101AC.
Though the isles of Skagos, Molksyr, and Skane thrived with renewed vigor, the presence that had made them rise from ruin to prominence remained both ever-present and increasingly enigmatic. Hadrian, the once-solitary sorcerer now revered as High Lord of Skagos, did not relinquish his title, but the nature of his rule shifted. He had laid the foundation, raised the towers, tamed the wilderness, and drawn civilization from the bones of myth—but he was never one for thrones.
From his tower in Norhold, now wrapped in whispering ivy and lined with ancient runes, Hadrian withdrew from the dust of daily governance. Instead, his focus turned inward and upward—to the stars, the sea, and the hidden script of the world. By moonlight and fire-glow, he penned grimoires—long volumes in ink made of powdered obsidian and violet dye—filled with his studies of Skagosi ley-lines, elemental convergence, and runic resonance.
He wandered the windswept heights of Skane to strengthen the cliff-wards, walked beneath Molksyr's forest canopy to bind the forge-spirits, and returned to the godswood of Skagos to speak—wordlessly—with the weirwood he had once grown from his staff. Sometimes, his presence would vanish entirely for days, only to return with his cloak frosted in snow and new wisdom carved into stone tablets.
To Lords Torrek Slytheryn and Ragnar Ravenclaw, Hadrian was not merely a liege—he was a living legend, a guide, and an unspoken judge. He answered their owles in riddles or silence, but when he came in person, storms often followed. He would walk their halls, peer into their fires, and leave behind some new design, a sealed scroll, or a whispered word that changed the course of weeks to come.
Though distant, his influence was the glue that held the Three together. He had chosen them, empowered them, gifted them gold and ships and authority. In the taverns of Norhold and the streets of Skathold, folk still swore by his name as others swore by gods. He was High Lord, yes—but also something more. Something between a king and a curse, a watcher who never truly slept.
The wind howled across the high towers of Norhold, stirring the pine banners along the battlements and whispering through the ancient stones like voices long buried. It was late evening—the sky veiled in violet mist, the sea below churning dark as obsidian. Hadrian stood at the arched window of his study, cloaked in silence and deep thought, a raven's black feather still tucked between the pages of a half-finished grimoire.
The letter had come three moons past, borne by a sharp-eyed raven with feathers so black they shimmered blue in the sun. It had landed on his shoulder unbidden, unflinching, as if even the birds of Winterfell knew their messages were safe in his presence. The scroll had been tied with gray ribbon, the seal of House Stark unbroken—a direwolf pressed in wax.
Hadrian had known before opening it what the tone would be. Ellard Stark was no fool, and no man could watch the rise of three ancient isles—once forgotten, feared, and fractured—without weighing its meaning.
He had read it in the pale morning light, fingers tracing the deliberate, iron-handed script:
"So the Three rise once more.
Good.
But let them rise in the light of the North,
not only in the dark of myth."
It was poetry for a Stark, that. Controlled, understated, and clear as carved ice. A warning cloaked in approval.
Ellard's summons had been equally precise:
That Torrek Slytheryn of Greenspire and Ragnar Ravenclaw of Stonewake, the lords Hadrian had made from grit and honor, must travel to Winterfell before the year's close.
That they must swear fealty as Hadrian himself once had—before banners and blood, beneath the stone eyes of old kings.
That Maester Olorin would record their names, their house words, and their sigils for the Citadel, so the world would know the Three Houses not just in name but that there could be taught about if needed.
Hadrian had read it once, then again. And then a third time, aloud, his voice echoing in the candlelit chamber.
He had not replied immediately.
Instead, he set the scroll beside his ink-stained pages, walked the battlements beneath the stars, and watched the auroras spiral over the sea—green and gold, like the magic of the First Men awakening in the sky. He could feel it in his bones, in the stones of Norhold, in the ley-lines that pulsed beneath Molksyr's pine-kilns and Skane's sapphire cliffs. The isles were stirring. Becoming more.
And the North had noticed.
There was no fear in him, but there was respect. Winterfell was still the heart, and Hadrian had no desire to see the North split by suspicion. Ellard's words were wise, and his summoning just. It was time the rest of the lords—those who had once dismissed Skagos as savage and silent—saw what he had made.
So Hadrian had called his owls. One to Greenspire, one to Stonewake. He summoned Torrek and Ragnar to Norhold, and when they came—wrapped in cloaks of wolf fur and mountain wool—he showed them the letter, said only:
"It seems that the wolf calls. And sadly we must answer."
Now, as the wind curled around his tower and the final leaves of autumn fell into the sea, Hadrian prepared. Not with pomp, not with guards or gilded banners. But with runes on his cloak, sigils burned into silver rings, and a vow in his mind.
