It was hard to tell if it was raining from inside Casterly Rock.

Even in the Lord’s chambers, one of the privileged few to have windows, it was difficult to identify a rain cloud from the ordinary ones that enveloped the mountainous fortress, so high above the sea and city. Glancing through the panes only revealed a grey-white mist. It could be a drizzle, it could be fog… No use just looking for water on the sill – the ledges were always damp, the stone permanently discoloured and splotchy with condensation of some sort. Only by unlatching the glass and holding out a hand could Damon feel ice-cold droplets hit his palm in a steady rain.

“You’re going to catch a cold if you do that,” Harrold chastised from the sofa, not glancing up from the writing he was doing in his lap. “Again.”

Damon relatched the window and withdrew. Joanna was still angry, it’d be no good to have his steward cross with him, as well.

“The Dornish have begun their journey,” Harrold went on. “Lady Hightower will arrive sooner, of course. Those preparations are nearly complete, but for the work that awaits you here.”

He was referring to the clutter that had taken over the solar where they now sat: tapestries draped over horsehair couches, heavy cloaks and child-sized gowns, floral arrangements barely contained within vases of ruby-studded gold. But the workload was much smaller than the mess implied – Joanna had already made the important decisions, Damon’s approval was a mere formality. He had no intention of overruling any of her choices (he was not foolish enough to think he knew better), but he found the tapestries laid gingerly out for examination to be a welcome distraction from difficult conversation and the window which muffled the cold, quiet rain.

“Any word from the other kingdoms?” he asked, straightening out the edges of one of the larger pieces so the embroidered image became less distorted.

“Not yet, Your Grace.” There came the soft scraping of parchment against parchment as Harrold turned the pages of his book and began listing out excuses. “Lord Frey is busy mopping up the civil war, as I understand. Lord Arryn, well, he’s nineteen. And I’m unsure if anyone has even told the young Lord Estermont that he’s in charge yet.”

“And the Starks are just as likely to give no warning out of spite,” Damon said. “The North and the South take such pains to be difficult.”

The tapestry was, like most of the ones brought to the solar, of Ashara in her youth. She was recognisable at once from the Lannister cloak draped over her shoulders and pooling at her feet. Conjured in fine thread in the gardens of the Rock, her hair was long and plaited, flowers woven into the braids, and she was surrounded by her handmaidens. They were all in the colours of their respective houses, but only one other girl had flowers in her hair.

“The Crown still hasn’t issued a royal response to this Blackmont business, as well, I remind you,” said Harrold. “I believe we’ve waited long enough and can conclude that the Queen does not intend to address it.”

“Danae always handles Dornish matters.”

The wind was starting to pick up, and hurled raindrops against the window panes. Damon looked down at the tapestry and wondered how his own boyhood was recorded. Had artisans gone back to add clues to his eventual ascension? References to a destiny?

And how would thousands of threads depict his rule?

“It is my understanding that Her Grace has dedicated her efforts to refining her Valyrian in preparation for her visit to the Iron Bank.”

“I thought she already spoke Valyrian.”

“The bankers use a different sort.”

Damon gave a vague ‘hmpth’ of acknowledgement.

“It is best if the Crown is united on this Dornish front, no matter how busy Her Grace may be elsewhere,” the steward said from his place on the sofa. When Damon pried his eyes from the tapestry to meet a deepening frown, it didn’t fail to astound him how uncomfortable a man could look while swaddled in the highest luxuries, even after all these years.

Then again, he’d yet to see Benfred in a cloak.

“You’re saying I should talk to Danae.”

“I’m not suggesting my first, second, or even fifth preference, but yes. I do believe that is what must happen.”

Damon looked back at the image of Ashara and her handmaidens in the garden. How much simpler life would be if he had even just one woman he did not fear.

“I will write her.”

“There’s also the matter of staff for the Great Council.” Harrold seemed just as eager to move on from the subject as Damon was. “Lord Benfred has declared himself responsible for the hire of any and all needed hands and insists that any you wish to bring of your own volition be vetted through him first. I agree.”

Benfred’s getting involved? Some part of Damon almost wanted to correct the Steward, but he knew no mistake had been made.

“Then it will be done.”

He set the tapestry gingerly off to the side to view the one beneath. It was Ashara’s wedding to Gerold, as inaccurately depicted as Damon’s own to Danae.

They might as well commemorate my reign with a portrait of myself on the back of a dragon, he thought. Desmond would like that, at least.

“I’d prefer to leave no loose ends here in Lannisport when we depart,” he said to Harrold. “Do you recall the most important outstanding matter for the city?”

“Well, with Lady Joanna having settled the guilds and such, I suppose you mean the Butcher.”

“Indeed. If one of my children is to inherit the West and its heart and seat, I’d prefer there be no killers running rampant in it.”

Harrold looked as though he wanted to say something, but dismissed the thought with a shake of his head before venturing, “If your intent is truly to tie loose ends, I can think of far more important threads for a King to untangle.”

Damon knew without looking what Harrold was staring at: on the table, cluttered with books and papers and maps, was a heavy seal that would press an anvil and scales into wax. In the tapestry, Ashara wore Lannister red beneath her Hightower cloak and she and Gerold were smiling. It looked as though the artist had placed them in the New Sept in Lannisport.

“Your Grace, if I may…” Harrold was waiting for Damon to look at him, but Damon refused to yield.

“Those other threads will strangle me,” he said.

There were flowers in Ashara’s hair.

“I don’t plan to go gallivanting across the city, Harrold. But let me at least ensure this is left in capable hands.”

“The killer in the Wynd? The murderer they’re now calling the Butcher of Lannisport, ever since that body was found in Westfold? The one who leaves the innards of his victims in bizarre arrangements that have prompted not one, not two, but three members of our City Watch to turn in their cloak? With Benfred in Harrenhal, just who in the gods’ names has hands capable enough for that?”

There would be no tapestries made of this part of Lannisport’s history – not unless they were depictions of the hero who brought the monster to justice. Damon would make certain of that.

When he left the Lord’s quarters in search of his children, it was still raining hard. The weather made him anxious in a way he couldn’t explain, like every drop of rain to strike a window was hitting him as well – a thousand irritating pokes. Daena was not in her chambers where she was supposed to be. Her nurse gave profuse apologies but explained that she’d demanded Ser Lenyl take her to the kitchens to practise cooking and told the poor Dornish bastard he had no choice in the matter, given her station. It was somewhat correct, which Damon knew was his daughter’s precise intent.

His son, on the other hand, was exactly where he was meant to be.

Desmond was finishing his numbers lesson with the same maester who’d taught Damon and his brother and sister. Shara was the only one who was ever endeared by the man, who gave Damon a familiar disappointed glance when he entered now.

“Father!” Desmond rose at once. Damon would have liked to believe it were for the joy he took in seeing him, but knew firsthand that it was more the relief of a rescue. “Is it time for a lesson?”

“This is a lesson,” the old maester grumbled, but he was already cleaning up his papers and quills.

Once in the halls, Desmond looked round for his sister.

“Where is Daena?”

“In the kitchens, playing at being a scullery maid.”

“Shouldn’t we fetch her? She was very keen on not missing–”

“If Daena wishes to learn about the duties of rule then she must act like a ruler. Princesses don’t learn in kitchens.”

Desmond seemed to think about that as the two strode, father and son, down the corridors of the Rock.

“She’ll be angry if we go without her.”

“She’s always angry.”

The Prince had no retort to that. He seemed to sense his father’s mood and grew quiet, which only made Damon feel guilty and even more anxious.

“Being a ruler doesn’t mean doing everything you want, all by yourself, all of the time,” he said. He was trying to salvage the conversation, but when he raised his voice to be heard over the rain, it only made him sound more severe. It didn’t help that he was issuing the same sort of lecture Lord Loren once – twice, thrice, a hundred times – gave him.

“You’re both always alone and never alone, in the most extreme sense of each. Do you understand what I mean, Desmond? You need people, capable people, who you can trust. You’ve got to keep them around you, all the time, which is why you're never alone. But you must also never fully trust anybody, ever, which is why you’re always alone.”

Damon hazarded a glance at his son and saw confusion writ on Desmond’s face. Loren had worded it better.

“You’ve got to find people with talents but also with loyalty. The kind of people you can count on. Responsible, dependable, focused… And then you figure out what they’re good at, and you have them do it. You see, the realm is a complex thing… And a city…” The rain lashed at the windows. “A city is a bit like the realm, right? But smaller. A smaller realm.”

He hadn’t realised how quickly he was walking (Desmond kept pace all the while, resting his hand on the hilt of some showman’s sword, one with more jewels on its hilt than most men saw in a lifetime) until they were suddenly at their destination far sooner than expected.

It was a blessing – Damon was bungling the transition.

The doors to the small hall were open and men in long robes were filtering out, bidding farewell to the person who’d hosted them. They were guildsmen, wearing sigils of their trades, and Edmyn Plumm gave a friendly goodbye to each. His smile was practised, his hair combed and his shirt without a single crease. Joanna had gotten to him, as Damon expected.

The last of the leaving guildsmen gave bows and formalities as was due, including to the Crown Prince, and dispersed amid their own lively conversations.

“Good day, Edmyn,” Damon offered.

“Good to see you, Your Graces!”

Desmond kicked the ground, bored.

“I need your help with something.”

Edmyn’s smile faltered, if only for a moment. He straightened his back somewhat, and looked Damon in the eye.

“How can I be of service, Your Grace?”

“Have you made the acquaintance of Tytos Clegane?”

“I have, in passing. An interesting man, though something about him keeps others at bay, I feel. Why do you ask?”

“Are you familiar with the Butcher of Lannisport?”

“Well, I certainly haven’t made his acquaintance.”

He chuckled, Damon grimaced, and Desmond looked at them askance.

“I’ve certainly heard of him in the city, though,” Edmyn continued, his expression severe. “Amarei-” His eyes shifted to Desmond. “Well, folks in general, are frightened.”

“Indeed.” Damon nodded towards the corridor, whose tall windows brought no sunlight. Rain, rain, rain.

“Come with us,” he said. “I think there’s something you can do about that.”

The maiden’s cloak hung on the rack before Selyse, and she tried not to attach meaning to it. The embroidery was intricate, the crimson stallion rendered in more stylistic detail than any battle banner. Its eyes were wide, mouth open in a call, legs curled in the midst of action. Selyse couldn’t decide if it looked proud, defiant, or afraid. Perhaps those were the same thing.

She stood still, eyes tracing the lines of the embroidery, and kept her arms raised while the greying handmaid, who was not Lenna, fussed over her dress. It was a fine garment, its fastenings hidden to make the design look simple when it was anything but. The skirts were layered, warm white wool half-obscured by a pleated lace ghost over it.
The handmaid finished her adjustments, making a hum at the back of her throat that Selyse took as grudging acceptance. She gestured to one of the chamber’s chairs.

“If milady pleases, take a seat. I’ll send Hanna in to do your hair.”

Selyse nodded her assent, and the woman took her leave. With her gone, Selyse found herself able to pull her eyes away from the cloak at last. These rooms – her rooms, now – were still strange to her. Stone Hedge’s ceilings had been low, thick, and reassuring in their strength. These high trusses of dark oak left her feeling oddly exposed. Her eyes darted, counting the ceiling beams. Ten. She whistled a low pitch, unsatisfied with the number.

Her suite had two rooms – a bedchamber, and a small connected lounge. Latticework doors from the solar led to a small balcony that looked out on the godswood, the gargantuan heart tree towering at its centre.

She remembered when she had first seen those white tendrils of ancient weirwood, reaching across slate-grey clouds like the untended ivy of Stone Hedge’s walls. The strange, organic shapes had been a strange contrast to the stout walls and square towers that surrounded Raventree Hall. Coming, as it did, at the end of two weeks’ travel, it was a foreboding sight.

Selyse cast her mind back to the day her life had been set on this course. Nearly a month had passed since Harlon received that letter. Lord Blackwood is in need of a wife, he had explained. She had objected, of course, but when her brother handed her the letter, the blue wax seal of Lord Frey clarified things. They were not being offered, they were being told.

And so, they had prepared, as quick as they could. An entourage and dowry had been arranged, the gown and cloak commissioned. For all that it was for Selyse, she felt herself being pushed out of the way. She tried not to think of it as Harlon’s cruelty, and tried to sympathise that he had been forced to deliver Lord Brynden’s.

But she was the one who sat, now, as Hanna – the other handmaid’s daughter, by her face – pulled her hair neatly into a silver hairnet encrusted with rubies. It was Selyse who had to contemplate what this day would bring, who her husband might be.

She had seen Lord Quentyn only briefly when they had arrived the day before, greeting them with grim formality at the front gate. One analytical glance was spared for her before he and Harlon began talking business, and Selyse was quietly escorted to her new chambers, the oak doors closing heavily behind her.

It was Harlon who knocked on those doors now. Four sharp impacts, on the middle batten. He pushed the door open without waiting for a response.

“Sister,” he said, eyebrows knitted apprehensively. “It’s time for the ceremony.”

“Of course.” Selyse cast a glance to Hanna, “Are we finished?”

The girl curtsied, stepping away. “Yes, milady. And if I may say, you look beautiful.”

Without thought, Selyse’s hand clenched into a fist at her side, and she felt a reproach bubbling up in her throat. But no. The girl had only meant to be kind.

“Thank you. Hanna, is it?”

“Yes, milady.”

Selyse allowed Hanna to drape the maiden’s cloak around her shoulders, and wished her well before Harlon led her from the room. He was accompanied by two guards in Blackwood regalia, gambeson halved red and black with a white tree embroidered over their heart. They led them down two flights of torchlit stairs, through a central corridor towards the courtyard and Godswood beyond.

“I don’t like this, Harlon,” Selyse said as they passed into the dim sunlight of a cloudy noon.

“Nor I.”

She looked at him. “Look after everyone, won’t you? Mother, Father, Bryon, Brandon, Petyr. They all need help.”
Selyse saw the question in the way his eyes avoided hers, in the way his shoulders dropped. And who will help me?

He didn’t speak it aloud. He knew the answer as well as she did.

Nobody.

“Of course I will, Selyse,” he said, and that was enough.

The fine cobbles of the courtyard ended abruptly at the godswood gate. The path beyond was hard-packed dirt, hemmed by logs, leading through twisted oak trunks to the towering weirwood. The tree’s bloody-eyed face seemed to gaze disapprovingly upon the small congregation at its roots. Selyse’s mother and brothers stood to one side, and the Blackwoods to the other. The rest of the crowd was filled by people Selyse didn’t know, witnesses for the Lord Paramount, bards, and the Blackwoods’ friends and allies.

Selyse understood that her husband’s lordship had come after the death of his brother and nephew during the war. At a guess, the older woman glaring at the raven-cloaked figure by the weirwood was Margaery, the late Lord Andar’s widow. The young man in Blackwood colours was harder to place. If Andar or his brother had living sons, after all, Selyse wouldn’t be here.

“Who comes?” called a too-jolly-looking septon from the head of the group. “Who comes before the gods this day?”
Harlon’s sigh was a private apology before he called out, “Selyse of House Bracken comes here to be wed. A woman grown and flowered, trueborn and noble, she comes to beg the blessings of the old gods and the new. Who comes to claim her?”

The raven-cloaked man turned, finally, to see their approach. He had likely been handsome, once. Striking, clear eyes sat in dark, wrinkled sockets and fine, sharp cheekbones had been rendered gaunt by the passing of years. His hair was thick and healthy, but streaked with as much grey as black. His eyebrows seemed to frown independently from the rest of his face as he watched her.

“I do,” he said. “Quentyn of House Blackwood, Lord of Blackwood Vale, and of Raventree Hall. I claim her, in the sight of gods and men. Who gives her?”

“Harlon of House Bracken, in place of our ill father, Lord Walder.” Harlon paused, took a breath, and looked at Selyse. “Lady Selyse, do you take this man?”

Selyse’s eyes met Lord Quentyn’s piercing gaze, and she found herself short of breath. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, so she drew them close to her chest. She knew the words, but they could not be unsaid once said. Her life was collapsing in on itself, and this seemed her final, futile chance to try and stop it. Cold anger bubbled in her chest.

Quentyn’s eyes left hers for a moment, seeming to focus on something over her shoulder. He took a deep breath, and held out a hand for her to take. It was as close to a peace offering as she was likely to get. A low, sharp whistle escaped her lips before she could stop it.

“I take this man as my lord and husband,” she said, seeing no alternative.

She stepped forward, and forced herself to take Quentyn’s hand.

“And I take this woman as my lady and wife,” he said.

And it was done.

Prayers followed. Silent meditations to the Old Gods, lilting hymns to the Seven. The septon anointed them and bade them rise, and the congregation returned to the keep. The great hall, when they returned, was decorated with drapery of gold, crimson, and black. Elaborate silver candelabras lit the room alongside roaring hearths, and music filled the air from a trio of bards in one corner.

The food was fresh, lavish, and alluring in its smell, but Selyse couldn’t focus on it. She felt like the world was being held at arm's length from her. Quentyn had not spared her more than a glance since their vows, and she wasn’t sure whether she should be relieved or insulted. Either option left her irritated.

Quentyn was focused on his food, casting an occasional sour look at the chattering guests along the high table. This man is taking control of your life, she told herself, and he barely seems to notice. Part of her wanted to resent him for it, but another couldn’t help but wonder why. It seemed the most likely way of getting some acknowledgement, if nothing else.

“Why did you wait so long?”

His focus shifted to her mid-spoonful of soup, and he coughed as it went down the wrong pipe. A small thrill of petty joy ran down Selyse’s spine.

“Wait so long for what?” he said, when he’d recovered.

“For this. Marriage.”

Quentyn shook his head. “I didn’t. Sent for you as soon as I could.”

“It’s been over a year since you became lord here,” Selyse pointed out.

“Yes, but I was in Braavos at the time. A letter didn’t find me for some months.”

Selyse hesitated. She hadn’t known. A crow cage swayed in the wind in her mind’s eye.

“That must have been hard.”

Quentyn only nodded, then seemed to shake the memory off. His shoulders shifted as he tried to return to his meal, but curiosity was driving Selyse now.

“If I may, my lord, why did the lordship fall to you?” His eyebrows creased in response, and she realised how stupid the question sounded. “I mean to say, I was surprised that your nephew Roose had no direct heirs, no wife. He was twenty-five, was he not?”

“Ah,” Quentyn said. “Yes. My brother and nephew were both quite stringent about their faith. There are surprisingly few highborn maidens that follow the Old Gods, and sending letters to the North always takes time. I believe he had an eye on a Locke girl, but died before he could send a letter.”

If a girl had been chosen, why inflict this on me? “Was the Locke girl not to your liking?”

“No. You were just–” His mouth stayed open for a moment, as if he was going to continue, but he closed it, and looked at her. Took a moment to examine her with those grim, pale eyes. Then he seemed to deflate a little.
“You should know that you’re not my first wife. Cassana died some time ago. I loved her a great deal, and I fear this ceremony is bringing up bitter memories.”

Selyse had assumed her husband was a widower. Most forty-three-year-old noblemen were, but she hadn’t taken any interest in the details in the weeks since his letter.

“You had no heirs by her?”

“We lost three pregnancies, if I remember right, but we had one daughter. Ryella.”

Selyse bit her lip, holding in the low whistle that threatened to signal her alarm. “I did not realise I was stepping into the role of stepmother.”

For the first time, Quentyn cracked a thin smile. “I wouldn’t recommend you try. Ryella’s older than you – and married, before you ask. She’s not lived in Raventree Hall for almost five years.”

His eyes lost focus for a moment, and he looked out the great hall’s window, out to the godswood and the bone-white tree. He kept his gaze there as soups were swapped for the main course, bringing the food to his lips without thought. Selyse watched, but did not try to pull him from his reverie.

As guests finished their meals, many began to rise to dance to the music. Wine started to reach people’s heads, and the growing revelry sent anxious needles down Selyse’s spine. She didn’t stop the whistle this time.

It seemed to get Quentyn’s attention. He turned his whole body to her, leaning towards her, faces barely half a foot apart. Selyse couldn’t decide if the pose was conspiratorial or intimate.

“Ryella and I spoke often in the months before her wedding,” he said. “I can guess your fears. Some of them, at least. May I be… impolitely honest with you, Selyse?”

Selyse nodded. Quentyn avoided her eyes, seeming to read something in the air.

“I have no interest in you. I loved Cassana, and would not replace her if I had any choice. The fact is, I require an heir, and so, I need a young woman of noble blood. But know this: I take my oaths very seriously. I will not dishonour you. I do not seek a plaything or servant or lover, only a wife, and a mother to my future son. That is the oath we swore.”

His tone was flat, matter-of-fact, even cold. It was the first reassuring thing she’d heard all day. Even so, it left a question.

“What do you wish me to do?”

Quentyn looked back out to the guests. The energy was growing, leering eyes beginning to drift to the pair of them.

“Only your duty,” Quentyn said. “As I shall do mine.”

The tourney beneath the Giant’s Lance was as grand an affair as Theon Arryn had ever seen.

The games themselves were, of course, a spectacle, and Theon was glad to spend all day in the lord’s box, cheering on the knights, be they in a joust, a melee, or even a spot of archery. But it was what happened each afternoon when the games concluded that truly enraptured Theon.

As the crowds poured out of the stands, they would find themselves in the streets of a temporary city, a hustle and bustle that, to Theon, seemed almost to rival King’s Landing. What was once open fields in the shadow of the Gates of the Moon had been transformed into a miniature Free City. There were colorful pavilions that towered into the sky, and squat merchant stalls sprung up everywhere like mushrooms.

On this particular afternoon, Theon found himself taking in a puppet show. It was a familiar tale, one depicted on the tapestries of the Eyrie, and told to him often throughout his boyhood, but never had he seen it like this! The little wooden Serwyn was a beautiful piece of handiwork, with armor of as fine a make as the true Knight of Ninestars’. His sword arm moved with speed and precision that Theon couldn’t hope to match on his best day, and it was all done by a few tugs on a few strings. And the mirror shield he bore, small as it was, glinted wonderfully in the afternoon sun.

“I wonder how they mean to do the dragon!” Theon said.

The knight at his flank, the ever-faithful Ser Kym Egen, seemed less enchanted than Theon. “No doubt with painted wood,” he supplied promptly.

“Yes, but will it be on strings? I wager it’ll require two, maybe even three puppeteers. Will they make it breathe fire somehow, do you think?”

“I couldn’t say, my lord.”

Theon relented. Ser Kym was poor company, as wooden as the miniature Serwyn. One could not wish for a more stalwart defender; Theon could not deny that. But it seemed a rather silly thing, to be part of a knightly order, named after a warrior out of ancient legend known best for his habit of commanding eagles and flying atop falcons, and yet to turn one’s nose up at a bit of magic and wonder. This whole Winged Knights thing was fanciful, really, but the idea of being one seemed to make men overly self-serious.

“My lord nephew!”

The voice caught Theon off guard, but he grinned all the same. Wheeling about, he saw his uncle approaching. Dressed in a sky blue tabard and a feathered cloak, Ser Dake Arryn walked with a practiced ease, and the crowd parted around him like the sea breaking around a cliff face.

“Uncle Dake,” Theon said, excitedly. “You’re just in time! Serwyn is about to face Urrax.”

“Is he now?” Dake asked, stepping into place beside his nephew. “Well, this I must see.”

The dragon was even grander than Theon had imagined. It’s torso appeared to be in three parts, so it could bend and writhe, and while it’s wings and claws were on strings, the head was affixed to the top of a wooden rod, so it might look this way and that, lowering its fearsome maw at Serwyn’s approach. In the final moments before Serwyn buried his spear into the dragon’s eye, Urrax’s jaw unhinged, and crimson ribbons exploded against the polished shield, and the creature’s whole body thrashed in pain.

The crowd cheered, and Theon whooped right along with them.

“Splendid!” he called. “Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“I have, indeed,” Dake answered, though he still clapped heartily when the performers stepped out to take their bows.

“Really?”

“More than anything like it, I’ve seen it precisely,” Dake said with a smile. “This particular troupe gets around! I’ve seen their shows in a few tourneys in the region over the years. Though no doubt they pulled out a few stops to impress their new liege lord.”

“Well, they certainly impressed!” Theon said.

“Go on,” Dake said, patting him on the back and nodding towards the performers collecting coins from the audience. “Tell them yourself. A word from the Lord of the Vale will be the highlight of their year.”

“Really?”

“They’ll tell their grandchildren of it,” Dake assured him, urging him forward.

Theon looked back at Ser Kym as if for permission, but Dake laughed and squeezed his shoulder, effectively dragging him towards the front of the crowd.

“I doubt they mean to assassinate you, Theon! You’ve only been lord a fortnight; scarcely enough time to make that kind of enemy! And besides, Ser Kym’ll be right behind us, won’t he?”

“He will,” Ser Kym answered, hand sitting on the hilt of his sword, eyes somewhat lazily scanning the crowd.

Encouraged, Theon pressed forward, with his uncle and his sworn sword on either side. He moved through the crowd until eventually, there was no one between him and the puppeteers.

Serwyn and Urrax hung rather limply in their little stage, all the life and magic having abandoned their little wooden frames. But up close, Theon could appreciate the craftsmanship even more keenly. So taken in by the ornate inscriptions on the mirror shield, Theon nearly forgot why he had come. It was only when he saw one of the performers, a balding man of middling age, gawking at him that Theon recalled his purpose.

“Good afternoon!” Theon said cheerily. “That was a splendid show.”

“Thank you, my lord,” the man said in a thickly accented voice. “You are kind to say so!”

The other performers made their way over and, judging by their heavy brows and dark complexion, Theon judged them all to be kin with one another. Beside the balding man, there was an older couple with wiry gray hair, and a girl a few years Theon’s senior.

“Oh!” Theon said suddenly, reaching back for his coin purse. He fished around inside, trying to decide what an appropriate amount would be, but the older male performer waved him off.

“Not needed, my lord,” the man said, bowing his head. “It was an honor to perform for you in this.”

Theon hesitated, but Dake elbowed him lightly and Theon held the coins out despite the man’s protestations.

“Please! I insist,” Theon said. But his eyes began to wander back to the puppets. His eyes lingered on Urrax and he found himself drifting back over to it. “Say… Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, Lord Arryn.”

“How did you get his mouth to open?”

“Ah! Urrax, yes. You want secrets of the show, hm?”

“If you don’t mind!”

“It is not for me to deny Lord of the Vale curiosity. Come, come.”

The puppeteer grabbed the painted wooden dragon and lifted it up a bit. Theon moved closer.

“See, head is attached to end of this… ahhhh…” He turned towards who Theon assumed to be his daughter and started speaking in one of the languages of the Free Cities.

The girl provided the translation, her voice surprisingly low, and her Common Tongue sharp and rigid. “The dragon’s head is guided by my father, using this rod. But look closely here, you will see a string along its length. This can be pulled to manipulate the jaw.”

The father made the beast’s jaw flap a few times and said something else in his eastern language, which the daughter translated: “My father thanks you for your interest in his craft.”

“And I thank you both for your time and expertise!” Theon said, thinking the words sounded like something his uncle Nathaniel might say. “And I wish you a pleasant, ah, rest of your day! And tourney!”

There were a few more thank yous and my pleasures and the honor is mines back exchanged before Theon extricated himself from the interaction, but when he did, it was with a smile on his face.

“You said you’d seen their show before?” Theon asked his uncle as they strode back to the Gates of the Moon for supper.

“Yes, at Harrenhal, and again a few years back at a tourney near Wickenden.”

“Have you seen others?”

“Oh, plenty,” Dake answered. “And more besides. Other tales by other troupes.”

“Do you have a favorite?”

“I’ve always been partial to Florian the Fool,” Dake said. “Why the sudden interest in puppet shows, if I may ask?”

“No reason,” Theon said. “I just think they’re nice.”

Dake chuckled. “I suppose they are.”

“Do you know many hedge knights?” Theon asked.

“First puppeteers and now hedge knights!” Dake laughed. “Next, you’ll want an introduction with a juggler.”

“I’m just curious. I’ve never been to a tourney before. That’s all.”

“Brother, would you give me a few moments with our nephew?”

Nathaniel Arryn’s voice had a way of stopping Theon in his tracks, particularly when he sounded so formal. Whatever Theon was doing, when he heard that voice, he felt as though he’d been caught sneaking treats from the kitchen.

It seemed Dake had a similar reaction to his brother’s voice, because he immediately turned, inclined his head, said “Of course! I’ll see you all at supper,” before beating a hasty retreat indoors.

Left alone with his Uncle Nathaniel, Theon waited to hear what he had done wrong, his heart already sinking into his gut.

“You seem to be enjoying yourself,” Nathaniel said.

“I am,” Theon answered. “It’s… it’s very fun.”

“I’m glad,” Nathaniel said shortly. “That’s the point of these things, many would have you believe.”

Theon swallowed, and before his uncle could continue, he jumped in. “I know it’s more important than that. It’s about unity throughout the region and keeping up appearances, and showing the might that the Vale can command, and forging, uhm, forging alliances between houses as well as–”

“Theon, Theon,” Nathaniel interrupted, raising a hand. “Please. I’ve not come to dress you down, nephew. I just want to talk.”

“Oh?” Theon froze. “Of course. Right. What’s on your… uhm, your mind?”

“You’ve rarely left the Eyrie before this journey, and the last time you did was to sail to war,” Nathaniel said. “I imagine this is all quite intoxicating.”

“I don’t know if I’d say intoxicating, exactly…”

“You have responsibilities now. More burdens to bear than most ever know,” Nathaniel continued. “Your Uncle Dake was enamored by the excitements of the road at a young age, and even now with a wife and a child and holdings to oversee, he allows himself to be seduced by the call of adventure at times that I would call inopportune. All this to say, Theon, a life as a hedge knight or a bard may have a certain… romantic appeal to some. But–”

“It’s not as though I meant to run off,” Theon said, frustration growing. His uncle was putting words in his mouth, and thoughts in his head. “I’m just– I’m only– I don’t see why you’re scolding me for enjoying the tourney!”

Nathaniel lowered his head, massaging his brow. His frown was harsher than any Theon had ever seen. He had stepped out of line. He knew it. He wondered if it was possible for the Stone Falcon to somehow revoke his lordship and send him to his room all at once.

But when Nathaniel spoke again, it wasn’t to yell at him. Not even to quiet-yell. He seemed sad.

“I don’t mean to scold you, Theon. The opposite, really. Unfortunately, this is just how I sound when I speak. I’m… apologizing, I suppose.”

Theon blinked back at him. “... Why?”

“You have more resources and privilege than nearly any other boy your age in Westeros. And yet there are, in some ways, fewer doors open to you. A poor boy, of whom nothing is expected, might joust in every tourney from the Broken Arm to the Neck, might sail to Pentosh, might forswear his name to forge a chain–” Nathaniel trailed off, shaking his head. “See? I cannot help but pontificate. Do you understand what I’m trying to say to you?”

“I think so.”

Nathaniel nodded, seemingly a smidge relieved by the answer. “But that needn’t mean you spend your days forever entombed in the Eyrie. I was perhaps too inclined to that during my regency. There is something to be said for a Lord Paramount that the people see, and who sees the people. In the Vale especially, it can be hard to come down from our high seat to walk the lands we oversee. Descending the Giant’s Lance is…”

“A production.”

Nathaniel cracked a smile. “That it is. A production. But I find most things worth doing are… difficult.”

Theon felt a wave of fondness for his uncle washing over him.

“Soon enough, we’ll be on the road to Harrenhal,” Nathaniel continued. “Make the most of it. Have your taste of adventure, see the land and the people who dwell there, and let it inform your rule. And while you aren’t free to galavant or puppeteer or… juggle, this doesn’t need to be the last time you enjoy what the road has to offer.”

Theon nodded. “I understand.”

“Good. Good.”

“And uncle?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Nathaniel bowed his head again, nodding. “You asked me to be your advisor,” he said at length. “It’s my pleasure to oblige. Sometimes, perhaps, a bit clumsily. But always with your best interest in mind.”

There were other words on Theon’s tongue, but he swallowed them, knowing it didn’t need to be said. Instead, Theon asked:

“So… what’s for supper?”

The warm scent of orange zest and sandalwood wafted through the air as Lady Gargalen soaked in her bath. Candles were lit around her, made from beeswax despite the afternoon sun that was pouring in through the stained windows that surrounded her. Bubbles and orange blossoms swirled, mingling together in the water. Obara tried her best to at least relax, however she had little time to do so. She had a new salt mine that needed attention as well as the Great Council and the Princess’s arrival to prepare for.

She needed to cram that all in before the next meeting with Gerris and his well behaved sons. So she requested for her plans and maps of the new mine to be taken with her whilst the rest of the keep readied for the overseers’ arrival within the upcoming days. Her high steward, Reysen, was present, sitting on a chair just beside the wooden tub along with a leather bag which carried her more precious documents.

“Reysen, can you show me the map of the cave again?” Obara inquired as she leaned an elbow over the edge of the tub. The Gargalen regretted that she waited so long to even start the excavation of the mine whilst thinking back to the expedition moons before. As far as she could tell, his words were right. The new mine held more rock salt than any that have been found thus far. However the behavior of the overseer’s sons left a terrible taste in her mouth.

I will certainly be the judge of that claim. Obara thought to herself.

“Well of course m’lady.” Reysen replied, confediantly before unraveling the map from its rolled up state and showcasing it to her, handling the sensitive documents with care just so Obara doesn’t destroy them with the wetness of her palms. “Be careful, the parchment is rather fragile.”

