The Passage of time 1
279 AC.-1st moon, 281 AC.
Time moves slow in the Riverlands, like silt in a deep stream. Wars came and went, fields were burned and sown anew, and castles rose only to crumble with the passage of kings and centuries. But every once in a while, in a rare age, the tide shifts, and when it does, it brings more than driftwood and debris—it brings transformation.
Oldstones had once been a ruin, its broken towers cloaked in ivy and its shattered stones weeping moss and memory. Birds nested where men once sat in judgment, and foxes slept in the crumbled hall where kings had dined. The name remained—Oldstones, ancient and forgotten—a place of ghosts and broken dreams.
But no longer.
By the year 281 after Aegon's Conquest, the castle of Oldstones rose once more. Not yet finished, no—but well on its way to completion, and already spoken of as the greatest of all Riverlander strongholds, save Harrenhal itself. And Harrenhal, for all its vastness, was still half-ruined, cursed and empty. Oldstones, in contrast, lived.
Atop its proud hill on the banks of the Blue Fork, the new Oldstones gleamed with fresh-cut stone and aged power, its towers and walls built in harmony with the bones of the ruin it had grown from. Its keep soared like a crown of stone, fitted with rounded battlements and intricately carved windows shaped like leaves, flames, and crowned wolves. No longer did crows roost within the halls. Now, servants moved about in livery bearing the sigil of House Mudd: a golden crown with emeralds at its base, resting upon a field of muddy red-brown. That symbol, once lost to time, now gleamed proudly from gatehouse banners, window shutters, mosaics of stained glass, and even the tips of carved stair rails.
Wherever one looked within the rising walls of Oldstones, the crown and earth appeared. Sometimes subtly—set into the ironwork of sconces, or worked in gold thread on chair cushions—and sometimes grandly, as in the great arched door to the feast hall, which bore the full history of the Mudds etched in rune-carved panels, culminating at the top with their crown of earth and green gems, shining like dew in the morning sun.
A team of northern masons, blacksmiths, and woodworkers—some brought down from White Harbor itself—had overseen much of the construction, their hands steady, their work meticulous. Their leader, a bent old stonemason with one eye and the patience of a glacier, said often that no work should be done twice, and so every stone had been placed with love, prayer, and precision.
But Oldstones was more than stone and steel.
The Godswood had been among the first things to be restored. Hosteen, ever reverent, had begun the work there before even laying the first new foundation stone of the keep. The new heart tree, a young and vibrant tree a few years ago nothing more than a sapling had thanks to Hosteen's magic grown into an ancient and gnarled weirwood with eyes long since closed to blood, stood silent in its mossy glade, surrounded by new-planted saplings and tall brown trees sacred to the old gods. A narrow stream ran along the base of the grove, red from the iron-rich clay but clear as glass. Birds gathered in the canopy above, and when the wind blew through the branches, it whispered secrets only the devout could hear. Here, Hosteen prayed often—and so did many of his bannermen and allies, Tytos Blackwood among them when he visited. Even Jason Mallister had knelt there once, in the early days of his slow turning toward the old faith.
Below the castle, the crypts had been opened, cleared of dust and ruin, and restored. The bones of long-dead kings had been reinterred with reverence, their crumbling coffins replaced with stone sarcophagi, each bearing a plaque inscribed in runes from the First Men and in the flowing script of the Andal tongue. There were hundreds of tombs—from the warrior-kings who once ruled vast swaths of the Riverlands to forgotten daughters and sons whose names echoed only in legend. Iron sconces lit the winding stair that led down into the depths, where Hosteen had set a small chamber for meditation. No banners flew there, no fire burned; only silence and stone, and the cold, watching presence of the dead.
Everywhere the old ways had been honored—but never without craft. Runic designs traced the walls of stairwells and towers, guiding guests and guardians with symbols for protection, strength, wisdom, and loyalty. Even the courtyard tiles bore ancient glyphs that channeled rainwater into hidden drains, the better to keep the castle clean and dry. Magic and masonry walked hand in hand here and none but Hosteen and a few trusted allies knew it, The castle seemd like one of those ancient strongolds build in the age of Heros where no one knew how it was done, But all could agree that it was built in a way unseen in Westeros since the days of the oldest strongholds.
Though not yet wholly complete, the great hall could already host hundreds beneath its high-beamed roof. Its windows shone with colored glass depicting tales of House Mudd's ancient glory—battles against the Andal invaders, coronations on riverbank thrones, and the pact of kinship with the Blackwoods and Tullys in ages past. A great iron chandelier hung above the central table, shaped like a crown, each of its torches representing one of the great rivers of the Trident.
Hosteen Mudd himself dwelt here now, with his household, knights, guards, and favored servants. The castle buzzed with quiet activity, a place of dignity and discipline.
