself exhaled.
He had thought his house's history was simply one of power and decline.
But now… it seemed to reach far deeper.
And the day Jon Arryn died—the day Westeros began to shift once more—was also the day House Ravenshade awoke from its long slumber