Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Ugh, my head hurts. Where am I?” The thought is a dull throb, a painful echo in the confines of her skull. The smell of salt and sea and brine is everywhere. It is wrong. All wrong. This is not the familiar, earthy smell of the Dothraki sea—of dry grass, horse sweat, and the smoky air of her camp. The world is moving. Not with the gentle sway of her silks in the desert wind, but a constant, rhythmic rocking that makes her stomach lurch.

Daenerys’s eyes flutter open. The ceiling above her is low and made of dark, rough-hewn planks. She is not in the silken splendour of the tent she shared with her sun-and-stars. She is in a box. A small, cramped cabin, the air thick and close. A wave of dizziness washes over her, and she presses a hand to her forehead, feeling the dull, persistent ache behind her temples.

A dream, she thinks, her mind grasping for a reason. This is a fever dream, brought on by worry. Drogo. The image of him lying on his pallet, his powerful body still, his breath shallow, flashes in her mind. The wound, festering and black. Mirri Maz Duur’s chanting. Her own desperate pleas.

The last thing she remembered clearly was Jorah’s face, tight with a fear she had never seen in him before. He had been begging her to leave. “They will turn on you, Khaleesi,” he had warned, his voice a low, urgent whisper. “When the Khal dies, his strength is gone. They will fight over you like dogs over meat.” She had refused, her voice shaking with a fury born of love and despair. She would not abandon Drogo. She would not.

She remembered arguing, her voice rising until it was almost a shriek. And then… nothing. A void.

The gentle but relentless sway of the cabin is no dream. It is too real, too insistent. Panic, cold and sharp, begins to prickle at the edges of her consciousness. This is not the Red Waste. This is not her khalasar.

With a surge of effort, she pushes herself up from the narrow cot. The room tilts violently, and she has to brace herself against the wall to keep from falling. Her body feels heavy, her limbs clumsy. She reaches for the door, a simple wooden slab with an iron latch. Her heart hammers against her ribs, expecting it to be locked, to be a prisoner. But the latch lifts easily under her trembling fingers.

The door swings inward, and she stumbles out into a light so bright it is blinding. She throws a hand up to shield her eyes, blinking against the painful glare. The air that hits her is cool and damp, carrying the same salty tang from the cabin, but stronger now, whipped by a steady wind that tangled her silver-gold hair across her face.

When her vision clears, her breath catches in her throat.

There is no land. No red sand, no endless plains of pale grass. In every direction, there is only water. A vast, heaving expanse of deep blue-green, stretching to a horizon that seems a thousand leagues away. The sky above is a brilliant, cloudless blue. She is on a ship, its sails billowing in the wind, cutting a lonely path through the endless sea.

Her fear, which had been a cold knot in her stomach, erupted into a hot, searing rage. She saw him then, standing at the ship’s rail not ten paces from her, his back to her. He was a solid, familiar shape against the terrifying emptiness of the ocean. Ser Jorah Mormont.

“Jorah!” Her voice is a raw croak.

He turns slowly. There is no surprise on his face, only a deep, weary sadness in his eyes. He looks older than she remembered, the lines on his face carved deeper by the sun and by something else. Guilt.

She stalks towards him, her bare feet unsteady on the rolling deck. “Where is my husband?” she demands, her voice gaining strength with every step. “Where is my khalasar? What have you done?”

He remains silent, his gaze unwavering.

“You will answer me,” she hisses, stopping just before him, her small frame trembling with fury. “You will tell me why you have stolen me from my people.”

“There was nothing to steal, Khaleesi,” he says, his voice low and rough, almost carried away by the wind.

The words strike her like a physical blow. “Liar,” she whispers, the word laced with venom. She remembers the argument, his desperate plea, and the blankness that followed. A horrifying realisation dawns. “You drugged me.” It is not a question. “You drugged your Khaleesi and carried me away like a sack of grain.”

“I did,” he admits, and the lack of denial, the grim acceptance in his tone, is more infuriating than any lie would have been. His expression is not of a man ashamed, but of one who has made a terrible, necessary choice. “Drogo was gone, Daenerys. His spirit had already left his body. The maegi’s magic was a dark and empty thing. His bloodriders were watching you, their arakhs already thirsty. They would not have let you live to see the sunset. Their loyalty died with him.”

He takes a half-step closer, his eyes pleading for understanding. “I did it to save your life.”

“Save my life?” The words were a bitter taste in her mouth. “You have stolen it! My life was with my husband, with my khalasar. You have left me with nothing!” She shoves at his chest, a futile gesture against his solid frame. “Turn this ship around, Ser. Turn it around now! I command you!”

Her voice breaks on the last word, a sob catching in her throat. The rage, the grief for Drogo, the terror of the endless water—it all crests into a wave of pure, agonising despair. And then, another sensation joins it. A pain, sharp and low in her belly, so intense it steals her breath. She gasps, her hands flying to her swollen abdomen as the world seems to narrow to a single point of fire.

It cannot be. It is too soon.

Jorah’s expression shifts from grim resolve to alarm. “Khaleesi?”

Another wave of pain rips through her, harder this time, and she cries out, stumbling back. He catches her arm, his grip firm and steadying. “It is the babe,” she chokes out, panic flooding her. “The babe is coming.”

“I know,” Jorah says, his voice surprisingly calm. He raises his voice, calling out in a language she does not know towards the ship’s stern. “I was prepared for this. For you, and for the Khalakka.”

A moment later, a woman appears. She is older, with a kind, weathered face and hands that look both strong and gentle. She speaks to Jorah in that same foreign tongue before turning her steady gaze on Daenerys. There is no fear in the woman’s eyes, only a quiet competence that cuts through a sliver of Daenerys’s terror.

The hours that follow are a blur of pain, a storm contained within the rocking walls of the small cabin. Each contraction is a fresh wave of grief for Drogo, a reminder of the life they made together, now being brought into a world without him. The midwife is a constant, calming presence, her voice a low murmur, her hands gentle as she guides her through the ordeal. Jorah waits outside the door, a silent, anxious sentinel.

It is a harrowing, desperate fight, but from the depths of her sorrow, a new life emerges. A cry, loud and healthy, cuts through the air. The midwife cleans him and wraps him in clean linen before placing him in Daenerys’s arms.

He is perfect. He has Drogo’s dark hair and a strength in his tiny limbs that feels familiar and powerful. As she holds him, the storm inside her finally breaks. The pain recedes, the rage quiets, and all that is left is a profound, aching love. She looks down at her son, her Rhaego, and for the first time since waking on this ship, she feels a moment of peace. He is a tangible piece of her sun-and-stars, a living purpose in her empty hands.

Later, when she has rested, she sits propped up on the cot, Rhaego sleeping soundly against her chest. Jorah enters the cabin, his movements hesitant. He looks from her to the child, and a flicker of something soft crosses his face.

“He is the image of the Khal,” he says quietly.

Daenerys nods, her throat too tight to speak. She will not forgive Jorah, not yet, perhaps not ever. But she cannot deny that he saved her son.

He kneels beside the cot. “There is more you must know, Khaleesi,” he begins, his voice gentle but firm. “News came before we left. It is why I had to act so quickly.”

She looks at him, her heart guarded.

“King Robert Baratheon is dead.”

The name hangs in the air. The Usurper. The man who sat on her father’s throne. The news should feel like a victory, but it is distant, a thing of stories.

“His son Joffrey sits the Iron Throne,” Jorah continues, “but his claim is challenged. Robert’s brothers both claim the throne for themselves. And in the North, the Starks have risen in rebellion over the arrest of their lord, Eddard Stark. The Seven Kingdoms are at war.”

Stark, Lannister, Baratheon. The names from Viserys’s bitter lessons, whispered like curses. It all feels like a dream, a history that has nothing to do with her. But then she looks down at the sleeping infant in her arms. At Rhaego. The Stallion Who Will Mount the World. Suddenly, the news from Westeros is no longer a distant story. It is the blood-soaked ground of her and her son’s inheritance. He will have his birthright. I will have my birthright...

The names echo in the small cabin, a litany of ghosts from a land she has never seen. Stark, Lannister, Baratheon. A war for the throne, my throne. For a moment, it is all a meaningless noise against the steady rhythm of her own breathing and the soft sighs of the babe in her arms.

She looks up from Rhaego’s sleeping face, her gaze locking with Jorah’s. “Where are you taking us, Ser?” she asks, her voice quiet but hard, all traces of her earlier hysteria gone. “Not to Pentos, to Illyrio. He would sell my son as he sold me.”

“No, Khaleesi. Not Pentos.”

“King’s Landing, then? To throw ourselves upon the mercy of the Usurper’s whelp?” A bitter laugh escapes her. “I would rather sail into the Smoking Sea.”

“Neither,” Jorah says, his voice low and steady. “We sail for Dorne. For Sunspear, the seat of House Martell.”

Dorne. The name is a surprise. A land of deserts and strange customs, the last kingdom to bow to the dragons. “Why?”

“Because of vengeance,” Jorah says, his eyes burning with a conviction she has not seen before. “The Martells have no love for the Lannisters or the Baratheons. They despise them. When Tywin Lannister’s mad dogs sacked King’s Landing, they murdered your brother’s wife, the Princess Elia Martell, after… after they had finished with her. Then they dashed her children’s heads against a wall.”

The brutal words hang in the air. Elia. Rhaegar’s wife. A woman of her own blood. Daenerys had heard the story from Viserys, of course, but he had always told it with a triumphant cruelty, as if the Dornish princess’s fate was a just payment for Rhaegar choosing her over the glory of House Targaryen. Hearing it now, from Jorah, it is not a story. It is a horror. An injustice that cries out from the grave.

“The Dornish have long memories, Khaleesi,” Jorah continues, leaning forward. “They have been waiting for a dragon to return. They thirst for vengeance as much as you do. This is not a conquest. It is an alliance, forged in shared blood and shared hatred.”

And there it is. The shift. The tumblers of fate clicking into place. The name ‘Elia Martell’ resonates in her soul, a bell tolling for a family she never knew. Her grief for Drogo is still a raw, open wound, but now, a new feeling pours into it, something cold and hard and ancient. It is the fire of the dragon, the call of blood to blood. The abstract dream of a crown, Viserys’s obsession, solidifies into a concrete mission. This is no longer about a throne. It is about retribution. For Rhaegar. For Elia. For the babes murdered in their cribs. For her son, whose birthright was stolen.

She realizes with a startling clarity that Jorah has taken every choice from her. He has stolen her from her home, allowed her husband to die, and forced her onto this ship. But in doing so, he has given her something she did not have. A direction. A purpose beyond her grief. He has taken her rage, a wild and aimless storm, and pointed it like a sword at the heart of her enemies.

Later, she stands on the prow of the ship, the setting sun painting the sky in hues of orange and violet. The wind is cold against her face, whipping her silver hair around her. She holds Rhaego tightly against her chest, his warmth a small anchor in the vast, lonely world. She is no longer the timid girl who was sold to a Khal. She is no longer a Khaleesi of the Dothraki. She feels the loss of her sun-and-stars like a missing part of her own body, but for the first time, she feels another power stirring within her. It is old and fierce and it does not mourn. It burns.

She looks west, towards the home she has never seen, the land that owes her a throne. She is going home, not as a beggar, but as an avenger.

They took my father, my brother, my mother and my people, she thinks, her hand resting protectively on Rhaego’s head. Let them see what it is to lose everything.

Chapter Text

The world, which had been an endless canvas of blue and green for weeks, began to change. A pale, hazy line on the horizon sharpened into a coast of sand and rock. Then came the city. Sunspear rose from the dunes like a creation of the sand itself, a sprawling city of sun-baked mud and stone that shimmered in the relentless heat. Towers, squat and round, punctuated a skyline that was otherwise low and sprawling. From the deck of the ship, Daenerys thought it looked like a child’s sandcastle, impossibly large and intricate.

As they drew closer, the air grew thick and heavy, laden with the scents of hot stone, dust, and spices she could not name—cumin, saffron, and something else, a floral perfume that was almost cloying. It was a world away from the clean, grassy smell of the Dothraki sea or the sharp brine of her voyage. Holding Rhaego closer, she shielded his face from the oppressive sun with a fold of her cloak. He slept on, oblivious, his warmth a steady comfort against her chest.

When they finally docked, the heat was a physical blow. It rose in waves from the stone quay, and for a moment, Daenerys felt as if she were breathing fire. The people were as different as the land. Their skin was the color of rich copper and smooth olive, their hair a uniform black, and their eyes dark and watchful. They moved with a languid grace that spoke of lives lived under a punishing sun, their clothes loose silks of vibrant orange, yellow, and red. They stared at her, at her silver hair and pale skin, their expressions unreadable but their curiosity plain. She was a creature from another world, and she felt their eyes on her like a physical touch.

There was no welcoming party. No prince or princess, no waving banners of a sun and spear. Instead, a dozen guards detached themselves from the shade of a nearby archway. Their armor was little more than boiled leather and a conical steel helm, their spears long and tipped with polished, sun-shaped points. Their leader, a man with a grim face and a neat black beard, gave Jorah a curt nod. “Prince Doran offers his hospitality,” he said, his voice flat. “Follow me.”

The words were polite, but the tone was not. This was not the welcome for a queen seeking an alliance. It was the summons for a petitioner. Daenerys felt a prickle of indignation, but she held her chin high, her face a mask of regal calm. She followed the guards, Jorah at her side, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, his own eyes scanning the crowd.

They were led through winding, narrow streets, past shaded courtyards where the sound of splashing water could be heard. The city was alive with noise and color, but the guards moved through it like a silent river, parting the crowds before them. Finally, they stopped before a high wall, its gate intricately carved with suns and vipers. Inside was not a keep, but a private villa.

It was beautiful. A series of airy rooms opened onto a central courtyard where a fountain trickled into a turquoise pool, the water so clear she could see every tile at the bottom. Orange trees and blood-red blossoms grew in abundance, their scent heavy in the air. It was a paradise, a haven of cool shade and quiet luxury.

And it was a prison.

As soon as they were inside, the gates closed behind them with a heavy, final thud. Guards took up positions outside. The midwife who had delivered Rhaego was shown to a room, and servants brought them cool wine and a platter of fruit, but no one spoke to them. They were left alone in the gilded cage. Daenerys walked to the edge of the pool, looking at her own reflection in the water. She saw a pale girl in foreign clothes, a babe in her arms, a thousand leagues from anything she had ever known as home. They were not guests. They were being watched, measured, and assessed. The game had begun.

For three days, they waited. The sun rose and set, painting the walls of their beautiful prison in shades of gold and rose. Jorah sent requests for an audience with Prince Doran twice a day, and twice a day the same answer returned with a different messenger: “The Prince is unwell. He will see you when he is able.” Daenerys began to feel a familiar frustration, the same impotence she had felt under Viserys’s thumb. They had come so far only to be met with silence and guarded walls.

On the afternoon of the third day, as she sat by the pool nursing Rhaego, the air in the courtyard shifted. There was no announcement, no sound of the gate opening, but a presence suddenly filled the space. Daenerys looked up to see a man standing in the archway, watching her.

He was tall and slender, with a graceful, indolent posture that radiated a dangerous energy, like a coiled snake. He wore loose silks of black and red, and his face was handsome, with sharp cheekbones, a pointed chin, and dark, intelligent eyes that missed nothing. A flicker of a smile played on his lips. This was not a guard or a servant. This was a prince.

Jorah, who had been pacing on the other side of the courtyard, stopped dead. "Prince Oberyn," he said, his voice tight as he moved to stand between the man and Daenerys.

"Ser Jorah Mormont," the prince purred, his eyes never leaving Daenerys. "The Bear of the North, so far from your cold little island. My brother is indisposed. I thought I would extend a welcome myself." He strolled forward, his movements fluid and predatory. "And to meet our... guest."

He stopped before them, his gaze finally dropping to the babe in her arms. "So this is the little dragon," he said, his voice soft. "He has the look of Rhaegar's nephew about him." He did not ask to hold him, for which Daenerys was grateful. His eyes, when they met hers again, were sharp as obsidian chips. "I am Oberyn Martell."

"Daenerys Targaryen," she replied, her voice steady, though her heart was beating a frantic rhythm against her ribs.

"I know who you are," he said with a dismissive wave. "I am more interested in what you are. Tell me, Daenerys Targaryen, what becomes of a Khaleesi without a Khal? I hear your horselord husband was quite the specimen. A pity about his wound."

The words were a deliberate prod, a test. Jorah tensed, but Daenerys met the prince’s gaze without flinching. "My husband is dead. His khalasar is scattered to the winds. I am what is left."

Oberyn’s smile widened, though it held no warmth. "And what is that, precisely? A girl with a babe and a sad story? We have enough of those in Dorne." His eyes glittered. "My sister, Elia. Now that was a sad story. They say the Mountain, Gregor Clegane, raped her with my nephew's blood and brains still on his hands. They say Robert Baratheon smiled when Tywin Lannister laid her children's bodies, wrapped in crimson cloaks, at the foot of the Iron Throne. I live for the day I can repay those debts. Every single one."

The raw hatred in his voice was a palpable thing. It was the same fire she felt banked in her own heart, but his was honed, sharpened over years of bitter patience. He was looking for that same fire in her.

"I did not come to Dorne for pity, Prince Oberyn," Daenerys said, her voice quiet but cold as ice. "I came for what is mine. What is my son's. The Iron Throne was built by my ancestors and stolen by murderers and usurpers. You hate the Lannisters for what they did to your sister. I hate them for what they did to my entire family. It would seem we have a shared enemy."

She held his gaze, refusing to look away, refusing to beg. She was not the frightened girl from Pentos, desperate for a protector. She was a mother. She was a queen. She had lost a husband and a kingdom, and she had nothing left to fear.

For a long moment, Oberyn Martell simply stared at her, his dark eyes searching her face. The mocking smile slowly faded from his lips, replaced by a look of keen, calculating assessment. A flicker of something that looked almost like respect entered his eyes.

"Perhaps," he said, his voice a low drawl. "Perhaps we do.”

The morning after Prince Oberyn’s visit, a formal summons arrived. A scroll, sealed with the sun of House Martell, was delivered by a silent guard. It requested the presence of Queen Daenerys Targaryen not at the formal court of Sunspear, but at the Water Gardens, the private retreat of the princes of Dorne.

The journey was short, a ride through the palace grounds in a shaded litter. The Water Gardens were a world away from the city’s dusty heat. Here, shaded terraces of pink marble overlooked pools and fountains where children, noble and common-born alike, splashed and played, their laughter echoing through the air. The scent of blood orange and jasmine hung heavy, a sweet perfume that did little to calm the nervous energy coiling in Daenerys’s stomach.

They were led to a secluded pavilion. Prince Doran Martell was seated on a cushioned chair, his legs covered by a light blanket despite the heat. His face was long and thoughtful, his eyes dark and patient. He looked like a man who had borne great pain, and it showed in the stillness of his posture. This was the earth to Oberyn’s fire. Standing beside him was a woman of stunning beauty, with full lips and large, dark eyes that held a spark of defiance. This had to be the princess, Arianne. And lounging nearby, a cup of wine in his hand, was Prince Oberyn, his viper’s smile firmly in place.

With Jorah a step behind her, Daenerys approached, Rhaego having been left in the care of the midwife. She gave a slight inclination of her head, the greeting of one monarch to another.