Nearby, at the crossroads of trade and river, the port town of Riverpeak flourished under his banner. But Oldstones was his heart—his sanctum, his legacy. And the Riverlands, once splintered and scorched, now turned their gaze back toward their ancient seat… and remembered.
Beneath the high hill of Oldstones, where the castle's watchful towers loomed like sentinels above the river, a new town had risen from mud and stone.
Where once there had been scattered fishing huts and riverfolk hovels, now there stood Riverpeak—a port town bustling with life, built with vision and discipline. It clung to the banks of the Blue Fork like a crown of iron and timber, and spread along its bends in careful, concentric wards. The streets were clean, cobbled in dark gray stone, and wide enough for carts to pass two abreast. Every alley was planned, every cistern measured, every house marked for symmetry and sewage.
Nothing in Riverpeak had grown wild. It had been made.
By the year 281 AC, eighty thousand souls called Riverpeak home—merchants, shipwrights, scribes, tradesmen, stonemasons, fishmongers, and the countless hands that served them. They lived in neat quarters of brown-red brick, their rooftops slanted to catch the rain and guide it into underground cisterns. Plumbing—a rarity outside of Oldtown and parts of Lannisport—had been installed under Hosteen Mudd's orders, with underground channels and waste systems that drained into reed-beds downstream. A network of engineers, architects, and alchemists, many of them brought from across the realm, managed the city's foundations with almost reverent scrutiny.
Even its lanterns—hooded, tall, and wrought of black iron—had been forged in a uniform style, shaped like downward-pointing spears. At night they lit the streets with whale oil and pale glass, while guards patrolled in patterned shifts, bearing the crowned mud-red of House Mudd on their sleeves.
But Riverpeak was not simply a marvel of order and stone.
It was a gathering place, a trade heart, and a beacon. With the restoration of Oldstones and the rise of Mudd power, Riverpeak together with Seaguard quickly became the economic crown of the northern-central Riverlands. Crops from the fertile lands of the Blue Fork valley passed through its granaries. Lumber floated down from the north. Iron and salt from Saltpans, fish from Maidenpool, and even spices and saffron from Duskendale arrived by caravan and keel.
The river itself, wide and strong, had been dredged and reinforced along its banks to allow deep-hulled cogs and galleys to moor without risk. And those ships—ah, they came from far and wide.
From White Harbor, merchantmen brought northern wool, amber, and smoked fish. From Dragonstone, small Valyrian-captained galleys sold dragonbone trinkets and Myrish glass. King's Landing's black-sailed cogs came too, brimming with Tyroshi silks, sweetwine from the Arbor, and gossip thicker than soup.
Even ships from Gulltown braved the journey upriver—though fewer in number. For among Mudd's captains, there was a strong preference for Runeport, a northern harbor under House Royce of Runestone. Old blood knew old blood, and Hosteen Mudd's men trusted the Royces far more than the petty intrigue of Gulltown's rival merchant families.
And beyond them all were the Free Cities.
Bravosian skippers with curling beards and hard eyes brought spices and pearls from across the Narrow Sea. A dozen times each year, heavy-bellied Pentoshi hulks dropped anchor near Riverpeak's docks, offloading crates of silk, salt, and shadowbinders' candles—though the latter were always purchased in whispers and moved only by night. Once, even a galley flying the crab-claw banner of Qohor moored at Riverpeak, its hull lacquered black and its crew silent as ghosts.
The Mudd portmasters, clad in dark green cloaks lined with parchment scrolls and ledgers, oversaw all such commerce with careful eyes. Every crate was weighed, every barrel tapped, every coin tallied. A fraction of every sale—never much, just enough—flowed into Oldstones like the rivers that fed its foundations.
Yet for all its might, Riverpeak retained its humility. There were no grand marble statues or gold-roofed towers. Instead, its greatness showed in the order, in the function, in the quiet dignity of its structure. Although a temple to the Seven existed in Riverpeak, it had been built at the edge of the town, far from the markets. But for the Old Gods, space had been set aside near the center, beside a busy marketplace, where a small park flourished with gardens and trees. At its heart lay a quiet grove—a sacred circle where the townsfolk could pray before the heart tree that stood tall and solemn in its midst, grown in the same fashion as the one at Oldstones. The park, like the town itself, was watched over by a special company of town guards known as the Greencloaks, named for the emerald-colored cloaks they wore in honor of the emeralds in House Mudd's sigil. The marketplace spanned an entire district and held weekly festivals where traders from as far as the Vale and Stormlands came to hawk wares and hear news of the Riverlands.
When Hosteen first heard the name spoken—"Riverpeak," whispered by masons and traders, on coin slips and supply lists—he had allowed himself a small smile. The old dream, reborn in a new form. Riverpeak had endured. If not as the name of the castle, then as the name of its nearest town.
And perhaps, in some quiet way, that was better. A castle could fall. A dream might burn. But a town, full of people and purpose and life, might just last.
