POV: Maester Kaelen
Location: The Vault beneath Driftspire
Year: Late 285 AC
Maester Kaelen lit the last of the whale oil lanterns and watched its orange glow flicker across the vault's stonework. Shadows leapt across carvings so old they seemed made by gods, not men.
He pulled his heavy robes tighter. Even with lanterns blazing, the vault remained damp and cold, smelling of ancient dust and the ghost of saltwater. He knelt beside a mural etched into black basalt, brushing off flecks of loose stone with a squirrel hair brush.
Scenes of galleys sailed across frozen seas. Great bellied Rhoynish ships with lantern beaked prows. Men robed in scaled cloaks held bronze tipped spears and obsidian headed arrows, offering tribute to kings carved larger than life, their faces lost to time.
But it was the lines carved between ports and rivers that drew his eye today. Thin grooves crisscrossed the mural like veins under pale skin.
"Trade routes…" he whispered to himself. "But not just trade. Tribute. Salt… weapons… slaves?"
He traced a route northward from Driftspire's coastline up towards the Shivering Sea, ending in glyphs so worn he could only guess at their meaning.
He turned to the stone plinth at the vault's centre. Upon it lay the night-blue spearhead they had unearthed last moon turn, half buried among obsidian tools and shattered bronze discs.
It was longer than his forearm, shaped with an elegant leaf taper, edges still razor sharp. Even under lantern light, it glowed faintly as if moonlit from within. Kaelen leaned close, adjusting the green glass lenses over his eyes. Strange ripples ran down its length ripples like water frozen mid wave.
He had tested it with hammer, file, and even acid brewed in his stillroom. Nothing marred it. Its steel or what passed for steel was a mystery.
"Perhaps not steel at all," he murmured, making notes on parchment with quick angular strokes. "A Dawn Age alloy… or stranger still, a relic wrought by sorcery."
He swallowed. The maesters of Oldtown would demand such an artifact be sent south for study. But Lord Alester had forbidden any mention beyond Driftspire's walls.
And Kaelen agreed. Knowledge was power. Power was life. And Driftspire's life depended on secrets.
He paused in his writing, hearing faint echoes from the spiral stairwell above.
"…they say the vault's cursed," a woman's voice whispered. "Dragonglass shards that bleed you dry. Silver coins that scream."
Another voice scoffed. "Coins don't scream. But that spear… my cousin says it's cold as death to touch, even near the forge fires."
Their footsteps faded.
Kaelen smiled faintly. Rumors bred caution. Caution preserved secrets. But he knew the truth was stranger still: the spear drank heat.
He had left it near a brazier for hours. The coals burned lower, as if the spear siphoned their warmth. Even now, lantern light dimmed slightly around its edges, shadows deepening unnaturally.
He rose stiffly, joints cracking, and paced the vault's length, lantern held high.
Here, the walls bore two distinct styles:
The flowing, wave like carvings of the Rhoynar from Dawn Empire times, around fifteen thousand years ago.The blockier, angular reliefs of the First Men, added later during the Long Night when this vault became a refuge as well as a treasury.
Between the styles ran thin obsidian inlays symbols of fusion and conquest, or perhaps alliance long forgotten.
Rhoynar salt kings meeting First Men wolf lords, Kaelen thought. Trading obsidian arrowheads for ships and salt harvests…
He closed his eyes, feeling cold stone under his palm.
"Knowledge," he whispered, "is the deepest well. But drink too greedily, and you drown."
He packed his scrolls and samples carefully into a leather satchel, extinguished the lanterns one by one, and climbed the spiralling stone stair back toward Driftspire's foundations.
At the last lantern, he turned back for a final glance.
The spearhead lay silent and glowing, a night blue sliver of ancient doom. Around it, murals of forgotten kings glimmered under thin remaining light a hidden history, trapped beneath a rising city of cement and will.
Kaelen felt a tremor of fear and awe tighten his chest.
He whispered the old maester's prayer:
"Light guide my mind, darkness guard my tongue."
Then he sealed the vault doors behind him, iron bolts echoing like distant thunder through the silent stone.