“Prince Doran,” she began, her voice clear and carrying in the quiet air. “I thank you for seeing me. I have come a long way, seeking allies to help me reclaim my father’s throne. The Usurper Robert is dead, and his false son now sits the Iron Throne, propped up by the Lannisters. The realm bleeds. My son, Rhaego, and I are the last dragons. It is my birthright. I offer you an alliance, a chance to unite against the Usurper’s dogs and see justice done for the wrongs they have inflicted upon both our houses.”

She finished, her heart pounding. She had spoken well, she thought. She had been strong.

Doran Martell listened without a single change in his expression. When she was done, a heavy silence fell, broken only by the sound of the fountains. But it was not Doran who answered.

“You speak of the Usurper’s dogs,” Oberyn said, his voice a soft, venomous purr from his seat. “You are not wrong. But it was a dragon who left my sister alone in their kennel. Your brother, for all his songs and prophecies, abandoned Elia and her children to the mercy of monsters when he ran off with his northern wolf girl.”

The words were a physical slap. Daenerys stared at him, stunned. Viserys had only ever spoken of Rhaegar as a hero, a warrior who died fighting for the woman he loved. He had never spoken of abandonment.

“My brother fought and died for his queen,” she stammered, the words sounding weak even to her own ears.

Doran raised a hand, and Oberyn fell silent, though his eyes still burned. “My brother is… blunt,” the ruling prince said, his voice a low rumble. “But he is not wrong. Your father’s madness and your brother’s folly are what brought the wolves to our door. Do not mistake our hatred for Lannister and Baratheon as blindness to the faults of House Targaryen.”

Daenerys felt the blood drain from her face. This was not how she had imagined this. Jorah shifted behind her, but said nothing. She was alone, the history of her house being laid bare as a litany of failures.

Then, the mask of patience on Doran’s face fell away, replaced by a burning intensity that made him seem formidable, despite his infirmity. “But the past is ash,” he declared, his voice suddenly hard as steel. “The present is a Lannister boot on the neck of Westeros, and the most grievous debt is owed by them. My sister’s ghost cries out for vengeance, and I have waited long enough. The time for waiting is over.”

He leaned forward slightly, his dark eyes locking onto hers. “You speak of alliance. You may not know it, but an alliance was made long ago. In Braavos, years past, my brother Oberyn met with your man, Ser Willem Darry. With the Sealord himself as witness, a pact was signed.”

He paused, letting the weight of his words settle.

“A secret pact, to join our houses. A betrothal between my daughter, Arianne, and your brother, Viserys.”

Daenerys stared, speechless, the sound of the fountains seeming to grow impossibly loud in the sudden silence. A pact. A betrothal. A secret history had been running parallel to her own wretched one, a path of power and alliance she and Viserys had never known existed. All those years of running, of begging, of enduring her brother’s rages and fears, and all along, this was waiting. The Princess Arianne, who had been watching her with the cool appraisal of a rival, now looked at her father with a flash of raw resentment. She had been a pawn in this game as well, her future written for her without her consent. Daenerys understood that feeling all too well.

“My brother is dead,” Daenerys said, the words tasting like ash and bitter irony in her mouth. Viserys had died screaming for a golden crown, a mockery of kingship, never knowing that a real one, and a powerful alliance, had been waiting for him across the sea. A strange pity warred with years of resentment. He had been a cruel, weak fool, but he had also been her only family, the last remnant of a life she barely remembered. And he had died ignorant of the prize he so desperately craved.

“He is,” Doran agreed, his gaze unwavering, giving no quarter to sentiment. “And so the pact is broken.” He let the statement hang in the air for a beat, a chapter closed. “But a new one can be forged. A stronger one.”

His eyes flickered to Oberyn, then back to Daenerys. “Your house wronged mine,” he stated plainly, the words devoid of heat, a simple statement of fact. “But our hatred for the lions is greater than our memory of the dragon’s foolishness. An alliance can mend old wounds. My agents in Essos speak of more than just a name. They speak of a girl who married a great Khal and earned his love. A queen who survived the red waste with a newborn babe when seasoned warriors perished. They speak of a resilience that your brother, forgive me, never possessed. A viper bets on the strength to survive, not just on a famous name.”

He leaned forward again, his voice dropping, compelling her to lean in as well. “With Viserys gone, I propose a new union. I offer you the full, undivided loyalty of Dorne. Thirty thousand spears, yours to command. An army to win back your throne and see justice done for Elia. In return, you will bind our houses not with a promise, but with a vow. You shall wed my son, Quentyn.”

Daenerys’s head swam. A marriage. Another one. Her eyes instinctively sought out Jorah. He stood a pace behind her, a stone sentinel, the closest thing she had to a Hand. His face was unreadable, but his eyes met hers for a fraction of a second, and in their depths, she saw a grim acknowledgment. This was the price. This was the path. Her anger at him, a hot and constant thing since she woke on that ship, warred with a cold, grudging understanding. He had stolen her agency, drugged her, taken her from the ashes of her life—a profound betrayal that still made her skin crawl. And yet, his counsel had saved her from the wineseller’s poison, his sword had protected her from assassins, and his desperate, criminal act had brought her here, to the one place in the world that might give her a future. The violation and the salvation were tangled together, a knot she could not unravel. He was her jailer and her staunchest defender.

Her mind flashed back to her first wedding. She had been sold to Khal Drogo, traded for the promise of an army that died with him in the red waste. The bitterness of that transaction, of her own powerlessness, had been a sharp, ugly thing. But that marriage had changed. In the heart of the Dothraki sea, under a canopy of stars, she had found an unexpected love, a fierce respect, a home. She had found freedom on horseback, the wind in her hair, the world her dominion. And then it had all been torn away, leaving her with nothing but a babe in her arms and a handful of loyal followers. This felt different. It was still a marriage for an army, but she was not the frightened girl being bartered. She was a queen at the negotiating table, in a cool marble garden that felt more like a cage than the open plains ever had.

As if sensing her hesitation, Doran added his final condition, his voice steady and absolute. “And we will secure the future. To honor the traditions of your house, and to bind ours for generations to come, the first daughter born from your union with my son shall be betrothed to your firstborn son, your heir, Rhaego.” He gestured vaguely towards the villa where her son slept. “Let our blood mix, and wash away the bitterness of the past.”

The scope of it was breathtaking. A marriage for herself, a betrothal for her son. A dynasty forged in a garden pavilion, built on a foundation of shared grief and hatred. She looked at the path laid out before her. Her journey across the poison water, the loss of her sun-and-stars, the birth of her son—every trial had led her to this moment. Her simple, childish view of right and wrong—of noble Targaryens and evil Usurpers—had been shattered. The world was a web of tangled grievances, of debts and betrayals so deep they spanned generations.

She looked at Prince Doran, at his tired, pain-filled eyes, and saw past the patient schemer. She saw a man willing to set aside one deep wound to avenge another, deeper one. She saw an avenger, just like her.

A slow smile touched her lips, the first genuine smile since Drogo’s fever had turned for the worse. It felt strange and foreign on her face. It was not a smile of joy, but of acceptance. Of power.

“I accept your terms, Prince Doran,” she said, her voice ringing with a newfound certainty that surprised even herself.

A collective breath was released in the pavilion. Arianne looked intrigued, a new calculation in her eyes. Oberyn’s lips curled into a true, predatory smile of satisfaction. And Doran Martell leaned back in his chair, a flicker of profound triumph in his weary eyes. The pact of fire and sun was sealed.

The chapter of her life as a Khaleesi was over. A new one had begun. The Dornish spears were hers to command, but she now carried the unsettling knowledge that her family’s legacy, the one she fought to restore, was as much of ash as it is of fire. And she would have to be careful not to be consumed by the flames herself.

Chapter Text

Robb , she knew, the moment she heard the kennels erupt.

Her son had returned to Riverrun, and Grey Wind with him. Only the scent of the great grey direwolf could send the hounds into such a frenzy of baying and barking. He will come to me , she knew. Edmure had not returned after his first visit, preferring to spend his days with Marq Piper and Patrek Mallister, listening to Rymund the Rhymer’s verses about the battle at the Stone Mill. Robb is not Edmure, though. Robb will see me .

It had been raining for days now, a cold grey downpour that well suited Catelyn’s mood. Her father was growing weaker and more delirious with every passing day, waking only to mutter, “Tansy,” and beg forgiveness. Edmure shunned her, and Ser Desmond Grell still denied her freedom of the castle, however unhappy it seemed to make him. Only the return of Ser Robin Ryger and his men, footweary and drenched to the bone, served to lighten her spirits. They had walked back, it seemed. Somehow the Kingslayer had contrived to sink their galley and escape, Maester Vyman confided. Catelyn asked if she might speak with Ser Robin to learn more of what had happened, but that was refused her.

Something else was wrong as well. On the day her brother returned, a few hours after their argument, she had heard angry voices from the yard below. When she climbed to the roof to see, there were knots of men gathered across the castle beside the main gate. Horses were being led from the stables, saddled and bridled, and there was shouting, though Catelyn was too far away to make out the words. One of Robb’s white banners lay on the ground, and one of the knights turned his horse and trampled over the direwolf as he spurred toward the gate. Several others did the same. Those are men who fought with Edmure on the fords , she thought. What could have made them so angry? Has my brother slighted them somehow, given them some insult? She thought she recognized Ser Perwyn Frey, who had traveled with her to Bitterbridge and Storm’s End and back, and his bastard half brother Martyn Rivers as well, but from this vantage it was hard to be certain. Close to forty men poured out through the castle gates, to what end she did not know.

They did not come back. Nor would Maester Vyman tell her who they had been, where they had gone, or what had made them so angry. “I am here to see to your father, and only that, my lady,” he said. “Your brother will soon be Lord of Riverrun. What hewishes you to know, he must tell you.”

But now Robb was returned from the west, returned in triumph. He will forgive me , Catelyn told herself. He must forgive me, he is my own son, and Arya and Sansa are as much his blood as mine. He will free me from these rooms and then I will know what has happened .

By the time Ser Desmond came for her, she had bathed and dressed and combed out her auburn hair. “King Robb has returned from the west, my lady,” the knight said, “and commands that you attend him in the Great Hall.”

It was the moment she had dreamt of and dreaded. Have I lost two sons, or three? She

would know soon enough.

The hall was crowded when they entered. Every eye was on the dais, but Catelyn knew their backs: Lady Mormont’s patched ringmail, the Greatjon and his son looming above every other head in the hall, Lord Jason Mallister white-haired with his winged helm in the crook of his arm, Tytos Blackwood in his magnificent raven-feather cloak . . . Half of them will want to hang me now. The other half may only turn their eyes away . She had the uneasy feeling that someone was missing, too.

Robb stood on the dais. At the foot of the high seat, a coiled grey shadow stirred and lifted its head. Grey Wind. He is a boy no longer, Catelyn realized with a pang. He is sixteen now, a man grown. Just look at him. War had melted all the softness from his face and left him hard and lean. He had shaved his beard away, but his auburn hair fell uncut to his shoulders.

War had been kind to the wolf, if not the boy. Catelyn remembered the day they had found the pups in the snow, so small they fit in a child's arms. The beast that watched the crowded hall with intelligent yellow eyes was immense now, his head easily reaching a man's hip when he stood, his height at the shoulder slightly more than three feet. His fur was a thick, shaggy mantle of smoke and shadow. The lords gave him a wide berth, as well they should.

The recent rains had rusted Robb's mail and left brown stains on the white of his cloak and surcoat. Or perhaps the stains were blood. On his head was the sword crown they had fashioned him of bronze and iron. He bears it more comfortably now. He bears it like a king.

Edmure stood below the crowded dais, head bowed modestly as Robb praised his victory. “ . . . fell at the Stone Mill shall never be forgotten. Small wonder Lord Tywin ran off to fight Stannis. He’d had his fill of northmen and rivermen both.” That brought laughter and approving shouts, but Robb raised a hand for quiet. “Make no mistake, though. The Lannisters will march again, and there will be other battles to win before the kingdom is secure.”

The Greatjon roared out, “ King in the North! ” and thrust a mailed fist into the air. The river lords answered with a shout of “ King of the Trident! ” The hall grew thunderous with pounding fists and stamping feet.

Only a few noted Catelyn and Ser Desmond amidst the tumult, but they elbowed their fellows, and slowly a hush grew around her. She held her head high and ignored theeyes. Let them think what they will. It is Robb’s judgment that matters .

The sight of Ser Brynden Tully’s craggy face on the dais gave her comfort. A boy she did not know seemed to be acting as Robb’s squire. Behind him stood a young knight in a sand-colored surcoat blazoned with seashells, and an older one who wore three black pepperpots on a saffron bend, across a field of green and silver stripes. Between them were a handsome older lady and a pretty maid who looked to be her daughter. There was another girl as well, near Sansa’s age. The seashells were the sigil of some lesser house, Catelyn knew; the older man’s she did not recognize. Prisoners? Why would Robb bring captives onto the dais?

Utherydes Wayn banged his staff on the floor as Ser Desmond escorted her forward. If Robb looks at me as Edmure did, I do not know what I will do . But it seemed to her that it was not anger she saw in her son’s eyes, but something else . . . apprehension, perhaps? No, that made no sense. What should he fear? He was the Young Wolf, King of the Trident and the North.

Her uncle was the first to greet her. As black a fish as ever, Ser Brynden had no care for what others might think. He leapt off the dais and pulled Catelyn into his arms. When he said, “It is good to see you home, Cat,” she had to struggle to keep her composure. “And you,” she whispered. “Mother.”

Catelyn looked up at her tall kingly son. “Your Grace, I have prayed for your safe return. I had heard you were wounded.”

“I took an arrow through the arm while storming the Crag,” he said. “It’s healed well, though. I had the best of care.”

“The gods are good, then.” Catelyn took a deep breath. Say it. It cannot be avoided .

“They will have told you what I did. Did they tell you my reasons?”

“For the girls.”

“I had five children. Now I have three.”

“Aye, my lady.” Lord Rickard Karstark pushed past the Greatjon, like some grim specter with his black mail and long ragged grey beard, his narrow face pinched and cold. “And I have one son, who once had three. You have robbed me of my vengeance.”

Catelyn faced him calmly. “Lord Rickard, the Kingslayer’s dying would not have boughtlife for your children. His living may buy life for mine.”

The lord was unappeased. “Jaime Lannister has played you for a fool. You’ve bought a bag of empty words, no more. My Torrhen and my Eddard deserved better of you.” “Leave off, Karstark,” rumbled the Greatjon, crossing his huge arms against his chest. “It was a mother’s folly. Women are made that way.”

“A mother’s folly?” Lord Karstark rounded on Lord Umber. “I name it treason.”

“ Enough .” For just an instant Robb sounded more like Brandon than his father. “No man calls my lady of Winterfell a traitor in my hearing, Lord Rickard.” When he turned to Catelyn, his voice softened. “If I could wish the Kingslayer back in chains I would. You freed him without my knowledge or consent . . . but what you did, I know you did for love. For Arya and Sansa, and out of grief for Bran and Rickon. Love’s not always wise, I’ve learned. It can lead us to great folly, but we follow our hearts . . . wherever they take us. Don’t we, Mother?”

Is that what I did? “If my heart led me into folly, I would gladly make whatever amends I can to Lord Karstark and yourself.”

Lord Rickard’s face was implacable. “Will your amends warm Torrhen and Eddard in the cold graves where the Kingslayer laid them?” He shouldered between the Greatjon and Maege Mormont and left the hall.

Robb made no move to detain him. “Forgive him, Mother.”

“If you will forgive me.”

“I have. I know what it is to love so greatly you can think of nothing else.”

Catelyn bowed her head. “Thank you.” I have not lost this child, at least .

“We must talk,” Robb went on. “You and my uncles. Of this and . . . other things. Steward, call an end.”

Utherydes Wayn slammed his staff on the floor and shouted the dismissal, and river lords and northerners alike moved toward the doors.

As the hall began to empty, Robb turned to the strangers on the dais. "Mother," he said, his voice suddenly uncomfortable, "may I present the Lady Sybell, the wife of Lord Gawen Westerling of the Crag.”

As the older woman came forward, a low rumble echoed in the hall, vibrating through the stone floor. Grey Wind rose to his feet, the fur on his neck bristling. His yellow eyes were fixed on the newcomers, and a soft growl escaped his throat. The seashell knight, Ser Raynald, put a hand on his sword hilt.

Robb put a reassuring hand on the wolf's head. "Easy, Wind. They are friends." He looked at Catelyn, his expression a mix of apology and defiance. "He gets restless in crowds."

Catelyn’s eyes narrowed, studying the strangers. The wolf was not restless; he was wary. Before she could speak, she was surrounded by a circle of well-wishers. Lady Mormont took her hand and said, “My lady, if Cersei Lannister held two of my daughters, I would have done the same.” The Greatjon, no respecter of proprieties, lifted her off her feet and squeezed her arms with his huge hairy hands. “Your wolf pup mauled the Kingslayer once, he’ll do it again if need be.” Galbart Glover and Lord Jason Mallister were cooler, and Jonos Bracken almost icy, but their words were courteous enough. Her brother was the last to approach her. “I pray for your girls as well, Cat. I hope you do not doubt that. “

“Of course not.” She kissed him. “I love you for it.”

When all the words were done, the Great Hall of Riverrun was empty save for Robb, the three Tullys, and the six strangers Catelyn could not place. She eyed them curiously. “My lady, sers, are you new to my son’s cause?”

“New,” said the younger knight, him of the seashells, “but fierce in our courage and firm in our loyalties, as I hope to prove to you, my lady.”

Robb looked uncomfortable. “Mother, “ he said, “may I present the Lady Sybell, the wife of Lord Gawen Westerling of the Crag.” The older woman came forward with solemn mien. “Her husband was one of those we took captive in the Whispering Wood.”

Westerling , yes, Catelyn thought. Their banner is six seashells, white on sand. A minor house sworn to the Lannisters .

Robb beckoned the other strangers forward, each in turn. “Ser Rolph Spicer, Lady Sybell’s brother. He was castellan at the Crag when we took it.” The pepperpot knight inclined his head. A square-built man with a broken nose and a close-cropped grey beard, he looked doughty enough. “The children of Lord Gawen and Lady Sybell. Ser Raynald Westerling.” The seashell knight smiled beneath a bushy mustache. Young, lean, rough-hewn, he had good teeth and a thick mop of chestnut hair. “Elenya.” The little girl did a quick curtsy. “Rollam Westerling, my squire.” The boy started to kneel, saw no one else was kneeling, and bowed instead.

“The honor is mine,” Catelyn said. Can Robb have won the Crag’s allegiance? If so, it was no wonder the Westerlings were with him. Casterly Rock did not suffer such betrayals gently. Not since Tywin Lannister had been old enough to go to war . . .

The maid came forward last, and very shy. Robb took her hand. “Mother,” he said, “I have the great honor to present you the Lady Jeyne Westerling. Lord Gawen’s elder daughter, and my . . . ah . . . my lady wife.”

The first thought that flew across Catelyn’s mind was, No, that cannot be, you are only a child .

The second was, And besides, you have pledged another .

The third was, Mother have mercy, Robb, what have you done?

