Even after putting out the fire and lying down, sleep did not come easily.
His body was already ready for bed. His limbs had gone slack, his eyelids had drooped again and again, and a little of the air warmed by the hearth during the day still lingered beneath the blankets. His three-year-old body was raising hell, telling him to stop thinking and sleep already, but what he had read throughout the day refused to settle in his mind.
Blackfyre.
Until that morning, it had been a name wholly unrelated to him. Now it was the name that explained his blood, and the last male-line descendant of a house officially said to have been exterminated was lying in a bed in White Harbor with no idea of any of it. On top of that, somewhere in the manor, there was a dragon egg that had become considerably more likely to be genuine.
Daemon stared at the dark ceiling for some time, then pulled the blanket up to the tip of his nose.
"...I'm tired."
He did not want the Iron Throne.
More precisely, it was not that he disliked power itself. It would be nice to have plenty of money. It would be nice to have the power to move people. Better still, if someone came for his head, it would be nice to have enough power to say, "No, thank you," and leave it at that. But that was entirely different from trying to claim a rusty chair bristling with blades by feeding relatives into the grinder for generations.
To hell with a crown.
To Daemon, having enough coin to buy a ship and knowing three ports where he could flee was far more appealing than sitting a throne and wondering when a cousin would arrive with a knife.
The problem was whether other people would believe him simply because he did not want the crown.
In a feudal society, a claimant was less a person than a justification. Even if he had no ambition, someone could make use of his bloodline. A lord seeking rebellion did not necessarily need an ambitious prince. A suitable bloodline, a suitable name, and a reason to dress his own army as the army of a rightful king—that was enough.
In that sense, the last male-line Blackfyre was a dangerous asset simply by being alive.
Daemon thought of the present king, Jaehaerys II. From the records he had read so far, he seemed a better king than expected. Though frail of body, he had kept the threat of the Council of Nine from reaching the shores of Westeros, stopping it abroad, and he appeared at least to possess the sense to recognize what endangered the realm.
Which was precisely why it was more troublesome.
If he is a reasonable king, then all the more so.
Suppose he learned that the last male-line Blackfyre lived. The boy was three years old and showed no desire for a throne. Would he truly say—
Ah, I see. You do not want to be king. Grow up healthy, then.
—and leave him alone?
Daemon considered it for a moment.
"...No."
A reasonable king might find it reasonable to remove an unnecessary political variable beforehand. Yet having a foolish or impulsive king would not make Daemon any safer. Such a man might take heads based on his mood rather than reason.
Daemon shifted beneath the blankets and swore quietly.
"Fucked if he's a good king, fucked if he's an idiot."
In the end, all that remained was the conclusion that, whether the royal house was in good hands or bad, it was dangerous for him.
Then he simply could not be discovered.
And if he was discovered, he would run.
The question was where.
Tyrosh had to be removed from the list first. He did not know exactly why they had fled it so hastily, nor whom his mother and Raymund feared. Crawling back to the place they had fled without knowing the circumstances was not a plan. It was merely a more complicated method of suicide.
Myr and Lys were too close as well. From what he had read, Volantis seemed exceptionally fixated on old Valyrian bloodlines and houses. He doubted it was a suitable place for someone who would have to hide even his hair.
Then Braavos came to mind.
Braavos had begun as a city secretly founded by escaped Valyrian slaves, later growing into a Free City with a powerful fleet and immense financial strength. The credit of the Iron Bank was difficult even for kings and great lords to disregard, while its tradition of abhorring slavery clearly set it apart from the other Free Cities.
But that was only the broad outline of Braavos.
What Daemon actually knew was far less.
A strong fleet. An enormous bank called the Iron Bank. Founded by Valyrian slaves. Flourishing commerce.
That was all.
He did not know what public safety was really like, whether outsiders could settle there easily, how much it cost to rent a house, how cold its winters were, or what was needed to rent or buy a ship. He did not even know whether his mother's connections reached that far.
"Braavos..."
Daemon thought for a while, then revised his conclusion.
"A candidate."
Nothing more.
Deciding a place was safe because it looked distant and powerful on a map was not planning. It was delusion. He needed to find more books, speak to merchants who actually traveled to Braavos, and learn the cost of ships and living there.
And when his thoughts reached that point, a deeply familiar and unpleasant conclusion naturally sprang forth.
Money.
Gathering information cost money. Actually fleeing would cost even more. He would need to take a ship, find a home in another city, hire people, and, if necessary, even create a new identity.
Money was not everything.
But without money, a great deal of freedom turned into something dependent on another person's permission.
Daemon snorted.
"Even in my second life, no money means no freedom. Fuck."
He did not need a crown.
But to survive, he needed power—and that power had no reason to take the form of a throne.
Money.
Skills.
Information.
People.
A road he could take when he needed to leave.
Daemon sighed at the ceiling.
It was a little absurd that he had to gain power to live peacefully, and make deals with people in order to live in hiding, but there was no helping it. Locking himself in the house forever and doing nothing was far from safe as well.
And after thinking a little more about Braavos, useless questions began multiplying in his mind again.
How cold were Braavos's winters? Was firewood expensive? If he loaded a dragon egg aboard a ship and crossed the sea, would salt and damp harm it? What should go into the chest to cushion it from shocks?
