Chapter 52: The Perfect, Empty Room
Twenty years passed. Twenty years of a peace so profound and so absolute that the very concept of war began to fade into the realm of myth, a bloody, chaotic fairy tale told to frighten children. The Dragon's Peace, as the maesters recorded it, was an age of unparalleled prosperity. The Great Order, as the faithful called it, was a time of unprecedented miracles. The Gilded Cage, as the last of the old guard whispered in the deepest parts of the night, was a prison of quiet, comfortable despair.
The world had been remade. The Free Cities of Essos were now the Democratic Districts of the Great Order, their councils chosen by the people, their economies managed by the Iron Bank, and their souls guided by the ever-present truth of the god in Westeros. The Dragon Yards west of King's Landing flourished, a paradise of meadows and caves where the most magnificent creatures in the world were raised with love and devotion for their one, terrible purpose.
The first Tithe had been paid five years prior. A glorious green dragon, bonded to the long-dead Rhaena Targaryen, had been led to the Hill of Rhaenys by her grandson. The event was a somber state holiday. The kingdom had watched, in the public squares via magical projections displayed on shimmering panes of force—a new gift from the god to ensure all could witness his works—as the beautiful creature dissolved into a river of light and was absorbed by their eternal shepherd. The people had wept, and then they had given thanks for the sacrifice that ensured their peace. The system worked. It was perfect.
King Viserys II, now a man in his fifties with threads of silver in his dark hair, stood on an overlook at the Dragon Yards with his own son, Prince Daemon the Second. Daemon II, a sharp, inquisitive young man of twenty, was a true child of the Peace. He had never known war, never known hunger, never known the true, chaotic freedom his ancestors had taken for granted.
Before them, a young, powerful dragon with scales the colour of a stormy sky was playfully chasing sheep in a meadow. It was Stormcloud, the dragon bonded to Viserys's long-dead younger brother, Joffrey. Its time for the Tithe was approaching.
"He is magnificent, Father," Daemon II said, his voice filled with the awe that all of his generation had for the beautiful, doomed creatures. "Grand-uncle Joffrey's companion. The last of the dragons from before the Great Work."
"He is," Viserys replied, his voice heavy. "He has lived a long and peaceful life. It is the promise of the pact. The price of our world."
"I understand the duty," the young prince said, his eyes fixed on the dragon. "I do. But… do you not ever wish you could have seen it? The world before?" He turned to his father. "I read the histories. Grandfather Daemon, for whom I am named, leaping from Caraxes onto Vhagar. Great-uncle Aemond burning the Riverlands. The stories… they are full of fire, and passion, and terrible choices. Our histories… the maesters record trade yields and population growth. It is all so… quiet."
Viserys looked at his son, at the yearning for a narrative, for a story with struggle and meaning, and he felt a profound sorrow. The god had eliminated war, but it could not eliminate the human heart's desire for a story worth telling.
"The peace has been a blessing, my son," Viserys said gently. "Do not romanticize the fire. It burns everything, the good and the bad, without distinction."
"I know, Father," Daemon II replied, looking back at the dragon. "I just wonder if, in extinguishing the fire, we did not also lose some of the light."
In the Free District of Pentos, the agora was bustling with the orderly commerce of a prosperous city. The former slave, Grazdan, now the thrice-elected and deeply respected First Triarch, was presiding over a public debate on new tariffs proposed by the Iron Bank.
A young merchant, his voice full of the righteous indignation of a man who has never known true oppression, stood to speak. "Triarch Grazdan, we are a free people! We choose our own leaders! Why must we bow to the ledgers of Braavosi bankers? These tariffs benefit them, not us! We should be free to set our own rates!"
Grazdan, now an old man with kind, weary eyes, listened patiently. When the merchant was finished, he rose to address the crowd. "You speak of freedom, young master Orlo, and you are right to do so. The god gave us the gift of choice, and it is a gift we must treasure." He paused, letting his words settle. "But our freedom exists within the Great Order. And the Order requires stability. The Iron Bank funded our liberation. Their investment rebuilt our city. Their ships carry our goods. Their economic stability is our stability."
He looked out at the crowd, at the faces of people who had once worn chains. "We are free to debate the price of fish. We are free to elect our council. We are free to love who we choose and to raise our children without fear. But we are not free to choose chaos over order. The bank's terms are a small price to pay for the peace we all enjoy. The god has forbidden slavery, not interest rates."
The crowd murmured its assent. They were free, but their freedom was a carefully managed portfolio, its profits guaranteed by the Iron Bank, its security underwritten by God.
In the great Starry Sept of Oldtown, a single, elderly septon swept the dusty floors. The pews were empty. The seven altars were cold. The faith that had governed the souls of Westeros for a thousand years was now a museum piece, a curiosity for historians. The new black temple by the Honeywine was where the people went now, to offer their thanks for a healed child or a full harvest.