Only then came her belated remembrance. Follies done for love? He has bagged me neat as a hare in a snare. I seem to have already forgiven him . Mixed with her annoyance was a rueful admiration; the scene had been staged with the cunning worthy of a master mummer . . . or a king. Catelyn saw no choice but to take Jeyne Westerling’s hands. “I have a new daughter,” she said, more stiffly than she’d intended. She kissed the terrified girl on both cheeks. “Be welcome to our hall and hearth.”

“Thank you, my lady. I shall be a good and true wife to Robb, I swear. And as wise a queen as I can.”

Queen. Yes, this pretty little girl is a queen, I must remember that . She was pretty, undeniably, with her chestnut curls and heart-shaped face, and that shy smile. Slender, but with good hips, Catelyn noted. She should have no trouble bearing children, at least .

Lady Sybell took a hand before any more was said. “We are honored to be joined to House Stark, my lady, but we are also very weary. We have come a long way in a short time. Perhaps we might retire to our chambers, so you may visit with your son?”

“That would be best.” Robb kissed his Jeyne. “The steward will find you suitable accommodations.”

“I’ll take you to him,” Ser Edmure Tully volunteered.

“You are most kind,” said Lady Sybell.

“Must I go too?” asked the boy, Rollam. “I’m your squire.”

Robb laughed. “But I’m not in need of squiring just now.”

“Oh.”

“His Grace has gotten along for sixteen years without you, Rollam,” said Ser Raynald of the seashells. “He will survive a few hours more, I think.” Taking his little brother firmly by the hand, he walked him from the hall.

“Your wife is lovely,” Catelyn said when they were out of earshot, “and the Westerlings seem worthy . . . though Lord Gawen is Tywin Lannister’s sworn man, is he not?”

“Yes. Jason Mallister captured him in the Whispering Wood and has been holding him at Seagard for ransom. Of course I’ll free him now, though he may not wish to join me. We wed without his consent, I fear, and this marriage puts him in dire peril. The Crag is not strong. For love of me, Jeyne may lose all.”

“And you,” she said softly, “have lost the Freys.”

His wince told all. She understood the angry voices now, why Perwyn Frey and Martyn Rivers had left in such haste, trampling Robb’s banner into the ground as they went.

“Dare I ask how many swords come with your bride, Robb?”

“Fifty. A dozen knights.” His voice was glum, as well it might be. When the marriage contract had been made at the Twins, old Lord Walder Frey had sent Robb off with a thousand mounted knights and near three thousand foot. “Jeyne is bright as well as beautiful. And kind as well. She has a gentle heart.”

It is swords you need, not gentle hearts. How could you do this, Robb? How could you be so heedless, so stupid? How could you be so . . . so very . . . young . Reproaches would not serve here, however. All she said was, “Tell me how this came to be.”

“I took her castle and she took my heart.,’ Robb smiled. “The Crag was weakly garrisoned, so we took it by storm one night. Black Walder and the Smalljon led scaling parties over the walls, while I broke the main gate with a ram. I took an arrow in the arm just before Ser Rolph yielded us the castle. It seemed nothing at first, but it festered. Jeyne had me taken to her own bed, and she nursed me until the fever passed. And she was with me when the Greatjon brought me the news of . . . of Winterfell. Bran and Rickon.” He seemed to have trouble saying his brothers’ names. “That night, she . . . she comforted me, Mother.”

Catelyn did not need to be told what sort of comfort Jeyne Westerling had offered her son. “And you wed her the next day.”

He looked her in the eyes, proud and miserable all at once. “It was the only honorable thing to do. She’s gentle and sweet, Mother, she will make me a good wife.”

“Perhaps. That will not appease Lord Frey.”

“I know,” her son said, stricken. “I’ve made a botch of everything but the battles, haven’t I? I thought the battles would be the hard part, but . . . if I had listened to you and kept Theon as my hostage, I’d still rule the north, and Bran and Rickon would be alive and safe in Winterfell.”

“Perhaps. Or not. Lord Balon might still have chanced war. The last time he reached for a crown, it cost him two sons. He might have thought it a bargain to lose only one this time.” She touched his arm. “What happened with the Freys, after you wed?”

Robb shook his head. “With Ser Stevron, I might have been able to make amends, but Ser Ryman is dull-witted as a stone, and Black Walder . . . that one was not named for the color of his beard, I promise you. He went so far as to say that his sisters would not be loath to wed a widower. I would have killed him for that if Jeyne had not begged me to be merciful.”

“You have done House Frey a grievous insult, Robb.”

“I never meant to. Ser Stevron died for me, and Olyvar was as loyal a squire as any king could want. He asked to stay with me, but Ser Ryman took him with the rest. All their strength. The Greatjon urged me to attack them . . . ”

“Fighting your own in the midst of your enemies?” she said. “It would have been the end of you.”

“Yes. I thought perhaps we could arrange other matches for Lord Walder’s daughters. Ser Wendel Manderly has offered to take one, and the Greatjon tells me his uncles wish to wed again. If Lord Walder will be reasonable—”

“He is not reasonable,” said Catelyn. “He is proud, and prickly to a fault. You know that. He wanted to be grandfather to a king. You will not appease him with the offer of two hoary old brigands and the second son of the fattest man in the Seven Kingdoms. Not only have you broken your oath, but you’ve slighted the honor of the Twins by choosing a bride from a lesser house.”

Robb bristled at that. “The Westerlings are better blood than the Freys. They’re an ancient line, descended from the First Men. The Kings of the Rock sometimes wed Westerlings before the Conquest, and there was another Jeyne Westerling who was queen to King Maegor three hundred years ago.”

“All of which will only salt Lord Walder’s wounds. It has always rankled him that older houses look down on the Freys as upstarts. This insult is not the first he’s borne, to hear him tell it. Jon Arryn was disinclined to foster his grandsons, and my father refused theoffer of one of his daughters for Edmure.” She inclined her head toward her brother as he rejoined them.

“Your Grace,” Brynden Blackflsh said, “perhaps we had best continue this in private.”

“Yes.” Robb sounded tired. “I would kill for a cup of wine. The audience chamber, I think.”

As they started up the steps, Catelyn stopped him. “Robb, you saw him. That was not restlessness. That was a warning.”

“He is a wolf, Mother. He growls. That is what they do.” Robb’s voice was defensive. “A hall is no place for him, truly. He gets agitated. I should never have taken him into battle with me. He’s killed too many men to fear them now. Jeyne’s anxious around him, and he terrifies her mother.”

And there’s the heart of it, Catelyn thought. “He is part of you, Robb. To fear him is to fear you.”

“I am not a wolf, no matter what they call me.” Robb sounded cross. “Grey Wind killed a man at the Crag, another at Ashemark, and six or seven at Oxcross. If you had seen—”

“I saw Bran’s wolf tear out a man’s throat at Winterfell,” she said sharply, “and loved him for it.”

“That’s different. The man at the Crag was a knight Jeyne had known all her life. You can’t blame her for being afraid. Grey Wind doesn’t like her uncle either. He bares his teeth every time Ser Rolph comes near him.”

A chill went through her. “Send Ser Rolph away. At once.”

“Where? Back to the Crag, so the Lannisters can mount his head on a spike? Jeyne loves him. He’s her uncle, and a fair knight besides. I need more men like Rolph Spicer, not fewer. I am not going to banish him just because my wolf doesn’t seem to like the way he smells.”

“Robb.” She stopped and held his arm. “I told you once to keep Theon Greyjoy close, and you did not listen. Listen now. Send this man away . I am not saying you must banish him. Find some task that requires a man of courage, some honorable duty, what it is matters not . . . but do not keep him near you .”

He frowned. “Should I have Grey Wind sniff all my knights? There might be others whose smell he mislikes. Announce to the realm that my direwolf holds veto over my command?” His voice was sharp with irritation, but his eyes glanced towards the wolf, and Catelyn saw the conflict there.

“Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that. I think perhaps the gods sent them to us. Your father’s gods, the old gods of the north. Five wolf pups, Robb, five for five Stark children.”

“Six,” said Robb. “There was a wolf for Jon as well. I found them, remember? I know how many there were and where they came from. I used to think the same as you, that the wolves were our guardians, our protectors, until . . . ”

“Until?” she prompted.

Robb’s mouth tightened. “. . . Until they told me that Theon had murdered Bran and Rickon. Small good their wolves did them. I am no longer a boy, Mother. I’m a king, and I can protect myself.” He sighed then, the sound heavy with the weight of his crown and his grief. He looked from his mother's pleading face to the memory of the wolf's bared teeth. "The Grey Wind’s judgment has not been wrong before," he admitted quietly, more to himself than to her. "Very well. I will find some duty for Ser Rolph, some pretext to send him away. Not because of his smell, but to ease your mind. You have suffered enough.”

Relieved, Catelyn kissed him lightly on the cheek before the others could come around the turn of the stair, and for a moment he was her boy again, and not her king. Lord Hoster’s private audience chamber was a small room above the Great Hall, better suited to intimate discussions. Robb took the high seat, removed his crown, and set it on the floor beside him as Catelyn rang for wine. Edmure was filling his uncle’s ear with the whole story of the fight at the Stone Mill. It was only after the servants had come and gone that the Blackfish cleared his throat and said, “I think we’ve all heard sufficient of your boasting, Nephew.”

Edmure was taken aback. “Boasting? What do you mean?”

“I mean ,” said the Blackfish, “that you owe His Grace your thanks for his forbearance. He played out that mummer’s farce in the Great Hall so as not to shame you before your own people. Had it been me I would have flayed you for your stupidity rather than praising this folly of the fords.”

“Good men died to defend those fords, Uncle.” Edmure sounded outraged. “What, is no one to win victories but the Young Wolf? Did I steal some glory meant for you, Robb?”“ Your Grace ,” Robb corrected, icy. “You took me for your king, Uncle. Or have you forgotten that as well?”

The Blackfish said, “You were commanded to hold Riverrun, Edmure, no more.”

“I held Riverrun, and I bloodied Lord Tywin’s nose—”

“So you did,” said Robb. “But a bloody nose won’t win the war, will it? Did you ever think to ask yourself why we remained in the west so long after Oxcross? You knew I did not have enough men to threaten Lannisport or Casterly Rock.”

“Why . . . there were other castles . . . gold, cattle . . . ”

“You think we stayed for plunder ?” Robb was incredulous. “Uncle, I wanted Lord Tywin to come west.”

“We were all horsed,” Ser Brynden said. “The Lannister host was mainly foot. We planned to run Lord Tywin a merry chase up and down the coast, then slip behind him to take up a strong defensive position athwart the gold road, at a place my scouts had found where the ground would have been greatly in our favor. If he had come at us there, he would have paid a grievous price. But if he did not attack, he would have been trapped in the west, a thousand leagues from where he needed to be. All the while we would have lived off his land, instead of him living off ours.”

“Lord Stannis was about to fall upon King’s Landing,” Robb said. “He might have rid us of Joffrey, the queen, and the Imp in one red stroke. Then we might have been able to make a peace.”

Edmure looked from uncle to nephew. “You never told me.”

“I told you to hold Riverrun, “ said Robb. “What part of that command did you fail to comprehend?”

“When you stopped Lord Tywin on the Red Fork,” said the Blackfish, “you delayed him just long enough for riders out of Bitterbridge to reach him with word of what was happening to the east. Lord Tywin turned his host at once, joined up with Matthis Rowan and Randyll Tarly near the headwaters of the Blackwater, and made a forced march to Tumbler’s Falls, where he found Mace Tyrell and two of his sons waiting with a huge host and a fleet of barges. They floated down the river, disembarked half a day’s ride from the city, and took Stannis in the rear.”

Catelyn remembered King Renly’s court, as she had seen it at Bitterbridge. A thousand golden roses streaming in the wind, Queen Margaery’s shy smile and soft words, her brother the Knight of Flowers with the bloody linen around his temples. If you had to fall into a woman’s arms, my son, why couldn’t they have been Margaery Tyrell’s? The wealth and power of Highgarden could have made all the difference in the fighting yet to come. And perhaps Grey Wind would have liked the smell of her as well .

Edmure looked ill. “I never meant . . . never , Robb, you must let me make amends. I will lead the van in the next battle!”

For amends, Brother? Or for glory? Catelyn wondered.

“The next battle,” Robb said. “Well, that will be soon enough. Once Joffrey is wed, the Lannisters will take the fleld against me once more, I don’t doubt, and this time the Tyrells will march beside them. And I may need to fight the Freys as well, if Black Walder has his way . . . ”

“So long as Theon Greyjoy sits in your father’s seat with your brothers’ blood on his hands, these other foes must wait,” Catelyn told her son. “Your first duty is to defend your own people, win back Winterfell, and hang Theon in a crow’s cage to die slowly. Or else put off that crown for good, Robb, for men will know that you are no true king at all.”

From the way Robb looked at her, she could tell that it had been a long while since anyone had dared speak to him so bluntly. “When they told me Winterfell had fallen, I wanted to go north at once,” he said, with a hint of defensiveness. “I wanted to free Bran and Rickon, but I thought . . . I never dreamed that Theon could harm them, truly. If I had . . . ”

“It is too late for if s, and too late for rescues,” Catelyn said. “All that remains is vengeance.”

“The last word we had from the north, Ser Rodrik had defeated a force of ironmen near Torrhen’s Square, and was assembling a host at Castle Cerwyn to retake Winterfell.” said Robb. “By now he may have done it. There has been no news for a long while. And what of the Trident, if I turn north? I can’t ask the river lords to abandon their own people.”

“No,” said Catelyn. “Leave them to guard their own, and win back the north with northmen.”

“How will you get the northmen to the north?” her brother Edmure asked. “The ironmen control the sunset sea. The Greyjoys hold Moat Cailin as well. No army has ever taken Moat Cailin from the south. Even to march against it is madness. We could be trapped on the causeway, with the ironborn before us and angry Freys at our backs.”

“We must win back the Freys,” said Robb. “With them, we still have some chance of success, however small. Without them, I see no hope. I am willing to give Lord Walder whatever he requires . . . apologies, honors, lands, gold . . . there must be something that would soothe his pride . . . ”

“Not something,” said Catelyn. “Some one .”

Chapter Text

Lord Tywin’s chain of hands made a golden glitter against the deep wine velvet of his tunic. The Lords Tyrell, Redwyne, and Rowan gathered round him as he entered. He greeted each in turn, spoke a quiet word to Varys, kissed the High Septon’s ring and Cersei’s cheek, clasped the hand of Grand Maester Pycelle, and seated himself in the king’s place at the head of the long table, between his daughter and his brother.

Tyrion had claimed Pycelle’s old place at the foot, propped up by cushions so he could gaze down the length of the table. Dispossessed, Pycelle had moved up next to Cersei, about as far from the dwarf as he could get without claiming the king’s seat. The Grand Maester was a shambling skeleton, leaning heavily on a twisted cane and shaking as he walked, a few white hairs sprouting from his long chicken’s neck in place of his once- luxuriant white beard. Tyrion gazed at him without remorse.

The others had to scramble for seats: Lord Mace Tyrell, a heavy, robust man with curling brown hair and a spade-shaped beard well salted with white; Paxter Redwyne of the Arbor, stoop-shouldered and thin, his bald head fringed by tufts of orange hair; Mathis Rowan, Lord of Goldengrove, clean-shaven, stout, and sweating; the High Septon, a frail man with wispy white chin hair. Too many strange faces , Tyrion thought, too many new players. The game changed while I lay rotting in my bed, and no one will tell me the rules .

Oh, the lords had been courteous enough, though he could tell how uncomfortable it made them to look at him. “That chain of yours, that was cunning,” Mace Tyrell had said in a jolly tone, and Lord Redwyne nodded and said, “Quite so, quite so, my lord of Highgarden speaks for all of us,” and very cheerfully too. Tell it to the people of this city , Tyrion thought bitterly. Tell it to the bloody singers, with their songs of Renly’s ghost .

His uncle Kevan had been the warmest, going so far as to kiss his cheek and say, “Lancel has told me how brave you were, Tyrion. He speaks very highly of you.”

He’d better, or I’ll have a few things to say of him . He made himself smile and say, “My good cousin is too kind. His wound is healing, I trust?”Ser Kevan frowned. “One day he seems stronger, the next . . . it is worrisome. Your sister

often visits his sickbed, to lift his spirits and pray for him.”

But is she praying that he lives, or dies? Cersei had made shameless use of their cousin, both in and out of bed; a little secret she no doubt hoped Lancel would carry to his grave now that Father was here and she no longer had need of him. Would she go so far as to murder him, though? To look at her today, you would never suspect Cersei was capable of such ruthlessness. She was all charm, flirting with Lord Tyrell as they spoke of Joffrey’s wedding feast, complimenting Lord Redwyne on the valor of his twins, softening gruff Lord Rowan with jests and smiles, making pious noises at the High Septon. “Shall we begin with the wedding arrangements?” she asked as Lord Tywin took his seat.

“No,” their father said. “With the war. Varys.”

The eunuch smiled a silken smile. “I have such delicious tidings for you all, my lords. Yesterday at dawn our brave Lord Randyll caught Robett Glover outside Duskendale and trapped him against the sea. Losses were heavy on both sides, but in the end our loyal men prevailed. Ser Helman Tallhart is reported dead, with a thousand others. Robett Glover leads the survivors back toward Harrenhal in bloody disarray, little dreaming he will find valiant Ser Gregor and his stalwarts athwart his path.”

“Gods be praised!” said Paxter Redwyne. “A great victory for King Joffrey!”

What did Joffrey have to do with it? thought Tyrion.

“And a terrible defeat for the north, certainly,” observed Littlefinger, “yet one in which Robb Stark played no part. The Young Wolf remains unbeaten in the field.”

“What do we know of Stark’s plans and movements?” asked Mathis Rowan, ever blunt and to the point.

“He has run back to Riverrun with his plunder, abandoning the castles he took in the west,” announced Lord Tywin. “Our cousin Ser Daven is reforming the remnants of his late father’s army at Lannisport. When they are ready he shall join Ser Forley Prester at the Golden Tooth. As soon as the Stark boy starts north, Ser Forley and Ser Daven will descend on Riverrun.”

“You are certain Lord Stark means to go north?” Lord Rowan asked. “Even with the ironmen at Moat Cailin?”

Mace Tyrell spoke up. “Is there anything as pointless as a king without a kingdom? No,it’s plain, the boy must abandon the riverlands, join his forces to Roose Bolton’s once more, and throw all his strength against Moat Cailin. That is what I would do.”

Tyrion had to bite his tongue at that. Robb Stark had won more battles in a year than the Lord of Highgarden had in twenty. Tyrell’s reputation rested on one indecisive victory over Robert Baratheon at Ashford, in a battle largely won by Lord Tarly’s van before the main host had even arrived. The siege of Storm’s End, where Mace Tyrell actually did hold the command, had dragged on a year to no result, and after the Trident was fought, the Lord of Highgarden had meekly dipped his banners to Eddard Stark.

“I ought to write Robb Stark a stern letter,” Littlefinger was saying. “I understand his man Bolton is stabling goats in my high hall, it’s really quite unconscionable.”

Ser Kevan Lannister cleared his throat. “As regards the Starks . . . Balon Greyjoy, who now styles himself King of the Isles and the North, has written to us offering terms of alliance.”

“He ought to be offering fealty,” snapped Cersei. “By what right does he call himself king?”