Daemon pulled the blanket over his head.
"Ah, fuck it. Tomorrow."
He had read through several hundred years of Westerosi history in a single day.
That was enough international affairs for a three-year-old to worry about in one day.
More importantly, there was something else he needed to do at once.
His room.
Beams.
Flues.
The floor.
And the craftsmen he would meet again the next day.
Daemon closed his eyes.
"Enough useless thoughts. I should do what I need to do."
Only then did his thoughts slowly settle.
＊ ＊ ＊
The next day, Daemon's floor was torn up.
He had already received permission, but before the work began, Valena stared at her son for a long time.
"Are you truly starting with your own room?"
"Yes. Even if it fails, I'll be the one sleeping in the cold."
"Is that the greatest problem you can think of?"
Daemon thought briefly.
"If there's a fire, that'd be a bigger problem."
"Yes."
Valena nodded.
"Do not forget that, Daemon."
The work differed from Daemon's expectations from the start.
When they removed part of the old floor, a timber beam protruded much farther inward than the planned position. The room's original structure had differed from its current one, and it seemed the locations of walls and beams had changed during an expansion at some point.
Such things were not strange in old buildings. No matter how clear the original design had been, if people lived there for decades or centuries—enlarging rooms, moving walls, and building new stairs—the structure gradually changed. In a world where records of renovations were not kept, after only a few generations even the reason vanished, leaving later generations with nothing but the words, It was always built this way.
Daemon glared at the beam that had emerged in the wrong place beneath the floor.
"Why is it there?"
The mason shrugged.
"The room seems to have been enlarged later."
"When?"
"I do not know."
"Records?"
The mason looked at Daemon.
Daemon looked at the mason.
A brief silence.
"...Right. Of course there wouldn't be any."
Daemon rubbed his temple.
No drawings, no expansion records, and once you tear it open, you find the shit the last man left behind.
It was familiar.
Far too familiar.
"Fuck, it's exactly like the laboratory."
The masons exchanged glances.
Pretending not to notice, Daemon crouched on the floor.
If they forced the flue through its original planned route, the timber might become dangerously hot. But if they detoured around the beam, the passage would grow longer and acquire more bends.
The movement of hot smoke and combustion gases inside a flue was not as simple as saying hot air rose. The difference in density between the air inside the chimney and outside created a natural upward draw, but a longer flue, greater surface friction, sharp turns, and frequent changes in cross-section all increased pressure loss. Poor exhaust could cause smoke to backflow or fuel to burn incompletely, sending harmful gases indoors.
In the modern world, he could have calculated it using dimensions, material roughness, gas temperature, and flow rates, or found already established design references.
He could not do that now.
Daemon did not know the exact temperature of the smoke, could not measure the true airspeed within the flue, and had no pressure gauge. Studying mechanical engineering did not mean he could calculate every number by sight.
But he knew the direction.
Longer was worse.
Narrower was worse.
Sharper turns were worse.
Greater chimney height and temperature difference aided exhaust.
Knowing those principles accurately was enough to greatly reduce the range of trial and error compared with knowing nothing.
After examining the beam and the floor, the mason spoke.
"Young master, how about lowering this side a little and routing it around? If we remove two more of those stones, we can leave space from the beam."
Daemon did not answer immediately.
The beam.
The chimney's direction.
The remaining space.
He redrew the structure on his board.
Widen the flue slightly. Make the first bend gentler. In return, secure a little more height on the rising section toward the chimney.
"Can you lay the stone if it goes this way?"
The mason looked between the drawing and the floor.
"It can be done."
"What about the gap from the beam?"
As the mason reached in to measure roughly with his hand, Daemon immediately held out a measuring rod.
"Measure it."
The mason gave a short laugh.
"You do not trust my hand?"
"I trust your hand, but how am I supposed to write the length of your palm in the records? Should I put down, 'about one of this man's hands'?"
The mason closed his mouth.
"...I will measure it."
"That's right."
Once the measurements were done, Daemon erased the original lines and drew new ones.
Beside them, he wrote the reason for the change.
Existing beam discovered. Separation required between heat source and timber. Flue rerouted.
It was not a failure.
It was a field modification.
In fact, such records had to accumulate so the next person to tear open this floor would know why it had been made this way.
Several days later, they lit the first fire.
In the first test, the smoke escaped more sluggishly than expected. Raising the chimney a little improved it. In the second, one part of the middle floor became excessively hot. They adjusted the thickness between the stone slabs and the flue, spreading the heat that had concentrated there over a wider area.
They lit the fire again.
They put it out.
They waited.
The heat of the fireplace itself had almost disappeared, yet warmth remained in the floor.
Daemon removed his shoes and stepped barefoot onto the stone.
Lukewarm heat slowly rose through the soles of his feet.
"..."
It had been a sensation so ordinary in his past life.
In winter, lying on a warm floor while looking at his phone, then falling asleep just like that.
Here, he had to make that ordinary thing again with his own hands.
More accurately, he had not made it alone. The masons had stacked the stone, the carpenter had fitted the floor, and laborers had carried the materials. Daemon knew the principles, while the craftsmen knew the actual materials and buildings.
