ROBB
Two weeks had passed since Crown Prince Xian began accompanying him on the military leg of his tour. Robb had to admit—though only to himself—that the standing army, with soldiers and officers trained from childhood, definitely had its merits. The disciplined approach was unlike anything he had seen in the North.
Each morning began before dawn, with Robb joining the soldiers for their training regimen. The commanders insisted he participate rather than merely observe, and Prince Xian himself would don simple training clothes to demonstrate techniques alongside the troops. Robb quickly discovered that most generals were skilled with all the basic weapons—bow, sword, spear, and daggers—and incorporated various martial arts into their combat style. The result was warriors who moved with lethal precision, their bodies honed into weapons as deadly as the steel they wielded.
The intensity of their training routines was staggering. In the central army barracks, Robb watched as young men, some barely older than Bran, endured grueling exercises designed to build not just strength but extraordinary endurance and discipline. Beyond weapons training, they practiced formation tactics, specialized footwork drills, polearm combat, knife arts, and even equestrian archery—shooting targets while riding at full gallop.
What impressed Robb most, however, was how seamlessly theory merged with practice. In Winterfell, men trained in the yard while strategy was discussed in the lord's solar. Here, soldiers learned battle history alongside swordplay, studied maps between archery drills, and debated famous campaigns during their evening meals.
He and Prince Xian had taken up residence in the military barracks of the central army division after touring one of the imperial academies. Here, Robb observed something that challenged his understanding of authority: the Crown Prince, despite his exalted status, submitted to those of higher military rank. While Prince Xian enjoyed certain privileges, when discussions turned to battle strategy and tactical planning, he deferred to the senior commanders—just as his father had when he was a rising officer on the northern borders.
One evening, after watching particularly impressive formation drills, Prince Xian invited Robb to walk along the battlements. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the training grounds where off-duty soldiers were still practicing in small groups.
"Your men train even in their free time," Robb observed, unable to keep the admiration from his voice.
"Excellence is not achieved through obligation alone, but through dedication," Prince Xian replied, gazing down at the soldiers. "These men compete for promotions based solely on merit. A farmer's son who excels can rise to command noblemen if his skills prove superior."
The concept remained revolutionary to Robb, despite having heard it explained before. In the North, leadership in battle was inherited along with titles and lands, regardless of martial ability. The notion that command could be earned rather than bestowed by birth challenged everything he had been raised to accept.
They walked in silence for a time, the only sound the distant clang of practice swords and the flutter of imperial banners in the evening breeze. Finally, Prince Xian broached the topic Robb had been expecting since their tour began.
"I understand you refused my sister's offer of marriage."
Robb tensed, his guard instantly rising. "I did."
The Crown Prince studied him, his face betraying nothing. "May I ask why? Was it the alliance itself you objected to, or something else?"
"I would not commit to sending a daughter—my future child—to a foreign land," Robb replied firmly. "Nor bind my house to aims I don't fully understand."
Prince Xian nodded, seeming to consider this answer carefully. "Did you ask for details of what the alliance offered? What position your daughter would hold? What rights and privileges would be granted to her?"
The question caught Robb off guard. He hesitated, then admitted, "I did not think it necessary, as I was resolute in my refusal."
"A ruler always needs to know and weigh what is at stake before deciding," Prince Xian said, his tone neutral but his words pointed. "Information is the foundation of wisdom."
Robb felt a flush of embarrassment mixed with defiance. "And what information should I have considered, Your Highness?"
"That any daughter born of a princess from a union of the emperor and empress remains an imperial princess herself, though her rank would be below the daughters of the reigning emperor," Prince Xian explained. "She would have lands and wealth of her own, of course, but more importantly, certain rights. Her husband could not take concubines, for instance, unless there was no male heir."
The prince continued walking, his hands clasped behind his back. "She would be educated as befits her station. Thus, any daughter of yours marrying back into the imperial line would not be merely a princess consort, but a princess in her own right. Even if she held no title in Westeros, once she returned to Yi Ti, she would be granted her birthright."
Robb absorbed this information, wondering if it would have changed his decision had he known it beforehand. He still believed his reasons were sound—he could not bear the thought of sending a child away from everything and everyone she knew, to be used as a political pawn in a distant empire.