“By right of conquest,” Lord Tywin said. “King Balon has strangler’s fingers round the Neck. Robb Stark’s heirs are dead, Winterfell is fallen, and the ironmen hold Moat Cailin, Deepwood Motte, and most of the Stony Shore. King Balon’s longships command the sunset sea, and are well placed to menace Lannisport, Fair Isle, and even Highgarden, should we provoke him.”

“And if we accept this alliance?” inquired Lord Mathis Rowan. “What terms does he propose?”

“That we recognize his kingship and grant him everything north of the Neck.”

Lord Redwyne laughed. “What is there north of the Neck that any sane man would want? If Greyjoy will trade swords and sails for stone and snow, I say do it, and count ourselves lucky.”

“Truly,” agreed Mace Tyrell. “That’s what I would do. Let King Balon finish the

northmen whilst we finish Stannis.”

Lord Tywin’s face gave no hint as to his feelings. “There is Lysa Arryn to deal with as well. Jon Arryn’s widow, Hoster Tully’s daughter, Catelyn Stark’s sister . . . whose husband was conspiring with Stannis Baratheon at the time of his death.”“Oh,” said Mace Tyrell cheerfully, “women have no stomach for war. Let her be, I say, she’s not like to trouble us.”

“I agree,” said Redwyne. “The Lady Lysa took no part in the fighting, nor has she

committed any overt acts of treason.”

Tyrion stirred. “She did throw me in a cell and put me on trial for my life,” he pointed out, with a certain amount of rancor. “Nor has she returned to King’s Landing to swear fealty to Joff, as she was commanded. My lords, grant me the men, and I will sort out Lysa Arryn.” He could think of nothing he would enjoy more, except perhaps strangling Cersei. Sometimes he still dreamed of the Eyrie’s sky cells, and woke drenched in cold sweat.

Mace Tyrell’s smile was jovial, but behind it Tyrion sensed contempt. “Perhaps you’d best leave the fighting to fighters,” said the Lord of Highgarden. “Better men than you have lost great armies in the Mountains of the Moon, or shattered them against the Bloody Gate. We know your worth, my lord, no need to tempt fate.”

Tyrion pushed off his cushions, bristling, but his father spoke before he could lash back.

“I have other tasks in mind for Tyrion. I believe Lord Petyr may hold the key to the Eyrie.”

“Oh, I do,” said Littlefinger, “I have it here between my legs.” There was mischief in his grey-green eyes. “My lords, with your leave, I propose to travel to the Vale and there woo and win Lady Lysa Arryn. Once I am her consort, I shall deliver you the Vale of Arryn without a drop of blood being spilled.”

Lord Rowan looked doubtful. “Would Lady Lysa have you?”

“She’s had me a few times before, Lord Mathis, and voiced no complaints.”

“Bedding,” said Cersei, “is not wedding. Even a cow like Lysa Arryn might be able to grasp the difference.”

“To be sure. It would not have been fitting for a daughter of Riverrun to marry one so far below her.” Littlefinger spread his hands. “Now, though . . . a match between the Lady of the Eyrie and the Lord of Harrenhal is not so unthinkable, is it?”

Tyrion noted the look that passed between Paxter Redwyne and Mace Tyrell. “It might serve,” Lord Rowan said, “if you are certain that you can keep the woman loyal to the King’s Grace.”

“My lords,” pronounced the High Septon, “autumn is upon us, and all men of good heart are weary of war. If Lord Baelish can bring the Vale back into the king’s peace without more shedding of blood, the gods will surely bless him.”

“But can he?” asked Lord Redwyne. “Jon Arryn’s son is Lord of the Eyrie now. The Lord Robert.”

“Only a boy,” said Littleflnger. “I will see that he grows to be Joffrey’s most loyal subject, and a fast friend to us all.”

Tyrion studied the slender man with the pointed beard and irreverent grey-green eyes. Lord of Harrenhal an empty honor? Bugger that, Father. Even if he never sets foot in the castle, the title makes this match possible, as he’s known all along .

“We have no lack of foes,” said Ser Kevan Lannister. “If the Eyrie can be kept out of the war, all to the good. I am of a mind to see what Lord Petyr can accomplish.”

Ser Kevan was his brother’s vanguard in council, Tyrion knew from long experience; he never had a thought that Lord Tywin had not had first. It has all been settled beforehand , he concluded, and this discussion’s no more than show .

The sheep were bleating their agreement, unaware of how neatly they’d been shorn, so it fell to Tyrion to object. “How will the crown pay its debts without Lord Petyr? He is our wizard of coin, and we have no one to replace him.”

Littlefinger smiled. “My little friend is too kind. All I do is count coppers, as King Robert used to say. Any clever tradesman could do as well . . . and a Lannister, blessed with the golden touch of Casterly Rock, will no doubt far surpass me.”

“A Lannister?” Tyrion had a bad feeling about this.

Lord Tywin’s gold-flecked eyes met his son’s mismatched ones. “You are admirably suited to the task, I believe.”

“Indeed!” Ser Kevan said heartily. “I’ve no doubt you’ll make a splendid master of coin, Tyrion.”

Lord Tywin turned back to Littlefinger. “If Lysa Arryn will take you for a husband and return to the king’s peace, we shall restore the Lord Robert to the honor of Warden of the East. How soon might you leave?”

“On the morrow, if the winds permit. There’s a Braavosi galley standing out past the chain, taking on cargo by boat. The Merling King . I’ll see her captain about a berth.”

“You will miss the king’s wedding,” said Mace Tyrell.

Petyr Baelish gave a shrug. “Tides and brides wait on no man, my lord. Once the autumn storms begin the voyage will be much more hazardous. Drowning would definitely diminish my charms as a bridegroom.”

Lord Tyrell chuckled. “True. Best you do not linger.”

“May the gods speed you on your way,” the High Septon said. “All King’s Landing shall pray for your success.”

Lord Redwyne pinched at his nose. “May we return to the matter of the Greyjoy alliance?

In my view, there is much to be said for it. Greyjoy’s longships will augment my own fleet and give us sufficient strength at sea to assault Dragonstone and end Stannis Baratheon’s pretensions.”

“King Balon’s longships are occupied for the nonce,” Lord Tywin said politely, “as are we. Greyjoy demands half the kingdom as the price of alliance, but what will he do to earn it? Fight the Starks? He is doing that already. Why should we pay for what he has given us for free? The best thing to do about our lord of Pyke is nothing, in my view.

Granted enough time, a better option may well present itself. One that does not require the king to give up half his kingdom.”

Tyrion watched his father closely. There’s something he’s not saying . He remembered those important letters Lord Tywin had been writing, the night Tyrion had demanded Casterly Rock. What was it he said? Some battles are won with swords and spears, others with quills and ravens . . . he wondered who the “better option” was, and what sort of price he was demanding.

“Perhaps we ought move on to the wedding,” Ser Kevan said.

The High Septon spoke of the preparations being made at the Great Sept of Baelor, and Cersei detailed the plans she had been making for the feast. They would feed a thousand in the throne room, but many more outside in the yards. The outer and middle wards would be tented in silk, with tables of food and casks of ale for all those who could not be accommodated within the hall.

“Your Grace,” said Grand Maester Pycelle, “in regard to the number of guests . . . we have had a raven from Sunspear. Three hundred Dornishmen are riding toward King’s Landing as we speak, and hope to arrive before the wedding.”

The words landed in a chamber that was suddenly thick with tension. Mace Tyrell’s face began to purple. “Three hundred? They have not asked leave to cross my lands.”

“Dorne?” Cersei’s voice was a sharp crack. She shot to her feet, her green eyes blazing, ignoring Tyrell entirely. Her gaze fixed first on Varys, then swung to Tyrion like a physical blow. “Did you not hear the Spider? They are harboring the Targaryen whore and her bastard get! And you would welcome them here?”

Her voice rose to a shriek. “You sent my daughter to them! YOU!” She pointed a trembling finger at Tyrion. “You sent Myrcella to her death! To be a hostage for dragonspawn!”

So much for subtlety, Tyrion thought, a grimace twisting his lips. He saw the flicker of fear and outrage on the faces of Redwyne and Rowan. The Red Viper with a dragon cub to raise? The thought was terrifying. He had sent Myrcella to Dorne to secure an ally, not to place her in the jaws of a Targaryen restoration plot. For a moment, he felt a genuine spike of fear for the girl.

“The Spider spoke of unconfirmed rumors, sweet sister,” Tyrion said, his voice dangerously calm. “Are we to make policy based on sailors’ tales?”

“Silence.” Lord Tywin’s voice was not loud, but it cut through Cersei’s hysteria like Valyrian steel. She flinched and fell silent, though her eyes still promised murder. Lord Tywin turned his gaze not to his children, but to the Master of Whisperers. “Varys. These are more than sailors’ tales, or you would not have brought them to this council. I want this confirmed. I want to know if the girl is in Sunspear, who is with her, and the precise nature of Doran’s ‘support.’ Use whatever resources you require. I will have the truth of it.”

Varys bowed his head, the picture of humble obedience. “As you command, my lord Hand.”

Only then did Lord Tywin turn back to the wider council, his face an unreadable mask. “Prince Doran comes at my son’s invitation,” he said calmly, as if Cersei’s outburst had never happened, “not only to join in our celebration, but to claim his seat on this council, and the justice Robert denied him for the murder of his sister Elia and her children.”

Tyrion watched the faces of the Lords Tyrell, Redwyne, and Rowan, wondering if any of the three would be bold enough to say, “But Lord Tywin, wasn’t it you who presented the bodies to Robert, all wrapped up in Lannister cloaks?” None of them did, but it was there on their faces all the same. Redwyne does not give a fig , he thought, but Rowan looks fit to gag .

“When the king is wed to your Margaery and Myrcella to Prince Trystane, we shall all be one great House,” Ser Kevan reminded Mace Tyrell. “The enmities of the past should remain there, would you not agree, my lord?”

“This is my daughter’s wedding —”

“—and my grandson’s,” said Lord Tywin firmly. “No place for old quarrels, surely?”

“I have no quarrel with Doran Martell,” insisted Lord Tyrell, though his tone was more than a little grudging. “If he wishes to cross the Reach in peace, he need only ask my leave.”

Small chance of that , thought Tyrion. He’ll climb the Boneway, turn east near Summerhall, and come up the kingsroad .

“Three hundred Dornishmen need not trouble our plans,” said Cersei. “We can feed the men-at-arms in the yard, squeeze some extra benches into the throne room for the lordlings and highborn knights, and find Prince Doran a place of honor on the dais.”

Not by me , was the message Tyrion saw in Mace Tyrell’s eyes, but the Lord of Highgarden made no reply but a curt nod.“Perhaps we can move to a more pleasant task,” said Lord Tywin. “The fruits of victory await division.”

“What could be sweeter?” said Littlefinger, who had already swallowed his own fruit, Harrenhal.

Each lord had his own demands; this castle and that village, tracts of lands, a small river, a forest, the wardship of certain minors left fatherless by the battle. Fortunately, these fruits were plentiful, and there were orphans and castles for all. Varys had lists. Forty-seven lesser lordlings and six hundred nineteen knights had lost their lives beneath the fiery heart of Stannis and his Lord of Light, along with several thousand common men- at-arms. Traitors all, their heirs were disinherited, their lands and castles granted to those who had proved more loyal.

Highgarden reaped the richest harvest. Tyrion eyed Mace Tyrell’s broad belly and thought, He has a prodigious appetite, this one . Tyrell demanded the lands and castles of Lord Alester Florent, his own bannerman, who’d had the singular ill judgment to back first Renly and then Stannis. Lord Tywin was pleased to oblige. Brightwater Keep and all its lands and incomes were granted to Lord Tyrell’s second son, Ser Garlan, transforming him into a great lord in the blink of an eye. His elder brother, of course, stood to inherit Highgarden itself.

Lesser tracts were granted to Lord Rowan, and set aside for Lord Tarly, Lady Oakheart, Lord Hightower, and other worthies not present. Lord Redwyne asked only for thirty years’ remission of the taxes that Littlefinger and his wine factors had levied on certain of the Arbor’s finest vintages. When that was granted, he pronounced himself well satisfied and suggested that they send for a cask of Arbor gold, to toast good King Joffrey and his wise and benevolent Hand. At that Cersei lost patience. “It’s swords Joff needs, not toasts,” she snapped. “His realm is still plagued with would-be usurpers and self-styled kings.”

“But not for long, I think,” said Varys unctuously.

“A few more items remain, my lords.” Ser Kevan consulted his papers. “Ser Addam has found some crystals from the High Septon’s crown. It appears certain now that the thieves broke up the crystals and melted down the gold.”

“Our Father Above knows their guilt and will sit in judgment on them all,” the High Septon said piously.

“No doubt he will,” said Lord Tywin. “All the same, you must be crowned at the king’s wedding. Cersei, summon your goldsmiths, we must see to a replacement.” He did notwait for her reply, but turned at once to Varys. “You have reports?”

The eunuch drew a parchment from his sleeve. “A kraken has been seen off the Fingers.” He giggled. “Not a Greyjoy, mind you, a true kraken...”

He paused, letting the wonder of it hang in the air before adding, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “And that is not the only rumor of dragons that reaches my little birds, my lords. A whisper from the south, this one. A ship arriving in Sunspear, unannounced. On it, they say, was Daenerys Targaryen, with a newborn son. My sources claim she has been granted the full protection of Prince Doran, and is being housed in secret. Given their support, as it were.”

A Targaryen, Tyrion thought, a chill creeping up his spine that had nothing to do with the cool stone of the chamber. And in Dorne, of all the wretched places. He watched his father’s face for a reaction, but there was none.

“Dragons and krakens do not interest me, regardless of the number of their heads,” said Lord Tywin, his voice cutting through the eunuch’s whispers with sharp impatience. “Have your whisperers perchance found some trace of my brother’s son?”

“Alas, our beloved Tyrek has quite vanished, the poor brave lad.” Varys sounded close to tears.

“Tywin,” Ser Kevan said, before Lord Tywin could vent his obvious displeasure, “some of the gold cloaks who deserted during the battle have drifted back to barracks, thinking to take up duty once again. Ser Addam wishes to know what to do with them.”

“They might have endangered Joff with their cowardice,” Cersei said at once. “I want them put to death.”

Varys sighed. “They have surely earned death, Your Grace, none can deny it. And yet, perhaps we might be wiser to send them to the Night’s Watch. We have had disturbing messages from the Wall of late. Of wildlings astir . . . ”

“Wildlings, krakens, and dragons.” Mace Tyrell chuckled. “Why, is there anyone not stirring?”

Lord Tywin ignored that. “The deserters serve us best as a lesson. Break their knees with hammers. They will not run again. Nor will any man who sees them begging in the streets.” He glanced down the table to see if any of the other lords disagreed.

Tyrion remembered his own visit to the Wall, and the crabs he’d shared with old Lord Mormont and his officers. He remembered the Old Bear’s fears as well. “Perhaps we might break the knees of a few to make our point. Those who killed Ser Jacelyn, say. The rest we can send to Marsh. The Watch is grievously under strength. If the Wall should fail . . . ”

“ . . . the wildlings will flood the north,” his father finished, “and the Starks and Greyjoys will have another enemy to contend with. They no longer wish to be subject to the Iron Throne, it would seem, so by what right do they look to the Iron Throne for aid? King Robb and King Balon both claim the north. Let them defend it, if they can. And if not,this Mance Rayder might even prove a useful ally.” Lord Tywin looked to his brother. “Is there more?”

Ser Kevan shook his head. “We are done. My lords, His Grace King Joffrey would no doubt wish to thank you all for your wisdom and good counsel.”

“I should like private words with my children,” said Lord Tywin as the others rose to leave. “You as well, Kevan.”

Obediently, the other councillors made their farewells, Varys the first to depart and Tyrell and Redwyne the last. When the chamber was empty but for the four Lannisters, Ser Kevan closed the door.

“ Master of coin? ” said Tyrion in a thin strained voice. “Whose notion was that, pray?”

“Lord Petyr’s,” his father said, “but it serves us well to have the treasury in the hands of a Lannister. You have asked for important work. Do you fear you might be incapable of the task?”

“No,” said Tyrion, “I fear a trap. Littlefinger is subtle and ambitious. I do not trust him. Nor should you.”

“He won Highgarden to our side . . . ” Cersei began.

“ . . . and sold you Ned Stark, I know. He will sell us just as quick. A coin is as dangerous as a sword in the wrong hands.”

His uncle Kevan looked at him oddly. “Not to us, surely. The gold of Casterly Rock . . . ”

“ . . . is dug from the ground. Littlefinger’s gold is made from thin air, with a snap of his fingers.”

“A more useful skill than any of yours, sweet brother,” purred Cersei, in a voice sweet with malice.

“Littlefinger is a liar—”

“—and black as well, said the raven of the crow.”

Lord Tywin slammed his hand down on the table. “ Enough! I will have no more of this unseemly squabbling. You are both Lannisters, and will comport yourselves as such.”Ser Kevan cleared his throat. “I would sooner have Petyr Baelish ruling the Eyrie than any of Lady Lysa’s other suitors. Yohn Royce, Lyn Corbray, Horton Redfort . . . these are dangerous men, each in his own way. And proud. Littlefinger may be clever, but he has neither high birth nor skill at arms. The lords of the Vale will never accept such as their liege.” He looked to his brother. When Lord Tywin nodded, he continued. “And there is this—Lord Petyr continues to demonstrate his loyalty. Only yesterday he brought us word of a Tyrell plot to spirit Sansa Stark off to Highgarden for a ‘visit’ and there marry her to Lord Mace’s eldest son, Willas.”

“ Littlefinger brought you word?” Tyrion leaned against the table. “Not our master of whisperers? How interesting.”

Cersei looked at their uncle in disbelief. “Sansa is my hostage. She goes nowhere without my leave.”

“Leave you must perforce grant, should Lord Tyrell ask,” their father pointed out.

“To refuse him would be tantamount to declaring that we did not trust him. He would take offense.”

“Let him. What do we care?”

Bloody fool , thought Tyrion. “Sweet sister,” he explained patiently, “offend Tyrell and you offend Redwyne, Tarly, Rowan, and Hightower as well, and perhaps start them wondering whether Robb Stark might not be more accommodating of their desires.”

“I will not have the rose and the direwolf in bed together,” declared Lord Tywin. “We must forestall him.”

“How?” asked Cersei.

“By marriage. Yours, to begin with.”

It came so suddenly that Cersei could only stare for a moment. Then her cheeks reddened as if she had been slapped. “No. Not again. I will not.”

“Your Grace,” said Ser Kevan, courteously, “you are a young woman, still fair and fertile. Surely you cannot wish to spend the rest of your days alone? And a new marriage would put to rest this talk of incest for good and all.”

“So long as you remain unwed, you allow Stannis to spread his disgusting slander,” Lord Tywin told his daughter. “You must have a new husband in your bed, to father children on you.”

“Three children is quite sufficient. I am Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, not a brood mare! The Queen Regent !”

“You are my daughter, and will do as I command.”

She stood. “I will not sit here and listen to this—”

“You will if you wish to have any voice in the choice of your next husband,” Lord Tywin said calmly.

When she hesitated, then sat, Tyrion knew she was lost, despite her loud declaration of, “I will not marry again!”