It took both for something to be made.
That night, though his bed stood right beside him, Daemon spread blankets on the floor and lay down there.
Valena stood in the doorway and looked down at her son.
"Why are you there when your bed is right beside you?"
Instead of answering, Daemon rolled over once.
It was warm.
He rolled over again.
"Mother."
"Yes?"
"The floor is warm."
"I know."
"It's fucking wonderful."
Valena's smile froze in place.
Daemon froze too.
Their eyes met.
"...It's very wonderful."
Valena slowly approached.
Daemon pulled the blanket over his face.
"I'm sleeping."
"We just made eye contact."
"I'm already asleep."
That night, even with both cheeks stinging a little, Daemon fell asleep very easily.
＊ ＊ ＊
At first, it was only one room.
Then it spread to other rooms in the manor, and when that caused no particular problems, several people Valena had known for a long time began asking for the work.
Valena did not accept every house simply because word had spread.
"For the time being, we do not go into the homes of people we do not know."
At first, Daemon asked whether they truly needed to be so selective about customers.
Valena's answer was simple.
Having much money and being a good customer were not the same thing.
A person who paid the agreed price on time; one who understood that work might differ from the plan; one who did not treat craftsmen as personal servants; and one who did not suddenly make demands utterly unlike the original agreement after work had begun.
Daemon initially thought she was being a little demanding, but after visiting several work sites, he changed his mind.
There truly were houses where the people were more exhausting than the technical problems.
Why is this taking another day?
Because the inside of that wall was rotten.
But should the price not remain what you first said?
"..."
The day he first heard such a conversation, Daemon apologized to Valena.
Valena was greatly pleased.
The craftsmen working with them also gradually changed.
At first, Daemon had to explain the flue's width, height, and bends one by one, as well as why they mattered. Once similar work was repeated, the craftsmen began finding problems first.
At one house, a mason studied the drawing and spoke.
"The heat seems likely to gather at the far end here, as it did in the last house. The flue is long, and the end is too narrow."
In the past, Daemon would have immediately offered a revision.
This time, he asked first.
"Then what do you think?"
The mason proposed splitting the passage in two midway to spread the heat more broadly, then joining it again near the end.
They tested it.
It worked.
At another house, a carpenter looked over an old wall and warned them beforehand that tearing up the entire floor might shift the wall itself. The hearth craftsman argued that making the firebox smaller than Daemon had planned would burn firewood more steadily.
Daemon did not begin by insisting on his own way.
Instead, he asked why.
Then he tested it.
If it was wrong, he discarded it. If it was right, he recorded it.
Still, growing did not mean his temper vanished.
On a day when dimensions differed greatly from what had been agreed the day before, a mason said as if it were nothing.
"Stones are naturally a little different from one another."
Daemon's eyebrow twitched.
"I know stones do not come stamped out of a factory."
The mason shut his mouth.
"They can differ. But if they differ, you need to tell me why they differ. Is something changed because there was a reason, and something changed because you were careless, the same thing?"
"...No."
"Then tell me first next time. I'm not strangling people over numbers. If there's a problem later, we need to know why it ended up this way."
Turning away, Daemon muttered inwardly.
Fuck, do I need to invent quality control from the ground up?
Shouting at someone and being done with it was easy.
But that would only cause the same problem again next time.
What Daemon wanted was not craftsmen too frightened to think, but craftsmen who could consider causes and find problems even without him.
So he recorded everything.
He preserved, as far as he could, what had changed, why it had changed, and how the result differed. He categorized similar structures, standardized dimensions with the measuring rod, and had cooperative households keep records of how much firewood they used before and after the work.
The quality of the data was a mess.
The types of firewood differed, as did how dry they were. Every room was a different size, and each household lit fires a different number of times per day. There were no thermometers to compare accurate indoor and outdoor temperatures.
But incomplete records were still better than no records.
There were now things to compare.
Recurring problems also began to emerge.
Most importantly, the technique was gradually ceasing to belong to Daemon alone.
At first, Daemon ordered the craftsmen.
Then he questioned them.
Now, the craftsmen made suggestions first.
Daemon liked that.
If it existed only in his head, it was a knack.
It became a technique only when others could learn it and repeatedly produce the same results.
I will not need to follow them around every time now.
It somewhat resembled the laboratory of his past life.
There were masons and carpenters instead of students, and other people's floors instead of laboratories.
And there was one vital difference.
There was no professor.
That alone made Daemon happy.
As the work increased, money followed.
Daemon was good at reading numbers and calculating, but Valena handled most actual transactions. No matter how clever he was, Daemon appeared to be three years old, and negotiating terms with merchants, judging people's reliability, and managing debts and credit were not matters simple arithmetic could solve.
Valena first deducted material costs and the craftsmen's wages from what they received, then reserved money for the next job. After that, as promised, she began managing a portion of the profit separately as Daemon's share.
When he first saw a number written beside his own name, Daemon stared at the ledger for a long time.
It was not a large sum compared with the family's total wealth.
But it felt entirely different.
It was not money his mother had brought from Tyrosh.
It was not what his dead father had left behind.
It was money someone had paid because an idea of his had passed through craftsmen's hands, become something real, and produced a result they wanted.
My money.
