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Maesters debate, still at length, which was the pivotal point in the history of the Seven Kingdoms wherein its course was charted, from seven warring Kingdoms to Seven prosperous warring Kingdoms, destined to be unified and transformed into the greatest empire since the Dawn.



Satirists will claim we are not, in fact, the greatest empire or civilization since the Empire of the Dawn. That we are more akin to a benevolent Valyria, whose Gods proscribe slavery but whose love of poppy and bittercane have made us slaves in our own domain.



Cynics will attest that the truth lies somewhere in between…



Both groups point to Daemon Blackfyre’s refusal to betray his half-brother, but can we truly say this? Encouraged to shun him, his Grace Daeron the Second (Then Prince Daeron.) opted to raise Daemon as though he were his own; having grown up beside Baelor and Maekar, was Daemon truly the pivot on which turned the levers of history? Or Merely a man defending kin he saw not as rivals but as near as precious as his own wife and children?



Septons will point to Aegon the Fortunate (formerly dubbed the Unlikely), the conjuring at Summerhall, and the coming of the “divine dragons.” But the Seven Kingdoms was no stranger to dragons, and neither Maegor the Cruel, Jaehaerys the Wise, nor Viserys the Gentle conquered the Essosi Coast.



Some say it was the first Dance of the Dragons or, rather, its confounding ending. These are the same people who think House Stark controls the Iron Throne from the Shadows. The notion that House Stark could govern the largest, oldest and third wealthiest Kingdom and somehow also find the time to create a vast conspiracy that spans centuries is as preposterous as it is logistically impossible. Both notions are the fancy of drunkards, derelicts, and purveyors of gossip.



Others point to the Sea Dragons, House Aetheryon’s flight from the Freehold, with only two of its dragons remaining to them and a fleet of ships filled to the brim with families and their warriors. Their conquest of the Western Coast of the North from the Gift to the border with the Riverlands established a precedent that was later exploited by Aegon the Dragon.



Yet the Lords of Sea Dragon Point and the Western shores are vassals to House Stark, their mightiest but vassals, nonetheless. History credits them more with the exchange of knowledge, science, higher mysteries, husbandry, and cultivation between Valyrians and The First Men. Indeed if they set a precedent, it was that fashionable exile into the Seven Kingdoms of Valyrian nobility who lacked dragons.



And their tradesmen, indeed Oldtown and Lannisport, benefited from that almost as much as the North.



And besides, while the Sea Dragons predated Aenar The Exile by twelve centuries, House Velaryon beat them both, arriving at Driftmark eighteen centuries before the Conquest.



And we do not date history by “Vaemond Velaryon’s Landing” or “Auryn's Exodus.”.



Others will credit the Blackfyre rebellion, known also as the Second Dance of the Dragons, and the overthrow of King Aerys II known as Aerys the Mad or Aerys Kinslayer in 283 A.C



Others will cite the war for the Coast fought in the three hundredth year Since Aegon’s Conquest, which lasted four to twenty years depending on which Maester one asks and indeed what mood said Maester is in that day.



Others will say it was the horrors the world endured during the War for the Dawn, fought concurrently with the War for the Coast (or immediately after it), that affected all peoples across the known world and caused sorrow and grief upon us all.



I believe it was all of the above and a key point that all the other parties leave out.



The enduring spirit of man. – Archmaester Edmund 512 A.C

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A.C 219

Haegon Blackfyre leaned unsteadily over the rail of the Hungry Wolf , watching the unnaturally pink waves.

Lord Aenar Aetheryon, the Master of Ships, was near as bloodthirsty as His Grace, King Aerys, but he compounded it with a reputation for blood - wrought through magic and sorcery.

And now the blood’s in the sea. The Royal fleet had been the anvil, and the Northern fleet the hammer; the alliance between the old Triarchy and House Greyjoy had quite literally gone up in flames.

How his brother had managed to get wildfire across the sea - or onto the tips of their scorpion bolts, the Gods alone knew. More sorcery - no, blame Aunt Shiera and Uncle Brynden for that, and his Grace as well!

How would history remember King Aerys? He had followed in his father’s footsteps - great works with roads and civil services were laid at his feet, but so too was the fire magery.

Haegon found the latter quite funny.

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Haegon would be remembered as the fourth-born son of Daemon Blackfyre.

His father had borne a thousand names, as he had borne Blackfyre , the sword of the Targaryens; but to him, there was none more important than father.

Men called him the True , for he had stayed true against all who would have sought to crown him king, above his trueborn brothers. Daeron had granted him Dragonstone and a Paramountcy with it, and dubbed him a prince beyond reproach.

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“It’s a fitting end,” muttered Rickon Barrowstark, stepping beside Dagon to watch the waves. “They burned the Redwyne fleet, and the Tully fleet at Harrentown was torched by the Greyjoys.” The one-eyed sellsword and adventurer had become Haegon’s constant companion in this War of the Three Whores.

“Turn and turn about?” Haegon muttered.

“What is dead may never die, but smells like bacon when cooked at sea,” Rickard remarked, and Haegon choked with laugher. Suddenly, he felt a hand around his shoulder -

And turned to see none other than the sorcerer in question, Aenar Aetheryon, bearing the pure silver-white hair, and turquoise eyes of his house; a half-smile upon his face.

“Your father would be proud.” His voice was hoarse. Haegon’s laughter ceased, and his face fell.

This war had a terrible cost. Father and Aegon were dead, and Aemon had disappeared. Only Haegon remained, bearing the blade that ran Daemon the True through; the Valyrian longsword of House Rogare, Truth.

“And he would smile at the waves. Thirty thousand sell swords - my tribute to him,” Aenar continued, his blue eyes unblinking. 

Good Gods, ambushing a fleet carrying troops at sea ought to be some form of crime.

The green fires had trapped half of Tyrosh in a curtain of flame. The Free Cities had feared the new Paramountcy might create a haven for escaped slaves, despite his mother being the daughter of the Archon of Tyrosh.

Uncle Brynden had made it worse by garrisoning the Three Daughters, and wreaking havoc on the Stepstones. His father had been all too happy to crush some slavers, never caring whose flag they had flown.

The slaves had torn his maternal grandfather limb from limb, and people said they’d fed the remains to a captive lizard-lion. Haegon did not mourn the man - assuming there was anything left to mourn.

His father’s death had caused some rainbow to appear over the Archon’s manse. People had taken it as a sign to rebel - and now Tyrosh and its tributaries burned.

“By your Smith’s hairy balls!” Rickard spat. “All those third and fourth sons will end up lords of Masterly houses on the mainland!”

Lord Aenar produced a drako and lit it with a nearby lantern. Haegon had not known he partook of Fyreleaf; then again, it was no great surprise, for the Reach-grown leaf, once dried and rolled, was a source of wealth nearly as great as the bittercane the man had discovered. “Make no mistake, our children’s children will pay the butcher’s bill for this.”

“So, we should have allowed Tyrosh to harry our shipping lanes? Beggar our realm?” Haegon could feel the fire in his blood. “We should have permitted the three whores to forge their old alliance anew?”

Lord Aenar bowed, and raised a hand in supplication. “My friend, I was merely contemplating the consequences of your war, not its wisdom.”

“Contemplate upon this , my Lord of Aetheryon,” Haegon drew his sword as the man stared sharply at him, and pointed it at a distant blotch upon the horizon. “That looks unburned to my eye - let opportunity not slip us by!”

And sure enough, there was an unburned port - a small thing, but enough for the Hungry Wolf to disgorge twenty thousand men upon the slaver city.

The Gods alone could account for the carnage that came next - but the rivers of blood that flowed through Tyrosh were plain enough for men.

Chapter Text

A.C 257

“How many thousands of years of knowledge..I wonder.” Prince Valarr asked astride black destrier that was a hand and a half taller than lord Tywin’s. At four and ten, the youth was only a year the Lannister lord’s junior, but he possessed discerning eyes that would usually be ascribed to someone who’d seen ten more name days than that. He’s still too kind, mayhap Steffon and I can cure him of that. It was an odd thing, Lord Lannister thought. To have friends that wanted nothing from you save your company. And Valarr Blackfyre, son of Prince Daemon Blackfyre wanted for nothing, houses Targaryen, Blackfyre, Velaryon and Aetheryon were said to have extracted so much plunder Tyrosh forty years ago that even with the subsequent wars by Volantis and Lys that their treasuries were still overflowing. But that wasn’t entirely true, his craven father had issued enough loans to the royal treasury for the construction of more roads and a failed attempt to bridge the neck with a canal that the crown came calling at the least. The Narrow Sea paramountcy was a different matter, created when Daemon the true informed on his treacherous brother Aegor Rivers it ruled everything from the mouth of the blackwater to Tyrosh.

A fair trade, Tywin thought. Daemon Blackfyre knelt a knightly hero and great bastard but rose a Prince, like the insipid Dornish. Now their wealth rivaled that of his house and its cadet branch in Lannisport. That was why he found himself making friends with the son of the Master of Ships, or so Tywin told himself. It wasn’t just because he enjoyed the younger boy’s company as much as he enjoyed Aerys and Steffon’s. Steffon Baratheon, who laughed uproariously in that booming voice of his that echoed down the cobbled stones of Oldtown’s most formidable streets. “If they wanted to keep their books, they shouldn’t have committed treason.”

“A treason, the nature of which my royal grandfather has been quite silent on. He’ll only say that Lord Aenar and Lord Edwyle submitted compelling proof” Aerys shrugged, the prince and heir apparent of the heir apparent. His friend, his best asset and the eternal thorn in his side for that grandiose fool’s incessant attempts to make him laugh. He was on a chestnut-colored horse, in contrast to the blood red armor that Tywin wore and the dark black of Prince Valarr, the future King of the seven Kingdoms wore a silver set of armor that shimmered in the torch light. The three headed Dragon of his house was set with rubies, and he wore a crimson cloak with black edges and a long black horse tail plume over his armor. Aerys was a talented rider and a master with the lance but his skill with a sword was middling at best, though he had flashes of greatness that his often-unfocused mind could  ocassionally tap. Aerys was in one of his more flippant moods today, questioning the King even in front of one’s closest confidants on the eve of an unprecedented raid into the Citadel was dangerous even if no one else was around to hear it.

A year ago, Aerys, Valarr and Steffon snuck out of the Red Keep and set out for the wall. It was pure folly and utter stupidity, as if the heir of the future king could simply vanish without a stir. Yet somehow, they’d succeeded, and his grace King Aegon had charged Tywin with the duty of ascertaining their location and retrieving them. Tywin was livid, that was an embarrassment towards themselves on par with anything his father had done. But on some level, he admired Aerys for his ability to convince those around him to embark on absurd ventures or perform feats of daring that made them better men. There was a cruel streak to him, one only need look at the youngster of three and ten and how he treated Princess Rhaella, mocking her betrothal to the much older Rickard Stark (Though never to the lord’s face and he suspected there was some jealously there.) yet he had the makings of a truly great King, one that swore would rule the realm with Tywin by his side as Lord Hand.

 The treatment of Rhaella reminded him of Ellyn Reyne and that sat ill with him. He still remembered the first japes, Aerys smugly remarking that he’d been gifted a far “prettier bride” in the form of Princess Rohanne Blackfyre. with her turquoise eyes and black streaks in her silver hair. It was pure folly and utterly preposterous. Some heretical, albino dwarf having issued a prophecy that it would be through the line of Jaeharys ‘eldest and a Blackfyre of northern blood would yield the prince that was promised.

That had been one of the court secrets that the King allowed him to be present for what Tywin wished he had remained ignorant of. The Targaryens forged the Seven Kingdoms an empire in all but name, vested with the immense and almost boundless power of the Iron Throne, checked only but obligations and the feudal contract yet they put stock in such nonsense? An impractical waste. Yet for all the ways he reminded Tywin of that harlot, he made up with his sister and showed her a level of deference since that implied, he saw reason and sense. It was easy to msilike Aerys, but it was hard to hate him, and it was harder still to mislike him for very long.

“Ours is but to obey.” Steffon said, pulling a wineskin from his saddle bag and drinking greedily. And before Tywin’s incredulous glare could affix the lord of Storm’s End Steffon raised a hand and waved it pleadingly. “In times such as these.”

“A lord Paramount is still owed an explanation.” Tywin remarked in a cold voice. Under the reign of Aegon Targaryen, the Lords Paramount gained a great deal of centralized authority within their domains but then that power was placed at the Crown’s feet. So far, the arrangement hadn’t led to the dissolution of the feudal pact, but in a century? A lord had to consider such things. Below them, on the streets leading to the Citadel, Lords Hightower and Stark were yelling, issuing orders to the ten-thousand-man army that had been brought to bear to bolster the City Watch and the host of the Crownlands.

“And my grandsire shall surely give us one.” Aerys answered, a smirk trespassing along the right side of his face, reminding Tywin of the sort of lilted smiles he’d seen in jackals. “It shall probably involve magic.”

Tywin Lannister’s jaw set. “Your infatuation with chaos shall unmake us all one day if you aren’t careful my prince.” Magic, he spent his whole life dismissing it as nonsense until he encountered Eddard Snow, Lord Aenar’s sworn sword and bastard half brother of Lord Rickard. He’d spoken at length with him one night, curious how he achieved it. And came away with the conclusion that magic was a resource much in the same way led and that liquid metal that Maesters used in research on gauging temperature were. It had it’s uses but an abundance of it drove you mad and poisoned your body. Like the bittercane that brought so much profit to the North yet did such great damage to the flesh if abused. There was no point in resources that if even slightly misused resulted in excesses that were lethal. He witnessed enough of its wasteful qualities when he disembarked on the frozen shores of the lands beyond the wall and lead a royal host through the snow to rescue Prince Aerys, Prince Valarr, Steffon Baratheon and an irate Rickard Stark, who despite being several years older than even Tywin was always dragged into Aerys schemes.

“Mayhap! Maaayhap there will come a day!” Aerys spurred his horse and began riding around them. Tywin wanted to roll his eyes, but he controlled himself. Reciting the speech King Mern the last in the one of the strongholds of Reach where Aegon was crowned was a level of affrontery only Aerys Targaryen would commit to and why Tywin Lannister enjoyed him. “A day when fell sorcery and dragon fire descends upon our green lands! When spears shatter and armor melts, when bones and ash litter our wheat fields! When the strength of the blood of Garth Greenhand fails! When our castles crumble and the last rose of Highgarden sheds it’s last petal! But it is not this day! For I look in your eyes and see the same fear that would take the heart of me!” he roared as he positioned his horse before the trio. “But I go willingly and go forward! To face the dragon and his meager host! With my brothers and my sons and grandsons! My line will stand with me and the seven-pointed star and the green hand doth guide me! So, Stand! MEN OF THE SOUTH!”

Aerys backed his stallion “It is not this day! But ten days from now when Rhaenys, Visenya and Aegon the conqueror will roast my boney ass in my armor and turn me into a lump of slag a local blacksmith no doubt made a rather fetching set of horseshoes from!”

The absurdity of that, at that moment. Delivered in such a light voice with his sword drawn, poised like a hero of old, armor glimmering in the light. Made the corner of Tywin’s lips twitch slightly.

Below them the King gave an order. Ser Duncan the tall shouted, his voice like the roar of a storm and Rickard Stark advanced.

The hallowed halls of the Citadel ran red with blood.

Chapter Text

A.C 258

His back didn’t used to hurt like this, he used to spend hours a day stooped over Dunk’s armor scrubbing away rust, polishing the plate and washing their linens in rivers. It had been backbreaking work, but it had good and honest work that built his up his back and calloused his hands and put muscle on his body and afflicted in him a tan that remained to this day. As he sat on the throne forged by his ancestors, Aegon was keenly aware that this chair was becoming more and more uncomfortable as the winter’s chill made the uncomfortable metal monstrosity even more uncomfortable.

His back hurt enough, he was contemplating taking some bittercane. Face it egg, you’re old, that’s all it is. You’re just old, old and starting to gripe in your old age, about your old age. The thought made him smile softly, recalling when Aemon departed for the wall after hugging him fiercely Kill the boy egg and let the man be born. Sage advice, but why did it have to come with this feeling of weariness? All around him in the castle at the heart of the Seven Kingdoms rested or hung the Dragon skulls that purchased the power his house now wielded. Did Balerion and Vhagar ever feel old? great banners fluttered in the breezes that occasionally passed through the throne room or were pushed by the gusts of wind generated by the great fanning devices invented by some Braavosi madman. On the left, flanked by the skulls of Tessarion and Syrax was the gold sea dragon on a red and blue field quartered by sea lions of House Sunfyre of Lannisport the cadet branch created when the Spring sickness all but destroyed House Lannister of Lannisport. One of his elder brothers had a bastard with a Blackfyre, that child grew up to become a skilled mariner and navigator and had been ennobled when he saved Lord Gerold Lannister from remnants of the Tyroshi fleet.

He took the name of the dragon ridden by the infamous Aegon the second as his surname and now his grandsons ruled Lannisport and Captained the Westerlands trading fleet Having married into the surviving Lannisters of Lannisport through the female line. Opposite the Sunfyre banner, looming behind the skull of Tyraxes, the trout of House Tully who had married so many Targaryen daughters over the last two centuries that they counted as a cadet branch of house Targaryen. Opposite the Tully trout was the ermine Sea Dragon on an indigo field with seven silver stars of house Aetheryon  who started out as another clan of exile Dragon Lords who came to the North in disgrace six centuries before Aegon’s conquest. They hadn’t been a cadet branch, not until the reign of Jaehaerys the wise for whom his son was named.

Mya Rivers, the great bastard of the last King named Aegon to sit this uncomfortable chair was the mother of the current Lord, Aenar. The voice of Winterfell in the South and more importantly, the man who’d been hand of the King for his entire reign and served his father before him after Ser Brynden disappeared. And hanging beside the Sea Dragon banner the silver three-headed dragon on a blue and red field of House Tully of Harrenhal. Aegon suppressed a yawn and the instinctive urge to stretch (Lest he be impaled on some of the jutting blades that made up some of the dangers of sitting upon this monstrous chair.) as he peered down at the lord of Rosby who was discussing trouble with the granary guilds and how the increase in storage fees for the city was a crime! Especially in wintertime…Why so much of his aristocracy hated merchants Egg would never understand.

If the smallfolk were the mortar of the realm and the faith, the Citadel, and the aristocracy its columns and roof then the merchants of the gentry were its bricks. “I will consider your petition.” Aegon finally said, his back was a mess and he needed to stretch his legs.

As Aegon rose he turned his head to the great skull of the black dread, which he had moved to rest opened mouth, his skull holding the monstrous iron throne as though the Dragon were reaching out from beyond the veil to swallow anyone who dared forget the power of house Targaryen and its many kin. Behind the skull and the throne, the largest banners of all hung. House Blackfyre’s three headed black dragon on a red field and its parent, the three headed red dragon of house Targaryen. Fire and blood, no better friend nor fiercer foe. And what a foe his cousins in the narrow sea could have been! He walked through the mouth of the Black Dread, passing the scented braziers and oil lamps that gave the King the illumination he needed to appear regal and noble and also to be seen by those at court from within the shadowed, cavernous maw. He passed the spot where Betha’s own throne would have been when she was alive and swallowed back sorrow. It would not do well to dwell on loss, not today when it was a day of festivities.

It had been one year since the murderous traitors of the Citadel had been purged, one year since the blood letting of the grey sheep as that young novice called it. I should send Marwyn that fossilized dragon egg Aerys found in the North, mayhap it once belonged to a genuine ice dragon.

As he stepped from the Throne room Aegon found himself smiling at one of his ever-present shadows. Tall, board shouldered man with a lions like mane of a beard and long white hair and hands that still looked like they could crush a man’s skull. “Ser Grandison.” Aegon answered with a smile, even if they had spent the day motionless by his side, he still insisted on greeting them and speaking with them whenever time and decorum permitted (and when it didn’t.), old Harlan hadn’t been so old when Aegon ascended the throne.

Strong, powerfully built and with a voice like the roar of the beast on his house’s sigil, he’d been instrumental in stopping a riot among the supplicants for Prince Maegor. Egg couldn’t recall what happened to Maegor, his master of whispers said he was fighting as a free rider in Yi Ti and took Vaella as a wife, some match that must have been. I’m complaining about my age, but this man is only a year younger than Lord Aenar and Dunk…Nine years my senior and this one stands in silence.

“Your grace, I..” Ser Harlan was cut off by the site of Eddard Snow talking to a serving girl in one of the corners of the hallway causing Aegon to laugh softly. Warg’s were hardly the monsters most in the South made them out to be, especially not compared to uncle Brynden or aunt Shiera. Once they passed the man, Aegon looked back at his guard and smiled “He won’t steal your soul and to my knowledge he can only bond with one animal, that great big golden eagle from the Vale.” The one that had swooped down during a tourney and stolen his queens favor when Aethan Waters (Who Egg was still convinced was another of Aerion’s get.) had been granted it in the winter tourney. The eagle, like Egg was old now but he wondered if it could still remember the raucous laughter from the throngs. We should host another tourney, spring is near and the city can always benefit from the revenue of the fees and sales.

Winter was almost over, yet he was wearing an ermine lined robe of crimson and black, his crown chilled his skin and yet Eddard Snow was wearing nothing but a simple silk tunic and a surcoat of very light Essosi cotton. While Lord Aenar despite being a week passed his sixty seventh name day was seated in a small garden between the great courtyards, in the cold with not but a surcoat a tunic and a silk robe over that. He wore Myrish lenses now, to read books and reports and communiques but the chain of office never weighed heavy around his neck. “Ah my lord hand. I am glad I looked up from my floors, else I’d have walked all the way to the tower of the hand for nothing.”

As the Lord of Sea Dragon Point rose, the King suppressed an urge to flinch, he was old. Though Aegon supposed the same could be said of him, for his gold and silver hair had become more silver in recent years, more so, since he dared to begin the great undertaking.  “I am glad happenstance worked in your favor then, your grace.” He bowed slightly, offering a smile that never quite made it his eyes. It never did, he’s the last of them, the sorcerers of King’s Landing. Uncle Brynden, uncle Aerys, aunt Shiera and Lord Aenar. The others were all dead or disappeared leaving only the Lord of Sea Dragon Point of that era long since gone and leaving him as Aegon’s only confederate in the grand endeavor. “Have you heard back from our friends in the Lengii embassy?”

The Lord smiled, his face was aged, and care worn but not near as wrinkled as Ser Duncan or Ser Harlan, the gossips all said the tall Northerner of Valyrian descent was a life thief.  If he is, he’s a poor one.

Magic had slowly begun to creep back into the world ever since Daemon Blackfyre turned on Aegor Rivers and declared for House Targaryen. But it had been subtle and slow, a trickle from an old pipe. Yet when the Citadel was purged of its traitors, that trickle turned into a weak yet consistent stream and Aegon felt now was the time. “In three turns of the moon, it should arrive your grace.” Aegon nodded, a weight lifted from his chest. Trade with Yi Ti and Leng had been another boon of the last twenty years of his reign. Courtesy of the lords Redwyne and Sunfyre who managed to succeed establishing trade relations that evolved into an alliance that was very much symbolic. Not that the trade was very consistent given the vast distances and the dangers of the sea, but the navies of the realm mitigated some of that and the wealth one stood to gain was worth the risk.

To be young again, on an adventure just Dunk and me to the court of Leng, the women there are as tall as Tansey was. Ambassador Jikata is seven feet tall and claims his daughters are taller still. Maybe if he found a tall woman warrior, I could have ennobled him, and he would be a grandsire now and not in armor shackled to me.

But he knew Dunk wouldn’t have it any other way. Still, part of him felt sad for his great friend who should have died in a nice keep surrounded by family and friends but would likely pass in a bed too small to contain him in a keep surrounded by his sworn brothers. “Tell me, have you seen my grandson?” His father, Aegon’s surviving son that wasn’t disinherited was abed again, his stomach plaguing him most terribly, as it had begun to do so with more frequency. Fathers shouldn’t outlive their sons and I’ve outlived one already. Mother’s mercy let Jae live another score of years at least. Aenar shook his head, bone white hair swaying in the cool air. “Alas my king, I’ve not.”

“You can call me Egg, old wizard. There’s not a soul between us save Ser Harlan and he won’t begrudge you the informality.” Aegon said flashing a tired smile. Ser Grandison chuckled softly, or as soft as noise coming from the throat of a man who sounded like a lion could. “My oath as a sworn Knight of the Kingsguard would compel me to fight a duel for your honor at such impertinence your grace, alas I am no wizard and I fear he would smite me with fireballs or bolts of lightning.”

“Your sworn blades are indeed wise my king.”

Jests, that was always the closest thing old lord Aenar would come to overt friendliness unless the two of them were alone. “Mayhap we are Lord Hand but at least we are informed, for I can tell you where Prince Aerys is.”

…………

“I thank you once again, for bringing me here Tywin.” Joanna Lannister’s husky voice rose in his ear, a whisper that sent a chill down his spine. The two were watching Ser Maelys Blackfyre, the two headed grotesque who was the sworn sword of Prince Valarr (and his friend’s uncle.) as he ran the shield of the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard with such violence the clash of steel on steel and oak sounding like the tolling bells. “You are to be my wife, lady Joanna. You belong here.” Tywin would hear nothing at six and ten he knew what he wanted in life, and he knew that life involved Joanna at his side as his strong right hand, his heart and his soul. And that life, would be shared with their children who would go on to do great deeds, as Tywin and his pride of lions restored the Lannister name and avenged all the slights and abuses their house had suffered since his lord father ascended to the throne of the Rock.

“He’s fascinating, isn’t he?” she asked, meaning Maelys. The bulge where his second head protruded from his neck, revealing a listless, face with blood-red eyes that contrasted with his purple was a hideous sight. Tywin despised imperfection, but every tool no matter how simple or unsightly had its uses and Maelys like the North’s Wargs had his uses. He was immense bull of a man that towered over all save Ser Duncan with a kind of strength spoken of only in legend and that Tywin himself had only witnessed from Ser Sandor Clegane, the immense beast of a man who was descended from the many kennel masters of the Rock. As a sworn sword of House Blackfyre Maelys would have been a fine catch for the Kingsguard yet he had refused. Preferring to earn his glory in the service of his house and in slaying hundreds of pirates. “Lord Aenar says grotesques have uses of their own.” Joanna observed in her discerning manner. What other woman could know his thoughts so well? What other signs did he need that his cousin was the one for him.

“Yes, he’s a queer man but his insights…inspire.” Perhaps Tywin himself could make use of House Clegane in a similar fashion? Its current head was a brute of a man with low cunning and a unique manner of viewing men inspired by the dogs that emblazoned his house sigil. They had been going at it for an hour, neither man nor grotesque showed any signs of stopping and Joanna pulled him away from the fascinating display in the courtyard below, leading him to a table the servants of the house of the Dragon set up so that they might take a small meal before the feast later tonight. Steffon Baratheon and Lord Rickard would be arriving by boat now if they hadn’t already, Lord Rickard to retrieve his intended. This was likely the other reason for the feast being held tonight, for it couldn’t solely be just for his name day alone.

Feasts were an exhaustive undertaking in terms of logistics and while they served a purpose as a display of power. Tywin Lannister, heir of Casterly Rock couldn’t imagine the King holding more than one in the span of as many weeks.  King Aegon was an upright man, infuriatingly practical for one so libertine with the commons, in truth Tywin admired the man’s efficiency and his ability to win love and loyalty even while making hard decisions. Seated in shadow, both clad in the scarlet and gold of house Lannister. With Joanna wearing a red dress, with gold thread and several rubies along her neckline and a golden choker with a small lion made of emeralds to match her eyes, she was very much the most beautiful woman in the seven Kingdoms, Valyrians and their ethereal beauty be damned. Lord Tywin was wearing a scarlet surcoat over a simple but elegant tunic threaded with gold. It was the silk robe the Lengii called “Yakata”, that depicted golden lions tearing apart red tabbies that fancied themselves lions.

They were all the rage in terms of fashion in the crown lands, but Tywin couldn’t care less for that except that he did enjoy their garments in the summers when the heat became intolerable, and they afforded a reprieve. He only wore this one because Lord Jason Lannister, his uncle and his intended’s father had gifted them matching pairs with a note expressing his support for what Tywin wanted to do to the Reynes and Tarbecks.