She hovered just over the side of the tub so Obara could see the fine details of the ink. However even then, it wasn’t the same as having the parchment properly on her solar’s work desk. Obara had to squint her eyes just to make out the poorly written scribbles that the aging overseer had scripted.

Sprawled out before her was an intricate sketch of the mine. The lands of Salt Shore produced two types of salt, sea salt which were collected in pools near the shoreline as the water slowly evaporated under the hot Dornish Sun. Then there was rock salt that had to be mined from the mountains and cliffs to the north. Rock salt was harder to acquire than sea salt which made this new mine a far more tricky task.

“We just might have landed ourselves in a surplus that would benefit House Gargalen for the years to come,” Obara told Reysen as her eyes wandered the page, looking at the map in careful detail. Perhaps she’ll go back to check on the mine’s progress? She could never forget the beauty of the subterranean caverns with their glittering walls full of salt and crystal pillars jetting down from the ceiling.

“Yes. I know. You’ve told me much in the previous council meeting, though nevertheless it is still a rather exciting prospect,” Reysen replied politely with a small smile whilst still holding the map steadily. “Even with the Reach-”

She bit her lip, thinking back on the trade deal. A deal that was now as dead and cold as the lord who had given life to it.

”I understand that they are in the middle of a blight but if it were Dorne suffering through one of the worst famines in eons, I guarantee you that the lords of the Reach wouldn’t so spare us a single seed out of their vast harvests!”

The words of Gerris’s son cut through her mind. The man’s pride and arrogance infuriated her. Surely Albin would be beyond delighted upon hearing the unfortunate state of the trade deal.

“I do not wish to speak of the Reach.” Obara spat out bitterly.

“All I am saying is that despite our recent set back, there is still much opportunity out there. The Great Council will provide with more than enough chances to negotiate a better deal, perhaps with a family that isn’t in as dire circumstances as House Tyrell.”

Obara nodded slowly. Reysen was right of course but she didn’t wish to admit it. She turned her head and called for one of her maids who swiftly handed her a glass of Dornish Red.

Reysen had been working as a steward for Salt Shore for a little bit more than ten years and he had been High Steward as long as Obara had been acting as its lady. Despite him only being a few years her senior, she saw him as the most capable for the role. He wore his dark curls back in a simple bun as well as a long sleeved sea green robe embroidered with imagery of salamanders throughout the garment.

The maid had also given him a glass. Reysen only took a sip before placing it on the floor beside him. “Perhaps we should move on-”

“You’re right,” Obara stated, glancing at the map of the cave once more. It would be a shame to not use such an opportunity for her own advantage. “About the council. While I’m attending I should attempt to talk trade with those of other regions. Though I am still hesitant. After the mumblings coming out of Blackmont, I fear that much of the realm would not spare a look at Dorne.”

“Your feelings are fair, m’lady but please do not fret. Surely out of the hundreds of lords and ladies in attendance, there’s at least one willing to listen.” Reysen gave a small but optimistic smile in an attempt to ease her nerves.

Obara drank from her glass, not phased by the bitter sourness it left upon her lips. “Reysen can you please store the map away? We can discuss it once more later on. For now, I wish to read the letter from Kingsgrave.”

“Certainly.” He gave out a simple nod before doing just so.

She watched closely as her steward gingerly rolled up the fragile parchment, storing it in the confines of her leather satchel. Before her eyes, he took out an envelope sealed with the familiar crowned skull of Manwoody. Once more her nerves gnawed while the seal broke and parchment unraveled.

“Would you prefer to read it or shall I?” He asked her in a soft, polite tone.

“I’ll rather glance at it myself, thank you.” She took yet another sip and dried her wet palms before taking the response. Her eyes slowly grazed along the carefully scripted letters and her heart sank. All she could think was of Eust.

“Lord Manwoody is accepting our offer. A nephew of his who has yet to wed.”

“That is fantastic news. I’m sure that he’s a nice man…” Her steward’s voice uttered positively, though not before long, noticing her discomfort his brows furrowed. “M’lady are you alright? Has the water gotten cold? I could fetch one of the maids for you?”

“I’m quite alright, thank you.”

“Are you sure m’lady?” Reysen asked again. “You know, I remember the council meeting from moons back when this arrangement was suggested. Lady Obara, may I be forward and ask you if you are having doubts about your upcoming marriage?”

She shot him a cold gaze. “I have no doubts. It is my duty to marry and secure the future of House Gargalen.”

He flinched upon hearing those words. “Lady Ob- M’lady… All I am trying to get across is that you don’t have to go forward with something that you aren’t comfortable with.”

Silence followed. Her hands drifted back into the bath causing the letter to soak. Once again he was right but she refused to acknowledge it. The water had gotten cold. She shivered slightly, feeling alone and unprepared for what was to come. She had never cared for marriage, whilst her mother’s was one of love, the same could not be said of her grandmother’s. There was no guarantee that her betrothed was to be a respectful husband.

And what of Eustace? She hoped not to break his heart, not after all of the pain he had already dealt with. How could I tell him?

“Change is a terrifying prospect.” Reysen finally broke the silence, his hands clutching the glass goblet of wine. “Men, women, all of us are creatures of habit. We get used to our routines and panic as soon as that consistency is broken. When I was young, my mother used to say to me that ‘a drop from a pool cannot make it to the sea if it stays in one place. It must travel through streams and rivers and wind and change course. One must not fear a change in the river’s course as it all ends in the same exact place.’”

“Do you miss her?” She asked him, now resting her hand which clutched the letter along the rim of the tub.

He shook his head in response. “Everyday but I miss my other one more.”

Obara understood. He was an Orphan after all, raised along the banks of the Greenblood traveling on an old ritcky dingy supposedly made of the remains of Nymeria’s old fleet. In a sense they both shared the same mother but she at least never felt her call.

“You know you can leave if you so desire. You have served me well throughout the years and I would not hesitate to finance your journey to Essos so that way you could meet her at last.”

“That’s a very kind gesture m’lady but one I cannot accept,” the steward said, shaking his head. “Like you, I too have a duty to uphold. To you and to Salt Shore, it is one I cannot reject. As your High Steward, when you appointed me, I swore an oath to always serve for the betterment of the house. I cannot give up on it now.”

“Thank you,” Obara replied with a slight apologetic smile. Finally she stepped out of the tub just as Reysen instinctively turned eyes away from her frame. Her maids quickly flocked to her, handing her a towel to dry off as well as fresh clothes to change in. “Reysen, do you mind reading me the rest of today’s agenda?”

“As soon as you’re fully clothed.”

She rolled her eyes in response. “Don’t be such a prude.”

“Well I can tell you one thing,” he said, staring off towards a bedchamber wall. “Straight after we leave this room, you’re needed in your mother’s chambers for a fitting. She says that your aunt has commissioned more gowns for the upcoming events in Harrenhal.”

“Oh how lovely,” Obara snarked as she slipped into a silk blouse which was a berrystain red in hue as well as a matching pair of loose, flowing trousers. Only after she was completely dressed did Reysen meet her gaze once more. “Will you walk with me? Only up to the door, of course.”

Reysen stood up with her satchel of important documents draped over his shoulder. “Maybe, but then I’ll be terribly late. Maester Humfrey invited me for a cup of tea and of course I still have to return your documents to where they belong. I thank you though.”

And with a quick bow as he greeted her farewell, he exited her chambers. Obara sighed as she too left the comfort of her bedroom with only her thoughts to accompany her.

She traveled alone down an empty corridor and then another and another before she made it to her mother’s quarters. As she opened the door, she saw her youngest sisters already in soft yellow gowns and chatting about gleefully as her mother and aunt gossip over wine.

She bit her lip knowing that she would have to tell them the news. And that soon she’ll wear a gown of white. The parchment crumpled in her grasp as her stomach turned.

“Obara? My dear, is something the matter?” Her mother asked her. “You’re awfully pale.”

All she could do was faint a smile.

“I am to wed Ser Morgan Sand of House Manwoody.”

Her mother grinned bright, ear to ear as tears started to pool. “Praise the Seven! Obara, I’m so proud of you… This is the greatest news!” She hugged her, crying joyful tears onto her shoulder.

Her sisters giggled and screamed upon hearing it, whilst her aunt Elia raised her glass and smirked.

“Can I help plan the wedding? I can’t wait until I get married… I just love weddings.” Ravella let out a dreamy sigh.

“Oh! Oh! Can I? Can I help as well?” The youngest of them all, Aliandra inquired also, twirling around in her daffodil dress in a childish fashion.

Obara didn’t dare utter another word, allowing her family to have their blissful moment. She felt uneasy and afraid to share her doubts.

Reysen’s words echoed in the back of her mind and the old Rhoynish proverb his mother bestowed to him.

I must not fear a change in the river’s course.

To Matarys Manwoody, Lord of Kingsgrave

I write to you to express interest in re-establishing the bond between our two houses. My father, the late Lord Perros has always spoken of you and House Manwoody with the highest of regards. In light of recent events, it is important more than ever for the houses of Dorne to show unity and solidarity in the face of uncertainty.

And thus I write with a request, to bind our houses in matrimony. As you might have already known, I myself have not yet wed and am still in search of a husband in order to continue the Gargalen line. If there are any available men of your house, I would be interested in potentially offering my hand.

There is a Grand Council to be hosted at Harrenhal, I believe that it shall be an opportunity to discuss this potential arrangement further.

Sincerely,

Obara Gargalen, Lady of Salt Shore

​

Matthos let out a sigh, and cast his eyes over the letter for what had to be the dozenth time that morning. It was a good offer. The Gargalen’s were an old family, respected. And with Lord Matarys still being useless...he’d made the decision himself.

He could not marry Lady Obara. He was Heir to Kingsgrave and its acting Regent, Myriah would jump at the chance but she was a woman. Which only left one.

His bastard cousin, Morgan Sand.

They had both squired for their Uncle Myles in their boyhood days and had fought alongside him at Skyreach. They had both mourned and raged at his death and meted out a bloody vengeance in response. What that had entailed still remained between only the two of them and the sands of Dorne themselves. If there was one person in the world that Matthos trusted completely and without a single moment of pause, it was Ser Morgan Sand.

So it was with no small amount of hesitation that he called his cousin to his solar. After they’d both sat down and poured wine, Matthos got straight to the matter at hand.

“There is..a letter.” He began. “That may potentially pertain to you.”

“Well now.” His cousin smiled. “That is certainly a rare event. Who would ever need something from me of all people?...Would you care to summarize it for me?”

Matthos shook his head, and swiped the letter from his desk before offering it to Morgan. “I think it best if you read it yourself, Morgan.”

His cousin raised an eyebrow, and swiped the letter from his hand. Taking a sip of his wine, Matthos merely watched Morgan’s reaction as he read through what the Lady of Salt Shore had written. There were a few moments of silence, before Morgan broke it with a simple declaration of “I see.”

“I have to pose this question, cousin. And I think you know what it is..” Matthos began as he took the letter back. “Would you do it, if I asked you to?”

The Bastard of Kingsgrave responded with his usual carefree grin, handing the letter back. “Do what, dear Matthos? Marry into a House that is an old ally and friend of ours? Marry a Lady that was apparently at Skyreach alongside us? With whom the only thing we really share for certain is the fact that both of our mother’s share the same name? I suppose her’s is still ali-”

“Morgan.” Matthos cut him off. “Be serious please. Father won’t care either way, but having your consent for this would go a long way to gaining the support of my mother and sisters in this matter. Even our Obara is smart enough to see that this match is both good and necessary.”

“Matthos.” He drawled in response. “It’s a damn fine match, and I am not opposed to it. It’ll gain our family an alliance. Lady Obara, from what little I do actually know of her, is a true Dornishwoman. Not some flighty Reachwoman who can’t even wield a cheese knife. But know you, you will wish to hear me actually say the words, I suppose. Make it all nice and official? ...I give my consent, cousin. I’ll marry Obara Gargalen, should she be content with a bastard son for a Husband.”

“Thank you.” Matthos let out a relieved sigh. "Now, I don't suppose you'd be willing to help me tailor our response to Lady Gargalen?"

At that, Morgan let out a laugh. "You are on your own for that one, my friend."

Matthos chuckled. "Well, I had to try."

As Simon led Alyn and Ser Edric to the outer bailey of Musgood Hall, Alyn could not help but feel a sense of dread and fear. A series of questions raced through Alyn’s mind: What would his smallfolk think? How would they react to their new liege? Would they accept him? Would they accept Lord Ormund’s death?

The trio was walking through the old keep, some guards flanked them, before Alyn could protest, they hastily clasped a simple breastplate over his clothes. A simple leather strap was thrown over his right shoulder. a heavy weight was placed in some sort of clasp on his back, the handle of the weapon tapping against the plate with every step.

Alyn reached behind his back to examine his weapon – a large square mallet with a golden laurel inlaid on one side, and a silver tent inlaid on the other, the same hammer Lord Ormund, Alyn’s father, surrendered to Lord Orys Connington all those years ago. Alyn was handed a pair of leather gloves, and returned the mallet to its clasp to don them, his hands stretching the leather as he clenched and relaxed his fists.

As Simon, Alyn and Ser Edric entered the yard, Alyn saw some men with bows standing on the battlements; others were standing spears ready in a line away from the gate. “Seven hells,” Alyn said. “You would think we were preparing for a bloody siege!”

“Barnabas is up there milord,” Simon said, gesturing above the gate. “There atop the gatehouse.”

“Move faster, you miserable bastards!” The commander shouted. “They're almost upon us!”

Absolutely not! “Nay! Belay that order!” Alyn shouted. “All of you, return to your posts at once!”

An uneasy silence fell over the yard. Everyone stared at Alyn.

“WHAT ARE YOU MAGGOTS STARING AT?!” Ser Edric bellowed, his face red and contorted with anger. “BACK TO YOUR POSTS!”

The guards dispersed quickly after that, as Commander Barnabas came down from atop the gatehouse, grasping the hilt of his sword. He could not have been more than seventeen, his blonde hair bobbing up and down with every step he took. Oh, he thinks he can attack me with a sword and live, that’s just precious! “Who in the Seven hells do you think you are?” He demanded. “We are about to be under attack and you send my men-” Alyn punched him in the face before he could finish his sentence. Barnabas falls to the ground, clasping his nose in both hands, shouting in pain.

“Who do you think you are, commander?” Alyn demanded, sternly. “To think you could loose some arrows upon my smallfolk- my people- using MY MEN! WITHOUT - ME- KNOWING - ABOUT - IT?!” Alyn shouted, punctuating each word with a kick to the commander's ribs. Alyn reached for his hammer, lifted it above his head. Fear flooded the commander's face. Alyn swung the hammer down, hard. “WAIT!” Simon shouted, but it was too late.

The hammer made a hard impact into the ground, inches from Barnabas's head. Alyn wrenched the hammer from the new hole in the ground and placed it on Barnabass’s chest, leaning on it hard. “Next time, I won't miss!” Alyn growled. “Do I make myself clear, boy?”

“Y-y-yes, m-m-milord,” Barnabas stammered. “A-a-a-as, you wish, milord!”

“Good,” Alyn whispered as he put his hammer away. He stood over Barnabas for a moment. A pause. Alyn reached down, grabbed Barnabas by the collar and pulled him to his feet, “Now, open the gate.” Alyn said as he lightly shoved the commander away.

“At once, milord” Barnabas said as he dusted himself off, and pushed his nose back into place. “I will have-”

“No!” Alyn snapped as he grabbed Barnabas by the ear, his voice echoing around the suddenly quiet yard. “You will open the gate, then come back! Is that understood?”

“Yes, milord.” Barnabas said, quietly. His face contorted by pain, blood still falling from his nose, all over his thick blue and white gambeson. Alyn released the commander. Barnabas ran to the gatehouse.

“Was that entirely necessary, My Lord?” said Ser Edric, confused. “Your initial handling seemes, at least to me, rather excessive.”

“I understand your hesitation to violence, Ser,” Alyn said. “But soldiers need discipline, and if I must be the enforcer, then so be it.”

“All the same,” Ser Edric said. “I understand that you want to prove yourself, Alyn, I do. Excessive violence will breed treason. There are other ways to gain loyalty and respect, gods be good, you could have killed him.”

“But I didn't.” Alyn retorted as the portcullis was raised and the drawbridge lowered. “One example, can keep an army in line.”

“One example can become a spark that will burn your family to the ground.” Ser Edric said. “Fools shout, wise men listen. If you cannot respect your men, do not expect them to respect you!”

Barnabas returned from the gatehouse, breathing heavily. “The gate is open, milord, as you commanded.”

“Excellent,” Alyn said, his father-by-law’s words echoing in his mind. “Ser Edric, take Barnabas to see Maester Edmure; see what the Maester can do for his pain.”

“At once, My Lord.” Edric said. “Come along, young Simon.”

“No!” Alyn exclaimed. “Simon, attend me.”

“Y-yes, milord, “The boy said, sheepishly.

As Alyn and Simon approach the open gate Alyn could see a mass of people in the distance approaching them, small, perhaps no more than twenty. “How do we approach this?” Alyn asked the young boy.

“What do you mean, Milord?” Simon asked, looking up at Alyn.

“We have a large group of people approaching.” Alyn explained. “They will look to me for leadership. I need to know how best to approach them, how best to work with them. I seek your counsel because you would know better than I would.”

“I see,” Simon said, contemplating his words. “Winter has been long and harsh, perhaps they are looking to you to keep them and their families fed?”

“Perhaps,” Alyn said, pondering the information he had received. “Approach with empathy and kindness?”

“I believe that would be wise, milord.” Simon said, nodding.

As the group of peasants approached, stopping some distance from the open drawbridge. The group looked tired, many of them had dirt covering their faces, some had sweat stains on their threadbare tunics. One of the group looked better kept than the rest: the man wore a long brown cloak, fastened with a silver brooch in the shape of a sword over a thick blue tunic and brown trousers; his leather boots, while well made, were worn and tattered. His black hair slicked back, streaked with gray, wrinkles formed slightly around his eyes and mouth. “Greetings, my friend!” the man said. “We would like to speak to Lord Musgood,” he said, gesturing to the crowd. “I am afraid it is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.”

Alyn looked him over, analyzing every detail of his face, his dress. “You all look miserable,” Alyn said after a long moment of silence. “Come! Let us discuss the matter inside the castle.”

“I am afraid the matter is quite serious, Ser,” the man said. “We must speak to Lord Musgood at once.”

“Lord and Lady Musgood await you, my friend,” Alyn explained, looking at the crowd, many of them appeared disheveled and sickly. “Come now, before these people get sick!”

Alyn guided the crowd through the old keep to the main audience chamber. The large stone room was cold, dark, and dusty from lack of use. On a slightly raised dias sat the throne of House Musgood, an oak chair with a high back, velvet cushions and the sigil of house Musgood inlaid with gold, lapis lazuli, emeralds, and ivory near the top; a smaller, less impressive throne sat to the right, on the same level. Alyn called for some servants to start some fires to warm the chamber, assemble some chairs and tables for the gathered people, and bring some refreshments. Lady Alyssa walks into the chamber followed closely by Lady Shireen and Ser Edric.

Lady Shireen approached Alyn. "What in the seven hells are you doing boy?"

Alyn looked his mother in her eyes. "Helping my people."

Alyn approached the dais, three simple steps; three daunting mountains. Alyn felt his chest tighten, his breathing hastened, the cold room was almost unbearably hot. Every moment lasted for an eternity. The pressure. The ungodly pressure. Panic had set in, how long have I been standing here? What should I do? How do I help them? Can I help them? Gods, this is not how it should have gone! The sea of questions and concerns stirred like a hurricane, threatening to sink him in fear.

The storm passed as suddenly as it started. Clarity. Such divine clarity. Even through his breastplate, Alyn felt her touch. Lady Alyssa, his beloved wife, standing at his side. Alyn looked at his wife, her face stern and calm. She moved her hand from his shoulder and took his hand, Together. Alyn took a calming breath and climbed the steps to his throne, his lady wife at his side. Their strength will be the marvel of the Stormlands.

Alyn guides his wife to her seat. He turns to take his seat as he removes the heavy mallet from its clasp and sets it, head down, next to his throne. All of the amassed people were looking at him, staring, judging. Who are you to judge me? I am your liege lord, not some upjumped criminal playing at lordship! “Tell me,” Alyn said after a moment of silence. “What seems to be troubling you, my friends?”

“We have come here to beseech your help, my lord,” the well dressed man said. “Many of us have been starving for days, our grain supplies and other provisions are not enough to survive the winter.”

“Well as a matter of circumstance…,” Alyn explained, gesturing to the man.

“N- Nigel, my lord.”

“Nigel,” Alyn said. “As a matter of circumstance, I received word from my Maester just this morning about spring being well on its way.”

“I understand that, my lord,” Nigel said with slight frustration. “We don't have the supplies to last through the thawing; we need help!”

“Then it is help you shall have. Fa- Ser Edric?” Alyssa said, rising from her throne.

“Yes, my lady?” Ser Edric said.

“See to it that all these people leave here with provisions,” She declared. “Three full days-”

“One week” Alyn interjected. “Give them one week of provisions and inform Maester Edmure that the rationing plans should go into effect forthwith.”

“As you command,” Ser Edric said, bowing slightly. “ My lord, My lady.”

“F-forgive me my lord,” Nigel said. “But where is Lord Ormund?”

“My lord husband has passed,” Lady Shireen said. “He passed away some half a year ago, we had a small, solemn ceremony for him.”

“My condolences then,” Nigel said. “To you and your house, my lady.”

“We thank you, Ser.” Alyn said. “As of this moment, I intend on reopening the logging camps and hiring more guards. We hope to get production underway as soon as possible.”

“We thank you in advance for your cooperation, Lady Alyssa said. “We know this winter has been harsh on you all, and we hope to remedy that as soon as we are able. Please, stay as long as you require. We will have the maester look over any wounds and ailments you may be afflicted with; should you be willing to allow such a thing.”

“M-m-my lady!” Nigel said, as the crowd erupted into quiet whispers of relief and excitement. “We thank you, both of you, for extending such hospitality to us.”

“Be welcome,” Alyn said, rising from his throne, grabbing a cup of ale from an approaching servant. He raised the cup high, as all of the people stood to meet him, raising their cups as well. “Let this be the start of a new chapter, for all of us. Together we will accomplish many things! ‘Honor in service! ‘ “

The smallfolk echoed the phrase, the words of House Musgood echoed throughout the castle. A new era had begun for House Musgood and Alyn was at the heart of it.

She was woken by the knocking at the door.

The same pattern that always pulled her from her dreams – first the clear tap on the centre, on the vertical planks, next the duller thunk on the upper horizontal support, and third, a matching dunk on the lower batten.

She waited, her mind clutching at the edges of sleep. She didn’t want to let go of the quiet.

The pattern repeated. Middle plank, high batten, low batten.

She shifted then, still slow. Still hesitant. Her eyelids were heavy, limbs weak from sleep. Slowly, she pushed herself up on her elbows, flaxen hair falling into her face as she blinked the sleep away.

Middle, high, low.

“Selyse,” her mother called. Lady Shella Bracken’s voice was soft, as though she were restraining herself.

“I’m coming,” Selyse replied. She got to her feet, pulling her sleeping shift up where it was falling from her shoulder. She walked to the door of her bedchamber, unlocked, and opened it.

Her mother looked at her, eyes glinting from the stiff near-silhouette she made in the dim moonlight.

“Selyse,” she said again, and because she had said it twice, she would say it a third time.

Selyse didn’t interrupt her. She just stood still as her mother reached towards her face, placed the fingertips of her left hand carefully. The corner of her jawline, the crest of her cheekbone, the end of her eyebrow, the centre of her forehead. Her thumb pressed on the tip of Selyse’s nose. With her hand in place, Shella closed her eyes, and gave a short, low whistle.

Her hand lifted, each fingertip breaking contact at the same instant. Some of the tension left her mother’s shoulders, and she finally made eye contact.

“Selyse.”

The rest of the rigidity drained from her then, and she seemed to shrink into herself, guilt and frustration flickering across her features.

“I’m alright, mother,” Selyse told her. “Do you think you can get back to sleep?”

“Perhaps. Will you?”

Selyse shook her head. “No, I’m awake now. You go on. Rest.”

With one final look, Shella nodded, turned, and began making her way slowly down the corridor. She did not shake or wobble, her movements were not frail or weak, only careful. Controlled, in a way that was utterly outside of her control. Selyse returned to her chambers, changed into a fresh shift and brown dress, and left, walking the opposite way through the halls of Stone Hedge.

There was something calming in the quiet of the castle in these dark hours, when even the servants were only beginning to rouse themselves from bed. Her slippered feet made soft, scuffing sounds against the tiles. Without a thought, she found herself taking the turn towards her nephew’s suite.#

When she pushed the door open, it only creaked a little on its hinges. The great bed that dominated the room lay empty and cold, as it had since her father, Lord Walder, was moved to the infirmary near the Maester’s tower. Off to one side, near a faintly smouldering hearthfire, a smaller bed lay, blankets folded and tousled around little Petyr’s pale form.

“My lady,” a voice said, calling Selyse’s attention to the far side of the room where Petyr’s wet nurse stood, picking out clothes for the lordling’s day.

“Lady Shella was already in,” she whispered. “Woke the lad, not that she meant to. I just got him back to sleep.”

Selyse looked back to her nephew. “Does she visit every morning?”

“Aye, my lady. Touches his face some. Tries not to wake him, but sometimes does – by mistake, I think. She always seems sad when she bothers him.”

Idly, Selyse wondered if the days her mother woke Petyr matched the ones she went to Selyse’s room. Maybe. It wasn’t important, either way. For a moment, she watched the boy’s too-small frame subtly expand and contract with his breathing. The wet nurse let her have the moment.

“How is he?”

“Good as can be expected, milady. Maester Burton is due to check on him today, if memory serves.”

“Good. I’ll leave you be. Thank you.”

The wet nurse curtsied as Selyse took her leave again. Selyse found herself wandering the halls of her home for a time, and eventually she walked out to the main doors to the castle grounds. When she saw the dark mud of a midnight rain, she stooped to undo the laces at her ankles, and strode out barefoot. Her feet were easier to wash than her slippers would be.

She didn’t have a destination in mind at first, merely walking around the central keep like an absentminded guard. She had walked with her brother Walder, once upon a time. Others too. She could almost hear the echoing whisper of Criston Piper’s voice on the morning breeze, calling out from some other place, some other time, to some other girl that Selyse had once been.

Not that all her memories of this place were glad ones. There had been snow underfoot, not so long ago, with a biting cold and gnawing fear in the air. The Siege of Stone Hedge had not quite been a year long, but the deep hunger had made it seem a decade. She had acknowledged her sixteenth name day with the luxury of a dog meat pie and an army that wished her dead on each horizon. She looked out through the portcullis of the gatehouse, where enemy banners had once loomed on towering poles. Dragons entwined with lions, blue towers with a bridge between, white trees shining against red and black.

She blinked, and the Spring mud was soft and pleasant against her feet, around her toes. She was seventeen now, the siege more than a year past. She counted the vertical lines of the portcullis. Twelve. She whistled low, and decided not to dwell on the familiarity of the sound.

The hunter’s workshop was out of the way, near the sparsely-populated stables and empty kennels. A side door to the keep gave them and their meat easy access to the kitchens. At the south side, dead bucks hung from a wooden frame over drains set into the cobblestones. The slashes at the carcasses’ clavicles were rimmed with flaking, dried blood. They’d cooled fully over the night.

Selyse considered them for a moment. Their head hunter, Old Jeren, had suffered broken ribs during the siege which still bothered him, and Selyse didn’t have anywhere urgent to be. She reached for one of the smaller deer, putting her arms around its ribs and lifting. She wheezed as the hindquarters came off their hook and the full weight fell on her shoulder.

The carcass made a heavy, wet sound as she dropped it onto the skinning table. Old Jeren’s drawers were well-organised, so she found the knife she was looking for easily, and set to work. The cold of the night had toughened the hide, but the blade slid through it all the same. She pulled her sleeves back before she pushed her arm deeper under the hide, around the animal’s cold, slimy ribs, separating the layer of skin and fat from the true meat. Quick motions made splits along the inside of the legs, deft cuts cleaving away the skin around the hooves.

Her arms were soon slick with grease and fat and the last remnants of blood, and time seemed to lose its grip on her. There was only the routine of dressing the carcass down, the familiar strain of turning it over to get at its other flank. It was visceral, almost violent, and the only real peace that Selyse knew.

The sound of wings interrupted her. She glanced up, and saw the fluttering raven just before it slipped inside the Maester’s tower. A single feather came loose, falling in its slow, tumbling way down the side of the keep. Few ravens had gone to or from Stone Hedge since the war, and none had carried good news. So, her brother was in for a long day.

She pushed that out of her mind, and returned to the carcass. Removing the guts was messy work, but it needed doing. The soft tendrils of intestines came out of the creature’s abdomen in a tangled clump, the knife in her off hand severing its connections as its weight shifted and it slid out onto the table. The arrow that felled the deer had pierced its neck, so toxins from the gut were unlikely to leak into the meat with any speed, but there was little point in not being thorough.

She realised that the task was coming to an end, and she wouldn’t have time to do another before she would be interrupted. Within the hunter’s hut, a bed frame creaked and Old Jeren let out an exhausted sigh as he sat up to face the morning. Selyse began wiping down the blades she had used with a rag from another drawer in the table, laying each tool back in its place as it was cleaned.

Old Jeren emerged from his hut with a hand rubbing his sore ribs idly, eyes dancing between the carcass and Selyse.

“Again, milady?” he asked. His voice was bemused, the trailing hint of disapproval only present out of a sense of obligation.

“Again,” Selyse said. Everyone in Stone Hedge had their patterns, and this conversation was theirs.

“S’not a job for a lady,” the old man said.

“It’s a shame I’m so good at it, then.”

“It is.” He stepped over, looked over her work. Nodded. He wouldn’t waste time coddling or congratulating her for the work. She appreciated that, though it left little reason for her to stay.

“I should get washed up before I break my fast.”

“Aye, milady.”

Arranging for a bath was a simple matter. There were already kettles boiling downstairs, so she went up to her chambers once again, stripping off her stained dress. The maids had been and gone, her bed remade and gowns laid across it for her to choose from. She considered her choices while maids brought buckets of hot water to the copper-lined bathtub in the corner.

Selyse laid back in the tub, allowing her handmaid Lenna to scrub the grease and grit from her skin.

“Any news?” Selyse asked as the woman worked. It was their pattern.

“Not much, milady.” That was some relief, at least. “Marya and the maester had an argument over bedpan duty. Seems they’re meaning to make a long fight of it.” Selyse’s father was still alive, then, and relatively healthy. “Dale – that’s my husband, you know Dale – was all smiles yesterday evening.” Young Brandon’s tutelage in arms was actually going well for once, then.

Lenna hesitated, began running a comb through Selyse’s hair. “I saw the maester in a rush over to your brother’s room this morning. The Lord Regent, that is to say.”

“How did he look?”

“Panicked, to tell the truth, milady.”

Selyse remembered the black feather, tumbling down to the mud. With too-perfect timing, the door knocked. No pattern this time, just four sharp raps on the centre.

“What is it?” Selyse called.

“Lord Regent Harlon would like to see you, milady,” said an apologetic, gruff voice from the far side.

Selyse met Lenna’s eyes for a moment.

“I’ll be over to him after I bathe,” Selyse called out. The man grunted an affirmation, and she listened to his footsteps retreating. Lenna finished combing Selyse’s hair quietly, helped her dry when she stood from the bath, and fastened the more awkward buttons of the summer-yellow dress that Selyse had chosen.

It was a short journey to her brother’s room, but something about the situation made her take note of each step. The door, when she reached it, was closed, with a single bored-looking guard to its left. Selyse reached out her hand, resisted an urge to tap middle, high, low. Just two knocks on the high batten. She whistled, sharp and low, and frowned at herself.

Harlon, when he opened the door, was the image of exhaustion. Hair still messy from the pillow, dark bags under eyes. The smile he greeted her with was hollow.

“Glad tidings, sister,” he said. “It seems you’re getting married.”

Sodden clothes and ruined boots aside, it had been worth another evening’s delay to listen to the children chatter gleefully amongst themselves after tucking them into bed. Though Joanna couldn’t be convinced to wade further than her ankles, she counted her silk skirt amongst the casualties– and strangely enough, lost no sleep over it, either.

It was especially fortunate she hadn’t since their party rose before the sun to make their journey back to Casterly. The sky showed little promise and though Joanna was dreading the idea of a morning spent in a dripping wheelhouse, she wore a smile for the sake of all of her bleary eyed children.

Desmond perked up almost as soon as he’d been granted permission to ride with Hugo and Tygett, and while Joanna was loath to part with him, she allowed Byron to accompany his uncle. Daena had scarcely left her side the whole morning, and while the princess was heartily disappointed to find that Willem and Damon would be joining them in the carriage, she made her peace with it as soon as Joanna promised she would let her have the seat closest to the window.

Half an hour passed without incident, and though the swaying of the carriage threatened to turn her stomach, Joanna had almost been lulled to sleep by the soft snoring of the babe in her lap when the telltale patter of rain overhead disturbed her.

“They can’t ride in this,” she insisted, reaching up to knock at the roof and draw the train to a halt.

“It’s just water, Jo,” countered Damon.

“They’ll catch their death!”

