Chapter 65: The Whisper of Winter, the Hallows' Might, and the Shadow Isle's Eternal Veil (Fidelius: Part 1)
The news of Lord Eddard Stark's arrest for treason, the subsequent death of King Robert Baratheon under suspicious circumstances, and the unlawful crowning of Joffrey Lannister (as Aelyx knew him to be) sent shockwaves of outrage and grief through the North. Lord Lyulph Volmark, Aelyx's public descendant, had immediately declared Skagos's unwavering support for young Robb Stark when he called the Northern banners, pledging the island's immense resources to avenge the wrongs done to their liege lord. Skagosi gold flowed to Winterfell, Skagosi steel armed Northern levies, and a formidable contingent of Skagosi warriors, led by Lyulph's own fiercely capable son, Edric, marched south with the Young Wolf.
But while public Skagos played its part in the burgeoning War of the Five Kings, a far graver, more ancient concern consumed Aelyx Velaryon within the hidden sanctuary of Mount Skatus. For decades, the greensight of Lyra and Daenys, and more recently, that of their own gifted descendants among Aelyx's great-grandchildren, had brought increasingly disturbing, fragmented visions: an unnatural, enduring winter; gaunt figures with eyes like burning ice; legions of shambling dead; and a Long Night that threatened to extinguish all light and life in the world. Aelyx's own formidable precognitive abilities, honed over centuries and amplified by his mastery of both Valyrian and Potterverse magic, confirmed these terrifying portents. The ancient enemy of all living things, the Others, were stirring in the far North beyond the Wall, and the petty squabbles of mortal kings for an iron chair were but a fleeting, irrelevant prelude to this true, existential struggle.
"The lords of Westeros fight for temporary dominion over a realm that may soon cease to exist," Aelyx declared, his voice resonating with grim finality in the Obsidian Council Chamber. Before him sat his immortal queen, Lyanna, their eight direct children – ageless figures of immense power – and the ruling council of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the leaders of their hidden magical society. "They spill blood for crowns and castles, while the true winter, the endless night, gathers its strength. They are children bickering over toys as the tide rises to consume their playground. We cannot rely on them. We cannot allow their folly to endanger what we have built here, the last true bastion of Valyrian lore, dragonpower, and enduring civilization."
His decision, when he announced it, was breathtaking in its audacity, a magical undertaking on a scale perhaps never before attempted, not even in the heyday of the Valyrian Freehold.
"We will seal Skagos from the world," Aelyx stated, his violet eyes burning with an unshakeable resolve. "We will weave a charm of such profound power that our island, its true nature, its inhabitants, its very existence, will vanish from the memory and perception of all outsiders. Skagos will become a hidden sanctuary, inviolable, undetectable, until the Long Night has passed, and perhaps, until a time when the world beyond is worthy, or desperate enough, for what we might offer. We will cast the Fidelius Charm over the entirety of our domain."
A stunned silence filled the chamber. The Fidelius Charm, a spell of ultimate concealment known only through the most esoteric Potterverse texts Aelyx possessed, was designed to hide a secret within a single living soul, the Secret Keeper. To extend such a charm over an entire island teeming with life, magic, and hundreds of dragons, was a feat of almost unimaginable magical might.
Visenya Volmark, her silver-gold hair like a frozen waterfall, was the first to speak. "Father, the power required… it is colossal. Even with your abilities, and all of ours combined…"
"The power will come from the Philosopher's Stone, my daughter," Aelyx replied, his gaze unwavering. "Its energies, gorged on the death-screams of Old Valyria and nurtured by centuries of my own alchemy, are virtually limitless. And I will wield the Deathly Hallows, in concert, to channel and amplify that power, to weave a ward of such intricate, unbreakable complexity that Skagos will become a whisper, a forgotten dream, to the outside world."
Aenar, master of enchantments, his brow furrowed in deep calculation, nodded slowly. "The theoretical principles are sound, Greatfather. The Hallows… the Elder Wand to direct the will and the weave, the Cloak's essence of concealment expanded to an almost conceptual level, the Resurrection Stone… perhaps to anchor the charm to the very spirit of the island, to the ancestral memory of our bloodline here, giving it a living, enduring foundation."