They would have to wear them at court in the Rock, no clearer message nor symbol of unified intent. And he allowed a slight twitch of his lips at the memory of Joanna laughing so hard at some absurd jape of Aerys that she spilled wine on hers. The wine stains would be gone, and it would be cleaned before they departed with Aerys and Valarr to Braavos on business, or he would have the servants fed to the lions in the royal menagerie King’s love of the smallfolk be damned. They sat there in silence, as servants brought them lemon cakes and various dried fruits and warm tea and a lantern and the ever-present box of Drakos that had taken the realm by storm. These were the usual sort, but he noted the six pale drakos that were ivory in color instead of the usual brown which signified fyreleaf cut with powdered milk of the poppy and bittercane which when smoked gradually produced a myriad of pleasant sensations, the lady Joanna’s only vice was that she allowed herself just one of those ivory drakos a day. In the evening before bed and what discipline there was in that.

They waited, of course neither would eat before the heir to the Iron throne came and when he did, he walked beside his betrothed and Prince Valarr, with his silver and white hair a contrast to Aerys.

Aerys was adorned in a Yakata of his own and beneath it the dragon of House Targaryen on a tunic of fine Essosi linen. He had taken to wearing black gloves of late, seldom touching anything with his own hands. ostensibly to conceal the burns from his flirtations with fire magic that ended with him lacking sensation in three of his fingertips on his left hand, but Tywin suspected it was because he didn’t like touching “lesser men” unless there was a barrier between skin. Dark Sister hung at a belt at his side, a point of pride in that he finally managed to best King Aegon in the yards, earning the right to carry the blade of house Targaryen. Valarr was adorned in a similar garb but his was crimson with the three-headed Dragon in black.

He too wore gloves, but that was mostly to cover the scars on his hands from their excursion North where a snow bear had nearly ripped them off. How Valarr managed to retain the use of them or how they ended up in the beasts’ mouth Tywin was never exactly clear on. At his side was an enormous leather cylinder-shaped case that he handed to Aerys who was beaming like a cat that caught the capon. “Lord Lannister! Heir to Casterly Rock, counted among the wealthiest and mightiest of my eventual bannermen!” he bowed, with a theatrical flourish before presenting the cylinder as though he were a supplicant paying homage to his liege lord.

From anyone else, Tywin would have taken that as a heinous insult and ended their friendship right then and there for such condescension. But Aerys Targaryen was one of the few men who could make such a gesture in genuine friendship and mirth and not turn all the affection Tywin bore for him sour.

Joanna giggled. “All hail Aerys the Dragon!” she called effecting a graceful curtsy. In the courtyard below, one of the two combatants grabbed the other and they were now wrestling between the grass and flowers. Princess Rohanne kissed Joanna on the cheek then bowed to Tywin deferentially, she was a good woman for Aerys and would like as not help his friends mold the boy into the great king he was destined to be. With my help….

When Tywin accepted the case, he marveled at its lightness despite the fact that he could clearly hear the rattling of something within that seemed like it a large sword and Tywin looked at them both with a raised eyebrow. Valyrian steel was a precious commodity; in Westeros there were only three hundred weapons forged of the mystical material left in all of Westeros and an unknown number of hundreds of thousands of links in the Citadel. The art of its forging was lost in the doom, as the Valyrian sorcerer-smiths guarded their secrets jealously. And when it was lost, the secret to creating a blade that could cut through conventional armor as though it were paper and always hold an edge was lost.

Valyrian steel was only exceeded by the star metal that Dawn was forged of. Only smiths in Qohor knew how to rework Valyrian steel, but none knew how to make more of it. Of course, there were always rumors that House Targaryen and House Stark possessed treatises and papers, ancient lore craft written down by long dead masters, but Baelor the blessed had seen much of the Targaryen secrets burned and neither House Stark nor the likely source of that knowledge had ever made use of it.

Then the Manderly trading fleet brought a hundred Yi Tish and Lengii sage-smiths to Dragonstone. Exiles from their respective empires, driven from their land for their belief that knowledge knew no race or creed and that it was a power unto itself. Qohorik smiths followed on a holy pilgrimage to learn from these masters and exchange knowledge. And now, two generations later; rumors from Dragonstone said the successors to the old eccentrics had succeeded in rediscovering how to create Valyrian steel. Looking down at the case, and realized this was the closest Tywin had gotten to an emotional outburst that wasn’t fury or exacerbation or a ghost of a laugh at Aerys antics, since Joanna made him laugh at the start of the year.

He pulled the top of the case off and extracted a great sword that was near six feet long. Its scabbard was red leather framed in bronze with a gold lion along the center. The grip was made of leviathan ivory with the pommel shaped into that of a lion, with blood diamonds in its eye sockets and when Tywin Lannister unsheathed the blade Joanna gasped. The blade was brimming with power and the Valyrian steel was shaped to appear as though it were solid gold. Smoky red swirls filled the blade giving the appearance of a sunsets at Casterly Rock. There were spells and etchings in Valyrian, Lengii and YiTish, benedictions and enchantments no doubt, but what caught him was Valyrian text between the spells. “Hear me roar.” Tywin mouthed.

“It’s part of a set. There will also be a long sword and four daggers. But the process is, slow and costly so they won’t be ready until end of the year. However, we wanted you to have this one now.” Valarr said with a joyous smile, seemingly elated that Tywin appreciated the gift. “And worry not, the uniqueness and social status shall remain well preserved, our smiths might be able to create Valyrian steel, but the…” He paused, gathering himself before continuing. “Process requires criminals and wildfire since there are no more Dragons. Even the more controllable variant of wildfire is dangerous, and each blade will cost a million gold dragons.”

A million gold dragons, the quarterly revenue from Lannisport, comparable to the gross product of some of the smaller petty nations in Essos and comparable to the combined revenue of the entirety of the summer isles. “I see…” this gift was a testament to the enormity of the wealth of the dragons, black and red.

And of the bond of friendship, they held with House Lannister.

Aerys smiled, a full smile “Happy Nameday Tywin.”

Chapter Text

A.C 258

The Lady of the Golden Rose.

The winter was winding down, of course, winter in Highgarden meant that maybe there’d be snow for a fortnight and then the thaw would come and there’d be flooding in certain parts of the Reach that would clear away a poor harvest and shift the soils around. A Maester explained it to her once, some arduous lecture or another on the mechanics behind why the soil in the reach was the greatest and most fertile in the world. That was likely the last time Olenna Tyrell ever spoke to that Maester. Maesters… Olenna suppressed a sigh What were those meddlesome morons thinking?! No, the lady of Highgarden realized. That was the wrong question, the proper question was How in the seven hells did we never think that the men we trust to carry our messages, council us in our games, heal us, and help manage our lands, our pedigree and to raise and guide our children would not look upon such a golden opportunity and avail themselves of it.

It was preposterous, of course, they would take advantage of such unprecedented levels of trust and steer the great houses in the direction they wished, in furtherance of some higher-minded goal. Perhaps that was what troubled Olenna the most regarding the whole sordid affair. The faction within the citadel behind such atrocities wasn’t doing this for power, they were doing this because of a belief that the world would be better without Gods, without faith, and magic.

A world without the underpinnings that held the entire world together. Forget Targaryen madness, Maesterly Madness was going to become a new phrase among the nobles as the loyal Maesters began to let the ravens fly. Assuming any Maesters survive this madness. So far, four in ten Maesters seemed to still draw breath after the criers, couriers, and ravens carried the news across the reach. In the Storm Lands, Lord Steffon Baratheon had shielded Maester Cressen with his own body from the fury of his father and when the Maester swore his loyalty Ormund Baratheon wept and begged his forgiveness. Typical of the proud and overly emotional fools at Storm’s End. Mores the pity though, from what her spies told her most of the Maesters in the crown lands were slaughtered utterly.

Something that shamed her personally because of the overabundance of Redwyne bastards who wore the grey out in the lands surrounding that fetid cesspit of a capital. The bards, poets, and scribes call our machinations the Game of Thrones, a foolish and tactless sobriquet but we are such novices in comparison to those grey jackals. And they’ve existed for as long as any of the great and old houses. When did they go wrong? The bloody letter made mention of them selectively poisoning and breeding us as though we were animals.

It was a bitter wine that, more so because she understood Why they did it. Or rather, why they had originally begun to do it before they lost their way. The winter’s wind passed through along the curtail wall swaying the roses that bloomed from the ancient and relentless vines and brushes that served as secondary barriers augmenting an already formidable castle. Certain bloodlines, both of Andal warrior kings of old and First men were believed to be as mystically imbued as the Valyrian race and there was a degree of truth to it. All Tyrells and Redwynes are beautiful, all Florents have big ears, and all Tarly’s are brave to a fault even the ones called craven by their kin. The Hightowers are majestic and mystically inclined. All Lannisters are gold of hair and green of eyes and unreasonably fertile. And the Starks, are strong, grim, and possessed of stamina that isn’t normal. Baratheons inherited the Durrandon look and their unnatural strength and vitality.

Perhaps all the talk of Long Nights and monsters beyond the wall was indeed true and not merely the embellishment of wars with ancient primitives like so many in the South believed. If they were, it would explain why the order of Maesters educated a certain way, emphasized certain things, pushed certain notions, and ultimately. This treason was truly insidious and of a scope that went beyond anything she could likely guess at. And as King Aegon prunes the grey garden, he ought to be cautious that he does not miss a weed or two. Else they’ll be back to their schemes and games in a century.

The only reason she hadn’t agreed with her Lord Husband when Luthor had declared his intention to order the death of every single Maester within the Reach for treason was that most of them seemed to be oblivious to the plot and upon finding out were enraged and indignant and filled with a degree of ire she didn’t think was possible from those weird, sexless scholars.

Of course, Garth raised another point that was of paramount concern. Fundamentally, we cannot kill them all because to do so would leave us blind, deaf, and ignorant and we would likely slide back into barbarism. Even if the Stonemason guilds and the textile masters and the millers all knew their craft, the science behind their craft remained exclusively in the purview of the citadel. The only good that would come of this was Lord Ormund’s notion that the power of the Citadel ought to be dispersed, which she agreed with and made plans to discuss the creation of a Citadel of the Arbor.

The part that would become intolerable, however, was the fact that they would have to allow Citadels in the North and the Riverlands, one in King’s Landing and even one in Tyrosh which had become the de facto seat of House Blackfyre and whose mainland demesnes boasted almost as Westerosi now as they did Essosi. The exchange of knowledge and commerce and peoples between East and West had benefitted the Reach immensely but the dispersal of the power concentrated in Oldtown would mean the weakening of the Reach. Ah well, sometimes a bull is too violent to stud and must either be put down or gelded and left as a plow beast.

This was a weakness though; it would mean a weakening of the institutional power which House Tyrell wielded through House Hightower and that would mean they would have to rely more on their vast wealth and military might than on more subtle means. And this is where that oaf I call my lord husband has the right of this. The extent of their depravity made manifest or not, this intolerably benefits, the Narrow Sea, the North, and House Targaryen and makes their dream of Empire all the easier.

They would have to proceed with caution, her good brother Garth might have been a disgusting glutton, but he saw things more clearly than any other and even her invalid of a husband had his moments. She reached up and traced a thumb and index finger calloused and ink-stained from constant needlework and exchanging letters on the matter. Through thick brown hair. yes, she thought. We will have to proceed carefully, lest Highgarden end as the Citadel did, with not but tears and brothers mourning brothers as they try and clean up the blood.

…….

The Winter Dragoness

It had been more comfortable than she imagined, travel on a Northern sailing ship. In general, it had been more than she could have imagined, being delivered from the clutches of a brother she held little in the way of love for. A betrothal was done to attempt to fulfill a prophecy that was misinterpreted, and life was uprooted on account of that error, in a fortnight Rhaella Targaryen, Princess of the blood and only surviving daughter of Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen went from being doomed to a life beside a brother she detested, to a life beside one of his friends. At first, she was uncertain how to feel about it, other than the profound sorrow at once again being denied a life with her sweet Ser Bonifer, whom she loved dearly and missed. Rickard was kind, she knew him to be several years older than her brother and all of his friends even Tywin who was the eldest of their circle. He was handsome, in that Northern way. Tall and grim, with broad shoulders and calloused hands, he had scars on his arms and there was a full thick beard of dark brown hair, and his eyes were a gray that gave them the impression of being flint-like.

There were streaks of silver in his hair despite his youth and that was rumored to come from the infamous Lord Cregan’s wife Jaenara Aetheryon. Lord Stark rules over the largest population of pure Valyrians in the world. She thought with a sense of awe, Oldtown and Lannisport boasted of large populations of Valyrians descended from former slaves and mercenaries and merchants and smiths who lacked mystical talent but were skilled at forging weapons and jewelers but that population had been mixing with the Westerlanders and Reachmen for nearly nine hundred years. The peoples that came in the thousands of ships that descended upon the Western coast of the North bathed in flame and steel by the Ironborn had settled one of the most sparsely populated spots on the continent and then made it their own.

House Aetheryon ruled the largest territory in the North, except for the domains of House Stark. From the new gift to Cape Kraken Valyrians ruled the coast in honor of and in the name of the Stark in Winterfell. These peoples kept their culture and their language and speaking with them was akin to the few times she spoke with Lord Aenar’s Wargs. It was a language from the past, their dialect of High Valyrian being seven centuries older than Aegon the Conquerors, and the blood of the first men seldom mingled with the Valyrians of the North outside of Bear Island and the Barrowlands. In that sense it was magical and when Lord Stark spoke to her in High Valyrian she realized that, like the royal court. The Court of Winterfell spoke in two tongues, the old tongue of the First Men and High Valyrian. That explains their accents when they speak common, though Lord Wyman is more adept at hiding it. His Valyrian is different, accented strangely, in an older way.

Volantis might be the only place besides King’s Landing or Sea Dragon point that boasted of men and women descended from Dragon Lords and in that sense, Volantis had a greater number thereof but the longer she spent with Lord Stark the more Rhaella Targaryen thought she was stepping into the past.

And he’s fair and honest with me as well and kind in his way.

Aerys had…been....cruel.

He never touched her, to be sure. Jaehaerys would have beaten him bloody if he had and her grandsire the King would have exiled him (and Aerys would probably have trouble living with himself. He did seem to care for her on some level. ) but he was always mean to her. In subtle and disparaging ways, he always demeaned her and then confused her by showing kindness and compassion in the next moment. He seemed to regret his outbursts, but it was as though he used her as a font for all the darker impulses he kept from the world, and she was acutely aware that had they married those darker impulses would have worsened from the stress of the throne and she would have died alone and unloved. None of this could be said to anyone, she had born this in silence but her betrothed knew. Somehow, he knew, and when he waited for her to broach the subject she had begun to feel a stirring of something other than ease at his company in her heart.

Ever since I was a child, I would watch him in the yards when he came South. I’ll admit to that if only to myself. I have fancied his flesh, but I never knew the man behind the direwolf or the direwolf behind the man. When they neared Shipbreaker Bay a storm blew them off course and so they sailed for Gulltown the Eyrie where Lord Jon Arryn and his heirs Denys and Elbert feasted them. What a kind and gracious man, if old and overly fond of crumbly cheese. It was as they departed that Rhaella became acutely aware that she was departing one world for an older world. The North seldom involved itself in Southron politics, but their merchants and trade fleets ensured that they had a voice. Of course, that wasn’t true, a half dozen Manderly’s served as master of coin and old Lord Aenar had been hand to two kings and showed no signs of feeling the need to step down from his office.

Much of the “civil services” were inspired by the Valyrian systems set up in the North, Westerlands, and Reach. She knew that much, and it was more like than not that much of the obsession with roads and canals came from a North that had a population nearly as gargantuan as the Reach yet could only feed half of its number on its own. The sheer volume of coins that passed between Dragontown (The city that grew around Sea Dragon Keep.) White Harbor and the Arbor and Oldtown had been the object of lust for Ironborn raiders and Lyseni pirates for centuries. During the reign of Viserys the first, there was even a YiTish pirate fleet captained by a self-styled queen of the pirates who raided the treasure fleet. The queen for a year, Rhaenyra Targaryen, and her husband Laenor cemented themselves as gallant dragon riders when they at last burned that immense fleet and sent the foreign butchers to their doom.

I’m to be the lady of the House that rules the largest of the seven Kingdoms, that consumes more food than any other save the reach and that is populated by two ancient races, who hold different Gods than me and of whom, House Targaryen was among the youngest members thereof. But I do not feel nervous, I am excited.

Rickard never dismissed her; he never told her to know her place. He was physically demonstrative in barbaric ways that she found exciting (The first time he pulled her down onto his lap during a border discussion with Lord Jon as though he were a Wildling King and she a common spear wife had set a wildfire in her heart.) and he included her almost every council he was forced to endure on the voyage. We’re not even married and he’s involving me in the governance of the North and makes a point to be seen doing so.

That almost made her cry.

He was doing it for her. So that her wisdom and intelligence could be seen and understood. So that his servants and vassals could judge her on her own merits. A girl who might have been queen consort was supposed to take offense at the notion of needing to prove herself worth listening to. But the challenge excited her and after she’d said something she thought was foolish, Lord Jon gave it ample consideration before taking her idea, adding to it, and then asking her what she thought of the amended proposal as if her words mattered to such an experienced lord, she felt a satisfaction that she hadn’t thought she’d ever know. When she arrived at White harbor she was welcomed not merely as a Targaryen princess but as the future lady of the North, the mistress of Winterfell, and the winged mother of wolves.

Cousin Rohanne Rhaella thought. Keep my brother, I find that I am not for the hot climes of the South. For I am an Ice Dragon, and I will be nothing else until my dying day.

Winterfell was unlike anything she could have imagined either, less a castle and more a city that happened to have baileys, walls and two dozen keeps each one older than the last connected by walkways a magnificent Godswood so ancient it was old when her forefathers were still sheepherders. As with her family, the Starks seemed to be numerous, but most were Snows. It was a castle-city run by bastards who welcomed her as though she’d lived here all her life. It was challenging, daunting, fun, and magical and she never wanted to leave here. Even if that did mean she’d never see her Ser Bonifer again and she was even starting to care for Lord Rickard.

It had scarce been six turns of the moon before the summons came.

Targaryen, Baratheon,  Blackfyre, Tully, Sunfyre, Aetheryon, and Velaryon.

The great Valyrian houses of the realm descended from dragon riders and or their cadet branches were to produce two members to attend the King.

…At Summerhall.

Chapter Text

Summerhall

A.C 259

They had come; every cadet branch of the House of the Dragon, and many who came were the heads of their respective families (Minus Lords Aetheryon and Tully. Aenar was needed in the capitol should this meet with disaster and the Lords of Riverrun and Harrenhal sent bastards and third born sons respectively.) gathered at Summerhall in a place between storm and sand—guided by prophecy, combining the power of the Old Gods, the red faith, the Maiden of Light from Yi Ti and R’hollor. With mystics from as far away as Yi Ti and Leng, hedge wizards, Jenny’s dwarf, and the blood mages captured during the last war against Volantis and the two daughters. Sorcerers, holy men, and even a Green Man from the isle of faces had come, bearing satchels of Weirwood seeds and his cloven fingers and dear-like face.  Magic, faith, tradition, and heritage are all gathered here.

They had erected a great circle of stones from the ancient ruin of Oldstones around an oak. A slab from Harrenhal with Black Harren’s shadow burnt into the slab itself, the markings of the ending of eras and the start of new ones. On the tree hung seven condemned criminals, two rapers, two murderers, two blood traitors, and at the center, a kinslayer. Aegon had balked at this at first. Ritual sacrifice violated the core of his being and every moral, virtue, and belief he swore to live by. Yet the Dragon dreams had never lied, even if they came late in his life. And the prophecy of Ice and Fire, that most ancient secret is hidden on the Blackfyre blade in secret runes. It was soon to come, an age of darkness to swallow the world. His ancestors understood that the fate of the world would be decided not in the east but the west. Kill the boy Egg and let the man be born. Men had to make hard decisions; all the Targaryen Dragons were dead, and what was coming loomed on the horizon, and he could not allow Aerys and his future heirs to face that evil with nothing but men and steel.

He resisted, of course, ignoring the duty, and dismissed the Dragon dreams as nonsense that had driven too many of his brothers and cousins and kindred mad. He’d hated them at first because of it, always did his mind return to Aerion. But then an art lost to time was returned, and Prince Valarr unveiled the bastard sword Brightflame its blade the onyx black of the Targaryen banner with blood-red swirls that took the form of ghostly dragons that danced in the blade. In my dreams, Aerion returned from the dead, his face red and his hands black, and he clutched a torch and beckoned.

He knew at that moment. At the feast to honor Tywin Lannister’s name day and see off his precious granddaughter that it didn’t matter what he believed. Some duties went beyond convictions or faith. Duty is a commitment to the realm his family forged with fire and blood, to all those who dwelt within it and all those yet born. That was how Egg rationalized it, that they were guilty men and horrible men and that the grizzly deaths of seven criminals could forever end the generational wars that the Lashare family and the Tyroshi slaving families of old who took up exile in Volantis sponsored.

Alequo Adarys, a sellsword, and Tyroshi merchant prince turned warlord, had also gained prominence in Myr. If he succeeded in convincing Volantis and Lys to join his cause, then the self-proclaimed “Emperor in the East” could bring enough power to bear to bleed the realm dry for years. Kill the boy egg; let the man be born.

Lord Commander Duncan was silent beside him, a look of disapproval on his wizened face. This may have ended nearly half a century of friendship. But if this went wrong, nothing mattered because the realm would be embroiled in endless wars in the east and ultimately be forced to abandon their holdings there at the cost of so many people and treasures. The Targaryen dynasty might not survive even when the doom came on a battered and divided realm…

No, this had to be done.

Seven souls.

Seven Dragon eggs, some so ancient they were fossilized when Aenar the Exile, progenitor of House Targaryen, brought them across the sea. Older even than Balerion.

Valar morghulis

Valar Dohaerys

Valar Botis.

Valar Glaesis

Throats were slit.

Blood was let.

Wildfire was poured.

And Aegon Targaryen, King of the Rhoynar, the Andals, the First Men, and the Valyrians tossed a torch.

…….

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It wasn’t! Aegon was wild-eyed as he pulled off his long scarlet robe, using it to beat the fires away from Jenny’s body. It was too late to save her. I should never have disinherited Duncan. Will he survive this? When he pulled out his robes, the dragonfly princess of Oldstones’ flesh came off with it—sticking to the ermine fur and velvet as though it were honey. Around him, there was nothing but screams, and he realized that the little common girl was dead on the ground, half her face not but charred bone and cooked meat. He could even smell the grease from her burnt form, and he turned towards Summerhall.

Gods!

The palace was ablaze, and Rohanne and Jaehaerys were within! As was Jacaerys Waters, his bastard nephew, and the servants…Gods, so many people! How did the palace catch fire? He could hear screaming and realized that Daemon Blackfyre had died trying to pull Cersei Sunfyre free from the blaze erupting from within Summerhall itself. Why did a fire start there?

The wind had blown the wildfire from the burnt corpses and the tree towards the lake that fed the palace baths. There was steam rising from the lake, a cloud of fury rising from the waters of the world to defy the arcane magic Aegon had so foolishly attempted to master here. Ahead, he heard Maelys billowing a roar of effort and fury, and he heard the clattering of swords, and Aegon ran, fearing interference and intrusion. The smoke was so thick now that he could smell the smoky scent of Fyreleaf and realized that the palace’s stores of fyrelead and bittercane had caught ablaze and added to the unnatural heat. Rushing towards the burning palace, all Aegon could think of was Jae. His only surviving son, and his son, My grandson.

And Rohanne was with child as well, conceived the day of their wedding and near to term my great grandson may die here. That thought horrified him. All because of his folly, hubris, cowardice, and madness. In horror, he realized that was the truth of it. He’d gone mad, he’d gone mad, and everyone who mattered would die. There were no myths to fight; it was all a delusion, just like Aerion Brightflame and drunken Daeron. This was madness; he killed everyone because he was mad.

But there was no use in crying over spilled milk now. Tearing through the blaze, he saw Maelys and Ser Duncan fighting… Something. It looked like a man dressed as Maester, but it couldn’t have been because no Maester could face both Maelys the strong and Duncan the Tall at once. Two more souls who’ll die because of me. And Dunk…how I’ve failed you, Lord Commander. My champion.

My friend.

He pulled a sword from a dead man at arms, he’d left Brightflame and Dark Sister back at King’s Landing, and Prince Valarr had Blackfyre, and he could see the prince using it to hack away at a collapsing door, leading Jaeharys away and Aerys had come down from the stairs, Rohane in his arms. The girl was screaming, and he could see that her stomach looked hard through the dress. My great grandson comes in this evil.

My evil.

Aerys joined the fight against the thing that might have been a man—setting down his screaming wife. The thing had looked like a Maester before, but now it seemed like Aerion had come again. Snarling and sneering, Aegon welled in fury and charged, diving through the flames the King blocked twin blades. “You’re late! Your grace!” Dunk smiled at him as he used to. Aegon grinned. “I guess you’ll have to give me a clout on the ear.”

Maelys laughed. “We old men, here fighting.”

“He has the right of it, your grace, but you must go, prince Aerys.  It isn’t your time; you have a family to save.”

Aerys looked at the two, and Duncan roared, “GO, BOY!” Aerys ran, carrying Rohanne again. Aegon smiled, some of the guilt and pain ebbing away. “Egg,” Duncan said. “you too.”

“No.”

“Yes, boy.” Duncan smiled. “It’s all right, Egg, it’s all right. You’ve done fine…We’ll meet again.”

“I…”

“GO NOW!” Roared Maelys as he tackled the creature, two horrors with unnatural strength locked in a titanic duel as a castle and a dynasty died around them. Aegon dared not look back; he wanted the last image of his old friend to be that smile he seldom flashed. A smile of approval and pride, the smile of approval that, as a boy, he spent so many hours of his life striving to earn.  

When the King reached outside, he saw Aerys and Valarr, each one holding those that they rescued. Aegon’s son and the mother of his great-grandchild. Behind them, orange hell rose into the night sky, and head of them….

The seven hells themselves.

A curtain wall of wildfire, blazing out of control and trapping the party of survivors between two annihilations. We’ll suffocate before we’re scorched, at least. It was so hard to breathe now, and he looked at his son, his grandson, and Rohanne and felt the tears evaporate on his cheeks. “I am sorry…I am so sorry…I failed you. I’ve failed everyone..”

No, you haven’t.

What a queer voice. Old and strong and deep as roots, smooth as the babbling of a brook, and clear as the sea in the summer isles. And he saw a shape form between the fires, forming into an image of a…Stark? Bran the Builder…What an odd form for the Stranger to take. The shade of Brandon laughed, “Do not blame me; it is your mind that associates us with Brandon. We of the green.”

Weirwoods… the Old Gods?

A shadow of a smile appeared on the shadow of a man. “Aye.” Beside him, the two columns of flames bent, revealing a man’s shape. “You called to us! Aegon King. You called for us and bid us grant your line Dragons. Bid us help you turn back the night.” Another figure formed, seemingly made of rainbow light, in the shape of a maiden.

“But it is not in our power to grant what you have the power to grant yourself.” It spoke, a voice sweet and terrible yet gentle. “We have laid the foundations for you…Only you can lay the first column.”

“So, then House Targaryen can prevail? We will lead the realms of men against the night?”

“The time of your house as kings are at an end…for now.” Whispered the being made of flame.

“For now?”

“Sometimes, you must take a step backward to go forward.” Answered the shade of the man who built the wall.

“And go east, to come west.” Whispered the maiden made of many-colored light.

“Is this… Am I mad? Is this delusion?”

Soft laughter from the flames. “You are mad and delusional with grief, but you are not blind, Aegon Targaryen.”

Determination welled in his heart, resolve. “Will the Dragon at least endure?”

“When the black dragons rule, they will need the red at their right hand and the Direwolf at their left. And behind them, the Hightower, the rose, the falcon, the Stag and the trout, but that is not your song Aegon King; your song is ending now, and with you, an era begins to die.” Answered the flame. “But take heart, an era of beauty and wonder and magic and..horrors that must be vanquished awaits.”

“There can be no glory without suffering, joy, and peace without sorrow and war. No birth without death and a life unwillingly given cannot volunteer to bring forth life.”

The criminals… I was such a fool.