He slowly traced the figures with a finger.
Then another name immediately came to mind.
Escape fund.
It sounded a little dramatic, but its actual use had not yet been decided.
Still, he liked it.
For the first time, the number of choices he possessed had increased a little through his own strength.
Then one day, a formal commission came from House Manderly.
They wished to test the same heating method in a room of New Castle.
It was not a sudden development. Raymund had already built trust beneath House Manderly by managing forests and hunting grounds, horses and hounds, while among the merchants and highborn residents of White Harbor with whom Valena had dealings were people connected to the Manderlys.
As more homes received the heating system, word slowly spread that firewood consumption had decreased and that the stone floors remained warm long after the fire was out. The Manderlys only offered the commission after sending people to inspect several completed works themselves.
Daemon prepared an estimate with far greater seriousness than usual.
Materials.
Wages.
Transport.
Reserve materials.
Expected work period.
Through repeated work, he had also developed a habit of recording where costs grew. If more bricks than expected were used, he wrote down the reason. If the workdays ran longer, he recorded which process had caused it.
He was about to take the board containing all that when Valena caught him.
"Daemon."
"Yes?"
"Bring that here."
Valena held out her hand.
"This time, I will look over it first."
"I've done well so far."
"Until now, they have mostly been people I've known for a long time. This time, it is the Manderlys."
"You know old Raymund too."
"Knowing someone and doing business with them are different things."
With an unhappy expression, Daemon climbed onto a chair and handed her the board.
Valena read the estimate for a while, then pointed to the entry for bricks.
"This is the price when you buy them little by little at market, yes?"
"Yes."
"And we actually purchase them for less than that."
Daemon fell silent briefly.
"Because we buy a lot, they give us a discount."
"Yet you wrote the market price for the customer."
"The difference is profit."
Valena looked at her son for a moment, then smiled.
"Your mind truly turns quickly."
The corners of Daemon's lips rose.
"Right?"
"That is why it is more regrettable."
"What is?"
Valena erased several lines.
"Your method is too cheap."
Daemon's expression instantly hardened.
"What?"
His pride was hurt.
Valena calmly explained.
"Do not stake the trust of a customer like the Manderlys merely to make a little extra from a few bricks or pieces of timber. There is no need to hide profit in the material costs."
"Then where do we make it?"
Valena began writing new entries in the blank space.
Site survey.
Structural inspection.
Design.
Technical fee.
Reserving the work crew's schedule.
Risk borne for experimental construction.
Guarantee of reconstruction.
The total was actually higher than Daemon's original estimate.
Daemon narrowed his eyes.
"Mother."
"Yes?"
"This costs more."
"Of course it does."
"You told me not to charge more money."
Valena looked at him.
"I told you not to charge it secretly."
She pointed to each entry in turn.
"How many materials were wasted in failures while making this for the first time?"
"Quite a few."
"How much time did the craftsmen spend working again?"
"A lot."
"And you spent time reading books, testing things, and correcting them too, did you not?"
"Yes."
"The next customer does not need to suffer through those failures from the beginning. Why would you not charge for that?"
Daemon silently looked at the estimate.
It was a concept so familiar in the modern world that he had never given it separate thought.
A product's price did not contain only raw materials and labor. Invisible costs—research and development, design, trial and error, quality control, and guarantees—also ultimately went into the price.
Daemon had not studied accounting or management.
In his past life, he had only encountered the structure roughly through reviewing research funds and equipment estimates and comparing companies' prices.
Valena, on the other hand, was a woman who had run a household with her own money, hired people, dealt with merchants, and built credit.
Daemon understood engineering.
Valena understood business.
"Who understands this heating system better than anyone in White Harbor right now?"
"Me."
"And who has made it most often in reality?"
Daemon thought of the craftsmen who traveled with him.
"Our men."
"Then you may charge for that value."
Valena returned the board.
"Just do not deceive anyone."
Daemon looked down at the board for some time, then nodded.
"Ah."
His expression brightened.
For some reason, Valena became uneasy.
"What have you realized?"
"So, instead of skimming money, we charge high prices properly."
Valena's expression stiffened.
Daemon protested.
"Why? That's right, isn't it?"
"I do not believe that is what I taught you."
"The heart of it is the same."
"Daemon."
Daemon swiftly covered both cheeks.
"All right, all right. A technical fee."
Valena sighed.
Yet a small smile remained at the corners of her mouth.
＊ ＊ ＊
On the appointed day, Daemon looked up at New Castle from close by for the first time.
It was nothing like seeing it from afar. Tall stone walls, towers, and gatehouses filled his sight, while soldiers moved along the battlements. Beyond them, merchant vessels and fishing boats constantly entered and left the harbor, and people moved cargo ceaselessly between docks and warehouses.
Without realizing it, Daemon tilted his head back.
"...Oh."
It was neither a photograph nor a game.
It was a place where people truly lived, where soldiers stood guard, and where arrows would fly from those walls and people would die when war came.
Stone walls.
Towers.
The sea.
The harbor.
For a moment, his heart raced.
A man really does love castles.
The feeling gradually made concessions to reality as he entered further inside.
