The wind off the Narrow Sea grew colder as the news spread, whispered from sailor to street vendor, from noble court to the lowest brothel in the gutter of Gulltown.
"Rhaegar took her."
"The Mad King burns the North."
"Lord Stark rode to King's Landing... and never came back."
Edward Grafton stood at the edge of the watchtower above the harbor, his eyes fixed westward. His cloak snapped behind him like a banner not yet raised. Below, the city still breathed with the rhythm of trade and tides, but something had changed—something in the silence between greetings, in the way guards now gripped their spears tighter.
The realm was unraveling.
And Edward was preparing to catch it.
His meetings became more frequent, more purposeful. He moved through the city like a tide no wall could hold back. Gulltown, one of the Vale's greatest ports, began to pulse with quiet activity. Dockmasters found their ledgers corrected and their men organized. Grain stores, long left to rot or trade, were fortified. Roads were repaired. Tolls quietly collected and reinvested.
He was still just a nephew, not a lord. But more and more, people turned to him.
They called him "the True Grafton" now.
Hal Vex organized their sailors, creating a network of fast ships and loyal captains who could carry news and goods faster than any raven. Tym the Quick ran a dozen agents in the streets—boys, bards, washerwomen—who could tell Edward within hours if anyone from Dragonstone or the royal court stepped foot in Gulltown.
But it was Edward's vision that bound them. Every new follower added to something greater.
He began to build his household.
From the men he'd gathered during the tourney, he selected a dozen to act as his core guard: not knights, not yet, but loyal. Among them were Jory Longbrook, whose strength with a hammer made him indispensable during the fortification of their main barracks, and Braedon, the young tracker, who knew the paths and cliffs of the Vale better than any map.
Lira trained new falconers under her, forming a silent communication line across the eastern shores. Myria, the healer, turned an abandoned granary into a field hospital. She called it the Quiet Hearth, and though no banners flew over it, even the city guard began to bring their wounded to her door.
The common folk began leaving small tokens at Edward's gate—bread, candles, flowers. Some whispered prayers to the Seven with his name among them.
He refused none of it. But he accepted with cold precision, not warmth.
Each day brought new riders from inland, each letter more dire. House Stark had been destroyed in King's Landing. Brandon choked to death, his father burned alive. The North called for war.
Soon, Robert Baratheon would rise. The Riverlands would follow. And the Targaryen rule, already brittle, would crack like old stone.
Edward sent letters northward to lords and knights who had once dealt with his father—hunting companions, traders, former squires. In each message he offered no rebellion, no treason. Only protection. Trade. Stability. But the subtext was clear:
When the time comes, there is another Grafton. One who does not serve dragons.
He began preparing the city itself. The eastern gatehouses were reinforced. The archery towers refitted. The small harbor watch, previously a loose collection of half-drunk men with rusty halberds, was quietly retrained by Edward's men. They wore no house colors, only dark grey.
At the center of all of this stood Edward's father.
Once a promising figure in Gulltown's court, he had been pushed aside when the lordship passed to his younger, legitimate half-brother, Gerold. But many remembered the elder Grafton as a voice of reason in chaotic times.
Now, he acted as Edward's advisor, cloaked in shadow but respected by those who mattered.
"You are moving quickly," he warned one night as the wind howled outside the tower.
"Not quickly enough," Edward replied. "Once the Vale chooses, there will be no time left for politics. Gulltown must be secure. Loyal. Self-sufficient."
His father nodded. "And Gerold?"
Edward looked into the fire. "He will hold to the Targaryens. To the bitter end."
Gerold Grafton remained outwardly confident. He convened his court more frequently, began ordering supplies, and spoke of loyalty to the Iron Throne. But those closest to him knew the shift. He had fewer allies than before. Merchants refused new tariffs. His requests to the Eyrie were answered with silence.
Lord Jon Arryn, high above in the mountains, remained aloof. But even he could not ignore the letters from Robert Baratheon, from the Starks, from the Stormlands.
The realm fractured, and Gerold remained devoted to a dying crown.
Edward made no moves against him directly. Not yet.
Instead, he sent his men out again—this time to the eastern villages, the hidden valleys of the Vale. In these quiet corners, he found more recruits:
Ser Kendric of Pinemarch, a disgraced knight who had once served with honor in the Blackfyre Rebellion's aftermath, now an old man but still deadly with a lance.
Mera Snow, a bastard of unknown parentage but sharp-witted and fearless, her bow faster than most men could see.
Callan the Silent, a former scribe turned assassin, whose face was always hidden and whose voice no one remembered hearing.
A pair of twins, Doran and Diren, smiths of uncanny precision who had forged blades for the Eyrie before falling out with their master.
Edward welcomed them all. He tested each personally. Those who passed were given a place. Those who didn't... were watched.
By early autumn, he had nearly eighty loyal men and women under his guidance. Not an army, but a foundation.
And then came the raven he had been waiting for.
It arrived just past dawn. The sky was dark with coming rain, and the seagulls shrieked above the docks. Lira brought the scroll to him directly.
"It's from the North," she said. "Robert has called the banners. The Vale... has not yet chosen."
Edward read it once. Then again.
The words were simple.
Robert has declared open war. Jon Arryn is undecided. The Riverlands burn.
Edward turned to Hal, Tym, and Myria.
"It begins now," he said.
"What do we do?" Tym asked.
Edward walked to the map that hung behind his desk. A large bannerless map of Westeros, with the Vale at its heart.
"We do nothing... publicly. But privately? We prepare Gulltown to choose. When Jon Arryn moves, so will we. And when he hesitates—"
Myria finished for him. "The people will already be yours."
That night, Edward called a private council in the same old salt tower where he'd held his first gathering months ago.
They lit no torches. Only lanterns, shuttered.
"This city will not rise in rebellion," Edward said to the gathered captains, smiths, merchants, and warriors. "It will rise in survival. When the dragons fall, it will not be by my sword, but by their own fire. And when the realm begs for peace—"
"We will give it to them," Lira said.
Edward nodded. "And in doing so, we will inherit it."
No one swore an oath that night.
But every eye in that room saw the future.
And it wore the face of Edward Grafton.