“Yes.” Said the shade of the builder. “You grew up; you lost sight of the nature of miracles when you did.”

“As far as foolishness goes, it is not so terrible a sin,” spoke the maiden.

“What must I do?”

Kill the man egg, kill the man, and let the boy be born.

Aegon Targaryen saw clearly for the first time in years; for the first time in years, he knew his duty. Turning, he gently pushed passed Aerys and his son, removing his crown and gifting it to the sickly Jae. “I shall tell your mother about you.”

He walked towards the wildfire and was vaguely aware of the screams of Rohanne Blackfyre and the cries of alarm from Jae, but he ignored them and walked into the curtain of wildfire. The blood of the dragon roared in his veins, and the magic of old Valyria awoke, like the breaking of a damn, and Aegon stepped towards the gathered eggs in the ruin of the tree and knelt and set a hand upon them.

He was lying across a branch in the warm summer sun. His floppy straw hat was covering his face with a reed in his mouth. Ser Dunk pulled on his foot, a knowing smile on a face that looked at once, young and old.“what are you doing, you lazy boy?”

“Dreaming ser, I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that I was old.”

The Wildfire, the blaze within Summerhall, the shade that had slain Maelys and his friend of all his years. The death, the heat, the smoke. It was all drawn towards the King, pulled harmlessly away from everyone, passing through their legs and around them like the waves on a summer island beach. Aegon Targaryen died in the two hundred and fifty-ninth year after his namesake’s conquest. All that was left were his blackened bones, but he did not die in sadness or despair.

And when he passed into legend.

The night sky was silent.

But for the wails of an infant.

And the cries of something not heard in the world of men for nearly a century.

Chapter Text

Winter.

Debarking at Storm’s End, they had ridden hard. Her Lord Husband haven taken only a hundred sworn swords and rode as if the very devils of the Seven hells were at their backs. One of them, a short man with the shoulders of a bear and fiery red hair, had become her protector. They call themselves the Free Folk. Tormund Giantsbane, founder of the Masterly House of Giantsbane (She wondered what the Great Jon had said to that, with his chained giants and the actual giants who were claimed to herd mammoths and work construction on his lands. She’d yet to see them.) who was usually jovial and quick with a bawdy joke or to hurl more profanity than she’d ever heard in her entire life at court. (Yet who possessed a sense of fairness and integrity, she admired in the uncouth savage.) had such a grim look on his face.  “There’s a power in the air, princess.” Tormund had answered. “You fucking kneelers play with powers like a babe that pokes a sleeping dog.”

It was true, Rhaella realized. “Playing with powers like a child antagonizes a dog” was as good as any descriptor for Targaryen folly. Beneath her, she could hear the clatter of hooves against the cobbled stone of the roads. Inspired by the great “liquid stone” roads of the Reach and the magnificent black roads of the West and the North (though only the Westerlands possessed true Valyrian roads.), King Jaehaerys the wise had engaged in a great public works effort. Roads, canals, the intent to connect Westeros so that peon or noble alike could move through the realm and so too could trade and troops. The works had ceased during the reigns of Rhaenyra and Aegon the second when their dance scorched many armies and towns. But they had resumed again under Viserys the second and his successors. Thus, the improved Boneway made it so they gained an extra day they might have spent riding on dirt roads. Tormund was right; as they approached Summerhall, even she could feel it before the billowing clouds of smoke were visible. Father…Aegon…Aerys.

Panic seized her heart, and Lord Rickard’s features grew far more solemn as he spurred his stallion onwards, and by the time they reached the lands sworn Summerhall, Rhaella could smell what she thought was bacon at first, but when her husband shook his head, she knew before he even answered that it was human flesh. Gods, please spare them all from the madness of prophecy!

For that was the only explanation she could think of. Rhaella, out of all her cousins, spent the most time with the old King, reading to him when staring at papers hurt his eyes. Listening to stories he told of his adventures, his insights into the smallfolk and their lives. The thought of never seeing his sun-browned, wizened face again filled her with dread. “Tormund may be right; they may have done something..unnatural,” she called to her husband; they were in a full gallop now. He was barreling down onto the center of the smoke and death. After all, Lord Aenar refused to attend, sending one of his dozens of spares when the Hand remains in King’s Landing.

Rickard only nodded and gripped ice, his eyes determined. “Do not leave my side; if worse comes to worst, we make a circle and strike at any abomination that comes near us, understand?” He means it too. Rhaella realized, suppressing a chill as her hair fluttered in the wind, the air dry and hot even though spring was still moons away. She was also touched; Rickard didn’t want her to stand behind him so the warriors might shield her. No, he wanted his bride by his side. Rhaella allowed a smile to trespass across her graceful features despite the anxiety mounting in her heart. Will I look back on this as an old maid and say this moment betwixt the horror in front of us and the road beneath us that I knew we loved each other?

Maybe, but fond memories were a lifetime away from forming, and once they reached the ruined castle, she could only hold back the reflexive urge to empty the content of her stomach onto the grass. Servants sat, eyes blank, lost and directionless, covered in soot, sweat, and dried blood. Stupefied as they were, they weren’t even aware of her presence. “they’re like ghosts.” She whispered. “We’re like ghosts to them, wife; they are trapped in the horrors they’ve borne witness to.”

Horrors, Gods! Father! Mother! When she dismounted, her eyes were wide with panic. “Lady Rhaella, Lord Stark.” It was Harlan Grandison, the aged Knight of the Kingsguard, who looked utterly haunted, and when she ran to embrace him, he pulled away. “Nay, dear one, my armor is still heated.”

Her eyes widened. “Are you burnt?” she asked, gripping his forearm, holding the vambrace, failing to notice the sharp gaze of Ser Grandison and Lord Rickard. It doesn’t burn me. She thought as he shook his head, a pained look in his eyes telling the truth to the lie of his gesture. “Come, Ser Harlan.” Rickard gestured towards one of his men at arms, a Thenn with unnaturally crimson skin who had bent the knee seeking a better life for his children away from whatever lay beyond the wall.  “Grym shall tend to you.”

“I do not need a healer, man! I need to find my-” Rhaella shook him and forced his eyes to meet hers. “You cannot do your duty if corruption in the blood from burns takes you Ser…Serve my grandsire by attending to yourself.” She did her best to mimic the imperious voice of her father and the kind yet firm lordly voice of mighty Rickard Stark. For a moment, the Knight gazed at her, hesitant, then he smiled with a flicker of pride between his sorrow, and he nodded. I cannot allow myself to mourn not until I know who I am to mourn.

She would be mourning her mother and grandsire, whose blackened bones were still visible by the accursed tree. She nearly yelled out but felt hands grip her elbows; she turned to see Aerys. His purple eyes haunted his surcoat and tunic stained with ash, our mother’s ashes. She realized, then turned to see Rohanne clutching a babe in her arms, laying against a small mound that rose out of the ground; she was sobbing in relief and joy. “Aerys! You’re a father.”

“Thank the Gods you’re late,” Aerys said, not hearing her. “I worried I’d never see you again.” This was to be where we said goodbye forever; perhaps it still shall be, brother. Rhaella only patted his arm before breaking to see Valarr and his betrothed, her half-sister Vaella sobbing in his arms. “The king…”

“He sacrificed himself to save us all,” Jaehaerys whispered from where he’d been seated atop the mound. Her father never looked so gaunt, and his cheeks so sunken in and one lopsided..No..Not lopsided. Gone. That was when she realized her father was missing nearly half his face, tears streaked down burnt flesh, and white teeth and yellowed jawbone, and that sight finally unnerved her, and she broke into sobs.

Ormund Baratheon and his son Steffon had come from behind what looked like a shack but were, in truth, a tunnel exits from below the castle. Neither member of House Sunfyre made it out; she felt a swell of pity. Ormund’s eyes were red with tears, and Steffon looked like he wanted to crush something betwixt massive hands.

Rickard nodded somberly. “Then, the King is dead, long live the-‘

He was interrupted by a chirp that devolved into a ghostly shriek, and Rhaella turned, seeing something white moving at breakneck speeds. Something white and tiny and with the color of blood in its underwings. Underwings? What is the name of the seven?

It hit her in the chest with such desperation and fear that she instinctively wrapped her arms around it as though it were a child, and then she heard one of the Baratheons scream, “FUCK! SEVEN HELLS RHAE GE…ARGH!” she looked up to see something similar occur, a blue serpent? No, neither a serpent nor any reptile; indeed, it was long and broad, strong of limb, and had a tail twice the length of its body, and its arms were…Gods, those are wings!

A suckling sound could be heard, and she darted her eyes down to see two such creatures, one curled around the newborn prince protectively; that one was all gold and gallant looking, and the one suckling at her teet a slender beside the infant prince, wyrm-like copper creature. And then she turned and gasped.

Valarr and Aerys were standing back-to-back, each with a similar creature snaked around their shoulders. Prince Valarr’s was a great black creature, with a deep red underbelly and underwings with two tiny, elegant horns emerging from the crown of the head, staring inquisitively at Vaella, who held in her arms a smoky charcoal-looking “infant” that was nuzzling into her chest and making chirping like noises. And her brother? The creature about his shoulders and neck was the reverse of Prince Valarr’s, deep red with an underbelly starting at the chin and running down the length of its tail, its underwings as well but the rest of it?

Targaryen red.

Dragons…that is why we were here, grandsire died to bring dragons back into the world.

And they choose us, all with the blood of the Dragon.

She felt a forked tongue tracing her cheek where tears had fallen, and she looked down to see the Dragon in her arms, her dragon. It was an albino creature with blood-red eyes and streaks of red along its nostrils and above its eyes. “Winter..” she whispered, compelled by a sense of destiny and power. “Your name is Winter, little one.”

“That is not your decision to make.” Said her father in a stern voice, his words coming out somewhat hissed and lisped due to the extreme burns on one side of his face. His purple eyes were weary, stained with tears, and filled with dread. “My father died to bring them into the world. His last gift to House Targaryen, all of you will turn it over.”

The dragons seemed to sense the tension and hissed. Rhealla felt something stir in her, and she locked eyes with her father. “You will have to kill me, father, for I will only part with Winter in death. She chose me, and the others chose our kin.”

For a moment, it seemed like her own father would order Ser Harlan and Ser Gerold (who had come from the south with the rest of the Kingsguard in tow.) to advance on her and her eyes were wide with hurt and fury. But her father was stunned into silence by scornful laughter, the laughter of her brother, who turned and glared balefully at the king. “Are we mere flesh peddlers, father? Is that what has become of the mighty House of the Dragon? Do we claim ownership over Dragons who are said to possess the cunning of men and greater intelligence as though we were the arrogant Volantenes and Lyseni who conspire endlessly to make war upon our holdings in Essos?” his voice was filled to the brim with scorn, outrage and contempt, and a protective fire that Rhaella had never seen. My brother never possessed the genius of Viserys the second, the common sense of our grandfather, the conciliator's wisdom, nor the conqueror's vision. Still, right now, I see what Tywin and Valarr see.

Greatness.

Jaehaerys struggled to his feet, his weak body nearly collapsing under the new agonies. His breaches ran through with reddish-brown stains, He’d passed blood during the escape, and the ice dragoness noted that Vaella whimpered for her father. “Are you mad, son? The strength of house Targaryen lies in its Dragons! If we give them up.”

“To our kin?”

“Do not contest me on this. I AM THE KING!”

“Tywin says any man who declares himself a thing and does so often and loudly is not that thing,” Aerys responded in an even tone. Perhaps it was the reversal of their roles, with the calm yet firm Jaehaerys raving like a madman while the tempestuous Aerys remained calm if indignant. Or the blow of those words, but Jaehaerys face was suddenly twisted with shame, and he slumped against a tree, his body convulsing with the emotions that warred within him.

Aerys took a gentler approach when next he spoke. “Consider this, father; the Dance destroyed our greatest dragons, and King Aegon believed the Maesters had begun slowly poisoning them and mayhap engineered the dance; they killed the rest through subtle means. Imprisoned in the Dragonpit and concentrated solely in two locations, they were an easy target.”

Something shifted in the King’s tired eyes. “You mean to say this would mitigate the risk of extinction?”

Aerys nodded. “And it would allow us to create a curtain of power in the hands of our most loyal vassals, each in a strategic position to strike at less reputable and loyal houses.”

“And close enough to the narrow sea that a group of dragon riders could reach the free cities and strike at them within a day of any moves against the seven Kingdoms.” Rickard offered, his tone dangerously low, as though he was giving the new king an ultimatum in the guise of wise council.

“Aye, the lord of Winterfell has the right of it,” Lord Ormund declared, scratching his bearded chin as he contemplated the logistics of her Lord Husband’s words. “And we would send half to King's landing any clutches of eggs our dragons should lay from couplings.”

Valarr nodded, a hand scratching the neck of the tiny legend that now breathed and lived again. “See sense, your grace…The King is dead, do not let your reign commence with paranoia.”

Jaehaerys seemed to weigh his options, her father’s body shivering in pain. Her heart broke for him even as fury filled in the cracks. Father, please see reason. We cannot fall apart just as Aegon, and the Gods grant us the means by which to rise again.

“Very well, I grant you all this boon, so long as you swear renewed fealty to House Targaryen, here and now. That you will never bring Dragons to bear against my house and my generations,” He spoke in a sad, flat voice, the sound of a defeated man and not a king.

 “No,” Rickard stated calmly, his voice like steel and eyes blazing with a winter’s tempest. “No, you have made a mockery of your father’s sacrifice; you blaspheme against the Gods old and new with your covetousness, and you denigrate your living kin by implying that they would be kinslayers for mere avarice.”

“How dare..you….”

“HOW DARE YOU! WHO MADE A MOCKERY OF THE DEAD? Denigrating those who made the ultimate sacrifice to purchase the realm this boon.” Rickard’s voice boomed as loud as any Baratheon, and then he went quiet, speaking in that calm and somber tone she knew to be the most dangerous of tones. “I will renew my vows of fealty and give your house a line of Northern dragon riders, but only if House Targaryen swears it upholds the realm’s laws, the peace of Aegon, and solidarity with its vassals. We serve you, your grace but the ones served are bound just as those who serve are. If you do not, I will withdraw, and you will have to come to Winterfell to dislodge me and take our dragon back by force.”

Our Dragon.

Rhaella thought with misty eyes. In winter, her Lord Husband had said. “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”

“And you will find myself and Aegos there as well.” Aerys hissed, his voice full of sorrow but grim resolve as he stood beside Lord Rickard, a hand on Dark Sister. “You have disgraced our family, father; you have mocked the dead, and you would risk a second dance with babies because of your fear. These are my kin, my brothers, my boyhood friends. As it is, so shall it always be.”

Valarr joined Aerys nodding, his dragon’s snout smoking in a hiss, and soon Ormund joined as well as his son Steffon. “We are yours to command your grace, now and always, but what you did was a low thing.”

Jaehaerys was stunned into silence, horror dawning on his face as he understood how close he came to fracturing bonds with their most loyal vassals and risked all they had gained. “Aegos?” he asked weakly.

 “For king Aegon the fifth, who gave all so that we would have a chance to live a thousand, thousand years as lords over the Seven Kingdoms,” Aerys answered, something flickering in his eyes. Something noble and gallant and kind and yet… “And this one shall be Maelos, in honor of my uncle, who died beside Ser Duncan the Tall that we might live. We serve you, great king; we all do. You need not fear us; no Blackfyre has ever risen against the just and righteous king, and no Blackfyre ever shall.”

Jaehaerys nodded, relenting as he swore oaths and accepted them in turn.

Rhaella knew, after today, that Aerys would be seen as a great prince and, perhaps in time, the greatest of Kings, despite his foibles and failings. She gazed at her brother with new respect, yet it seemed that she was the only one who noticed the queer flicker in his eyes, the brief glint that ordinarily lay below the surface.

The hunger in those eyes…

They seemed to dance on the edge of madness, if only for a second.

But it was still there.

Chapter Text

House Aetheryon: While House Targaryen was the most prominent family of Dragon Lords to escape the Doom and the most legendary, one set their eyes on Westeros long before. Nine hundred years before the destruction of Valyria, Aurys Aetheryon, the deposed Archon of Mantarys, departed his lost city with two thousand ships and two Dragons, the mighty Aragor and his mate Stygos. For reasons known only to him, they bypassed the most prosperous parts of Westeros, sailing around the Iron Islands and laying siege to the North. House Aetheryon conquered the Western coast of the North. Crowning himself “The King of the Sea,” he would spend the next forty years of his life warring with the Driftwood King until, at last, riding his she-Dragon Stygos, he was sent crashing into the sea by a bolt of lightning.

His grandson. King Auryn bent the knee to House Stark, pledging the surviving Dragons to Winterfell. In exchange, they kept their domains which extend from Cape Kraken to the Gift near Shadow Tower.  The Northern mountains are a source of precious gems and metals, and the Valyrian colonies along the Western coast are famous for their metal work. The most prominent known silver veins in the world are under the control of house Aetheryon, and they share half their profits with House stark. Platinum mines and a rare type of blue diamond are one of the sources of the wealth of both the North and House Aetheryon.

The other is the Fyreleaf, a substance that was discovered on one of the legendary journeys of Aenar Aetheryon in 216 A.C. when dried; its leaves can produce distinctive aromas when smoked and are said to have dubious medicinal values, dried and compacted and rolled into larger leaves they can be smoked and create a stimulating sensation. They are a luxury good, and the “Drakes" or "drakos" as they’re called, are smoked by most of the gentry and nobility in Westeros, with King Aegon's fifth laws creating enough prosperity for the Smallfolk to begin to enjoy them as well. And the third source of much of the North's wealth is the bittercane.

Strongcane/Bittercane/Strong Sugar: it goes by many names, but its the source of much of House Aetheryon's enormous wealth (and much of house Stark’s as well.). When inhaled or mixed with a tonic, it can be a remarkable painkiller and an alternative to the more addictive milk of the poppy. It is also an excellent treatment for melancholia and lethargy, and the greatest single client is the Citadel which consumes a quarter of all Strongcane brought into the realm. Maesters across the realm use it to treat various ailments and speculate that it is a potent sugar cane adapted to cold climes (Though no one truly knows where they get this, it is only ever seen in its refined form.). Used recreationally, both in Essos and Westeros, it can produce a sense of euphoria and rapidity of mind; however, most Maesters strongly caution against it.

The deleterious effects when abused are pretty extreme; it is believed part of the madness of King Aerys lies at the feet of his recreational use of bittercane to quell nightmares after the defiance of Duskendale. The Lord of the Rock Tywin Lannister executes any merchant selling bittercane to anyone, not a member of the gentry or the nobility or who doesn’t Wear a Maester’s chain, and passed laws within his domain regulating its consumption. House Aetheryon protects its method of cultivation and refinement, and the seeds of this plant as violently as house Blackfyre protects the secret to Valyrian steel, and House Tyrell protects their silkworm farms.

The Aetheryon trade fleet is said to be surpassed only by the Redwynes in size, and through it, the Iron Born were traditionally forced to contain their invasions of the Southern Kingdoms.

House Aetheryon is fanatically loyal to House Stark and has remained so since bending the Knee. The reasons for King Auryns’ submission when he still had one of his grandfather’s dragons remain unknown.

During the reign of Jaehaerys I, the conciliator House Aetheryon was reduced to only nine bastards and four trueborn sons. Seeking to maintain a Valyrian house and perhaps sensing that the Valyrian colonies in the North would be ungovernable if not for an Aetheryon or perhaps seeking more significant trade ties with House Stark. Saera Targaryen was wed to Vaelos Aetheryon, and his brother took Viserra to his wife. The Union of the blood of dragon lords was the first in recorded history.

After the union of the two surviving Dragon Lord bloodlines, house Aetheryon began adopting Targaryen names.

The Current lord of house Aetheryon is Aemon Aetheryon, the great-great-grandson of Aenar Aetheryon. They are known for their bone-white and silvery hair and turquoise eyes. 

Houses Mormont, Ryswell, Forrester, and Glover are sworn to them.

Sigil:

Their house words: “From the depths, we rise.”

House Tully of Harrenhal: Founded by Ser Hoster Rivers, a Tully-born great bastard of Aegon the unworthy, and his sister-wife Minisia Rivers. He was given the right to take the name Tully by his uncle, the lord of Riverrun. They are a powerhouse of the Riverlands and the only family to defeat the Harrenhal curse. House Tully of Harrenhal is connected by blood and marriage to Houses Blackfyre and Targaryen and has one of the most potent blood claims to the Iron Throne next to the Blackfyre’s and produces some of the finest Knights in the realm.

Their sigil is a silver three-headed dragon in flight on a field of blue and red.

House words: Bold as flame, True as Steel.

Current House head: Gaemon Tully, who in his youth was said to be the greatest sword in the realm.

Heir apparent: Brynden Tully, the younger, named after the legendary Blackfish. Grandson of Lord Gaemon

House Tully of Riverrun: Due to the Conqueror taking a keener interest in the affairs of the Kingdom, he created by edict. The Riverlands are often referred to as an extension of the Crownlands that happen to have a Paramountcy. Wealth from trade and canals have made House Tully and its vassals powerful. Their river fleet kept the King’s peace for centuries before it was decimated by the royal fleet during an abortive attempt to besiege the capitol by the river. House Tully is a proud house of Andal customs and First Men blood, yet over the last century and a half, they’ve married enough Targaryen spares into their house that it’s often said a riverwyrm should replace the Tully trout.

House Words: Family, Duty, Honor.

House Blackfyre of the Narrow Sea: After unveiling the conspiracy to force him onto the Iron Throne, Daemon Blackfyre and his six sons were given Dragonstone as their seat, and the Paramountcy of the narrow sea was created.  Daemon Blackfyre expanded his domain with leave from his brother, conquering the stepstones and then Tyrosh itself after a slave rebellion resulted in overthrowing its government.

Through trade and the commerce of Tyrosh. House, Blackfyre is often said to possess wealth that rivals even the Lannisters and the Starks.  

House Blackfyre was allowed to keep the sword Blackfyre, with house Targaryen keeping dark sister as its official sword.

Before the Conjuring at Summerhall. House Blackfyre discovered the secret to producing Valyrian steel. Valyrian steel weapons are rare, owing to the obscene cost of their creations. A Valyrian steel dagger might cost thirty thousand Gold Dragons. Their legendary sword sets done in the Lengii style (Containing a great sword or a bastard sword, a broad sword, two dirks, and two daggers. Customed to the paying House’s colors and inscribed with the House words.) are known to cost between one hundred thousand and a half a million gold dragons. Their suits of Valyrian steel armor are the most expensive of their works. Costing a million gold dragons at a minimum.

The Citadel also orders a plethora of Valyrian steel chain links from their forges as there has been an increase in novices taking up the Higher Mysteries. To date, only Tywin Lannister knows how they make their Valyrian steel, and he has kept the secret to himself. Whether out of affection for the house of his Goodson or because he views it as leverage is the subject of much debate.

House words: No better friend, No fiercer foe.

Current house head: Prince Aegon Blackfyre (for the narrow sea/Essos branch.) and King Daemon Blackfyre the first. Jacaerys Blackfyre is the heir apparent to Aegon. And Prince Daeron is the presumptive heir to the Throne.

House Sunfyre of Lannisport: The Westerlands also welcomed Valyrian smiths and colonists seeking a life away from the intrigue and murders of the Freehold. The Kings of the Rock never ennobled any Valyrians. Instead, they became wealthy members of the gentry. Their gold smithing, engineering, and the construction of Valyrian roads in the west meant they were rewarded ably. It wouldn’t be until the Great Spring sickness decimated Lannisport and wiped-out house Lannister of Lannisport, leaving only a handful of daughters, that their prospects changed.

Gaemon Hill, a bastard son of Daeron the second (And some Maesters believe the youth was a Blackfyre bastard.), a famed Knight and Captain of the Lannisport watch whose actions to quarantine the city prevented the disease from ravaging the rest of the west was ennobled. Gaemon Hill owned several gold mines and was often called ‘Sunfyre reborn’ by the Lord of the Rock, and so in his honor, he took the name Sunfyre and married Joanna Lannister of Lannisport. Rising as the mayor Lord of Lannisport, house Sunfyre is fanatically loyal to the Lions of the Rock. With Ser Aethan Sunfyre serving as the sworn sword of Tywin Lannister. Loyal to House Lannister. They are known for their golden hair with silver streaks and amethyst eyes.

Current lord: Tytos Sunfyre, heir apparent Aegor Sunfyre.

House Words: ‘Neath the glittering gold, the Dragon’s fire.

Sigil:

Chapter Text

The original seven: The seven Dragons hatched after the conjuring at Summerhall. They’re the largest and most experienced of the Dragons born after the presumed extinction of the species a century prior. Heralded as a miracle by the faith of the seven, they are perhaps the forebears of a new race of Dragons not tainted by dark Valyrian magic.

Aegos: Blood red with a black underbelly and black eyes. Two mighty bull-like horns with the tip of his tail ending with a kite like flap of skin. He was the largest of the Dragons and was ridden by King Aerys, the mad and last seen departing King's Landing in the months before the Sack. Believed to have departed the known map, and is presumed lost. Last seen heading South.

Argella: A giant blue dragon, she is the largest after Aegos. Ridden initially by Steffon Baratheon and later by Robert. She lives in the Rainwood and is said to be the most promiscuous of all the Dragons, laying “bastard clutches” in Winterfell and Dragonstone and fighting with the other females. She’s also the most cavalier and friendly of the Dragons and has been known to approach farmers and burn their nightsoil to use as fertilizer in exchange for bribes of food.  Affectionately called “My great big blue bitch” by Lord Robert. Her temper matches her rider, her wrath can be terrible, but she is quick to calm down and is widely beloved.

Wears bardings of black dyed steel with gilded stags.

Terrax: Flown by Daena Tully, resides in the Eyrie. Copper in color with bright green flames, falcons, and eagles are known to roost around her great nest in the mountains of the moon, and the mountain clans bring her offerings and swore fealty to Elbert Arryn as a result of her presence. She was named after the Dragon used by Jaenara Belaerys to explore Sothoryos. She was initially one of the Dragons sent to King’s Landing but was an ungovernable beast who refused all riders until lady Arryn snuck into the capital and claimed her.

Syrax: Named after the legendary Dragon of queen Rhaenyra. A yellow-gold colored dragon. He was killed by Argella during the battle of the Trident, along with Rhaegar, when the "great big blue bitch" grabbed him by the throat and dove into the banks of the Trident. Slamming the dragon into the mud and the water, snapping its back, an injury his rider would share. Robert Baratheon put Rhaegar and the beast out of their misery with his mighty war hammer.

Urrax: a charcoal-colored dragon ridden by Valarr Blackfyre and killed by Aegos during the battle of Summerhall, along with Valarr Blackfyre, the King that never was.

Winter: An albino dragon with blood-red eyes and white flames. Lady Rhaella Stark rode her during the second dance. Helped battle Aegos over Summerhall. 

Maelos: Named after Ser Maelys, the twin of Aegos with the reverse coloration. Black with a red underbelly and underwings. Breathes black fire, the Dragon of King Daemon Blackfyre.

...........

The young dragons: Second & third generation of Dragons hatched from eggs laid by the “females” of the original seven

Sunfyre: A young, golden dragon with a red underbelly. Nests near Casterly Rock.

Daeros: Ridden by Lord Monterys Aetheryon, a silver-colored Dragon at home both in the air and water. Breathes a bluish-white flame. Was, without a rider, when Monterys was killed during the Greyjoy rebellion until Princess Visenya claimed him. Lived on bear island, kills Iron born reavers, pirates, slavers, and free folk raiders. Only the Mormont women were able to get close to him, and they regarded him as a sort of loyal stray that adopted their island.

Vaegon: A turquoise Dragon ridden by Aerion Aetheryon. Lime green fire resides at Sea Dragon point, known as the “Iron’s bane” for the unprecedented slaughter of Ironborn reveaers during the Grejoy rebellion.

Dawn: An orange she-Dragon, with golden flames and fierce green eyes. Flown by Princess Rhaenys Targaryen. Is too young to handle a mount for more than an hour at a time.

Vhagar: Named after one of the original Dragons, Aegon and his sister-wives used to conquer Westeros. She’s a purple-red Dragon, with green flames and blue eyes. Resides in the arbor, Lady Shireen Baratheon seems to have bonded with the dragon and is beloved by the Redwyne fleet and wine merchants of the arbor, who see her as a mascot for their grapes. Only recently large enough to ride.