Though they were overdue a good spring rain, there was plenty of grumbling to be had amongst those now confined to their carriages– the prince and his companions chief among them. Their squabbling thankfully hadn’t disturbed Willem, but Daena was highly offended at the amount of mud the boys tracked in with them, adamantly refusing to budge from her place at the window.

Damon hardly even seemed to notice the upheaval. His gaze was cast out the window to the puddles that had begun to collect along the divots in the cobblestone, and rather than help settle the children, he was mumbling worries about a wet spring interfering with the work that remained to be done on the roads.

It wasn’t as though Joanna had needed the reminder; there was still a great deal of her own work left unfinished regarding not only the Great Council, but the Lady Ashara’s impending arrival at Casterly Rock.

It was only that Joanna didn’t have the luxury of allowing worry to plague her– not when Hugo and Desmond had contented themselves to play keepaway with Daena’s carved jade hairpiece.

With a huff, she snatched the comb out of midair before dropping back into Daena’s lap. The prince shrunk in his seat when met with her stern gaze, but Hugo was hardly moved by the finger she jabbed in his face.

“You’ve had nearly a month’s reprieve from court. I expect that if you ever intend to enjoy such a luxury again, you’ll behave yourselves.” It was a scolding not much unlike one she might have bestowed upon the King, who still remained entrenched in his own thoughts. “Perhaps an afternoon at prayer would be what you two needed to learn the virtue of sitting quietly.”

Only then did Damon turn from the window.

“Afternoon prayer?”

“Yes, Your Grace. Afternoon prayer. Perhaps you can beg forgiveness for the summer crops we’ll lose to the dry spring you’re so desperately hoping for.”

The sharpness of her voice silenced any protestation and his mumblings, but wasn’t enough to provoke him to helpful action. Damon avoided her gaze, as he had since the morning after his nameday party when he’d climbed clumsily atop her, shirtless, and she’d felt for the first time the deep grooves in his back, provoking an argument that neither of them had yet recovered from.

He may have had his work cut out for him at Casterly with his roads and the council, but Joanna was certain she had far more.

In the end, the rain did not slow them enough to spare anyone and their awaiting obstacles from Lannisport’s sept. Despite the promises he’d made at Elk Hall, Joanna found that both she and Damon still lacked the courage to share the same pew in front of the Gods. They settled instead adjacent from one another, which left the perfect gap beside Joanna for Lady Jeyne to help herself to. Joanna had expected the Lannister matriarch, despite the unannounced change in plans – she would have been surprised only if Jeyne hadn’t appeared in the city’s sept.

“How lovely to have you back, Lady Joanna.”

“I’m sure I’ll feel the same once I’ve had a chance to settle back in.” Joanna bounced Willem on one knee as she spoke. The pews were still filling and the older children were still quarreling. Neither woman gave either their attention.

“I take it you’ve all the preparations for Lady Ashara’s arrival in hand?” Jeyne asked. “I’d be glad to lend you my assistance, were it required.”

Dread pitted in Joanna’s stomach then. Their final week at Elk Hall had been steeped in so much chaos that she was not nearly as ready as she would have liked.

“A generous offer, to be sure. I will certainly keep that in mind.”

For his part, Damon was not at all subtle about the way he assessed them out of the corner of his eye, making a poor show of thumbing through a book of hymns. Worse still, Jeyne took notice almost immediately, eyeing them both suspiciously as the last stragglers found their seats.

Blessedly, it wasn’t long before the Septon ambled up to begin his speech, a contented hush falling over all those who had gathered— besides the baby in Joanna’s lap. She was able to distract him for a time, presenting him with a rattle she’d hidden in her pocket for just such an occasion, but she didn’t miss the opportunity to send a silent prayer to the Mother that he’d settle soon.

“A great fuss is made of station,” the wild-haired old man Septon was saying, settling his grandfatherly-gaze on various members of the congregation in turn, “but what determines such a thing? The circumstances of one’s birth, no doubt many of us would say. Yet I ask you, what distinguishes one babe from another in those first moments of life? Before he is placed in a cradle of wood or gold, in the arms of a mother dressed in velvet robes or in rags… I tell you, nothing.”

Willem was wholly unimpressed by the Septon’s speech— a feat, given Joanna’s own sentiment— and it was all too soon that the rattle had lost its charm, too. There had been a time that she had been grateful he had found his voice, and unlike his sweet, meek elder brother, he had no qualms about practicing his newfound skill any time he pleased.

She just wished he had chosen any other opportunity.

Joanna tried to muffle his babbling by offering her knuckle to gnaw on, but Willem pushed her away with certainty, sprawling across her lap to reach for his father across the aisle.

“Babababababa—”

“We are all the same at birth, in appearance, in station, in the first breath we draw from the mercy of the seven who are one. We are sinners. That is our station, and it supersedes all others and spares no one – no monarch, no septon, no butcher or baker. We are born sinners, every one of us.”

Willem’s eagerness to speak was a talent Damon had marveled over not even a day ago, yet now his attention was focused raptly on the babbling on the Septon, instead. Willem began to thrash with discontent at once, having grown spoiled in his time at Elk Hall, and Joanna quickly regretted having allowed Damon to indulge him so much.

“Elevation beyond that comes not from victory in battle, from the amassing of wealth, or a well-arranged marriage. Only the gods can elevate a sinner.”

Simply together, Damon had promised. Joanna had been a fool to think it would ever be so simple.

Her face was already hot with embarrassment when Willem’s insistence began to reach the brink of tears. She gathered the inconsolable child as he flailed his arms out for Damon pointlessly, and shuffled out of the Sept as fast as she could.

Everyone was looking— especially the damn Septon, though mercifully he continued to preach.

“You have made far too apt an example of yourself, my little dove,” Joanna cooed as the doors shut behind them.

Joffrey had followed her more closely than her own shadow, and while his presence was a small comfort, it wasn’t enough to keep her from feeling deeply ashamed.

“Poor lad.” Her knight reached out to ruffle the baby’s golden curls. “I imagine it’s been a long day for you both.”

Joanna could keep her own tears at bay no longer, her vision blurring as Joffrey turned his gaze to her. His sympathy was more than she deserved; she had been especially unkind in their last few days at Elk Hall.

“I’ll take him for some fresh air. Not too far, I promise.”

“Not too far,” Joanna echoed, kissing the tears from Willem’s cheeks before passing him off.

Only when Joffrey’s footsteps had faded did she deem it safe to sink onto a bench, pressing the heels of hands into her eyes so hard she saw stars. It didn’t do much to keep the tears at bay.

Before she could draw the conclusion that she was a horrible mother and (worse still) a complete fool, the doors rattled open again. Joanna bolted upright, hopeful to discover Damon— but it was Jeyne stood in the doorway.

“I thought someone ought to check on you,” she said, an unusual lack of malice in her words. Perhaps it was foolhardy, but Joanna thought she even detected a tinge of motherly understanding.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Jo offered. “And everyone else in Lannisport, it would seem…”

Jeyne waved a hand dismissively.

“Far more disturbing things were going on in there.”

It soothed her nerves– only somewhat– that she was not the only one who found fault with the Septon’s accusations.

“Damon seems to like him.”

“And our King has notoriously great taste, doesn’t he?”

Joanna scoffed, but not because she’d read any insult to herself in the remark. It was only wholly difficult to admit when Jeyne was right.

“He’s always kept company with that sort,” she said. “Always looking for answers. Someday soon I pray he’ll understand that there are simply some questions no man is meant to resolve.”

“That must be very hard for a man who is expected to answer to all of his subjects.”

“He’ll learn to get comfortable not having answers, but not from men like that.”

Joanna had had to learn to live with uncertainty. Jeyne had, too.

It was a decidedly male fortune to command one’s own fate.

For half a moment, Jeyne’s next words made Joanna worry she’d spoken the thought aloud.

“The trouble with men like our King,” the Wardeness said, “is that they are only ever as wise as the counsel they keep.” Jeyne looked briefly to the closed door of the Sept behind her before bringing her gaze back to Joanna. “If there’s ever a matter you need help with, you need only ask.”

“I will.”

It was a lie. Joanna knew she could rely on no one but herself.

Not even the gods could help her now.

The children had learned to walk. It was a development that, despite having occurred over a moon ago, still startled Danae.

First was Daenys, then Daven– in their order of birth. Danae had heard some old wives' tale that one should never tell twins who was born first, lest it create some sort of complex, but she reasoned that was bullshit. Her children were a part of history. There was no escaping the fact of their birth, and while strangers would certainly twist it funny, there would always be a grain of truth there.

She wondered how much of history had been warped in the books Lyman had given her.

She’d shirked her duties in favor of reading them to completion, taking on stacks of meticulously organized volumes at a time. She had begrudgingly extended apologies more than once for the state of their return, but Lyman was suspiciously gracious in lieu of the twins' destructive tendencies. She had made a vow to teach them how sacred books were and she could have sworn he’d almost cracked a smile.

Truth be told, reading was an ample distraction from the nagging sense of doom that had otherwise plagued her. The Iron Bank was not the sort of problem she could bathe in dragonfire, and the visit was sure to be a test of what her newly minted crown truly represented.

Queen Danae, standing on her own two feet.

Anyone she’d ever spoken to from Braavos had come to her. They could fuck themselves if they expected her to grovel.

Lyman’s books were the sort of thing Danae imagined properly raised nobles would have read. She half expected to find doodles in the margins where some indignant little lordling had thought himself too grand for such knowledge, but each new copy that appeared on her desk was as immaculate as the last.

The twins were almost steady on their feet by the time the Master of Coin had run out of books to give her. She found it to be a strange comfort that he spoke to her almost exclusively in Valyrian whenever they met, though she diligently ignored the pang in her chest when she thought about why that might be.

Any sentiment for her wayward daughter was soon soured by Lyman’s shrewd correction of Danae’s poor grasp of banking dialect.

A nagging ache had settled low in Danae’s back by the third hour of their meeting and while she would have typically thrown her chalice at any fool who dared interrupt them, she was immensely grateful for a moment’s reprieve when Talla slipped from behind the great mahogany door.

The weather had turned enough that her handmaidens had fully transitioned to their spring wardrobes, abandoning their thick velvets and lush furs in favor of floaty, delicate fabrics Danae knew no name for— the sort of thing women like Talla belonged in. Despite the abundance of long hidden skin to savor, Lyman’s gaze had yet to stray from the margins of the scroll he had been studying.

Danae had known men like Lyman before; she did not mistake his disinterest for scholarly diligence. He was easier to read than his many tomes.

Talla offered her a chaste kiss to the temple before stooping to whisper in her ear.

“Meredyth has returned, Your Grace.”

While not entirely welcome, Danae took the excuse to break from Lyman’s lecturing— nevermind how daunting the prospect of piecing together her handmaidens’ future seemed. It had been a burdensome weight as of late, and she knew she had dragged her feet for far too long. A rotten truth had come to the surface in the midst of her return to King’s Landing, one Danae herself even found difficult to swallow.

Her ceaseless hesitation had begun to complicate more lives than just her own.

Danae was sure her ring had worn a path in the skin of her pointer finger for all the times she had twisted it round that morning alone. There was no proper time to broach the subject of marriage, in her opinion, but especially not when discussing it with a woman who had been burned by it as often as Meredyth.

She was emptying her trunks when Danae found her, still shrouded in black with a veil over her hair. Meredyth’s hands were alarmingly steady— and her eyes alarmingly empty.

“The twins will be happy you’ve returned,” Danae remarked, doing her best to prop herself casually against the threshold. In truth, the twins were happy to see anyone, the blissful idiots. She had never envied that more.

“It is nice to be back.”

Meredyth had always artfully avoided addressing King’s Landing as home without it seeming an insult. Danae knew all too well what she meant by it, too. To be so far removed from any place that felt safe, to never feel right— to belong nowhere and to no one but yourself was a terrible fate.

To be the last of your name, and a girl at that. Fucking shit.

Danae drew a shuddering breath and almost immediately Meredyth froze in place; the flash of questioning writ across her face was more fearful than curious.

“You should know that I’ve always been glad of your company, Meredyth.”

“Should I cease my unpacking, Your Grace?”

Danae uncrossed her arms at once, kicking off the wall in a vain attempt to soften her approach.

“No. Gods, No. It’s only that I have no idea how to ask this of you.”

The sympathy within Meredyth’s features then felt entirely unearned. She offered Danae a seat with an elegant flick of her wrist, though the worn cushions were little relief for the persistent pain in her back.

“I’ve never understood the point of handmaidens, really. What political purpose does having someone around to braid my hair serve? It all seems so superfluous.” Danae rambled on without pause. Meredyth, mercifully, took no offense and nodded intently. “There’s plenty of nonsense that comes along with being queen that truthfully, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand… that I’ve got no choice but to accept. This… you all. Talla. Ysela. Rhaenys. It’s been a greater gift than I ever gave any of you credit for.”

“And now…”

“And now it’s my turn to do my duty by you.”

Meredyth turned the fabric of a gown Danae didn’t recognize over in her hands, fingers slipping idly over intricate beading and scalloped lace. She regretted that she had no solace to offer. Silence, she supposed, was better. It was what she herself would have preferred.

“I take some solace in the fact that your circumstance has left you with more choice than most.”

“More choice than I ever had before,” Meredyth said softly.

There was no use lamenting to Meredyth of all people what woes befell those who were married, especially once one had tasted freedom. Even if love were to blossom, there was little joy in it.

Danae folded her legs across one another, picking at the stitching that had begun at the hem of her skirt.

“While I would grant you permission for any man of your choosing… I–”

“I know what it might mean for my family if I were to choose incorrectly, Your Grace.”

Danae nodded stiffly.

“I understand that you’re in mourning. I’m not asking you to wed tomorrow– I’m not even asking for you to be wed within the year. The Great Council, however, will be a valuable opportunity.”

“A valuable opportunity for those amongst your handmaidens who are not thought to be spinsters.”

Danae caught Meredyth’s gaze as she leaned forward, planting her elbows on her knees.

“What fortune, then, that your brother has left behind only daughters.”

If they were stuck in the makings of this wretched man’s dominion together, Danae figured they ought to take advantage.

“Well, you’ve certainly given me much to consider.”

“It would be helpful to me if you did.”

While the sick, twisting feeling low in her belly had not subsided, Danae departed Meredyth’s chambers feeling accomplished. She clutched the small of her back as she climbed the stairs, the ache having grown tenfold in the span of mere minutes.

There would be no chance but to ignore it. The Iron Bank waited for no one, not even a dragon.

special thanks to Harwin, who edited this.

Alyn was awoken by a movement in the bed, the sudden creaking of the oak frame. He had been avoiding going back to the castle for the last three days. Three days of quiet activity with his beloved. Now it seemed it was time to go home, the quiet comforts of the lodge expended.

"I hate to say this, my lord, but we have duties to attend to; your mother will be looking for you." She said softly, almost as a whisper.

"I’m almost certain of it," He said as a groan, squeezing her tighter. “But,it is more peaceful out here!”

"Nevertheless, dear husband, we should attend to our duties." She sighed, with a light jab to his ribs.

"That is what I am doing, presently," he said, kissing her neck. “My dear Alyssa!”

“Is that so?” she asked, turning over to look at him with her golden-brown eyes. “Why have you not returned to the castle?”

“To avoid the bloody politics, generally, but my mother in particular.”

“So you're hiding?”

“Not hiding,” he said to her. Liar, he thinks to himself. “Just… taking a break!”

“So be it.” Alyssa climbed out of bed and walked over to the window. She flung the heavy curtains open and pushed the window wide open to let the cold breeze and the first light of morning into the bedroom. The sound of birds singing in the trees of The Kingswood filled the room. She leaned against the windowsill, gaze fixed on the horizon, the early morning light outlining her naked silhouette, the light breeze blowing her auburn hair around her face, "Enough breaks, back to work!"

Alyn rose from the bed, a blanket about his shoulders, and approached his wife, slowly, deliberately, observing her beauty; her slim frame, her dark auburn hair. The faintest hint of wood smoke from last night's fire still lingered in the air. He approached her from behind, looking out to the still dark trees as the sun barely started shining through them, gently placing his hands upon her hips.She stood upright as he pressed himself against her in an embrace. They stand in silence as they watch the sunrise over the woods. He sighed, her skin, pale as marble, yet softer than a goose-down pillow. "We best get a move on then! " he said, observing the dust in the centuries-old rafters.

“Agreed!” she said, turning to her bag and pulling out clothes for the both of them. She handed him a simple white tunic, a blue tabard bearing his family crest – a golden pavilion on a blue field quartered with a green laurel crown on a white field – and brown leather riding breeches. She produced a similar outfit for herself. After they dress they break their fast on a hearty meal of pork sausages, duck eggs, and cheese. Bellies full, they went to the stables to prep their horses, and before the sun had risen to its apex the couple set off for Musgood Hall, Alyn’s ancestral seat.

They rode in silence for several hours over hilly terrain, down the mountain, and through ancient trees reaching into the sky like hundreds of massive fingers. As they came round the bend, roughly a mile from their destination they saw the great stone walls of Musgood Hall. A squat palace surrounded by a mile of clear cut trees in all directions, walls thirty feet high, and a massive dirt moat. The drawbridge was lowered for them as they approached the slightly eroded walls.

As they approach the stables, an older soldier with thinning gray hair and wrinkles forming around his eyes awaited them, his blue and white surcoat hanging loosely about his withered frame. “Good day, Milord,” the older man said, helping Alyssa down from her horse. “How was your trip?”

“Unusually quiet from Storm’s End to the lodge,” Alyn declares, handing the reins of his horse to a stable boy. “Three days of calm and quiet, then a peaceful ride home. How were things while I was away, Ser Edric?”

Ser Edric ponders the question, stroking his long, gray beard, his receding, auburn-streaked hair blown slightly askew by the light breeze. “Well, milord, your mother seemed quite cross after the first day! However, while still upset; she has mellowed slightly, and asked that you dine with her in the garden upon your return.”

‘That can’t be good’ Alyn thought. “I’ll make it so,” he said to the old knight. “Anything else, Ser?”

“No, milord,” the old knight said. “Not that I am aware of.”

Alyn approached his wife, “Shall we attend to our duties, My Lady?”

“Yes, I think we shall,” she replied. “My Lord.”

Alyssa took Alyn’s arm and they entered the old castle, the ancient stones standing strong and proud amid The Kingswood, a monument to the First Men. Not as grand as Alyn was used to, as he had spent nearly half of his life in Storm’s End, as a captive of Lord Orys Connington.

Despite this, he knew that this is where he belonged, where his family had ruled for centuries. Musgood Hall, the ancestral seat of House Musgood. The couple walks through the cool stone corridors to their bedchamber. Alyn lays down on the bed, he sighs deeply with relief; as if some deep tension within him suddenly soothed itself. Alyssa walks over to her bedside table and rings a small bell. One of Alyssa's handmaids hurried into the room. “How may I serve, My Lady?” she asked. Her dark brown hair wound into a tight bun.

“Gather some proper clothes and refreshments for us, and call Lord Alyn’s pages.” Alyssa said sternly.

“As you wish, My Lady.” she said and darted off.

As the pages and handmaids arrived with proper clothes and wine for the two of them, Alyssa disappeared behind a folding screen and changed into a modest blue and white long sleeved dress with simple silver feather pendant. “So, My Lord,” Alyssa said as Alyn changed behind the screen. “What is the plan for the day?”

“We, My Lady,” Alyn said as he finished lacing up his boots. “Are running a council meeting!”

“A-a council?” Alyssa said after a long pause. “I am flattered, but I am not so experienced in this matter as to provide any insight.”

“All the same,” Alyn said, approaching his wife, dismissing the assembled servants. “I want you there. We must speak with one, united voice to the council; If I learned anything from Lord Orys it is this: people understand flaunts of power and shows of force. We must show the council that we stand united in certain matters. We must show the council that in the event that I am unavailable, they are to look to you for leadership.”

“Why not your mother?” Alyssa asked, slightly flustered. “Would she not be a better leader for the council? Gods be good, I can barely read, let alone write!”

“I will hire a scribe for you then, until your confidence in writing improves.” He said, attempting to reassure her. “My mother would run my lands the way she would want it, not the way I want it”

“But why have me there?” she asked in a slightly raised voice, pushing away from Alyn. She begins wandering around the cold room “Surely there is someone else? Someone more qualified?”

“Even if I searched for ten-thousand years,” He stated. “Searching from Sunspear to Castle Black. From Lannisport to the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. Even if I scoured all of the slums in the Free Cities. I could not find anyone that would know me better than you.”

“You have not answered my question.” she said, staring at the empty fireplace.

“You hold more power than you realize.” Alyn said, walking slowly across the stone floor. He turned his wife around to look her in the eyes. “You are in a unique position. Your proximity to me gives you great insight into my wishes. If anyone else could do what you can do, I would let them.”

“Then do so.” she shouted, pushing away from him.

“This winter is not going to last much longer, I think,” he said, walking over to the table and pouring a glass of wine. He approached her again and handed the cup to her. He looked her in the eyes, he saw that they were filled with frustration. “Spring is on its way, and with that comes new beginnings; hopefully for the both of us. If we can learn to do this together, we will be able to play the great game that much better.”

She took a sip from the cup. A deep breath. She nodded, walked to her bedside table, set the glass down, and rang the small bell. The same handmaid from before enters the stone room. “Summon Lady Shireen, Ser Edric of Kingswood, and Maester Edmure to the Solar.” The serving girl curtsied and dashed off.

Alyn approached his wife, who was now burning with the fire of confidence. “I shudder to think what we can accomplish,” he said, taking the wine glass from the table and finishing it. First cup is always the worst. “If only you embrace your new position.”

Alyssa turned to look at him. “I plan to.”

The couple, hands intertwined, walked through a door at the far left of the chamber, directly into the Solar. The old desk, where Alyn’s father used to read and write correspondence to various lords across the Stormlands, is now covered in a thin layer of dust. The old, rectangular pine table where his father held meetings with traders and wandering Knights, polished and shining, surrounded by six tall backed chairs; three on either side. A plate of cheese and a flagon of wine sit at the center of the table. Alyn approached the chairs and began re-organizing them: his at the head of the table, Alyssa’s to his right, one at the end, and the other three to his left.

“Should we be sitting when they arrive?” Alyssa asked.

“No,” Alyn said. “We will be standing when they arrive, we sit, then they sit.”

A knock at the heavy door. Alyn looked at Alyssa and nodded. Alyssa took a deep, calming breath. “Enter!”

The heavy oak door creaked on its rusty hinges, and Alyn’s mother entered the room, her black dress brushing lightly on the floor, her cane tapping lightly on the stones as she walked in. Lady Shireen’s long, dark brown hair was braided and wound into a tight bun atop her head. Ser Edric of Kingwood followed close behind her. They stepped aside as Maester Edmure entered the room, his heavy blue robes only made heavier by his great chain. His short red hair, dulled by gray streaks, smoothed and maintained, exactly as Alyn remembered almost a decade ago.

Alyn approached his wife’s chair and pulled it away from the table slightly, she sat and he pushed the chair closer to the table. Alyn walked around the table to his chair and sat down. He feels his heart pounding in his chest, stress and nerves are getting to him.

After a moment of uneasy silence, he gestures for all of them to sit. Lady Shireen approaches the chair at the end of the table, Ser Edric pushes the chair in for her then sits in the chair right next to hers. Maester Edmure sits in the chair directly to Alyn’s left. Silence fills the room. Alyn gestures for one of the servants to fill the glasses; his mother, Lady Shireen, staring him down all the while. Alyn fixed his gaze to Lady Shireen’s eyes. The rest of the world fell away, the table feels as if it shrinks; the only two being Alyn and his mother, her cold demeanor matched only by the fire in her eyes, the anger and frustration she must be feeling is only one that Alyn could imagine. “My Lord?” a voice echoes, far in the distance.

A familiar touch. Alyn looks to his right, to his wife. “Mmm… yes?” he asked, slightly dazed. Alyn looks back to his mother, on the other end of the large table. Alyn saw a grin creep across his mother’s face; she won this round.

“Are you alright?” Alyssa asked, with concern.

“Yes,” Alyn lightly cleared his throat. “Yes, I’m fine. Maester.”

“My Lord?” Edmure said in a low bassy voice.

“Any new reports, from the last fortnight?” Alyn asked.

“Yes, my Lord,” the Maester began in a calm tone. “Three days ago we hit our one year mark on winter provisions; I had made plans to institute a policy of strict rationing, but I have since abandoned them-”

“Why is this?” Alyn asked, accidentally cutting him off.

“Well, my Lord,” Edmure continued, “this morning, I received a raven from the Citadel. The conclave has met, considered reports from across the realm and beyond, and has declared this arduous winter done, at last. Spring is now upon us.”

"Yes, yes that is all well and good," Lady Shireen said, her voice weathered with frustration. "Any word from Storm’s End, boy?"

"Well, mother, if you must know," Alyn said, biting back his irritation. "We, at present, do not have a Lord Paramount in the Stormlands. As far as I, and therefore this family and this council are concerned; we are, at the moment, sworn directly to the crown; however, we are still paying taxes to Storm’s End."

“I don’t understand.” Lady Shireen said.

”Not really a surprise there,” Alyssa said under her breath, into her wine glass.

“Have you something to add, girl?” Lady Shireen demanded.

“You will not speak to my daughter that way.” Ser Edric growled. “You will address her as The Lady of this castle!”

“And you will address me as the lady of this castle!” Shireen shouted, standing from her chair.

“Enough!” Alyn shouted, rising with her. “Seven hells, I leave for a fortnight and return to my council splintered!? Am I to believe that my councilors are so inept that you start squabbling like bloody children after a fortnight of no instruction?! This fighting that we are doing ends. Now! Do I make myself clear?” Alyn looks at his mother and father-by-law. They nod, Lady Shireen sits down. “These are trying times, I understand that, and so it is most imperative that we stay and work together.” Alyn sits down, his chair creaking loudly beneath him, as if the chair itself was experiencing the weight of his Lordship.

A moment passed, silence deafening the room. A familiar touch relaxed Alyn’s still balled fist.

“My Lord,” maester Edmure whispered, the depth of his voice echoing like a thunderous drum in the silence. “Shall I implement the rationing plans?”

“No,” Alyn said as another moment passed. “If the ground is not sufficiently thawed in six months, then implement; otherwise take half of our remaining supply and distribute it to the local farmers. I want production underway as soon as possible.”

“Very well, My Lord,” The maester said. “Speaking of production, with spring upon us that means that we can reopen our lumber mills, and have our first felling of the season. The honor, of course, will be yours in accordance with tradition.”

Alyn looks at Alyssa. “Well, that sounds like something we can do together.”

“My Lord?” Maester Edmure said, slightly confused. “The honor…”

“Will be enjoyed by myself and my wife.” Alyn said. Perhaps that was too aggressive there, you halfwit!

“As you wish, My Lord.” The maester said obediently.

“I am still confused about the whole ‘No Lord Paramount…’ nonsense”. Lady Shireen said. “Who is in charge of the Stormlands?”

“The Maester and Steward were assigned by her Grace, the Queen, to be the Castellans of Storm’s End, “ Alyn said. “After she arrived on the back of her dragon. Her Grace declared that a Great Council will be assembled to help settle the matter. As for exactly when this will occur, I haven't a damn clue; I suspect we will be hearing shortly.”

Just as Alyn finished his sentence, as if on cue, a young boy barged into the room. “Milord! Milord!” the boy shouted, his face a mix of panic and confusion. He didn't take a breath before he blurted out a steam of words.

”thepeasentsareriotingthegaurdshavetakentherpositionsonthewallstheyareawaitngorders!”

“Alright, ALRIGHT!” Alyn shouted. The boy stopped. “Deep breaths… slow down. Calmly explain what is going on.”

The boy took some deep breaths, his breathing slowed. “Angry peasants milord, they have amassed outside the gate!” The boy took a moment to slow his breathing further. “I don’t know why they are here, milord, but I was told to come get you,and Ser Edric. Commander Barnabas has men positioned on the walls, they are awaiting your orders, Milord!”

“Alright,” Alyn said, slowly, hoping his calm demeanor will keep the boy from panicking. “What is your name, my boy?”

“Simon, milord.” the boy answers.

“Alright Simon,” Alyn said as he approached the boy, he could not be older than ten. “Quickly, but calmly, lead us to the courtyard.”

The boy turned and walked out of the room, Alyn and Ser Edric followed. Alyn prepared to face his smallfolk for the first time in over a decade.

“Wind’s changing, boys, keep our canvas tight,” Erik called as he dismounted Shieldbreaker’s stern.

It wasn’t necessary. Luwin and Mathos, manning the spar lines, were already keeping the sail aligned, managing the best speed this meagre wind would allow.

Oars had been stowed, and men were sitting on the chests that made their rowing benches or on the deck between them, talking quietly among themselves.

Along the keel line, near the ship’s centre, Theomore sat cross-legged, his storm-grey eyes on the small cookfire that sat upon its bed of sand. Thin slices of salted bacon sizzled on a frying pan — a luxury to celebrate the end of their first week back at sea. As he passed, Erik slowed his step just a little to take in the tantalising smell.

Some of the crew on the starboard side, a group of thrallsons that had grown up together, had taken up a shanty, backing their strongest voices with claps and hums and drumming on their benches. One of them caught Erik’s eye and gestured as if playing a fiddle, asking without interrupting his own part of the harmony.

“Later,” Erik promised, and the man went back to focusing on the song.

At Shieldbreaker’s centre, a green-and-silver canopy had been raised around the base of the mast, providing a degree of cover to the hatch of the main hold. That hatch had been thrown open, with a stack of labelled crates set around it. Osfryd, his red beard patchy from a burn scar, sat on the corner of the table set up on the other side of the mast while Morna stood up in the hold, wiping hair out of her scowling face.

"I'm going to slap that smile off his face," she said, apparently to herself.

Erik threw a question at Osfryd with his eyes.

“Othgar,” he said. “Loaded the wine at the bow again.”

Erik nodded. While the cargo hold’s entrance was at the ship’s centre, it took up the entire length of the vessel, and how to correctly balance cargo weight was a source of lengthy arguments among captains. Most of Othgar’s habits were old-fashioned. Not nonsensical, but their drawbacks were a source of well-tread frustration.

“How many times have you told him?” Morna shot at Erik.

“Me, and my father before me,” Erik said. “I lost count before I met you.”

Morna just shook her head, and Erik bent over the hold’s edge to kiss her temple. She acknowledged the gesture by touching his cheek, scratching beneath his beard gently, though her eyes were darting back and forth across the hold as she planned a rearrangement of the space.

“I’m going to go talk to Kiera, ensure our route’s all sorted. Best of luck, darling.”

His other wife was out on the bow, and had clambered onto the tall sculpted figurehead, sitting side-saddle on the swaying leviathan with all the grace of a greenlander lady, one foot braced against the lantern ring below her. Morna had never found herself able to relax at sea, always seeking a problem to solve to keep herself occupied, but Kiera was as at home as any ironborn. Her hair, bright green with roots of shining silver, fluttered in the breeze like a flag as she looked out to the east.

Far to port and starboard, Erik saw the silhouettes of their other ships. North, to portside, was marked by the proud silhouette of Iron Ghost, while to starboard and south, the repaired Bad News cut along the horizon. He had decided on a wide formation for the passage under Dorne, four rows with only their northmost ships in view of the shore, the rest aligning by keeping their fellows on either horizon. It obscured their numbers from curious onlookers, and was, Erik hoped, less intimidating to the coastal towns they would be passing.

Soon enough, however, they would need to pull tighter to make their way across the Narrow Sea. They had gotten a signal from Twig on Lady Alannys that they had passed Salt Shore that morning, and Erik had sent out the message that the fleet would convene after they passed Lemonwood, condensing in towards the shore.

“Something on your mind, dōnītsos?”

Kiera was looking down at him from her perch, her smile angled in gentle mockery. Erik realised he must have been wearing that loose-jawed, blank-eyed stare he always had when lost in thought. His wives called it his horizon eyes.

"Just planning ahead. I wanted to go over the Stepstones route with you."

"Of course," she said.

Kiera dismounted the figurehead in a twirling jump. Skirts billowed, and the momentary exposure of her legs drew glances from many of the crew sitting around them. When she pressed a kiss to his lips, those same eyes were pointedly averted. If jealousy compelled some of the men to curse him under their breath, Erik wouldn't hold it against them.

Kiera followed him back to the table by the mast. Osfryd had moved into the hold to help Morna, and at Erik’s word, took the Stepstones chart from its rack within and handed it to him.

Erik spread it out on the table, and Kiera, sitting across from him, set iron weights on the corners. The chart was a work of art, a tapestry of shorelines, coast towns, trade routes and artistic flourishes, purchased from an old trader from Lannisport whose seafaring days were behind him. It was laid out for Kiera’s convenience, so everything seemed upside-down to Erik. It was strange how the new perspective changed the map, the reaching arm of Dorne on the right and corner of Essos to the left.

“We just passed Salt Shore, aye?” she asked. Erik could tell she already knew, but sometimes she liked to hear his voice while she thought about things.

“Aye, and at our speed we should be about three days from Lemonwood.”

A raised eyebrow. “Are we stopping there? Planky Town?”

“No, but I was planning to bring the fleet together so we can reorganise heading into the Stepstones.” Erik gestured on the chart, bringing splayed fingers together as he moved his hand around the Dornish coast and between the islands. Kiera nodded.

"This map is old," she said, tracing a finger along a trade route marked in red ink, curving around the South shore of Bloodstone. "No trader uses this any more, a few got wrecked in a storm two decades ago, made this strait risky for bigger ships. They go around the Northside."