"Precisely," Aelyx affirmed. "It will be an undertaking that will tax us all, that will require every ounce of our collective magical strength, every erg of the Stone's boundless energy. But it is necessary. The alternative is to risk everything we have built – our people, our dragons, our knowledge, our very existence – being consumed by the coming darkness, or shattered by the desperate, blundering actions of a dying world."
The first step was a meticulous accounting of all that Skagos contained, all that would be encompassed by the Fidelius. Lord Edric Volmark (the current public ruler, Lyulph's son, who had remained on Skagos to govern in his father's absence with the Northern host) was summoned to the sanctuary and informed of the true, momentous plan. He, like all the public Volmark lords before him upon their "retirement" into the sanctuary, was already an initiate into its deeper secrets, his loyalty absolute.
Under Aelyx's direction, a great census was undertaken.
The Volmark Dynasty: Every immortal and long-lived descendant of Aelyx and Lyanna, from their eight direct children down to the newest great-great-great-grandchildren, their names, their lineage, their magical specializations meticulously recorded. They numbered now over seven hundred individuals, each a potent magic-user, many of them dragonriders.
The Dragons: The Skagosi dragon legions, now numbering an astounding five hundred and thirty-seven, from the ancient, colossal beasts bonded to Aelyx's children (including the Summerhall Seven, now magnificent adults who had begun to breed true, their unique Targaryen traits a valuable addition) to the youngest hatchlings still learning to master their fire. Their lairs, their training grounds, their complex ecosystem within Mount Skatus, all were to be enfolded.
The Phoenixes: The entire flock of nearly one hundred radiant phoenixes, their songs a constant source of healing and hope, their tears a priceless alchemical ingredient.
The House-Elves: The thriving, multi-generational community of over two thousand house-elves, their villages, workshops, subterranean farms, and magical infrastructure forming the bedrock of the sanctuary's daily life and Aelyx's hidden power.
The Mundane Population of Skagos: The nearly two hundred thousand mortal inhabitants of public Skagos – the descendants of the original Shadow Legion, the purchased artisans and laborers from the Free Cities, the Northern settlers, and the integrated native Skagosi. Their towns, their farms, their fishing fleets, their lives – all would be encompassed. Aelyx would not abandon them. Their memories would be subtly adjusted by a gentle, pervasive wave of magic as the Fidelius settled, ensuring they accepted their new, isolated reality without undue fear or questioning, their lives continuing much as before, albeit now within an utterly hidden, magically shielded realm. The "Heir's Hoard" mine would continue its "production" for their benefit, its true source forever a secret.
The Knowledge and Artifacts: The vast libraries containing the accumulated wisdom of Valyria, the Potterverse, Flamel's alchemy, and centuries of Skagosi research. The armories filled with enchanted weapons and Valyrian steel (some recovered, some replicated and improved by Aenar). The alchemical laboratories, the enchanting chambers, the scrying observatories. And, of course, the Philosopher's Stone and the Deathly Hallows themselves, which would be central to the ritual.
The preparations for the Great Weaving, as Aelyx termed it, took nearly a full year, even as the War of the Five Kings raged ever more fiercely in the south. Teams of Volmark sorcerers and house-elf geomancers, led by Aenar and Aegon Volmark, meticulously mapped the island's magical ley lines, identifying the optimal anchor points for the Fidelius Charm. Runes of immense power, drawn from Valyrian, Old Northern, and Potterverse traditions, were carved into the bedrock at these key junctures around Skagos's entire perimeter, from its highest mountain peaks to its deepest coastal caves, forming a colossal, island-encompassing magical circuit.
The Philosopher's Stone was brought forth from its shielded vault, its scarlet light pulsing with unimaginable energy. Aelyx had spent decades further refining its power, attuning it not just for gold and Elixir, but as a near-infinite reservoir of pure magical force. It would be the battery for this world-altering enchantment.
The Deathly Hallows were prepared. The Elder Wand, which Aelyx now wielded through his magnificent weirwood-and-cold-fire-gem staff, would be the primary focus for directing the immense energies. The Resurrection Stone, Aelyx decided, would not be used to summon spirits, but its unique connection to the threshold between life and death, to spiritual essence, would be employed to bind the Fidelius to the very soul of Skagos, to its ancient geological formations, its primal nature spirits (which Lyanna and Lyra could now sense and subtly commune with), making the island itself a willing participant in its own concealment. The Cloak of Invisibility, its fabric woven from shadow and silence, would be conceptually expanded, its essence of absolute unseeableness and unfindableness woven into the very fabric of the Fidelius Charm on a geographic scale.