Vermithor: A sleek, bronze dragon named after King Jaehaerys bronze fury. A sleek, almost serpent-like dragon with extended wings. Bonded to Orys Baratheon/ too young to ride

Stormwind: A silver and grey colored Dragon with a broad chest and armored scutes along his back and snout. Gendry Greystorm rides him, the largest of the younger dragons. He was nicknamed "Argella's great bastard." by the smallfolk of the rainwood.

Vermax: A hatchling named after the Dragon of Jacaerys Velaryon. She’s long and winding, with two prominent whiskers on her snout.

Aerax: A gray and ash-colored Dragon, bonded with Edmure Tully but too young to ride. Nests in the Gods eye where the green men care for him and seem to treat him as though he were a fellow man of their order. Only Dragon in history to come when whistled at.

Obyroth: Named by Archmaester Aemon, long onyx black dragon with a serpentine body, antelope-like black antlers, and an armored scute that looks like a beak tip with a dark purple underbelly and green eyes. Breathes black and green fire, is riderless and lives near the Nightfort. The Freefolk call him "The ghost eater." and revere him as some sort of spiritual being made flesh. Though no one can figure out why.

Stormcloud: Bonded to Robb Stark, an ivory dragon with blue and gray tiger stripes. He is beautiful in his own way, driven out of the South by an aggressive female. Believed to be an experiment in Valyrian flesh-smithing or an extremely ancient dragonet, for he has four legs and wings. Mockingly called "the freak" "The monster" and "the orphan." by Tommen Blackfyre and Queen Cersei.

Swyftwing: A purple dragon with blue and silver scales in his wing membranes and underbelly. Bonded with the eldest son of a rather notorious ex-sellsword.

.....

Shrike: A dark green and lime Dragon said to stalk the Dothraki sea. Allegedly the first wild dragon seen in thousands of years. Likely nothing more than the superstitions of primitives. 

Chapter Text

Ned Stark: Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North and hero of Daemon’s rebellion. Mid thirties

Lord Aenar Aetheryon: Lord of Sea Dragon Point and hand of the King, one hundred and eight years old. Called Aenar the Warg, Aenar blood mage. Aenar Maester’s Bane. Aenar the ancient.

Aemon Aetheryon: great grandson of Aenar, ambitious and young and vain. Talented mariner and navigator. Hopes to succeed the Lord of Sea Dragon point, died in an accident just before the Dragonsmoot.

Auryn Aetheryon: named after the last Sea King, Auryn was chosen at the Dragonmoot of 298 AC to succeed Aenar as head of House Aetheryon, in the wake of the death of his elder brother Aemon. Little is known about him other than that he was a talented navigator despite his age and that he is said to greatly resemble his great-great-Grandsire.

Princess Rhaella Targaryen/Stark: Sister of the mad king, rider of Winter. Called “The Ice Dragon” by the lords of the North, beloved by all in the North and seen as a shrewd and fair and just lady. Serves as the chief diplomat of the North in trade matters and is often involved in local disputes and matters within the North on behalf of her son.

Catelyn Tully/Stark: Lady of Winterfell mother of the Stark children, mid-thirties. Seen as a just and prudent lady of Winterfell by half the North and “That Southron interloper” by the other half for an old feud with Lady Rhaella long since mended. Doesn’t mind bastards too much but is known for her strife with her husband over one bastard in particular.

Robb Stark: Heir to Winterfell.

Sansa Stark: eldest Daughter of Eddard Stark, tall and possessed of the Tully looks.

Arya Stark: Daughter of Eddard Stark, resembles lady Rhaella but possess the black hair of her deceased aunt.

Jon Storm: Bastard son of Eddard Stark, in love with Daenerys and shunned by Catelyn because of an issue with Lord Stark. Said to have been born in the Storm Land’s but believed to be the bastard son of Ashara Dayne by many. Dark of hair, tall and with a face Lord Aenar says reminds him Maekar Targaryen. Black brown of hair and violet of eyes.

Benjen Stark: First Ranger, brother of the Knight’s watch.

Bran Stark: younger son of Lord Eddard, longs to be a Knight of the Kingsguard

Rickon Stark: baby of the family. Heir presumptive to the Dreadfort, 4 years old.

Daenerys Targaryen: Daughter of the mad king, ward of Ned Stark and lover of Jon Storm. Though Catelyn Tully is pressuring Ned to request she be betrothed to Robb his heir.

Theon Snow: Bastard brother of Edwyle Stark, a gallant warrior in his fseventies. Took the Dreadfort by Storm when Roose Bolton declared for King Aerys. Utterly exterminated the Bolton’s and hung their bodies by their entrails in their Godswood. Holds the Dreadfort in trust for Rickon Stark, a feared warrior and talented bard. A warg with several enormous if gentle rats, four hunting hounds and two large eagles. Has nine great-grandsons and four grandsons serving in the Dreadfort as well.

Ser Aerion Aetheryon: 26 years old, knighted during after the Blackfyre rebellion, helped kill Gerald Hightower when he was a mere squire. Rider of Vaegon.

Roark: A warg loyal to House Stark, serves as Ned’s spymaster.

Roundtree: Brother of Roark, serves as Captain of the Gold cloaks in King’s Landing.

Daeron Waters: Bastard son of the mad king, husband of Dacey Mormont. Loyal to House Stark.

Aerion Targaryen: Legitimized bastard of the mad King, whom he planned to name his heir before his death. The Commander of the Castle Black and proponent of finding out why the Wildlings are gathering under Mance Rayder.

Jeor Mormont: 997^th   Lord commander of the Nights watch. Lord Commander of the Nightfort

Storm’s End:

Robert Baratheon: Lord of Storm’s End and the King’s Master of the royal hosts. Rider of Argella. Mourns for the loss of Lyanna Stark to this day. Does care for Lysa on some level.

Lysa Tully: Wife of Robert Baratheon, quite mad, seems to genuinely love Robert, with the two bonding over the mutual loss of the loves of their lives.

Steffon Baratheon: Heir to House Baratheon, four and ten, blue of eyes, black of hair.

Shiera Baratheon: sister of Steffon, two and ten. Tully red hair and the blue eyes of House Baratheon

Gendry Greystorm: Born of an affair between Jaenara Tully and Robert Baratheon, sworn sword of Lord Steffon. Legitimized bastard-created overlord of the Rainwood houses after he saved Lysa Tully’s life during a raid by bandits.

Nearly six and a half feet tall despite being six and ten. Talented with a spear, a halberd and a war hammer. Squired for Ser Cortnay Penrose before being knighted at age 15.

The reach:

House Baratheon of the Arbor (Created when Monterys Aetheryon and Wyman Manderly obliterated the Redwyne fleet, in dragon fire and scorpion bolts and killed all the male members of the Redwyne family). 

Stannis Baratheon: Youngest surviving brother of Lord Robert, Lord of Arbor, and Master of Laws.  

Alicent Redwyne: Wife of Stannis

Orys Baratheon: Son of Stannis, blue of eyes and black of hair. Fifteen years old..

Shireen Baratheon: Sister of Orys, betrothed to Willas Tyrell. Believed to be the eventual rider of Vhagar. Thirteen years old.

Davos Seaworth: Founder of House Seaworth of Greyshield. Granted the seat for saving the lives of everyone in Storm’s End and giving valuable information to Daemon Blackfyre. Former smuggler, despite his humble birth and outsider status, very well-liked in the reach due to his business acumen and willingness to be the diplomatic arm of the Crown and Lord Stannis in the reach and his willingness to defend the lords of the Reach when fair. Called “Davos the Just” and fondly referred to as “Lord Onions”

Dale Seaworth: Heir to House Seaworth, betrothed Wynafryd Manderly. None knows how the son of an up-jumped smuggler managed that, save for the fact that he saved Wyman Manderly during the Greyjoy rebellion and forged the trade pact between White Harbor and the Arbor.

House Sigil: A black ship on a pale grey field, with a white onion on its sails

House Words: Humble roots, endure the tempest.

Lord Mace Tyrell: Lord of Highgarden, warden of the South, and Lord Paramount of the Reach.

Willas Tyrell: Heir to Highgarden, betrothed to Shireen Baratheon.

Garlan Tyrell: younger brother of Willas and a Knight said to be on par with Jaime Lannister.

Chapter Text

The Crownlands:

King Daemon Blackfyre I: Son of Valarr Blackfyre, who called his banners alongside Jon Arryn, when Aerys the mad defeated Rickard Stark in a trial by combat where he vowed, he would “Spare Brandon and let him take the black.”if he won. Instead, a grieving and enraged Aerys ordered Aegos to burn and devour the boy and his company of friends making him a Kinslayer in the process. One of the greatest warriors of his generation, secretly believes either Ned Stark or his father would have made better Kings. Widely seen as a just King and a builder King that centralized more authority into the Lord’s Paramount and through them the crown. Creator of the new charter of Civil services and proud patron of the Night’s Watch. Amethyst eyes.

Prince Daeron Blackfyre: white hair, with gold streaks, a green eye, and a purple eye. Said to resemble his grandfather Valarr. Has an interest in sorcery, is a superb archer, and is responsible for a Weirwood Heart Tree appearing in the Red Keep’s Godswood. Four and ten betrothed to Princess Rhaenys and by all accounts, the two genuinely love each other. Middling with a sword but hell with on legs with knives. Betrothed to princess Rhaenys.

Prince Maelys Blackfyre: twin brother of Daeron, a gifted warrior, Amethyst eyes like his father, shaves his head bald because he considers the hair a bother. Silver-gold eyebrows.. a Squire for Ser Roundtree, four and ten. To be betrothed to Sansa Stark.

Princess Rhaenyra Blackfyre: three and ten, an albino with blood-red eyes. Kind disposition and gifted at Braavosi water dancing, likely betrothed to Robb Stark. Joked about as a princess out of song for animals no matter how fierce or twisted seem to adore her.

Prince Tommen: eleven years old, with gold hair and green with gold-flecked eyes. A sullen, moody child with hard eyes.

Queen Cersei Lannister: Wife of Daemon Blackfyre. Cold, remote and arrogant, and sullen.

Princess Rhaenys: Seven and ten,  of Dornish coloration with silver streaks in her hair. Rheanys has the same purple eyes as her grandfather Aerys. Loves Prince Daeron. Is bonded to the dragon Dawn. She learned magic from the Old Lord Hand beside her sister.

Princess Visenya: twin sister to Rhaenys, seven and ten is rumored to be the former paramour of Aenar Aetheryon. As the two spend a good deal of time together and it's said Rhaenys, Daeron and Visenya all learned magic at his side. Has the same looks as her sister but the hair coloration is inverted silver and gold, and platinum with dark brown streaks. Also has lilac eyes.  Betrothed to Steffon Baratheon. Rides Daeros the Kraken killer.

Prince Jacaerys Blackfyre: Prince of Dragonstone, fostered at Winterfell. Heir to the narrow sea paramountcy. Cousin to the King

Dowager Queen Rohanne Targaryen (formerly Blackfyre): died giving birth to Daenerys

Lord Commander Barristan Selmy: Known as Barristan the bold, Lord Commander of the KG. Legendary knight.

Aghorro the Grim: A freed Dothraki slave who converted to the Faith of the Seven and earned his knighthood from Daemon Blackfyre (III). Elevated by Gerold Hightower after the conjuring at Summerhall. A storied life as a knight and pitfighter. 

Ser Jaime Lannister: Member of the Kingsguard, called the Kingslayer for slitting mad Aerys throat after he ordered Jaime to bring Rhaegar's wife and daughters before Aegos to be killed and eaten. 

Arys Oakheart: Member of the Kingsguard

Viserys Tully: the newest member of the Kingsguard, nephew to Hoster Tully.

The Lord’s Council: Replaced the small council, each Masterly position is in charge of an office of the realm, and each Lord Paramount and six of their banners get seats on the Masters council. They’re in charge of managing the bureaucracy of the realm and crafting laws the King decrees and implementing royal policy.

Artos Stark: Lord of House Stark of the Barrowlands, a proxy for Ned. Master of the Seneschals, Lord Steward, coordinates with all the Lord Mayors in the cities across the realm. Assists in the coordination of logistics and managing the different offices.

Hoster Tully: Master of the Office of the treasury, controls the “forwardist” vote. Part of a triumvirate with Lord Aenar, and Willas Tyrell. Petyr Baelish is his Lord Secretary.

Kevan Lannister: Master of the office of the roads. In charge of the development and growth and urban planning for the realm. Works closely with Artos Stark.

Stafford Lannister: Lord of the Dunfort, founder of House Lannister of Duskendale. Proxy for the Crownlands votes.

Gerion Lannister: Aid to Kevan, a proxy for his brother and the Westerland coalition in the court.

Viserys Blackfyre: Master of the office of the Whisperers. Lord of the spies, a great fat bald man who’s the son of Ser Maelys Blackfyre. Lost his manhood to mutilation when he was a boy, courtesy of a Lyseni pirate.

Stannis Baratheon: Lord High Justice, Master of the offices of the peace. Has overall command of the Knightly Orders of the peace, created by Aegon V after he witnessed how little help the lords had in protecting their domains from banditry.  And created in part to address the issues overuse of poppy and bittercane caused.

Monford Velaryon: Lord of the tides, Master of the navies, lord of Admiral of the Royal Navy.

Grand Maester Pycelle: Grand Maester, advisor..pervert

Leofryc Waters: Master of the guild of scribes and factors, chief archivist of the Lord’s Council.

Aenar Aetheryon: Lord of house Aetheryon, master of the bank of Dragontown. Master of the services and Hand of the King. a few years short of one hundred and ten years old at the time of his death and one of the architects of the Blackfyre rebellion along with Jon Arryn. 

Willas Tyrell: Master of trade, lord of commerce. Runs the office that coordinates between the different trading fleets and commerce guilds across the realm and sets the annual prices of grain and meat and salts and spices. Works closely with Hoster Tully and Kevan Lannister.

Thoros of Myr and High Septon Garth flowers: Advisors on religious matters, often seen drinking together and having theological debates.

Elia Martell: Mother of Princesses Rhaenys and Visenya. Proxy for Dorne on the Lord’s council. Sickly, believed to be dying.

........

Viserys Targaryen: The last living trueborn son of Aerys the mad, disappeared with Ser Jonothor Darry before the siege of King's Landing. Rumored to be in Yi Ti courting the granddaughter of Maegor Brightflame, a sellsword and warrior of great repute. Declared unfit to rule and had his claim dismissed by the great "Kingsmoot" of A.C 282.

Chapter Text

The little Lord.

A.C 298

“Don’t look away when the time comes.” Jon’s voice was strong and grave, contrasting their brother Robb's powerful but melodic tones. They had ridden out at dawn to meet out the King’s justice. One hundred in all and down the Valyrian-style roads that have covered the North for the last eight hundred years. One of the many advances that changed the North forever, according to Maester Luwin. His Lord father made them stop at a village on the road to converse with their subjects. To hear their grievances and take lunch at their local tavern, they met with a man named Hego from Lys, who was the master of the village and was the one to alert the Wolves to the fugitive.

The Knightly Order of the wolves was another effect of the roads, food, and soil health brought on by the mammoths that were allowed through the wall five centuries ago and who now were commonplace throughout the North and in some areas of the Riverlands and Vale. As populations grew and towns and villages and even cities (Though the North still had precious few compared to the South, or so Luwin says.), it had become necessary to form orders that answered to the Lord of Winterfell and the great lords of the realm, sworn at first to keep the peace and justice of the Kings of Winter.

They would eventually enforce the peace and justice of the Dragons. The Westerlands and Reach had similar orders, Bran remembered. “The Order of the Lion” and “the Order of the Greenhand” as with the North. They mostly responded to banditry and acted as auxiliaries for a Lord’s forces. Still, father said that the Lions answered directly to the Rock and could usurp a lord’s authority on his lands if they were derelict. Maybe that was why the other Kingdoms hadn’t adopted such orders? Because they didn’t like the idea of armed men on their lands without their leave?

The riders stopped, halting suddenly as a herd of mammoths crossed the smooth black cobbled road ahead of them. Robb jested about the weight of the lead sow while father nodded his head differentially to her. “She’s a Highborn lady in her own right; see her old gray hair? She has survived more than a century walking this world. She was alive most like when the first dragons lived and remembers their smell.” Amazing. Bran thought, watching with more respect now. Most were wild, but House Umber and House Forrester maintained herds of mammoths.

The foresters because the gentle beasts were excellent for lumber work and construction and because their droppings enriched the soil, and the Umbers because the cheese rendered from their milk was incredibly popular among the minor nobles and merchants of Oldtown, King’s Landing, Duskendale and Lannisport. And because merchants from the Jade Sea so desired it, a Lengii prince once paid two ships full of silver and rolls of silk for a thousand wheels of mammoth cheese. Bran didn’t understand the fuss; the cheese was bitter and sour, and the spiced variety made his nose run and eyes water. But Sansa and Dany insisted it was good for you and helped you grow. It is hard to imagine Umber caring about silk; maybe they sold it to buy more of those big swords they love.

Sansa was allowed to ride with them on this journey, even though mother wasn’t happy about it. Grandmother Rhaella was adamant that the daughters of the North honor the traditions of the first men and Valyrians, and in both cultures, women governed in the same way men did.

By the sword.

Bran’s heart fluttered in his chest. This would be his first execution. Finally, old enough, his father insisted that he ride out with them, and for the last stretch of the ride, the youth allowed his mind to wander to avoid the looming truth that he would soon see a man die. “Is he a wildling, do you think?”

“Like as not he is,” Robb answered as he tossed half a loaf of bread to brother Jon. The two were opposites in many ways; Robb held his mother’s coloring. Auburn hair, pale blue eyes, and broad shoulder and muscular like Uncle Brynden. He had the wild wolf of Uncle Brandon in his nature as well; he was slow to anger, but when he did, it was a torrent of fury that was hard to quell. Where his half-brother Jon looked all Stark, dark hair nearing black and purple eyes like their grandmother and lithe and slender. He was tall, too, taller than Robb, and he had a tremendous temper that he kept under control, for he was quick to anger and quicker to calm down and forgive because he feared uttering words that would be hard to take back. Jon was better at horse than Robb as though he were born to the saddle (Or so Ser Roderik says.) and better with the lance.

Robb was almost unstoppable with a sword and learned ax work from Tormund Giantsbane, people said Robb was nearly as good as Ser Aerion and Ser Jaime, but Bran didn’t believe that. The Kingslayer was supposed to be unbeatable with a sword, and Bran once witnessed Ser Aerion defeat their father, Ser Roderik and Uncle Brynden at once. They even dressed differently, with Robb preferring the greys and whites of his House and Jon adorned in all black as though he were already a brother of the Night’s Watch. He didn’t want Jon to go, no one did, and Dany would have his hide when he told her.

But Jon was stubborn.

“A scout for Mance Rayder, mayhaps?” Sansa asked; she was so tall and, like bran had the auburn hair and pale blue eyes of House Tully. She was dressed in leather trousers, riding boots, and a long cloak made of mammoth wool with silver fox fur around the collars.

Bran had to suppress a giggle at how uncomfortable she looked; his sister tried so hard to be a mix between mother and grandmother. A proper Southron lady but one that could fight beside her family if she needed to. Like Grandmother did during the battle of Summerhall, when Prince Valarr Blackfyre, the Lord of Storm’s End, and grandmother fought King Aerys and his dragon Aegos.

It had been a terrible battle; grandmother didn’t like to speak of it, but when she did, it was an honest, raw, and scary story that Bran loved for its sincerity and the haunting images it conjured. And the nights that grandmother and old Nan come together to tell stories in the great hall…I cannot sleep after, but I would be nowhere else.

“I’ve heard stories that he’s got a hundred thousand Freefolk at his beck and call.” This from Prince Jacaerys. Who was atop a black destrier, his leather doublet was of a burnt crimson with the black three-headed Dragon breathing fire of House Blackfyre. A black cloak with a black bear’s fur rested atop slender shoulders that reminded Bran of Jon. “Least way, this is what the whores say.” Sansa looked at him agape, and the prince flushed slightly “forgive my language use, dearest Lady, I merely mean that. When men and women visit houses of ill repute, they speak with lips far too loose for their own good. My uncle Viserys the master of whispers, often says that brothel workers know of treachery, troop movements, and conspiracies before even the most sophisticated spies.”

Sansa seemed to have no notion of what to say, and so she nodded pliantly. There was talk of betrothing her to Prince Maelys or Orys Baratheon, the son of the Lord of House Baratheon of the Arbor. There seemed to be a saddened look upon the prince’s face, but when he was sneaking with Arya, he heard his mother ask Grandmother Rhaella to help educate Sansa on the ways of the world. Bran wasn’t sure what that meant, but everyone seemed somber around her after.

Jon seemed ready to say something to comfort Sansa about such matters, but she was lost in thought, and Jon’s comforts died in his throat. Mother hates him, but she has never so much as looked harshly at the other Stark bastards.

The castle was full of them; Winterfell was one of the largest castles in the realm and the oldest. There was a city within its walls; the family bedrooms could only be reached by a roofed walkway with stained glass that towered above two streets and was its own palace.

Maester Luwin said that meant that Winterfell wasn’t a proper castle and more a series of palaces and keeps that were interconnected and built over the ancient first keep where the throne of the King’s of winter sat in days of old and where his lord father held court. And so, when Maester’s tallied who held the largest keeps and castles, Winterfell was seldom counted or accounted among the largest and not the largest. This was confusing to bran since Harrenhal was built to accommodate eighty thousand ironborn and was said to be larger than Harrentown. The youth was nervous; his mind wandered until he felt Jon’s hand on his shoulder. “We’re here.”

They dismounted and followed behind father, who had his grim lord’s face on, as mother called it. Bran gasped when the men of the order of the wolves brought the prisoner forth. He’s a black brother; why would a black brother run? From what Bran remembered of his histories, the Watch had been in disrepair and ignored by the realms of men for thousands of years, and the once prestigious order had become a laughingstock.

It was still a place where criminals were sent and in large numbers, but ever since the boon of Valyria, the realms that benefitted the most from it and the growth in numbers they brought had begun the tradition of sending the smallfolk who couldn’t find work or that were the fifth or sixth sibling to survive past infancy. They would be paid a stipend, and their families would get thrice that for their service.

Maester Luwin said that the watch blossomed with gold from the west, food from the reach, and silver and steel from the North and the Stormlands. There are ten thousand black brothers, and Jon says he will be among them soon. But his brothers are here, not there. They were well equipped, well paid, and well-funded. His garments were as good as the men at arms in Winterfell. Why would he run? The watch means a lifetime of servitude, no land, and no children. But Luwin insisted it was a comfortable life.

The man was old, gnarled, and missing an ear. The wolves knelt him down at the ledge of a large boulder, and his father asked him if he knew why he was being sentenced. “Aye, m’lord oi’ran from me bro’ers N’black. Oi’deserve it m’lord you tak’n me ‘ead.” He looked wild and crazed, and Bran could see the fear in his eyes and hope, but why would a man about to be condemned feel hope? “Just tell me family in Win’erton dat oi died with me honor.”

His lord father nodded as the man dropped his head upon the rock.

“Father will know if you look away.” Jon whispered as rob put an arm around Bran.

“In the name of Daemon of house Blackfyre, the first of his name, King of Andals, the Rhoynar, the Valyrians, and the First men. I Eddard Lord Winterfell, of House Stark. Warden of the North, member of the Lord’s Council, and voice of the King in the Northern territories do sentence you Gared of Wintertown to death for treason, dereliction of duty, and desertion.” Father extended a hand, and Jory brought forth Ice, a Valyrian Steel great sword that was the ancestral weapon of his house. That’ll belong to Robb one day. Bran thought as he looked over to his brother, who had a slightly curved slender blade that was long that held an edge on only one side of the blade that was called a “tulwar” in Essos. Forged of Valyrian steel and made grey with white Direwolves that appeared as phantoms with red eyes danced along the blade, runic charms designed to banish cold and vanquish evil were in the blade. Winterfang was a gift by King Daemon for the heir of Winterfell.

Father also had twin suits of Valyrian steel armor forged on Dragonstone, one for Grandmother Rhaella and whoever would ride Winter after her death and the other for the Lord of Winterfell. Robb once boasted that the sword and armor suits alone could buy a kingdom in the disputed lands if sold at cost.

“Have you any last words?” Father asked.

“Dey’re so beautiful M’lord, came right out of da tree loin dey did. Armor like one of them rainbows of the seven m’lord and they sang…oh how they sang. Lord Waymar took steel to ‘em, m’lord. A braver man, I’ll ne’er know. Used to mock him for being a lordling, but he took steel to ‘em when we wept like chill’n in fear. He took steel to ‘em, and they sang, and it was beautiful…Send me on m’lord maybei’n in da next loyf I won’t hear their pretty songs no more.”

His Lord father paused for the briefest of moments before relenting and dropping Ice.

Bran didn’t look away, not even when his head rolled.

His eyes remained fixed on the body and in the look in his father’s eyes.

His father was shaken by what was said.

Bran had never seen his lord father shaken before.

None of them had.

What did the madman mean? Why did he desert over singing? Why is father afraid of a madman’s words?

Chapter Text

The King's Justice

“Do you understand why he had to die by my mine own hand, son?” Ned had watched the boy ride in silence, his mind contemplative and far away. Ordinarily, when Jon and Robb rode off on a race, Bran would trot his pony closer to Jory or Hullen to listen to their tales and gossip or ride beside Sansa, ensuring that she wasn’t too slack on the reigns or nervous with her pony. Their Southron education is essential, but no Stark of Winterfell should be ignorant of the saddle. One of them will end up mounting Winter one day.

The She-Dragon of his mother, Lady Rhaella, formerly a princess of House Targaryen, must have been nigh fifty feet long now. And had taken the wolf’s wood as her domain, making a lair in an ancient and abandoned keep deep within. Some mountain and hill folk would descend in Winter and make settlements around her domain, absorbing the warmth her great white body radiated. Ned misliked it, as he was worried some of them might be eaten, but the dragon’s temper was hardly as irascible as Aegos had been, but a dragon was still a dragon. Turning, he beckoned Sansa to join him, his daughter was saddened by what she’d seen, but her gentle face and naïve eyes were still as pools of water and contemplative. I am proud of them both. “I asked your brother if he understood why I had to take the man’s life with mine own hand.”

Sansa hesitated; she seemed to consider in silence, her face awash with indecision. She still thinks the world is a story, Cat says, but how can she not when her grandmother is a dragon rider and a hero of the rebellion, and her father commands the oldest keep in Westeros? There had always been magic in Winterfell’s roots and bones, and there always would be so long as a Stark sat upon the Winter throne.

Perhaps a belief in such silliness was not so bad in a less ugly and cold world than when he was a boy. In that, at least, we fulfilled our oaths, Lyanna; we made Westeros a better place.  Bran spoke first, “Because he was an oath breaker?”  Bran asked. "And a traitor because of it?” And cost his family the stipend they would have received after his death. But Ned would see that they received comparable funding, something in the man’s eyes… “Aye, son, and traitors are dangerous sort of criminal, for they know they are dead men walking and will not shy from any fell deed to keep themselves from the block. But that is not what I asked; I meant if you knew why I had to do it with my hand?”

“Because...” Sansa began speaking; she had her grandmother’s melodic voice and her mother’s intonation, which was soft and gentle. “The First Men believed that he who carries the…” her cheeks turned pink, and she bit back nervousness. “That is to say, the man who passes sentence must carry it out.”

Ned nodded. “Aye, that is the book’s answer, but do you know why?”

Both were silent before Sansa’s eyes widened as if it all set into place in her mind, and a sense of understanding filled her oval face. “Because if a lord isn’t willing to carry out the sentence himself, then mayhap he harbors doubts of the man’s guilt?”

“Or isn’t worthy of being a lord.” Prince Jacaerys said, riding up beside them, his silver-gold hair loose about his shoulders. He seemed to give off steam as Winter did in the cold, Like mother and Daenerys. He thought and frowned at the prince, who bowed his head somberly “forgive me, Lord Stark, that was improper of me to interrupt your lesson.” Ned offered a conciliatory smile at the youth. He’d been fostered here for the last year, owing to a tradition of House Blackfyre that the heir should live in Tyrosh and Myr for a year each and once he had learned all that he could know of the cities and demesnes and their ways, he would spend a year in each of the seven Kingdoms, fostering with the High Lords with whom his family’s trade brought such wealth to.