"The ships haven't been removed since?"

Kiera shrugged, her mouth a flat line. She was uncomfortable, maybe frustrated. Erik could only assume it was because her information was outdated at this stage, too.

"We could still use the route – our fleet would go right over, and it is a faster way to Tyrosh. The wrecks are mainly a concern for deeper drafted ships."

Erik considered the red line for a moment. Opportunity tugged at his mind. "Is there anything worth salvaging, or would they be scavenged clean by now?"

Kiera's gaze met his, confused for a moment, and she coughed out a mirthless laugh.

"Dōnītsos, if there was anything valuable there, the merchants would have dredged up the remains inside a week. The cargo wasn't worth anything dead."

Erik felt his eyebrows press together as he put things together. "Oh," he finally said. Slaves. "Apologies."

"Not your fault." Kiera's smile was gentle. "You're not used to things like this."

Despite her calm, Erik saw her hand drift to her chest, to the eye and tear tattooed over her heart. Kiera's mother had been a Volantene bed slave, owned by Kiera’s father. While the man’s relationship with his slave was businesslike, as Kiera put it, he had doted on the bastard daughter she bore him, and allowed the mother some relative comfort as an extension of that love. Her life had been better than some other slaves, but Kiera was under no illusions as to the limits of her father’s affection. Kiera’s mother had died when Kiera was nine, and she had gotten an echo of her slave mark over her heart years later.

“We can go around the other way, North of Bloodstone,” Erik offered. “It’ll only add what, an extra day? Less?”

Kiera reached out and touched his hand. “I appreciate it, but really, I’m alright. It’s a good route to avoid other ships, though anyone on the islands on either side will be able to send word."

Erik considered the narrow passage, idly scratching at his beard. The fleet would have to pass through in a thin line, no more than two columns, to stay safe. That gave anyone watching plenty of time to count them.

There was no hiding a raiding fleet like this, he knew. Not completely. Rumours of their approach were inevitable, and that intimidation was useful. Essos could be touched with paranoia, whispering horror stories to one another – tales of the Grey Kings and the Red Kraken and the Crow's Eye. Erik's job became confirming those fears enough that he needn't actually be quite so ruthless. Building trust, as he had told Colin.

But details and numbers were different. They took away the mystery that allowed fear to fester, allowed people to prepare and strategize. Better to obscure such things, leave villages and fishermen arguing over the truth, the tale, and which of them had it worse.

Kiera, like all his wives, seemed perfectly capable of reading his thoughts. "We could split up the fleet," she suggested, a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth. "Send a few North, a few through the strait, a few on to another route?"

Erik took his eyes off the horizon and looked at the map. In his imagination he saw the paths they could take, writhing and reshaping like tangled serpents as he considered each possibility.

"Yes," he said eventually, and the next hour passed in a haze of conversation and planning. Faint charcoal lines marked routes, with cross-lines to guess at travel times.

Kiera pointed out which reefs were worth his concern and which weren't, marked out some further inaccuracies on the chart and helped divide the fleet into three wings – Fiddle, Harp and Lute, led by Erik, Willow and Twig respectively. Fiddle would go through the old route, over the wrecks, Lute would cross North of Bloodstone, and Harp would go down by Grey Gallows and further, making an impression of being destined for Lys or Volantis before coming up along the Essos mainland to meet the rest.

After some time, Morna finished fishing out and re-arranging the wine, and leaned over the cargo hold's opening to watch them as they planned. Eventually she spoke up, pointing to a fork in Harp's route.

"What about this split, here? Who leads the ships in the second group?"

Erik shrugged. "That's Willow's decision. I'll recommend Oak Leviathan, but she has command at that point."

Morna nodded, her brows furrowing, her mouth not quite able to form a readable frown.

"Will Twig mind being given the simpler mission?" Kiera asked. By Morna's nod, Erik saw that had been her concern as well. A small rush of affection warmed Erik's chest at their worry.

"It's simpler on paper," he said, hopefully reassuring them he had thought about it, "but it's a busy route, unpredictable. More likely to have pirates, or opportunity. Nobody's ever quite tamed the Stepstones, after all."

Morna thought about it, nodded, and finally clambered out of the cargo hold. She stood behind Erik and ran her fingers through his hair.

"Sounds perfect," she said, "so long as my babes get back to me."

"They will," Kiera said. Her voice was soft, echoing Morna's worry. Erik reached up, took his wife's hand from his hair and pressed his lips to her scarred knuckles.

"They will," he promised.

Morna pressed a kiss to his temple and stepped away, off to find some errand to distract her. Kiera watched her depart, and squeezed Erik’s hand.

“I’ll put these away,” Erik said, “if you’d rather go.”

The corner of her mouth twitched and her eyes focused momentarily on him. The expression was almost imperceptible, yet clear as a flag to her husband. Gratitude and apology, and an undercurrent of anticipation. Anxiety.

She stood, blew a gentle kiss to him, and walked towards the bow. Erik busied himself stowing their notes and charts, letting his hands do the work without his attention while he wondered how to remind his children to be careful without embarrassing them.

He looked up and, unconsciously, he knew he was following his wives’ gazes, the three of them searching for answers on the sea, trying to guess at the future.

Keeping their eyes on the horizon.

Unwelcome Guest pushed off from the sun-bleached dock, the clear water of Dorne rippling in its wake. It was loaded with some fifty oarsmen, and the last of the supplies that the Daynes had been able to spare for them. Bundles of hardwood and rope, barrels of fresh water and wine, crates of hard-tack biscuits and salted meat, sacks of almonds and oranges, all piled neatly in the centre of the deck.

Behind that stack, Tristifer Twofinger raised his strange little claw to signal as he began calling out instructions. Following the beat of his voice, oars dipped into the water, pushing Unwelcome Guest out into the Torrentine. Before they got too far, Tristifer looked back to the harbour and gave a farewell salute.

From the pier, Erik returned the sentiment in a wave, and felt the longing ache in his hand, the memory of rigging rope callusing the flesh of his palm. As he watched the ship go out, he felt himself begin to sway, counteracting the gentle motion of the deck he wasn’t on. He had been ashore too long.

Perhaps that longing was what made him watch Unwelcome Guest for what seemed like an hour. Perhaps it was something else. A memory of watching a similar ship set out from Lordsport, with his father at the stern, for the last time. Or perhaps, as Erik might argue, he just lost himself in the beauty of a ship at sail.

In any case, Erik eventually took note of the dip of the sun over the horizon, heard the lapping of waves and smelled the salt in the air. Shieldbreaker was tied to a pier a little down the way, and as his eyes drifted over her hull and the shields upon the gunwale, it felt to Erik like a reassurance. So he turned his back on the sea, for now. As he walked up the hill towards the path back to Starfall, he felt old, familiar eyes on his back. He allowed himself one last glance to the ship with his ghosts upon the deck, and moved on, tapping the casing of the gift he had taken from the ship’s cargo.

The Dornish sun had softened its impact on Erik over his stay at Starfall, but he still felt thankful that this was a cooler evening than most. His burnt skin had turned to tan, and his eyes no longer stung when he looked up at the gleaming walls of the White Sword Tower.

As he passed through the castle gatehouse and through the hallways towards his quarters, everything around him felt strangely distinct. The murals and tapestries in the most public corridors seemed to come alive with colour, the elaborate carvings on the doorways seemed more solid than the stone around them. Erik had felt that way before, the day before he departed Lordsport. There were, perhaps, less obvious things to admire about his home. What tapestries he had were weather-beaten, and the grey stone of Erik’s walls was rough-hewn and bleak. For all that, Erik felt for a moment the cool breeze of Pyke on his back and the comforting warmth of his keep’s hearthfire on his cheeks.

It was the sun’s dry heat that met him when he stepped into his rooms, but he found some part of the comfort of home waiting for him as well. Kiera's sigh, no matter how exasperated, was a relief to his ears.

“Erik, Dōnītsos,” she said, “please talk some sense into your wife.”

Morna looked affronted, standing by their bathtub, rubbing a thin towel through her hair. Droplets of water trailed down the furrows of scars on her face, dripping from her jawline, across her shoulder and down well-muscled arms.

“It won't make any difference,” she insisted. “They know how I dress.”

“It's polite!” Kiera was incredulous, and Erik raised a hand to interrupt.

"What actually is the problem, my dears?”

Kiera spoke first, “Morna won't wear the gown that the Daynes gave her.”

It was only now that Erik noticed how Kiera herself was dressed, stunning in swathes of gleaming white sandsilk, a wide lavender sash tied around her waist and thrown over one shoulder, exposing the tattoo over her heart – a stylised eye with a single black tear beneath it. Erik only realised that her beauty had silenced him when she impatiently gestured to the gold and orange gown draped across their bed, as if to help him understand.

He kept his eyes on the gown, on the red embroidered robes beside it, not wanting to look Morna in the eye. "Kiera is probably correct, dear."

The hesitation that followed was tense.

"Lady Arianne and I–" The title was pointed, an attempt to sound polite. "– have an understanding." Morna bit off the words carefully, irritation boiling under the surface.

"Arianne may not mind," Erik conceded, "but the other guests will. Plenty of other greenlanders are here ahead of the Martells, besides anything else."

Morna sighed, tossing the towel aside. "They already judge me, Erik. No amount of silk now will change that I grew up in walrus hide and dogskin, and these kneelers think I still smell of it."

Kiera spoke up. "Perhaps that's true, but-"

"It's not just me," Morna interrupted. "They don't look past your hair either, and they barely tolerate Erik."

"It's not about us," Erik said, and that caught his wives' attention. "It's about Arianne. If we rebuke her hospitality, her gifts, it looks as if she is a poor host. She needs her people's confidence before the Martells arrive, aye? We don't want to embarrass her."

"She embarrasses me every time she lifts a spear," Morna muttered. She wasn't willing to admit defeat, but he could see the wind had gone from her sails.

In the end, Morna donned the gown but insisted on wearing her own jewellery with it, a concession to which Kiera agreed only after Morna accepted her help in brushing her hair. In the end, Morna was irritated by how good she looked, the high collar and bared skin of her gown emphasising her scars, rather than distracting from them as Erik might have feared.

The robes that Erik had been given felt strangely light, and mercifully airy, and the dark embroidery over the crimson gave an emphasis to his shoulders that he enjoyed. He tucked his knife in the sash at his waist, and hid a sealed letter within his gift, hidden at his other hip.

Willow and Twig arrived shortly after they had finished, and were dressed to match, in blue and charcoal grey respectively. They were all escorted by an honour guard when the time came, four men in shining full regalia. Erik recognised Qoren by the violet glint of his eyes within his helm, and mouthed at him, Allyria?

The guard's only response was a subtle shrug, and the Botleys followed their escort down to the great hall. Before they reached it, the murmur of voices and smell of ale and good food filled the hallway. Inside, the room was warm from the press of bodies and the blaze of hearthfires, knights and honoured officials of Starfall mingling with the crew of Erik's flagship on the lower tables, turning towards the door as they entered with smiles and raised tankards.

At the far end of the room, Lady Arianne Dayne sat at the central seat of the high table, flanked by Colin and an empty chair meant for her sister. Behind them, a mismatched set of drapery hung against the wall. The sword and falling star on the purple banner had always hung there, but the flag, with a worn shoal of silver fish on green, had clearly been borrowed from Shieldbreaker's mast.

Colin rose, and his voice rose with him, greeting Erik’s family by formal name and title. Had anyone uninformed been listening, they might have thought Lady Morna of the Frozen Shore no less highborn than her husband, and Erik thought he saw her stand a little straighter at that. They were escorted to their places as the lower tables stood in respect.

When all were seated again, the food began streaming out of the kitchens in the arms of well-dressed servants, all moving at perfect, synchronous pace, their uniforms freshly pressed. Erik had no doubt that the Daynes would be saving their best food and wine for the Martells, but this rehearsal of service was a greater luxury than the Botleys had expected. At a gesture from Colin, musicians began their art, filling the air with just enough sound to ensure private conversations and a pleasant atmosphere without being too loud for the guests to hear one another. As talk started around him, Erik took a draught of wine and listened to the notes of Kraken’s Daughter and the Ballad of the Grey Knight as they danced through the air, tapping his foot beneath the table. The starters were served, creating a small lull in conversation, and Erik took the opportunity to catch Arianne’s eye, leaning forward to speak to her.

“My lady,” he said, voice just loud enough to be overheard, “I just wanted to express my gratitude for all your hospitality. Not many on the mainland would have been such gracious hosts to me and mine. I understand that it was a risk to trust ironborn arriving in the night as we did,” he glanced at Colin, who had the self-awareness to look bashful, “but I thank you for your faith in us.”

For a moment Arianne looked as stunned as a fish on a line, unsure what to say, but just before Erik pressed on to save her from silence, she spoke.

“Starfall’s faith is with you always,” she said. “And its hospitality, too. Both more than earned.”

Erik bowed his head, reaching to his waist.

"You honour us, my lady. I’d like you to have this.” He opened his gift without taking it out from beneath the table, producing the sealed letter from within. Colin and Arianne’s attention both sharpened.

“This is a letter for my son, Sigorn. It tells of the great kinship shown by your house. Any boon you might ask of House Botley is yours, and my son will honour that any way he can, if you present him with this at the Great Council.”

Erik held it out, and Arianne took it after half a breath’s hesitation. With the document in her hand, she looked unsure what to say. Colin caught her eye, and for a moment they spoke to one another, albeit only with blinks and shifting eyebrows.

“Ensure this is kept safe,” Arianne said, her voice appropriately commanding as she passed the envelope to her steward.

“Of course, my lady.” Colin took the sealed letter, whisked it into some hidden pocket, and smiled gratefully at Erik.

“Thank you,” she said, the words genuine. “And please give my thanks to your family. They…” She seemed to search for the words, then shook her head. “A boon is what it would be, for any debts have been repaid twice over.”

Her cheeks had turned bright red after the remark, but the arrival of the main course brought an end to any awkwardness that might have lingered. Food was served and soon it was Colin making conversation, asking Erik about their intended route to Essos. As the ale continued to flow, the two ended up trading stories – Colin sharing tales of Hellholt and the river Brimstone where he’d once both swam and seduced, by his account, and Erik regaled him with the story of his own waterborne courtship with Morna.

Eventually, as Morna gnawed the last of the meat from bones and Colin gently wiped his lips on a napkin, Erik felt a pressure building in his bladder. Finding a polite timing, he excused himself, made his way out from the table and diverted to the Western door. Before he left, he turned to look across the hall.

Ironborn and greenlanders laughed together in every corner, men-at-arms and oarsmen slapping one another's backs amid ribald exclamations. At the high table, an unlettered wildling told tales to an attentive maester, the steward of a great castle offered wine to a raider's green-haired third wife, and the Lady of Starfall shared grins and gossip with the salt children of Lordsport.

Erik let himself smile. He would miss this, though he knew he must go on, to harder times and rougher seas. But he stayed in this moment, savouring it. Then he gripped the doorframe, touched his forehead to it as he might the mast of Shieldbreaker, and promised himself this would not be the last time he sailed up the Torrentine.

As much as she tried not to, Arianne fidgeted.

Hazel was at her feet, pins between her teeth, hands busy with the hem of a borrowed gown. The Princess of Dorne would be arriving within a fortnight and it was decided that nothing within Arianne’s wardrobe – which had always seemed so vast to her – was suitable for such an important, perhaps even once-in-a-lifetime occasion.

Her late mother’s dresses were far too short and her Aunt Dorea’s, though the woman had been much taller than her sister, too musty. They had been left for the moths in the Palestone Sword and deteriorated further under the care of Arianne’s own sister, who’d made the tower her apparently permanent home.

It should have been Cailin being dressed by the seamstress. Or Ulrich. Or Martyn. If anyone could have foreseen that it’d be Arianne before the slanted looking glass, no one would have ever let her brothers leave Starfall.

Hazel was muttering to herself. Arianne couldn’t be sure what she was saying, but it sounded unhappy and her cheeks burned as if on instinct. No matter how much praise she garnered in the training yard, no matter how confident she grew beneath the sharp eyes of Morna and the good-natured ribbing of Twig and Willow, Arianne still felt a clod whenever she was faced with her own reflection, an image of herself in an ill-fitting gown mirrored back to her like some sort of mocking jape.

“It’s too short,” Hazel reported. “And your back is too big. Like a man’s.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

The young seamstress didn’t seem to expect a reply, so Arianne gatefully offered none. Instead she picked at one of the hairs on her arm, bleached white from the sun, and found that if she pulled hard enough it came loose from her skin. She did this with another, then again with another, as Hazel went back to the chair where more gowns were draped.

They’d been loaned from one of Starfall’s new guests. With the Princess due to arrive soon, some of the smaller houses nearby (but out of the path the caravan would take to the Great Council in the Riverlands) had come to await the Martell matriarch. They were smaller houses of low standing. Colin had remarked that it was a pity none of the greater houses were interested in coming and hinted gently – then less so – that Arianne could afford to be more welcoming and less, well, odd if Starfall’s rooms were to be filled with anyone other than Daynes. But Arianne didn’t see his point. She could be the perfect lady, of a perfect height and in a perfect-fitting dress, but the moment Allyria came stumbling into the Great Hall with her braids half-undone and dark circles beneath her eyes, mumbling about patterns in the sky, any pretence of not odd would be swiftly eradicated.

Arianne thought back to the conversation they’d had about the stars, when she’d asked her sister to look for a sign or advice. She knew it now to have been a foolish question. If the stars could tell the future, they were keeping it to themselves – and she would have to face the Princess herself, too, without them or their guidance or even a proper gown.

“Could you stand still? I need— what’s wrong with your arm?”

It was another hour before Hazel allowed her to leave, though the seamstress remained visibly unsatisfied. The only dress that could be properly adjusted to something suitable was a rust coloured one with gold latticework. It would have been better to wear Dayne colours, Hazel said, but when Arianne suggested something she’d worn for Garin’s doomed visit, the seamstress made a face.

“Your aim is to serve the Princess, not seduce her,” she’d said.

Nevermind that the gown had failed in that with Garin. As Hazel had pointed out, Arianne’s back had grown, and her shoulders, too, the results of long afternoons spent sparring with the strange visitors.

How fitting, Arianne thought as she made her way to the gardens, that the guests most comfortable at Starfall are the oddest ones. What was this castle but a secret haven for misfits, hidden along the sea?

Arianne had already dressed for training but first checked on all the plants as was her duty, taking special care to inspect the black-barked tree Allyria had purchased. A new bud had started to show nearly a moon ago but was in no apparent hurry. She sketched it in her notebook again anyways, leaving a darker outline within to show the slight growth.

It made little sense to revisit her chambers, so she brought the book with her to the yard where the Botleys were already waiting – Twig sprawled out on a dusty stone bench like a lizard soaking up the sun, Willow helping Morna wrap a strip of tattered cloth around her hand. Arianne couldn’t tell if it were to bandage a wound or keep sand from a scab. The woman’s hands were like a blacksmith’s, calluses being born onto calluses.

“I saw a ship leave this morning,” Arianne said after short greetings were exchanged – a nod from Willow, a grunt from Morna, a lazy wave from Twig given without opening his eyes.

“Aye,” Willow said. “Othgar's gone back to arrange the camp downriver, we'll go down and meet them then.”

The thought of their departure made Arianne’s stomach unsettled.

“It will feel emptier here without you,” she said after some consideration.

“We might have stayed longer, but Erik doesn't want to stop you preparing for the Martells,” Morna said. She’d finished what she’d been doing with her hands and accepted a shield from Willow, for what occurred to Arianne might be one of the last times.

“There’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a while now,” she said quickly, picking at the binding of the notebook in her arms. “Only I wasn’t sure…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to be impolite.”

Morna gave a short, sharp laugh. “I'm no blushing kneeler, Arianne, say what you will.”

“Lord Botley, he has… That is to say, you are his wife, but–”

“So is Kiera. And Asha, though you've not met her. You find that strange? You wouldn’t be the first.”

“I don’t mean to pry.”

“And yet.”

Arianne wondered if she had overstepped and quickly tried to think of a way to salvage the interaction, but Morna’s next words were reassuring.

“There are worse things to find strange, girl,” she said. “Speak.”

“I only wondered, well, how that is. For you, I mean. For all of you.”

“You worry for our happiness? What of greenlander women, are they happy in their marriages?”

“I don’t know. Some, I suppose.”

“Just so. Depends on the husband. Erik is a good husband. If he hadn’t been, I would have opened his throat before I bore him four children.”

That meant that Twig and Willow had siblings. Arianne wondered where they were, if she had met them, but worried about bungling another invasive question.

“I’ve never known the others to complain,” Morna continued. “Nothing serious at the least, and we’ve found comfort and pleasure in one another’s arms too. Even love.”

Behind Morna, Willow seemed to take sudden interest in the floor, her cheeks flushing.

“Are Asha and Kiera your wives, too?” Arianne asked.

Morna scoffed. “They didn’t steal me,” she said, as though that were an answer.

“What have you got in your arms?” It was Twig who spoke, now propped up on his elbow, dust and sand from the bench stuck to his jerkin.

Arianne looked down at the notebook she still held.

“A book.”

“Truly we have much to learn from the greenland,” Twig responded. His smile made the jape obvious, but Arianne felt a flush threatening to bloom on her cheeks, so she pushed forward.

“It’s a log of the garden. All the plants, when they were planted, when they flowered or bore fruit and how much and what size and–” Arianne realised she was starting to ramble, and about Starfall’s secrets to outsiders, no less. She closed her mouth and thought before finishing. “...And that sort of thing.”

She traced the smooth spine of the book. It had been her mother’s before it’d been hers.

“Reminds me of Helya,” Willow said. “Our sister. She’s always carrying these sketchbooks with little notes about what the blacksmiths tell her, sketches of swords and the like.”

Willow seemed to speak with fondness, and Arianne wondered what it must be like to have a sister who could elicit such a thing. Allyria wasn’t tidy enough to keep her passions contained to sketchbooks – her frantic writing was strewn all over the Palestone Sword tower’s floors and walls alike and there were no careful illustrations or artful drawings, only numbers and circles and illegible words.

She thought back to the visitors who’d come before the storm brought them the Botleys – the strangers from the east, where the ironmen and ironwomen would be leaving for soon.

“My sister purchased something not long ago, not long before you came,” she said carefully. “I’ve been drawing it, but…” She looked down at the book again and as if by compulsion, opened it to the page. “We’ve never had one in our garden before. Not ever.”

“Can I see it?”

Twig was sitting up now and while Arianne knew she should have said no, while she knew she should have never brought it up in the first place, while she knew she should have at the very least hesitated, she did not. She walked over to the boy at once and passed him the book carefully, open to the page where she’d drawn the sapling and its inky black leaves.

Twig looked at the illustration, eyebrows furrowing as he recognised something.

“That’s, uh, Shade of Twilight or something, isn’t it?”

“Shade of the Evening,” Arianne said. “You know it?”

“Aye, sort of. Kiera bought this book of tales from Essos a few years ago, I remember reading one about this as a bedtime story for Urri.” He looked over to his family. “Do you remember?”

Willow made a noncommittal gesture and Morna shook her head, still holding the shield in one hand.

“I can’t read, I was never really one for bedtime stories,” she said.

“What was the story about?” Arianne pressed.

“It was from Qarth, I think.” Twig was studying her illustration as he spoke, holding the book with a respectful sort of reverence wholly unexpected. “There used to be warlocks there – Kiera says this part is true – that used it for its magical powers.”

“What sort of powers?”

“You didn’t know?” he finally looked up as he handed her back the book.

Arianne was hardly aware of accepting it until she felt its weight once again, the moleskine soft again her own. She was only watching Twig, who was staring up at her with confusion writ on his young face.

“It lets you look into the future.”

D E S

“It’s good enough, isn’t it?”

Desmond rubbed the bark with his palm to smooth away any stray splinters still clinging to the carving on the tree, and Tygett looked at the result with a frown.

“I think you ought to do the whole thing,” his cousin said.

“That’s too many letters.”

The two were in the woods not far – but further than they were permitted – from Elk Hall, which had become insufferable now that it was nearly time to depart. Packing made adults cross with one another.

“It’s only one more than mine,” Tygett said. His name, not far from Desmond’s on the same tree, looked much neater, but Des figured that was on account of being a squire – that probably meant much more time with his dagger. Besides, carving was not the same as whittling, as it turned out. Des thought that if he could somehow hold the whole tree in the palm of his hand, he’d be able to write an entire missive, sure as sunrise and tidier than Tygett’s.

“I’ll write the whole thing if you write the ‘Lannister’s after them both,” he bargained.

“What?”

“Desmond Lannister, Tygett Lannister.”

“Why would I write that?”

Desmond sighed. “You’re right,” he said, sliding his knife back into the sheath in his boot. “If it’s at Elk Hall, everyone will know we were Lannisters.”

They began the trudge back in the direction of the lake, but with deliberate slowness. If they were spotted being idle, they’d be forced to help, and Desmond wasn’t about to let the same fate befall him as had befallen Daena and Hugo.

In fact, the four of them had scarce had a chance to adventure together since the night of Father’s nameday party, when they’d sneaked to the kitchens and gotten away with a whole rasher of bacon and a tankard they’d filled with something from a cask that had turned out to be disgusting. That had been disposed of into a flower box outside their window, but the bacon they’d eaten greedily. Hugo was forced to retreat to his room to soothe his sister before their mother came to answer her cries, but Damon and Tygett fell asleep with their backs against each other. Daena crawled into bed with them just as Desmond was drifting off, her greasy fingers leaving stains on the pillowcases and feather mattress.

They’d spent a few more days at Elk Hall afterwards, but those were unhappy and thankfully ending soon.

Lady Joanna had been unusually agitated with Father and this made meal times nonetheless mandatory but all the more uncomfortable. Desmond did not wish to have the looks she gave Father levelled at himself, and while he and the other children were only dealt soft gazes and sweet tones, the tension was like a woolly blanket on a summer day and he was eager to escape it outside.

He and Tygett were collecting sticks this morning, when not marking trees with their names or their urine, as needed to avoid the Hall. It was the last of those Desmond was doing when Hugo emerged from a curtain of ivy, startling him so much he ended up marking his feet, instead.

“Hey! You made me piss on my boot!”

Hugo frowned. “My father would hit me into Hornvale if I said ‘piss.’”

“Well good that he isn’t here then.”

“Yeah, cause he’d probably hit you, too, since yours doesn’t enough.”

“My father doesn’t hit me at all.”

“It shows. Hello, Ty.”

Tygett greeted Banefort with a nod. “You managed to get away?”

“Only after having to weed the garden with Daena.” He looked to Desmond accusingly. “What in seven hells is a mittītsos?”

“It means you need to pay more attention in your Valyrian lessons, mittītsos.”

Hugo only rolled his eyes, then looked around the woods conspiratorially before lowering his voice. “I came looking for you because Lady Joanna is taking a bath on the balcony.”

“So?”

“So…” He reached within his pocket and produced a Myrish lens tube wrought in gold. “Do you wanna see for yourself?”

Desmond frowned. “We’re busy.”

“Doing what?”

“Collecting sticks.”

“You’re such a baby. What about you, Ty?”

“If you were to do that, Hugo, I’d be obligated by the knight’s vows I’ll one day swear to kick out all your teeth. I bet Ser Joffrey would even lend me his golden spurs to do it.”

“You two are no fun,” Hugo said, slipping the lens back into his pocket. “What kind of sticks have you got?”

The three of them gathered enough for whittling, fighting, and even potentially fishing (Desmond was certain he could sharpen the points of some into veritable spears), but were sure to also amass kindling and firewood so as to look like they’d been at a chore. The hours-long effort was pointless, as it turned out, because the adults and the babies were all quarrelling when they returned to the hall and no one noted their return, yet alone how long they’d been gone and to where.

“Might we stay another night?” the Lady Crakehall was saying to Lady Joanna, who was standing beside Father at the lake’s shore and looking down at the rowboat with disdain. “Truly, by the time the children are all ready to depart we’d be arriving at the Rock after nightfall.”

Hugo’s mother was walking up and down the length of the dock with a baby screaming in her arms, and Daena sat by the water scowling at the woman for her noisy trespassing.

“She’s right, Jo,” Father was saying softly. “Better to arrived rested than tired, and travelling at night is–”

“Don’t you Jo me, Damon Lannister. They’re your roads, aren’t they? They’ll be perfectly safe. The boat will be here when we return.”

Desmond quickly changed directions, his bundle of kindling in arms, only to bump into another adult.

“Easy there, Your Grace,” came a quiet voice, and Desmond looked up into the face of the Farman – Ryon, he thought.

“Apologies, my lord.”

“No need. I’m only looking out for you. That’s what a loyal Westerman does, isn’t it? Keeps Lannisters out of trouble of their own making?”

Ryon had a kind face and a gentle voice, but there was something strange in his words that Desmond could not place and did not like.

“I’ll try to be more careful.”

“Good lad.” He ruffled Desmond’s hair and straightened, looking to where Father was still talking with Lady Joanna and Elena Crakehall. Desmond took the opportunity to slip away, hurrying to dump the wood he’d gathered by the firepit outdoors.

No sooner had he dropped the bundle than was he gripped roughly by the arm.

“Skoriot istē?” hissed a familiar voice.

“I’ve been in the woods,” he told Daena, jerking his arm free. “Why?”

“Nyke iemnȳ lōgor jagon jaelan.”

Desmond glanced over to where Father was hauling the rowboat onto the shore beneath Lady Joanna’s watchful gaze.

“It’s being put away. We’re leaving soon.”

“I want to go in the boat,” she said again, this time in the Common Tongue.

“Separ kostā daor. Tolī eglie issa.”

Daena narrowed her eyes at him before storming off and Desmond wondered how so many people could be so angry with him after so few interactions. He watched from a safe distance as Daena went and tugged on the hem of Lady Joanna’s gown, pointing at the boat and their father and speaking in a Valyrian too quick and too distant for him to decipher. The two went back and forth like that, with Daena gesturing and all but stamping her feet until Lady Joanna bent to tug her braids and then kiss her forehead. Soon the boat was being hauled back into the water, and Daena was waving frantically at him to come over.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” she told him when he did, climbing into the boat carelessly and wetting the hem of her gown in the process.

“Did Lady Joanna say that?” Desmond glanced over his shoulder to where the woman in question had taken a seat in the grass, Lady Lysa lowering the baby Willem onto her lap.

“No, but she will.”

Father came to help them push off.

“Be careful with your sister, Des,” he said. “She can’t swim. No rocking, no jostling, no tipping, no teasing…”

He kept shouting the list even as the boat came free from the mud and Desmond began to row. Daena hung over the edge of the boat (in direct contradiction to Father’s orders) and let her fingers dangle in the water, leaving a trail of ripples across the surface the further out they went.

Eventually the waterfall in the distance drowned out the rest of the world and Desmond’s arms grew tired. He set the oars inside the boat, careful not to further wet Daena’s dress, then joined her in leaning over the boat’s edge.

“I can see fish,” he said.

“No you can’t.”

“Yes I can. I see three. Down there.”

“Those are sticks.”

“No they’re not, they’re fish.”

There was silence between them. Desmond watched the fish and was certain he saw them move.

“Kepa is wrong,” Daena said after a time. “I can swim.”

“No you can’t.”

“Yes I can.”

“Kostā DAOR.”

Desmond expected a rude retort but instead Daena only stood, lifted her gown over her head in one quick motion, and threw it on the floor of the boat. He was still grappling with the sight of her in her smallclothes when, before he could stop her, she’d stood on the bench and leapt into the water.

Daena sank like a stone and Desmond peered into the abyss after her. But others were seemingly less patient – there was a commotion on the shore and Desmond looked to see Father bolting into the water, britches, boots and all. Watching him swim faster than seemed possible, Desmond remembered what Hugo had said to him in the woods and felt certain that though his father had never hit him before, he was like to get a licking now.

Daena emerged from the water before their Father could reach them, clutching three sticks in her hand which she held up for Desmond victoriously, her soaking hair stuck to her face but a grin still visible.

“See?”

She noticed their father and her grin only widened as she swam to meet him, leaving Desmond sitting dumbfounded in the rowboat. He watched as the two met and she threw her arms around Father’s neck, laughing.

Surely she deserved a lashing, he thought, but when she shoved Father’s hair from his face Desmond saw that he was laughing, too. It hardly seemed fair. Desmond’s cheeks still burned at the memory of the vicious scolding he’d gotten for disobeying during that hunt so long ago. ANd he was still stewing over the injustice when Father swam nearer and tipped the boat, sending him plunging into the chilly water, too.

Desmond reemerged gasping beneath the rowboat, which created a dark cave above him. Father came shortly, still smiling as he shook his long wet hair and wiped the water from his beard.

“Sorry, Des,” he said, his voice echoing beneath the boat. “But I’m afraid it’s what you get for not taking better care of your sister.”

Daena soon followed, spitting pond water in Desmond’s face.

“Who taught you to swim?” Father asked her, incredulous.

“No one,” she said, beaming.

“You little kraken. I’m going to get your brother. See if you two can right the boat.”

He disappeared under the water and Desmond was left scowling at Daena.

“My boots are ruined now,” he told her, treading water.

“They’ll dry.”

She was far too small to overturn the boat herself and furthermore seemed uninterested, trying instead to climb atop its upside-down hull and failing. Desmond watched her slippery attempts for a time as he floated there, the water no longer cold but refreshing on the unusually warm day. When he glanced to shore he saw Father soaking wet, bending down to take little Will from Lady Joanna’s arms and lift the chubby toddler onto his shoulders.