The ancient High Septon, the man who had tried to fight a god with philosophy, lay on his deathbed in a small, humble chamber. The young, radical septon, Arthor, now an old man himself, sat by his side.
"They do not come anymore," the High Septon whispered, his voice a dry crackle of parchment. "The people… they have forgotten us."
"They have not forgotten, Your Holiness," Arthor replied sadly. "They simply have no need of us. We offered them hope for the next life. He gave them a paradise in this one."
"A paradise of the flesh," the old man insisted, a final spark of defiance in his eyes. "A well-fed, well-kept cage. We… we offered them the freedom to be flawed. To be human. To seek mercy."
"He has no need for mercy," Arthor said. "His system is perfect. There are no flaws left to forgive." He looked out the window at the city, at the orderly, peaceful, prosperous world. "He won, Your Holiness. He truly did."
The High Septon closed his eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "He won. May the Seven have mercy on his soul." It was a prayer for a god, the final, most profound irony of a faith that had been rendered obsolete.
On the windswept shores of Dragonstone, an old man sat on a crumbling stone wall, looking out at a sky empty of dragons. It was Jacaerys Velaryon. His hair was white as seafoam, his face a mask of bitter lines, but his eyes were still sharp, still full of a fire that had nowhere to burn. His granddaughter, a young woman named Rhaena, came and sat beside him, wrapping a thick cloak around his frail shoulders.
"Grandfather," she said gently. "The king sends his regards from the capital. He says the preparations for the Tithe are complete. It will be… peaceful."
Jacaerys gave a short, harsh laugh. "Peaceful. Yes. That is the word for it. The quiet of a well-maintained abattoir. A neat and tidy rendering of a soul into sustenance." He was silent for a long time, watching the waves. "I have outlived them all, you know. My mother, the Queen. My brothers. Alicent and her brood. Even the Clubfoot, Larys Strong, who thought he was the god's chosen whisperer. I am the last one who truly remembers the world before."
"Was it so much better, Grandfather?" she asked, her voice soft. "The histories speak of such war, such suffering."
"It was a terrible world," Jace admitted, his voice a low rasp. "Full of fire and blood and broken promises. But it was ours. We made our own choices. We loved with a fire that was our own. We fought for crowns and for honor and for foolish, beautiful pride. We lived, Rhaena. We truly lived." He looked at her, his eyes full of a deep, ancient sorrow. "He didn't just conquer us. He ended us. He ended the story. Now there are no more choices, no more struggles. There is only the long, quiet, orderly road to the next Tithe."
He looked up at the sky. "We won every battle in our great crusade. We freed the world. And our prize was this… this perfect, empty room."
Krosis-Krif, the god on the hill, the being that was once a man, observed his creation. The faith of trillions of souls across two continents flowed into him, a steady, eternal river of pure energy. It was a flavor he had once craved, but its taste had long since become monotonous. The Dragon's Tithe provided a fleeting moment of exquisite sensation every few years, but it was just a rich dessert after an endless, unvarying meal. The democracies of Essos ran themselves with predictable efficiency. The Targaryen court managed Westeros with quiet competence. There were no more rivals. There were no more problems to solve. There was no more untidiness.
He had won. Utterly. Absolutely. He was eternal. He was all-powerful. He was safe.
And he was more bored than he had ever been in his short, chaotic, meaningless human life.
The cunning, ruthless, psychopathic gamer who was still the core of his consciousness was trapped in a game he had beaten fifty years ago. There were no new levels. There were no hidden bosses. There were no more achievements to unlock. He had achieved a perfect, 100% completion, and his reward was an eternity of wandering through the beautiful, empty world he had created, with no one to play with.
He let his vast consciousness drift back, back through the layers of divinity, through the memories of dragons and queens and princes, back to the very beginning. He remembered his first life. He remembered the feeling of rain on a windowpane. The smell of an old paperback book. The taste of cheap, bitter coffee. The frustration of a traffic jam. The simple, messy, unpredictable chaos of being a mortal man in a flawed, disorderly world.
Those memories were the only things left in his entire universe that felt real. They were the only things that were not part of his perfect, orderly design.
He had fled a meaningless death and, in his boundless power and foresight, had created for himself a meaningless eternity. He was a god, sitting alone in his own perfect, custom-built heaven, which had become his own personal, inescapable, and eternal hell. The silence he had once craved was now a deafening, unending roar of absolute nothing.
The fight was over. The game was won. The Great Work was complete.
A single, final thought, a word from the language of power that had been his first claim to a new identity, echoed in the vast, silent cathedral of his mind. It was the name he had chosen for himself, a name whose first half he had tried to conquer, and whose second half he had fulfilled all too well. Krosis-Krif. Sorrow-Fight.
"Krosis."
The fight had been won. Only the sorrow remained. And it was infinite.