CHAPTER 414: CHAPTER 414: FAREWELL, WESTEROS

Lynd stood on the balcony of the Tower of the Hand, gazing out over the now-empty Winterfell. The bonfires scattered through the castle illuminated the scene, allowing him to see clearly. In that moment, memories of his first visit to King’s Landing flooded back to him—it felt as if it had happened just a few days ago.

"Your Grace, the ships are ready," Sam said, panting slightly as he approached the door.

"Good," Lynd replied, turning and stepping out of the room. Sam carefully closed the door behind him and locked it, silently hoping that when the Long Night finally ended, those who returned would find everything exactly as it had been left.

Lynd led the last of the Red Keep’s guards down the garden paths toward the royal dock.

At the dock, Jon Snow waited with the final group of King’s Landing’s evacuees. They had not yet boarded the ships.

"Has everyone in the castle left?" Lynd asked seriously.

Jon nodded. "Everyone who wanted to leave is gone."

Lynd frowned. "There are still people who stayed?"

"Some are clinging to false hopes," Jon said with clear disdain. "Even now, they think this is all temporary."

As he spoke, Jon looked up at the pitch-black sky. Though it was midday, the heavens were as dark as midnight.

Six months ago, the world had lost its sun—night had become the only sky there was.

The northern snows had crossed the Blackwater Rush, blanketing the entire Reach, and had now even swept over the Red Mountains to consume Dorne. The climate of King’s Landing had become much like the old Wall: bitterly cold and deadly.

Yet despite this, some stubborn souls still believed it would all pass quickly. They dreamed of seizing land while the Seven Kingdoms migrated, imagining themselves becoming great lords and nobles.

But they failed to understand that even if the Long Night ended sooner than expected, even if they held those lands for a time, once Lynd and his forces returned to Westeros, they would never be able to hold what they had taken. They were simply too weak.

Blinded by short-term gain, they had lost the ability to think clearly. Lynd chose not to force them; he simply let them be.

...

After the group boarded, the ships slowly pushed off from the docks of King’s Landing. In Blackwater Bay, the sea had frozen solid, forming a thick layer of ice that blocked their passage. However, before the ship’s prow could strike the ice, a jet of flame burst up from beneath the surface, shattering the ice instantly. A moment later, the Cannibal’s massive form surged from the depths, crashing through the frozen waters and clearing a path, guiding the ships out toward open sea.

...

After Lynd’s flagship departed, a group of stragglers gathered in Baelor’s Great Sept Square. They broke into the Red Keep, looted supplies from the storerooms, and assembled in the King’s Hall, acting as if they were now the rightful rulers of the abandoned palace.

...

Once out on the open sea, Lynd’s flagship unfurled all its sails and sped forward, driven by the fierce northern winds. Their first destination was Tyrosh. It was said that some recorders of the Weavers of Fate still remained there, determined to document the city’s final moments.

The Weavers of Fate were a unique group of deities. Although their temples existed only in Tyrosh, their clergy were scattered across the world—even the Citadel had priests who followed the Weavers.

These priests were less worshipers than historians. They appeared at every major turning point in history, chronicling the great events of the world. There had been several Weaver priests present at the Wall during the War of the White Walkers, and others had accompanied Nymeria when she conquered Slaver’s Bay.

There was even a Weaver priest aboard Lynd’s flagship, who had painted the final, desolate image of King’s Landing as they departed.

...

Two days later, the ship reached Tyrosh—a city now buried beneath ice and snow.

Since its founding, Tyrosh had never seen snow. But more than a year ago, when the first flakes fell, panic swept through the city. Riots broke out, rumors of the apocalypse spread, and unrest boiled over. The Godsworn Legions stationed there by Lynd swiftly crushed the chaos. Half of the city’s Magisters and officials perished, more than twenty thousand civilians were killed, and two mercenary companies were wiped out.

After that brutal suppression, Tyrosh grew far more obedient. The remaining citizens cooperated fully with the migration effort, and within a single year, the entire population had been relocated.