“You will marry and you will breed. Every child you birth makes Stannis more a liar.” Their father’s eyes seemed to pin her to her chair. “Mace Tyrell, Paxter Redwyne, and Doran Martell are wed to younger women likely to outlive them. Balon Greyjoy’s wife is elderly and failing, but such a match would commit us to an alliance with the Iron Islands, and I am still uncertain whether that would be our wisest course.”

“No,” Cersei said from between white lips. “No, no, no.”

Tyrion could not quite suppress the grin that came to his lips at the thought of packing his sister off to Pyke. Just when I was about to give up praying, some sweet god gives me this .

Lord Tywin went on. “Oberyn Martell might suit, but the Tyrells would take that very ill. So we must look to the sons. I assume you do not object to wedding a man younger than yourself?”

“I object to wedding any —”

“I have considered the Redwyne twins, Theon Greyjoy, Quentyn Martell, and a number of others. But our alliance with Highgarden was the sword that broke Stannis. It should be tempered and made stronger. Ser Loras has taken the white and Ser Garlan is wed to one of the Fossoways, but there remains the eldest son, the boy they scheme to wed to Sansa Stark.”

Willas Tyrell . Tyrion was taking a wicked pleasure in Cersei’s helpless fury. “That would be the cripple,” he said.

Their father chilled him with a look. “Willas is heir to Highgarden, and by all reports a mild and courtly young man, fond of reading books and looking at the stars. He has a passion for breeding animals as well, and owns the finest hounds, hawks, and horses in the Seven Kingdoms.”

A perfect match , mused Tyrion. Cersei also has a passion for breeding . He pitied poor Willas Tyrell, and did not know whether he wanted to laugh at his sister or weep for her.

“The Tyrell heir would be my choice,” Lord Tywin concluded, “but if you would prefer another, I will hear your reasons.”

“That is so very kind of you, Father,” Cersei said with icy courtesy. “It is such a difficult choice you give me. Who would I sooner take to bed, the old squid or the crippled dog boy? I shall need a few days to consider. Do I have your leave to go?”

You are the queen , Tyrion wanted to tell her. He ought to be begging leave of you .

“Go,” their father said. “We shall talk again after you have composed yourself. Remember your duty.”

Cersei swept stiffly from the room, her rage plain to see. Yet in the end she will do as Father bid . She had proved that with Robert. Though there is Jaime to consider . Their brother had been much younger when Cersei wed the first time; he might not acquiesce to a second marriage quite so easily. The unfortunate Willas Tyrell was like to contract a sudden fatal case of sword-through-bowels, which could rather sour the alliance between Highgarden and Casterly Rock. I should say something, but what? Pardon me, Father, but it’s our brother she wants to marry?

“Tyrion.”

He gave a resigned smile. “Do I hear the herald summoning me to the lists?”

“Your whoring is a weakness in you,” Lord Tywin said without preamble, “but perhaps some share of the blame is mine. Since you stand no taller than a boy, I have found it easy to forget that you are in truth a man grown, with all of a man’s baser needs. It is past time you were wed.”

I was wed, or have you forgotten? Tyrion’s mouth twisted, and the noise emerged that was half laugh and half snarl.

“Does the prospect of marriage amuse you?”“Only imagining what a bugger-all handsome bridegroom I’ll make.” A wife might be the very thing he needed. If she brought him lands and a keep, it would give him a place in the world apart from Joffrey’s court . . . and away from Cersei and their father.

On the other hand, there was Shae. She will not like this, for all she swears that she is content to be my whore .

That was scarcely a point to sway his father, however, so Tyrion squirmed higher in his seat and said, “You mean to wed me to Sansa Stark. But won’t the Tyrells take the match as an affront, if they have designs on the girl?”

“Lord Tyrell will not broach the matter of the Stark girl until after Joffrey’s wedding. If Sansa is wed before that, how can he take offense, when he gave us no hint of his intentions?”

“Quite so,” said Ser Kevan, “and any lingering resentments should be soothed by the offer of Cersei for his Willas.”

Tyrion rubbed at the raw stub of his nose. The scar tissue itched abominably sometimes. “His Grace the royal pustule has made Sansa’s life a misery since the day her father died, and now that she is finally rid of Joffrey you propose to marry her to me. That seems singularly cruel. Even for you, Father.”

“Why, do you plan to mistreat her?” His father sounded more curious than concerned. “The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours. Our alliances in the south may be as solid as Casterly Rock, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is Sansa Stark.”

“She is no more than a child.”

“Your sister swears she’s flowered. If so, she is a woman, fit to be wed. You must needs take her maidenhead, so no man can say the marriage was not consummated. After that, if you prefer to wait a year or two before bedding her again, you would be within your rights as her husband.”

Shae is all the woman I need just now , he thought, and Sansa’s a girl, no matter what you say . “If your purpose here is to keep her from the Tyrells, why not return her to her mother? Perhaps that would convince Robb Stark to bend the knee.”

Lord Tywin’s look was scornful. “Send her to Riverrun and her mother will match her with a Blackwood or a Mallister to shore up her son’s alliances along the Trident. Sendher north, and she will be wed to some Manderly or Umber before the moon turns. Yet she is no less dangerous here at court, as this business with the Tyrells should prove. She must marry a Lannister, and soon.”

“The man who weds Sansa Stark can claim Winterfell in her name,” his uncle Kevan put in. “Had that not occurred to you?”

“If you will not have the girl, we shall give her to one of your cousins,” said his father. “Kevan, is Lancel strong enough to wed, do you think?”

Ser Kevan hesitated. “If we bring the girl to his bedside, he could say the words . . . but to consummate, no . . . I would suggest one of the twins, but the Starks hold them both at Riverrun. They have Genna’s boy Tion as well, else he might serve.”

Tyrion let them have their byplay; it was all for his benefit, he knew. Sansa Stark , he mused. Soft-spoken sweet-smelling Sansa, who loved silks, songs, chivalry and tall gallant knights with handsome faces. He felt as though he was back on the bridge of boats, the deck shifting beneath his feet.

“You asked me to reward you for your efforts in the battle,” Lord Tywin reminded him forcefully. “This is a chance for you, Tyrion, the best you are ever likely to have.” He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table. “I once hoped to marry your brother to Lysa Tully, but Aerys named Jaime to his Kingsguard before the arrangements were complete. When I suggested to Lord Hoster that Lysa might be wed to you instead, he replied that he wanted a whole man for his daughter.”

So he wed her to Jon Arryn, who was old enough to be her grandfather . Tyrion was more inclined to be thankful than angry, considering what Lysa Arryn had become.

“When I offered you to Dorne I was told that the suggestion was an insult,” Lord Tywin continued. “In later years I had similar answers from Yohn Royce and Leyton Hightower. I finally stooped so low as to suggest you might take the Florent girl Robert deflowered in his brother’s wedding bed, but her father preferred to give her to one of his own household knights.

“If you will not have the Stark girl, I shall find you another wife. Somewhere in the realm there is doubtless some little lordling who’d gladly part with a daughter to win the friendship of Casterly Rock. Lady Tanda has offered Lollys . . . ”

Tyrion gave a shudder of dismay. “I’d sooner cut it off and feed it to the goats.”

“Then open your eyes. The Stark girl is young, nubile, tractable, of the highest birth, andstill a maid. She is not uncomely. Why would you hesitate?”

Why indeed? “A quirk of mine. Strange to say, I would prefer a wife who wants me in her bed.”

“If you think your whores want you in their bed, you are an even greater fool than I suspected,” said Lord Tywin. “You disappoint me, Tyrion. I had hoped this match would please you.”

“Yes, we all know how important my pleasure is to you, Father. But there’s more to this. The key to the north, you say? The Greyjoys hold the north now, and King Balon has a daughter. Why Sansa Stark, and not her?” He looked into his father’s cool green eyes with their bright flecks of gold.

Lord Tywin steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “Balon Greyjoy thinks in terms of plunder, not rule. Let him enjoy an autumn crown and suffer a northern winter. He will give his subjects no cause to love him. Come spring, the northmen will have had a bellyful of krakens. When you bring Eddard Stark’s grandson home to claim his birthright, lords and little folk alike will rise as one to place him on the high seat of his ancestors. You are capable of getting a woman with child, I hope?”

“I believe I am,” he said, bristling. “I confess, I cannot prove it. Though no one can say I have not tried. Why, I plant my little seeds just as often as I can . . . ”

“In the gutters and the ditches,” finished Lord Tywin, “and in common ground where only bastard weeds take root. It is past time you kept your own garden.” He rose to his feet. “You shall never have Casterly Rock, I promise you. But wed Sansa Stark, and it is just possible that you might win Winterfell.”

Tyrion Lannister, Lord Protector of Winterfell . The prospect gave him a queer chill. “Very good, Father,” he said slowly, “but there’s a big ugly roach in your rushes. Robb Stark is as capable as I am, presumably, and sworn to marry one of those fertile Freys. And once the Young Wolf sires a litter, any pups that Sansa births are heirs to nothing.”

Lord Tywin was unconcerned. “Robb Stark will father no children on his fertile Frey, you have my word. There is a bit of news I have not yet seen fit to share with the council, though no doubt the good lords will hear it soon enough. The Young Wolf has taken Gawen Westerling’s eldest daughter to wife.”

For a moment Tyrion could not believe he’d heard his father right. “He broke his sworn word?” he said, incredulous. “He threw away the Freys for . . . ” Words failed him.“A maid of sixteen years, named Jeyne,” said Ser Kevan. “Lord Gawen once suggested her to me for Willem or Martyn, but I had to refuse him. Gawen is a good man, but his wife is Sybell Spicer. He should never have wed her. The Westerlings always did have more honor than sense. Lady Sybell’s grandfather was a trader in saffron and pepper, almost as lowborn as that smuggler Stannis keeps. And the grandmother was some woman he’d brought back from the east. A frightening old crone, supposed to be a priestess. Maegi , they called her. No one could pronounce her real name. Half of Lannisport used to go to her for cures and love potions and the like.” He shrugged. “She’s long dead, to be sure. And Jeyne seemed a sweet child, I’ll grant you, though I only saw her once. But with such doubtful blood . . . ”

Having once married a whore, Tyrion could not entirely share his uncle’s horror at the thought of wedding a girl whose great grandfather sold cloves. Even so . . . A sweet child , Ser Kevan had said, but many a poison was sweet as well. The Westerlings were old blood, but they had more pride than power. It would not surprise him to learn that Lady Sybell had brought more wealth to the marriage than her highborn husband. The Westerling mines had failed years ago, their best lands had been sold off or lost, and the Crag was more ruin than stronghold. A romantic ruin, though, jutting up so brave above the sea . “I am surprised,” Tyrion had to confess. “I thought Robb Stark had better sense.”

“He is a boy of sixteen,” said Lord Tywin. “At that age, sense weighs for little, against lust and love and honor.”

“He forswore himself, shamed an ally, betrayed a solemn promise. Where is the honor in that?”

Ser Kevan answered. “He chose the girl’s honor over his own. Once he had deflowered her, he had no other course.”

“It would have been kinder to leave her with a bastard in her belly,” said Tyrion bluntly. The Westerlings stood to lose everything here; their lands, their castle, their very lives. A Lannister always pays his debts .

“Jeyne Westerling is her mother’s daughter,” said Lord Tywin, “and Robb Stark is his father’s son.”

This Westerling betrayal did not seem to have enraged his father as much as Tyrion would have expected. Lord Tywin did not suffer disloyalty in his vassals. He had extinguished the proud Reynes of Castamere and the ancient Tarbecks of Tarbeck Hall root and branch when he was still half a boy. The singers had even made a rather gloomy song of it. Some years later, when Lord Farman of Faircastle grew truculent, Lord Tywinsent an envoy bearing a lute instead of a letter. But once he’d heard “The Rains of Castamere” echoing through his hall, Lord Farman gave no further trouble. And if the song were not enough, the shattered castles of the Reynes and Tarbecks still stood as mute testimony to the fate that awaited those who chose to scorn the power of Casterly Rock. “The Crag is not so far from Tarbeck Hall and Castamere,” Tyrion pointed out.

“You’d think the Westerlings might have ridden past and seen the lesson there.”

“Mayhaps they have,” Lord Tywin said. “They are well aware of Castamere, I promise you.”

“Could the Westerlings and Spicers be such great fools as to believe the wolf can defeat the lion?”

Every once in a very long while, Lord Tywin Lannister would actually threaten to smile; he never did, but the threat alone was terrible to behold. “The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them,” he said, and then, “You will marry Sansa Stark, Tyrion. And soon.”

Chapter Text

They carried the corpses in upon their shoulders and laid them beneath the dais. A silence fell across the torchlit hall, and in the quiet Catelyn could hear Grey Wind howling half a castle away. He smells the blood , she thought, through stone walls and wooden doors, through night and rain, he still knows the scent of death and ruin.

She stood at Robb’s left hand beside the high seat, and for a moment felt almost as if she were looking down at her own dead, at Bran and Rickon. These boys had been much older, but death had shrunken them. Naked and wet, they seemed such little things, so still it was hard to remember them living.

The blond boy had been trying to grow a beard. Pale yellow peach fuzz covered his cheeks and jaw above the red ruin the knife had made of his throat. His long golden hair was still wet, as if he had been pulled from a bath. By the look of him, he had died peacefully, perhaps in sleep, but his brown-haired cousin had fought for life. His arms bore slashes where he’d tried to block the blades, and red still trickled slowly from the stab wounds that covered his chest and belly and back like so many tongueless mouths, though the rain had washed him almost clean.

Robb had donned his crown before coming to the hall, and the bronze shone darkly in the torchlight. Shadows hid his eyes as he looked upon the dead. Does he see Bran and Rickon as well? She might have wept, but there were no tears left in her. The dead boys were pale from long imprisonment, and both had been fair; against their smooth white skin, the blood was shockingly red, unbearable to look upon. Will they lay Sansa down naked beneath the Iron Throne after they have killed her? Will her skin seem as white, her blood as red? From outside came the steady wash of rain and the restless howling of a wolf.

Her brother Edmure stood to Robb’s right, one hand upon the back of his father’s seat, his face still puffy from sleep. They had woken him as they had her, pounding on his door in the black of night to yank him rudely from his dreams. Were they good dreams, brother? Do you dream of sunlight and laughter and a maiden’s kisses? I pray you do .

Her own dreams were dark and laced with terrors.

Robb’s captains and lords bannermen stood about the hall, some mailed and armed, others in various states of dishevelment and undress. Ser Raynald and his uncle Ser Rolph were among them, but Robb had seen fit to spare his queen this ugliness. The Crag is not far from Casterly Rock , Catelyn recalled. Leyne may well have played with these boys when all of them were children .

She looked down again upon the corpses of the squires Tion Frey and Willem Lannister, and waited for her son to speak.

It seemed a very long time before Robb lifted his eyes from the bloody dead. “Smalljon,” he said, “tell your father to bring them in.” Wordless, Smalljon Umber turned to obey, his steps echoing in the great stone hall.

As the Greatjon marched his prisoners through the doors, Catelyn made note of how some other men stepped back to give them room, as if treason could somehow be passed by a touch, a glance, a cough. The captors and the captives looked much alike; big men, every one, with thick beards and long hair. Two of the Greatjon’s men were wounded, and three of their prisoners. Only the fact that some had spears and others empty scabbards served to set them apart. All were clad in mail hauberks or shirts of sewn rings, with heavy boots and thick cloaks, some of wool and some of fur. The north is hard and cold, and has no mercy , Ned had told her when she first came to Winterfell a thousand years ago.

“Five,” said Robb when the prisoners stood before him, wet and silent. “Is that all of them?”

“There were eight,” rumbled the Greatjon. “We killed two taking them, and a third is dying now.”

Robb studied the faces of the captives. “It required eight of you to kill two unarmed squires.”

Edmure Tully spoke up. “They murdered two of my men as well, to get into the tower. Delp and Elwood.”

“It was no murder, ser,” said Lord Rickard Karstark, no more discomfited by the ropes about his wrists than by the blood that trickled down his face. “Any man who steps between a father and his vengeance asks for death.”

His words rang against Catelyn’s ears, harsh and cruel as the pounding of a war drum. Her throat was dry as bone. I did this. These two boys died so my daughters might live .

“I saw your sons die, that night in the Whispering Wood,” Robb told Lord Karstark.

“Tion Frey did not kill Torrhen. Willem Lannister did not slay Eddard. How then canyou call this vengeance? This was folly, and bloody murder. Your sons died honorably on a battlefield, with swords in their hands.”

“They died ,” said Rickard Karstark, yielding no inch of ground. “The Kingslayer cut them down. These two were of his ilk. Only blood can pay for blood.”

“The blood of children?” Robb pointed at the corpses. “How old were they? Twelve, thirteen? Squires .”

“Squires die in every battle.”

“Die fighting, yes. Tion Frey and Willem Lannister gave up their swords in the

Whispering Wood. They were captives, locked in a cell, asleep, unarmed . . . boys. Look at them! ”

Lord Karstark looked instead at Catelyn. “Tell your mother to look at them,” he said.

“She slew them, as much as L”

Catelyn put a hand on the back of Robb’s seat. The hall seemed to spin about her. She felt as though she might retch.

“My mother had naught to do with this,” Robb said angrily. “This was your work. Your murder. Your treason .”

“How can it be treason to kill Lannisters, when it is not treason to free them?” asked Karstark harshly. “Has Your Grace forgotten that we are at war with Casterly Rock? In war you kill your enemies. Didn’t your father teach you that, boy?”

“ Boy? ” The Greatjon dealt Rickard Karstark a buffet with a mailed fist that sent the other lord to his knees.

“Leave him!” Robb’s voice rang with command. Umber stepped back away from the captive.

Lord Karstark spit out a broken tooth. “Yes, Lord Umber, leave me to the king. He means to give me a scolding before he forgives me. That’s how he deals with treason, our King in the North.” He smiled a wet red smile. “or should I call you the King Who Lost the North, Your Grace?”

The Greatjon snatched a spear from the man beside him and jerked it to his shoulder.

“Let me spit him, sire. Let me open his belly so we can see the color of his guts.”The doors of the hall crashed open, and the Blackfish entered with water running from his cloak and helm. Tully men-at-arms followed him in, while outside lightning cracked across the sky and a hard black rain pounded against the stones of Riverrun. Ser Brynden removed his helm and went to one knee. “Your Grace,” was all he said, but the grimness of his tone spoke volumes.

“I will hear Ser Brynden privily, in the audience chamber.” Robb rose to his feet.

“Greatjon, keep Lord Karstark here till I return, and hang the other seven.”

The Greatjon lowered the spear. “Even the dead ones?”

“Yes. I will not have such fouling my lord uncle’s rivers. Let them feed the crows.”

One of the captives dropped to his knees. “Mercy, sire. I killed no one, I only stood at the door to watch for guards.”

Robb considered that a moment. “Did you know what Lord Rickard intended? Did you see the knives drawn? Did you hear the shouts, the screams, the cries for mercy?”

“Aye, I did, but I took no part. I was only the watcher, I swear it . . . ”

“Lord Umber,” said Robb, “this one was only the watcher. Hang him last, so he may watch the others die. Mother, Uncle, with me, if you please.” He turned away as the Greatjon’s men closed upon the prisoners and drove them from the hall at spearpoint.