New Castle was not a structure completed all at once. New walls had been attached to old stone ones, wooden buildings had been added in some sections, and the widths and heights of the stairs differed from place to place. There were old doors that had been sealed beside newly cut doorways, and while walking its corridors, spaces abruptly appeared whose purpose and creator were difficult to guess.
Daemon felt a strange familiarity.
It's like an old research building.
One person adds a room.
The next tears down a wall.
Someone else makes something run through it.
When, decades later, someone asks why it was done this way—
It has always been that way.
Daemon felt oddly at ease.
Then he found a garderobe.
A small chamber jutting slightly beyond the outer castle wall.
A seat.
A hole.
And directly beneath it was the outside.
Daemon stared at it wordlessly for some time.
About thirty percent of the lord-of-a-castle fantasy that had been cavorting through his mind moments before died.
"...The shit just falls outside."
Raymund turned around.
Daemon shook his head.
"It's nothing."
Fuck, even a castle lord is medieval when he takes a shit.
Even life atop a splendid tower could not defeat gravity in the end.
The site chosen for the trial work was a relatively small guest chamber inside the castle.
Since they could use the existing fireplace and chimney, it seemed it would be easier than building an entirely new structure.
Until they tore up the floor.
The stone slabs were thicker than expected, and the arrangement of stone piers beneath them differed from what he had anticipated. If they forced the flue through according to the original plan, the passage would inevitably become too narrow in several places.
One mason examined the interior and spoke.
"Young master, I believe we must narrow this side a little. There is no space if we are to support the slabs as they are."
Daemon's face crumpled.
"I told you the exhaust might fail if we narrow it there."
"But if we do not support them, the stone slabs will hang loose."
"Ah, fuck..."
Daemon cut himself off.
A few months ago, How many times must I tell you? might have come flying out of his mouth.
Kim Jaebong's voice remained too clear in his head.
He did not want that.
Daemon rubbed his nose once and crouched down.
"Wait. Why does it have to be supported here?"
The mason pointed to the edge of the slab.
"This end rests here. If we move the support, the middle will hang loose."
"Then what if we change the shape rather than the support's location?"
The mason paused.
He knelt and peered beneath the floor. Another mason approached as well.
Daemon explained why reducing the flue's cross-section would be troublesome, while the masons discussed what sort of stone shape could bear the actual load.
In the end, they found an answer neither side had considered at first.
Keep the lower part of the support narrow.
Widen only its upper part to support the slab.
That way, the flue's width would scarcely need to be touched.
Daemon drew the new structure on his board.
"Can you make this?"
The mason checked it.
"If we shape the stone properly."
"What is the risk of it breaking?"
"It will be less if we trim the corners a little more."
"Good. Let's do that."
Daemon wrote down the reason for the alteration as well.
Existing slab support. Maintain flue width. Widen upper support.
The mason watched him and spoke.
"Young master, you truly write down everything."
"If I don't, we'll wrestle with the same problem all over again in the next house."
"We will remember it."
Daemon answered as he continued moving his pen.
"People die. Records last longer."
The mason's hand stopped briefly.
Pretending not to notice, Daemon wrote down the next figures.
Someone had been watching the scene outside the room for some time.
He was a well-dressed young man. Beside him stood a boy much younger than he was, as well as attendants.
Daemon did not pay them any mind at first.
The test was more important.
They lit the fire.
The smoke moved.
It escaped through the chimney.
But one side of the floor was less warm than expected.
Daemon pressed his palms against several places.
Here.
There.
Here again.
"Ah, fuck. This empty space is too large."
This time, the curse came straight out.
One mason, now accustomed to it, asked.
"Shall we reduce it?"
"Then the earlier problem comes back. Put one more stone here and alter the flow a little."
"Will that improve it?"
"I don't know."
Daemon answered with an irritated face.
"We'll find out by trying it. If I knew, I would have done it already."
At that moment, laughter came from behind him.
Daemon turned around.
The young man was smiling.
"What's funny?"
The air in the room instantly froze.
The masons' faces stiffened, and Raymund very slowly closed his eyes.
The young man did not become angry.
Instead, he asked with apparent interest.
"You were moving people about so confidently until just now, yet you say you do not know so easily."
"What I don't know, I don't know."
"And yet you make them work?"
Daemon tilted his head as though the question were strange.
"Because those men stack stone far better than I do. I'm the one looking at how the smoke and heat need to move."
The man's brows rose slightly.
"You do not need to know everything yourself?"
"Can one person do that?"
Daemon was genuinely puzzled.
"If I knew how to do everything, why would those men be paid?"
The masons' expressions became strange again.
Then Raymund spoke in a low voice.
"Daemon. This is Lord Wyman Manderly."
Daemon's body went rigid.
Manderly.
New Castle.
The ruling house.
And—
The client.
Fuck.
Daemon rapidly reviewed what had just come out of his mouth.
Two curses.
What's funny?
Excellent.
He was not merely a customer. He was the lord.
Still, he had lived in society in his past life too.
Daemon sprang up, brushed dust from his clothes, and bowed deeply.
"It is an honor to meet you. I am Daemon. Thank you for entrusting this to me."
Wyman blinked.
"You change suddenly."
"You're the customer."
"That is the reason?"
"It's an important reason."
The corners of Wyman's mouth rose.
"How important?"