"Something’s wrong," Jon whispered to Lynd after the ship docked at the pier.

Lynd nodded, gave Jon and the others a quick command, and said, "Sound the assembly horn. You all stay on the ship."

With that, he leapt down from the deck and strode toward the plaza by the docks.

In the endless night, Tyrosh was utterly silent and dark. There wasn’t a single light, nor a single sound, apart from the howl of the northern wind weaving through the empty streets. Within the city, all that could be felt was deathly stillness.

Lynd quickly reached the dockside square. Under normal circumstances, bonfires would have been lit here to signal the waiting Fateweavers, who would take shelter in the nearby houses, avoiding the wind and snow until the ship arrived.

Yet now, while there were indeed bonfire piles arranged in the square, the thick layer of snow covering them showed they had been built days ago but never lit. In the houses nearby, remnants of half-eaten meals remained—evidence that something had happened suddenly during dinner, causing the Fateweavers who had been waiting there to vanish without a trace.

Inside one of the houses, Lynd found a notebook left behind by the Fateweavers. It recorded the gradual abandonment of Tyrosh. What caught his attention most, however, was a sketch at the end of the notes—an image drawn from the perspective of someone standing in the square, looking out toward the pier. In the scene, the bonfires were still burning, their light casting shadows across the dock—and in the glow, humanoid figures could be seen emerging from the frigid sea.

"Were they attacked by humanoid creatures from the sea?" A bold idea flashed through Lynd’s mind. He didn’t linger to investigate further. The assembly horn had been blowing for a long time; if anyone had been left alive, they would have responded by now.

...

He picked up the notes, preparing to leave, when something near the bonfire caught his eye. Walking over, he found several palm-sized scales. If these came from fish, then the creature must have been much larger than a human.

Staring at the scales, Lynd immediately thought of the scene from the Fateweaver’s sketch. He gathered the scales and returned to the ship with them.

Back aboard, he handed the notebook and scales to Samwell Tarly and explained his findings and suspicions to Sam and Jon.

"Merfolk?" Sam mused, examining the scales and the notebook. "I remember reading in a book once that near the Thousand Islands in the Shivering Sea, there was a civilization that worshiped fish-men. There might even be a kingdom of fish-people there. With the extreme cold spreading south, maybe the fish-people couldn’t survive in the north and were forced to migrate."

Lynd asked curiously, "Is this fish-people kingdom related to the one near Lannisport?"

For generations, the existence of a merfolk kingdom near Lannisport had been dismissed as mere legend. However, during the great migration, this kingdom had gradually revealed itself. Just as the old tales said, a merfolk kingdom did exist in the waters off Lannisport, and it had since relocated to the seas near the Summer Isles. Nymeria herself had met with the queen of that kingdom and brought it under the protection of the Tarran Empire.

Sam thought for a moment, then explained, "They’re probably different branches of the same race—just like us compared to the Loreens or the Dothraki."

"Let’s hope they don’t cause any trouble," Lynd said, glancing out over the dark, endless sea beyond the ship’s rail. Then he turned and ordered, "Set sail. Next stop: Lys."

...

The flagship raised its sails again and slowly pulled away from the frozen docks of Tyrosh, following the coastline and beginning the passage through the Stepstones.

With the advance of the extreme cold from the north, much of the Shivering Sea had frozen over. Massive sheets of ice, dozens of meters thick, had formed from the frozen seawater. As a result, sea levels around the world had begun to fall dramatically. This exposed the old land foundations of the Stepstones, which had once sunk beneath the sea. Some sections had already reemerged as solid land, while others became treacherous shallows riddled with reefs.

Ships passing through the region had no choice but to lower their sails and use poles or oars to carefully push their way across. Even the most experienced captains could only proceed with great caution, slowing their journeys considerably.