Desmond frowned.

“Willem is our brother?”

Daena laughed, having finally succeeded in climbing onto the overturned boat. She pulled her small clothes up enough to expose her pale legs to the sunshine.

“Mittītsos,” she said, and she turned her face to the sun.

The children had learned to walk. It was a development that, despite having occurred over a moon ago, still startled Danae.

First was Daenys, then Daven– in their order of birth. Danae had heard some old wives' tale that one should never tell twins who was born first, lest it create some sort of complex, but she reasoned that was bullshit. Her children were a part of history. There was no escaping the fact of their birth, and while strangers would certainly twist it funny, there would always be a grain of truth there.

She wondered how much of history had been warped in the books Lyman had given her.

She’d shirked her duties in favor of reading them to completion, taking on stacks of meticulously organized volumes at a time. She had begrudgingly extended apologies more than once for the state of their return, but Lyman was suspiciously gracious in lieu of the twins' destructive tendencies. She had made a vow to teach them how sacred books were and she could have sworn he’d almost cracked a smile.

Truth be told, reading was an ample distraction from the nagging sense of doom that had otherwise plagued her. The Iron Bank was not the sort of problem she could bathe in dragonfire, and the visit was sure to be a test of what her newly minted crown truly represented.

Queen Danae, standing on her own two feet.

Anyone she’d ever spoken to from Braavos had come to her. They could fuck themselves if they expected her to grovel.

Lyman’s books were the sort of thing Danae imagined properly raised nobles would have read. She half expected to find doodles in the margins where some indignant little lordling had thought himself too grand for such knowledge, but each new copy that appeared on her desk was as immaculate as the last.

The twins were almost steady on their feet by the time the Master of Coin had run out of books to give her. She found it to be a strange comfort that he spoke to her almost exclusively in Valyrian whenever they met, though she diligently ignored the pang in her chest when she thought about why that might be.

Any sentiment for her wayward daughter was soon soured by Lyman’s shrewd correction of Danae’s poor grasp of banking dialect.

A nagging ache had settled low in Danae’s back by the third hour of their meeting and while she would have typically thrown her chalice at any fool who dared interrupt them, she was immensely grateful for a moment’s reprieve when Talla slipped from behind the great mahogany door.

The weather had turned enough that her handmaidens had fully transitioned to their spring wardrobes, abandoning their thick velvets and lush furs in favor of floaty, delicate fabrics Danae knew no name for— the sort of thing women like Talla belonged in. Despite the abundance of long hidden skin to savor, Lyman’s gaze had yet to stray from the margins of the scroll he had been studying.

Danae had known men like Lyman before; she did not mistake his disinterest for scholarly diligence. He was easier to read than his many tomes.

Talla offered her a chaste kiss to the temple before stooping to whisper in her ear.

“Meredyth has returned, Your Grace.”

While not entirely welcome, Danae took the excuse to break from Lyman’s lecturing— nevermind how daunting the prospect of piecing together her handmaidens’ future seemed. It had been a burdensome weight as of late, and she knew she had dragged her feet for far too long. A rotten truth had come to the surface in the midst of her return to King’s Landing, one Danae herself even found difficult to swallow.

Her ceaseless hesitation had begun to complicate more lives than just her own.

Danae was sure her ring had worn a path in the skin of her pointer finger for all the times she had twisted it round that morning alone. There was no proper time to broach the subject of marriage, in her opinion, but especially not when discussing it with a woman who had been burned by it as often as Meredyth.

She was emptying her trunks when Danae found her, still shrouded in black with a veil over her hair. Meredyth’s hands were alarmingly steady— and her eyes alarmingly empty.

“The twins will be happy you’ve returned,” Danae remarked, doing her best to prop herself casually against the threshold. In truth, the twins were happy to see anyone, the blissful idiots. She had never envied that more.

“It is nice to be back.”

Meredyth had always artfully avoided addressing King’s Landing as home without it seeming an insult. Danae knew all too well what she meant by it, too. To be so far removed from any place that felt safe, to never feel right— to belong nowhere and to no one but yourself was a terrible fate.

To be the last of your name, and a girl at that. Fucking shit.

Danae drew a shuddering breath and almost immediately Meredyth froze in place; the flash of questioning writ across her face was more fearful than curious.

“You should know that I’ve always been glad of your company, Meredyth.”

“Should I cease my unpacking, Your Grace?”

Danae uncrossed her arms at once, kicking off the wall in a vain attempt to soften her approach.

“No. Gods, No. It’s only that I have no idea how to ask this of you.”

The sympathy within Meredyth’s features then felt entirely unearned. She offered Danae a seat with an elegant flick of her wrist, though the worn cushions were little relief for the persistent pain in her back.

“I’ve never understood the point of handmaidens, really. What political purpose does having someone around to braid my hair serve? It all seems so superfluous.” Danae rambled on without pause. Meredyth, mercifully, took no offense and nodded intently. “There’s plenty of nonsense that comes along with being queen that truthfully, I’m not sure I’ll ever understand… that I’ve got no choice but to accept. This… you all. Talla. Ysela. Rhaenys. It’s been a greater gift than I ever gave any of you credit for.”

“And now…”

“And now it’s my turn to do my duty by you.”

Meredyth turned the fabric of a gown Danae didn’t recognize over in her hands, fingers slipping idly over intricate beading and scalloped lace. She regretted that she had no solace to offer. Silence, she supposed, was better. It was what she herself would have preferred.

“I take some solace in the fact that your circumstance has left you with more choice than most.”

“More choice than I ever had before,” Meredyth said softly.

There was no use lamenting to Meredyth of all people what woes befell those who were married, especially once one had tasted freedom. Even if love were to blossom, there was little joy in it.

Danae folded her legs across one another, picking at the stitching that had begun at the hem of her skirt.

“While I would grant you permission for any man of your choosing… I–”

“I know what it might mean for my family if I were to choose incorrectly, Your Grace.”

Danae nodded stiffly.

“I understand that you’re in mourning. I’m not asking you to wed tomorrow– I’m not even asking for you to be wed within the year. The Great Council, however, will be a valuable opportunity.”

“A valuable opportunity for those amongst your handmaidens who are not thought to be spinsters.”

Danae caught Meredyth’s gaze as she leaned forward, planting her elbows on her knees.

“What fortune, then, that your brother has left behind only daughters.”

If they were stuck in the makings of this wretched man’s dominion together, Danae figured they ought to take advantage.

“Well, you’ve certainly given me much to consider.”

“It would be helpful to me if you did.”

While the sick, twisting feeling low in her belly had not subsided, Danae departed Meredyth’s chambers feeling accomplished. She clutched the small of her back as she climbed the stairs, the ache having grown tenfold in the span of mere minutes.

There would be no chance but to ignore it. The Iron Bank waited for no one, not even a dragon.

“Do as best you can to keep moving west. The current will want to bring you north…"

It was almost as much of a struggle to remember Victarion's instructions as it was to keep a proper heading in the tiny vessel he and Tymor now occupied. Each wave that crashed against the hull sent the boat veering off course, and he found it hard to keep a grip on the oars. A few times, one even slipped out of his hand.

”...but if you make enough headway, you should reach Harlaw before it pulls you too far in that direction.”

”What will happen if it does?”

”Don’t let it.”

He kept an eye on the horizon and tracked the position of the sun so he could ensure they were still headed in the right direction. With few other landmarks about them, he had to make do with what he had. Just ahead, he noticed a flock of seabirds circling in the sky and diving into the sea. They must see a school of fish, he thought as he decided to use them as a sort of beacon to help him keep the boat on course.

"Turn around!"

“Turn around? Why would I do that?"

"Do it!" Tymor whined. "We have to go back and help them!”

"And what do you think you'll do if I listen to you? Bite some ankles? Bruise some shins?"

"Shut your dirty mouth, thrall. I'll kill every last one of those pirates and then come back for you, so do as I say!" The boy threw himself to his feet. "Now!"

"I'm not your thrall, and that isn't what your uncle told me to do."

"If you don't-"

Aethan chuckled at the younger boy. "You'll what? Throw an even bigger temper?" The spoiled brat.

"If my uncle isn't back before we are, you’ll find out. On Pyke, we fasten our foul-mouthed thralls to the beach and wait for the tide to wash in.." Ty grinned.

"That sounds like a nice afternoon compared to being strapped to the front of a longship, and I survived that."

Tymor wrinkled his brow and crossed his arms in a show of disbelief. "Liar."

"Believe whatever you want, but we're not turning this boat around. We're going home."

"Home? Harlaw will never be your home." Ty erupted into laughter. "You're a Greenlander, a thrall. You'll never be Ironborn."

Aethan turned his head toward the birds and kept rowing as if he hadn’t heard the other boy. It had been years since Aethan had seen the shores of the green lan-

The Riverlands! he corrected himself.

He found himself doing things like that more and more these days, and with each one that passed, he felt less like a Riverlander and more like one of the Iron Men. Sooner rather than later, he will have called the Iron Islands home for longer than the Cape of Eagles. He's learned much in his time on the islands, most things the hard way, but there was still much about these people that made him feel like an outsider. There is a great deal of difference between the sea as it is known to the fishermen of the Cape and the sea as it is known to the Ironborn.

On the Cape, it was a source of livelihood, but it was also something to be respected and even feared, for it could bring dangerous swells, storms without a moment’s notice, and monsters from the deep and over the horizon. On the islands, the sea was something to be tempted, challenged, and embraced. It was something beloved in every sense, with every sense. They even choose to drown themselves in it!

If he was sure of anything, he never wanted to experience the feeling of water in his chest ever again.

A few hours passed silently, apart from the sound of the wind and the waves. Occasionally, one would crash over the side of the boat and spray his face with seawater. The seabirds from earlier were now directly overhead. One after another, they dove into the water around the boat, only moments later to rise up from the sea with a small fish in their beaks. Aethan could hear their squeaking grow louder as the boat passed through their feeding frenzy. Many birds at once kept from the water suddenly, wailing and squeaking as they flapped their wings.

"They're scared of us!" Aethan yelled as he dashed over to one side of the boat, his hand gripping the top of the wooden frame.

At that moment, his eyes caught a glimpse of something below. Suddenly the boat was thrust upward, and the two were hurled into the sea.

He quickly swam to the surface, taking in a huge gulp of air once he reached it. The seawater he inhaled in his haste caused him to cough uncontrollably as he struggled to keep his head above the waves. He looked about and saw Tymor treading water beside him without an effort.

Once he composed himself, he looked about in search of the boat. He could see that it wasn't too far off and still upright.

Suddenly, the surface broke near them, and a massive, gaping jaw emerged from the waves and clamped down on the air as if it were taking a giant breath.

"Whales!"

"They're attacking us!" Aethan cried out.

"No, they're eating the fish! We've got to get back to the boat. Quickly!"

The boys scrambled as best they could to return to the safety of their boat. Left and right, the water was breached by great beasts that were large enough to swallow him whole, and they seemed inclined to do so.

"We've got to climb up on opposing sides, or we'll tip it over," Ty shouted frantically as they reached the tiny vessel.

Tymor quickly climbed into the boat while Aethan struggled to lift his weight over the side. The resulting imbalance sent Tymor hurdling back into the water but briefly afforded Aethan enough leverage to lift himself over the edge. Once safely inside, he wheeled around to find Tymor fighting for his life among the giant beasts and turbulent waters.

He quickly reached for one of the oars and stretched one end toward the struggling younger boy. Ty managed to grab on for a moment but was soon sent under the waves by a breaching whale behind him.

Aethan desperately looked around him, hoping every break in the waves would bring the boy to the surface. If it was a short time before he again heard the yelling for help, to him, it felt like minutes. When he looked toward the screams, he could see that Ty was still within reach but wouldn’t be for long.

Aethean quickly tossed the oar out again but missed his mark. He tossed it out once more, this time right on target, and Tymor clung to the end like a barnacle to a ship. Aethan reeled him in and swung him around the back of the boat. Without thinking, he reached in and hauled the boy into the vessel and both of them crashed into a puddle of water that had begun to form in the boat.

Before Aethen knew what was happening, Tymor had already sprung to his feet and grabbed the oars. He drove them into the churning sea, and Aethan felt the boat jerk beneath him as it began to move with purpose. Aethan watched in amazement as this boy, years younger than he, effortlessly steered the boat through the waves. The oars didn’t slip from his hands once. The boy even made the task look easy. As he stared, he realized that he would never be Ironborn. The sea would never be to him what it is to them.

For him, it would always bring monsters.

Not long after they were clear of the feeding frenzy, Aethan caught a glimpse of something over his shoulder, something on the horizon. He stood, turning his head to get a better look, and saw a large landmass to the south. His heart sank.

The currents had taken them too far north. They had missed the island. They were too late.

The carriage rocked back and forth along the rural path near the Boneway. Cassana thanked the Seven that this was one of the few times in which Maris slept soundly. Thus, she made sure to limit her movements as her daughter peacefully rested against her.

A sense of profound comfort settled in her heart at the way her daughter mumbled in her sleep. Nonetheless, she checked twice that Maris’ lips had not turned blue, fearful that the Stranger would lay their gaze upon her daughter at a moment’s notice.

Cassana brushed her fingers gingerly through her daughter’s strawberry curls.

Maris was all she had left after the war had already claimed the lives of her brother, father and son, and ruined her marriage beyond repair.

Cassana bit her lip, thinking about her husband. After they had met once again and grieved over their son, only bitterness followed. Cassana had nearly forgotten how quick tempered Corliss was in their time apart. When he had suggested that they leave for Nightsong at once as the dust from the conflict had settled, she protested. She had urged him to let Maris and her travel to the Roost instead, a request which he rejected as soon as it left her lips. Rather than taking more drastic measures, she had swallowed her pride, yet it still burned in her stomach days after the argument.

Cassana’s glance slowly scanned the carriage around her. Besides her the wisened Septa Falena kept herself nose deep in the pages of the Seven-Pointed Star, holding the book perhaps too closely. Across from them sat the nursemaid Cissy and Cassana’s personal maid, Violet. The both of them had busied themselves fusing over Violet’s own babe. The boy was already nearing his first year and held on to his caregiver tight, as tiny fists bundled into the red fabric of the maid’s dress.

“So mi’lad… I mean Lady Cassana… What is Nightsong like?” Violet inquired rather innocently as her motherless nephew cooed in her arms.

“Hush.” Cassana heard the septa utter bitterly.

The handmaid rolled her eyes in response.

“Well Nightsong is…” Lady Connington answered in a whisper, ignoring Falena’s harshness. She imagined those spiraling granite towers and formidable walls zagging across the hilly landscape. Whilst a newly wedded wife, she viewed the castle as a shining beacon where she hoped to create a home. Over time that light that she felt faded and she couldn’t help but to see it as a miserable place.

“Quite dreary.”

“Oh?” The handmaid furrowed her brows, curious by her answer. “I suppose that most castles are.”

She thought back to her childhood, to her first home Griffin’s Roost with its deep crimson walls standing tall amongst the rugged shoreline. Cassana remembered fondly of racing through the hallways along with her brother as the light from white and red stained glass windows glimmered. Eventually they would end up in the garden: breathless, surrounded by roses and with a fountain in the form of a fighting griffin carved from stone towering above them.

Storm’s End was a different tale, dark and intimidating. At first, she hadn’t minded it as she had found the castle’s mystique oddly charming. However, now she couldn’t think of Storm’s End without being reminded of those she had lost there.

“Some, not all.”

Cassana pursed her lips as a terribly awkward silence followed. The handmaid turned her gaze towards the window beside her. Cassana, in turn, continued to keep a watchful eye on her child.

That silence was lifted by a chorus of voices growing ever clearer that announced that they would be stopping at an inn a little further ahead.

Finally. She let out a sigh of relief at the knowledge that they will be stopping for the night. Her back would be grateful from the reprieve after sitting idly for hours on end.

Though that relief did not last as Maris stirred from her slumber. Her hazel eyes stared up at Cassana with the corners of her lips forming a pout.

“Mama…” Little Maris uttered groggily, her fists clenched to Cassana’s bodice.

“Yes, sweetling?” Cassana inquired softly, brushing her fingers through her daughter’s curls.

The girl huffed crankily and refused to answer, hiding her face away from the faces surrounding her. Maris had always hated waking from her naps, as rare as they were.

“A stubborn one, isn’t she?” Septa Falena stated, slamming her book shut startling the wetnurse. “Without a doubt that she gets it from her mother.”

Little Ben also fussed, the baby cried just as loudly as Maris did at that age. Violet attempted to soothe her nephew by rocking him. Cassana could tell by the stress on her face that the lass did not take to motherhood with ease.

A few minutes passed before the carriage stopped at last and Cassana recognized the grey-haired knight that rapped against the carriage door before opening the door.

“My lady,” he bowed his head to her before nodding to her companions. “We have arrived at the inn. W-”

“Papa!” Maris demanded from her arms, moving her tiny little fists, before turning to look back at her. “Where is papa?”

Jonothor Selmy replied with a fatherly smile upon his wrinkled face, when addressing the young girl but truly speaking to Cass. “My lady, Lord Corliss has already dismounted. He awaits you all by the inn’s entrance.”

“Why thank you Ser Selmy,” Cassana politely nodded, reaching for the knight’s hand as he assisted in escorting her out of the carriage.

They were surrounded by a wide, grassy plain and in the distance Cassana could see the inn just ahead. She passed the care of her daughter onto that of the wetnurse, although Maris quickly squirmed in Cissy’s grasp, attempting to walk. There was a compromise, the girl settled on holding onto the nurse’s hand as she waddled alongside them.

Cassana found herself strolling beside Ser Jonothor, holding her skirt making sure that the hems weren’t soiled with mud. From the corner of her eye she could spy some Connington men, a gesture of good will from her cousin Arthur, making their way to the inn as well.

It is hard for men on opposing sides to give up hostilities following a war and expect them to work side by side.

Her stomach twisted in knots and she turned to face the knight. “How do the men fair, Ser Selmy? I do hope that they haven’t caused too much trouble.”

The sigh that escaped the knight’s lips did not go unnoticed. “All is well for now, my lady. There is tension but of course that is to be expected. Little squabbles over minor things but they mostly keep to themselves. I had a talk with their commander, Ser Garibald, I believe, and arranged that the men of your cousin ride along your carriage. It is my hope their loyalty to you might outweigh their understandable resentment towards us. ”

Another sigh left his lips as he kept walking, either from fatigue or exasperation. “I hope that full stomachs will help ease the tensions among the men and that they will have dissipated by the time the Singing Towers come into view or I will be forced to order them back to the Roost…” he paused to gather his thoughts and measure his words carefully.

“My lady, if I can speak candidly, you must understand that I cannot risk those tensions to escalate beyond glares and whispered offenses, even if I must incur into your lord cousin’s displeasure.” He held her gaze, not with a hint of uncertainty.

“Of course,” she answered, mirroring back his stare. “Another conflict is the very last thing that this realm or rather this family needs.” She turned back to check on Maris, who followed them a few feet back, aided in her walk by Cissy.

“If anything were to break out between our men, I will not hesitate to quell the hostilities myself. If my cousin feels offended, then so be it.”

A warm chuckle was the Selmy’s response to her resolute words. “That is reassuring, my lady. Then we will have nothing to fear.”

Ahead of them as the inn came closer into view, Cassana spotted a curious sign.

The Dead Prince, it read paired with the image of a fallen crown. She thought the name to be rather ominous.

It was a humble cottage, small in size and hidden under the shade of a budding apple tree. Wildflowers clustered around the dirt path leading up to its entrance. The inn’s quaint appearance did not match its more menacing name. The door was wide open, both for the men and for the gentle spring breeze to come in with ease.

She could see her husband in clear view and her mood soured. He stood inside, speaking to an elderly woman whom she assumed to be the owner or the owner’s mother.

The words ‘pale prince’ left the woman as she nodded her head to Corliss, whose smile remained polite as he listened to her. Similarly to Cassana’s own, his smile wavered when encountering her gaze, yet it did not leave his face.

“Ser Jonothor.” Her husband nodded to the knight in recognition, who bowed his head in respect. All Cassana received was a glance and a silent nod.

“Papa!!”

Cassana couldn’t help but to feel a tinge of jealousy as Maris squirmed about out of the maid’s grasp and rushed out towards Corliss, hugging his leg. Ever since they were reunited, Cassana had noticed the insistent attention Maris showed towards her father, as if she wished to recover whatever time apart from her father she had endured.

Or mayhaps it was just the underlying sense of guilt Cassana still perceived at times at having separated father and daughter from one another.

She shook her head and banished the thought from her mind. What else could have she done? Kept herself from her daughter? No, Maris had been her only source of comfort and stability in the past months.

“Corliss,” Cassana addressed him in an aloof manner, standing tall with grace and poise.

A proper lady should always fight with etiquette and courtesies. The withered words of that damned septa ran through her head.

“Cassana,” Corliss echoed back in the same emotionless tone. He too stiffened his shoulders to readjust his posture. His hazel eyes, however, told a different tale, they appeared to be rather somber in appearance.

“Ah so I assume that this is your *princess*?” The elderly host rasped as she directed her attention onto Cassana. She bowed her head in recognition of her. “It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

“Yes, she is my wife.” He explained with a smile, which Cassana knew it was only out of politeness.

“It is a pleasure to meet you as well, my goodwoman,” Cassana greeted her politely with a curtsey.

Maris attempted to grasp at her mother’s skirts but to little avail. Instead, her tiny fingers brushed against the sable colored fabric. She let out a frustrated grunt, unable to hold on to them both. She managed to, only when Corliss stepped tentatively closer to Cassana after noticing her struggle, while she still half-hugged her father’s leg.

“Mama…” Maris babbled out, glancing up to the two of them. A shy but triumphant smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “I did it.” Her hands flapped slightly, still grasping on tightly to them.

Cassana couldn’t help but to mirror that grin back, a slight girlish giggle escaping as she did so. “Yes, you did, Maris, and we are proud of you.”

Her father’s approval was a fond pat atop the curls of her head and a soft “Well done.”

A few moments later, the innkeeper emerged from the back, half-carrying half-dragging a barrel. The dark eyes which met Cassana’s own widened sharply and soon he took off his hat in respect.

Head bowed low, he began “Milady and milord, it’s an honor to have you back.” He huffed his words as he wiped the sweat from his brow, before he hastened to make sure they first were seated and fed.

He called over a dozen of names and soon the inn was filled with a dozen helpers: a few boys setting their table and a couple of serving girls preparing to serve drinks while the innkeeper directed them to their assigned table. Cassana heard voices and bustling behind a door, which she imagined was the kitchen.

They were shown to a table that looked big enough for all Cassana’ close circle to sit, Cissy, Violet and young Ben, Maris and unfortunately her father too. On the other hand, Septa Falena, as pious as she was, excused herself from the table for her prayers, only asking for water and a piece of bread.

Cassana remembered that the septa would fast at times. However, her father had never permitted her to skip meals even when she was being educated by the old woman.

While they waited for their meals, Cassana made it a point to focus all her attention on her daughter, a perfect diversion to avoid meeting the gaze of her husband, whose seat was opposite of hers. Maris’ dangling legs hit a leg of the table and it shook but Maris seemed enthusiastic at the discovery that the table trembled when she kicked it and continued, a smile growing on her face.

“Maris!” came the reproach from Cissy, who promptly put a hand on her legs to stop. “Don’t.”

By the time their dishes arrived, Maris had stopped kicking the table leg and had started kicking her own chair, giggling at the quaking of her seat. When the fragrance of the stews filled the tavern, Cassana realized how famished she had been.

The journey from Storm’s End to Nightsong had been long and their stops fewer than she would have preferred but food had been the least of her concerns. After the long carriage rides, she often felt nauseous, taking as little food as she could to keep Septa Falena, Cissy and Violet from worrying over health. The thought of Griff and her father had closed her stomach even further.

However, the stew looked delicious and Maris looked positively entertained by her soup. Thus, Cassana was free to enjoy her stew and stare at her daughter’s quest of discovering many new ways to hold a spoon and use it to play with her food.

After a good while had passed, the serving staff had returned once more to collect the empty bowls. It took Cassana some time to notice that one of the girls had stopped to talk with her husband. The lass appeared to be far too comfortable with her words and one thing that stood out to Cassana was her swollen belly.

Though thinking upon it further, her brows furrowed as she came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be his. The girl was too far along.

Cassana relaxed her shoulders, secretly relieved.

She watched in silence, taking a small spoonful of stew as the woman began to introduce Corliss to her new husband, some butcher’s son. Laughter was shared amongst the three of them as the lass’s spouse thanked Lord Caron for footing the bill.

Corliss’ response was a good-natured smile and strong shake of the man’s hand. He saluted the couple with a whispered blessing of their future child. Cassana perceived a shadow in his gaze, a weight before it disappeared once their eyes met.

“So… how did you find the stew?”

“The taste is quite fine… yourself?” Anxiously, Cassana stirred the broth with her spoon.

“Good, yes. It was good.” He refilled his cup of water and drank, before glancing towards the side of the table where Maris was holding her spoon upside down and bringing the soup with it to her mouth.

A moment after, the soup dripped onto the table and part of her napkin, which Cissy had placed there beforehand.

“Maris,” Cassana’s voice gently chimed, catching Maris’s full attention. She held her spoon out her fingers pinching the silverware in the proper fashion. “Hold it like this.”

In one swift motion, she brought the stew to her mouth in demonstration to her daughter who would surely need to learn the etiquette of dining. “Blow on the broth to cool and then you sip.” And she did just so.

Maris’ brows were furrowed as she picked up her spoon. She changed her hold on it multiple times, her eyes darting back and forth to her mother’s hands and her own. Once satisfied, she dipped the spoon into the soup and brought it up.

“Blow on it to cool.” Cassana reminded her once she noticed Maris was bringing it directly to her mouth.

Maris blew, perhaps too strongly for a few drops of soup ended on the table. Her fingers attempted to pluck up the drops from the table but all too soon she realized it was futile.

In an impulsive gesture, she dropped the spoon with a pout back on the bowl. Then, she attempted to bring the soup to her face only to be stopped by her wetnurse.

“Use the spoon, not your hands.” Cissy told her in a commanding tone.

“No.” Maris shook her head and continued to pout.

“Well if you’re not going to feed yourself, I’ll do it.” The wetnurse moved her hand towards the bowl of soup.

“No!” Maris exclaimed, her tiny fists pounding the table. “I do it!”

“Fine. You do it.” Now holding the spoon, Cissy handed it to Maris.

Maris snatched the utensil from Cissy’s grasp and dipped it into the bowl once more. The broth turned and stirred with each clumsy dip as Maris aggressively fed herself. Bits of carrot and fish clung to her chin much to the dismay of her wetnurse.

“Maris…” Cissy warned as she attempted to take the spoon from her.

“No. I do it!” To make her statement even more assertive, her daughter almost stabbed the soup with her spoon. Uncaring of having spilled the crab soup over the table, Maris brought the spoon to her lips and drank it, spilling more drops of soup on the cloth that covered her dress.

Then she leaned over to grab her cup of water, which she was sad to find empty.

Turning to her wet nurse, Maris held out her cup in a way that showed that the cup was indeed empty and needed refilling. “I want water.”

Cassana was quick to wipe her child’s mouth while Cissy filled her cup with more water.

“Maris,” at her father’s voice she turned, “what do we say now?”

“What?” Maris asked with profound confusion as she turned to look to her mother for confirmation, while still holding her cup filled with water.

“What do you say when someone does something for you, Maris?” Cassana asked while finishing to wipe her mouth from the soup and water.

“Oh…” A glint of realization appeared in Maris’ eye and turned to look at her father. “Thanks, Papa.”

“Ah, you’re welcome, darling” was Corliss’ awkward response to the thanks that were meant for her wet nurse, accompanied by a stiff smile. With a satisfied nod of her head, Maris resumed the arduous task of bringing soup to her mouth with the wooden spoon while alternating sipping water from her cup.

After a few more spoonfuls and hearing neighs from outside, Maris decided she wanted to speak about horses: black, brown and white. Brown horses were her favorite but the ones with the brown hair and not the black hair, at least that’s what Cassana gathered from her daughter's speech.

“Can horses carry me?”

“When you are older, sweetling.” Cassana replied gently and quickly she noticed the downhearted pout that had begun to form on her face. “You just need to grow a bit bigger.”

She heard Corliss attempt and fail to stifle a chortle and almost choked on his crab stew. He took his kerchief and covered his mouth while clearing his throat. Once the coughing subsided, he let out a small, slightly embarrassed smile.

“Pardon me.”

He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with the handkerchief and regaled his dining companion with an amiable smile. Albeit for a brief moment, Cassana clenched her spoon when she caught herself recognizing that indeed her husband’s smile was charming.

“Regarding the matter of horses, I agree with your mother. Mayhaps when you’re older, I shall give you one for your nameday. A brown horse with brown hair.”

“Mama! Papa!” Maris squealed, attempting to stand from her seat to reach for her mother. The action alarmed her wetnurse who picked her up from her seat and set her down before she could climb on the table.

Once Maris was at her side, Cassana found her hands waving about, intertwined with her daughters’ ones.

“I get horse! I get horse!” Maris halts her chant for a second and, while still holding her hands, turns her head to look at her father.

“Thanks, Papa.”

A sense of warmth welled in her chest, watching as Maris excitedly jumped about. Cassana still kept her grasp on her daughter’s palms, perfectly content. Laughter was shared amongst the table and even young Ben squirmed in his aunt’s arms. Her gaze wandered over and locked with that of her husband. His cheerful grin slowly faded as he swiftly averted his eyes away.

Cassana too moved her glance from his direction, choosing to instead focus on Maris. A sense of profound comfort settled in her heart at her daughter’s giggles. Cassana couldn’t help but brush her fingers gingerly through her daughter’s strawberry curls.

Despite the losses she had endured, she was relieved to have Maris by her side.

The night was warm, which was more than Joanna could say for Damon.

Having insisted on spending the rest of his own party alone, she saw no point in loitering where she was not welcome. Joanna departed without fuss– though she did instruct the servants to ensure a spread of bread, fruit, and cheese was sent to their chambers before returning to their guests. A game of cards had begun in their absence, though which she could not discern, and rather than insert herself she kept marching by, intent on making use of the tufted cushions spread out before the lake.

She did not make it even two steps past before she heard Ryon Farman making his excuses. Rolland ribbed him, his voice echoing across the whole of the courtyard, but it did little to deter her companion, who found her easily– carrying two glasses overful with wine, no less.

“I was expecting the pair of you to retire for the rest of the night,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that I’m grateful His Grace has decided to let you share in the fruits of your labour instead.”

Ryon offered her an arm and left it at that, and Joanna was incredibly grateful for it. They wandered down to the lakeside and he helped her settle into one of the cushions set out for them.

“I mean it, Joanna. It was a lovely party. You should be proud of yourself.”

“I am.”

He handed her one of the crystal goblets he’d been cradling, the fine polished glass marred by his fingerprints. She cast her gaze across the water, rippling gently at the shore, but she could feel Ryon staring at her rather than the roaring waterfall in the distance.

“What?” Joanna asked, unable to keep the edge from her voice.

“I was just trying to figure out where you’d gone.”

“You’re a sailor, not a poet. No need to remind me of the fact.”

He laughed. The glass of wine he’d brought was far from her first, but she drank from it without reservation. It would be better to blame her blush on the Dornish red than his laughter.

“You’ve not changed so much,” Ryon remarked.

“Were you worried that I had?”

“Seldom does one venture to King’s Landing and come back unchanged.”

Joanna scoffed. “I loathed King’s Landing.”

It was the truth, and Ryon seemed to know it enough not to press too hard. He offered a smile instead. “As though Casterly is an improvement.”

She elbowed him. “It is. You know it is.”

“I can’t imagine it, living cooped up in the belly of a mountain.” Ryon took a sip from his own cup, staring out across the still lake with its floating candles and rowboat full of flowers. “No sun, no windows, and the only glimpses of the sea to be had are from as far from it as possible. Seems more a prison than a palace.”

“Yes, well, I would rather suffer the indignation of climbing a few stairs for sunlight than brave every summer storm alone on an island.”

“You wouldn’t be alone.”

Joanna cut her gaze over to him then. He was more keen than she gave him credit for. She looked away quickly when she felt her face flush, and rubbed her thumb along the pattern of her chalice’s step. After too long a silence, she went to drink only to find it empty. She let the crystal cup fall gently onto the grass between them.

“Your motto… the most happy.” Ryon finished the last of his and set it down with more deliberacy. “I’ve seen it painted on the plaster here, above the doorways. Do you feel that way?”

Joanna blinked. The world was beginning to tilt a little. Perhaps she ought to have counted her cups after all.

“Of course I do. Sometimes.”

“Sometimes.”

“No one is ever happy all the time.”

She went to set her cup upright when he caught her hand, wrapping both of his over her palm. She hadn’t realised her fingers were cold until they were suddenly enveloped in the warmth of his own.

“Are you happy now, Joanna?”

No one had ever bothered to ask her such an embarrassing question before.

“Of course you are.” Ryon released her, speaking as though the implication was preposterous. “It’s only that if you weren’t, I might think of some way to please you.”

“To please me?” The words came out more suggestive than Joanna intended, a reminder of her wasted talent for flattery, a natural tendency for her voice to sound like honey. The drink made it worse.

“I confess, I have thought of a great many ways a man like me might please a woman like you.”

