Chapter 104 — The Steward's Hill

Morton survived the night. He did not survive the next one. Near dawn, the maid watching beside him heard the old steward wake and ask whether the autumn grain had been brought under cover before the rains. She told him the granaries were full and the last wagons had arrived the previous afternoon. Morton smiled, closed his eyes, and never opened them again.

The maid found Arlan in the study before sunrise. He knew from her face before she spoke. The steward's chamber smelled of herbs, wax, and rain-damp stone. Morton lay as if asleep, his hands folded loosely over his chest. The strain that had lived around his mouth for as long as Arlan had known him was gone.

Arlan stood beside the bed for a long while. His first morning in this world had been chaos: a poor holding, frightened villagers, armed enemies, no understanding of what the next hour would bring. Morton had been there, old and worried and stubbornly loyal, calling him my lord even when Arlan's behavior no longer resembled the boy the steward had raised.

He had explained which fields still produced grain, where the well leaked, which families had fled, which debts could not be paid, and which walls would collapse if a hard winter came. Later he had counted refugee households, distributed seed, checked workshop wages, argued over military stores, and somehow found time to complain that Arlan ate too little whenever work became bad.

The dragon egg was Morton's final secret. FireStorm itself was his life's work. Arlan reached down and closed the old man's slightly parted eyelids. "Rest. I have it from here."

News crossed FireStorm faster than any official proclamation.

By midmorning the forge hammers had stopped. The glass kilns were banked rather than fed. Farmers left the fields and came back toward the village in muddy boots. Black cloth appeared over door lintels, around sleeves, and on the spear shafts of the household guard. No order had required it.

Most of FireStorm's newer families had known Morton through practical acts rather than grand speeches. He had assigned plots to refugees and made sure the first seed grain reached them before merchants could buy it. He had found beds for children who arrived without parents. He had set wages in the workshops and punished two foremen for shaving coin from laborers who could not read their own accounts. When the Black Armor Army was first formed, he had counted armor straps and ration sacks himself because he trusted arithmetic more than assurances.

People remembered such things. Rodrick came to the lord's house before noon, removed his spectacles, and bowed his head when Arlan told him. Cade stood silent with both hands resting on the pommel of his sword. Bor stared at the floor as if there were an enemy somewhere beneath it that brute strength could solve. Brienne said nothing at first.

Then she asked, "Where will he be buried?"

Arlan already knew. The western hillside rose above FireStorm Village where the ground became too stony for good wheat. From there a man could see the roofs, the fields, the training ground, the smoke from the workshops, and beyond them the dark folds of the Red Mountains. Morton had spent most of his life worrying over every one of those things.

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"There," Arlan said.

They buried him three days later beneath a cold grey sky. The rain never became heavy, but it never fully stopped either. A septon from a nearby village led the prayers to the Seven. Arlan did not pretend to know what Morton had believed about death beyond the rituals of the Faith, but the old steward had lived as a Westerosi man and would be buried as one.

Thousands came up the hill. FireStorm was no longer the hamlet of forty-seven souls Arlan had inherited. Refugees, craftsmen, miners, guards, merchants, widows, children, and families that had arrived with nothing stood shoulder to shoulder in black cloth. The Black Armor Army formed ranks at the front without armor polish or banners, their spearheads lowered in mourning.

Brienne stood at Arlan's right. Cade, Rodrick, and Bor stood behind them. The coffin was simple oak. Morton would have objected to wasting silver on anything more elaborate. When the septon finished, Arlan took the shovel himself. The first load of wet earth struck the lid with a dull sound.

He looked over the crowd. Morton had never held a knight's title. He had never commanded a charge or won a tourney. No singer would have known what to do with a man whose victories involved ledgers balancing, seed surviving winter, and soldiers receiving boots before their feet froze. Arlan preferred the truth.

"Morton guarded House Ashenblade when there was almost nothing left to guard," he said. His voice carried over the wet hillside. "He kept FireStorm alive when survival brought no glory and very little thanks. Many of you received your first field, wage, ration, roof, or place in this household through his hands. I inherited a loyal steward. FireStorm lost one of its founders."

No one cheered. They bowed their heads. That was better. "His name will remain here," Arlan continued. "Not because he was noble, but because he was faithful to people who depended on him. House Ashenblade will remember that service. So will FireStorm."

He stepped back. Earth filled the grave slowly, shovel by shovel. Some villagers stayed until the last stone was laid despite the rain. An old woman left a small sack of wheat beside the marker. A boy from the workshops placed a wooden tally stick there. One Black Armor veteran set down the first cracked buckle Morton had refused to discard when supplies were scarce.

Arlan did not remove any of them. For seven days FireStorm kept mourning. The workshops closed entirely for three, then returned at reduced pace. Taverns did not play music. Training drills were suspended except for watches and essential exercises. Trade continued because Morton would have risen from the grave to object if grief spoiled contracted cargo, but even the merchants arriving from Rainwood lowered their voices near the village center.

Several neighboring households sent condolences. Some were sincere, others political. Arlan accepted both without pretending they were the same. At the end of the mourning period, a stone tablet was placed in the front hall of the lord's house. It recorded Morton's years of service, his stewardship under Ser Edwyn and Arlan, and his work rebuilding FireStorm. Arlan rejected a florid inscription Rodrick drafted on the first attempt.

"He would hate that," Arlan said.

Rodrick read it again. "He would call it expensive nonsense."

"Exactly."

The final inscription was shorter.

MORTON, STEWARD OF FIRESTORM. HE KEPT THE HOUSE WHEN IT WAS WEAK, AND BUILT WHEN IT GREW STRONG.

After everyone left, Arlan remained alone before the stone. The Valyrian steel ring rested beneath his glove. The dragon egg and Vaelora's letters were locked in the deepest secure chamber beneath the house, known to no living person but him.

Morton's last warning stayed with him more strongly than the secret. The egg had not built FireStorm. People had. If one day a dragon rose from that black shell, Arlan intended to remember the difference.