Outside the thunder crashed and boomed, so loud it sounded as if the castle were coming down about their ears. Is this the sound of a kingdom falling? Catelyn wondered.

It was dark within the audience chamber, but at least the sound of the thunder was muffled by another thickness of wall. A servant entered with an oil lamp to light the fire, but Robb sent him away and kept the lamp. There were tables and chairs, but only Edmure sat, and he rose again when he realized that the others had remainded standing.

Robb took off his crown and placed it on the table before him.

The Blackfish shut the door. “The Karstarks are gone.”

“All?” Was it anger or despair that thickened Robb’s voice like that? Even Catelyn was not certain.

“All the fighting men,” Ser Brynden replied. “A few camp followers and serving men were left with their wounded. We questioned as many as we needed, to be certain of the truth. They started leaving at nightfall, stealing off in ones and twos at first, and then inlarger groups. The wounded men and servants were told to keep the campfires lit so no one would know they’d gone, but once the rains began it didn’t matter.”

“Will they re-form, away from Riverrun?” asked Robb.

“No. They’ve scattered, hunting. Lord Karstark has sworn to give the hand of his maiden daughter to any man highborn or low who brings him the head of the Kingslayer.”

Gods be good . Catelyn felt ill again.

“Near three hundred riders and twice as many mounts, melted away in the night.” Robb rubbed his temples, where the crown had left its mark in the soft skin above his ears. “All the mounted strength of Karhold, lost.”

Lost by me. By me, may the gods forgive me . Catelyn did not need to be a soldier to grasp the trap Robb was in. For the moment he held the riverlands, but his kingdom was surrounded by enemies to every side but east, where Lysa sat aloof on her mountaintop. Even the Trident was scarce secure so long as the Lord of the Crossing withheld his allegiance. And now to lose the Karstarks as well . . .

“No word of this must leave Riverrun,” her brother Edmure said. “Lord Tywin would . . . the Lannisters pay their debts, they are always saying that. Mother have mercy, when he hears.”

Sansa . Catelyn’s nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms, so hard did she close her hand.

Robb gave Edmure a look that chilled. “Would you make me a liar as well as a murderer, Uncle?”

“We need speak no falsehood. Only say nothing. Bury the boys and hold our tongues till the war’s done. Willem was son to Ser Kevan Lannister, and Lord Tywin’s nephew. Tion was Lady Genna’s, and a Frey. We must keep the news from the Twins as well, until . . . ”

“Until we can bring the murdered dead back to life?” said Brynden Blackfish sharply.

“The truth escaped with the Karstarks, Edmure. It is too late for such games.”

“I owe their fathers truth,” said Robb. “And justice. I owe them that as well.” He gazed at his crown, the dark gleam of bronze, the circle of iron swords. “Lord Rickard defied me.

Betrayed me. I have no choice but to condemn him. Gods know what the Karstark foot with Roose Bolton will do when they hear I’ve executed their liege for a traitor. Bolton must be warned.”“Lord Karstark’s heir was at Harrenhal as well,” Ser Brynden reminded him. “The eldest son, the one the Lannisters took captive on the Green Fork.”

“Harrion. His name is Harrion.” Robb laughed bitterly. “A king had best know the names of his enemies, don’t you think?”

The Blackfish looked at him shrewdly. “You know that for a certainty? That this will make young Karstark your enemy?”

“What else would he be? I am about to kill his father, he’s not like to thank me.”

“He might. There are sons who hate their fathers, and in a stroke you will make him Lord of Karhold.”

Robb shook his head. “Even if Harrion were that sort, he could never openly forgive his father’s killer. His own men would turn on him. These are northmen , Uncle. The north remembers.”

“Pardon him, then,” urged Edmure Tully.

Robb stared at him in frank disbelief.

Under that gaze, Edmure’s face reddened. “Spare his life, I mean. I don’t like the taste of it any more than you, sire. He slew my men as well. Poor Delp had only just recovered from the wound Ser Jaime gave him. Karstark must be punished, certainly. Keep him in chains, say.”

“A hostage?” said Catelyn. It might be best . . .

“Yes, a hostage!” Her brother seized on her musing as agreement. “Tell the son that so long as he remains loyal, his father will not be harmed. Otherwise . . . we have no hope of the Freys now, not if I offered to marry all Lord Walder’s daughters and carry his litter besides. If we should lose the Karstarks as well, what hope is there?”

“What hope . . . ” Robb let out a breath, pushed his hair back from his eyes, and said, “We’ve had naught from Ser Rodrik in the north, no response from Walder Frey to our new offer, only silence from the Eyrie.” He appealed to his mother. “Will your sister never answer us? How many times must I write her? I will not believe that none of the birds have reached her.”

Her son wanted comfort, Catelyn realized; he wanted to hear that it would be all right.But her king needed truth. “The birds have reached her. Though she may tell you they did not, if it ever comes to that. Expect no help from that quarter, Robb.

“Lysa was never brave. When we were girls together, she would run and hide whenever she’d done something wrong. Perhaps she thought our lord father would forget to be wroth with her if he could not find her. It is no different now. She ran from King’s Landing for fear, to the safest place she knows, and she sits on her mountain hoping everyone will forget her.”

“The knights of the Vale could make all the difference in this war,” said Robb, “but if she will not fight, so be it. I’ve asked only that she open the Bloody Gate for us, and provide ships at Gulltown to take us north. The high road would be hard, but not so hard as fighting our way up the Neck. If I could land at White Harbor I could flank Moat Cailin and drive the ironmen from the north in half a year.”

“It will not happen, sire,” said the Blackfish. “Cat is right. Lady Lysa is too fearful to admit an army to the Vale. Any army. The Bloody Gate will remain closed.”

“The Others can take her, then,” Robb cursed, in a fury of despair. “Bloody Rickard Karstark as well. And Theon Greyjoy, Walder Frey, Tywin Lannister, and all the rest of them. Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king? When everyone was shouting King in the North, King in the North , I told myself . . . swore to myself . . . that I would be a good king, as honorable as Father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies . . . now I can’t even tell one from the other. How did it all get so confused? Lord Rickard’s fought at my side in half a dozen battles. His sons died for me in the Whispering Wood. Tion Frey and Willem Lannister were my enemies .

Yet now I have to kill my dead friends’ father for their sakes.” He looked at them all.

“Will the Lannisters thank me for Lord Rickard’s head? Will the Freys?”

“No,” said Brynden Blackfish, blunt as ever.

“All the more reason to spare Lord Rickard’s life and keep him hostage,” Edmure urged.

Robb reached down with both hands, lifted the heavy bronze-and-iron crown, and set it back atop his head, and suddenly he was a king again. “Lord Rickard dies.”

“But why? ” said Edmure. “You said yourself—”

“I know what I said, Uncle. It does not change what I must do.” The swords in his crown stood stark and black against his brow. “In battle I might have slain Tion and Willem myself, but this was no battle. They were asleep in their beds, naked and unarmed, in a cell where I put them. Rickard Karstark killed more than a Frey and a Lannister. Hekilled my honor . I shall deal with him at dawn.”

When day broke, grey and chilly, the storm had diminished to a steady, soaking rain, yet even so the godswood was crowded. River lords and northmen, highborn and low, knights and sellswords and stableboys, they stood amongst the trees to see the end of the night’s dark dance. Edmure had given commands, and a headsman’s block had been set up before the heart tree. Rain and leaves fell all around them as the Greatjon’s men led Lord Rickard Karstark through the press, hands still bound. His men already hung from Riverrun’s high walls, slumping at the end of long ropes as the rain washed down their darkening faces.

Long Lew waited beside the block, but Robb took the poleaxe from his hand and ordered him to step aside. “This is my work,” he said. “He dies at my word. He must die by my hand.”

Lord Rickard Karstark dipped his head stiffly. “For that much, I thank you. But for naught else.” He had dressed for death in a long black wool surcoat emblazoned with the white sunburst of his House. “The blood of the First Men flows in my veins as much as yours, boy. You would do well to remember that. I was named for your grandfather. I raised my banners against King Aerys for your father, and against King Joffrey for you.

At Oxcross and the Whispering Wood and in the Battle of the Camps, I rode beside you, and I stood with Lord Eddard on the Trident. We are kin, Stark and Karstark.”

“This kinship did not stop you from betraying me,” Robb said. “And it will not save you now. Kneel, my lord.”

Lord Rickard had spoken truly, Catelyn knew. The Karstarks traced their descent to Karlon Stark, a younger son of Winterfell who had put down a rebel lord a thousand years ago, and been granted lands for his valor. The castle he built had been named Karl’s Hold, but that soon became Karhold, and over the centuries the Karhold Starks had become Karstarks.

“Old gods or new, it makes no matter,” Lord Rickard told her son, “no man is so accursed as the kinslayer.”

“Kneel, traitor,” Robb said again. “Or must I have them force your head onto the block?”

Lord Karstark knelt. “The gods shall judge you, as you have judged me.” He laid his head upon the block.

“Rickard Karstark, Lord of Karhold.” Robb lifted the heavy axe with both hands. “Here in sight of gods and men, I judge you guilty of murder and high treason. In mine ownname I condemn you. With mine own hand I take your life. Would you speak a final word?”

“Kill me, and be cursed. You are no king of mine.”

The axe crashed down. Heavy and well-honed, it killed at a single blow, but it took three to sever the man’s head from his body, and by the time it was done both living and dead were drenched in blood. Robb flung the poleaxe down in disgust, and turned wordless to the heart tree. He stood shaking with his hands half-clenched and the rain running down his cheeks. Gods forgive him , Catelyn prayed in silence. He is only a boy, and he had no other choice .

That was the last she saw of her son that day. The rain continued all through the morning, lashing the surface of the rivers and turning the godswood grass into mud and puddles. The Blackfish assembled a hundred men and rode out after Karstarks, but no one expected he would bring back many. “I only pray I do not need to hang them,” he said as he departed. When he was gone, Catelyn retreated to her father’s solar, to sit once more beside Lord Hoster’s bed.

“It will not be much longer,” Maester Vyman warned her, when he came that afternoon.

“His last strength is going, though still he tries to fight.”

“He was ever a fighter,” she said. “A sweet stubborn man.”

“Yes,” the maester said, “but this battle he cannot win. It is time he lay down his sword and shield. Time to yield.”

To yield , she thought, to make a peace . Was it her father the maester was speaking of, or her son?

At evenfall, Jeyne Westerling came to see her. The young queen entered the solar timidly. “Lady Catelyn, I do not mean to disturb you . . . ”

“You are most welcome here, Your Grace.” Catelyn had been sewing, but she put the needle aside now.

“Please. Call me Jeyne. I don’t feel like a Grace.”

“You are one, nonetheless. Please, come sit, Your Grace.”

“Jeyne.” She sat by the hearth and smoothed her skirt out anxiously.“As you wish. How might I serve you, Jeyne?”

“It’s Robb,” the girl said. “He’s so miserable, so . . . so angry and disconsolate. I don’t know what to do.”

“It is a hard thing to take a man’s life.”

“I know. I told him, he should use a headsman. When Lord Tywin sends a man to die, all he does is give the command. It’s easier that way, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” said Catelyn, “but my lord husband taught his sons that killing should never be easy.”

“Oh.” Queen Jeyne wet her lips. “Robb has not eaten all day. I had Rollam bring him a nice supper, boar’s ribs and stewed onions and ale, but he never touched a bite of it. He spent all morning writing a letter and told me not to disturb him, but when the letter was done he burned it. Now he is sitting and looking at maps. I asked him what he was looking for, but he never answered. I don’t think he ever heard me. He wouldn’t even change out of his clothes. They were damp all day, and bloody. I want to be a good wife to him, I do, but I don’t know how to help. To cheer him, or comfort him. I don’t know what he needs . Please, my lady, you’re his mother, tell me what I should do.”

Tell me what I should do . Catelyn might have asked the same, if her father had been well enough to ask. But Lord Hoster was gone, or near enough. Her Ned as well. Bran and Rickon too, and Mother, and Brandon so long ago . Only Robb remained to her, Robb and the fading hope of her daughters.

“Sometimes,” Catelyn said slowly, “the best thing you can do is nothing. When I first came to Winterfell, I was hurt whenever Ned went to the godswood to sit beneath his heart tree. Part of his soul was in that tree, I knew, a part I would never share. Yet without that part, I soon realized, he would not have been Ned. Jeyne, child, you have wed the north, as I did . . . and in the north, the winters will come.” She tried to smile.

“Be patient. Be understanding. He loves you and he needs you, and he will come back to you soon enough. This very night, perhaps. Be there when he does. That is all I can tell you.”

The young queen listened raptly. “I will,” she said when Catelyn was done. “I’ll be there.”

She got to her feet. “I should go back. He might have missed me. I’ll see. But if he’s still at his maps, I’ll be patient.”

“Do,” said Catelyn, but when the girl was at the door, she thought of something else.

“Jeyne,” she called after, “there’s one more thing Robb needs from you, though he maynot know it yet himself. A king must have an heir.”

The girl smiled at that. “My mother says the same. She makes a posset for me, herbs and milk and ale, to help make me fertile. I drink it every morning. I told Robb I’m sure to give him twins. A Ryon and a Ryland. He liked that, I think. We . . . we try most every day, my lady. Sometimes twice or more.” The girl blushed very prettily. “I’ll be with child soon, I promise. I pray to our Mother Above, every night.”

“Very good. I will add my prayers as well. To the old gods and the new.”

When the girl had gone, Catelyn turned back to her father and smoothed the thin white hair across his brow. “An Eddard and a Brandon,” she sighed softly. “And perhaps in time a Hoster. Would you like that?” He did not answer, but she had never expected that he would. As the sound of the rain on the roof mingled with her father’s breathing, she thought about Jeyne. The girl did seem to have a good heart, just as Robb had said. And good hips, which might be more important .

Chapter Text

The cushions and casual grace of the Water Gardens were gone. The next morning, they met in a chamber that spoke of power and history, a room designed for pronouncements, not conversations. A long, polished redwood table dominated the space, its surface gleaming like a pool of dark blood under the light filtering through high, arched windows. The chairs were tall and severe, carved with the sun and spear of House Martell, their straight backs seemingly designed to enforce discipline. The air was still and heavy with purpose, a stark contrast to the gentle sounds of the gardens in the Castle of Sunspear to be used as their council room.

Daenerys sat at the head of the table, the seat of honor, though it felt more like a throne of judgment. To her right sat the Martells: Doran, a still and patient mountain of earth, his hands resting calmly on the arms of his chair; Oberyn, a coiled viper in black and red silks, radiating a restless energy that made the very air around him seem to vibrate; and Arianne, whose sharp, intelligent eyes missed nothing, her beauty a dazzling mask for a keen political mind or so it seemed . To her left sat Ser Jorah Mormont. In his worn leather and travel-stained wool, he was a piece of the cold, rugged North transplanted into the burning heart of Dorne, a visual reminder of the two kingdoms she must now bridge. Daenerys felt their collective gazes upon her, a tangible weight. She was the queen they had wagered on, and now they were waiting to see if their bet was a wise one.

She knew in that moment that she could not be a passenger in her own conquest. Viserys had thought a name and a claim were enough, that the world owed him a crown simply for his blood. It had earned him a death of screaming agony and molten gold. She had learned from the Dothraki that power was not given; it was taken, held, and demonstrated. She had to command, to lead, to prove to these proud, patient players that she was a queen worthy of their loyalty, not merely a girl with a famous name to be used as a banner. Her reign, for good or ill, would begin here, in this room.

Her first act had to be one of certainty, to establish a foundation of loyalty and command. She turned her gaze to her oldest companion in that room. “Ser Jorah Mormont.”

The knight looked up, his weathered face a mask of northern stoicism.

Daenerys took a breath, allowing the impossible tangle of her feelings to settle. She could still feel the phantom ache in her head from the milk of the poppy, the visceral shock of waking on a ship, a prisoner to his desperate plan. It was a violation she would not soon forget, a theft of her will. But it was his unwavering, stubborn devotion that had brought her here. He had saved her from assassins, from Dothraki bloodriders, and from her own despair. His counsel had often been harsh, his truths unwelcome, but he had never lied to her. He was her most trusted advisor and the man who had committed the deepest betrayal against her. He was, she concluded, a paradox she could not afford to lose. He was invaluable.

“You have served me faithfully since the day we met in Pentos,” she said, her voice clear and strong, echoing slightly in the quiet chamber. “You have offered counsel, however harsh or hard to bear it has sometimes been. You have protected me with your sword and with your wisdom. For this, there must be a reward, and a purpose.”

She rose from her chair, a deliberate act of authority. “I name you my Hand, to be my first counselor and to speak with my voice.” She saw a flicker of shock in his eyes, a widening that he quickly controlled, but she was not finished. “I also name you the first Lord Commander of my Queensguard. Your first and most sacred duty will be the protection of my son, Prince Rhaego, the heir to the Iron Throne.”

The dual honor, public and undeniable, was a declaration. This man was hers. She was binding him to her with titles and trust, making his loyalty a formal, recognized thing.

For a moment, Jorah Mormont seemed unable to speak. The gruff exterior he wore like armor cracked, and his shoulders, which had seemed so burdened by exile and regret, straightened. He slid from his chair to one knee, his head bowed, the gesture both fluid and clumsy, as if his body had forgotten such courtesies. “My queen,” he said, his voice thick with an emotion she had never heard from him before. “I am not worthy. But I swear my life to you. To the prince. I will not fail you.”

Across the table, the Martells watched the scene unfold, a tableau of northern fealty. Oberyn’s lips quirked in a flicker of amusement, not of mockery, but of fascination at the northerner’s open sentimentality. Arianne’s gaze was cool and appraising, as if she were measuring Jorah’s capabilities, judging his influence, and filing him away for future reference. Prince Doran merely gave a placid, almost imperceptible nod of acceptance, as if he had expected this. The first piece had been placed on the board, and it was a move he understood.

As Ser Jorah rose and stepped back to his place, his face a mask of fierce, newfound purpose, Daenerys turned her attention to the other side of the table. The raw emotion of Jorah’s oath still hung in the air, a stark and simple thing, a promise of northern steel. When she turned her gaze back to the Martells, the atmosphere shifted instantly from one of heartfelt fealty to the cool, quiet assessment of a chess game. Jorah was her shield and her oldest loyalty, but the Martells were her army, her path home. She had to show them that this was a true partnership, not a queen and her courtier with Dornish muscle for hire. She had to weave them into the fabric of her power structure immediately, lest they see her as a child to be managed, a figurehead to be propped up while they pursued their own ends. They would not follow a girl who was merely a passenger in her own war.

Her gaze settled on the still figure of Prince Doran. He had not moved, had barely seemed to breathe during Jorah’s investiture, yet she felt his shrewd intelligence watching everything, weighing every word, every gesture. He was the mind behind their vengeance, the man who had waited half a lifetime for this moment. She had learned from the Dothraki that power was a stallion, a wild thing to be broken and ridden for all to see, its strength displayed in open plains under an endless sky. But these Dornishmen, and the Westerosi lords they spoke of, played a different game. Their power was a serpent in the grass, unseen until it struck, a thing of shadows and whispers, of patience that festered into poison. To rule them, she had to master both beasts. She had to learn to be both dragon and viper.