Joanna blushed. She hardly ever blushed and now he had made her do it thrice. There was something about Ryon that made her feel like a girl – like a foolish maiden. For a brief moment, Joanna thought she’d give anything to make it true. To be so naive.

She flopped back into the cushions and sighed. The stars were beginning to emerge. They were blurry, so far away.

“A woman like me is difficult to please.”

“A man like me disagrees.”

Ryon had reclined onto his side, propped up on his elbow. She could see him out of the corner of her eye but didn’t dare turn towards him. She could feel the way he was looking at her. It was the way she had looked at Damon all these years. Like staring into the sun, even knowing that it might hurt.

“A man like me would make a woman like you very happy indeed, given the opportunity. A woman like you… she need only say the word, and I am convinced a man like me would marry her tomorrow.”

“Even if she were already married? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“It is of no consequence. Men like me have known bloodshed for less honourable reasons.”

Joanna looked at him then.

“Even if she had children? Even… even if there were some question of what her children stood to inherit?”

She avoided the word bastard like the plague. It felt only a half truth to call Willem such a thing here, on the land she hoped she might convince his father to allow him to inherit someday.

“There would be no question. Not if she were married to a man like me.”

Joanna tried to recall the days before Ryon and the others had arrived – the days spent in a peaceful, dreamlike state. But all she could recall was the letter Daena had loosed when she set down her biscuit tray. The one that Damon had been keeping so close to him, with its painful scrawl and overly familiar tone.

The one from Danae.

Damon could make such pretty speeches, but a pretty lie was still a lie. Joanna fought the urge to swallow, to blink, to give any indication that the words from Ryon had moved her. They hadn’t, she knew. Because unlike Damon, I don’t make a godsdamned habit of breaking promises.

“It’s a very lovely sentiment, I think, Ryon, but sentiment is better served by poets… and you already know my stance on your attempts at poetry.”

Marrying her would ruin him. She knew it, even if he refused to see it himself. It wouldn’t be her that paid the price but him, and she could never make someone suffer just for the chance to love her.

When she chanced to look at him, she recognised the expression on his face at once – like he’d just had the breath stolen from his lungs by the ache in his chest.

“You’ve made him no vows.”

“You needn’t remind me.” Joanna sat up, smoothing her hair and then her gown. Her head was beginning to ache, and she straightened some of the cushions. “I’ve made him no vows, but I have made him promises.”

They were interrupted by a man clearing his throat. Joanna hadn’t heard Joffrey approach, though whether that was due to the dull roar of the waterfall in the distance or the practised silence of the knight’s steps, she could not say.

She looked up at him and found his gaze soft. There was no judgement in those honey brown eyes of his, but there was pity. She wasn’t sure which she might have hated more.

“The men are gambling,” he said, addressing Ryon after giving Joanna a respectful nod. “My brother insisted you join them, Lord Ryon.”

The hesitancy in Ryon’s smile was so small, Joanna was sure Joffrey hadn’t noticed it.

“Ah, of course,” he said, and Jo was certain that he didn’t believe it. “I had best not keep Lord Gerion waiting.”

Joanna found she had to lean most of her weight on Joffrey as they walked back towards the castle.

“Shall I take you to your chambers, my lady?”

Joanna shook her head. She veered instead for the table, in search of another drink. Of conversation that bore no real weight.

“No,” she said, not inclined to retire for the night.

There was no point in lingering where she was not welcome.

A spring wedding was a more lovely affair than a winter one - she decided - and House Velaryon had organized a greater one than she had expected.

After a week of revelries at her cousin’s wedding, Rhaenys’ mind had been filled with melodies, dances and scenes of feasting, the likes of which she hadn’t seen in a while.

Even once she had returned to court, she could recall the jugglers and fire-breathers that blew fire before her eyes, and she would hum the exotic tunes of the performers as she sorted through and reorganized Her Grace’s correspondence. Ysela had commented on the skip in her step as they walked in the halls of the Red Keep.

It had truly been a lovely event.

Though, if she could be honest, she had felt both flattered and humbled at the reverence the Velaryons had shown her. They had given her a high seat of honor at the banquets, near them. They’d even offered her gifts just before she boarded the ship headed to King’s Landing. One for her and one for Corliss.

“You’re our guest of honor.” Aunt Valaena had explained with a honey sweet smile. The same one she had worn when they met years ago. Then, her aunt had presented her with a silver brooch with five pearls placed to resemble flower petals. Corliss’ pin was less decorated, the pearls absent but the silver was shaped to resemble a nightingale.

It was a thoughtful gift, to be sure, yet she felt it unnecessary to add it to the already long list of attention and favors they had shown her during her stay.

“It is a tactic. A carefully crafted one, certainly but a tactic all the same.” Emphyria’s eyes were resting on the brooch pinned to her gown after Rhaenys had finished recounting the feast to her.

They were walking in the gardens and Rhaenys made sure that in their strolling they would not find their way to the part where the argument between her and Edmyn Plumm had taken place. As expected, Jenny, Emphyria’s personal maid, and Holly, the same maid that had accompanied her to Driftmark, were walking at a respectful distance behind them.

Rhaenys was glad that Emphyria had asked for a meeting. It had been weeks since they last saw each other and she had started to fear Emphyria would never show her face at court again. She didn’t bring up the argument and Rhaenys complied with the unspoken request, even if it still lingered in a corner of her mind.

“What makes you think so?” Emphyria’s eyes glinted at her question.

“It is politically advantageous.” She answered with confidence, while fanning herself with a hand fan. “The Velaryons are not what they used to be. A dragon queen rules and they grovel at your feet to re-establish the ancient connection with House Targaryen.”

“They are my relatives. They do not need to overextend themselves so terribly.”

“On the contrary, it is precisely why they must.”

Once again, Rhaenys was at loss in front of words that Emphyria spoke with such absolute certainty. Then, the Massey leaned over, drawing the fan closer as if it were a shield to protect the privacy of the secret that should be revealed.

“My mother says that nowadays if Velaryons didn’t wear teal coloured clothing and seahorse patches one would hardly be able to distinguish them from common sailors or merchants. It has been years, centuries even, since they had any political relevance in Westeros. Their name risked disappearing before the bastards were legitimized. And even their Lysene glory has faded years ago.”

‘I do not think that is the case’, she wished to retort, but Edmyn Plumm’s stern look when she had not given credit to his opinion regarding Emphyria resurfaced in her mind as a warning. Thus, Rhaenys was grateful she had her fan to conceal her contrite expression.

Yet Emphyria didn’t concede her moment of peace. “What is it that you told me? What your uncle said when you two met?” She tapped her chin twice in deep thought before she faced Rhaenys again.

Rhaenys recalled the words with stark clarity.

“You must know, Rhaenys, that I never wanted this. It was my brother who arranged my legitimisation and my rise to Lordship. By rights, I know that Driftmark very well should have passed to your brother, through Alys. Or indeed to yourself. Perhaps you may have taken our name… Well, it does no good to talk of paths not taken. Know only that you may not have our name but have as much right to Lord of the Tides as I do, and that you and your brother will always be considered part of our house… With all the duties and favours that must entail.”

The pearl brooch she pinned to the front of her dress always felt heavier than it was when she considered those words. It had caused her to ponder about what her life would have been like as a Lady of Driftmark, taken as a child to the Velaryon island, her mother her regent while her father and brother remained in Nightsong.

Mayhaps High Valyrian would have become a second nature to her, like Princess Daena, instead of the difficulties she faced when approaching the language. Would the sea have also become such an integral part of her life that she would not fear it as she did at present?

Just like back then, Rhaenys stared at the way one of her had sought refuge into the sleeves of her dress while the other clenched her fan.

“Shall we walk in the shade? I fear the sun is not sparing us today.” Emphyria suggested, while staring at the sun behind the protection of her fan’s cloth. Even if it was just Spring, certain days the sunrays has started to feel scorching and not always a breeze from the Narrow Sea helped them alleviate the heat.

“What would you have answered?” Rhaenys found herself asking, while taking the route to comply with Emphyria’s request, a tree-lined path closer to the side of the Red Keep.

“Me?” It was the first time Emphyria had looked utterly distraught at one of her questions. Her dark eyes went to the white, blue, red and green insignia on her fan before she closed it.

“I would have been enthusiastic to be a lady of my own house. It might be the only way my mother would stop pressuring me into finding a suitor.” There was a smile of relief on the Massey’s face before it turned somber not a moment later.

“No, in truth she would have been even worse about the matter, may the Mother spare me, but I would have been THE Lady Velaryon, not a third cousin of the Lord Massey. At least, I would have had the illusion of free choice as to whom my husband would be.”

The courteous smile Emphyria always wore was gone, replaced by a bittersweet one.

“ I would have not to settle for… less.” Her tone had grown in pitch and Rhaenys worriedly glanced over at the pair of maids who thankfully didn’t seem to notice the distress and tension of their conversation.

Emphyria’s hand was clenching the fan so tightly that Rhaenys feared it might shatter. Emphyria had never looked so vulnerable, she thought, even if she looked more angry than sad.

“You never told me your own answer to your uncle.”

“Oh,” Rhaenys did not expect the sudden change. She had been about to offer her help in regards to suitors if that was what her mother was tormenting her about.

After all, in her time at court, Rhaenys had met many lords, many lords’ first sons and second sons that she could introduce to Emphyria. There could be someone among them that her friend could find agreeable enough as a spouse and that could make a sensible match that would please her mother. If needed, Rhaenys could even just listen to Emphyria vent the frustrations out of her chest as she hardly confided in her about more sensitive matters.

“I said…”

‘I am happy as I am’, she almost admitted but something in Emphyria’s gaze told her such a simple answer would displease her. She had been frank with her uncle, however, because Driftmark was not King’s Landing. There was no need to conceal, no need to deny what she wished for, desired or thought. Even if Emphyria believed otherwise.

“I am happy as I am, uncle. Truly. I am grateful to stand before you as family rather than to rule over you as the Lady Velaryon. You have my sincerest thanks for letting me know House Velaryon shares this sentiment.”

“I said… he would have regretted the choice of succession once he found High Tide filled with cats of all sizes and fur colors to please his Lady Velaryon.” Much like her uncle, Emphyria chuckled at her jest but hers was a dry laugh. Nonetheless, Rhaenys smiled, content that her attempt at lifting the mood of the conversation had been successful.

The sea breeze had begun blowing, cooling the air and making the sun bearable again. The shade, on the other hand, was growing a tad too cold.

“And yet I was fortunate enough to find myself in the Crownlands, after all.” Rhaenys chirped, a skip returning to her step as she stepped once again in the sunlight.

“Yes, as a handmaiden of the Queen, nonetheless.” Emphyria had remained in the shade provided by the tree-lined next to the garden path, swatting a fly away with a flick of her fan. “Some people are truly favored by the Seven Above.”

Rhaenys’ smile remained still on her face, unsure on how to contribute to the conversation and Emphyria’s tight lipped smile was not helping. She could not send an unspoken request of help to Holly as she had remained behind, engrossed in a chat with Jenny.

“I always wondered, Rhaenys, have you ever considered what it would be like if you hadn’t been taken into Her Grace’s service?” Emphyria had remained still in the shade, her fan closed and resting by her left cheek.

“Not really.” Rhaenys confessed. She found the shade had grown too cold with the wind picking up its speed but the Massey seemed unfazed.

Emphyria hummed, pensive.

“You’d probably still be home in your castle. In the Stormlands. Indeed, I remember your mother is quite strict, even worse than mine by comparison but who could blame her after losing her husband, your father.” Emphyria stepped in closer, reaching for her hands and squeezed them in her gloved ones, an expression full of sorrow upon her face.

“She hadn’t let you out of Nightsong till you were almost a woman grown. Oh dear, that’s too awful to think about.” Rhaenys wanted to say something but the more she listened the more she felt a prickle by her eyes. The hold on her hands was strong rather than gentle, trapping her to listen. She couldn’t hide her hands in her sleeves.

“To consider that we would have never met and become such good friends. Well the same would be true for you and the other handmaidens too. That you would not be here with your cats dallying about, carefree as you are. It pains me so terribly, Rhaenys. You were so fortunate to be chosen by Her Grace out of kindness.”

When Rhaenys felt the warmth of tears upon her lids, she managed to retract her hands from Emphyria and turn around, her hands immediately hiding in her sleeves.

“A-as my uncle says, it’s no good to talk of paths not taken..” Her voice was croaky even as she attempted to compose herself, dabbing with her sleeves at her eyes. When she turned to face Emphyria, she forced her lips into a polite smile.

“W-we should finish our walk. I fear it may rain soon.” Rhaenys gestured to the dark clouds looming overhead but for the first time she was glad she had an excuse to escape.

Two days and nearly fifty miles up the Knife’s edge, the Lockes were sitting around the morning cookfire, breaking their fast on strips of bacon. Sylas was the only one of the triplets who had visited White Harbour since Androw Manderly’s death, and had his characteristic list of unlikely anecdotes from the city.

Halfway through one of his stories, Valena accidentally dropped her fork in the mud. She didn’t give it a second glance before she started shovelling bacon into her mouth with her fingers, wiping grease from her chin with her knuckle.

“I can get you another fork, sister,” Sylas offered, the momentum of his tale faltering.

She swallowed down her mouthful, feeling a little bad – not for being unladylike, but for interrupting her brother’s story. “No, sorry, Sylas. I’m just rushing, ignore me.”

“Why the rush?” Harwin asked.

“I want to visit Latchwood before we go on.”

Harwin took a bite of his food, shooting her a question with his brows.

“I know that name,” Sylas said, squinting frustratedly.

“It’s an old holdfast near here,” Valena said. “Built around the same time as Shackleton. I’m going to have a look after I finish eating. If you want to accompany me, I could tell you about it on the way.”

Both boys nodded their assent, and soon afterward the triplets had readied and mounted their horses. Jorah offered to accompany them, but Valena assured him they would be safe without him. The rest of their retinue wished them well, not complaining of the opportunity to relax before they set out again. As they left the loose ring of carriages, Harwin was on Magpie, as always, Sylas astride a stubborn grey mare he called Harridan, and Valena on Surefoot, the red palfrey.

Valena led her brothers a little down the road before she found the long-overgrown path that led into the sentinel forest. Surefoot strode confidently through the underbrush, while behind them Valena could hear Magpie and Harridan hesitate and complain when they couldn’t see a clear path.

In all, the journey was no more than half an hour. They drifted between the grey-green trunks, and were quiet for the first while as they digested their meal. As they drew closer, Valena’s grip on the reins tightened. Remembering the tome she had stowed in her saddlebag, her eyes darted around, looking for any sign of Latchwood’s outer walls. Details of the history seemed to tangle one another on their way to her mouth.

“I told you about Brandon Locke, didn’t I?” she asked her brothers, not wanting to sound over-eager to share.

“He was the one who enjoyed puns, if I recall?” Harwin said.

A paragraph of reminders swept itself away behind Valena’s lips. “Indeed. Well, he was the lord before and during Aegon’s Conquest. He built Latchwood for his second son, so the second son could have his own holding to pass on.”

“Shit, father never built Edd his own castle,” Sylas commented.

Valena waved off the jape away as her mind grappled with the actual point contained within. “Well, there are some accounts that say Brandon’s firstborn might have been a bastard, or at least Brandon thought so. Different maesters, different versions of the story. Regardless, Brandon wasn’t overfond of him.”

She paused for a moment as she ducked under a low-hanging branch, and something caught her eye ahead – a patch of smooth mossy grey between the mottled trunks of the forest.

“I think I see the walls!” she managed before she flicked her reins without a second thought. Surefoot jolted forward over the uneven ground, and Harwin’s calls for her to take care fell on deaf ears.

Indeed, there was a wall, or at least the ruins of one. It had never been the thick, stair-laden wall of a true castle, and it had long since crumbled, surrounded by its own rubble. Its tallest remaining point was perhaps Valena’s height, and there were plenty of places to climb through. Away to their left, a particularly large pile of debris stood in place of the old gatehouse.

Valena pulled up a few feet from a break in the wall, dismounting smoothly and hitching Surefoot to a sturdy-looking sapling. She retrieved the book from the saddlebag, ignoring the calls from her brothers behind her.

Clambering over the lowest point in the wall, she regretted that she had not taken a moment to gird her dress as moss scraped and stained the wool. On the other side, the courtyard of Latchwood Hold stretched out before her, overgrown with trees and shrubbery. At first glance, the walled patch of forest seemed like nothing more than a poorly-maintained godswood, save for a missing heart tree. But ahead of her, between the trunks, under hanging boughs and looming over bush and leaf alike, she saw what remained of the central keep. Much of the facade of its lowest floor still stood, though the two storeys she knew had once crowned the keep were long gone.

As she picked her way through the underbrush, she opened the book in her arms, skipping past lengthy essays, quotations, glossaries and family trees until she found the illustrations. One showed the proud holdfast in its former glory, fine ink depicting details and carvings that centuries had since beaten from the stone.

She reached the entranceway, and looked up to the wide slab that formed the top of the doorframe. Valena reached towards it, pulling stubborn ivy away from the stone. There were faint impressions where words had once been carved.

Harwin was the first to reach her. “I didn’t realise it’d be so overgrown,” he commented.

Valena didn’t answer. Her gaze fell, looking through the doorway, to the grasses that had grown by feasting on rotten floorboards, and the uneven remains of a stairway. She flicked through another few pages of her tome, finding the floor plans, and stepped through the keep’s threshold.

“Where’s she going?” she heard Sylas ask, but Harwin’s reply was indistinct and unsure. All the same, their footsteps followed hers. Valena led the way towards the back of the keep, past the outline of a modest hall and what must have been an armoury, identifiable only by rust stains where blades had once leaned against the walls.

When they emerged into the yard proper, Harwin spoke up again. “What happened to Lord Brandon’s children?”

Valena glanced back. “At first, they ignored one another. When Brandon died, the firstborn inherited Oldcastle. A sickness came through and killed him and his sons, so his grandson, Howland took over. He wasn’t popular. Married a Borrell girl, converted to the Seven. There were riots in Shackleton. A sept was built, and burned. A lot of people started going to Lord Jon of Latchwood, Brandon’s grandson, asking him to correct his cousin’s sins.”

“Hard to imagine riots over the Seven in Shackleton now,” Harwin commented, though he sounded uncertain.

“That’s what had Marlon so worried, the night he died,” Sylas pointed out.

Valena returned her attention to the plans, her search. They couldn’t be far now. The boys were quiet for a moment, before Harwin asked, “You don’t think people would get angry about us working with the Faith a little, do you?”

“Hard to say,” Valena replied idly, bending to push aside the grasses and feel the ground.

“Benjicot’s putting a friendly face on the Seven in Oldcastle,” Sylas said.

Valena straightened, then turned to point a finger at Harwin. “Don’t give him a holding. Even if he’s the best holdfast keeper to ever grace the North, it won’t go well.”

Her brother raised his hands defensively. “I wasn’t going to.” He scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I asked him to speak with the Order of the Green Hand, if he’s able to, in White Harbour. He said he met an initiate once. I was hoping they might be convinced to help us with Shackleton and the refugees.”

Valena considered that. “Risky, brother, but not a terrible idea. As long as it doesn’t look like they’re influencing you.”

Harwin shrugged. “Benji said it was unlikely, at any rate.”

Valena nodded, turned, and, taking a step, felt something hard against her foot. She looked down. Half-obscured by moss, and more rust than iron, the pull-ring of the trap door may as well have been pure gold for how her heart quickened at the sight of it.

“Sylas, help me with this,” she called. He came up beside her, and they both gripped the ring. Some of the ancient trap door lifted, splitting and cracking along seams of rot. They both nearly lost their balance when the ring and its bracing pulled free of the wood.

“I’ll get it,” Sylas assured her, pulling gloves from his belt to grip the splintering edges of the door.

Valena stood back, shoulder-to-shoulder with Harwin, watching their brother work.

“What ended up happening with Howland and Jon?” Harwin asked.

“Jon tried to give Howland advice, for a time, but was thrown out of Oldcastle. Tensions got worse, and some maesters say that Jon was planning to overthrow Howland altogether.”

Sylas finally pulled the rest of the door up, scattering shards of old wood. He glanced down the tunnel, and reported, “Vines. Or roots, I don’t know.”

“Can you cut through them?” Valena asked. Sylas just shrugged, grinned and pulled a shortsword from his belt. He was the only one of them who had thought to arm himself.

“What do you think about Jon?” Harwin questioned as they slowly followed Sylas down dusty old stairs into a basement obscured by darkness and the hanging roots of overgrown sentinels. Fingers of light crept through cracks in the floor above, and flooded in from the stairwell. Valena wondered how long it had been since anyone had seen this place.

“I don’t think it mattered what Jon wanted. His rebellion came either way.”

“I hadn’t realised we had one of those.”

“It was a small one,” Valena said, taking care to skip a step run through with cracks. “One decisive battle. This was when Maegor was the King on the Iron Throne, and made an enemy of the faith. Howland called his levies, meaning to go south and support the Faith Militant. Most of his bannermen flocked to Latchwood instead, telling Jon he must rise up, so he did.”

They reached the end of the staircase and began picking their way through the hanging roots, the brothers giving Valena the lead once again.

“Jon’s firstborn died in the battle, and Jon killed Howland. That was the end of it, regarding succession.”

“Howland didn’t have sons?” Sylas asked. Valena appreciated the reassurance that he had been listening.

“None that the histories remember. Either way, a knight of Sweetsister murdered Jon after the battle. He was Lord of Oldcastle for all of three hours.”

“So who inherited?”

Valena felt something bump against her foot and she took a step, and reached out for what she had kicked. The timber was dusty and shrunken with rot and age, but it was an easel. Despite the darkness, she smiled. They had to be close.

“Jon’s son,” she said, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness of this black corner. “But he was only four. His sister, Jon’s daughter and eldest, became regent. For twelve years, a Lady of Oldcastle ruled these lands, and ruled them well.”

Valena rummaged blindly at the wall she felt looming in front of her. She found the braces for a long-rotted shelf, ivy and moss, and, as he stooped towards the ground, what she had hoped to discover. Old, dry leather, bent into long tubes. Three here, perhaps more elsewhere. She grabbed them, and turned back for the stairway.

“What about when Jon’s son turned sixteen?” Sylas asked as she pushed past her brothers, “What happened to his sister?”

The overcast sky was sharply bright when Valena emerged from the basement.

“She came here,” Valena said. She looked at the leather tubes, relieved to see them sealed, their brass buckles dirty but uncorroded. She opened the first of them, pulling its contents gingerly out of the case that had protected them through the centuries.

“She came here and she ruled,” Valena said, unfurling the canvas, kneeling on the ground to spread it gently out before them, “and she remembered.”

The oil painting was beautiful, its edges only slightly marred by age and nibbling bugs. On it stood an armoured figure, salt-and-pepper hair spilling from a braid, long bearded face obscured in shadow. The greatsword in his hand was bloody, and he stood in what was recognizably the throne room of Oldcastle, a crumpled corpse in bloodstained Locke regalia at his feet and an open, bleeding wound over his heart.

The triplets were silent as they stared at it. They were the first to see this in over four centuries, and in that moment they were together in feeling that in their hearts.

Harwin knelt, and gently lifted one of the curled corners of the canvas. On the other side, a note was inscribed in faded charcoal. A title.

“My Father, Beloved Kinslayer,” Harwin read aloud.

Without speaking, Valena stood, and went to another case. The next painting was another man, cloaked in bearskin, young and tall and thoughtful before Oldcastle’s grim weirwood. His silver eyes were full of hope and sorrow alike.

“He looks like Marlon,” Harwin said.

Valena looked at him for a moment, smiling to herself. Marlon had never worn his hair that long, and was stockier besides. But Harwin would never see himself in a proud lord, not even his namesake. Valena checked this title herself. Lord Brother.

The last canvas had the most stubborn latch, and Valena saw its title as she pulled it free. Self Portrait, 68 AC. Valena blew the dust off it carefully, and laid it out on a piece of ground that Sylas had scraped completely free of moss.

A beautiful older woman looked out from the canvas, grey hair streaked with the last vestiges of her youth. Silver keys interlocked in a chain around her neck, and her dress was a deep purple lined with grey furs. Her eyes were kind, and tired, and bright with intelligence. The Lady of Latchwood smiled gently out at her kin, and Valena felt something inside herself settle.

“What was her name?” Sylas asked.

That brought a smile to her lips. “The same as all the smartest girls.”

“Valena,” Harwin said.

“Pass the wine, would you?”

It was perhaps the loveliest party Joanna had ever organised.

Even the sun lingered in its attendance, evening rays cast long across the neatly manicured lawn. A white canvas canopy stretched over a long mahogany dining table, covered with a swath of soft white linen that sprawled over its length. The crystal chandeliers that hung overhead twinkled in the gentle breeze, chiming in on the din of pleasant conversation as they shed the last of the sun’s light across her guests’ happy faces.

Everyone was talking all at once, but it was like music. While what remained of their feast had begun to grow cold upon their gilded plates, there was plenty enough wine left to entertain them all. With the children long abed, Joanna had granted herself permission to indulge— enough now that her head was fuzzy with drink and her cheeks were flushed pink. By her third cup, she even found Lysa’s incessant chattering pleasant, though she masked her amusement behind her embroidered fan when Joffrey sent her a look of utter reproach from the opposite side of the table.

Behind them, the servants had begun to light the candles meant to float along the lake, sending them off carefully in an effort to keep the flame from catching the floral arrangements that hung from the newly-repaired rowboat that bobbed at the shoreline.

“… don’t you agree, Jo?” asked Damon, his hand sliding over the swell of her knee beneath her table.

“Hmm?”

She snapped her fan shut, dragging it beneath her chin as she turned to face him. Perhaps it was the wine, or the sentiment of the occasion, or simply that he had not touched her in such a way for so long, but when she caught his gaze— those kind green eyes soft when fixed upon her— she felt butterflies swirl low in her belly.

He was devastatingly handsome in white, the possessive flowering vines that swirled about his collar embroidered in gold by her own hand. He wore his age well, though the worry lines that creased his forehead were deeper than she had hoped they might be.

“Lord Eon was speaking of the gruesome murders in Lannisport. I told him such topics are ill-suited for such a lovely supper table.”

“Well, my love, it simply wouldn’t be a proper dinner party if Lord Eon didn’t manage to spoil his dessert with some morbid conversation or another.”

They kissed, and when Jo righted herself she caught Ryon looking a little forlorn. He had seated himself diagonally from her and made a great show of chatting with an increasingly-intoxicated Rolland Banefort, swapping stories and laughter, but his gaze always came back to her.

And it was always less merry then.

Joanna was quick to devise a distraction, peering down to the far end of the table rather than risk souring Damon’s otherwise pleasant mood. Darlessa was far enough into her cups that she had begun to threaten to dance upon the table, but despite the clamour, Edmyn– sat at the very corner by his lonesome– did not look up from his baked apples, pushing them around his plate with disdain.

She imagined she ought to have felt sorry for him, but after her conversation with Darlessa she could find no sympathy to spare.

“A grisly affair, I’ll admit,” Lord Crakehall said, “but one that nonetheless requires attention. A letter reached me just the other day saying that another life has been claimed – this one of the merchant class.”

Edmyn seemed to sit up at that, but Eon continued.

“His death only confounds the matter, as it seems the killer chooses based on neither sex nor status.”

Edmyn slumped back into his seat and Joanna did not fail to catch the apologetic look Elena sent her from her husband’s side.

“I could have sworn I barred any letters with ill contents from this haven,” Joanna said with her gentlest smile. It was, of course, a lie. She read all correspondence to and from Elk Hall.

“I’ve heard of this butcher as well,” chimed in lord Gerion, swirling the contents of his umpteeth glass of wine with a furrowed brow. “Foul enough that even the bards won’t sing of him.”

“Are you certain it is a man behind the murders?” asked Lysa. Her desperation to be seen as insightful in the eyes of Ryon Farman was obvious, though she at least had the wherewithal to avoid looking directly at him when she asked the question. “Surely a woman could be just as capable, given the right motivation.”

“And men provide plenty,” said Darlessa, arousing a laugh from the table.

Damon only smiled weakly. “I’ll have it looked into,” he said, then added, “...again.”

Joanna could see the topic beginning to creep into his mind and was eager to change the subject, but a commotion beat her to it.

The clatter from across the table nearly startled her from her seat, the weight of both Joffrey and Damon’s careful gazes quickly upon her rather than the offender. Rolland, for his part, took no notice of how his bumbling had unduly frightened her, slapping the napkin from his lap down onto his plate with a crooked grin as a servant rushed to clean the spilt wine.

“Don’t you think–” Banefort started, holding up his half-empty cup in question. “It’s high time you delivered your speech, Your Grace?”

“Lord Banefort! It is the duty of the guests to celebrate His Grace!” Joanna said indignantly.

“Oh. Well… I haven’t anything prepared, my lady, but if you insist–”

“It’s no worry, Rolland.” Joanna wasn’t quite sure Damon spoke genuinely or if he were only of the same mind as herself – that it would be better that Lord Banefort did not speak at all.

“I shall have a fine speech for you, Your Grace,” the young heir said anyway. “I have no doubts your sentiments will inspire my own.”

“Oh,” Joanna scowled across the table. “Spare us.”

Damon stood on steady feet, his cup still as full as it had been when the first course had been served. If it was his aim to be so abstemious then she saw little point in protesting.

“No toast could begin tonight without raising a glass to those women among us,” Damon said, lifting his cup as he looked down the length of their table.

“Hear, hear!” Rolland shouted as he raised his own, newly refilled, the other men following suit as well.

“And not only for their gentle love, but for their steadfast patience.”

Joanna did not miss how Elena squeezed Eon’s hand, for she missed nothing.

“What an honour it is to see my thirty-ninth nameday in the company of such fine people – Harrold, who tolerates me–” Some of the men laughed. “– and who is always honest, even when most men would be frightened of speaking the truth. For that I am eternally in your debt.”

There was something in Damon’s tone, something normally absent from his japes or stories, and it prompted a long silence afterwards in which only the cicadas and bullfrogs could be heard. There was a gravity to the words, and Harrold looked almost emotional. His mouth tightened and he tried to look at the table, but Ryon was putting an arm around him and echoing the praise.

“Eon,” Damon went on. “Sometimes it seems as though you were born for your role. For as many times as I have cursed your counsel I have followed it, and twice as often have I thanked the Crone for sending you as her proxy. I pray that your life is long, so that my children, too, can benefit from your moral guidance.”

Eon averted his eyes with a gruff sort of acceptance, and Elena beamed.

“Gerion,” Damon said next, raising his cup to the Lefford. “The siege in the Riverlands would have felt twice as long without your company. Twenty years, instead of ten, perhaps…”

Gerion laughed along with the others, raising his own cup back. Joanna found it harder to smile. It had been a damned long war for her, pregnant and alone save for a Lydden of her own.

“And Ryon, who hosted the most memorable Tournament of the Three Ships in all of history!” Damon went on. “We have shared a boat now. I think that makes us brothers, in a way. I am glad that together we have freed our houses from the grudges of our fathers.”

Ryon lifted his cup, and Joanna averted her eyes. She did not want to see what his held, and she knew without looking that his gaze rested upon her and not the King.

“Rolland, who has known me both as a foolish child and now as a foolish adult. What a privilege it is to get to watch our own children playing side by side, as we did. Hopefully they’ll keep more out of trouble than either of us ever managed to do.”

Rolland laughed heartily at that. Joanna detected the exhaustion in his wife as she used her own napkin to dab at a new spill.

“Edmyn…” Damon turned his cup to Joanna’s brother, who was already on what she suspected to be his fourth cup of wine. “You have been a true confidant to me. There exists a debt between us which I could never hope to repay. I hope that our friendship, too, can heal ancient wounds.”

At last, he looked to her.

“And Joanna. For everything.”

He let the word hang in the air.

Everything?

Joanna smiled and winked up at him as though it were some secret they shared– as though her praises had already been sung– but the weight of having earned a mere two words as thanks for all of her great labour sat heavy on her chest.

“Someone once told me that a king has no friends,” Damon said, glancing down the length of the board. “Only enemies, and those waiting for a reason to become one. But when I look around this table, I see people that I trust. People who I trust with my secrets, my ambitions, my faith, my life, my children’s lives. And what do you call that but a friend? So, a toast to friendship!”

Joanna shared in the applause, though the resolute finality of his speech left her more anxious than awed.

“Well, I couldn’t possibly follow that,” Rolland muttered, draining the last of the wine in his cup.

As predicted, the sky was clear and blue over Starfall’s docks that morning. Erik stood on the pier, thin shirt open to the meagre breeze and sweating already, as four longships made their way into port, overstuffed with red-faced ironborn.

Gangplanks were lowered, and his horde spilled onto the docks behind the captains that alighted the ships.

“Morning, m’lord,” Othgar Pyke called.

“Morning,” Erik replied.

The ironborn surrounded Erik, forming a loose arena as he began to call out their instructions. Erik watched as Othgar placed himself to Erik’s left, a little extra distance from the other captains, his broken grin as impassive as ever. Some members of the crowd moved with him, grimmer expressions on their faces.

“- the shelters are across the bridge, far side of the gatehouse,” Erik called. “Supplies have been made ready for us, and the steward has arranged food for us all at dinnertime.”

Othgar stepped forward, a slight swagger in his shoulders, and scratched his neck with his thumb. Erik caught the signal, and regarded him with a scowl.

“Something to say, Pyke?”