For all its growing fame and fair repute, there were still those in the Riverlands—and beyond—who looked upon Oldstones and the town of Riverpeak with narrowed eyes and silent suspicion.
They did not speak openly of it, of course. Not in the halls of power, nor in the hearing of courtiers or ravens. But behind shuttered doors and during long feasts when the wine ran freely and tongues grew loose, the talk came all the same. How could it be done? they asked. Where had the coin come from?
Oldstones, once a moss-choked ruin, now stood proud as a seat of ancient kings. Its walls gleamed like hammered bronze in the sunlight, runes graven deep along the inner faces, windows set with colored glass, and its towers crowned with banners dyed in muddy red and bright with golden thread. Beyond it, Riverpeak had grown in just a few short years from a marshy trading post to a thriving city—planned, precise, and wealthy beyond any town that size had right to be. Nearly eighty thousand smallfolk and merchants lived within its walls, more than some lords could claim, but far less than the great cities of Westeros. Its cisterns were deep, its storehouses deeper, and its coffers, it was whispered, bottomless.
And therein lay the rub.
No one believed it could be done without ruinous debt.
It was an old truth in Westeros that the only thing more dangerous than open war was open wealth. Especially when that wealth bloomed from nowhere.
"Too fast," muttered Lord Vance to his steward one night. "Too rich. He must owe half of it to Braavos."
"The Iron Bank will come calling, mark me," said a knight of House Darry with ale on his breath and envy in his heart. "They always do."
Even the more cautious lords—those who liked Hosteen well enough, or had seen the strength of Riverpeak's defenses with their own eyes—spoke in quiet confidence of inevitable collapse.
"Let him build and build," said Lord Piper, smiling behind his cup. "All castles fall, given time and too much gold."
But they were wrong. Terribly, utterly wrong.
Hosteen Mudd owed no coin to the Iron Bank of Braavos, nor to any of the Nine Free Cities. In truth, the old moneylenders would have paid handsomely just for a seat at his counting table. The wealth that sustained House Mudd's rebirth had not come from debt, nor dragonlords, nor good fortune.
It had come from another world entirely.
A world of magic, invention, and ruin—never known by Westeros. From that vanished life, Hosteen had carried more than memory. The wealth and secrets he bore were staggering. Knowledge earned in another world, honed in fire and war. Power sealed in ancient vaults beneath the Iron Bank of Braavos, where he was counted among its most discreet and influential shareholders. Millions of golden dragons in his name—an inheritance built across worlds and centuries, hidden behind layers of oath and spell. Wealth that would have staggered a Lannister, silenced a Florent, and made a Tyrell weep. Yet greater still was what he remembered, what he knew—of runes, of binding charms and living flame, of protections lost to time. Westeros had never known the world he came from. Hosteen had.
Even after the vast expenditures to rebuild Oldstones, the wages for architects and masons, the cost of dredging the Blue Fork and shaping Riverpeak into something clean and efficient—Hosteen remained, without question, one of if not the richest lords in the Seven Kingdoms.
But coin alone could not explain it.
No one outside of Oldstones knew of the mines nestled in the wooded hills to the west and south—iron, copper, and silver, each worked by hardy folk and kept well-guarded. Nor had word spread of the small but glittering emerald vein, found near a bend in the river where the light struck just so. Those gems, uncut and untouched by jewelers, were hoarded for now, or inlaid in the private chambers of the keep in subtle places—above a hearth, behind a carved weirwood headboard, or in the clasp of a worn leather book.
Still less was known of Hosteen's glass. No merchant sold it in Riverpeak's markets. No craftsmen boasted of it in guildhalls or fairs. But every window in Oldstones shone with coloured panes that shifted hue with the sun, soft greens and deep reds and golds that caught fire at dusk. Hosteen had it made from memories of his old live and taught a few trusted men that now produced it, but the strengthening to be stronger than any glass known to men, that he did himself, and for better or for worse the glass of Oldstones was not yet for sale, not yet for sight. Not until he was ready. Not until he chose.
And the food—gods, the food. The fertile valley and river-fed fields of his domain yielded more grain, root, and fruit than could be consumed by Riverpeak or Oldstones alone. The surplus was sold north, to the Starks and Umbers and Karstarks and Forresters, where winters bit early and hard. Fat river trout, dried and salted; dense loaves of barley bread; carts of onions, turnips, radishes, even sweet yellow pears in late summer—all found their way to White Harbor and beyond.
And then there were the tolls, the levies, the trade roads—and above all, the free trade pact with House Blackwood and House Mallister, sealed by alliance, affection, and understanding. Between Raventree, Seaguard, and Riverpeak, goods flowed swift and unburdened. The lack of tariffs made each of them stronger, and none of them poorer. It was a rare thing in the Riverlands—lords working together, not in war, but in prosperity.
So let the other lords mutter. Let them dream of debt and downfall.
Hosteen Mudd did not listen. He had plenty of gold, and plenty of time.