His experiences in Essos left him with certain libertine values, yet the Lord couldn’t fault him. After all, the murder of his brother by his uncle, the mad king Aerys and the old King’s demand for Ned, Robert, and Daemon’s heads started the Blackfyre rebellion (Or the Second Dance of the Dragons as the bards called it.). It was not proper to involve oneself in a lecture between a father and his children, yet Jace was so much like his kin that his interruptions often served a purpose that blunted the severity of the offense. “Indeed, but you are right, never less; that is one possible reason.”

“Does House Blackfyre have a headsman, or do you feed criminals to your dragons?” Bran asked. He was causing Sansa to shriek his name in horror. Everyone knew what the Mad King did with Aegos and his perceived enemies and how eventually, the Dragon abandoned Aerys and fled beyond the known map. “How could you ask that?” she demanded, frowning in a manner that reminded him of Cat. Ned’s eyes hardened, but he said nothing, allowing Jacaerys to answer for himself, sensing an opportunity to prove the point of his lecture about justice.

For a moment, Jace was silent, allowing the boy to compose himself after the reprimand. “The only Dragons house Blackfyre has are in King’s Landing with the King. Apart from Vermax and some eggs that we warm and may hatch within the following year. But tell me, killing a man by Dragon’s fire is horrible; it is cruel and unnecessary outside of war. And these dragons appear to be not wholly the same as the Targaryen dragons of old; their temperament is different indeed, even their nature, for good Queen Alyssane’s Silverwing could never fly over the wall nor even approach it by the sea.

Yet, Winter and Maelos passed beyond the wall and slew Hagon the Warg and his host of Wildlings when your lord father was but a boy. Indeed, they grow slower but will live longer if the books on Dragonlore recovered from Winterfell’s libraries are true. Yet Aegos abandoned Aerys the mad in the end, and Septons say that he did so because he could not handle the horror of the atrocities he was forced to commit at the whip of the mad King. Do you believe that a just King would feed a criminal to Dragons? Or a worthy lord? Does my father have a headsman? Dragonstone is a naval power, and we primarily address pirates. And when pirates are put to death, they are hung by the neck until dead upon gibbets, and my father pulls the lever. If he did not?”

Bran nodded. “Then he would be hesitant….”

Jacaerys laughed softly. “Aye, though I would venture that neither your lord father nor mine nor the King can possibly put every criminal in our domains to death. Cities and towns mean prosperity, but they also mean large numbers of lawbreakers. But a Lord just as a  King will do what he can, serve as he can and rule as he can as best he can...”

“Else, he is no Lord at all.” Bran finally said. Sansa nodded in understanding and looked ahead to the road to hide tears threatening to fall from her eyes.

Ned smiled. “Aye, little ones, aye.”

A sudden roar spooked Sansa’s pony, causing it to whinny, its nostrils flaring as steam rose out from them, mingling with her alarmed breath.

“BY THE GODS!” The shout came from Robb up ahead, and their lord father and Prince Jacaerys spurred their horses. “Harwin! You and the men stay with my children!” their father called in a voice that was at once commanding and urgent before he vanished up ahead.

………..

Bran and his elder sister had pushed their ponies as hard as they dared in worry and fear for their brothers until they reached the base of a bridge over the creek. Their Lord father had joined the boys, and no one seemed to be in danger, but there was an awful chorus of yowls, screams, and snarling howls that terrified his pony and forced Bran to steady it as he rode forward. Sansa was at his side until he saw what his father was watching.

“Damn Lannisters,” grumbled Hullen, their wizened and grouchy horse master of Winterfell. But Bran was too focused on the battle before him to question the meaning of the words as he looked out at the scene unfolding on the opposite shore. A grey-furred lion with an ashy mane was in the fight of its life against a wolf that was larger than anything Bran had ever seen. “What is that?”

“A direwolf,” Jon said, awe in his voice. “What’s the damn thing doing so far from Umber lands?” asked Jory with a sense of wonder in his voice. Direwolves were said to have gone extinct south of the wall centuries ago, but as with Lions, Unicorns, Dragons, and mammoths, they had begun to return in numbers. Most preferred the New Gift and Gift and the northernmost lands ruled by vassals of his house. And Bran understood why the men had continued to curse the Lannisters. A century ago, Damon Lannister had imported half a hundred Hrakkar’s from the Dothraki sea and bred them with some of the cave lions of the West. Seeking a more ferocious challenge than the lions of the Westerlands for his hunts and games.

The new breed thrived, and by the time of his grandfather, they were all over the Riverlands and the Reach, and they had begun to cross the neck and make their way North. Where the Black shepherd hounds of the North and the mammoths did battle with them as their cousins in the South did.

Jory drew his bow from his saddle bag and took an arrow from his quiver. “Shall I put one in the lion, my lord? Even a Direwolf cannot best such a beast alone; its forebears in the Dothraki sea are said to kill horses with a swipe of their paws.”

Bran could believe it; the lion was huge and had to be as large as his Lord father’s destrier, if not larger. The Direwolf was also massive, yet it was clear it would lose this fight. The lion was old and cruel, with grey-green eyes and scars from half a hundred battles, and it was a lion that stood alone away from its pride. Maester Luwin says lions are like dogs and wolves because they need a family to remain whole. Had this lion gone mad from loneliness after being driven from his pride? Or was he always mad?  It was a bloody battle; the lion had mounted the direwolf from the front, its claws raking its ribs, causing gouts of hot blood to rise like steam in the summer snow.  “Gods…” Robb whispered. “It’s a she-wolf.”

“And gravid by the looks of it,” Hullen muttered, disgusted. “A Predator might kill another what trespasses on his lands, but this lion is half mad.”

“It’s trying to eat the wolf!” Sansa cried out, alarmed as the she-wolf bit down into the lion’s thigh, and it roared and clamped its teeth into the space between her shoulder blades.  flnging the enormous she-wolf into the water of the creek, where it stamped down with its immense paws onto her bloodied side and bit down onto her neck shoving her snout underwater.

“Father! This is the symbol of your house.” Jon whispered. “We can’t just….” He went silent as he saw the look of horror on their father’s face. “Aye, this be grim business, boys, but it is nature.”

“It's misfortune, lord,” Hullen muttered. Nestos, a Valyrian man at arms, nodded in agreement, his lilac eyes narrowing. “R’hollor would not countenance such dishonor, great lord.” Even after a millennium of living on the West coast of the North, he spoke the Valyrians kept their accent when they spoke the common tongue. Bran was grateful, as the court of Winterfell tended to speak only High Valyrian or the old tongue-influenced dialect of common speech. Bran wanted to ensure his accent wasn’t obvious when he spoke the common tongue with the servants and people of Wintertown or his lady mother. Father seemed to weigh the matter, and precious seconds were ebbing away as the direwolf seemed to kick less and less under the lions’ jaws and the current, red blood staining the clear stream.

And then it happened.

The gurgling of the wolf and the heavy, heated breaths of the lion, and Sansa’s frantic pleas were drowned out by an ear-splitting roar that filled the skies above as though it were the breaking of a storm upon the land. Bran knew that roar! A dragon! A dragon comes! But it wasn’t Winter’s constant, horn-like bellow, but a proud and vibrant roar with a richness in its tempo that spoke of warm summers and exotic kills in the narrow sea. The lion looked up, its eyes hateful as it gazed at the sky, seeking the predator that reigned over both wolf and lion alike. And it descended, a silver and grey beast with long bat-like wings and a tail with six spikes rising like teeth on a pitchfork, and when it let loose fire, its flame was a jade color that spewed outward like a streak of lightning across the sky as the rider lifted a hand in greeting then banked the beast.

“Stormwind!” Sansa called in excitement. The gallant young dragon of Gendry Greystorm, the lord of the Rainwood and legitimized bastard son of one of their father’s boyhood friends and foster brothers. The son of a hero of the rebellion and a hero in his own right. Bran thought. But what is he doing here?!

“This is an omen, great lord,” Nestos repeated.

The Lion seemed to release pressure on the wolf’s side, and she seized the opportunity and lunged at the lion, forcing it onto its hand legs.

“Now, Jory!” Father ordered, his voice calm and filled with the kind of steel Bran imagines a commander on the field of battle might use. Jory Cassel loosed an arrow, which landed between the lion’s shoulder blades. It must have pierced a lung or the heart, for the lion vomited up blood even before the Direwolf bit down on the lion’s throat and drove it into the waters, tearing through its throat and crunching its neck bones until it was nearly beheaded. As the Dragon made a second pass and made to land, Bran watched as the she-wolf limped out of the water, blood trailing as she finally crumbled onto the shoreline.

“Father, mayhap Stormwind can bear her to Winterfell?” Bran heard Jon whisper. “A symbol of your house, and she fought a valiant struggle to protect her unborn..it would be dishonorable to let her die.”

There was a tense moment of silence.

Then father nodded. “Aye…”

Bran loved his half-brother.

Dearly

Chapter Text

Dragon's and trout

There were days when she resented Lady Rhaella for refusing to yield control of Winterfell to Cat until the new member of House Stark had proven herself as adept at finances and managing a city as Cat’s Lord father had at managing the Riverlands. Most of the time, she thanked the Gods that she had access to the wisdom and the experience of the woman affectionately called “the ice dragon of Winterfell” by the lords of the North. Winterfell was more than just a castle; it was a fused network of keeps and palaces encircling and standing at the center of Wintertown, which had once been a small refuge for the poorest of First Men during brutal and ancient winters. But over the centuries since the Valyrians came turned into a sprawling city that was exceeded only by White Harbor in the North in size. She was less a lady of a Keep and more, as the Greatjon said, “a lord mayor with a grand pair of tits!”. The uncouth man made her laugh most days.

However, she remembered a story that he’d once punched Winter on the snout as a youth because the dragon stole a piece of mutton from him while it was still a hatchling. That solidified the image of him as a terrifying and implacable foe and stalwart ally.

Today the “lady mayors” of Winterfell had been busy planning a feast day in honor of the union of Ice and Fire when King Auryn Aetheryon and his dragon bent the knee to a king of winter called Bran. There were a great many Brandons, but that one had managed immortality in the histories of the realm by attaining the submission of a dragon lord’s grandson. Albeit a disgraced dragon lord who was driven out of Mantarys for his willingness to emancipate slaves as the story of House Aetheryon went. She believed it not; they were a powerful house near the equals of the Starks and were entrusted to serve as the voice of Winterfell in Southron affairs, but they were a queer people.

She was no stranger to Valyrian culture, House Tully having nearly as much Valyrian blood as it did the blood of the first men. But they were a different set of Valyrians. It always seemed that each Dragon Lord and his dynasty bred and shaped their peoples even as they bred and shaped their Dragons and the language they spoke, centuries removed from the language spoken by the conqueror. Even their Gods were different, for they worshipped the stars and then converted to the faith of the Old Gods.

Now they practiced both, and then Thoros of Myr came, a priest of the Red God, but he came not as a burner, nor did he demand they renounce their stars and Weirwoods but that his God of fire was a natural ally of stars and the Old God. After all, was it not light heat? And did not the very trees the Old Gods used as their emissaries thrive in the ash of a fire that clears away the stagnant growth?  The Lord of House Aetheryon always unsettled her as well. Aenar the ancient they called him now; he was nearly a hundred and ten and remained Hand of the King. Daemon is the sixth King he’s served and the fifth as hand. He is loyal to my lord husband, and yet…

And yet he lured Wildlings south, granted them leave to live and work his lands; bred Wargs that was for certainty, and bred them as other men bred dogs. They were deployed in the service of the North, but she knew her lord husband detested the practice, but they were too critical to things to be dismissed. The North was a place as mythical as Valyria and Asshai by the Shadow and the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, and yet even myth seemed to yield to pragmatic need. As she walked through the square of Wintertown towards the center keep, Catelyn pulled her fox-fur-lined cloak close; there was a chill in the air that matched her bleak mood, for she was once again dealing with discord within her own home that once again centered around the bastard. Planning the festival was only a temporary respite from the discord the other night when she caught the bastard with Daenerys and Arya.

They were sitting in a glass garden in one of the many hot springs in the Winterfell, which she supposed was innocent enough; he’d been discussing history with the girls, but Daenerys had been holding Jon’s hand, and Catelyn saw red. His bastardry didn’t bother her overmuch. Winterfell was full of bastards that served as everything from men at arms to valets and groomsmen and the men who handled the nightsoil, worked the sewers and cisterns, and ensured the pipes always returned heated water to the bones of the earth where volcanoes nursed it. Lord Robert's bastard saved her sister, and Lysa pushed for him to be legitimized. Gendry was a boy only two years older than her Robb, but he was an accomplished dragon rider, gallant warrior, and the spitting image of Lord Robert, just as Lysa’s son was.

Perhaps that was the genesis of her hatred of the boy? That he was a natural rider, a quick study, and seemed to earn respect easier than her son? Or was it the constant rumor that Ned loved Ashara Dayne (Whom she suspected to be the boy’s mother for the cold fury in Ned’s fierce eyes when she broached the topic one night.) and was forced to take Cat to wife to win the alliance of her “covetous and grasping father.”. And the slanders she’d had to endure for it all because it was true that Ned married her in his brother’s stead, and had he not agreed, Hoster likely would have sat the war out. And it ate at her, a terrible beast gnawing at the root of her soul.

The Dayne’s were a grand and ancient family, almost as old as the Starks themselvds, and were said to be the direct descendants of the Last Hero, who drove back the forces of the Others as Brandon the Builder raised the wall behind him. She could hear it sometimes usurper, interloper. She was loved because she had worked hard to earn her place in the North, but that hard work was ten times harder when the living reminder of what could have been strut about her castle as though he was born to it. Storm Cat scoffed at that and called him Jon Strong when she could hear enough of their conversation and realized they were discussing the Dance.

Gendry would have challenged her, raged at her, and stormed off, and Cat might have come to care for Eddard's bastard if he was prone to such outbursts. No one would follow him then, as it would be clear he was meant to follow and be a warrior, not a lord. Instead, the boy just looked at her with sad eyes, the anger below kept in lordly restraint, and he asked to be excused. She detested that, for she knew he was easily angered but could hold it silent. Instead, Daenerys and Arya looked at their mother scornfully and followed Jon, and Catelyn stood there stunned and let it happen.

She reviled the boy for who he was but for what he represented. Proof that I was forced on my lord husband and the North at implied sword point and that I stole lady Dayne’s place and her life, that I had to earn my place here when Rhaella still lived, that I was resented until five years ago. Perhaps it was a mad thought, but she didn’t care.

It was either she detested the bastard or detested her husband and the grandmother of her children.

Speak of the Dragon, and she comes.

Rhaella was waiting for her at the top of the grand granite stairs to the entrance of the central keep; six giant direwolf statues flanked her on either end of the grand stairs. She wore a grey cloak and a white down, and upon her forehead was a small coronet, a single band of Valyrian steel done up as a dragon eating its tail with sapphire eyes. 

Rhella was beautiful in her youth, said to be above all others in House Targaryen, and when she wed Lord Rickard, she became a gem of the North. A dragon rider before she was even twenty who fought a dozen battles, and that was before Daemon’s rebellion. At fifty-three, she looked forty-three and like Cat was still in the prime of her life and Rhaella never seemed cold nor hot, she merely defied the environs about her while Cat still struggled at times with the cold. Winter’s bellow could be heard in the skies above, and Catelyn frowned.

“What is wrong?”

“For Winter to stir from the Godswood after I’ve fed her two whole cows? Another dragon is en route.” Rhaella said, her voice even and calm, but there was a hint of rage in her eyes. She knows about the other night.

“Why is my grandson considering the Night’s watch when he should be here as the castle’s master of arms?” Her voice was imperious, and it held the power of the dragon Kings of old. But Cat wouldn’t be intimidated in her own home. “Something about you implying he’d steal your son’s legacy.”

“This is hardly the time to talk.”

Rhaella raised a hand, gently silencing her. “When you mistreat him, you undermine your son’s position and future household.”

“He was flirting with Daenerys,” Catelyn responded in a heated tone.

“As is natural among adolescents. And last I’ve heard; the King did not grant you leave to arrange a betrothal between my niece and your son.” No, Catelyn thought bitterly. He did not, and why was that?  He had the twin daughters of Elia Martell and the Princess of Dorne herself. Daeron, his heir, was betrothed to Rhaenys. By all accounts, it was a happy betrothal, and then Princess Visenya was promised to Lord Robert’s trueborn son; why not marry Daenerys away to a trusted vassal?  It had taken a year to convince her Lord husband to try, and when the King refused, it had been as if her hopes were dashed. And Rhaella was gazing down at her with those reproachful eyes. “He has not.” She was forced to admit, the bitterness in her tone evident.

“Then why is my grandson speaking to the recruiters for the Night’s watch?” Rhaella’s tone never went above a calm lull. It never needed to; Aerys blustered, raged, and lashed out and attacked. But true dragons did not need such displays to express their wrath. This is where Ned gets his cold fury from.

“He is near a man grown…Lady Rhaella and this is high-“Rhaella descended the stairs, and Cat took that as a personal victory until she stroked Cat’s chin with her long fingers, calloused from a lifetime holding the reigns of a dragon’s saddle. Another reason I had to work so hard to win the love of my people. She, too, had the blood of the dragon, yet Winter never spared her a second glance, and of all her children, she was receptive only to Arya, who held more Stark features. “The blood of the dragon, afeared of a motherless boy.” Rhaella whispered, “Robb is a natural general, but what is a general without his commanders? The Seven Kingdoms took Tyrosh and were forced to drive into the disputed lands, and Myr. Do you think Volantis will remain idle? Solely because they’ve been idle for the last nine years? There will be a new war.”

She was correct; Cat knew it. She was ashamed of how petty and bitter she’d been, but she also knew she didn’t care. There was a point when she might have ceased her recriminations against the bastard when it looked as if he was going to die of winter fever after she’d fashioned an idol of the boy and left it at the Stranger’s alter. She came away horrified, but he pulled through after Maester Luwin tried a Lyseni healing technique that involved stabbing the boy with a large needle and letting the fluid drain. She was so overcome with guilt that she vowed to raise the boy as her own to repent of her monstrous sin. After all, he was not kin to Rhaella, a distant cousin to her Lord father.

No one was accursed as the kinslayer, but her feelings of rage returned when he woke and began to show an aptitude for riding and jousting. Rhaella was correct, but it didn’t matter to Cat as long as Ned loved Ashara best, and she was about to tell it so. But her fury was interrupted when Winter landed in the square and let out a roar of warning, her immense white wings shielding various merchants and stalls. Whether by intention or accident, Cat couldn’t say.

Then she heard the second dragon, and her eyes widened in wonder. Stormwind wasn’t as sleek or elegant as Winter, but he was a magnificent young dragon with armored scutes on his back and a spiked tail. When he landed opposite Winter, he let out a keening howl of acknowledgment and puffed out his broad chest, then lowered his head in recognition of his elder, the majestic winter queen. The boy, Gendry, the legitimized bastard of Robert Baratheon, dismounted and called for a Maester, and Catelyn soon understood why.

There was a direwolf lying at the feet of the mighty dragon, and she was grievously wounded and whelping! She doesn’t need a Maester. She needs a midwife.

Gods Ned…a direwolf…Gods be good; let not this an omen be!

Chapter Text

The dreaming wolf

Morgha! Drakarys Pōntoma Zālaza, zālagon qrīdrughagon pōja ñelly! Drakarys Morgha!

She was sleek, serpentine-like in her dream, a great fire wyrm with four legs spaced across a body long as Balerion was towards the end of his days, yet two great wings exited her back that blotted out the sun. Her long whiskers sparked with electricity that ran the length of her vermillion body as she belched a fire the color of her scales. She was adorned with an armor of glittering Valyrian steel that extended across her chest and middle back and covered her tail, legs, and thighs. In the night sky, she must have looked like one of those knights of old Andalos who had taken the western continent by storm when her sires’ sire’s sire was still in the egg. And the ships upon the landlocked sea that dared to fire their bolts? Above her, Vaenarya screamed and cackled like a mad woman. Her rider’s blood was up, and the immense beast ordered to send these men of water and cold back to the hells that spawned them. Now was a time for death and war!

Out of nowhere, the salt seas rose, and she found herself face to face with a column of water.

And then she knew only pain.

Arya woke with a start suppressing a scream as she lost her balance and fell forward, crashing through branches and slamming into the grass and dirt below. Stupid dreams Grandmother called them dragon dreams and said they were magical, that they allowed her to see things that never were, might yet be, or that happened years and years ago. But be wary of them, my love, for many of our ancestors, were driven mad because of them.

They were stupid; just because you dreamed of something happening didn’t mean it would happen. Who took dreams seriously? Of all the dreams Arya had that she could remember, only a quarter of them came true, and with odds like that, what idiot would believe them? But Daenys, the dreamer, saved House Targaryen.  Maybe she did, but Arya wondered as she dusted off her linen trousers and sighed in relief that the sun was well passed halfway through the sky. Women in the North began adopting the Lengii procedure of using a kind of sticky wax and paper strips or fine razors to remove hair on their legs and in their unmentionable places before the rest of the seven Kingdoms had, and Septa Mordane kept insisting that Arya learn how to do these things and it was annoying and disgusting. It’s easy to figure out how to use wax and stupid paper. Easier still for blade work. Why do I have to stand around for that?

Although she enjoyed working with the new straight razors, it was another invention by the sage-smiths of Dragonstone. She enjoyed the texture and the feel her mother and father had paired with ivory handles. Ygritte says you can slit a man’s throat with those.

Ygritte was the daughter of a spear wife sworn to House Giantsbane. Her skin was a burgundy color owing to blood of the Children or some other ancient race and her eyes were the color of beaten copper but hair that was the color of fire, and she was older than her elder brothers. Arya liked Ygritt; she wore armor, fought like men, and was an arbiter and judge at the wrestling and fistfight contests during the Winter King festivals. It had been since she was her age, and she remembered life beyond the wall. She and Osha had come south with their families when Ygritte was small, arriving at Hardhome and agreeing to bend the knee to house Aetheryon’s “lures” as the free folk (Ygritte didn’t like being called a wildling.) those men who arrived with ships and offered safe passage below the war so long as the free folk vowed to submit to Northern law.

Most refused, others snuck down as raiders, and she knew the Night’s Watch disliked what the Sea dragons did, but the ones who did agree to bend the knee were growing in number each year. Ygritte and her family weren’t Wargs, so they didn’t stay in Aetheryon land and found their way to the lands around Winterfell and the service of the Giantsbane and through him to Winterfell as palace guards and through that to being Arya’s personal spear. “Where’s Winter?” Arya muttered sleepily.

“She flew off,” Ygritte said, walking into view; she’d been praying to one of the new Heart trees carved by green men when King Torrhen (The one who knelt.) had begun constructing the castle complex that she now lived in. And so, a three-acre Godswood became a ten-acre Godswood, new Weirwood trees and heart trees were grown and consecrated, and parts of the old castle had been reclaimed by vines, various exotic trees (which were sustained by the hot springs.) and sentinel pines.

Ygritte was eating a kind of plum that was found nowhere else in the world but for the glass gardens in Winterfell, Oldtown, Dragontown at Sea Dragon Point, and Dragonstone, for they were of the Valyrian peninsula and only grew in places of heat and were descendants from some of the few trees and bushes and growing things brought from the peninsular before the doom. Of course, they were eaten the world over and fetched a pretty penny, but Arya laughed because Ygritte looked like she had eaten half a dozen of them. “Another dragon is here,” Ygritte answered.

“Really?” Arya asked with a look of wonder in her eyes.

“Aye, little lady.” She said, tossing Arya a plum. “I’m not a lady,” Arya grumbled; she was a lady. But a proper Northern lady and not the dainty southern weaklings that her mother wanted her to be. “Yer rich, ya live in a castle bigger than most free folk villages, and yer daddy’s a lawd, that makes ya one…m’lady,” Ygritte responded, exaggerating her provincial accent as she pulled a knife and offered it to Arya, joining her on an old stone bench that was being devoured by a flowering vine. “You’re richer than most small folk and some merchants, you live in my father’s castle, and Jory Cassel wants to marry you. By your reasoning, that makes you one too.”

Ygritte swatted at her cheek playfully and leaned back. “Aye, he does fancy me, ‘an ‘he can take me or die try’n as is proper free folk custom.”

“You just want to fight him.” Arya teased, sinking her teeth into the plum. It was rich, sweet, and spicy all at once, and it juices the color of blood, and the juices steamed as they ran down her chin. “Aye, and you eat like a savage ya do, little wolf.”

Arya shrugged. “Why is another Dragon here, and which one is it? Argella? Vaegon? Has Maelos come? Is the King visiting? Or is Winter ready to make eggs again?” the prospect of maybe gaining a dragon and riding it filled her mind with wonder and the memories of her dream. But Morgha was dead a thousand years if my dream is true.

Ygritte laughed. “I only just learned to read little wolf.” She had Arya to thank for that, Jory had made a jape about her not knowing how to read, and though he meant it without malice, Arya found Ygritte attacking a straw dummy in a rage with tears in her eyes. And so, in exchange for learning knife and spear work, Arya had begun to teach her to read, and to her surprise, her mother of all people was the one to insist Ygritte become her personal spear. Mother is kind sometimes.

She was still furious about the other night, about what was said to Jon, and she still couldn’t figure out why her mother allowed the rambunctious spear wife to serve as her sworn spear. “But I think,” Ygritte began again, “It was one of the young dragons, all grey and big and looking like a bull with wings.”

“Stormwind?” Arya asked, surprised, her violet eyes wide with surprise. “Lord Gendry’s dragon?!”. Gendry had been born a bastard like her brother Jon. He spent his childhood as an apprentice blacksmith in King’s Landing and then later under Donal Noye, the one-armed master of Storm’s End. The latter was one of the few Blacksmiths outside the Sage Smith masters on Dragonstone or the Sage Smith Tobho Mott of King’s Landing that understood how to work steel almost unnaturally. He couldn’t make Valyrian steel, but Sansa was given a necklace of Noye’s work, a wonder to behold. From there, her aunt Lysa noticed he was a bastard of Roberts and wanted him out of the castle. Yet her lord husband refused, and then Gendry saved her from bandits, and she became his fiercest defender. Jon thinks there’s no place for him here because of mother. But Gendry proves that wrong, and he’s supposed to be handsome.

The thought made her cheeks redden, and she felt like a fool.

Arya boychild, Arya underfoot, Arya the wildling.  They called her those things, yet her father said she looked like Lyanna and Grandmother Rhaella. Ridiculous, Lyanna was a Northern beauty, and Rhaella is the grace of the maiden personified. Arya would never be that Sansa would because she would take after their mother. But Arya could be a proper Northern lady. Hold a keep, fight beside a future husband and defend her family.

“Who’s this Gendry?” Ygritte asked.

“He’s the bastard son of the Lord of Storm’s End,” Arya answered, rummaging around for something to wipe the mess on her chin and neck.  “Like Jon.” She added, ‘But he has a name. Greystorm because of a fight with Lyseni pirates.”

“Slavers,” Ygritte hissed. “Ever since you kneelers broke up their precious balance of power back home, they’ve been feral towards the free folk in the true north. One of the reasons we came down here.” The other, Ygritte would never talk about.

“Well, he wanted to prove himself worthy of my aunt’s patronage, so he set out with Stormwind escorting ships from the Stormlands east, and when pirates fell on their fleet Lord Gendry and his dragon destroyed them all during a storm. It’s said they couldn’t fire their scorpions at them because the dragon was as gray as the storm clouds” Arya’s smile turned into a frown as Ygritte handed her a silk kerchief that she produced from Arya’s own pockets with the deftness of a seasoned cutpurse.

“What is it, little wolf?” Ygritte asked, drawing her sword, a lithe broadsword designed to emulate the Braavosi water dancing styles, and began cleaning the blade with a linen cloth from her pockets.

“My brother being stupid again.”

“He’s not even four.”

“No! Not that one.Jon.” Arya frowned, biting her lip, a few strands of her dark hair fell over her right eye, and Arya huffed, blowing them out of the way. “He wants to join the Night’s Watch because mother called him a Strong.”