“Aye.” Othgar was one of the only men here that was taller than Erik, and his voice had a growl in it that promised violence, despite his smile. “Why the fuck are we helping these greenlanders? In your father’s day, we wouldn’t bow and scrape. We’d take. Pay the iron price.”

Erik shoved a hand in a belt pouch, and produced a handful of iron nails. He held them up. For Othgar, yes, but more for the crowd.

“This is the iron price.”

Othgar glanced at the nails, then turned his attention to Erik. His eyes were intense, and he took a half-step forward. Erik didn’t back up, just held his gaze as the big man tried to tower over him. Eventually, Pyke’s resolve seemed to break.

“Fine,” he said with a grunt, and began walking away. Erik saw the grim-faced men of the crowd watch him, sigh, and follow. They would respect Othgar for speaking for them, and respect Erik for standing his ground, even if they resented him in the moment.

The crowd began making their way towards the bridge across to the mainland, leaving Erik behind. He watched them go, catching an occasional frustrated glare or nod of appreciation.

“I still can’t believe that tricks people.”

Erik turned. Tristifer Twofinger was twirling his moustache with his mangled right hand, and grinning at his old friends’ performance.

“Don’t talk so loud,” Erik warned, half-seriously. “You’ll ruin it.”

“Do they really think Othgar would back down that quickly? That he’s intimidated by you?”

Erik shrugged. “I could take him.”

“When you were twenty, maybe. He’d wipe the deck with you.”

Erik conceded the man’s point with a nod, and gestured towards the bridge. “Come on, let’s get to work.”

Tristifer looked offended, holding up his little crab claw. “I don’t get out of this?”

“You’re left-handed, Tris.”

“The Daynes don’t know that.”

Hours later, Erik had left his coat aside, and his white tunic was darkening with sweat as he pushed a saw through hard lumber. The shelters had been laid out in a rough grid on either side of the road that met the bridge. Simple structures, wooden, clearly designed to be temporary, but reusable. On Othgar’s suggestion, they had begun using wooden stakes to moor them so that future storms would have a harder time pushing them into one another.

A final stroke, and the plank fell in two pieces. The man who had been waiting for it took it without a word, making his way over to the shelter he was working on, where Twig was waiting to hammer it home.

Erik let his gaze drift around the clearing, pushing at an ache in his back. Othgar and Tristifer were each focusing on some of the more seriously damaged structures, those that had been incomplete when the storm arrived.

For all their work, the shelters could not help but seem flimsy before the gatehouse. White stone shone in the midday sun, purple banners streaming from poles. Beneath the arch, Erik spotted a figure. The Daynes’ steward, watching the work with hands clasped behind his back.

Erik caught the attention of a man passing with a bucket of nails. “You, when you’ve delivered that, come back here and take over sawing.”

The man nodded, and Erik left the saw to walk towards the steward, trying to remember his name. Cailan? No, that was the brother. Colin.

“Afternoon,” Erik called, foregoing the name in case he was wrong, and brushing sawdust from his hands.

“Good afternoon, my lord.” Colin – Erik was almost certain – kept his eyes on the work before him, his expression carefully neutral. “The work seems to be coming along well. I hadn’t thought this sort of construction would be in the purview of your people, I must say.”

Erik smiled at that, feeling a tingle at the back of his neck as he registered Colin’s distrust. “As I said, necessary skill on the Isles. Not much difference between this and the repairs they’ve been making to ships over the last few days, when you come down to it.”

The steward nodded. “I suppose I’m just surprised at how easily they follow you without a promise of coin.”

Erik shrugged. “Why would they need money?”

There was a hesitation, and Colin finally looked at Erik. “Most people do?” he said, unsure.

Erik shrugged. “Not really. People need food, water, shelter, and fun. Soldiers need weapons, craftsmen need tools, sailors need ships. Money is just how they get to those things – we don’t go in for that.”

“What do you go in for?”

“The iron price.”

Colin’s eyebrows furrowed, and he opened his mouth to speak. Stopped. Erik could tell what he wanted to say, knew what greenlanders thought of the iron price. He would not hand the man a euphemism.

“My lord,” Colin said eventually, “forgive me for asking so bluntly, but is that not just, well, theft?”

“It is and it isn’t. It’s earning what you need, or taking it. Theft is work, same as many others.”

Colin looked uncomfortable. “Doesn’t it often involve killing people?”

“Sometimes. Not always – I try to avoid it. But that’s work too. You pay your soldiers, I’m sure? Same thing, at the end of the day.”

The steward nodded, though he didn’t look convinced. Erik looked out at the work for a moment, giving him a reprieve from his gaze.

“Then the iron price is about what can be earned,” Colin tried to summarise. “But not loyalty, rather… things. I struggle to see how that holds together.”

Erik sighed. Colin seemed intelligent, but he was still a greenlander. Why was it so hard to understand?

“No,” he said. “It’s not like that. It’s about trust. We don’t need little pieces of silver or contracts to believe in promises, we just trust.”

“How does trust come into raiding?”

“Oh, that’s all trust. If I raid someplace, I want the people there to trust that I will kill to get what I came for. That part’s easy, but I also want them to trust I will leave when I have my prize. If people trust you like that, you can rob them blind with no more violence than a grim expression. That’s for people we don’t like, of course. For you, steward, I hope you will trust me to remember how you helped us.”

Erik gestured out to the workers, to Othgar and Tristifer and the rest. “They need to trust me, or they will not follow me, as I trusted Lord Aeron Greyjoy and my father trusted Damron. They trust that I will protect them, house them, and feed them. They trust that, after a hard winter, I will take a few hundred hungry mouths overseas for a year or two and return with the treasures of Essos.”

Colin nodded slowly, understanding finally brightening behind his eyes. “So, they just trust that if they do the work, we shall give you what you need?”

“Some of them, I’m sure. Others just trust me. Trust that if you don’t give me what we need, I’ll cut your throat.”

The steward’s hand lifted to rub his throat, but his face didn’t betray his discomfort. “What exactly do you need?”

Erik chuckled. “Kiera is down at the camp, taking inventory. She’ll be back with a full list tonight. Her father was a merchant from Tyrosh, she’s good with details like that.”

Colin looked at him, eyebrows knit again. “How does that work? If you don’t use money, how do you trade?”

“Badly,” Erik grinned. “But no, we do use money. We’re part of a Kingdom that runs on gold, we can’t avoid it forever. It’s just not our preference, not how we like to do things among ourselves. Some Houses have taken to your ways, of course, but it varies. I couldn’t manage that, to be honest. Never had a head for sums. My firstborn, Sigorn, is better.”

Colin made a strange sort of grunt, and then seemed to scowl at himself when Erik raised an eyebrow in question.

“Apologies, my lord. I just can’t help but be somewhat jealous. A child with a head for sums. I fear Lady Arianne is not keen on them. Perhaps she would make a good ironborn.” He smiled at his own joke, then frowned as he thought over his words.

“Nobody can be good at everything,” Erik pointed out. “Sigorn cannot fight, for example, where Arianne can, if my wife and daughter are to be believed. Sigorn will have his brothers and sisters and friends to fight for him. Arianne’s smart in other ways, and she will have you, and her sister, to do the things she can’t.”

Colin scoffed disbelievingly. “Lady Allyria would be an asset if she could focus on something other than stars and portents.”

Erik felt an odd defensiveness churn in his gut, and marvelled again at how such a well-educated man could be so oblivious. He hesitated a moment, trying to put his thoughts in order.

“We all believe in something, steward. Nobility, love, the gods. The iron price. It can be hard to see past those things when we’re that age, I think. It’s easy to forget our youth, but having nine children reminds me.”

Colin looked, for a moment, as if he was about to interrupt, but stopped himself.

“You just have to learn to speak their language,” Erik continued. “With Sigorn, everything was a sailing metaphor. Just made it easier for him to think it through. The Daynes have clearly chosen what to believe in, so engage in those terms.”

Colin shook his head, irritation pulling at his mask of etiquette. “Not everyone believes as they do, my lord. Why should I learn to speak their language, when they do not speak mine?”

Erik stared at him. So oblivious.

“Because the stars are more real than gold, steward.”

The stars were out but for once, Allyria wasn’t rushing to her Myrish eye.

Qoren had been waiting for her outside her tower door after supper as expected, but this time he was seated as though he’d been there a great deal longer than usual. He leapt to his feet the moment she came round the corner at the top of the spiralling stairs, and she spotted a familiar book in his hand.

It was The Fire Stars Triumph, the account of the life of King Samwell Dayne.

Allyria couldn’t hold back a groan.

“Qoren, please don’t make me read that. I’ll fall asleep!”

It was already a real risk, as she’d learned. Everyone at Starfell was still scurrying to make ready for the Princess, and a recent storm had reset much of their progress. That meant more sawing and hammering. Qoren shook his head, and it was then Allyira noticed something different in him. Normally the embodiment of calm, his eyes were alight with excitement and a wide smile was on his face. He tapped the cover of the book and made a gesture Allyria couldn’t interpret.

“What is it?” she asked, and he made another grand gesture with his hands.

“Something big?”

He placed a finger to his lips.

“A secret? A big secret?”

He was so excited, he reached out to touch her shoulder when he nodded enthusiastically.

“A big secret, in that hideously boring book?”

Qoren made a sound of disgust, as if he couldn’t believe that she still considered the massive tome on King Samwell Dayne’s reign to be dull, which was a point of disagreement between them raised often. Allyria hadn’t realised she was grinning until her mouth almost hurt from the effort – she was mirroring his own expression.

“Well if it’s a secret,” she said, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “you ought not tell it to me here! Come, quickly!” She took his hand and pulled.

And to think, today had begun as dull as any other.

After the arrival of the Ironmen, life at Starfall had returned to its new normal, which was admittedly still a loud and busy one. Allyria didn’t see much of their strange new guests, given the hours she kept. She wasn’t sure if they were actually staying within the castle, or perhaps sleeping outside its walls in the little homes they were building for the eventual Dornish visitors. The ironmen were a fascinatingly queer people, but Allyria had more important things to occupy her time and her thoughts. She was still trying to decipher the prophecy that had been plaguing her for months – the something dark from the east.

It was nice to take a break from that. Nicer still to take it with Qoren.

The two hurried down the tower stairs together, becoming invisible in the gaps of darkness between every torch. Allyria’s heart was racing as she tried not to laugh. There was, in truth, no need to slip between shadows like two thieves, but she and Cailin used to do exactly that when they were children. Ulrich and Martyn were the warriors, and Arianne always sat their training, but Allyria and Cailin played at stealth as their skill, if only to avoid punishment for not being abed when all others were.

Feeling bold, Allyria bid Qoren to wait outside Colin’s solar while she slipped inside to steal a quill and parchment from the steward’s desk. He wasn’t yet asleep, but she knew the room would be empty because he always met with Arianne in the evening. She held the confiscated tools close to her chest as she and Qoren hurried from the east wing of the castle to its gardens.

Rules were meant to be broken. Like bedtimes, and forbidden areas.

The guard outside the massive door to the gardens opened it for Allyria, but Qoren hesitated once she stepped beyond it. She had to take his hand and pull him over the threshold, but once inside, he followed her willingly.

“This is where all Dayne secrets are kept,” she explained, turning to face him as she half-tugged, half-dragged him down the mossy path.

The sun was still setting but the ground was already cool – it always was in the gardens. Huge ancient trees cast precious shade, and a small spring bubbled for those who knew to listen for it. Allyria’s favourite place was a stone bench by a statue of a woman with a water pitcher. A weeping sort of tree had its arms spread out above her, creating a wall of green vines studded with pink flowers. It was there that Allyria brought Qoren, still clinging to his book.

“What is it?” she asked him once they were seated, passing the quill and parchment. “What did you find?”

Qoren seemed to hesitate, but then finally began to write in his neat script.

There is no Hatana.

“What?”

He lifted the paper and pointed to the book he’d been resting it upon. The Fire Stars Triumph, by Maester Hatana.

“I don’t understand.”

Qoren returned the paper to its place and wrote.

Your brother Cailin checked the Citadel’s records. There has never been a Maester Hatana, yet alone one at Starfall.

“Then who wrote the book?”

Anatah.

He met her eyes, and she found herself momentarily unable to think. Qoren looked away.

She was a servant at Starfell, he wrote. She was King Samwell’s lover. He kept the stars himself. She helped him.

Allyria frowned as Qoren wrote out the letters in large.

H A T A N A.

A N A T A H.

“That was the name of his lover?”

Qoren nodded, then wrote.

He taught her how to read the stars. They took turns.

When he looked up from the paper, Allyria realised how close their faces were, how pretty his dark hair was, and how alight his eyes were.

“I want to kiss you,” she said.

Qoren frowned and withdrew, sketching a quick ? onto the parchment. Allyria realised that their faces had been too close for him to read her lips.

She shook her head.

“It’s nothing. We should go before we get in trouble.”

She had been too forward. It was good that he hadn’t heard her, but Allyria wanted somehow to tell him what she was thinking – what she was feeling. She looked down at his hand, the one not holding the pen, and placed hers atop of it.

There, she thought. Now he knows.

She stood and again had to nearly drag him from his place on the bench, but once up, Qoren followed her out of the gardens with the obedience of his station.

A guard. A Dayne but a guard. You are being stupid.

But she was breathing as though she’d been running, when all she’d done was sit upon a bench. They hadn’t made it far before Allyria felt herself begin to unravel. She spun to face Qoren, giving him one of the hand signals they had begun to use to save time, and parchment.

I need to eat, it said, followed by the motion they had designated for ‘meet later.’ Qoren nodded. He offered her the writing instruments but she shook her head. She didn’t need those. She needed air. She needed to see the sky.

He headed off in the direction of her tower and she released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

You are being stupid.

Allyria wandered. She passed one of the many archways that led onto the outer walls of Starfall, to a balcony that overlooked the Torrentine. The sun had set. Between the decorative plants that surrounded the alcove, the stars beckoned like an old friend.

There was a familiar pattern hanging overhead, though she couldn’t remember its name. She was no longer looking into distracting eyes, but it was still so hard to think. She stepped out to the edge of the balcony, trying to remember how the stars connected, what they might mean.

A low voice cleared its throat behind her, and Allyria spun in its direction. A man was sitting on the bench. A large man, scarred and muscled, with a thick beard run through with thin streaks of grey. Walking past him without noticing him was something of a feat.

“My lady,” the man said. “Sorry to have frightened you. Allyria, isn’t it?”

She remembered Lord Erik Botley’s face from the great hall.

“What are you doing here?” she asked him. She assumed the ironmen slept on their ships. They did everything on their ships.

“I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d come out and watch the stars. Plot a course.”

A course.

Allyria remembered that ironmen did do everything on their ships, including navigate. How strange that he would stare at the same stars as she but then know precisely what to do.

“What do you see?” she asked, the words coming out faster than she’d meant them to. “What are they saying to you?”

Lord Erik lifted himself from his seat, and came to stand beside her. He did not press close to her, but he pointed over her shoulder, guiding her sight to a tiny pinprick of light hanging over the Western mountains.

“See that one, how dim it is? Any kind of cloud would hide it from us. From that, I know that tomorrow’s likely to be a clear day, with little risk of a storm. Good for working, good for fishing.”

He shifted, gesturing more broadly to the eastern sky. “When we leave, we can follow the Dornish coast for some time, but among the Stepstones we will follow the Sword of the Morning to stay our course.”

“Darkness from the east,” Allyria murmured. “Is it not foolhardy to follow something that moves?”

“Not when you’re moving in the same direction. Some say that we chase the sunrise when we go east.”

Allyria rarely saw the sunrise.

“But the stars change,” she said, still not understanding. “What they say — what they mean, it changes. How can you trust them?”

“With time, you learn what kind of lies they can tell, and what they can’t. Whatever else it might mean, the Sword always points east, the Ice Dragon always north. Other signs might change, but meaning comes from how they compare to the parts that don’t.”

Allyria considered the words, and found no rebuttal.

“The stars talk,” she said instead, “but I don’t always understand what they say. I hadn’t considered they could be lying.”

“May I ask – are the stars what have you awake so late, my lady?”

“No. I was with Qoren.”

Lord Erik took his eyes off the stars and looked at her. His face was curious, and oddly conspiratorial.

“Who is Qoren?”

You’re being stupid.

Allyria shook her head.

“Nobody. A guard. A friend.”

“I see.” Erik looked back to the stars, searching over his head. After a moment, he made a surprised noise at the back of his throat.

“What is it?” Allyria asked, again too eagerly.

“The free folk– ah, wildlings – follow the stars as well. Do you know that constellation?” He pointed. It was the pattern that had beckoned Allyria into the alcove. Suddenly, the name came to her.

“The moonmaid.”

“And do you see that red light in its centre, by the maid’s heart?”

“The red wanderer.”

“The wildlings call it the thief. They believe that when the thief shines within the moonmaid, it is a good omen. A good time to, ah, begin a courtship.”

Allyria looked at him, but his face was turned to the sky.

She wanted to tell herself she was being stupid. But Lord Erik had said it wasn’t foolhardy to follow something that moves, not when you wanted to go in the same direction. Not when you wanted to chase something.

Or someone.

PoV of Quincy Cuy

Quincy’s finger’s tapped against the grain of the desk as they stared down at the parchment before them. Blank. Not a single word in sight or rather, Quincy could not muster them. In their other hand, Quincy grasped tightly a quill, already filled with ink.

Dear Lady Cockshaw… No, that sounds too informal.

Their brows furrowed with frustration. Father expected them to reach out to any available proper noblewomen with a marriage proposal but the thought of being forced to do so made their head pound.

Quincy knew that they shouldn’t care about how the letters are written, that they could easily waste nearly no effort into a marriage which they did not want. However, they felt compelled to write with perfection, perhaps, by the harsh standards that were placed upon them.Their gaze shifted onto the list that Lord Cuy had all so graciously provided them. The names of several ladies from across the Reach had been scribbled across it.

Fossoway, Wythers, Varner, Ball… Cockshaw.

Quincy bit their lip, knowing that the other alternative was to be far worse.I do not wish for these troubling rumors to ruin our good name, it is your responsibility to end them and this affair with the prospect of a favorable marriage. Their father’s stern warning echoed in their mind.

The courtiers still talked about Edyth as if she were their mistress and there was no doubt in Quincy’s mind that those little whispers had started to spread outside of Cuy. A second son with a soiled reputation wasn’t an easy sell to those with heavy dowries.

They had finally started to write, thinking back to the many poems and short stories that they had created in the past. The words came easier than expected once the creativity flowed. Then that same creativity faded as their headache worsened.

Quincy read the letter only to realize that it was all but a jumbled mess of thoughts and sentences. Overly flowery and dreadfully pretentious. The paper crumbled in their palm before it was flung across the room into a pile of over failed rough drafts.

A knock on the door broke Quincy’s concentration, “you may come in.”

“M’lord, a letter has come in for you.” Quincy turned around to find the elderly maid, Hanna who gave them a warm pleasant grin. “Perhaps this lass will be the one.”

Quincy rose from their seat, treaded across the room to where Hanna stood. The Cuy towered over the small hunchbacked woman who still smiled blighty at them. Without a doubt she wanted them to be wedded off.

“Thank you, Hanna.” Quincy said to her with a nod, hesitantly taking the envelope from her grasp. It had been sealed in gray wax along with the sigil of House Wythers.

Their hands shook as they broke the seal. Cautiously, Quincy’s eyes scanned the letter hoping for just a bit of good news.

Dearest Ser Quincy,

Although I am quite flattered by your generous and well worded proposal, I must however reject your offer. I have already been promised to another and I rather not break an already brokered agreement as tempting as your offer may be.

I hope that my words do not offend you in any way. As well, I hope that you do find happiness with another, far more available maiden.

Sincerely,Prudence

A sigh of relief spilled from their lips.

Praise the Seven.

“What does it say, boy?” The maid questioned them, attempting to stand on her tip-toes to seek a peak.

"She’s been spoken for.”

“Oh, what a shame.” She frowned and then waved her wrinkled hand in dismissal. “Bah! Women these days have no taste! No taste at all!”

Quincy watched as Hanna left the doorway leaving them alone to fester in their thoughts. There were still more letters to write and far more to receive. Although the Wythers girl had graciously rejected them, the same cannot be said for the others.

Quincy craned their head towards the mess upon and around their study desk. A grimace formed hugging the corners of their lips at the sight. Their breath hitched slightly, overwhelmed by the rushing thoughts of possible acceptance.

I need air.

Instead of sitting back down to work on the Cockshaw letter once more, the knight decided to take a stroll through the courtyard instead.

It had been a pleasant day for once with not a single cloud in sight. Quincy walked silently, admiring the budding wisteria trees and the hyacinth which were already in full bloom. A fortunate sign that the land was healing from the years long blight.Quincy took a deep breath, attempting to ease their mind into a sense of tranquility.

Only to have it be shattered in an instant.

“Oi! Quincy!” The gruff voice of Ser Tommen called out to them.Quincy glared at him with a look full of disdain.

Tommen was a man in his prime having just past thirty, a few stray wrinkles hugging around a pair of soft gray eyes. Although he kept his auburn hair and beard short, he still appeared rather unkempt.

Quincy had first met him as a child of twelve or so, having gotten lost within the town of Cuy. It had been Ser Tommen who found them and reunited them with their parents. Ever since then he had been serving as a sworn knight to the house much to Quincy’s displeasure.

He was not a man of noble birth but rather an upstart traveling knight who had used a child in order to gain a more favorable position.“I’m not in the mood to talk.” Quincy informed him coolly.

“I’m sorry for what happened to your lady’s favor,” Tommen said sympathetically. “And I also shouldn’t have laughed when your brother threw it out the window.”

Tommen had been the only one to assist them with plucking the ruined chemise from the snow covered thorny thicket. Quincy still felt the embarrassment of that day.“

Thank you, I suppose…” Quincy mumbled out, crossing their arms in front of their chest.

Tommen’s brows furrowed. “Oh? What’s the matter then? You seem rather… troubled.”

“Nothing’s the matter.” Quincy snapped at him, clearly annoyed.

“You’re lying, I can tell. Your ears always turn red.”

“Not always!”“

Your ears are red.”Quincy grumbled out, defeated they gave in. “Fine… if you must know, my father is forcing me to wed.”

“Oh? Is that all? I wouldn’t necessarily consider that a problem.” Tommen stated casually whilst letting out a hearty chuckle. “Why don’t you marry your beloved?”

Quincy shook their head, brunette locks swaying slightly. “That I cannot do.”

“Why? You clearly love Edyth-“

“It is not that sort of relationship, Ser Tommen! Besides, I feel like such an arrangement would do more harm than good.”

They cared not for the reputation of their house. Edyth had been their dearest friend, one that Quincy was thankful for. They knew though if Quincy chose to wed her, then all of her years of hard work that she had poured into her dressmaking business would be ruined. A business which she had inherited from an ailing father with only daughters to his name. To marry her meant that she would be forced to give up everything that she had known and to be thrusted into the life of a nobleman’s wife. To marry her meant that her family would grow poor and hungry.

Quincy would not dare to force such a terrible fate onto her.

Tommen shrugged as the two started to walk side by side amongst the flowers of the courtyard garden. “Then just marry a noblewoman to appease your lord father. You do not have to like the woman. All one must do is to wed and bed. After that you can pretty much forget that you even have a wife at all.”

“With that sort of attitude, I am not surprised to hear that your wife has left you.” Quincy snarkily quipped, knowing how unsavory the other’s reputation has been. “I am not that cruel.”

Quincy thought about their parents’ relationship and how miserable it had become. They had slept in different chambers, each on the opposite side of the keep. They never seemed to spend much time together unless it were an obligatory lordly duty or the occasional family dinner. Even during Quincy’s youth, the two mainly bickered and fought. Throughout the years their father became more stern, distant and cold whilst their mother turned to merriment and drink.

Quincy was not their father and did not wish to force anyone into a passionless marriage. A marriage that would have to, without any doubt, be filled with secrets and lies.

“It is a decision that you must make, fortunately noblemen such as yourself don’t have to make many as often as us smaller folk,” Tommen stated, folding his hands behind his back whilst glancing at some tulips. “You may ignore your lord father’s orders, shock the court and marry a tradeswoman. Or you could obey and marry a maiden of the nobility whilst keeping your pristine reputation.”

Thoughtlessly Quincy twisted the hem of their cobalt blue doublet. They kept their mouth shut, refusing to answer Tommen.

It wasn’t that simple of a decision to make nor was it a situation that Tommen had any inkling on.After a brief period of serene silence, Quincy nearly jolted from a sudden touch. Tommen clasped his hand on their shoulder in an attempt to show some semblance of sympathy.

“Look, between man to man… you are a gentleman compared to most but I also know that compared to most, you are quite miserable.” The knight stated matter-of-factually. “There is no reason that any woman wouldn’t fancy you as a person. Perhaps if you’d actually tried to court or marry one of those ladies, you might find happiness amongst other delightful pleasures. Do not deny yourself such a chance.”

A stray sigh rushed past their lips. Quincy hated to admit that Tommen had a strong point to his argument. There was indeed the slightest of chances that Quincy could be quite happy in such an arrangement. Their eldest brother, Alesander did after all managed to marry someone whom he truly cared and loved.

But Quincy also knew that love wasn’t like it was in the songs of valor and courtly romance. It was amongst the rarest of occurrences and that most of all, prestige, money and connections held more weight in a marriage contract.“I shall think about it…” Quincy quietly uttered out as they shook Tommen’s hand away. “But my father still expects me to at least write to them.”

“Well as for your letters… you should write as if you were writing to that mistress of yours. Just be yourself.”

“Thanks… I suppose.” Quincy’s eyes rolled, it was a rather cliche remark without any constructive value. But of course a ruffian such as Tommen wouldn’t know much when it came to wordsmithing.

“You know… it might be good for you to get some fresh air every once in a while and give yourself a break from your duties.” The older knight let out a slight chuckle before playfully punching Quincy’s arm. “The lads and I are going out for a pint tonight if you care to join us? It’ll be like old times…”

“Not tonight!” Quincy quickly snapped back.

“Alright! Alright… I apologize for asking.” Ser Tommen yelped, holding his hands off defensively. “I wish you luck on your letters, I suppose…”

Before Quincy knew it, Tommen had left them alone in the courtyard. A tinge of regret began to emerge.

After all, they still had a reputation to uphold.

The snow had thawed in Nightsong earlier than in the surrounding lands if the last merchants passing through The Marches were to be trusted. Yet it was easy to believe them when the sun basked the Lord’s solar in such a comfortable warmth.

Even Alys Caron could find peace while sipping a herbal tea Maester Theomore assured her would help her sleep. Moderate worry for her son disturbed her nights and old age was perhaps showing the first sign of its approach in allowing her few hours of rest.

“Dornishmen, I have learned, enjoy their poisons. Lord Tyrell was quite the same, or so more malicious tongues whisper, but he was all the same a fool for arranging a deal with the Dornish.”

In silence.

Alys was certain she would have enjoyed her tea a great deal more without her late husband's sister present at the same table. Marya Foote, formerly Caron, had been disrupting her every other day and it was only blood relation and courtesy that kept Alys from banishing her from the castle grounds for the sake of her peace of mind.

Marya had been keen on starting a new tirade everyday on how Dornish were not to be trusted but Alys did not care to listen. She was no marcher and their hate for their neighbors was no affair of hers. If anything, she was far more displeased with those on this side of the Red Mountains.

Bryce had been the only one she could tolerate by far but she could never tolerate those antiquated customs that defined the kingdom he was born into.The pride and unity that distinguished the Stormlands of years past was shattered by the Ascent.

Now they all enjoyed far too much pointing and waving their swords at one another. It did little good that another civil war reopened the old festering wound.

“What do you think, Alys?”

“Regarding?” Alys poured some more tea in her cup and Marya’s, thankful that the noise droned out her good sister’s endless chattering.

“The current situation.” Alys stared at the steam rising from her tea, pondering, before meeting Marya’s inquisitive brown eyes.

“I care little for either party involved in the predicament.” Alys confessed, staring outside the window at green hills in the distance that connected them to the Reach.

“It was foolish enough that an upjumped maester turned lord sought out of his own initiative and ambition a deal when he could have turned to his Lady Paramount’s counsel. Mayhaps the Citadel should have included those details in the lectures of Lord Olyvar. The concepts of loyalty and obesaince as a vassal seemed to have forfeited him. ”

Marya’s chuckle accompanied the crackling fire inside the hearth.

“You certainly spare nobody with your lectures.”

Alys hoped the withering look she directed towards was a sufficient enough warning but Marya continued.

“I was also thinking that you should find a husband for your daughter. She is at an age where she must be receiving proposals…” Marya halted when Alys set down the cup on the saucer with decision.

“Should I remind you, then, of your position, good-sister, with one of my lectures?” Alys made it a point to straighten her posture and clean with careful precision the drop of tea that had spilled over onto the saucer with the cream colored handkerchief.

Marya’s look turned into a mix of meek servitude and furious rebellion akin to that of a child at her words. Another reason why Rohanne had been the more tolerable one of Bryce’s sisters.

“Humour me, then.”

“I allow you the honour of sitting in the lord solar as the lord’s aunt, despite the treasonous actions of your late lord husband.”

“I allow you and your daughters to sit at the table of the Great Hall while you blabber of my daughter’s future as if it were any of your concern. My son allows you to keep living in the keep of your late lord husband as if it were not House Caron’s property.”

Alys paused to cough politely in her handkerchief before setting it down on the side of her cup.

“Now, I ought to ask if you should be reminded, good sister,” the word was spoken with a polite smile concealing gritted teeth, “of the meaning of gratitude and humility?”

Marya did not answer but her silence was eloquent enough. As was the way she gnawed on the inside of her left cheek so coarsely. Thankfully, Rhaenys and Corliss had never developed such poor manners.

Alys allowed her good-sister time to simmer in silence by turning to stare once again out of the window, a pleased smile hidden behind her teacup. She was not fortunate enough to enjoy a more lengthy reprieve when the door to the Lord’s Solar opened.

“Were you not taught that it is polite to knock first to request permission?”

Ellyn Foote had the decency to turn red in shame and not stare back in defiance. A remarkable feat considering her mother.

“Close the door and come over. There is a matter I wish to discuss.”

At least once given an order, the girl moved quickly. She retrieved a chair and then sat next to her mother. In silence, Alys noted pleased.

“I was considering assigning Ellyn as Lady Cassana’s handmaiden.” Alys raised both eyebrows in confusion at the befuddled expressions on the Footes’ faces. Nonetheless, she continued.

“My son’s wife will return to Nightsong and, considering the circumstances, she might require companionship during her grief and motherhood.” Alys dreaded imagining what sort of education her granddaughter had received from the Conningtons but at least this time she would be present to rectify any bad behaviors Maris was taught. “Ellyn is the closest in age noble lady available. Both would benefit from it, I believe.”

She hoped it would not be an exaggeration to expect Ellyn would learn how to improve on her manners and to keep Cassana well entertained enough as to not create any problems. Actually, it seemed a rather adequate solution.

“My daughter? A handmaiden? Why? There is no reason!” It was too much to hope for Marya to understand apparently.

“It is common in the Crownlands for young ladies to be sent to be trained under another lady of noble birth. Especially among relatives,” was the explanation Alys provided.

“Why didn’t you send your daughter, then, to your relatives?”

“No.” Her response was abrupt and cutting but Alys would not forgive such nonsense to be uttered in front of her. Least of all regarding her daughter’s education.

“I would have never subjected my daughter to my relatives, were it my choice. All of them are bastard born and there was nothing, least of all nobility, that Rhaenys could learn from them.” Alys attempted to keep her tone even but she doubted she could truly hide the contempt in her voice.

Silence fell in the room with Ellyn staring at the soles of her shoes and Marya at her tea.

“What did you need, Ellyn?” Alys prodded, realizing the girl must have had some reason to interrupt them in the solar.

“Oh, a letter has arrived from King’s Landing, my lady.”

After a curt gesture, Alys was handed the letter and a paper knife by her niece.

Dear Mother,

I hope this letter finds you, Corliss, and everyone in Nightsong in good health despite the tragic circumstances that have plagued the Stormlands. I have heard rumours in the capital that the war is over and that Queen Danae has helped quell the remaining tensions among the lords and ladies. There was no mention of Brother among the dead so I hope with all my heart that your next raven will confirm he is very much alive and breathing.

It is my wish to be reunited with you both soon but I suppose that Corliss should use this time to rest and prepare our House for the upcoming Great Council.

Please write back soon,

With love, Rhaenys

On the back of the letter, Alys saw more of her daughter’s cursive calligraphy, marking the start of another message. In contrast to the first page, this one was written in a hurry. Or so, Alys prayed, that her daughter did not write regularly with such poor penmanship.

I hope you will forgive me for such a poorly structured letter, Mother, but I assure you that this is a mistake borne from great relief over the news. I know already that you will chastise me. I can picture your scowl clear as day.

I wrote the letter as quickly as I could once I heard the news, so that it could be sent with the group of ravens that are sent at first light from the Red Keep’s Rookery.

Has Spring started to show its arrival in the Marches? It’s been weeks since the snow has started melting in the Red Keep’s gardens. I hope you may come visit me soon with Brother so that we may take a walk all together.

I realize now that I haven’t had the chance to meet my niece Maris yet, I can’t wait to make her acquaintance. What kind of baby is she? Whenever I play with the Prince Daven and Princess Daenys, I always think of her, wondering if she takes more after her father or her mother. I suppose I shall find out once we meet. I’m greatly looking forward to it.