“Prince Doran,” she said, her voice steady and clear, cutting through the silence. “In the Water Gardens, you spoke of your agents in Essos, of the whispers that reached you about my journey. It is a skill my brother Viserys sorely lacked. He saw only what was before his eyes and heard only what he wished to hear, believing a king’s command was the only truth that mattered.”

She let the subtle praise hang in the air, a contrast to her earlier condemnation of her own family’s follies, a deliberate acknowledgment of his superior method. “You have played the long game in the shadows. You have watched my enemies, and you have watched me. That patience, that knowledge, is a weapon more powerful than any army.” She leaned forward slightly, meeting his dark, unreadable eyes. “Now, I ask you to be my eyes and ears across the Seven Kingdoms. I name you Master of Whispers on my council, so that when we strike, we strike with knowledge and not just with steel.”

A slight, knowing smile touched Doran Martell’s lips. It did not reach his eyes, but it was an acknowledgment. An acceptance. “A man who cannot walk must find other ways to travel,” he said, his voice a low, smooth rumble. “Information is the water that turns the mill of war, Your Grace. I shall see that your grist is fine. I accept this honor.”

It was the perfect role for him, Daenerys knew. It legitimized the clandestine methods he had used for years, transforming him from a private schemer into a public official, and giving him immense power within her new regime. It was a risk, she knew that. Placing the flow of all information into his hands was like giving a man the key to every room in her castle, including her own bedchamber. But it was also a profound show of trust, a necessary one to bind him to her. To show him she was not afraid of his shadows, but wished to command them.

Beside him, Prince Oberyn threw back his head and laughed, a rich, dark sound that filled the severe chamber with life. “My brother was always better at listening than talking,” he remarked, his eyes glittering with amusement. “He hears whispers on the wind from a thousand leagues away. A very useful talent for a queen to have at her command.” Arianne, for her part, watched her father with an unreadable expression. Was it pride, or a subtle frustration that while she and her uncle burned for open war, her father had once again chosen the path of shadows he knew so well? A path that required more waiting.

With a Hand to be her sword and a Master of Whispers to be her eyes, Daenerys had, in two swift moves, forged the foundations of a true royal council. It was no longer just an alliance; it was a government in exile, and she was at its head. She had given them power, yes, but she had also bound them to her service, their ambitions now tied directly to her own. The game had truly begun.

With the first offices of her council filled, the true work began. Servants rolled out a vast map of Westeros across the redwood table, its painted parchment showing every river, forest, and mountain from the Wall to the shores of the Summer Sea in exquisite detail. With it came a set of carved wooden markers, each a work of art in itself: a snarling golden lion for Lannister, a grey direwolf caught mid-howl for Stark, a kraken with writhing tentacles for Greyjoy, a delicate golden rose for Tyrell, and a stag wreathed in carved flames for Stannis Baratheon.

“Before we can plan a war,” Prince Doran began, his voice calm and methodical, “we must understand the one that is already being fought.” He gestured, and Oberyn began to place the markers on the map, his movements precise and elegant, like a dancer setting a stage for a tragedy.

First, he placed the golden lion squarely on King’s Landing, then another at Casterly Rock. He then surrounded the capital with the golden roses of House Tyrell, their pieces almost outnumbering the lion's. “The Lannister-Tyrell bloc,” Doran said, his finger tracing a line from Highgarden to the capital. “Tywin Lannister’s cunning, the gold of the Rock, and the endless armies of the Reach. They hold the Iron Throne, the major ports of the south, and more importantly, they hold the food. He who controls the grain, controls the city. The Tyrells feed King's Landing, which means they hold a silken leash around the Lannister lion's neck. They are a beast with two heads, Your Grace, one of gold and one of grain. To march on them now, with our full strength, would be to announce our intentions to the world. Tywin would meet us in the field, bleed our Dornish spears against his knights, and starve us out while the Tyrells feed his armies. It would be a fly marching into a spider’s web.”

Daenerys looked at the cluster of lions and roses, a formidable knot of power in the heart of the kingdom. Her hand clenched into a fist. It seemed an impossible obstacle. She had thought of her enemies as one man, Joffrey, but this map showed her the truth: her enemy was a system of power, a web of alliances she could not simply burn away. Power in Westeros, she was beginning to understand, was not just about strength, but about dependency.

Next, Oberyn took the grey direwolf and placed it far to the north, at Riverrun. Then he took the black kraken and scattered several pieces across the northern coastline and at the fortress of Moat Cailin, cutting the wolf off from its home like a pack of predators surrounding a lone stag. “The Broken Wolf,” Oberyn said, his voice laced with a theatrical, pitying relish. “Robb Stark. A boy who proved to be a brilliant commander og men and a foolish king.” He tapped the map at the Twins, the castle of House Frey. “Here, he traded an oath of iron for a bed of seashells. He broke faith with a house of grasping, ambitious bridge-trolls for a girl from a house of fading nobility, sworn to his enemies. For honor. Honor is a luxury for kings who have already won.” He smirked. “Now, he is trapped. The ironmen hold his coastline and the only bridge back to his kingdom is held by slighted Freys who thirst for his blood. The Young Wolf has a strong heart,” Oberyn sneered, “but the wits of a boy. He has won his battles and lost his kingdom. He is a wounded animal, trapped in a cage of his own making.”

Jorah’s face was grim as he looked at the isolated direwolf, a silent testament to the fall of his countrymen. Daenerys felt a strange pang. This Robb Stark was a usurper’s son, an enemy, yet she felt a kinship with him—another young ruler struggling under the weight of a crown, another soul who had let love lead them into folly. She had nearly sacrificed everything for Drogo; this boy had done the same for a girl, and now his kingdom was crumbling.

Finally, Oberyn picked up the fiery stag and placed it on the island of Dragonstone, her family’s ancient seat. The sight of an enemy sigil on her birthplace sent a fresh spike of anger through her. “And here, the Smoldering Stag,” Doran said. “Stannis Baratheon. Beaten, but not broken. He nurses his wounds and his faith in his Red God.”

“A god who will win him no friends,” Oberyn added with a dismissive wave. “The lords of Westeros pray to the Seven, or they keep to the old gods of the forest. They will not rally to a man who burns their sacred septs and their ancient godswoods. He offers them salvation through fire, but they see only the smoke. He tries to win a throne with prayers and scowls. Stannis is too rigid, too brittle to bend. He is a useful distraction, a thorn in Tywin’s side, but he will never be an ally to us. He believes the throne is his by right, and he will not suffer another claimant.”

The pieces were all on the board now. A tangled, bloody mess of warring kings. For the first time, Daenerys saw the true scale of the task before her. It was not one enemy she had to defeat, but a kingdom that was tearing itself apart, a great beast devouring its own flesh. And she was an outsider, a forgotten daughter of the very house whose fall had begun this long, terrible storm, seeking to conquer them all.

The map lay before them, a testament to the kingdom’s brokenness. Daenerys’s blood burned with a fire that demanded action. Patience was a virtue she had been forced to learn through years of running and hiding, but she was tired of it. Power, she had learned among the horselords, was not a thing to be hoarded in secret; it was meant to be displayed, to be used.

“We have fifty thousand spears,” she said, her hand sweeping over the southern portion of the map, a gesture of command that felt both foreign and natural. “The Dothraki would ride now. They would not wait for their enemies to grow stronger while they sit in tents. We have the element of surprise, a weapon we can only use once. No one in Westeros knows a dragon has returned with an army at her back. Let us use it before they do.”

Doran Martell regarded her with his calm, heavy-lidded eyes, his stillness a stark contrast to her fire. “And the Dothraki have never taken Westeros, Your Grace,” he replied gently, his voice a soft counterpoint that nonetheless carried the weight of command. “An army marching north is a target, a beast for Tywin Lannister to bleed and exhaust in the field. He would choose the ground, and our Dornishmen would die in a land that is not their own, far from home. Vengeance is a dish best served from an unexpected quarter.” He gestured to the map, to the jagged red mountains that guarded Dorne’s borders. “My ancestors resisted yours for a century, Your Grace. Your ancestor, the first Daenerys, lost her dragon in the sands of Dorne. We were not conquered; we were joined by marriage. We did this not with open battle, but with guile, patience, and poison. We are the vipers in the grass, not the lions on the plain.”

Before Daenerys could argue that she was a dragon, not a viper, born to burn, not to wait, Arianne leaned forward, her dark eyes flashing with an impatience that mirrored Daenerys's own. “Father, your patience has been a virtue, but the board has changed. We are no longer merely waiting for an opportunity. We have a queen. We have a dragon. To hide her away in Sunspear is to waste our greatest asset. Her name alone is a weapon, a symbol that can rally the disgruntled and terrify the usurpers.”

Oberyn nodded in fervent agreement, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face as he lounged in his chair. “Caution is a cloak, brother, but sometimes a man must throw it off and draw his sword. The Lannisters believe us quiet. They believe us broken by grief. Let us show them how loud our silence has been. Let them feel the viper’s fangs before they even know the beast is near. Every day we wait is another day Tywin Lannister has to strengthen his hold.”

Their words were like a wind at her back, fanning the flames of her own impatience. Emboldened, Daenerys pressed her case, and a heated debate ensued, pitting Doran’s deep-seated caution against the combined aggression of his siblings and their new queen. Jorah remained silent, his gaze fixed on Daenerys, his role to advise, not to command. Finally, seeing the tide of the room turn against him, Doran relented, and a compromise was forged—a plan that balanced risk with prudence.

“Very well,” Doran conceded, raising a hand, the gesture carrying an air of finality. “We will not commit our full strength. But we will strike.”

The first part of the plan was the army, the tip of the spear. Prince Oberyn would be given command of twenty-five thousand Dornish spears, half their total strength. “Our levies are masters of our own lands, but they are not knights,” Oberyn acknowledged. “We lack the heavy horse to break a Lannister line in an open field.” To compensate, agents would be dispatched to the Free Cities—to Tyrosh, to Myr—to hire sellsword companies. The Second Sons, the Stormcrows—men who fought for coin, whose loyalty could be bought and whose experience in the bloody disputes of Essos was legendary. They would provide the cavalry and the hardened core the Dornish army lacked.

The second part was Daenerys herself. “While your host is gathered, you will remain in Sunspear,” Doran stated, and this time it was not a suggestion. “You will be my ward, in a manner of speaking. You will learn what it is to rule. Not just the names of the Great Houses, but their incomes, their rivalries, their ambitions. You will learn of finance, of law, of diplomacy. It is not enough to win a throne, Your Grace. You must know how to keep it.” It was agreed that she could not lead an army until she truly understood the kingdom she wished to win. Daenerys bristled at the word 'ward,' but she understood the wisdom in his command.

The final point was the objective. Oberyn's army would not march on King’s Landing directly; that was the path to ruin. Their goal was to strike at the heart of their enemy's power. They would march up the Prince's Pass and descend upon the Reach, a land rich with food and sworn to the Tyrells. Their primary objective would be to seize control of the Roseroad, cutting the vital artery of grain and supplies that flowed from Highgarden to King's Landing. "A capital that does not eat is a capital that will not fight," Oberyn noted with a savage grin. By starving the city, they would create chaos and dissent, turning the smallfolk against their Lannister and Tyrell masters. Furthermore, they would seek to rally disgruntled Reach lords—the Florents, the Peakes, any house that felt slighted by the dominance of Highgarden—to their cause with promises of lands and titles. This would not just create a new military front, but an economic one, forcing Tywin to choose between defending the city and protecting his allies' homelands.

The council meeting concluded, the plan set. Daenerys stood looking at the map, at the pieces now arranged for a war she had helped to shape. A fierce, nervous energy coursed through her. She had won her first political battle, not with threats or fire, but with reason and alliance. The raw desire for immediate revenge still burned hot within her, but it was now channeled into a concrete, aggressive plan of action. She knew the risks are immense, but for the first time, she felt like a true queen, not a supplicant. She was not just waiting for her moment; she was helping to create it.

Chapter Text

Margaery threw her arm forward, feeling the pressure of her buzzard's claws on her hand as it took flight and started chasing down the fluttering birds emerging from the trees. A heartbeat passed before the rest of the party let fly their own birds. They shot through the air as fast as arrows and the hawkers watched and clapped in glee. Margaery smiled as her own bird pulled ahead of the flock.

"Well done my lady!" Alyce Graceford clapped, her belly was starting to swell her hands were resting on the bump rather than wearing gloves and waiting for a hunting bird to return.

They'd gotten just far enough from King's Landing that the smell no longer reached them, but with the Starks still afield despite their defeat at Duskendale, hawking opportunities were confined to a few miles from the city. Even so, her father had provided an escort of five hundred lancers to ensure that no northmen riders were coming to follow up on their message from a few days before. She thought of Sansa then, and the thought was a bitter one. Only yesterday, the girl had been wed to the Imp. The Lannisters had moved quickly, snatching the prize from right under their noses. The key to the North, her grandmother had called Sansa, now that her brothers except Robb were dead and gone. The plan had been simple, elegant. They would have spirited Sansa away to Highgarden, to be wed to her dear brother Willas. A Tyrell as Lord of Winterfell, a union of the Rose and the Direwolf. But the Lannisters had seen the move and countered it, wedding the girl to Tyrion instead. The thought of that sweet, sad girl being bedded by that twisted little monster made Margaery’s stomach turn. They had beaten them to it, and now the key to the North belonged to a Lannister. She held out her arm expectantly as the buzzard hurried back to them and landed neatly on her thick hawking glove, a dead crow dangling from its mighty beak. Trust you to breed me the best, Willas, she thought, a fresh wave of frustration washing over her.

She smiled as the other birds came flying in some with catches, some without. She laughed good naturedly with the rest as Elinor's bird veered off at the last minute and returned to the sky as Elinor cried for it to come back. Her cousin was red faced from shouting and embarrassment before the bird obediently returned. Once the giggles had died down, she spoke to the hawkers. "Come now ladies, that's quite enough for now, let's return to grandmother."

Her grandmother was waiting a short distance away, under a tree with a wide green canopy. A chair had been brought for her and she squatted on it, Eryk and Arryk standing vigil behind her. Three great blankets were laid out on the ground for the ladies to lounge on in the speckled shade, the sun peeking through the leaves in a thousand mini daffodils around them. When the sun draped over the grass beyond the protection of the tree people were more active. Squires in green and gold rode with all the confidence of tourney champions, jugglers, dancers and minstrels were spread around the grass for a hundred admirers and a trio of young girls were hunting the prettiest flowers they could find. Far out from them, in a wide net, the lancers took their positions protecting the house, and off at the road, grandmother's wheelhouse stood, ready to take the venerable matriarch back to the capital.

But it was more than Margaery, her family and her tenants, she'd invited as many noblemen and women from the capital to join her for the day's activities, all the better to win have these people on her side when she became Queen. The peasants would be won with the food from the Reach, the nobles required a subtler art, but one she knew well.

Margaery gently folded her dress behind her knees and sat down on the blanket. With so much to do around the area, the blanket was pretty much empty, only her grandmother, her two guards, her brother Garlan and his wife rested in the shade.

"Margaery," he smiled at her.

"My Lady," his dainty wife looked up at her from where her head rested in Garlan's lap, his fingers gently weaving through her hair.

"Brother, sister, grandmother." She glanced around to make sure no one was joining them, flashing a smile at anyone who looked their way. "So," she said, turning back to her family. "Sansa."

Garlan nodded, fingers still running through Leonette's hair, "Sansa."

"What have you found?"

Garlan's lips pressed thinly together. "It seems we may have been... misled as to King Joffrey's nature."

"How so?"

"How much more like?" Lady Olenna cut in.

Garlan ignored the jibe, their grandmother could be biting, but after so many years, they were well able to bear it. "After the Battle of Oxcross, there are rumours that he called Sansa before him and had her beaten before Lord Tyrion intervened to stop it. From what we've found, the king was angered by the deaths of his relatives at the hands of the Young Wolf."

"Is that the cause?"

"It seems he takes personal slights, or slights against his family deeply, with an anger we were never told existed," Garlan confirmed. "If we can make him feel just like his true family, that could be a powerful protection."

Margaery cocked her head. "And by we, you mean me?" This was an unfortunate development, she didn't like not knowing what those around her were like as it made it harder to tailor her behaviour.

Her brother chuckled. "I do indeed."

"It would have been better to not get involved at all," Olenna commented. "But here we are."

"Indeed," said Margaery. "Now we are in this alliance it's in our interest to make sure it works, that we prevail in this war. That is done by two means, supplying the capital and helping to bring victory, if we can do that, House Tyrell is assured."

"Yes, we have the former, but the latter, it's troubling, if we can't march, we can't fight, if we can't fight, we can't win, and I suspect there are many in the Lannister camp that will never trust us until we have bled alongside them properly. So far they have fought far more than we have; we have helped claim one victory against Stannis. Though marching will be difficult without the wedding being done as both sides do not exactly trust each other." Garlan was not happy, he'd been trying to get their father to be more decisive on that front, but Mace Tyrell wanted his daughter to be Queen good and true before moving, and Margaery feared that they would be forced to march against their wishes if they didn't move soon.

"At least he seems to be doing well on that front."

Garlan nodded.

"Still, we do need this wedding, the Lord Oaf is not so dim that he is merely persistent, Margaery, you will need to be ready to bed soon, the wedding may be coming faster than expected. You've been practicing?"

Margaery nodded. When she'd shared her bed with some of her younger cousins she'd been trying to think back to that first night with Renly, the sweetness and detachment he brought in the bedroom. Joff was still young, and there was a chance he didn't know what it was like to be with a woman, but better not to have that alliance undone by a suspicion raised on the first night she was Queen. A bad wedding night could doom her. With the help of her cousins, she'd be timid and innocent, a virgin on two wedding nights.

"Oh, some sparrows come to the nest," Olenna said, "best get back to it children," she said, sitting back and closing her eyes for a nap.

Margaery got up to meet the approaching ladies, all smiles and grace, worries left on the grass.

She went out for another round of hawking that day, listened to the singers and mummers and helped thread flowers with the children, everything to be seen, dragging the attention of the ladies with her until the sun started to dip below the horizon when it was called for all of them to gather up and prepare to leave. They'd arranged to meet with the next caravan of supplies and bring it with them to the capital, a treat for the people. She'd let them know she would be returning with it and hoped to fulfil that promise to them.

Flanked by the riders, with the wheelhouse for the children following behind them, she led a column of riders down the roads towards the capital, approaching the main road where they were due to meet the caravan. But when they were there, only a single rider was waiting for them.

Garlan rode ahead to meet with him. Less than a minute of rushed and hushed conversation later and Garlan directed the man to the side, nodding at Margaery pointedly.

"Carry on without me for a while ladies, it seems my brother needs to speak with me," her flowery words sent the rest of the column onwards and she turned her mare off the road to speak with her brother. "What's going on?" She asked, out of earshot.

Garlan gestured to the rider, an outrider in Tyrell green and gold. "Tell Lady Margaery what you told me."

"My lady," he bowed in the saddle. "I was sent to guide the caravan to this point so that you could take it in with you."

"And?"

"I couldn't find it my lady."

"What do you mean you couldn't find it?"

The rider gestured down the road. "I took the road as far west as Crownwatch, a knight’s keep near the border of the Reach. The caravan was supposed to pass through there on the way to the capital, but they've not seen it."