Daemon answered seriously.
"Because you pay me."
Wyman laughed loudly.
Several attendants around him lowered their heads, suppressing laughter.
"You are honest."
"I was taught not to lie."
Raymund wore an exceedingly subtle expression.
Wyman looked down at the floor under construction.
"Can this truly reduce firewood use?"
"Yes."
"By how much?"
"I don't know yet."
"You do not know?"
"This is the first time we're doing it in New Castle. It decreased in other houses, but the houses are different sizes, their walls are different, and people tend their fires differently. If I said it would decrease by a certain portion now, I'd just be talking bullshit."
Wyman paused.
Daemon paused too.
"...Lying. It would just be lying."
Wyman laughed again.
"I know that expression."
"That's fortunate."
"Then how will you verify the result?"
"By keeping records. We look at how much firewood was used before, then look again after the changes. It won't be perfect, because the wood and weather differ. But it's better than looking at nothing."
"What if it decreases less than expected?"
"We find out why."
"What if you are wrong?"
"We fix it."
"And if it still does not work?"
Daemon shrugged.
"Then it failed."
Wyman looked at the child for a moment.
"You do not seem to fear failure much."
"I do fear it."
Daemon answered at once.
"Failure loses money. I fucking hate it."
This time, one of the masons turned his head and laughed.
Wyman did not suppress his laughter either.
At least now he could not claim he did not know Daemon's habits of speech.
Wyman called the boy beside him forward.
"This is my son, Wyllis."
Daemon greeted him first.
"Hello."
Wyllis hesitated slightly before answering.
"...Hello."
Daemon looked the boy over once, then asked Wyman.
"He can become a customer later too, right?"
"He is my son."
"Which means he could become a customer later."
Wyman laughed again.
"Are you already looking into my son's purse?"
"Long-term customers are important."
Wyman stroked his son's hair.
"Wyllis."
"Yes, Father."
"It is all right if you grow slowly."
Wyllis looked as though he had no idea what that meant.
Daemon tilted his head as well.
"Why?"
"It is nothing."
Wyman also stroked Daemon's hair once.
"When the work is finished, Wyllis will show you around the castle."
Daemon's eyes shone.
"The armory too?"
"If you wish."
"The watchtowers?"
"Yes."
His fantasy of castles was not entirely dead after all.
＊ ＊ ＊
After the work was roughly complete, Wyllis showed him around the castle as promised.
In the armory, they saw armor, swords, spears, and axes. At first, Daemon enjoyed it quite a bit. Seeing real medieval armor up close, it was not merely a lump of iron plates. Numerous plates overlapped in accordance with the directions a person moved; leather straps and rivets were used at the joints; cloth and leather were layered within to lessen impact and friction.
After passing several suits, the direction of his admiration changed somewhat.
The workshop that makes these might be interesting too.
Wyllis pointed at a sword.
"That's impressive, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"And that armor?"
"That too."
"That spear as well?"
"Yes."
Wyllis frowned.
"Aren't you amazed?"
"I am."
"You don't look like it."
Daemon answered honestly.
"I'd started looking at how they were made."
Wyllis stared at Daemon for a while, then reached a conclusion.
"You're strange."
"I hear that a lot."
Daemon liked the watchtower.
White Harbor looked entirely different from high above than it had from beneath the castle. Ships entering and leaving the harbor, cargo moving from docks to warehouses, and goods scattering from there into markets and onto other ships—all came into view at once.
At first, he only looked at the scenery.
Then, after a little while, he began to see logistics.
Daemon immediately turned his head.
No.
If he started thinking about harbor logistics too, there would be even more work to do.
He already had enough.
The last place Wyllis took him was the garden.
Because of the season, there was not much green.
Daemon had been walking without much thought when his feet suddenly stopped.
In one corner of the garden stood a structure with a frame of wood and iron, its spaces tightly sealed with small panes of glass.
A greenhouse.
"Do you like this?"
Wyllis asked.
Daemon slowly nodded.
"Yes."
Wyllis's expression brightened.
"There are flowers inside too."
"Not that."
"Then what?"
Daemon stepped closer and peered at the glass.
"This."
The glass was thick and uneven. Each pane was slightly different in thickness, and tiny bubbles were caught inside. Some panes had green or yellowish tints, and the scenery beyond them looked faintly warped.
The principles of glassmaking were more complicated than they appeared.
Ordinary soda-lime glass was made from sand or quartz-rich materials whose principal component was silica. But pure silica only melted sufficiently at extremely high temperatures, so alkaline substances such as soda or potash were added as fluxes to lower the temperature to one workable for production. That made the resulting glass vulnerable to water, so lime was added again to improve chemical stability and durability.
Various impurities in the raw materials, including iron, could lend glass a green or brown color.
Nor was having good raw materials enough. The furnace had to maintain a sufficient temperature, the materials had to melt evenly, and bubbles and impurities had to be reduced. After it was shaped as desired, it also needed an annealing process in which it cooled slowly, so excessive internal stresses did not remain. If cooling was too rapid or uneven, glass that looked sound could crack easily from a slight blow.
Industrial glass in later ages was the result of precisely managing a long process, from refining raw materials to temperature control, shaping, and cooling.