Ygritte scoffed, but it lacked any of her usual irreverence. Arya thought she detected a note of fear as the steam from her breath rose into the air. “That one knows nothing, the dragon lady and the younger lady dragon. They try and learn him. But it’s like I told them, but you can’t smarten a rock.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “I’m serious, Ygritte! He’s been sullen and set in his way about it. Saying that if she fears him to be another tyrant’s bastard, he should remove himself from her castle.” That was probably a falsehood, though. Arya thought it was over her mother’s attempts to wed Daenerys to robb.

“It’s not her castle. Doesn’t her family rule a fish market or a beaver dam?” Ygritte asked with a dismissive shrug. “No…. not a beaver damn or a fish market, it’s a castle like this one, though not as big and in the center of a river.” She sighed. “If he joins the watch…it’s noble, I guess, but he can do much more here.”

“Aye, it’s moot; ya shant let him join the watch,” Ygritte said, her voice suddenly stern and fearful. Desperate perhaps? Arya blinked in surprise; she’d never seen Ygritte be afraid of anything. “I cannot dissuade him. It’s the-“Ygritte seized her at that moment by the shoulders and squeezed with surprising strength, almost harming her. “Listen, little wolf…You can’t let him join the watch.”

“w..why,” Arya asked, looking up at those pale bright blue eyes that were always so fierce yet now seemed to be wild with terror.

“Because if you do, he’ll die…There’s nothing beyond the wall but death and those about to meet it.” Ygritte whispered in a voice that suddenly sounded old and tired, and her face was drawn and gaunt with the fear in her soul. “Nothing..do you understand, little wolf.”

Arya nodded, trying to suppress her own fear and tears. Ygritte gripped her with such abandon and fierceness it hurt, and when her sworn spear noticed, she released Arya and took the girl’s hands into hers. “I’m..sorry…Little wolf…”

“It’s okay,” Arya said, feeling an immense debt of gratitude towards the wildling girl.

Though she couldn’t understand why.

Chapter Text

Contemplation.

Winter had returned to her domain in the Wolfswood by the time Catelyn arrived in the Godswood of Winterfell. Cat swallowed, a gloved hand tracing the thick auburn braid of her hair, reflexively and to stimy her nervousness. Though Winterfell’s Godswood had expanded in the intervening centuries, the original core of three acres was as ancient as the Golden Empire of Yi Ti itself. Ten thousand years…She thought. Already ancient, when Bran the builder erected the wall, the ancient ancestors of the Valyrians began their attempts to tame the Dragons.

It was said in the North that every castle had a Godswood and every Godswood a heart tree (and they were starting to make their return in the South.). As she walked across a floor half tiled, half dirt, and all buried in millennia off accumulated dust and mold and dirt, she found herself as isolated and alone in the inner sanctum of Winterfell as she had when she first arrived. The Tullys are of the blood of the First Men just as we are the dragon, more so, yet this place feels so alien.

And the heart trees, those wretched things. The first was an immense and somber thing with a grimaced face carved into its ancient bark and the blood-colored sap that never seemed to cease ebbing from the tree’s eyes, nose, and mouth. It always seemed to watch her as the younger heart trees seemed to leer contemptuously. Her children came here to pray more often than they did the Sept, and they seemed to grow lost in its depth. Even Daenerys likes the solace of this place if the bastard was never born. Would this remain the case? I am partially disrespected in my own home. Her Ned was seated on one of the jutting roots that rose like benches out of the earth to coil around rocks and the old bones of the castle and its lichyard where the honored dead that, in life, served the earliest Kings of Winter rested. Ned was cleaning Ice, a relic of the Valyria of old, the Valyria that was. The ancient and unconquerable freehold conquered almost all of Essos, except for the Golden Empire, and had driven the Rhoynar to Dorne. And the name of the blade is older still. A relic from the Kings of Winter. Her lord husband went through a ritual whenever he had to kill someone; he would stand naked in the cold to allow himself to be purified and then come here dressed and contemplative.

It was colder here, and Cat could feel the ancient power of this place penetrate her to her bones. One of the kindest gestures her Ned ever gave her was when he had the Sept built. It was sweet, like so many of the things he did to her and for her, even if his speech was sometimes rough. “Husband…the direwolf.”

“She died.”

Gods.

“And whelped eight pups in her death throes,” Ned added with a troubled sigh. “seven aspect of your one God plus one for the one that is seven as. Five of the children shall get and keep one, even Jon.” His tone was terse, and Cat kept her mouth in an even line instead of frowning and lashing out. Rhaella’s words rang in her head “You undermine your son and his position by mistrusting the boy.” How? There was no house Stark of Winterfell, but for her children, the House Stark of the Barrowlands was half Dustin, and the Snow in the Dreadfort refused to form his own cadet branch for whatever reason. And the Karstarks were not well-loved, for they had risen in rebellion more than five times over the Valyrians and their “foreign influences” in the past. With the last one being during the era of the King who knelt. But he insists on this…Ashara has been dead fifteen years, yet half the North writes ballads about their stolen star and the river daughter who set herself in the Star’s place. “What of the other two...” she asked between clenched teeth.

Ned seemed to consider for the moment. “One of them looks as though it were of the reach variation of our shepherd hounds. He’s brown and black with very long ears. I’ve named him Warden and intend to keep him and breed him with our shepherd hounds and armor him should I need to tend to the matter of Mance Rayder with the Watch. He’ll stay by my side and be our guardsman,” Ned laughed. “Since I cannot ride Winter while my mother lives and hope she lives another three and fifty years. The other, I intend to make a nameday gift to princess Rhaenyra; she was able to tame that great Sothoryi ape that was brought to the capitol as a gift; surely a direwolf will be easy.” He said with a light-hearted smile, the anger she seemed to sense at the mention of his bastard fading.

Only for the humor to be replaced by seriousness a moment later, gravity with a twinge of fear fell over his face. “He was not a wilding or a river pirate Cat; he was a black brother. And he…claimed….” Cat wanted to walk over and embrace her Lord husband, the doubt on his face. “I reject crib tales, but he seemed to believe what in what he claimed he saw.”

“Madmen often believe their madness is truth. No doubt, Aerys believed much of the horrors he did to have been just.” Cat offered and watched as Ned seemed to consider her words before finally relenting and nodding. “Aye, you’ve the right of it. But what of you? You seem no less troubled than I.”

“Did you see Speak with Gendry at length?” Cat asked.

Ned nodded. “Aye, I invited Lord Greystorm to stay with us for a sennight; it might do Robb good to have a young Lord close to his age that is already governing and is proven in battle around him for a time.” Apart from Prince Jacaerys anyway, Cat thought. “And it would do Jon good to see how high a bastard might rise. Did you know he was given Overlordship of the Rainwood entire? Even Lord Whitehead of Weeping Town.”

Cat blanched, bastard or trueborn for a House so new to be given such a position. Only Robert Baratheon is a lord so well loved as to get away with that and so well feared. The bards still sang songs about the battle of the Trident, where Robert riding Argella brought so much slaughter and fire to the Trident that half the water evaporated and covered the Riverlands with fog for months, a fog that smelled of burnt flesh. Her brother said that it had taken two years for the waters to replenish themselves and Syrax’s bones still lined the riverbed along with the remains of Prince Rhaegar. Though perhaps they see him as the right hand of Storm’s End, he is nigh as accomplished as his father was at his age, and young Steffon is not far behind. Together they could become another anvil and hammer.

It was still dangerous unless Gendry made impressively strategic marriages for himself and his sons…

Her thoughts returned to the bastard. “The boy doesn’t need any more encouragement.”

“He does, especially since you’ve filled his head with notions of joining the watch,” Ned responded, his tone dangerously low. Cat scoffed; she’d done no such thing; all she’d done was compare him to a Strong. If the boy took that as some challenges, he ought to have stayed loyal and not gone running to the wall.

Ned rose, sheathing ice, and turned to set it against the heart tree. The blade was enormous, the largest great sword she’d ever seen, and even fifteen years later, it still awed her. “Robb needs him here should there be war with Volantis and Lys again, should anything else occur. He will hold a keep here in the North in his honor.”

Cat narrowed her eyes. “Is this a command, my lord?”

“It is.”

“From you? Or your mother?”

Ned’s eyes darkened, and she recoiled in shame. What have I done? I’m here to bear him ill tidings, not fight him.

“Forgive me, Ned. It has been a trying day, an omen from the Gods in that wounded wolf and..” the space between them and the silence a pair of loadstones about her heart. ‘I came because of Gendry; he brought with me two letters and one more disturbing than the next.” She swallowed as Ned’s hard eyes softened and lit up with concern. “What is it?”

“The Lord Hand is dead.”

It hit Ned like a bolt of lightning. Aenar Aetheryon was born in the seventh year of the reign of King Daeron the second. He served as a captain in the royal navy during the final years of his reign and then as the Master of Ships under Aerys, then at the hand of the King after Blood Raven disappeared. He served six kings, four of those as Hand. He was so ancient, yet hale and strong, and many of us thought he might live another twenty years. But it was more than that; Lord Aenar was the voice of the North in Southron affairs. The realm’s largest Kingdom’s reputation for fairness as an outsider power had primarily been established by his long reign as the second most powerful man in the domain. Bittercane had been his discovery, the abundance of Wargs had been his doing, and so much of the realm’s wealth and the North had come from either him or Tywin Lannister.

With his passing, the Targaryen era was truly over.

Aemon Aetheryon had a large shadow to fill, and there was little faith in a boy of six and ten taking the reigns of his great-great grandsire’s power base and running it as though Lord Aenar had ever died. He had trained several successors, but he kept outliving them all. But it was not solely an august legacy. For decades stories persisted that Lord Aenar practiced dark magic, that he had the Citadel stormed and put to the sword because it allowed him to fill the order of Maesters with sorcerers and confidence men. In King’s Landing, several of Aerys surviving legitimized bastards were found dead, gnawed upon by animals, and suspected traitors were often found half devoured before a trial could be given. And people blamed him for that, the Serpent and the Rainbow being the most famous song about his life, which is only half flattering. It paints him as a demon sorcerer and alchemist in half the verses.

“And what could be worse than this news, wife?” Ned asked, exhausted; the leaves on that most ancient of trees seemed to shudder in the wind, a single blood-red leaf falling onto the cool, clear pool below.

“Lysa Baratheon believes he was murdered.”

Chapter Text

Battleborn

“They’re so soft!” Jayne squealed, tracing her fingers through the hair of the black bitch with green eyes. Beside the she-wolf pup, her identical twin brother rolled in the soft fabric of the blanket they’d been resting on. Rickon was to be given that one, and he’d already named it shaggy dog, a name Bran and Sansa thought was preposterous, but she found endearing. Shaggy Dog was already like his master, gentle and sweet but possessed a temper better suited to a dragon.  “Aerion says they can grow to be the size of a horse.” She said idly, running her fingers through the brown and black pup Lord Stark had named Warden. How alike Lord Stark, the pup is… already sitting beside me listening for his littermates, a perfect little sentinel.

Her brother was at the wall, a decision he’d taken for himself. After he arrived at the rebel camp, presenting Brightflame to Lord Jon Arryn and coming with a retinue of warriors, which included Gerion Lannister and his horribly scarred squire Sandor Clegane.  As she remembered her history books and the telling of Lord Eddard (Who seldom discussed the war but would if she gently probed him as he felt it was her right to know.), Lord Quellon Greyjoy sent out an invite for the rebel lords to arrive at Pyke as he wished to discuss entry into the alliance to topple House Targaryen. Quellon was old, shrewd, and wise and possessed a clarity of vision different than other Ironborn and sensed that Lord Arryn was in turmoil. Prince Valarr was the natural choice as King, many respected him, and he was beloved by the realm. And in many of the heroic deeds of your father, prince Valarr had his part. But Prince Valarr fell in the early days of the rebellion when Aerys the mad took to the skies on the back of crimson Aegos. His death left three untested youths whose deeds were known but seen as more the antics of boys than heroes. Lord Stark had a claim as valid as Lord Robert’s, for both their mothers were of the dragon’s blood though Lord Stark more so in that his came from the royal line. But Daemon held a better claim, for his mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother were the sisters of Kings. He was the son of Prince Valarr as well, the King that never was. Aerion, a legitimized bastard, had little support but for the Ironborn whose respect he had earned facing renegades and raiders and defeating Victarion Grejoy in a contest of might. Yet the Lords Tully pushed for Robert and Hoster above Gaemon held persuasive words. And so, a Great Council amongst the rebels was convened at the urging of Quellon the wise. And betwixt the bones of Nagga, Lord Stark renounced his claim, vowing that the North cared little for the intrigue of the South and that he would name his brother his heir and march to the wall this very moment if he was nominated again. Lord Robert split the table he was seated at with his mighty war hammer and threatened to mount his goodfather’s head on a spike if he dared to reject whatever conclusion the great council came to should his name not be accepted by majority vote.

Aerion, hating what his father had done to their dynasty and sharing lord Stark’s hatred of the throne, set sail for the wall that very morning, renouncing all claims. Viserys was but a child, and no one knew if he would turn out like his father, so his claim was dismissed. If any of Aerion Brightflame’s descendants still lived, they had taken up exile in Yi Ti or Leng, and none had heard from them in decades. And from the stories she attended as a child, Maegor had written King Aegon forswearing any claim to the throne for himself or his descendants. I am the Lord of Peikeng, a city thrice the size of King’s Landing, and it has aged me. What want I with another city and a continent to rule? Like as not, my heart could not take it. I wish you well coz, may your line rule until the end of all things; I shall stay with my city, which I earned with my sword and wit.

That narrowed it down to two, and the Great Council of A.C 282 (Called the great Kingsmoot by the Ironborn.) crowned Daemon Blackfyre, who vowed to avenge Robert’s lost honor and rescue Lord Stark’s sister from Rhaegar the raper.

Daenerys swallowed. Lord Stark never says that Rhaegar was a rapist, but I hear it from the men at arms in the castle and the city. Was it true? At fourteen, she’d grown up with the infamy of her fallen house, though she first heard “the truth” of the matter from a drunken Tormund who said he doubted the stories about Rhaegar. Your brother was a great big poof, a sword swallower. He married that spindly sand witch Elia for duty but bedded her because she looked a boy. I fought Rhaegar at Harrenhal in the melee and ‘afore that when in King’s Landing for the old wizard when I served with the Captain of their Gold cloaks helped teach the boy to fight as he wanted someone to teach him the rough style even as he learned the kneeler way of war. He spent so much time with that Sword of the morning, aye, I denae believe he was a raper. Still, he stole a man’s woman. A man like Lord Robert and your father was a fucking lunatic. And so here you are, with the lady dragon, and not in that red cesspit as a queen and wed to a nephew or some such foulness.

His language was coarse, but Dany adored Tormund; he never lied to anyone and never showed fear. She had no idea what a sword swallower was until later, and that wasn’t the only place she’d heard the rumor. These were not rumors that were safe to utter either, for the story had to be as it was for the sake of the realm. Dany knew that much, even if she hated it, and she had never known her father by blood nor her brothers save her half-brother Aerion and he only through letters. No one had seen Viserys since Jonothor Darry abducted the boy near the final days of the rebellion when Aegos abandoned Aerys and fled Westeros, never to be seen again. Robb and Sansa, Rickon and Bran and Arya were her siblings, Lord Stark her father or the only one she ever knew, and Jon Storm her…well, if lady Stark had her way, then he’d be gone from here to the wall or Essos as a sell sword or some such. My nieces have a stronger claim to the throne, and they are promised to the King and Lord Robert’s heirs, one to be queen consort and the other the lady wife of his most loyal vassal. What use am I? Wed to Robb, I’d be a trophy, and we love each other but as brother and sister and not in the Valyrian way.

They had spoken of it, and Robb said he’d do his duty by her, but it was plain to see she had eyes for Jon and he for her, and in her situation, wed to a bastard would remove her as a threat and her lineage and so it was one of the few times such a union could be possible. Robb assured her that he had grand plans for the North, but they could wait until his Lord father died, hopefully at an age as old as Lord Aenar. They didn’t include her as his lady wife but as a valued sister of the North and perhaps as his closest advisor. If Lord Stark lives so long, then like as not, he’d outlive us; I would give council in the realm beyond, maybe.

The albino of the pack, born with open eyes, was already with Jon. Bran’s up napped lazily in the boy’s arms. Rickon was resting with his head on the shoulder of Harwin’s shepherd, who lost all but two of her pups to cough and seemed content to nurse the little wolves. The herding hounds of the North have direwolf blood in their veins. They’re larger than most dogs and more intelligent and live longer. However, they were primarily black or brindle in color. Only the shepherd hounds of the reach descended from the Northern hounds of old, kept their original grays and whites looking more as Direwolves than as great black dogs descended form Direwolves. Why is that, I wonder…Why there and not here?

It was like the wild mammoth herds that had crossed the neck when her aunt Lady Rhaella was a child, those that found the Reach and made it their home were larger and more primal than the ones in the North though fewer in number. There was word that Lord Mace had sent letters requesting Dany’s hand in marriage for his second son Lord Garland, but King Daemon and Lord Stark both rejected them. He poisoned many cisterns and reservoirs in the Storm Lands; it took years for them to be safe for consumption again.

The damage that action had done to the reputation of House Tyrell had made him half-hated in his own Kingdom. It was said that Lord Stannis was his loadstone and originally there to remind the Reach of its lack of faith, yet the hard and cold man had earned the respect of much of the Kingdom and those vassals hoped to wield him against Highgarden to settle their ancient grudges. Dany had no interest in marrying into a house, so beleaguered and undermined. Her cousin Daeron had sent a letter to her recently, and so had the King, both inquiring after her well-being.

They wrote to her often enough and sent gifts for her nameday. Her violet eyes misted as she thought of the kindness she received from them when they had no cause to trust her given her name and the threat she represented to them, however minor. Yet there was no doubt in her mind that they at least pretended to care. And Jacaerys is good to me. One of the pups whimpered and fought with its sister for a teat causing a smile to creep over Dany’s face. That one shall be Arya’s, I’m sure.

“Ohh, Highgarden or the arbor! Lord Orys?”

“Don’t be daft,” Sansa said. “She loves my half-brother.”

“But isn’t he for the wall?” Jeyne asked, frowning.

Dany looked up from her thought, eyes wide with concern for Jon and fear, betrayal, and a dragon’s wrath.

………….

It is a different world than when I was young boy. Bastardry is no longer seen as an affront that carries the taint of sin. You can thank Daemon Blackfyre for that. Though, you will still find that many traditions long outlast the grave. People will fault you less than they would a peasant.

Those words, uttered by a dead man, echoed in his mind as he hacked away at the training dummy. He remembered it like it was yesterday, even though it had been nearly five years since the day Lord Aenar returned from the South for a festival honoring his ancestor. The last Sea King, the last Northern dragon rider until grandmother. Lord Aenar sat on a sofa in the feasting hall, in the position of honor beside his lord father. He was covered in silks and furs and walking with an ebon cane that had a dragon bone handle with piercing turquoise eyes that bore into your soul. He had taken Jon’s hand and pulled him close with a surprisingly firm grip for one so ancient. His cheeks were sunken, he smelled of perfumes and blood, and Jon was terrified of him, and he framed his face and laughed softly, saying that he knew that face. “You remind me of a Targaryen so grim men joked that he was a secret Stark bastard passed off as Daeron’s son.”

Lady Stark hadn’t seemed so amused by that, but she hated whenever he was brought to the table. But lady Rhaella seemed to look most thoughtful from then on. His grandmother paid more attention to him than she had before. Not that she ever neglected him; her patience ensured he knew how to read. It was her skill at riding horses and Winter that ensured he was a rider as talented as his aunt Lyanna had been. And it was lady Rhaella who kept the secret of his meetings with Daenerys.

Dany.

It hurt all the more because Lady Stark insisted on minimizing the time he spent with his sisters, foster or otherwise. She thought I would corrupt them, no doubt. It never made any sense; she was never cruel to the other bastards in the keep. Distant and remote, but she praised their efforts, elevated more than a handful of them to key positions, and even defended Ser Edric Flowers, a knight from the reach who left the Arbor because he couldn’t stomach serving Lord Stannis after he’d usurped House Redwyne. Edric had been accused of theft of city funds, and most of the city's people wanted him dead because he was a Reachman more than an accused thief. No one has forgotten the mass poisonings by Mace Tyrell and how Lord Renly died screaming.

Jon knew the tale well and knew that Robert descended on the Reach Army with Argella after King’s Landing was taken and how Lord Mace had avoided being incinerated by Dragon’s fire but lost an arm after it had been trampled by his horse which had thrown him off and caught fire. The Ballad of the blue flame was a favorite of the local taverns, and none failed to see that Stannis was a means by which King Daemon could threaten Highgarden.  Lady Stark had given a magnificent speech, shaming the men and women of Wintertown and saving Ser Edric.

He was one of the sworn protectors of Dany now. It hurt; if she was so just and fair with other bastards, why was she cruel and unjust to him? Grandmother explained that it was because most men in the South don’t bring their bastards home with them, while in the North, as with Dorne, the distinction wasn’t there. Brutal lands breed pragmatic men, my little Storm.  Many a time, both House Martell and Stark had been reduced to one true-born heir and one or two bastards. Only to rise innumerous again because of their unions. It was also true with the Freehold since the intrigue of Dragon Lords often had costly results. She grieves a perceived slight, and try as she might, she can’t completely shed her Southron roots, nor should she. For House, Tully is a proud and ancient one, and Southron culture unites half the realm.

Grandmother had a way of putting things that made it hard to hate lady Stark. However, there were days when he did hate her. But what could he do? Rhaella never called Lord Stark his father, nor did his father ever refer to Jon as more than “of my blood.”. Part of him wondered what that meant, but most of him hurt because it seemed like he was terrible and endured and suffered and only his half-siblings truly loved him. Sansa had shied from him when first she learned what being a bastard meant. They had been close, then no more, and then one day, she began to try and bond with him again. Jon wanted to rebuff her, but the look of guilt in her eyes was blended with a sense of longing.

She missed me. Whatever doubts and slights were cast his way, it was easier to endure when such love existed. But nothing lasts forever. Jon thought sadly. And Lady Stark was right; loving Daenerys was a line crossed that would destroy her future. Calling me a strong and our children would have my muddied blood. And Arya and Daenerys had grown so angry with Lady Stark and Sansa when she found out, became frosty and distant to her. I’m disrupting the Stark family with my presence and Dany..how can I let that continue.

They kissed in the hall after he’d left the courtyard, which was the sweetest moment of his life. The Straw dummy was almost in tatters by the time Dany got there. She was dressed in a black dress, with the red dragon of her house emblazoned on the chest and tiny ruby gemstones in each of the eyes. Her hair was long and braided as his grandmother’s and Lady Stark and her eyes were stained red as from tears. “Sansa tells me you want to join your uncle and my brother at the wall?”

Jon swallowed Seven hells! “It is..better this way.”

“Like hell,” Daenerys responded; her voice was quiet, but there was that fierceness that made Jon’s skin tingle. “You have no right.”

Jon smiled wryly. “I have the only right, as I’m no criminal.”

“That is not what I meant, and you know it!” she almost shouted, her voice tight, and her body seemed to writhe in its spot. Is she panicking? To hurt her this bad, it was as though he’d sawn off his hand. But maybe the hurt will make it easier for her. “I won’t marry Robb Stark. Like as not, he’ll be betrothed to princess Rhaenyra or one of the Manderly girls. My claim is inferior to the twin girls Elia Martell bore; many people, good people, people with dragons, would have to die before I was chosen. He’ll like as not still marry me off to some loyal knight or a bastard like you because politics demands he diminish my standing further, but he cares for me, the King, and will pick someone he knows will love me. Maybe even someone of my choosing.”

It was too good to be true. Nothing like this had ever happened to him in his life; it was all too good to be true. And yet…If it was. No, his violet eyes hardened, and his resolve thickened. He couldn’t be used to denigrate her love, and what if the King changed his mind? It would be easier for them both if he were far away. She called me Jon Strong…

“And if the King refuses, I’ll be here with a matron who hates me and watching you live happily, and my love may turn to hate and prove her..” Jon couldn’t finish the sentence because Daenerys laughed. She laughed a frantic, absurd laugh until she wheezed, “Ahhh…Jon.” She whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Only you would think yourself that weak.” She stepped forward, her soft footfalls leaving softer prints in the snow, and when she stopped, she reached up and pulled him into a deep and long kiss. “Lord Storm, you belong to me, not Lady Catelyn, nor the phantoms of your mind, and certainly not the Watch. Your Old Gods made you for me, and I do not give you leave to go to take the Black.”

What could Jon do? He knew at that moment that if he took the Black, it wouldn’t matter. He’d break every oath and defy any law or convention to return to her side. “What if the King...”

“We’ll find out. He’s coming here in two months; if he doesn’t approve, we’ll elope.” Daenerys said in a voice that was as at once soft and sharp as steel. “Syt iksan Daenērys vīlībāzma āzma hen Targārien Lentor se daorys daor sesīr se zōbrie zaldrīzes kessa ivestragon nyke qilōni kostan jorrāelagon”

Jon smiled and bowed his head. What a fool he’d been to think the way he’d thought, to let doubt and the wounds of a bitter woman cloud his judgment.

Ygritte was right.

He knew nothing.

So, he’d trust her.

Since she clearly knew something.

 As his heart settled, the direwolf pup peaked out from the bushes of Winter roses and joined the pair in their embrace. nestling in between their boots.

Chapter Text

The young storm.

The world was so different in the air, soaring above the realms of men and gazing down at the endless stretch of rivers and canals that fueled trade between the seven kingdoms and created unprecedented wealth for the Riverlands even as the West and the South rose to new heights. Townships, riverports, castles, and keeps looked like tiny toys on the canvas of a child’s model. Farmland etched into the land itself rising as light greens and golden color patterns and herds of cattle and sheep and auroch could be seen as specks of whites and blacks and clay browns and the wild mammoth herds becoming more and more common (and at times, pestilential to farmers.), rising like large brown anvils to the view of a dragon rider. It’s easy to see why the mightiest lords of the Freehold thought themselves Gods…Stupid, but easy. Gendry was blessed with the sense that the Gods gave a turnip, so he never looked below and saw mortals of him to play with.

On the contrary, as a former Blacksmith’s apprentice, Gendry looked down and saw tools, resources, and fuel. Each piece is essential to the whole and utterly useless without the other. An anvil was just dead weight without a forge, iron was just a lump of rock without flame, and a hammer without a piece of metal to beat stopped being a friendly tool and became an instrument of wild violence.

To Gendry, the skies revealed the beauty of the world of the Gods and the magnificence of the realms built by men far greater than a humble bastard-born lordling could ever hope to be. He did far too much thinking for his own good in the air, though it made his head hurt, but he couldn’t help but relive the wondrous and terrifying things he witnessed in the North. There were always rumors that the spider bites that killed the male Redwyne infants were the work of Wargs sent by the hand. After my stay at Sea dragon keep… Winterfell and Wintertown were beautiful, and Lord Stark and Lady Stark warm and gracious even if Lady Stark was strained in her hospitality (Lady Lysa had warned him of this.), Lady Rhaella was as kind and wise and fierce as Queen Cersei pretended she was, and he saw where King Daemon got his sense of pragmatism and wit, for he was the son of the old Lady Stark’s sister. Princess Daenerys was interesting, uprooted from the place of her birth, wherein she came into the world during the sack of King’s Landing by Lords Tywin Lannister and Tully. He expected a child as sullen and hard as his uncle Stannis, yet she was gracious, warm, and friendly and introduced Jon Storm, the Stark bastard, as “Your brother in name.” He liked Jon; they had bonded over their status as bastards. He was grateful that Lady Lysa was kind to him after he proved himself (and she hadn’t been cruel to him before that. She treated him as a servant, and he was apprenticed to master Noye, thus making him a servant.). Gendry offered him a place in his household should he not find one in the North (Once castle Greystorm was finished anyway.), but it was Robb and Arya Stark with whom Gendry truly bonded. Like him, Robb was a natural with a sword and shockingly good for a future high lord (Who often had to balance martial education with sums and figures and politics.), he spoke the common tongue well, and as Gendry was still learning High Valyrian was immensely gratified for it. Robb promised to journey to visit castle Greystorm when it was finished at the end of the year, and they could attend a tourney in the South together.