"It hasn't even reached Crownwatch?!" Crownwatch could be reached from the capital in a day of hard riding, but a full caravan would take another four or five at least. "I'm supposed to be returning with that caravan today."

The outrider shrank back in his saddle. "I'm sorry my lady," she said, "but there's no sign of it."

"How does a whole caravan disappear?"

The outrider, unsure of what to say, said nothing.

Garlan spoke into the quiet that followed. "I'll send some riders to look for it, maybe it was waylaid somewhere, or it's taking a different route than expected. Sorry sister, it looks like you'll have to return to the capital without it."

"I promised the people that I would bring them more food," she reminded Garlan.

"One broken promise to the people won't be the end of what you've done for them," he reminded her. "Keep riding among them, listen to them, that will stay them for a few more days while we find the caravan. But Margaery, we are at war and you are the future queen, you can't stay outside the capital, it's not safe, we may be near the heart, but a raiding party of Baratheons or Starks could still fall on us unawares, no you need to be behind tall city walls."

Margaery bit her lip. "Very well, I'll return. Don't take too long brother, you're not fully fighting fit yet."

Garlan smiled, reaching over to pat her arm. "Don't you worry Margaery, we'll find the convoy and bring it back by the end of the week I'm sure."

"See that you do, Garlan."

As Garlan and the outrider went to gather some men to begin the search, Margaery rejoined the column of smiles and laughs on the way back to King's Landing, promising herself that she would deliver that food to the people as soon as it arrived.

It was a promise she would never be able to keep, the caravan never came. Instead, ragged refugees began trickling towards the capital, bearing news of terror, blood, fire and wolves.

Chapter Text

The sun was climbing, casting sharp, angular shadows across the grey stone of Nightsong’s courtyard. The air was still cool but carried the scent of dust and old blood, a metallic tang that clung to the back of the throat. Prince Oberyn Martell stood before his assembled captains, the sun glinting off the polished steel of his spear point. Daemon Sand, a newly-made knight, stood among them, the leather of his sword belt still stiff and unfamiliar, a constant reminder of his new station. The other captains were hard men, lords of the stony Dornish Marches like Anders Yronwood and grizzled veterans of border skirmishes, their faces leathered by the sun. Beside them, Daemon felt like a green boy playing at war. The silence of the castle was the most unnerving thing; it should be ringing with the sounds of a new garrison, the shouts of men, the clang of steel. Instead, it felt like a tomb, the silence broken only by the whisper of the wind through the empty battlements.

As Oberyn began to speak, Daemon’s mind drifted back to the dawn, just hours before. He remembered the tension coiling in his gut, the whispered prayers of the men beside him as they prepared for a long and bloody siege against the legendary fortress. He recalled the shock, the eerie silence as the sellsword sappers scaled the walls unopposed, their grappling hooks the only sound in the grey light. The main gates had groaned open not with the crash of a ram, but with the quiet scrape of lifted bars, revealing not a garrison of fierce warriors, but a castle of ghosts. He had seen a half-eaten meal on a trestle table, bread growing stale beside a wedge of cheese. A child’s wooden knight lay abandoned in the dust. The maester’s records they’d found, a dusty ledger telling a tale of futile loyalty, confirmed the grim truth: Lord Bryce Caron and all his knights, the pride of the Marches, had died with Stannis at the Blackwater. The castle's famed song was silent because its singers were all dead, their voices choked by the black water of the Rush.

“Some of you expected a fight here,” Oberyn’s voice, sharp and clear, cut through Daemon’s thoughts, pulling him back to the present. He showed no pity for the fallen Lord Caron, his tone laced with contempt. “You expected to bleed for this castle. But the lord of this place chose to die for a false king hundreds of leagues away, and in doing so, he abandoned his post and left his people defenseless. He died for a stag when his duty was to the dragons. Let this be a lesson.” Oberyn’s voice rang off the stone walls. “Loyalty to usurpers is a fool’s virtue.”

He paced before them, his movements fluid and dangerous, like a sand viper testing the air. “We will not make the same mistake. We will not bleed for stone walls. This war will not be one of sieges or pitched battles. It will be a war of fire, speed, and terror, brought to the soft, fertile lands of the Tyrells.” He stopped and turned, a savage grin spreading across his face. “They hide behind the walls of Highgarden and feast while our princess’s bones lie in an unmarked grave. We will not knock on their gates. We will burn their fields, salt their earth, and take their wealth. We will be the fear that wakes them in the night.”

The Prince’s eyes scanned the faces of his captains, and then he gave his orders. The army was to be broken into smaller, faster-moving columns, each a fang of the great viper. Their purpose was not to take and hold land, but to burn, pillage, and live off the enemy's country, to become a plague of vipers in the garden of the Reach.

To Daemon’s surprise and terror, Oberyn’s gaze settled on him. “Ser Daemon Sand.”

Daemon’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic bird trapped in his chest. “My prince.”

“You were a good squire. You learned to anticipate my needs, to clean my armor, to hold my spear.” Oberyn’s voice was soft, yet it carried across the yard. “Now you must learn to lead men who will bleed for you. Let us see if you can be a good knight.” Oberyn gave him his first true command: a column of five hundred horsemen, a mix of Dornish lancers and sellsword outriders. “Show the flowers of Highgarden what happens when vipers are left to slumber for too long,” he said, his eyes glittering with a dangerous fire. “Make them fear the night, Daemon.”

As he gathered his men in the shadow of Nightsong’s western wall, Daemon felt the weight of five hundred pairs of eyes on him, and they were not the eyes of a single, unified force. It was a mix of men that spoke to the nature of this war: proud Dornish lancers with dark eyes and hawk-like features, sitting easily on their sand steeds, their light armor gleaming. Their loyalty was a simple, fiery thing, sworn to the Prince and the memory of Elia. And beside them, a company of rough-looking sellswords from the Disputed Lands, their faces scarred and their gazes mercenary, their loyalty sworn only to the coin Prince Oberyn had promised them. They looked at him not with respect, but with appraisal, weighing his youth and wondering if he would get them killed before they saw their pay.

He was a knight now, the oil still fresh on his brow from the ceremony in the sept at Sunspear. He had sworn vows to protect the innocent and uphold justice, to be a shield for the weak. But Prince Oberyn’s orders were clear, and they had nothing to do with justice. He was not to be a shield. He was to be a sword, a firebrand, an instrument of fear.

He was no seasoned commander, and the responsibility for the horrors they were about to inflict settled on his shoulders like a shroud. The weight of five hundred lives, and the sins they would commit in his name, was a terrifying burden. His loyalty to Prince Oberyn was absolute, a thing forged in years of service, but he understood with a cold certainty that the campaign ahead would be one of fire and blood, not honor. The songs of this war, if any were sung, would not speak of chivalry. They would speak of burning fields and weeping mothers. He was to be a terror in the night, a name whispered in fear, not sung by minstrels. A bastard named Daemon, sent to be a demon to his enemies. The irony was not lost on him.

He recalled the march up the Prince's Pass, watching the man he had served for so long. The prince was not a distant commander, poring over maps in a command tent. He rode among his men, his energy infectious, a whirlwind of charisma and menace. One moment he was sharing a wineskin with a common spearman from the Greenblood, laughing at a crude joke about the Tyrells; the next, he was delivering a sharp, quiet rebuke to a lagging knight that cut deeper than any whip, his voice a silken threat. Daemon remembered watching him spar with his captains in the evenings, his spear a blur of motion, laughing as he disarmed men twice his size. The tourney prince he had squired for was a performer, all flash and charm, a peacock in shining armor. This was Oberyn unleashed, his charm a whetstone for the blade of his intent.

And that intent was shared by every true Dornishman in the host. He thought of the collective anticipation of the army on that march, a low hum of restrained violence that seemed to make the very air vibrate. The men whispered the name "Elia" like a prayer and a curse. They were not just fighting for a Targaryen queen they'd never met; they were fighting for a murdered princess, their princess. He remembered seeing old knights, men who had served in Robert's Rebellion, men with faces like cracked leather, quietly weeping by the fire as they spoke of her beauty, her kindness, the way she had smiled at them during a tourney in her honor. They spoke of her children, Rhaenys and Aegon, as if they were their own lost kin. Their grief was a fifteen-year-old wound that had never been allowed to scar over, and now it had been ripped open. The quiet hum of the army had been a promise of vengeance, a promise he was now tasked to help deliver. He looked from the Dornish faces, alight with righteous fury, to the sellswords, whose faces showed only boredom and greed. He would have to find a way to lead them both.

We must press on, show them Dorne's fury, Daemon thought as they rode north, leaving the stony ground of the Marches behind for the lush, rolling fields of the Reach. The air grew sweeter, thick with the scent of blooming flowers and damp, dark earth, a cloying perfume that turned his stomach after the clean, arid bite of Dorne. It was a beautiful, gentle land, soft and yielding like a lover's embrace, worlds away from the harsh, unforgiving beauty of home. And the Dornish had come to bleed it dry. The green was so vibrant it almost hurt the eyes, a stark contrast to the reds and oranges of the sands Daemon had known all his life. This was the land of chivalry, of tourneys and flowery songs, where knights played at war in shining armor.

I feel a twisted envy stirring in my chest, why should they have such plenty while Dorne scrapes by on pride and poison? But it curdles into resolve. We will gut it like a fish, and I will wield the knife.

Their first target was a village sworn to House Peake, a cluster of thatched roofs and muddy lanes nestled by a lazy stream. They descended at dawn, a wave of sand-colored riders materializing from the morning mist like ghosts risen from the desert. The smallfolk, lulled by generations of peace, were caught completely unawares, their shouts of alarm twisting into screams of raw terror that echoed like accusations. The Dornishmen rounded up the horses with practiced ease, herding them like errant goats, while the sellswords went about their grim work with a brutal efficiency that made Daemon's skin crawl. He watched, frozen for a moment, as they set fire to the village mill, the flames licking hungrily at the dry wood, devouring it with a roar that drowned out the world. The screams of the miller's family trapped inside pierced through, a horrifying counterpoint to the crackle of the blaze, high-pitched and desperate, like wounded animals.

I swore vows as a knight to protect the innocent, to uphold justice in the name of the Seven. Yet here I am, astride my horse, letting it happen… nay, ordering it. A sour taste floods my mouth, bile rising with the guilt that claws at my gut. These are not warriors; they are farmers, their only crime being born on the wrong side of a mountain range. But I push it down, deep into the pit where I bury such doubts. This is for Elia, for her raped and murdered body, for her children's dashed skulls. For every Dornishman spat upon by Reach lords. The fire will cleanse it all, or so I tell myself, even as the acrid smoke stings my eyes and the weight of it settles like ash on my soul.

As they rode away, leaving chaos and confusion in their wake, the village a smoldering ruin, widows wailing over charred homes, Daemon glanced back once, against his better judgment. The smoke billowed high, a black scar against the dawn sky.

He spurred his horse forward to ride alongside his master of horse, an old, wiry Dornishman named Lewyn. "The horses?" Daemon asked, his voice low.

Lewyn spat a stream of brown sourleaf juice onto the rich Reach soil. "The pace is hard, ser. We picked up a dozen good mounts from the village, but we lost two of our own lamed on the ride in. Another dozen will need a day's rest if we're to keep them from breaking down entirely." He gestured with his chin towards a lancer whose sand steed was favoring its right foreleg. "This land is soft, but it hides rocks and roots our horses aren't used to. The Prince wants speed, but the gods of horseflesh demand their due."

Daemon nodded, the new weight settling on him. Oberyn's grand strategy of a "war of fire and speed" sounded glorious in a stone courtyard. Out here, it translated to lame horses, tired men, and the constant, gnawing worry that their greatest weapon, their mobility, could fail them miles from safety. He made a mental calculation of fodder and pace. Another problem to solve, another choice between speed and sustainability.

On the horizon, more columns of other Dornish forces were spreading more destruction in their wake. To the east, his own father, Ryon Allyrion, heir to Godsgrace, would be leading his men with the cold, calculating precision of a seasoned commander, his attacks striking supply lines, poisoning wells, leaving nothing to chance.

The thought brings a flicker of pride, mingled with the old resentment of my bastardy; he acknowledged me, trained me, but never fully claimed me.

To the west, Obara Sand, the Prince Oberyn’s daughter, would be cutting a bloody swath with a savagery that would make even the most hardened sellswords blink, her spear never idle, her fury a physical force unleashed like a storm. And somewhere in between, the powerful Lord Anders Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, would be making the name of his house a terror to the Tyrells, his ancient pride demanding he outdo every other commander in the field, his heavy horse trampling fields into mud. They were a web of vipers, all striking at once, spreading fire and blood. Daemon was just one fang among many, but the venom burned hot in his veins, a mix of exhilaration and dread that made his heart race.

The captured horses were laden with sacks of grain from the village stores, enough to feed the column for a week if rationed tightly. But the Reach's damp air had already turned some loaves moldy, forcing Daemon to order the sellswords to cull the worst grumbling ensued, their eyes on the ale casks instead. Water was plentiful from the streams, but he insisted on boiling it, remembering Oberyn's tales of flux felling more men than swords.

That evening, as his men made a cold camp in a copse of oaks, fires too risky with scouts about a scuffle broke out near the picket lines. Daemon was on his feet in an instant, hand on his sword. He found Ser Perros, a young knight from House Brackmont, face-to-face with a hulking sellsword whose nose had been broken more than once. The sellsword was clutching a silver locket taken from the village.

"This is plunder, not payment!" Ser Perros snapped, his face flushed with indignation. "We are here for vengeance for Princess Elia, not to line our pockets like common thieves!"

The sellsword sneered, showing yellowed teeth. "Your vengeance don't feed my kids. The Prince's coin is for fighting. This," he shook the locket, "is a bonus. You want it, pretty boy? Come take it."

Before blades could be drawn, Daemon stepped between them. His voice was quiet but cut through the tension. "Enough." He looked not at the Dornishman, but at the sellsword. "You were promised coin and plunder. You will have it. But you will not brawl in my camp. Put it away." Then he turned to Ser Perros. "And you. Do not mistake them for us. They are a tool we use. Do not expect the hammer to sing the same song as the smith."

The men separated, grumbling, but the moment lingered in the air, a reminder of the fragile alliance that held his column together. It was this that drove him to find the sellsword captain. He needed to set the rules straight before the cracks split wide open. Daemon sought out the grizzled Stormlander named Cletus Yron who had fought in the Disputed Lands for twenty years, his face a map of scars and broken dreams. His company called themselves the Gallant Men, a name so deeply ironic it was almost a jest, given their reputation for ruthlessness.

“Your men are effective, Captain,” Daemon said, watching them sharpen their blades by the dim light of a hooded lantern, their laughter coarse and loud as they passed around a stolen cask of ale. The sound grated on him, too carefree amid the day's horrors.

Cletus grunted, not looking up from the whetstone he was dragging along his own sword with rhythmic scrapes. “We do what we’re paid for, ser. No more, no less. We broke sieges for Tyrosh and put down rebellions for Lys. Burning mills is easy work. Easier than sacking a temple in Volantis, I’ll tell you that for free. Priests scream louder than millers.” His voice was flat, devoid of remorse, and it stirred an unease in Daemon, a mirror to his own buried qualms.

“And you have no qualms about it?” Daemon asked, the question slipping out more for himself than for the sellsword, his voice edged with the doubt he'd been wrestling all day.

The faces of those smallfolk haunt me, the miller's wide-eyed terror, the children's cries and I wonder if this war will hollow me out, leave me as empty as this sellsword seems.

Cletus finally looked up, his eyes hard and cynical in the flickering light, reflecting a lifetime of compromises. “Qualms are for lords who can afford them. We’re soldiers. You point, we kill. Or burn. Or whatever else the contract requires. A man’s got to eat, ser. And a lord’s honor won’t fill his belly. These smallfolk? Their lord takes their grain, their sons, their taxes. They’re part of his strength. We take his strength away. It’s all the same coin, just different sides. Just make sure the gold is waiting when we’re done.” His words landed like a blow, stripping away the illusions Daemon had clung to.

Was I any different? A bastard knight playing at honor, while the blood on my hands grows thicker.

The next day, word came that a force of knights from House Ashford was riding to intercept them, vengeance for the raids, no doubt. Cletus Yron’s scouts, moving like ghosts through the woods, guided them to the perfect spot: a narrow, wooded valley that funneled into a box canyon, its walls steep and overgrown. They laid the trap with grim efficiency, Daemon's heart pounding with a cocktail of anticipation and dread the thrill of the hunt warring with the fear of what more killing would cost his soul.

The Ashford knights, a hundred strong in their heavy plate and bright surcoats of orange and white, charged in with banners flying, a perfect picture of chivalry. They expected an honorable battle on an open field, a clash of lances and a test of valor, their war cries ringing with righteous fury. Fools. Before they could even form a proper line, Daemon gave the signal from his vantage on the ridge. From the canyon walls, his archers hidden among the rocks and trees, let fly. The air filled with a sound like ripping cloth as arrows rained down, finding gaps in armor, piercing visors and throats. Horses screamed and fell, knights toppling like felled trees, their proud charge dissolving into a panicked, screaming tangle of men and beasts. The metallic tang of blood mixed with the earthy scent of the woods, and Daemon's stomach churned even as adrenaline surged through him. The knights, trapped and disoriented, milled about in chaos… easy targets. The Dornish spearmen materialized from the trees like wraiths, their short spears darting past shields, finding purchase in mail and flesh with wet, sickening thuds. Men begged for mercy, their voices breaking, but mercy was a luxury they couldn't afford, not with the Reach's vast hosts still to face. It was not a battle; it was a slaughter. A butchery that left Daemon hollow, the echoes of dying gasps lingering in his mind like ghosts.

As the last screams faded, Cletus Yron appeared at his side, wiping his bloody sword on a dead man's surcoat. "Good ambush, ser. Clean." His eyes scanned the carnage with a professional's detachment. "My men are already stripping the bodies. Good steel and armor here, we can use this to equip both our men atleast partly. What of the wounded?" He nodded towards a young Ashford knight trying to crawl away, his leg shattered, moaning for his mother. "He's highborn by the looks of him. Could fetch a pretty ransom."

The word ransom hung in the air, a relic from a more honorable war. For a moment, Daemon saw the path he was supposed to take: the knight's duty to take prisoners, to show mercy to a defeated foe. It was a clear, bright line. But Oberyn's orders had been just as clear. Terror. Fear. No quarter. A ransom would send a message of weakness, of commerce. A corpse sent a message of doom.

Daemon’s throat felt dry. "There will be no ransoms," he said, his voice sounding like a stranger's. "And no prisoners."

Cletus raised a single, scarred eyebrow, a flicker of surprise or perhaps respect in his cynical eyes. "As you say, ser." He turned and bellowed to his men, "Prince's orders! Leave no one breathing!"

A few of the Dornish knights hesitated, their faces pale. But the sellswords went about the grim task with a predatory cheerfulness that sickened Daemon to his core. He turned his horse away, unable to watch, but he could not block out the wet, final sounds that followed.

They left the bodies for the crows, their armor glinting dully in the dappled light, and rode on, leaving only burning fields and terrified peasants to tell the tale of their passing. Daemon did not look back, afraid that if he did, the weight of it all the guilt, the rage, the weary justification would crush him. But forward lay more blood, more fire, and perhaps, in the end, redemption for Dorne.