Of course, Daemon did not have all the methods of manufacture memorized.
He was not a glass engineer.
Only fragments remained from things he had encountered by chance in classes, books, and magazines in his past life.
Silica.
Sand.
Soda, or perhaps potash.
Lime.
Flux.
It had to cool slowly.
That was all.
The exact mixing ratio?
He did not know.
At what temperature did it melt?
He did not know.
How did one actually draw and flatten sheet glass?
He knew even less.
Daemon lightly tapped the pane with a finger.
Nice.
Oddly, it put him at ease.
At least I know what I don't know.
That was enough for a starting point.
"First, I have to examine the raw materials."
He muttered it without thinking.
"Then the furnace."
Wyllis tilted his head.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You said sand just now."
"Glass."
"Why is glass sand?"
"You make it from things like sand."
Wyllis looked blank.
Daemon did not mind.
Looking at the greenish hue in the glass, he considered that iron might be the cause, though he could not be certain. He vaguely remembered that soda-type substances could be obtained from ash made by burning seaweed, and that potash could come from wood ash. Lime could probably be found in this region.
But what kind of sand was good?
What kind of ash did they use?
How much did they mix?
What did White Harbor's glassmakers actually use now?
He knew nothing.
Daemon gave a short laugh.
"This could be fun."
Then a voice came from behind him.
"What is so fun?"
It was Wyman.
Daemon turned around.
"Glass."
"Glass?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how to make it?"
"No."
Wyman's expression became strange.
"Yet it seemed you were just speaking of making it."
"Knowing how to make it and thinking about how to make it are different things."
"How are they different?"
After considering for a moment, Daemon pointed to the pane.
"I have never made this myself. I do not know the exact material ratios, nor how hot the furnace should be."
"And yet?"
"Then I find out."
It was the most obvious thing in the world.
"There must be people here who make glass. We look at what they use now, see what their furnace looks like, and compare what works with what does not."
In Daemon's mind, the problems naturally separated.
Raw materials.
Flux.
Furnace.
Fuel.
Air.
Time.
Shaping.
Cooling.
"We start by examining the sand they use, try other sands, change the ash, and if the furnace is not hot enough, fix the furnace first. If it does not work, we see why it fails and try again."
"Then can you make better glass?"
Daemon shook his head.
"I don't know."
"You do not know?"
"We have to try to find out. If I knew, I'd have made it already."
Wyman gave a short laugh.
"You said that earlier as well."
"About what?"
"That what you do not know, you do not know."
"If I say I know when I don't, then I'm a fraud."
Wyman stopped smiling for a moment.
Daemon continued looking at the glass.
"And I don't need to do it all myself. The people who actually fire glass will be far better at it than I am. I just need to decide what we test, look at the results, and if something is wrong, think through why together with them."
"And when you become angry?"
Daemon looked at Wyman.
A smile rested at the corner of Wyman's mouth.
He clearly had the look of someone who had heard the curses Daemon uttered at the work site earlier.
Daemon did not blink an eye.
"I swear a little, then do it again."
This time Wyman laughed loudly.
"Yes. I have already seen that."
"I've cut down a lot lately."
"Then I wonder what you were like before."
"Mother dislikes it, so I won't say."
In the distance, Raymund shook his head.
After his laughter faded, Wyman asked.
"Do you know where the fine glass used in White Harbor comes from?"
Daemon shook his head.
"No."
"Myr. It is especially famous for clear glass and lenses."
Daemon looked at the greenhouse window again.
Fine glass was imported.
Imports were expensive.
They came from far away and broke easily.
Then if they could make something locally, even of slightly poorer quality, but much more cheaply, there would be a market.
What Daemon saw first was money.
What Wyman saw was slightly different.
In the North, glass was not merely a luxury used for beautiful windows. In a land where winter was not guaranteed to end with a season, a pane that admitted sunlight while stopping cold winds and snow had direct value for agriculture and herb cultivation.
It did not need to be as transparent as Myr's finest glass.
It did not need to be precise enough to make lenses.
It let in light.
It blocked the wind.
And it was cheaper than what they had now.
If it met those three conditions, greenhouses could become something other than toys for noble gardens.
If White Harbor could make such glass in sufficient quantities, the matter changed entirely.
Wyman spoke.
"Daemon. White Harbor has craftsmen who work with glass."
Daemon's eyes immediately turned to him.
"Really?"
"I will assign them to you."
Daemon blinked as if taken aback.
"Why?"
This time, Wyman was somewhat flustered.
"Does it not interest you?"
"It does, but I have a lot to do. The heating is not completely finished yet, I need to read more books, and investigate other things too."
He swallowed the word Braavos.
"It's not as if I'll die if I do not work on glass right away."
After thinking briefly, Wyman said,
"I will pay the money required for the experiments."
Daemon's hand stopped.
The schedule and priorities that had existed in his head until moments ago quietly died.
Someone else's money.
And a great lord's money at that.
Research funds.
Research funds that could fail.
Daemon's eyes widened ever so slightly.
If I turn this down, am I even human?
"...All of it?"
"I will provide the necessary craftsmen and materials as well."
"Even if we fail several times?"
"If you are truly conducting experiments."
"Even if materials are wasted?"