The Secret Keeper. This was the most critical element. Aelyx, after much contemplation, decided that he himself would be the primary Secret Keeper. His immortality, his unparalleled magical power, and his unwavering will made him the only logical choice. The secret – "The true location of the Isle of Skagos, its sanctuary, and all its inhabitants, is hidden within the heart of Mount Skatus, under the eternal watch of House Volmark" – would be locked within his soul, inviolable. Lyanna, and each of his eight immortal children, would be made secondary Secret Keepers through a complex magical transference, ensuring redundancy should the unthinkable ever happen to Aelyx (though he deemed such a possibility infinitesimally remote). They, and only they, could reveal the secret to others, bringing them within the Fidelius's perception.
Finally, as a blood-red comet, a harbinger of doom and rebirth (as interpreted by his seers), blazed across the night sky of Westeros, a sky already darkened by the smoke of war, Aelyx deemed the preparations complete. He gathered his entire immortal family, and the most powerful of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, upon the windswept summit of Mount Skatus. Below them, the island of Skagos lay shrouded in a preternatural stillness, its mundane inhabitants already lulled into a magically induced quiescence, their minds prepared for the subtle shift in their reality.
Aelyx raised his staff, the Elder Wand's power thrumming through it, the Philosopher's Stone pulsing like a captured star at its base. Lyanna stood beside him, her hand in his, her Stark magic grounding him to the ancient energies of the North. Their children formed a circle around them, their own formidable powers raised, ready to channel and stabilize the immense forces about to be unleashed.
"Let the Great Weaving commence!" Aelyx's voice, amplified by magic, rolled across the mountaintop, a command that resonated with the very stones beneath their feet. "Let Skagos become a memory, a myth, a forgotten whisper in the annals of a dying world! Let our sanctuary become eternal, our lineage inviolable, our vigil against the Long Night absolute!"
With a surge of will that drew upon centuries of accumulated power, Aelyx plunged his staff towards the heart of the mountain. The Philosopher's Stone blazed with an intensity that outshone the distant, bloody comet. The runic circuit carved around the island ignited, a chain of pure magical fire encircling Skagos. The Resurrection Stone, held by Lyanna, pulsed with a deep, earthy light, connecting the ritual to the island's primordial spirit. The conceptual essence of the Invisibility Cloak, drawn forth by Rhaenys, spread like an infinite shadow, a veil of ultimate concealment.
The very air around Skagos shimmered, buckled, and then, with a soundless implosion of magical energy that was felt rather than heard, the island… vanished. To any ship sailing the Shivering Sea, to any raven flying overhead, to any mapmaker charting the Northern coasts, Skagos would simply cease to be. Its location, its existence, became a secret locked solely within the souls of Aelyx Velaryon and his chosen kin. Their minds would recall it, they could find it, but to all others, it would be as if it had never been, or at best, a faded legend, a mythical isle lost to the mists of time.
The strain of the Great Weaving was immense, even for Aelyx and his immortal family, even with the Stone's power. For three days and three nights, they poured their magic into the colossal enchantment, their bodies thrumming with power, their minds locked in a singular, focused will. When it was finally done, when the last rune settled and the last echo of magical energy subsided, an exhausted but triumphant Aelyx looked out from Mount Skatus.
The world beyond the now-invisible shores of Skagos was still there, but it felt… distant, muted, like a play observed from behind a one-way mirror. The War of the Five Kings would continue its bloody course. The Long Night would eventually descend. But here, within the eternal veil of the Fidelius, Skagos was safe. His people, his dragons, his magic, his dynasty – all were secure, shielded from the storms of the outside, free to continue their timeless evolution, to prepare for a future only they could now truly shape.
A new era had begun for the hidden kingdom. The Shadow Isle was now truly wreathed in shadows, its heart beating strong and secret, awaiting the long, dark winter, and the eventual, perhaps millennia-distant, dawn that would follow.