"I still could not send a daughter to a far-away kingdom, separated from her family and the people who love her," Robb stated. "My future children will marry for duty, as I will, but they'll have a say in it, just as I had in my own. Additionally, I would not want her to become a tool for political games."
"We are all political tools," Prince Xian replied, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Our marriages secure alliances, wealth, or power. They keep peace or secure territories. All are political arrangements."
"I understand duty, my prince," Robb countered, "but in the North, we don't overreach what is not needed."
Prince Xian made a noncommittal sound, gazing out over the city spread below them. "You might think the Emperor's vision is merely a path to grab more power through magic, but my father is cunning in his foresight. I'm married to a woman from a powerful military faction—one of my father's key supporters. Jian is betrothed to a woman from an influential scholarly family. And Ruolan? She will marry into the rival faction of our distant kin, those with claims to the throne."
"And your sister and uncles secure marriages for magical bloodlines," Robb finished, beginning to see the pattern.
"Not just that," Prince Xian corrected. "My uncle's marriage to another magical family dilutes consanguinity for future betrothals of his descendants, preventing the weakening that comes with too-close relations. But Ruyan..." He paused, his expression shifting subtly. "Ruyan is special."
There was something in his tone—a complexity Robb hadn't heard before.
"Her marriage to you would be more than a magical joining of bloodlines," the Crown Prince continued. "Her being gifted means she carries the mandate of heaven, which would make her a target for cousins who still claim the throne. They would use her if they could. Her birth with such gifts makes my position—and Jian's—potentially precarious, as some would say it is the will of the gods that one of us should not rule because we cannot marry our own sister. But our cousins? They could take her as a wife and claim divine right."
Robb went still. Tool, doll, means to an end—these were the words he had heard applied to Ruyan. But until now, he hadn't fully grasped the danger her position entailed. She wasn't merely a prized possession of the imperial family but a potential threat to her own brothers' rule, a piece in a game with stakes far higher than he had imagined.
"You may begin to understand her determination to secure this alliance..." Prince Xian paused, carefully choosing his next word, "...diplomatically."
The Crown Prince's eyes met Robb's, and for the first time, he felt they were speaking truly to each other, without the veil of courtly manners or diplomatic niceties. For the first time, Robb saw Ruyan not as his cold, calculating captor, but as a sister whose very existence complicated her brothers' futures—whose gift made her both precious and dangerous to her own family.
He didn't speak. Just kept walking, turning over every moment they'd shared—each one reshaping under this new light. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting the imperial city in twilight, Robb found himself on unfamiliar ground. The certainties he had clung to since his abduction were crumbling, revealing complexities he had not been prepared to see.
Prince Xian turned from the battlements. "Tomorrow we observe the cavalry drills. The horse-archers of Yi Ti are unmatched in all the known world." His tone shifted back to that of tour guide and instructor, the moment of revelation passed.
They began walking back through the torch-lit corridor above the yard. Below, a younger unit of trainees were finishing their drills — some no older than Bran, moving in formation with silent coordination. One boy let loose an arrow at a moving target and struck it square in the chest.
Robb slowed his pace.
"Do they choose this?" he asked.
Xian's reply came after a beat. "Sometimes. If their parents guide them here."
Robb kept watching the boy. "And if they don't?"
"Then they are sorted," Xian said. "At twelve, based on aptitude. Scholar, soldier, scribe, engineer. Jian explained it to you, didn't he?"
"He did," Robb said. "The testing. The scholar track. The three exam attempts. And after that, they serve — scribes, clerks, functionaries. The state stops helping, but doesn't shut the door."
Xian nodded. "They may try again, but at their own cost. Many don't."
It worked. Robb couldn't deny that. No waste. No drift. But still — the path was drawn before they could read it.
He had been raised to believe a man carved his own road. Here, the road waited — and the child bent to meet it.
They returned to their quarters in silence.
Robb kept seeing her in flashes now—not at court, but caught in that corridor of pressure Xian described. A sister too dangerous to ignore, too valuable to lose. She wasn't soft. She wasn't cruel. She was surviving.
What that meant for his future—and hers—he could not yet say. But the North suddenly seemed very far away indeed.