"So long as you do not waste them deliberately."
"Can I tear apart the furnace?"
Wyman was briefly at a loss for words.
"Why are you already planning to tear apart the furnace?"
"If the temperature doesn't get high enough, we have to tear it apart."
"...If necessary."
Daemon answered immediately.
"I'll do it."
It was difficult to believe he was the same child who had said moments before that he had too much to do.
"First, show me the people who make glass. Then I need to see the furnace, look at the sand and ash they use now, and the fuel too."
Wyman asked with a smile.
"Anything else?"
Daemon thought for a moment.
"Research funds."
Wyman narrowed his eyes.
"Is that different from what I just said I would provide?"
"It's the same, but it's important, so I'm confirming it again."
Wyman ultimately laughed aloud.
Daemon laughed with him.
A man who refused the chance to conduct research with someone else's money was insane.
And Daemon was quite confident that he was a different sort of insane man.
＊ ＊ ＊
When Daemon left New Castle, his steps were far too light.
They would assign craftsmen to him.
They would give him materials.
He could use a furnace.
They had said they would even bear the costs of a few failures.
If the Daemon of his past life had been shown these terms, he would have fallen face-first to the laboratory floor and wept.
"Heh heh."
He could not help laughing.
Raymund, walking beside him, wore the exact opposite expression.
After walking for some time, Daemon looked up at him.
"Why do you look like you're attending a funeral?"
Raymund did not answer at once.
Only after they had gone far enough from New Castle, and there were few people around, did he open his mouth.
"Daemon. You are drawing too much attention."
Daemon's steps slowed ever so slightly.
Now, he knew exactly what those words meant.
The last male-line Blackfyre.
Silver hair.
A bloodline believed dead.
The fact that some people would be troubled if his existence became known.
Raymund still did not know that Daemon had already discovered all of that.
Nor did Daemon intend to tell him.
"I know."
Raymund looked down at him.
"I say it because you act as if you do not."
No, old man.
Now he knew.
More than expected.
But he did not say it aloud.
Raymund continued.
"The more people learn of what you can do, the more people will remember you. A powerful man thinking well of you does not necessarily mean you are protected."
This time, Daemon did not argue.
Interest could become an asset, or it could become danger.
Still.
"Old man."
"What is it?"
"Is it possible to hide your whole life?"
Raymund's step briefly halted.
Looking ahead, Daemon continued.
"Never leaving the house, meeting no one, earning no money, doing nothing."
"That is not what I meant."
"I know."
Daemon nodded.
"But hiding costs money too."
Taking a ship cost money.
Finding a home in another city cost money too.
Money could hire people, purchase information, and even buy time to prepare when he had to leave suddenly.
"If you have skills, you can make a living anywhere. If you know many people, there's more information you can obtain. And a powerful person like a Manderly thinking well of me could be helpful depending on the circumstances."
Raymund spoke at once.
"There is no guarantee that such interest will always be on your side."
"That's why I cannot rely on only one thing."
Daemon folded down his fingers one by one.
"I cannot rely only on money, only on the Manderlys, or only on Mother's connections."
He thought for a moment.
"Relying only on your swordsmanship would be even more worrying."
Raymund narrowed his eyes.
"Leave out that last one."
"Why? It's important."
Daemon smiled.
"The more choices, the better."
Having said it, his own thoughts became clearer.
A place where he could hide.
A road by which he could leave.
Money of his own.
Skills he could sell anywhere.
People who brought information.
Relationships through which he could borrow a hand in an emergency.
If one route was blocked, he would choose another.
That was the power Daemon wanted.
Not the sort of power that wagered everything on a single seat, like the Iron Throne.
Rather, the opposite.
Make many burrows.
Make many doors.
Make many escape routes too.
Raymund looked at Daemon for a long time without speaking, then said quietly,
"Those are overly exhausting thoughts for a three-year-old."
Daemon sincerely agreed.
"Exactly. I want to play normally too."
Raymund looked unconvinced.
Daemon felt wronged.
It was true.
He had made heating because he wanted to live warmly.
He had opened a history book to rest, only to learn his own identity.
He had gone to look at a castle and glass had caught his eye.
He wanted to play.
The world kept throwing research subjects at him.
After several more steps, Raymund spoke again.
"Be careful nonetheless."
"Yes."
There was no mischief in that reply.
He knew it was dangerous.
But that did not mean he could do nothing.
Hiding alone would not increase his choices.
After a short while, Daemon spoke again.
"Old man."
"What now?"
"Wyman says he'll pay all the research funds."
Raymund said nothing for a long while.
Then he asked very slowly,
"We were just speaking of your life."
Daemon tilted his head.
"That's that, and this is research funding."
"..."
"You wouldn't understand, old man. You've never gone to graduate school."
"I still do not know what this graduate school is."
Daemon recalled his past life for a moment.
"You're better off not knowing."
Before Raymund could ask anything further, Daemon ran ahead.
Earn money.
Build skills.
Know people.
Gather information.
Increase his choices until, if needed, he could one day put everything in order and depart for somewhere else.
He did not need a throne.
What Daemon wanted was not the road to becoming king.
He wanted the power to choose which road he would take.
And now—
One of those choices was preparing to burn bright with someone else's money.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register