Is Lady Cassana alright? Is she back in Nightsong despite what has occurred?

Yes, how could Alys forget? Soon she would have to bear the unwelcome return of her good-daughter to Nightsong. But her granddaughter would at least return and hopefully her second grandchild. Her son’s messenger had not spoken of any child when he announced the Caron soldiers and their lord would be returning home.

Alys attempted to relax her shoulders, already feeling an increasing stiffness in the back of her neck.

“Is there anything else you wish to discuss with me?” Alys glanced at them both.

Ellyn’s answer was lips moving in the shape of her answer, “no” and then an equally feeble shake of her head.

“Not at present.” Marya Foote seemed to ponder her question for a moment too long.

“Very well, then. You are dismissed. I shall see you at dinner this evening. Oh, and tell Maester Theomore I require his services.”

After nodding, Ellyn curtseyed politely before following her mother outside the room. Alys had no doubts the girl was reliable, hence why she saw it fit to task her with being Lady Cassana’s handmaiden, despite Marya’s apparent disapproval.

Indeed, the mother was another problem altogether, but hardly worse than a minor nuisance. Alys decided to not waste her time thinking of her sister-by-law before the maester arrived and poured more tea in her cup.

She looked outside the window to her right, seeing the stretches of land that separated her from her daughter, Nightsong from the Red Keep or Harrenhall. Furthermore she felt the weight of work which awaited her upon her son and good-daughter’s return and with the Great Council.

With a tired smile, Alys sipped her tea and read Rhaenys' letter again. She had a few moments of rest before Maester Theomore and they finally would be spent in serene silence.

“My lords! My ladies! People of the Vale! Welcome – to the Gates of the Moon!”

As the crowd roared its approval, Ser Dake Arryn dug in his spurs and cantered around the tourney grounds. He was clad in blue, from the toe of his boots, to the hem of his cloak, to the dyed feather in his cap.

Theon clapped with the rest of them. At his side, seated in the lord’s box, Nathaniel Arryn muttered something unkind about his brother, but still, Theon thought he saw the slightest of smiles on the Stone Falcon’s face.

The moon and falcon of House Arryn snapped and waved in the wind from atop half a hundred poles and lances. The horns blasted and the drums boomed, and Theon’s cheeks ached from grinning. He had been dreading this day, but now that it was here, he was being carried away by the excitement as if caught in a rogue current and being dragged off to sea.

“It is known there are no finer knights in all the Seven Kingdoms than the knights of the Vale!” Dake shouted to the audience, bringing his horse around once more. “And there are no finer knights in the Vale than the Winged Knights!”

As Dake said the words, a line of mounted knights trotted out onto the field, each of them more puissant than the last. They rode tall and proud, blue cloaks fluttering behind them, polished helms under their arms. Ser Kym Egen rode at the front of the column, and when the Winged Knights turned to incline their heads towards Theon, it was Ser Kym that Theon acknowledged.

“The winner of this contest of arms will prove himself worthy of joining this noble order of warriors!” Dake cried. “And shall have the honor of serving House Arryn as the sworn defender of our new lord! On this, his nameday, his coming of age, his ascension! Lord Theon Arryn!”

Nathaniel’s hand fell hard on Theon’s shoulder.

“Go on,” Nathaniel whispered. “Like we practiced.”

Theon inhaled deeply.

He stood. He smiled. He inclined his head to his uncle down on the tourney grounds. He raised his hand in a salute to the gathered masses. He sat back down.

It was an embarrassing thing to need to practice. And it was even more embarrassing how many times Theon had drilled the simple gestures. But now that he was seated once more, he could barely even remember what he’d just done. Had he smiled properly? Had he put his shoulders back? Had he–

Nathaniel squeezed his arm. “That was good.” Theon looked up at his uncle. “By the Mother, take a breath.”

Theon finally exhaled. He smiled sheepishly.

“Sorry,” he said reflexively.

Nathaniel patted his arm and looked back at the field below. By now, the competing knights had trotted out onto the field to be introduced. Some sat stoic in their saddles. Others brandished blades above their heads. One strummed a lute, and another tossed a flower into the stands.

They all had something in common. They looked far more comfortable and confident down there, preparing to charge each other atop mighty warhorses and beat each other senseless with blunted swords, than Theon felt just standing and waving.

“How does Uncle Dake manage it?”

Nathaniel looked over at him. “Go out in public in that foppish hat?” he said dryly. “I wonder that myself.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Theon said.

Nathaniel sighed. “Of course not. I’ve wondered the same,” he admitted.

Below, Dake was circling the field, whipping up the crowd. The knights left the field– save for two, who took place at either end of the lists.

“Really? But you do it all the time!”

“I give orders. Command troops. Sit on councils. This is something else entirely. And something I am perfectly happy to leave to my brother.” He glanced sideways at Theon. “Your Uncle Dake has been the cause of many headaches for me, but I’ve been able to rely on him for tasks I’m ill-suited for. You’ll come up short in many areas. All men do. But have the sense to keep men about who possess what you lack.”

Theon nodded fervently. “I understand.”

“Let the games begin!” Dake Arryn cried.

As the crowd cheered and the two knights couched their lances, Theon found himself looking not at the jousting, but at his uncle Nathaniel’s harsh profile.

“You’ll stay. On my council. Won’t you?”

Nathaniel looked down at him and smiled. “You are the Lord of the Vale. Not me. It is for you to decide whether I sit your council or not.”

Theon nodded, and assumed a firm expression. “You will serve as my advisor, Lord Nathaniel.”

“At your pleasure, my lord.”

Nathaniel turned to watch as the first lance broke. “Well struck,” he remarked quietly, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair.

This time, Theon was certain it was a smile he was seeing.

…any tale that besmirches our House’s name is made of lies. Our family would never resort to such underhanded tactics…I implore you… please be our voice of reason and truth… Speak to those who can listen and tell them of House Blackmont’s innocence…

Arianne traced her fingers over the parchment, trying to imagine Vorian doing the same. He had thought of her, at least, to send the letter at all. But did she only come to mind after his own self preservation?

He’d signed it ‘your evening star.’ But the evening star was constant. The only thing constant about Vorian was that he would change.

A knock interrupted her thoughts, and Arianne hastily folded the letter and slid it into a drawer, beneath a false panel known only to her.

She’d thought the mysterious letter, which had appeared beneath her door in the night, would have been the hardest part of her day. But then there was Pate on the same threshold, breathlessly telling her that Ironmen were sailing into their harbour.

Starfall’s water was far from deep by the castle, and its passage narrow. That and the castle’s relative isolation along a difficult coast were generally enough protection. But the ship that brought the Botleys to their shore was shallow-hulled and sleek, sliding smoothly onto the beach beneath the walls.

Gathered in the hall awaiting her presence, they looked, by all accounts, exactly as Arianne would imagine Ironmen to be based on everything she’d been told about them as a girl – a warrior people, a little intimidating. One of the women, the tallest, was dressed like a man.

They made for a smaller procession than Arianne expected. At the head of the group were five people in the finer dress of nobility. Three women, two men. The man at the front was speaking quietly to the tall woman. The man was Lord Erik, if Arianne had to guess based on the information Colin had hurriedly given her outside the hall. The youngest girl and the boy must be his children, but she could not guess who the other women were.

Everything about the Lord of Lordsport seemed just a little bit larger than reasonable: his arms, his beard, the swarm of silver fish embroidered on the lapel of his green coat. For all that, Arianne was gratified to notice she matched his height.

She saw his eyes find her, and saw him register that. The way his eyebrows twitched seemed surprised, then respectfully impressed. His son’s eyes were perhaps less respectful, but flattering in their own way.

Arianne’s gaze drifted to the woman on Lord Erik’s left. Her face might have once been pretty, but it was covered by a complex web of thick scarring, a few of her teeth exposed by the skin that hadn’t healed right at the corner of her mouth. She wore a simple man’s tunic that displayed toned arms. The woman on his right had long, flowing hair dyed a deep green, though her natural pale blond was showing at the top of her head. Her style of dress was unfamiliar, but she seemed to be the only one there that was comfortable in Dorne’s heat.

“You must be Lady Arianne.” Lord Erik stepped forward as he spoke. His voice was deep, but not the guttural growl Arianne would have expected of an Ironman. “It is an honour to meet you. Please, allow me to introduce my children, Ravos and Willow, and my wives, Kiera and Morna.”

Each of them gave short bows as their names were said, until Erik reached Morna. The scarred woman only gave a tight, reluctant nod.

Erik smiled apologetically. “First, my lady, I apologise for our imposition. We would not bother you, but we had been on our way east, to Essos, when we ran into a storm the other day.”

“I know the storm you speak of,” Arianne said. Memories of standing in the clear, shallow water of the harbour with Starfall at her back came rushing forward. She might have shivered. “It caused some damage to unfinished structures we are building.”

Erik hesitated, seemingly unsure how to answer. “Indeed, my lady, the Storm God was unforgiving. We lost a ship, and no small portion of our supplies.”

Arianne imagined that for an Ironman to lose his ship would be like any other man losing a child.

“Accomodation at Starfall is yours, should you have need of it,” she said, although the bread and salt had already been given.

She could feel Colin’s eyes on her, and his disapproval, too. Elsewhere in the hall she was surprised to see Allyria watching as well. Arianne was grateful for her sister’s silence.

“Indeed, my lady. If possible, we would also appreciate any supplies you can spare. Food, most prominently, but lumber and other such materials for repair would be appreciated. We can compensate you, of course. We have some gold with us, but if you would be willing to consider trade, for labour, resources from Lordsport, or other promises, we may be better equipped to compensate you fully.”

Arianne considered that storm had befallen them not far into what was sure to be a long journey. They had likely not anticipated having to spend so much of their coin before ever leaving Westeros.

“I would not cripple your finances so early in your journey,” she said. “If your men are willing, you could repay any lodging or supplies with labour. The structures that were damaged in the storm will need to be repaired.”

“Storm repair is a required skill on the Isles, my lady. That sounds perfect. What structures are these, may I ask?”

“The Princess of Dorne is coming, and with much of the kingdom in tow as we answer the summons of the Great Council. Temporary structures outside the castle will accommodate the various contingencies of the noble Dornish houses.”

Lord Erik’s mouth twitched into a confused smile under his beard. “I’m sorry, my lady – Great Council?”

“Yes, the Great Council. All of Westeros is meant to gather at Harrenhal to discuss a reform of law. You did not know?”

“The raven must have arrived after our departure. My eldest, Sigorn, will likely go in my place. That’s frustrating.” His mouth flattened into a line, and he stared thoughtfully past Arianne’s shoulder before he seemed to remember himself.

“Apologies, my lady. Might I send for more labourers? We have an encampment a few hours south, I can send some men to pick them up and we can get to work properly on their arrival. In the meantime, I can only ask your leave and perhaps direction to whatever quarters are available to us.”

“Consider it granted. My steward will await your return and direct you to your rooms. I will see to it that food is prepared.”

The lord gave a short bow of thanks before he and his family departed. As they left, the woman called Morna threw a glance over her shoulder. Arianne quickly averted her gaze, embarrassed to have been caught staring. She hoped she hadn’t thought her to be gawking at her scar. She was only curious as to what sort of weapon a woman with arms as muscled as that favoured.

Once they had departed, Arianne began the walk to the gardens, Colin following behind. He did not wait long to speak.

“I think you should have accepted the coin,” he told her. “We already have men enough to build the camps for hangers-on, and we’re paying them for it.”

“The Botleys have a long way to travel,” Arianne countered. “They will need their coin in the Eastern cities. It would be no good for Westerosi to labour under foreigners like beggars.”

“Some would say the Ironmen are foreigners to us.”

“Well, they would be wrong. In the literal sense, anyway.”

She escaped Colin through the guarded doors of the garden, and went to sit on the cool, sandy earth beside Allyria’s strange sapling. Arianne wasn’t sure what possessed her sister to purchase the black-barked tree from Qarth. It would be years before its leaves could be used for making shade of the evening, and even then, who in Westeros would want it?

Still, it was impossible to deny the plant’s beauty. Even as a sapling, its inky blue leaves bore thin veins through which seemed to course pure darkness, and when Arianne placed her hand beneath them, the shadow seemed somehow heavier.

Later, when training with Qoren, her mind was still preoccupied with thoughts of the east – its strange people, its strange plants, and the strange Ironmen who sought out its shores.

It made it hard to focus on the spear in her hand, or the sandstone bricks beneath her feet. It made it hard to focus on anything at all, which is perhaps why Arianne didn’t notice that she and Qoren were not alone in the yard.

“You fight like a crow,” came a voice from behind her.

For a moment, Arianne lost focus. Qoren brought her back to herself by bypassing her drooping defence and jabbing her shoulder.

“Keep focused, girl,” the voice said, and Arianne held up a hand for Qoren to stop, for now.

She turned, and saw Lord Botley’s wife and daughter. The woman Morna had spoken, and Arianne thought she was smirking, though it was hard to be sure with that disfigured mouth.

“Crows can’t fight,” Arianne pointed out.

The girl, who Arianne remembered was called Willow, barked a laugh at that, and Morna’s almost-smile seemed to widen. “You don’t know how right you are, girl. But neither can you.”

Arianne felt her cheeks redden.

“Thrusting isn’t a strength of yours,” Morna continued. “You can’t get your arms out of your own way, you end up slashing with that spear as though you’ve got a sword in your hand. So, why don’t you?”

“Close engagement doesn’t suit me,” Arianne said, letting the spear hang at her side. “A spear puts length between myself and an opponent, and its weight is more comfortable. Besides, it is a traditional weapon in Dorne. All soldiers here train with a spear to start.”

“Aye, and that’s probably why he’s doing that with you. It is good training for a common soldier, but do you mean to be common, girl? Wouldn’t you be a greater threat if you trained against that?”

Arianne looked back to Qoren, who was watching the exchange with a look of uncertainty on his face. Arianne considered that perhaps he was unable to follow the conversation.

“He’s deaf,” she explained, turning back to the Ironwomen.

“Yes, that’s clear.” Neither she nor her daughter seemed particularly phased by the information. Morna nodded her head at the spear in Arianne’s hand. “Were it me training you, I’d consider a greatsword. Your arms already give you reach, and if your enemy is a wall of spears, what better to cut through it than wide steel? Tradition is the death of victory.”

She spoke the words while looking directly at Qoren, who seemed to consider them for a moment before walking away.

“Women don’t use greatswords,” Arianne told Morna. “They’re too heavy and unwieldy.”

“For most women, aye, but you’re taller and stronger than most men, girl.”

“The Grey Knight used a greatsword.” Willow had spoken up, and her mother gave her a confused glance. “Had you not heard of her?”

“Kneeler story.” Morna shrugged, “Do you know this Grey Knight, girl?”

Arianne did know about the Grey Knight. When King Orys Baratheon the second finally defeated the indefatigable fighter, she was revealed to be a woman. An Ironwoman.

“My brother was a famous knight,” Arianne said. “The stories they tell about famous knights are rarely true.”

Morna laughed.

“That’s the first smart thing I’ve heard you say.”

Qoren returned to them, carrying a greatsword. He held it out for Arianne, who took the pommel with uncertainty and then lifted the weapon to feel its weight.

“There you go. Better, right?”

Arianne didn’t answer.

She looked at the dull blade glinting in the waning Dornish sun and thought back to the letter from Vorian, and the way he’d signed his name – the way he always did. Your evening star. That wanderer would be the first to appear in the sky, and her sister would dutifully track its passage across the heavens. But Vorian was always the last to appear. He was no soldier, and the bards only ever came at the end of a war.

At the start was always steel.

“What is it?”

“Persion issa,” Daena said, angling her hoop so that Desmond could see the embroidery better in the sunshine. Not that it made any difference – it looked like a mess of white and orange thread to him, haphazardly stitched to a cloth that sat far looser in its frame than any he’d seen in the hands of the various women in their company.

The two siblings were sprawled on a sheepskin blanket that Daena had dragged from the house onto the docks, a grievous sin that had gone undetected amid all the new activity at Elk Hall.

Lady Joanna was throwing a party.

This meant that all number of lesser offences (wrinkled trousers, unruly hair, and dirty boots chief among them) went unnoticed, as baggage trains showed up en masse with deliveries of this and that. It also meant that the majority of the lodge’s inhabitants were banned from the house for the afternoon, including Father, who was pretending to fish closeby.

“Persion timpon se qeldior istan iotāptan,” Desmond said to Daena, confused as to why he wasn’t seeing more white and gold.

“Iksis.”

“I see orange and red.”

“Kono drakaro zȳhon issa,” she said. That’s his flame. She quirked an eyebrow, and her next question seemed half a challenge.

“Avy Persion ūndessua daor?”

Desmond wanted to ask Daena if she had ever even seen Persion breathe fire, but worried that she would say yes and that it would be the truth. So instead he turned back to the stick he had been whittling into the likeness of a horse, and jerked his head in the direction of their father.

“Arrigon avy Kepa sytilības,” he suggested in Valyrian. You should show Father.

“Zaldrīzī raqis daor.”

He doesn’t like dragons, she’d said, and Desmond took no small degree of pride in how she’d failed to find anything in his sentence to correct.

“Gīmin. Eglie pirtiapos kessa.”

I know, he’d admitted. It will be a good jape.

The glare of spring sunshine didn’t help the fact that Daena’s face was unreadable, as it often was. Desmond wasn’t sure if she was more likely to tattle on him than take the suggestion, until she spoke in that funny way of hers, sounding half a foreigner when she used the common tongue.

“Kepa. Look what I’ve made.”

Father set his fishing pole down with the immediacy of someone who had never truly been using it at all, then held out his hand for the hoop.

The three of them had claimed the small dock on the lake for themselves with little contest. Tygett was helping Ser Joffrey with knightly things, and Hugo was stuck with his mother reciting his lessons while lord Banefort napped. Desmond suspected his own father wished to do the same, or join lord Gerion in his dice game, but he seemed to be keeping one eye on the commotion taking place behind them at the castle.

It was strange to see him in such a state of un-kingliness. Desmond was confronted with his father’s likeness around seemingly every corner in Casterly Rock, but always dressed in the most royal attire, with a sombre or determined expression on his face. The portraits and tapestries bore little resemblance to the person who read him stories before bedtime, or sat, as he did now, with his trousers rolled up to his knees and his bare feet in the water of a still lake. This man wore no crown, only a look of mild concern as he took Daena’s embroidery into his hands and inspected the other side of her stitches.

“It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it?”

“No one sees the back,” Daena retorted.

“Still, it’s there all the same.” He passed it back to her, and Daena looked at Desmond as if to say, I told you so.

Desmond might have stuck out his tongue, to which Daena would have done the same, or worse, but Father went on.

“It isn’t as though what cannot be seen matters naught,” he said, and the looks the two siblings exchanged now communicated the same: See what you’ve done?

It was too late to prevent it; their father was preaching. Desmond had learned by now to feign attention without effort, and his shoulders straightened without any thought or command, though his whittling continued. Carving a horse was harder than he’d thought, especially considering how many were nearby to serve as inspiration.

“In fact,” Father went on, “that which isn’t obvious can be more important than what lies in plain sight.”

Daena, resuming her stitching, barely contained a sigh.

“I stopped at a holdfast between Harrenhal and King’s Landing on my way to you both,” Father said. “A small one. Its lands were gifted by a Baratheon King before me, to a knight said to have saved the life of his Lord Commander in battle.”

His fishing pole had been abandoned at his side, but the way it twitched now and then made Desmond suspect its hook had been wormed.

“In exchange he was given a small piece of land and a pile of rubble, which together with his wife and children he built into a proper holdfast.”

Desmond could recite all the Lord Commanders of the Kingsguard by memory, and wondered which one could have been referenced in this tale. Ser Olyvar Jordayne? Perhaps Ser Jaime Florent? Father didn’t seem inclined to include the details, and Desmond had been well taught to never interrupt one’s elders, let alone a king.

“Now landed knights are not always immediately accepted by those who live upon the ground which is given to them, but lord and lady Redditch were common folk, gifted a parcel near the place they’d already called home. Still, that is hardly enough to earn the loyalty of smallfolk, and so they also gave wherever they could… And even where they couldn't…”

Father was watching as Daena stabbed furiously at her hoop, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth.

“In any case, they earned the love of their people and they repaid it in full, always standing up for their interests no matter who the perceived threat may be. Even if it were a king. Even if it were me. The lady Redditch took umbrage with my intent to cobble the Kingsroad, though it stood to benefit her and her people. She felt permission ought to have been asked of her.”

Desmond figured it likely to have been Ser Olyvar whose life had been saved by the peasant man. The Featherblade was fast, but he was said to have been reckless, as well.

“It took a great amount of time and effort to win Lady Redditch and therefore her people to my cause,” Father went on.

“When we passed her holdfast earlier, on the way to you both, we found her corpse naked and mutilated, left to freeze on a manure cart by her own barn, while her assailants ate the last of her bread within her walls.”

Desmond looked up at that, abandoning his carving for a moment.

Father wasn’t looking at either of them. He was looking out across the lake, at something Desmond couldn’t see.

“You have undoubtedly read about famous Lord Commanders, from my rule and from those before me. But what you cannot see, those not written into the history books – the Redditch’s of this world – they are perhaps more important.”

He glanced at Daena’s sagging hoop, and its tangles of white and orange thread.

“The back matters, Daena,” he said. “See to it that you get it right.”

He had been sitting on the dock with his feet in the water but stood abruptly now, leaving the fishing pole discarded while still cast.

“If you’ll excuse me, I’m expecting a delivery that I ought to intercept before Lady Joanna does.”

He left, and Desmond and Daena sat in silence for a time.

“What was that all about?” Desmond asked after a while, resuming his whittling.

“Another of his lessons,” Daena answered in the common tongue.

“I didn’t understand it.”

“He was saying that you should make allies in places you don’t expect. Less obvious allies. But even then, they may die.”

“But I don’t get it. Why was she naked?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“But-”

“Desmond.”

He was caught off guard by his name. She was looking at him seriously.

“Hae mirrī mittītsot gōntia.”

Sometimes I think you’re a little stupid.

Her tone was flippant, but Desmond saw that she was hurriedly undoing her stitches.

Martyn Dayne tied off more ropes on the wagon holding the flour and the bread oven.

Not enough.

At the previous council he had recommended more food. The Princess forcefully countered that Dorne would provide as they traveled.

Not untrue, he reasoned.

Yet still, he had been on too many expeditions where the provisions go, then morale, and then the mission. Maybe he would mention it to her again privately. Not tonight. Currently, she was with Maester Flowers, reviewing the King’s laws. She was always in a foul mood after that, either from the effort or the text. Sometimes both.

He left the baggage train and made his way across the warmth of Sunspear. He was to spar with Lewyn this morning, and hoped the boy would be waiting in the yard.

As he walked, his steps seemed too large, or sometimes too small. Martyn hated his striped robes, alternating purple and gray. He never knew where they would be or how. None of it fit the way it should. He felt slow. More aware of the eyes of strangers. He paused and re-tied his belt, noticing the House Dayne sigil. He had been wearing it more on the days when he was confident Sarella wouldn’t have time for him.

Being back at Sunspear was like sparring with spirits. The steps he thought he knew were clumsy. Assumptions about how his opponent would behave proved slippery. Even who that opponent was, or should be, or why. For too long he had climbed the red mountains, he had laid next to streams. Martyn’s thinking had been clear when he was away. Now, it was all jumbled. Too much and in the wrong places. And his damn clothes didn’t fit.

It was why he enjoyed his lessons with Lewyn so much. Steel and strength. Practice and patience. It was all so clear. The boy was waiting for him when he arrived.

“Again, like yesterday.”

Lewyn was weak. Ricasso, who had run the Castle Yard at Sunspear as long as Martyn had been there, said he was not weak, just not strong, and a sword of the morning wouldn’t be able to know the difference.

For his approach, Martyn moved slowly, allowing the boy to watch his hips.

Wack. The parry sword landed true - Lewyn stepped back. The unexpected hit interested the boy. Martyn saw his son stare at his shoulder where the sword had landed. A smile crossed Lewyn’s face. Martyn could see him reconstructing the moment, learning. When he was younger, in the yards of Starfall, Martyn never thought. He fought. Now, he never had to think when using a sword. His son was taking a different approach.

After most of the morning had passed, Martyn motioned to the boy to sit.

“You are angry with me. And your mother. And most days your sister. And you bring this anger to your blade. It slows your progress.”

Lewyn drew circles in the sand with his sword tip. He didn’t say a word.

“You are not wrong to be mad.” Martyn sighed, moving his damnable robe out of his way. He looked at the ground as well.

“I was traveling, and I heard this song, they said it came from the east.” The less details he knows about that right now, the better. He’d never forgive either of us. “The song is about a warrior lost to time, far from home. It concludes:

“Close the eyes of our leader,

Peace may he know,

His long day is done,

He was eager to lead,

And quick to defend.

Killed outright, he was,

By his own men.”

Lewyn stopped moving the sword in the sand.

“What’s it mean?”

“Hell if I know, son. But I hear in it that rulers, like your mother, they need to look outward. Towards the other kingdoms. Towards the Crown. To threats to the whole of Dorne. And she needs us, son, she needs us to look at the people who are looking at her. We need to make sure she can lead without looking back.”

Lewyn paused, dropping the sword. He moved his soft hair off his eyes.

“And what if she is leading in the wrong direction? Or for the wrong reasons?”

“Fuck if I know.” Martyn spit. He paused long enough that it was clear the boy didn’t have anything to say. Martyn looked to the horizon.

“I spent years in the deserts of Dorne and I am no closer to an answer. You have little control in this life. Your sword. Your horse. Your body. You, your mind. Put those things in service of something you can live by. Die for, if it comes to it. For me, it’s been your mother. For you, maybe family. Maybe Dorne. You’ll figure it out. But now, as we make our way through your kingdom, it is House Martell. That is all I know.”

The boy seemed unmoved, uninterested.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, standing and slowly walking away. He left Martyn with his sword.

A few days later Martyn woke to Sarella changing at the foot of their bed. He thought of what he could say to get her back beneath the covers.

“Come back to bed.”

She looked at him, smiling. “Maybe tonight,” she said. “I have things to attend to before our caravan leaves. Maester Flowers has a travel plan that revolves around inspecting the wells throughout Dorne. Maric is not yet convinced they need the attention. We can see about filling your well after that.”

So probably not tonight.

That night when the Queen left Sarella had rushed into the bedroom. She had climbed on him, her hands on his chest, full of lust and anger, on top of him and fucking a woman who hadn’t existed for ten years. She had been less interested in him since then.

He left the room shortly after Sarella did, to plan travel and think about groundwater. He was meeting an old friend in the Shadow City. He rode quickly.

It will be nice to have someone around who understands steel, understands war.

Eustace wasn't one to usually watch a child at play. Being unmarried and an only sibling left him with little experience with babes. Yet there he was, sitting in a small dwelling within his town, simply watching a boy happily play with an assortment of small knights made of tin.

The boy's father sat beside him, merely spectating like Eustace in comfortable silence. It was an odd way for a lord to spend one's day, but Eustace was willing to make an exception for just who the boy was.

"Gods, he's grown." Eustace broke the silence.

"I can hardly believe it myself," Joss said with a smile. He was seated across the table from him, staring at his son with clear pride. "It was not so long ago you burst into the birthing chamber to meet him. Kiera wanted to throttle you for the startle you gave her, but she did not have the strength then."

She would have been able to, had she had the chance. The strength the Pentoshi woman possessed was remarkable both in body and spirit, given what she had been able to overcome. But Eustace’s excitement at the time of Eladon's birth would have been forgiven, he knew.

Joss, an average looking man with the typical olive skin and black hair of the Salty Dornish was a long-serving household knight, and the first of his people to marry one of their Pentoshi settlers. Seeing them start a family was a true miracle to the Dornish lord.

"It is always a pleasure to have you here, my lord, but you needn't have made the journey. I could've been summoned to the castle easily."

Eustace quickly waved his hand in dismissal.

"News as of late has left me seeking a change of scenery if only for a day. Also, if you would forgive my selfishness, I needed a reminder of the few instances of good that my choices have brought about. Before I leave."

Eustace did not need to elaborate further on that 'news.' Word of the tragedy in Blackmont had spread to his town like that flux Luc so stupidly claimed existed. No matter how badly he wished he could contain it, his people knew what had happened and the danger they now found themselves in. There had been no reports of retaliation over the death of Olyvar Tyrell, but Eustace felt that would not remain the case for long.

Should conflict arise, he had to consider the allies he still felt he had left to him. Saltshore was close enough, and Obara would not hesitate to march with him again. But, on the other hand, it grated on him to think a possible reunion he could have with his paramour was to be yet another war they'd have to fight together.

He could undoubtedly trust Starfall – Prince Martyn was a man he respected greatly, and his sisters were remarkable in their own right. But if the Reach were to push conflict, they would be forced to face it first on the border.

The Warden's, he felt, would be of little use. The Princess' loyalists had broken them hard in the War of the Eclipse. Though Eustace did not regret that Aron Fowler and Trebor Yronwood currently inconvenienced the Hells with their presence, he would curse them that their idiocy left their houses without much strength to aid their homeland. No, House Dayne would need more immediate aid should the Reach strike.

“Do you truly believe it will come to a war?” Joss asked him.

“I wish I knew,” Eustace said honestly. “Even more, I wish I possessed any say in such a decision, but alas all I can do is prepare for what may come.”

He would have to march across all of Dorne again, not in hopes of trade and reconciliation of long-held grievances, but in defense of their people and to shed more blood. It was all he could do not to weep – to weep for the plans ruined by all this madness.

A year of peace and preparation was all he would have needed. The timber from Highgarden would have allowed him to fill his harbor with ships ready to sail – a coastal defense never before seen in Dorne. Their sea would have belonged to them, their people free to fish and harvest its bounty, to become less reliant on their neighbors' harvests.

He would have then made a spectacle of his declaration at Plankytown. He’d take his ships and sail the East, displaying this new strength and exploring the world, imploring all willing Rhoynar to join him.

It wouldn’t be hard finding volunteers he thought to himself, many of the Orphans would take the chance to see the land of their ancestors.

City to city, he would travel, forging ties with Princes and Magisters alike to ensure a new trade stream flowed to his markets. So Myrish rugs, Lyseni Perfumes, Pentoshi cheeses, Tyroshi dyes, tea, and spices from the Jade Sea come through Volantis—merchants of all dialects and cultures that he could barter with the Trade Talk.

Finally, and greatest of all, he would sail the Rhoyne. He would venture through the great river of their ancestors, walk the ruined streets of Nymeria's city, and allow any willing Orphan that joined him to behold the lands of the lost mother.

It would have been an experience that marked his very soul.

When he returned triumphant, with tales to last a lifetime, he would tell the Princess and his fellow lords of the multitude of peoples that he inspired to seek safety and glory within their lands, to settle and build lives within Ghost Hill itself.

Who would care or even notice the odd portion of these 'new' settlers' that carried a Pentoshi accent?

Dorne could have become what it should have always been Eustace thought. A doorway to a better world for those who languish oppressed within the old.

“We may try the best we can to prepare for war my lord,” Joss interjected, pouring Eustace a cup of wine as he did so. “Has anyone ever been ready for the horror of it once it starts?”

“Not in my experiences, small as they are.”

It was a nice dream, peace, but turned to ash now. And a summons to Sunspear had seen those ashes cast into the sea.

"I still don't understand why you'd insist on making the journey alone."

Joss's words pulled Eustace’s mind back to their conversation. He’d informed the knight of Sarella's summons the night before if only so his family could prepare should the worst happen. It had been years since she had sent him any correspondence, to suddenly request his presence could only mean the truth had been brought to her attention.

"Deziel or Luconis Longarm would surely join you to offer some protection," Joss said to him now.

"Those that accompany me only risk sharing my fate should Sarella truly be aware that the refugees live," was Eustace’s answer. "Deziel is far too important to me to see his life thrown away so carelessly. The same is true for Luco, but feigning my innocence would be all the more challenging if I bought a Pentoshi as my escort."

"You've risked so much protecting them and hearing you speak now, it is like you are saying farewell..." Joss said, a pained expression held within his eyes. "I cannot pretend any longer to understand why you chose to save them, to defy her when you knew where this would lead you."

Eustace sighed, he knew the question of why would be asked constantly now that the truth was revealed. It frustrated him to know the answer he had was not something many would accept or even understand. However, this knight, this man that was able to find love within a people the Princess had renounced, just might.

"You should understand it better than anyone. You should know what those people have become to me, what you are all to me. Even if the Princess has forgotten, I have not."

Eustace had turned to stare at Eladon once more; the child must have felt his gaze as he soon looked back at Eustace in curiosity. Then, the boy chose to offer his lord a beaming smile that contained only a single tooth. Eustace, in return, could only allow his smile to grow just a bit to match the boys.

"A man protects his children Joss, without needing reason."

Joss only stared at him, he seemed to want to say more, perhaps dispute the point Eustace was trying to make. However, the man only swallowed and gave a shaky nod before he too turned to look at his son, seeking comfort in his presence. Eustace, accepting the response for what it was decided to continue, and in some way attempted to soothe his now distressed companion.

"Besides, who ever said I was going directly to Sunspear?"

The knight’s sudden look of confusion at that question had Eustace certainly amused, and as he reached to sip at his wine once more he further elaborated.

"There's someone I believe to be waiting for me in Plankytown that I'll need to speak with before seeing our dear Princess.”

After all, we have much to discuss with one another.