The sea was calm when the Stormhorn set sail from Darkharbor, its pinewood hull blackened with charcoal pitch and its sails stitched with the new silver serpent of House Slytheryn. Alongside her sailed the Ebonwake, flying the raven of Skane, sapphire-eyed and proud. At the head of the convoy, riding the northern wind with eerie silence, came Hadrian's vessel, the Prongs, its hull dark glass and stone, its figurehead a carved wolf-eyed man crowned with runes.
They made landfall east of White Harbor, where horses awaited them—gray northern destriers, tough as the land. They rode for five days through the snowswept wild, stopping at wayhouses and silent groves where ancient oaks remembered names long buried. Torrek rode in thoughtful silence, his cloak a patchwork of forest greens and steel. Ragnar rode like a storm, his laughter loud and eyes always scanning the horizon. Hadrian, as ever, was silent as shadow, save for when he spoke to the ravens that seemed to follow them by instinct.
At last, they saw Winterfell's rising smoke, curling above stone towers older than memory.
That night, the Great Hall of Winterfell rang with music, meat, and murmured speculation. Lord Ellard Stark presided from the high seat, his face etched with the weather of command. Around him sat his bannermen—the Umbers, the Ryswells, the Cerwyns, and others less certain of Skagos' return to grace.
The Skagosi lords were offered place and meat, and they took it well. Torrek shared tales of timber halls rising with clockwork speed, of kilns that burned pine into steel-black flame. Ragnar spoke of sapphires, of shipwrights and stonecutters turning mountain and cove into a fortress of artistry. And Hadrian? He spoke but little. But when he did, lords leaned closer, as if drawn by the strange stillness that always seemed to wrap itself around him like fog.
The next morning, they stood before the heart tree in Winterfell's godswood—its red leaves falling slow, like blood in snow. The weirwood's face, half-smiled and half-wept, bore silent witness as Torrek Slytheryn stepped forward.
"Rooted in storm, grown in stone," he said, voice strong.
He knelt before Ellard Stark, sword planted upright.
"To Winterfell I pledge the faith of Greenspire. Hearth and heart and harvest I yield up to you, my lord. My swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to my weak, help to my helpless, and justice to all, and I shall never fail you. I swear it by earth and water. I swear it by bronze and iron. We swear it by ice and fire. May the North remember."
Then came Ragnar Ravenclaw, with a sapphire blade across his back and wolf-hair braided through his cloak.
"The stone remembers," he said simply, laying bare a palm scarred from forging.
"To Winterfell I pledge the faith of Stonewake. Hearth and heart and harvest I yield up to you, my lord. My swords and spears and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to my weak, help to my helpless, and justice to all, and I shall never fail you. I swear it by earth and water. I swear it by bronze and iron. We swear it by ice and fire. May the North remember."
Ellard nodded to both. Hadrian watched, his face unreadable—but he bowed his head as if in approval, acknowledging tradition's hold over even power like his.
In the solar afterward, Maester Olorin carefully etched down their words, sigils, and seats into a fine raven-quill parchment:
House Slytheryn of Greenspire
Words: "Rooted in Storm, Grown in Stone."
Sigil: A silver serpent coiled around a pine tree on a background of green and white. House Ravenclaw of Stonewake
Words: "The Stone Remembers."
Sigil: A black raven with sapphire eyes upon a grey cliff face.
Olorin sealed the parchment with wax and wolf's hair. But in the weeks that followed, a raven returned from Oldtown, carrying a letter from Maester Caran, a senior archivist of the Citadel:
"Concerning these claims from Skagos... curious, most curious. Neither The Valyrian records nor those of the Kings of Winter suggest noble lines by those names. We request further evidence of legitimacy—lineage, land titles, and proof of Stark sanction. And this 'Hadrian'—was he truly confirmed by your own records, or does he claim authority beyond maesterly understanding?"
Olorin scoffed softly "They have been like that since you said you didn't want a master in your castle and I think they might just stay stubborn until they see for themselves not that they would set foot somewhere north of Oldtown."
Hadrian only smiled. "Let them be, it's not like they can do anything " he said.
The Skagosi lords remained for a fortnight more in Winterfell. They spoke with bannermen, walked the courtyards, and shared spiced pine whisky beneath old banners. The warmth was slow but growing. Skagos was no longer only myth; it was becoming kin again.
Then came the raven from King's Landing.
A black bird with a red-threaded scroll. The room fell silent as the parchment was read aloud.
"From the Grandmaester of King's Landing to Lords of the North—
It is with sorrow that we announce the death of Prince Baelon Targaryen, the Brave, son of King Jaehaerys, taken by a burst in the belly. May the gods keep him."
Whispers rippled across the hall. Baelon had been the heir apparent.
Then, not a week later, another raven arrived—its seal gold and red, bearing the king's personal mark.
"By decree of His Grace, King Jaehaerys Targaryen, the Lords of Westeros are summoned to Harrenhal, where a Great Council shall be convened to determine the matter of succession. Let none delay."