Chapter 106 — The Warm Stone Chamber

Gloin's records reduced the first stages of incubation to an irritatingly simple principle: patience under controlled conditions. The difficulty lay in creating those conditions with tools that belonged to a frontier holding rather than a laboratory from Michael Watson's old world.

Blood awakening came first. The older texts recommended repeated contact with the prospective rider's blood at natural seams in the shell, accompanied by whatever bonding rites belonged to that bloodline. The wording differed among sources, but none recommended drowning an egg in blood or beginning with violence.

Weeks at minimum, the notes warned, and months for very old eggs; Arlan underlined that twice. The second stage required stable warmth rather than open flame. The egg was to rest upon stone that retained heat evenly, while the shell was nourished with materials associated with dragon nesting grounds. Several dwarf records mentioned powdered dragon bone and volcanic stone, though Arlan treated both as useful observations rather than sacred ingredients.

The temperature descriptions were less helpful. Dwarves wrote about oils smoking, metals softening, and stone changing shade under heat instead of giving numbers. FireStorm possessed no thermometer suited to the task, which meant Arlan had to translate their craft language into repeatable tests.

He summoned two dwarf artisans from Blackstone Creek and told them he wanted a chamber for delicate heat treatment; they asked no questions beyond those required to build it. Three identical stone samples went into separate furnace channels. Lead served as one crude threshold, lamp oil as another, and copper as a third. The craftsmen recorded how long each stone remained warm after the coals were withdrawn and how sharply the temperature changed when fresh fuel was added.

To anyone outside the inner work crew, it looked like another experiment in smelting and furnace efficiency. Arlan preferred it that way. Blackstone Creek offered the best location. The mine was already guarded, the dwarven workshops gave a reasonable explanation for unusual masonry, and the deepest branch could be sealed from ordinary miners without drawing much attention.

Arlan chose a narrow chamber beyond the active galleries where the surrounding rock remained dry. The dwarves cut a shallow heat channel beneath a raised stone bed and built a second channel to vent smoke away from the room. A removable iron plate controlled how much heat reached the bed without exposing the egg to direct flame.

The work took days rather than hours, and Arlan insisted on that too. While the chamber was being prepared, he questioned Gloin about materials. Dragon bone was the first problem. Westeros had old dragon remains, but obtaining them openly would create precisely the questions Arlan wanted to avoid.

Gloin offered a small jar of powdered bone from a lesser drake in exchange for two barrels of Red Sun Flame and a crate of preserved meat. The species was not Westerosi, which made Arlan cautious, so he accepted enough for testing after the dwarf insisted the powder's purpose was mineral and thermal rather than mystical; he did not buy enough to make the entire process depend upon it.

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Volcanic stone proved easier. A trader connected to the Group supplied dense black-red slabs that absorbed heat slowly and released it over hours. Arlan purchased only what he needed for the egg bed and had the dwarves cut the pieces into a shallow cradle.

When everything arrived, he tested the materials separately. A pinch of the dragon-bone powder carried faint warmth even in a cold room. The volcanic stone held heat far longer than ordinary fieldstone and did not crack when warmed repeatedly. Neither produced any violent reaction from the egg when placed nearby.

That was enough to proceed, and the finished chamber looked almost disappointingly plain. Black-red stone formed the cradle at its center, with a narrow heat channel beneath it and shelves cut into one wall for the records and materials. The only decoration was a rubbing of the old High Valyrian phrase preserved in Vaelora's papers.

Arlan transported the egg himself after dark. Cade knew that something valuable was being kept in the restricted mine branch, but not what it was. Eight trusted Black Armor soldiers rotated on the outer approaches under orders to admit no one without Arlan's personal permission. Even Rodrick was told only that the chamber contained a family inheritance too dangerous to expose casually.

Inside, Arlan placed the egg into the warm stone cradle and waited until the shell reached the same gentle heat as the bed beneath it. Then he removed his glove.

Vaelora's ring warmed around his finger. He pricked the side of his thumb with a clean needle and placed one drop of blood where two crimson seams crossed. The response came almost immediately. Heat spread beneath his palm, stronger than it had in the lord's house, while one red line brightened before settling again.

Arlan spoke the short High Valyrian phrase preserved in Vaelora's notes. Nothing exploded, no dragon tore through the shell, and the chamber remained quiet except for the faint draft moving through the vent, which was exactly what he wanted.

He recorded the time, the amount of blood, the warmth of the stone, and how long the visible glow lasted. Then he sealed the chamber and left through the narrow passage, locking the inner door himself.

The ritual became routine over the following days, with Arlan visiting before dawn or after dark to avoid a pattern obvious enough for servants to notice. Each time he checked the heat bed, examined the shell, used a tiny amount of blood, and wrote down the result.

The records were deliberately dull: chamber warm, shell unchanged, blood response six minutes; slightly warmer bed, response eight minutes; no cracking, discoloration, or odor. Any urge to speed the process went onto the parchment as a warning rather than into the furnace.

On the seventh evening, while Arlan replaced the iron cover over the heat channel, Vaelora's ring grew noticeably hot. The crimson seams beneath the egg's shell brightened once, then faded. A pulse followed beneath his fingertips. He froze until a second came several breaths later, weaker but distinct, then waited through the stillness that followed.

He waited before touching the shell again. It remained warm from within, not merely from the stone beneath it. Arlan opened the ciphered record and added one line. Internal activity confirmed. Continue awakening. Do not increase heat.