Greywind was a remarkable animal, and Gendry found himself the new favorite plaything of the Direwolf pups who tackled him and wrestled with him and little Rickon, who clung to his leg or hung from his back like one of those lemurs of the Dothraki sea. The Starks were a loving family, something he had at Storm’s End but never had in the years before. And Robb agreed to let me fashion scaled armor for Greywind, and little Bran has the makings of a better sword than myself or Robb. Arya and Jon would be natural dragon riders when the eggs Winter laid hatch finally, assuming they can bond with a dragon. He still couldn’t believe he had won the affection of Stormwind. The young grey dragon was an ill-tempered savage that only avoided being hunted down and riddled with arrows while still an infant because he favored hunting dolphin to sheep and cattle, and one or two were enough to sustain him for months at a time especially when he gorged himself on schools of fish between feastings. Shiera told him he made his lair in a system of hidden caves on the cliffs ad hillsides near Storm’s End. Taking the ghastly shipbreaker bay as his kingdom, he hunted the schools of pilot whales that frequented the seas not so far from Shipbreaker Bay. Below him, Stormwind shifted, sensing the change in his heartbeat as he recalled their first encounter. He had spent months watching the dragon determining where he’d made his lair, and then another moon’s turn leaving roast fish and salted and cooked venison out at the mouth of his cave. He could still remember the frustration when Aurane Waters seizing on his hard work, attempted to enter the caves claiming to be the mysterious benefactor that left him all those meals.

But Stormwind knew better, and the Velaryon bastard was sent running for his life, a wave of white fire surging behind him, his cape alight, and one of those ridiculous feathers he kept on his wide-brimmed hat singed to nothing but a blackened quill. He’d hopped back on his rowboat and scuttled away, slinking back to the Blackfyre fleet for which he plied his ancestral trade as a captain. At least he had an ancestral trade. Gendry thought at the time; no one ushered him into the smithy save for the Lord Hand. Lord Aenar had been good to him, but he was terrifying in his own way. Gendry had entered the caves then, adorned in his simple blacksmiths smock, trousers, and a thick beat-up tunic that smelled of coal and ash—hoping that the smell of his forge and the sea might convince the dragon that they were both of salt and smoke. Perhaps it worked, or Stormwind merely recognized his scent from the gifts. But the dragon bellowed, and the cave walls shook, and it was all Gendry could do to keep from soiling his breeches.

He'd walked through a cave larger than a city block in King’s Landing. He was entering an even larger secondary chamber, with only the flickering light of his torch and the blue glint of Stormwind’s eyes. In the dark, the light of his torch and Stormwind’s eyes seemed to reflect one another, forming an unnatural beacon. The cave’s walls glittered with pearls and seashells, fossils of seals and walruses, and what looked like a sea serpent and a pool of clear blue sea water shimmered in the torchlight. There were bones at the bottom of the pool that belonged to something that might have been manlike but wasn’t a man at all if the fangs and unusually elongated jaws and heads were any indication. Not that Gendry knew much about anatomy, but he knew enough to take measurements for suits of armor and helms, and it caused a chill to creep up Gendry’s spine. There were runes of the First men and father, and Steffon later told him they believed this was one of the roots of the castle; there was a power in there that Stormwind seemed to derive nourishment from and that seemed to derive power from Stormwind in turn. He felt as though he’d stepped into another world, another time.

And something was watching them both, whispering and calling his name and telling him to go forward and seize his destiny. He was at once terrified and excited, and when Stormwind opened his mouth Gendry, lacking the Valyrian words to command, the dragon merely knelt and extended a hand.

The flames erupted over his head, and his hand would be red and sore for a time, but Gendry was used to the forge and held firm. Eventually, he felt a snout nuzzle his stinging, aching hand.

And when Gendry departed those caves, he did so on dragon back.

His father and siblings had embraced him and cheered, but Lady Lysa looked hateful and angry, murderous and mad. He never forgot that look, no matter how kind she was to him now.

The wind caused his raven-black hair to flutter, wildly becoming a mess of tangles that he knew would need to be cut out later. He had departed Winterfell with a silk-lined cloak whose shoulders were covered in the fur of a red wolf and gloves made from doe hide. Kingly gifts for a bastard, Gendry wore them now as they shielded himself against the cold better than his traditional garb. The letter and its contents played through his mind; I cannot trust a raven little boy. Lady Lysa always called him that; she was beautiful and had shed most of the weight from her pregnancies better than most women her age. Auburn hair and pale blue eyes framed a face that revealed Targaryen ancestry; she was kind and loving to him, but there were moments when he feared her smiles, and the glint in her eyes seemed almost like the look of a reptile. She claimed to love him like a son, that she had been so distant and commanding because Robert sending for him from the capitol hurt her, but then she saw how loyal he’d been to Steffon and how gallant he was saving her from bandits and felt ashamed. Am I the son she never had? Or a well-trained attack dog for her son? Well, he was born in flea bottom, and Lord Seaworth made a good point “Don’t fret, even if the lady loves you like a favorite hound, that’s more than most of these Highborns love their children half the time and more than we get in the bottom between bowls of brown.”

It was true, Gendry thought. He accepted the wisdom, ceased fretting over it, and was glad for that as he seen what overthinking one’s position in a family had done to Jon Storm. Much of what he’d seen in the North confused him, the Starks were loving, but at Sea Dragon Keep, he saw a family that loved each other yet saw each other as assets in a merchant’s game. The Aetheryon’s were a cold people, and he was glad to be in the air and on his way home. The most magical part of his trek home was when Lord Howland Reed invited him to sup with his family and stay the night at Greywater watch when he landed in the swamps of the neck for a night. The crannogmen had come out of nowhere; even Stormwind hadn’t sensed them. Small men, whom he towered over, but there was a dangerous glint in their eyes and a power in the swamps of the Neck older than the lineage of his Dragon. Stormwind felt that…I could tell.

“Come, young lord, you’re like as not to die from a bug bite or a poisoned frog brushing up against you in the night.”

Lord Reed was a gracious host if quiet. His son Jojen unnerved him but in a way that filled him with wonder and not dread. And Greywater watch was a magical place, a floating castle that wasn’t quite a castle, and he wasn’t even sure if Stormwind could address it properly with his flames. Even Dragons fire seemed to yield to the Neck, and Stormwind spent the night atop Greywater watch, keen eyes on the darkness of the swamps below as if he sensed…something out there that a young dragon like himself should be wary of. On the flight home, he wondered if the rumors spread by Lord Tyrell that Ol’Lord Aenar had used wargs to murder the male Redwyne infants in their sleep were not entirely unfounded. From the way he heard the tale, the Northern navy hit the Redwyne fleet so hard they lost half their ships, and cries for surrender were ignored by Admiral Monterys Aetheryon (who descended upon the fleet with Daeros and did not let up until there was nothing left) and Wyman Manderly. It was a small wonder that Vhagar was loved by the current Redwyne fleet (Or rather the Arbor fleet as it was now called.) and the merchants of the Arbor. But then again, Lord Davos and Uncle Stannis were strange men who, in their absolutism, won loyalty that they ought not to have won and then held such loyalties for longer than a man ought to. Then again, Maester Cressen says the vendettas of the Reach are bitter and involve blood ties. Stannis may not be of the Reach, but many a Storm King wed Gardener maids, and his wife is a Redwyne, which is more than the house of the former Stewards of Highgarden can say.

There was a danger in that, being an outsider with at least one dragon, sent to cow a vassal who overextended himself. Any other man might quickly become a pawn in another’s game, or so Gendry saw it anyway. What little he knew of the intrigue of high lords reminded him so much of flea bottom gangs and their feuds that he was surprised no bard had ever written a song on the matter nor any fool make such into a series of jests. Thinking made his head hurt, and he was glad to see the great drum tower of Storm’s End from the air, and he felt himself smile as he saw the shapes of his half-sister and lady Lysa waving to him.

I’m home.

……

Against the current.

If there was one thing the loss of her first child and the hollowness of Petyr’s words of comfort taught her was that there was no such thing as happiness in this world. Or that is to say, Lysa Tully of the House Baratheon learned the hard lesson that she would never be a happy woman unless she forced the world to conform to her desires. Cat settled herself with Winterfell and the immense Northern Kingdom and all its mysteries and wealth; her Goodbrother Stannis contented himself with spiting House Tyrell with his very existence and increasing the wealth of the Arbor and the shield isles as much as he could to ensure he was remembered as the best Lord of “that realm of useless country gentry and cattle lords.” He had ever seen because he never shirked any duty, and King Daemon and her lord husband had charged him with founding a Baratheon dynasty that would one day see a cadet branch usurp and assimilate Highgarden in retribution for their crimes during the rebellion.

She admired Stannis, but he was not a man capable of the deception her Petyr was, nor was he capable of the charisma of her Lord Husband. But she had learned a valuable lesson from each man in her life; Petyr taught her the sobering power of heartbreak that dashed her innocence and revealed how childish and stunted she was. Lord Stannis taught her that she was utterly ignorant of the way of the world. Her lord father taught her that even if the seven proscribed slavery, a noble was little more than chattel with the right to use violence against the smallfolk who were genuinely free (And the condition of freedom was filth, violence, and brief lives.) and her Lord husband, Robert Baratheon taught her the value of using the debt owed to friendship and kindness as leverage. He cheated on her, roused her wrath even as she roused his, and in their early marriage, paid for that in bruises. Still, over time both had confided in each other, and she admitted to the loss of the babe, and he confessed to just how much he missed Lyanna and how horrid he was for spurning her. She’d taken his massive bear-like hand into her slender ones and kissed his fight-worn knuckles. It might be that neither of them ever loved the other, but “We are alone against the world, Robert; the King denied you the right to open vengeance against Highgarden while wielding your surviving brother and his children as living weapons against enemies you have a blood right to.” She had told him and my how he thundered and raged at her for daring to put down his foster brother and boyhood friend. Yet she could see something in his eyes told her the rage was halfhearted. “I will be your shield, Robert; let us fight side by side. You with your war hammer and me with my wiles.”

He agreed, but his concept of being a shield meant that he needed to enrich the Storm Lands to the same degree that the Reach and the West were so that he could begin raising a proper army (Robert wanted to prepare to move to back up Stannis in case any fighting started but Lysa had other plans.)Robert, of course, couldn’t work sums to save his life, and while Lysa would traditionally ask Petyr for help, she knew she couldn’t. Not when it was clear he was no better than her lord father and would embezzle everything he could. And unlike Cat, where lord Tully did educate her at least halfway, she had to learn everything from scratch, and her first ventures were a disaster. Then she picked up an old book on economics by a rather unscrupulous money lender exiled from Braavos, and everything began to fall into place. First, she acquired an outrageous loan from Braavos and bought up almost all the seasonal yield of the poppy from Dorne. Then when scarcity hit, it sold for a hundred times the cost, and people bought it.

Tycho Nestoris, the iron bank envoy, said no one had ever repaid the Iron bank so swiftly. She was able to purloin that into another loan with a lower interest that she used to finance a project by Qyburn, a disgraced Maester in her employ across the narrow sea. He found a way to boil bittercane with a simple powdered tonic used to address pain in the belly after meals to create a hyper-concentrated version of the bittercane, which became so popular amongst the wealthy and the whores and the sellswords in the free cities (Even those under Westerosi control.) that she was receiving shipments of gold, silver, silks and rare spices through the ports of the Stormlands regularly. I’ll have to find a way to disperse those funds through other Kingdoms and proxies to redirect them to Storm’s End safely. I must also ensure that this “sweetsmoke” doesn’t reach our shores. I mislike the…changes it makes to the mind and body of those who partake in it.

Not that she cared if certain foreigners debauched themselves into an early grave or if any decadent lord of the seven Kingdoms made a series of similar poor choices, but she wouldn’t have a plague of depravity and indolence in her own home.

All this, of course, served a purpose. Lysa Baratheon might have struggled to love her lord husband, but she cherished and loved her son and daughter, and yes, even the bastard; on some level, she’d come to love the boy. It would be foolish not to; my son will need him devoted for what’s to come.

Lord Aenar’s death was no accident; it wasn’t old age though he was incredibly ancient. Though I can’t tell if it was the Lannister bitch, my dear Petyr, or his own heir…a great-great-grandson that is as ambitious as a Lannister. Or a faceless man, or perhaps my own lord father. Lord Aenar had blocked several of Hoster’s proposed reforms for taxes on the nobles, and both her lord father and Lord Tywin’s proxies on the council were growing increasingly hostile to the faction that supported King Daemon’s reforms and projects even though they remained in a majority. The builder King was beloved by most of the minor and middle nobility and half the High Lords of the realm. And the smallfolk adore him, the first King whose birth language was not high Valyrian. Robert didn’t care for politics, nor did she, apart from how to better wield it to protect her children.

Ours is the fury.

Family, duty, honor.

Her lord husband was convinced there would be war soon, sooner than anticipated, and he believed it wouldn’t start with the east. And so Lysa would use the harsh lessons taught to her by the men in her life to build herself a dynasty of furiously loyal dragon riders that would be untouchable for a thousand years. Though, if she had her way, her heirs would never sit upon the Iron Throne. That way lay madness; unless you were a Targaryen or Blackfyre, that demonic monstrosity of a chair would devour you whole. But if they were the men and women whose fire and fury and sense of duty were the underpinnings of the realm, then my children and grandchildren would have the power to protect themselves and the means to remain useful, and through that…

She allowed herself to breathe; the serving girl was done fastening her cloak. She stared at herself in the reflective piece of Myrish glass. Her eyes were less dark; her skin hadn’t fully adjusted to all the lost weight. I was lost and stupid for so long. It was ironic that the final ingredient to the potion that shocked her out of long sleep was a bastard, but the boy’s loyalty to her son and daughter was without question. Though he doesn’t fully trust me, I think. And she couldn’t blame him, she thought as the servant finished laying out her curly auburn hair, letting it drape along her back. The red contrasted with the black and gold of House Baratheon’s colors more vividly than it ever did with Tully blues and reds. When she turned to leave for the roof, Lysa stopped to look at the portraits of Lord Robert and herself and a newborn Steffon—sleeping motionlessly in her arms. Yes, a part of her did love Gendry because it was preferable to champion a bastard and mold it so that the bastard’s loyalty was unquestionably tied to its trueborn siblings than if you raised it in neglect and sullenness.

Catelyn Tully would one day be devoured by Winter under Jon Storm’s orders, even if they came out of Robb’s mouth. Of that, she was confident, but Gendry Greystorm would rule over the Ranwood down to Weeping Town and do it well in his brother’s name, and when any vassal raised an unseemly implication about if it was Riverrun or Storm’s End that ruled the Storm Lands as they had before.

Well, Steffon would have his own personal Gregor Clegane in the form of the Lord of Greystorm castle.

Standing at the top of the tower of Storm’s End, taking in the sea salt-rich air and the smell of thousands of years of history, she looked to Shiera and smiled. Auburn hair and blue eyes, but Baratheon in all the ways that counted.

She took another deep, long breath as half-siblings hugged, and then her daughter squealed when Gendry presented her with seeds of the winter rose. Lya Tully of House Baratheon took in the power, majesty, and might of the ancient castle and all the history that lay within every stone and brick and in her lord husband and his blood, and she smiled. This had been a place of might so great it resisted the tempest wrath of the Storm God and sheltered Elenei, the daughter of the storm. Duran’s Godsgrief rebelled against the very gods and broke the power of the storms to shelter and shield her lady love.

This time, it would be the lady love shielding the mighty lord and his brood when the storm broke.

Family, duty, honor.

Being a Tully wasn’t always easy.

But when things went to plan.

She would allow herself to enjoy it.

Chapter Text

The boy

He skidded across the polished granite floor of the central keep, having rounded a corner too swiftly and without time to correct. Barreling into an old suit of armor put on display, sending a cascade of vambraces gorgets, a cuirass, and gauntlets sprawling about the floor in a wild crash which was followed by the loud yelping and barking growling as summer ever Bran’s shadow came crashing into him, what was left of the armor and the tapestry behind it. A helm fell onto his head, and Bran lifted the comically oversized piece of armor and tried to get a look at the name engraved on the helm, only for the tapestry to cover them both and partially block out the light.

Cregan Stark…uh, oh

He’d just knocked the armor of the man behind the Hour of the Wolf and the only Stark to serve as the hand of the King over. And, by the sounds of it, had scattered said armor all over the grand entrance to a row out of laughter from the men and women of the Northern court. How could he help himself? Dragons were coming! Gods Old and New! Four of the original seven would be here! The Dragons who brought Myr to heel and forced Volantis to sign the treaty of repentance and abolition. Who fought in the rebellion and overthrew the mad King and the younger ones, all accomplished in their own ways, minus the youngest. Vaegon and Daeros. The bane of the Iron Islands and scourge of pirates everywhere, who burned so many iron men it’s said their male population was reduced by half! Maelos, Winter, and Argella went beyond the wall when they were young, and would Terrax come? He was the mountain king in the vale named after the legendary dragon that helped his rider map Sothoryos. And Stormwind was returning! That was the only other dragon Bran had ever gotten close to, and while Winter tolerated him, she seemed to have warmth only for Arya. The tremendous young dragon, however? He nuzzled Bran’s chest and called to him in that shriek of welcome as though he recognized something in Bran. I did too! That night, I dreamt of storms, angry gods, high castles, and old magic.

Bran slowly picked himself back up, rising and holding the helm of Lord Cregan up to his face. He ended the last embers of the dance in blood and withdrew back to the North. Lord Aenar knew him; he said Robb resembles Cregan Stark and Daeron the Second more than he does Hoster Tully. The Hand’s death was the talk of the city, and Winterfell, many of his cousins, and his uncles (At least he assumed they were all family, they all had the name Snow. They could be anyone’s bastard.) said they feared ‘old Lord Hand. Bran had only met him once, he smelled of perfumes and had piercing eyes and a regal face with high cheekbones and a full head of thick white hair, but he wasn’t scary. There was a power in him, though, no one could deny that, and he overheard his father asking his mother and grandmother in a baffled tone how someone could kill him. He had two Wargs with him in King’s Landing always, and the Captain of the Goldcloaks is one as well, and Aenar uncovered the Maester’s plot. How could anyone catch him unawares? Was your sister playing us false?

“He was ancient, my love.” That was grandmother

Suddenly his thoughts turned from excitement at seeing the dragons to concern for his family, and the youth couldn’t understand why. Bran swallowed thickly, there were times when he dreamed, but unlike Arya, they weren’t vivid or distinct; they were a haze of whispers and foggy images and the laughing caw of a crow; they scared him, but lately, they had been a comfort. As if the haze was lifted, Bran could finally see glimpses beyond the curtain of his dreams. When he found out the old lord died, the dreams grew in intensity, and he could more than just the laughter of a crow. Sometimes they came while he was awake. Was something coming?

What do you think? Asked a voice that was old and young at once, soft as a whisper and loud like thunder.

Bran whipped around, eyes wide, only to find a very confused Summer up on his feet, hackles raised and eyes blazing with a protective ferocity that a pup oughtn’t to be capable of. “Careful with that little brother.” Bran’s eyes shifted upwards and found Robb smiling warmly at Bran, his auburn hair nearly cut and styled and loose about his shoulders but for a few small braids that Sansa had done for him that went down his shoulders and draped across his chest. He was wearing grey steel armor that was brightly polished, the white Direwolf of House Stark emblazoned on his cuirass.  Winterfang rested on his left side, and Robb was wearing a grey cloak with white fur around its neck, clasped by a silver broach with a wolf chasing a dragon chasing a trout around a piece of amber.

Robb’s personal standard, which he would ride to battle flying under the great banner of his father if their father had to call his banners to address the King beyond the wall. Beside him, Jon was wearing all black as usual and leather armor with mail below it. Does he mean to wear the Targaryen colors? Part of him wanted his brother to don Stark colored, but he knew mother would have a fit. Jon said that since he was born in the Stormlands, he would honor his ancestral lands while honoring the North by wearing the gray of house Stark intermingled with black But never the wolf. Mother would never allow that.

There was a dark green sash around his waist, silk and tied so that it held his daggers and sword, and Bran quirked his head at it, the odd coloration choice that the ordinarily austere Jon would never go for.

Daenerys wasn’t far behind the pair walking with Sansa and Arya; she was wearing a Northern summer gown, simple with no long tails or tresses but elegant in its making, for it was done in the finest linens tight about the neck in the Eastern style that was crimson in color, with a broach of House Targaryen below a symbol of Houses Stark and Blackfyre, a slender cape covered her shoulders in Targaryen black, and it was lined with mink. She looked like a princess and not a hostage. We all love her like a sister, but she’s a hostage just as much as father’s ward. Bran suppressed a frown. He did not like to think of her that way…

And the King would marry her off soon.

Bran felt his stomach turn, but it went away just as quickly as Dany knelt and embraced the youth. “Good morning, Brandon! And summer!” she added, scratching the Direwolf’s ear, making its big hind food thump. Sansa was followed by her Direwolf, named Lady, who was the smallest of the litter but had a reserve of strength in her yellow eyes that matched what grandmother said resided in his sister. “We’re all here.”

But for Rickon, whom their mother was carrying to the grand stairs. Rickon was too little to stand patiently. As she passed, she smiled at all of her children and ward until her eyes settled on Jon, and they became cold and remote, and she moved away. Why does she hate him but like other bastards?

“If Gendry returns, I should like to spar with him again.” Dragons flew fast, and he would likely have arrived back at the royal caravan this morning. And Argella was sighted in the wolf’s wood last night! Lord Robert is already here!

Robert Baratheon was one of the men called the three heroes of the Blackfyre Rebellion (Or The second Dance of the Dragons.), The first was King Daemon, who crushed the Targaryen host that attempted to conquer Dragonstone and Hightide, and when his father died fighting Mad Aerys in the skies over Summerhall had taken Maelos as his mount and launched the successful raids into Dorne that kept the might of the southernmost Kingdom from crossing the marches and entering the war on the side of the Red Dragons. It was said he slew the Lord of High hermitage in personal combat and was responsible for the ailment and frailty afflicting the Lord of Starfall, but none said how. Though, if the field of black glass in the bone mountains was real, it is easy to see what happened; Maelos descended upon them and belched hid black and red flames until not was left was bone and molten sand, and Lord Dayne escaped with terrible burns. He is Ashara’s elder brother and overlord of the former Sword of the Morning. Maybe he caused Jon’s mother’s death in grief.

The Quiet wolf, for his father’s deeds, and he seldom talked of them, but the books said he was the greatest General on the side of the rebels, a master of war who defeated the feared Randyll Tarly and, in doing so avenged Jon Arryn’s death (Though was Lord Robert and Argella who maimed Lord Tarly). Maester Luwin said the Targaryen cause was doomed not because the rebels controlled more dragons but because of his father’s skill at war and Lord Robert.

The man who slew Syrax and Rhaegar avenging his aunt Lyanna’s honor.  Lord Jon and Prince Valarr called their banners because of Robert, the outrage of Rhaegar’s abduction of Lyanna. Knowing their foster sons would ride to war even if it was just the three of them. And Lord Robert ended the last of the Red Dragons at the trident.

Not the last.

Bran smiled as he looked at Dany; actually, not the last. And one other.

“Will you be all right?” Robb asked Dany protectively, rubbing her shoulder in the way he would when Sansa and Arya fought, and one of them was in tears. Beside her, Arya rolled her eyes. “She’s not a coward Robb.”

“I know she isn’t underfoot.” Robb teased with a wry grin as Arya glared at him mockingly. Beside her, Ygritte had come up, adorned in the black and burgundy of House Giantsbane and a Stark Direwolf on her surcoat. She had a long Dornish spear in hand, and her eyes were focused and fierce as though she was already plotting ways to skewer the first arrogant southerner who dared to act uncouth towards her charge. Bran thought Ygritte was beautiful and wondered if he would ever be worthy of a woman like her. Dany laughed, patting Arya on the shoulder in gratitude. “I thank you both; in truth, I’m nervous. I know the King and prince Daeron from letters and my nieces Visenya and Rhaenys from when Lord Stark took me to Sea Dragon Point, but what of the Queen? And Princess Rhaenyra and Prince Tommen? And I’ve never met Lord Robert, his trueborn son, or Lord Stannis.”

“Lord Stannis isn’t coming,” Sansa said suddenly, causing Robb to look at her curiously. “How do you know that.”. His sister flushed and smiled at Robb. “Because, unlike you, I correspond with some of our allies.” She said, trying to sound more grown up than she was and failing to do more than imitate mother, causing Arya to laugh. “Well, Lady Shireen, anyway, remember when Lord Davos came to visit to sign those trade deals with the arbor and the shield isles? He asked me to look in on her; he seems to care for her as though she were his own daughter.” Bran remembered Lord Seaworth, the Lord of Greyshield; his mother hadn’t been very welcoming to him at first due to his low birth and past as a criminal. But he won her over with charm, and Grandmother and father had been taken with him. His simple wisdom was born not from education but from years of experience on both sides of the law and having seen much more of the world than most great lords.

He was one of the few men to have also sailed to Yeen, sailed there, and come back alive. Only a handful of Westerosi sailors had done that! Not even the Sea snake did that! His tales kept him up well passed his bedtime, mind feverish with images of great apes and deep jungles, pirate kings, and Saans.

“Do you know why her Lord father isn’t coming?” Jon asked, frowning. “No,” Sansa said, then quirked her head. “W..why?”

“It’s curious,” Jon asked suddenly. “Lord Stannis isn’t coming; the King doesn’t choose your grandfather Lord Tully, Lord Tywin, or Lord Arryn as Hand. And the King arrives in force, with most of the court, and summons the Lord of the Iron Islands as well?”

“The Imp is coming here?”  “ARYA!” Sansa and Dany chided at once, causing both of his elder brothers to laugh. The Greyjoy rebellion was the last time all three heroes of the rebellion fought together.   And the Ironborn, needing five Dragons to put down…

The history of House Greyjoy was a fascinating one; they had resisted house Hoare, believing their conquests of the mainland would result in the dilution of Ironborn blood and culture and fearing the Sea Kings of the North (And later as vassals for House Stark. The power of the Winter navy.). For that, they were expelled along with all of their followers. The Krakens abandoned the isles, sailing into the South and vanishing from history for a hundred years until swan ships of the Summer Isles with black and gold sails began to appear at ports from Asshai to White Harbor. Later, it was discovered that the Greyjoys and their followers had conquered the Summer Isles and ruled it as their Iron Kingdom. Though eventually, rebellions and intermarrying over the centuries reduced House Greyjoy’s control of the island of Walano. Orys Baratheon had enlisted them in his brother’s war of conquest, and while the main line of Kraken princes of Walano refused, the father of Vickon Grejoy and many of the descendants of their vassals set sail. Subjugating the Iron islands and cutting off house Hoare from its base before their annihilation at Harrenhal. Over the next fifty years, the Greyjoys would pay the iron price for their lordship over that kingdom, and the ironborn were fanatically loyal to the black swan ships and those who captained them.

Of course, five dragons would be a second doom if three dragons broke their empire. Luwin had said. Nearly half the menfolk of the Islands were dead, the Iron fleet in its entirety was sent to the bottom of the sea, and the forces of the Westerlands did things that no one wanted to describe to him.

Tyrion Lannister paid the Iron price as his Lord father forced him to participate in the final battle hoping a tower of Pyke would fall on his head and Lord Daemon making Tyrion the founder of his own branch of Lannister.

Sea lions.

The Grejoys, with their dark skin and golden or steel-colored eyes, and the golden imp. “Why are they coming here?” Bran asked.

“I don’t know,” Robb muttered, his features grave as if in thought. “Father did not mention any of this to us…Only told us to remain guarded.”

Ygritte laughed. “You kneelers are no different from us Freefolk where it counts ‘Spose.” It seemed obvious to her, and when she pointed it out, all his siblings had the decency to look chastened.  “It’s like when a chief fights his raiders to show he’s still the strongest man in the band.”

“You think this is a display of dominance?” Robb asked. “That’s what she just said,” Arya muttered, exasperated, earning a glare from Robb. “Aye, but why.”

“A good question, m’lord, one you need t’be ask’n yerself while they’re here,” Ygritte said in a guarded tone, her pale blue eyes blazing like tiny candles. Dany seemed about to speak, but there was a hiss, and they turned to see mother beckoning everyone.

It’s time!

Chapter Text

The Dragon King

…….