Fortunately, Lynd had no such worries. The Cannibal, his massive dragon, led the way ahead of the flagship, effortlessly clearing a safe path and exposing hidden reefs. Thanks to its guidance, they crossed in less than a day a stretch of sea that would normally have taken days to navigate.

Once past the Stepstones, more and more ships began to appear. Most were merchant and cargo vessels, running routes between Dorne and Oldtown.

Although the extreme cold continued pushing southward, the climate along the southern coastline of Westeros remained relatively favorable—especially along the southern shores of Dorne. Thanks to increased rainfall and snowfall, the desert environment there had significantly improved. Much of the land was developed into farmland, used to grow cold-resistant crops, making it one of the key granaries of the Tarran Empire today.

Even though the world had lost sunlight and was locked in endless night, some crops that depended solely on water and fertilizer rather than sunlight could still grow. Although yields couldn’t match the past, every piece of land that could be cultivated within Lynd’s territory had been turned into farmland to ensure stable food production.

Lynd’s flagship stood out among all ships—not because of its flag, but because it was the only seven-decked sailing ship in the world. Even when placed alongside the largest warships of the Miracle Fleet, it made them look like mere small vessels.

Thus, whenever this ship sailed the routes of the Summer Sea, every ship that saw it would give way and sound their horns in salute as it passed.

When Lynd arrived at Lys, the Trade Magistrates were already waiting at the dock.

Lynd did not attend the banquet hosted by the magistrates. Instead, he received each of them in a tax officer’s office by the dock, where he inquired about the current situation in Lys.

Compared to Tyrosh, now an abandoned ghost city, Lys was in much better condition. It was not covered in snow, and snowfall was rare; instead, it mostly endured cold, heavy rains.

For the locals of Lys, the climate felt bitterly cold—but for people from the north, it was still quite bearable.

Now, Lys had become a crucial trading hub. All goods from Westeros were gathered here before being redistributed across different trade routes to various destinations.

Because of this, the Miracle Fleet’s headquarters from the Stepstones had also been relocated to Lys, while the original inhabitants of Lys had been resettled further south.

After a brief stay in Lys to assess the situation and make arrangements, Lynd set off for Volantis.

Over the following month, he spent most of his time at sea, visiting Volantis, the ruins of Valyria, the Isle of Tears, Zamettar, Slaver’s Bay, Qarth, and finally Storm’s End.

Among these places, he lingered slightly longer at the Isle of Tears and Zamettar. The lord of the Isle of Tears was Prince Doran—a territory he had specifically chosen to be developed into a major maritime city, much like Lys. Consequently, its port and dock facilities were second only to Storm’s End, and almost every ship traveling along the Yeg River stopped there. It had become one of the most prosperous settlements among all the lords who had migrated to Sothoryos.

Zamettar, located across the sea from the Isle of Tears, was held by Sansa Stark. Positioned at the mouth of the Yeg River, it enjoyed a natural geographic advantage. As the first Warden to complete the migration, Sansa received special support from Lynd in administrative policies, making Zamettar nearly as prosperous as the Isle of Tears. Furthermore, the headquarters of the Night’s Watch had been established there—becoming the third official military corps authorized for conscription, alongside the God’s Army and the Queen’s Army.

Storm’s End, located on the Dragon’s Horn Peninsula, was the first landing point for the pioneers and the earliest settlement of the Tarran Empire. After years of construction, it had grown into the largest city and port of the entire empire. Its most famous landmark was the Storm God Lighthouse, whose towering height rivaled that of the Hightower. Since the onset of the Long Night, this lighthouse had never been extinguished.

...

As Lynd’s flagship entered the bay of Storm’s End, all nearby ships quickly cleared a path, dropped anchor, and lowered their sails. Boatswains climbed the masts to the lookouts and sounded their horns, while the port echoed with answering blasts.

Lynd saw Nymeria, Daenerys, and the children waiting for him on the dock. A smile broke across his face. Before the ship had even fully docked, he leapt down from the deck and landed before them, saying warmly, "Thank you for your hard work. I’m back!"