Jon felt uncomfortable, standing at the base of the stairs beside Bran. I don’t belong here, I’m no Stark, and Lady Catelyn will be angry later. He was going to be thrown out of the castle and the city; he was sure of it. While it was typical for bastards of note to be presented alongside their half-siblings during important events and celebrated when they entered one of the civil services (Jon had tried to apply for work in the order of the Wolves, but the Grandmaster of the order Domeric Snow told him to wait a year and gain more skill with a blade and a flail.), Lady Stark never liked it when he was beside her children and would often fight with Lord Stark about later, which caused grief between them and guilt for him. My life burdens her, but I’m tired of feeling at fault. Dany is right; I can no longer let that be an anchor about my neck. Telling yourself that and living by it were two different matters; it was hard to let go of years of guilt, and part of him still felt as though he was legitimizing her recriminations by allowing himself to let go. As he felt her stare boring into the side of his head, wishing him death, she made it easier for him to let that guilt fall by the wayside. Ignoring the quiet fury, he turned to look at father, who looked splendid. He wore a circlet of silver on his forehead woven with direwolves, dragons, and trouts and a falcon for old Jon Arryn. The man for whom he was named and one of the two men who started the Blackfyre rebellion. He wore the Valyrian steel armor set given to him after the war’s end, its gray scales with white swirls that came together to form a white Direwolf made of smoke and flame on his chest. Ice was at his back, and his long gray cape billowed in the wind. He was dressed both as a warrior and a warden, welcoming the King to his center of military and political power in the North and the man who ruled in his name.

His heir, Robb, stood at father’s right, and Daenerys Targaryen, the last Dragon, at his left, Resplendent and every bit the personification of her house’s exotic beauty and power. The North became very wealthy since the Valyrians came, not as much as the Reach or the West. And that wealth is on display here, even if it is subdued.

The gentry of Wintertown was arrayed along the street of mammoths, the main road entering Wintertown and leading to the mouth of the central keep, wealthy merchants and guildsmen, adventurers and masters of mining towns, and the rural gentry who were the wealthiest of the farming and ranching smallfolk appointed to act as elders, mayors and arbiters on behalf of the nobility to the smallfolk and the Knightly houses who came up North seeking wealth and glory and now owned storehouses, granaries and textile mills. The Greatjon Umbar stood like a sentinel tower beside Archmaester Norridge, who ran the Northern Citadel, the smallest of the “branches of oldtown.” And beside them, dressed in a toga of purple, the ancient Mag the Mighty, the chief of the builders and mammoth herders on Umber lands, chief amongst the giants!. ..Ygritte was right. The King has come in force as a display, and the father responds in kind. Is this so both men can remind the realm of the strength House Blackfyre commands? Or is the King…

No, Jon wouldn’t allow himself to think of such things and told himself it wasn’t because he feared he’d conjure them into being for thinking of them in the first place. Hexes aren’t real…my life isn’t cured.

Ten thousand people, all here to witness the coming of the King. He could see them from windows, balconies, street corners, and alleys. Ghost sat by his side, and Jon turned and noticed each of the Direwolves of the Stark children was seated beside them; even shaggydog stood by Lady Stark. Greywind and Warden sat below their masters, the shadows of the immense direwolf statues that flanked the stairs and the two enormous bronze direwolves that stood on each a paw raised and their mouths open in howling on giant plinths that flanked the great ironwood doors to the central keep. The living symbol of your house father and in the shadows of stone and bronze. A testament to the majesty of the North, you must hate this.

Father looked uncomfortable; he hated pomp, even practical pageantry. Jon didn’t mind it, though he understood why his lord father shunned it. For the last thousand years, people have scarcely died from starvation and the elements in winter. It did happen, to be sure, like in the Vale; mountain and hill clans tended to keep their ancient customs and suffered hardships when they didn’t descend into Wintertown. Some of the giants would die, the very old and the eldest mammoths that lacked the strength towards the neck. In the gift and new gift, the smallfolk and landed Knights sworn to police the demesnes of the Nights Watch often experienced fatalities among the sick and elderly because of the proximity to the wall. But that didn’t stop seven thousand years of hard lessons learned in bleak winters from carrying into a better age. And there is wisdom in it as well; the number of silver stags and gold dragons wasted on this ceremony could have fed half a thousand people in winter for nine months.

Jon was probably underestimating that number, he realized.

There was a shriek, a far-off cry that Jon recognized. Winter… It was followed by a very different cry, a roar so deep and rich that it sounded like the clarion call of a thousand, thousand war horns which caused gasps and murmurs in the shocked crowd. A shadow passed over the ground, snaking up the city street until it eclipsed the palace, circled, and then landed on one of the towers of the outer walls. Winter’s white hide glistened in the sun, and she let out a roar of welcome, her mighty tail swishing in the air as she belched out a white fire streaked across the sky. Lady Rhaella lifted her spear into the air, her Valyrian armor shining bright, making her look like a warrior queen of old. People cheered their lady, the queen of winter. Their lady of the North, their ice dragon.

And then they came. First, small ash and the grey-colored dragon the size of a horse barded with the reds, and dark blues in wavy patterns of House Tully wrought in metal by Master Mott of King’s Landing. A prominent trout on its underbelly made six passes around the city, winding and spiraling, diving like a falcon only to right itself a hundred feet from the ground, rising rapidly into the air and vomiting indigo-colored flames as the crowd cheered and roared. The ears of the direwolves perked up, and Jon wondered why; the dragon was gallant looking and young and proud, but he shared the dismissive look on his father’s face, and Lady Stark shared the laugh of incredulity that escaped Dany’s mouth. All of us agree on this; what a breach, then. Dragons aren’t trick ponies or pretty talking birds to be treated so. So, this is Aerax, the dragon of House Tully…he’s quite a showman.

As that dragon departed pair of armored dragons began to enter the outskirts of the city, crossing the outer curtain walls and roaring in a challenge at the heavens above them. One was a brilliant orange and gold with the same-colored flames and a tail that ended in a kite-like membrane, and on its back was a woman, either seven and ten or eight in ten. She was armored as the Dragon riders of old, and he could make out silver-gold streaks in her hair as she passed Winterfell and let out the ululating warrior’s cry associated with the Dornish descended from the Rhoynar. Matchings its movements from above was a much larger dragon that shimmered like fine silver; it had a long snout with a beaklike tip with a horned spike and two long fangs—Daeros Kraken eater. Monterys Aetheryon had been his rider once, and it was said he feasted his dragon on the flesh Aeron Greyjoy and Balon’s sons Rodrik, Maron and little Theon and their mother, the lady Alannys Harlaw. House Aetheryon fights wars as they did in the Freehold. Jon shuddered at the memory of hid father's rage when a traveling bard sang a song that made that into a boast. Had Monterys not been slain by Victarion, my father would have taken his head.

The other must be Dawn, and the girl riding this one looks identical to the first but with platinum streaks.

The daughters of Rhaegar Targaryen, Princess Rhaenys, and Princess Visenya. When their flames mixed, the crowd cheered loudly, and Jon smiled. The North might remember, but everyone knew the bloodied state Princess Elia of Dorne and her daughters were in and the brutal fight as Brynden Tully, Tormund Giantsbane, and his Lord father faced down and slew Ser Gregor Clegane and two other knights whose names the young Storm couldn’t remember. They were held blameless for their father’s madness, and while not as well-loved as their aunt or his grandmother, many an old warrior who entered King’s Landing and had to stop the fighting between Lord Hoster and Lord Tywin and their armies were gladdened to see the girls thriving.  They made their pass and were joined by Gendry on mighty Stormwind before they took their spots on an Eastern tower on the outer wall.

Then the skies truly darkened.

Argella was immense compared to her siblings, nearly  one hundred and eighty feet long and with a wingspan twice that. She was dark blue, with bull-like horns rising from the crown of her head and magnificent spikes the length of her back and betwixt a pair, saddled on Baratheon colors, rode an immense tower of a man with long black hair in gold and black armor with a mighty helm with the antlers of a stag fused to the metal, a war hammer in one hand. The demon of the Trident, House Blackfyre’s hound of war. The man the King and my father call brother…the man for whose lost love the fight to end the Targaryen dynasty was started.

Argella made seven passes, one for each Kingdom of Westeros, and when she flew into the air, she let loose her bright blue flame, filling the clouds like lightning. Ser Aerion of House Aetheryon isn’t here…were he and Vaegon left back in King’s Landing to protect the capitol? Why? And each dragon seems to be landing in a place representing the Kingdoms and their locations… Jon frowned and looked up at his father, concern in his eyes.

And then a low rumble broke his concentration, and everyone whipped their heads toward the horizon. Maelos Jon thought in wonder. There was a sudden cascade of black flame that roared through the skies. Straight and dart like it parted the clouds as it dissipated, he came after a few heartbeats. The twin of Aegos, the red and black dragon of Aerys the mad, and with his departure, the strongest of the original seven. Sleek and black, with magnificent horns that rose out of its head. Its wings were long, its tail longer still, and it could be only him with the scarlet underbelly and underwings. The Scourge of Dorne… Jon thought. This dragon that lamed the man who might have been his uncle and its rider killed the Darkstar’s father, the old Lord Dayne of high hermitage.

Daemon was the youngest of his father’s boyhood friends who grew up at the Eyrie, fostered with old Jon Arryn in defiance of the convention of House Blackfyre that the heir should live a year in each Kingdom and then a year in the free cities. For it was said Prince Valarr wanted his son to have the bonds and friendships he had in his youth and was said to be almost as talented with a sword as Robert was with a war hammer. But like Rhaegar, he eschewed martial skills in favor of loving books, scrolls, and music. Though in Daemon’s case, he shared the love the mad King and his predecessors had for engineering. Though not as charismatic as Robert, the King was said to possess an earnestness that won him many friends and fastened them together, for Daemon was a builder. He finished the aqueduct project into Dorne, expanded the trade pact with Leng, and helped make peace between the red faith and the Faith of the Seven in Essos and in King's Landing and Oldtown. Khal Drogo calls him the silver tongued Khal, for he introduced the concept of mercy to Dothraki culture.  Jon remembered seeing a copy of the portrait of King Daemon and Maelos in Vaes Dothrak, paying homage to the Stallion God of the Horse Lords and earning oaths of loyalty to some of the mightiest of Khalassars. A healer, a diplomatic, an advocate of culture and faith, and the smallfolk. A builder King, a black conciliator.

But he was ruthless, too; what was done to the Iron Islands under his orders. Half the male population of the islands dead, and a thousand of their remaining reavers were sent to the wall. He then offered the Summer Isles the chance to send people to settle the islands and moved thousands from flea bottom to the islands to change their culture and blood permanently. And he annihilated a ten-thousand-man army in Dorne from the back of Maelos and then spent the remainder of the war wreaking all sorts of horror on the reach once he found out about the great poisoning by House Tyrell that claimed the life of Renly Baratheon. Highgarden accuses him of killing a quarter of a million smallfolk. Jon thought, of course, when Daemon laid them low; he lifted them back up as he had done with Dorne—allowing them to offer free passage to tens of thousands of Lhazareen to the reach to begin replenishing their lost numbers so that they might adapt the best traits of the farming skills of the lamb men to the wonders of Reach agriculture.

After seven passes, Maelos landed in Builder’s square, the great public park, and square halfway through the main street leading to the central keep.  The world seemed quiet, Jon squinted, and he could see the King rest a gloved hand on Maelos’ snout after dismounting. He isn’t wearing armor. Jon realized, and Robb laughed and remarked at the power of that move politically, even if it was horribly unsubtle. Jon shrugged, he had little patience for the subtleties of governance, and he understood even less. As the King walked through the square, Jon saw him wearing a black tunic with the three-headed dragon of House Blackfyre. However, red stitching accentuated his dragon sigil at the borders of each head and a cloud of flame in tribute to his Targaryen mother and grandmother. As he got closer, Jon could see him clearer. He wore a red robe with black dragons emblazoned on the fabric and black fur on the wrists and the collar. The Valyrian steel dagger with a dragonbone handle that allegedly belonged to Aenar the exile rested on his left hip, and Blackfyre, the sword wielded by the conqueror and given to his namesake Daemon, the founder of House Blackfyre by Aegon the unworthy. His crown was a wide if elegant band of Valyrian steel, the symbols of each of the great houses carved into the metal with seven gems in the colors of the rainbow spacing between each sigil and, at the center, a blood diamond at the heart of a Weirwood, honor red R’hollor and the Old Gods and that was when Jon realized two stallions backed and rising with their hooves in the air flanked the center gem on each side. He heard Catelyn suck in a breath and whisper something that sounded like Blasphemy.

Even Jon knew what that crown meant.

He’s showing the court how many Gods support him or how many Gods he’s triumphed over…The thought disturbed Jon for some reason, hoping it wasn’t the last sentiment and more the first.

If there was one thing to be said of Daemon Blackfyre, he knew how to wield the power of suggestion like no other, for he was soon flanked by Lord Robert, who was half a head taller, yet all eyes were on him. And the Kingsguard is nowhere to be seen..another gesture?

The King walked up the grand stairs first, and Jon felt the King’s amethyst eyes on him; Gods, they were intense. He was vaguely aware of the King’s hand on his shoulder and the words, “A wolf born amongst the Storm, it’s good to meet you, Jon.” In a voice that was deep and rich and lyrical, Jon smiled nervously. “I’m at your service, your grace...” the King smiled mischievously and leaned in to whisper. “Khal, King or Emperor, never tell one of us you’re at our service. You’ve no idea where that service might take you.”  He felt Daemon’s fist gently bump his chin, and despite himself, he laughed. Lady Catelyn is not trying to kill me with her stare.

Someone whispered, “Gods, Lyanna.” And Jon saw the King squeeze Robert’s wrist gently before he continued his walk, mussing Arya Stark’s hair. “You remind us of your aunt; I take it you’re as good a horse as she is?”

“Like the Dothraki Khals, you defeated your grace,” Arya replied boldly.

“But not me?”

“Well…I’ve not ridden a dragon, so I can’t say..your grace…yet.” The King and Lord Robert laughed.

“I like that one; she’s fearless but not stupid,” Robert said in a voice that sounded like thunder. It was easy to see why Lord Robert oversaw training the King’s army alongside Uncle Brynden. When the King met Sansa, he knelt as though she were the mighty queen and he a lowly knight and kissed her hand softly. “You’ve your mother’s beauty and your grandmother’s quiet power dear little lady.” The King said before he inquired to Bran if he still liked to climb to which the youth nodded excitedly. “Who can blame you, when you live in a palace made of bridges and towers that is spread across a city! You remind me of the Lemurs of the great grass sea. They’re so stealthy they used to jump on Maelos’ back and swing off his tail before he noticed.” Bran beamed and when the King met Robb he sized the boy up, doing a mummer’s version of a challenge and then clasped his forearm as though he was greeting a fellow King. “You’re every bit Ned, but I see much of Rickard in you! And from the portraits in the Redkeep some Aegon there too. It is good to meet you, young wolf!”  it was then that Jon noted that he petted each and every direwolf and they allowed him! Even the usually wild Shaggydog thumped his leg eagerly as the king scratched under his chin and made Rickon laugh as he congratulated Lady Stark for her wonderful family and then hugged Daenerys whispering something in High Valyrian in a fatherly tone that made her nearly weep. But not in sorrow or shame or insult, whatever he said must have been incredibly kind because he’d never seen her smile so brightly. Then he turned to father and there was a moment of silent sadness as though both men mourned something lost between them and in the space of that hesitancy Jon wondered if his actions during the Greyjoy rebellion hadn’t strained their friendship. It was moot though because the King remarked that Lord Stark had gotten fat to which father replied, “Not everyone is perfect your grace.”

That caused an eruption of laughter from all three men who embraced simultaneously as brothers.

And so it was, the three men who changed the world forever fulfilling the will of Aegon the unlikely and their solemn vow to Lyanna to make a better world for their children’s children were reunited for the first time in nearly ten years.

History was being made here and a bastard was right in the middle of it.

Chapter Text

The Wolf and the Warg

“We’re going to be burning through five hundred gold dragons per week if today’s procession is any indication, my lord. Lord Baratheon has a prodigious thirst. Between him and the Umber delegation, we’ve depleted our stores of arbor gold, and feeding the dragons is depleting our stock of whale meat…which in and of itself will take two years to replenish.” Half a thousand in gold per day. Ned reached up to rub the bridge of his nose; five hundred war horses or five thousand footmen, one hundred thousand bushels of corn, or fifty thousand bushels of wheat; those were just some of the things such exorbitant funds could be used to purchase. Enough to feed several towns for a year. This is what it cost to host the damn royal court, and Ned was glad that the North was prosperous, or this entire endeavor would beggar the realm. “The Mag drinks Dornish red by the barrel.” Vayon Poole continued, sounding like a man about to be led to the block or a gibbet. The young Chief of Stewards looked haggard, far older than his twenty-three years, with bags under his eyes and pale skin from fatigue. In the candlelight, he seemed almost corpse-like, and the other stewards had taken to jesting by calling him “Vayon the wight,” much to his fury.

Perched on a drawer in the far side of his solar, Prince Jacaerys, heir of the Narrow Sea domains of House Blackfyre, gave an understanding sigh. “House Blackfyre of the Narrow Sea, Stepstones and Tyrosh, lord of the waves and master of the tides, etc., shall happily front a quarter of the remaining expenses.” He said, his tone conciliatory and her violet eyes flickering oddly in lights provided by the braziers and candles. He was always a talkative youth but remained silent and observant since the arrival of the King. No, Ned thought since the arrival of queen Cersei.

Ned mistrusted the Lannisters; when the last of the red dragon’s hosts were broken, and Rhaegar was slaughtered over the Trident, an army led by Hoster Tully, his goodfather and commanded by Ned, marched to take King’s Landing. They arrived to find the Lannisters sacking the city. Hoster was mortified and indignant (Though Ned suspected it was a show and the canny old trout seized upon the chance to weaken the power of the Rock.), he demanded the Lannister army cease their rapine and violence in the name of the King. When they didn’t, Lord Tully did something that the Iron Throne would rue bitterly in the years to come but earned him respect in Ned’s eyes.

The old trout unsheathed his sword and removed Damon Lannisters head from his body. Then ordered his men to stop the Lannister host by any means. It was then that word from Roundtree, one of Lord Aenar’s wargs, that the Mountain and two armed men he couldn’t recognize were scaling the keep. Ned ordered Roundtree to delay them and rode like the wind until he, the Blackfish, and Tormund arrived at the Red Keep and managed to enter the castle and make for the princesses’ apartments. There were stories about that skirmish, “the Wolf, the Wilding, and the black fish” and “The Mountain vs. the First Men.” And “Ser Amory’s folly.” And Ned knew that any bard caught singing that song in the Westerlands was beheaded for it. Let the old lion seethe, Ned thought contemptuously. He tried to butcher children and thought the King would accept that.

An unpleasant part of his mind whispered that his foster brother might have thanked Lord Lannister for assassinating a male heir but for securing his line. Rhaenys or Visenya was of paramount importance, and instead of defending his future goodfather, Daemon came very close to ordering Tywin’s head removed. But addressing the poisoning of the Stormlands and the destruction of so many small keeps and roadways exhausted our reserves of coin, and we needed lord Tywin, and lord Tywin had a daughter to pass off. Robert Baratheon thought Daemon was mad to want the crown to cover the cost of reconstruction, but in the end, it turned a thousand foes into friends.

And so, Tywin lost five thousand men and Gregor Clegane but gained a foothold on Lord’s Council and in the throne room itself and, through that, more power than Ned was comfortable entrusting him with. I’ve known Ty since he was a small boy, before his arrival at court, as Lord Tytos counted your grandfather as a dear friend. And I tell it true him and Aerys were closer than they were to their kin, each a reflection of the other. Mark my words, boy, they were twins in spirit if not blood, and if one was mad, the other was madder. Ned remembered that conversation when there was talk of betrothing Ned to one of the Lord of the Rock’s many nieces before Brandon’s death, pushing Cat into his life. And the display of force by the King as if he expected a war, or if he expected an uprising, Gods forbid. Lysa Tully believes Lord Aenar was murdered.

But she didn’t say by whom. But only Tywin Lannister commands the resources needed to contract an Essosi mystic puissant enough to bring him down even at his advanced age. There couldn’t be anything short of sorcery involved in his death. “I thank you, Jace,” Ned remarked, rising and dismissing everyone.  When they were gone, Ned took a deep breath, walked to a bowl, and poured ice water into it before splashing the contents over his face and the back of his head, allowing the cool water to breathe life into his tired skin as the blood rushed to his features to keep him alert and awake in response to the cold.

“Jason Lannister is an interesting boy, don’t you think?” the voice was deep, almost inhumanly so, and Ned leaned on the drawer as the shadow of the immense figure that had been lurking in the darkest corner of the room revealed himself, seemingly forming out of the shadows. Roark was the brother of Roundtree, the Warg, and Captain of the Gold cloaks. He had the red skin of the Wildlings who dwelt along the coasts and lived in homes made of snow and. towered over everyman in Winterfell save Sandor Clegane, who only matched his height and the heir to Tarth Ser Galladon, who surpassed them both and was a monster of a man the height of Sandor’s long-deceased brother. He wore a surcoat of silk over a tunic in the colors of House Stark and a snow bear robe resting on shoulders that were built like the arches that supported the weight of a curtain wall. There were scars on his face, neck, and gnarled forearms, where he had been nailed to a tanning board as a child for stealing a barrel of fish: Roundtree and Roark brothers and two of the most powerful Wargs Ned had ever seen. Roark stood there, his dark eyes piercing and focused.

He had served as Lord Rickard’s spymaster and now served the son. He must be five and forty, but he still looks like he could kill a horse with a single blow. And he can control twenty animals at a time, as can his brother…How could anyone assassinate a man protected by monsters such as these?

An uncomfortable thought entered Ned’s mind, and he banished it quickly. Roark was indeed a monster, but he was a loyal one, and he loved the old Hand besides. No, if treason of men such as this has found purchase in my home, then the North is doomed, and I’ll not allow such thoughts to enter my mind.

“Jason?” Ned asked, then remembered, ah yes, the youth who represented Lord Tywin in the royal retinue. “His new son and heir.” The boy of ten with the eyes of a man thrice his age. Ned frowned, recalling how the seeds of that bitter fruit were planted. When it became clear that King Daemon would never release Jaime from his oaths and the..incident with Tyrion, an incident that had Lord Tywin disinherit and disown his son. It was said Tyrion fell in love with a common woman; Lord Tywin spread lies that she was a whore who seduced his slow-witted son, but by then, Gerion had introduced him to court, and all knew he was no imbecile. The girl was raped to death allegedly in a mishap in a brothel, but the master of Whispers will spin you a web of a different sort. Whatever the case, Lord Tyrion threatened to kill his father in his sleep, and Lord Tywin had him imprisoned in a dungeon deep below Casterly Rock. King Daemon ordered Lord Lannister to release Tyrion and send him to court unharmed.

And then he made Tyrion the Lord Reaper of Pyke, Lord of the House of Lannister of the Iron Islands, and warden of the Ironborn and wed him to Asha Greyjoy as if he was challenging his own Goodfather. Why is there such discord between them? What have we been missing in the South?

“Lynesse Hightower is his mother…Rather interesting choice that.” Roundtree remarked.

Ned smoothed a hand over his left temple, how he misled politics and longed for his father’s wisdom and insights. “A daughter of the second most powerful man in the Reach and some say wealthier than even myself or Lord Tywin, yes..but it makes sense, the Hightowers gain nothing from wedding a Tyrell and Orys Baratheon is already promised to Margaery as per the terms of Mace Tyrell’s pardon. Shireen is to be the future Lady of Highgarden as well.”

“A cripple twelve years her senior.”

“I thought she was born in the eighty-ninth year of the second century?”

Roark shook a head that rested on a tree stump-like neck. “Nay, she is but two years younger than young master Robb.”

“Ah.” Ned frowned, horrified. “You think there will be civil war in the reach? The Hightowers have long been content to serve House Tyrell…Yet with the poisoning and Lord Tywin’s backing.”

Roark allowed himself to smile reproachfully, and Ned felt like an amateur and a fool. “No, a marriage to Tywin wouldn’t achieve that, but it would merge the bank of Oldtown and the gold of the rock.” He realized, looking aghast.

“And the Sunfyre and Hightower trading fleets, creating a combine large enough to undermine the Redwyne or Aetheryon fleets…large enough to undermine you or Stannis…and through either, my lord,” Roark responded as a stoat seemed to up the window and then out into Roark’s apelike palms.

The King…Ned thought. “But why would Tywin Lannister wish to undermine his grandchildren?”

“Leverage, my lord, right now you, Lord Stannis, through that Seaworth fellow, the head of House Blackfyre of the Narrow Sea, and Lord Tully command the most powerful faction on the Lord’s Council. You reinforce the crown, and through your distant kin, the lord of House Stark of the barrowlands, you have a formidable voice on the council against Tywin’s desire to restore the traditional structure of the realm from before Viserys the second and the builder kings.  But weakened and facing a consortium that could oppose one of its leaders, that factional influence would wane.”

“But neither Daemon nor his heir Prince Daeron would tolerate that.”

Roark smiled the smile of a mentor proud of a pupil, with an air of wolfishness that sometimes made Ned wonder if his ancestors hadn’t made a pack with a demon when they accepted the Valyrian customs to reign over a large portion of the North. “No…they wouldn’t.”

Gods…

“Tomorrow, my lady wife, you and my mother shall meet here and discuss this in greater detail if the king is in danger.” The Lord of Winterfell paused, his dark eyes tracing the length of the tapestry on the far wall. Green in color, it was done by a famous artist from the Golden Empire who attempted to allegorically depict the second dance of the Dragons despite having never seen a direwolf, a trout, or a… Well, Ned wasn’t quite sure if that was supposed to be a merling or a manatee. Looking at the depictions, Ned wasn’t sure if it was allegory; he remembered ambassador Jikata telling him once that when he first met Lord Rickard, he was surprised he wasn’t a wolf that walked like a man. In Leng, we are taught that Westeros is ruled by talking dragons, man-wolves, Krakens from the depths, and golden men with lions’ heads and weasel men, among others.

Of course, Ned was eight during that dinner; it was hard to tell whether or not the towering Lengii was jesting and providing fodder for a boy’s imagination. But clearly, in Yi Ti, they believe it, for unless I’m mistaken, that snarling man-wolf with a sword made of ice is supposed to be me. Ned frowned. Why am I fighting a Frey? He had seen this tapestry every day as he worked in his solar, and every day, he solved one riddle and found nine more. Lord Ambassador Jikata had given it to him as he found it hilarious and reminded him of their conversation when Ned was a boy. The ambassador offered to take my eldest back to Leng with him after the Greyjoy rebellion so that he might learn the ways of their chivalric code, “the way of the Servant-sword.” And to strengthen the trade alliance between East and West…But Leng is near half a year at sea, and Robb would come home knowing nothing of the North.

And yet…Part of him wondered if it wouldn’t have been safer to do that.

The South, Ned thought. It was an even greater confusion than this tapestry and more dangerous still. Finding the whiskers of his chin Lord Stark sighed. Sending a Stark east wasn’t a bad idea, for he felt a gnawing fear in his bones over what was to come. It is said the First Men were born in the ancient East; I could have Bran foster with Jacaerys for a time in Tyrosh or Braavos. A Stark must always remain in Winterfell, but that doesn’t mean Starks must never leave the North.

His mind wandered back to what Robert had said before Ned had to retreat to his solar to hear the gripes of his stewards. Maester Luwin was off supervising the treatment of a half dozen Crown Lander men at arms who had come down with the early signs of Winter fever, and it is still high summer. Ned thought disparagingly

I feel a war coming, Ned, in my bones. I don’t know when or where the first blood will be shed, but I know it’s coming.

Robert was usually right about such things.

…..

The Boy

“By the Gods old and new…but if she isn’t the most beautiful woman I ever saw,” Robb whispered to Torrhen Stark, the heir to House Stark of the Barrowlands. Tall and slender, the youth was clean-shaven and had piercing turquoise eyes. His mother is one of the old Hand’s many kin. The barrowland Starks were the result of the coming of the conqueror; when Torrhen knelt, two of his most puissant vassals rebelled. The first was the Lord of House Bolton, though his life was forfeit to Meraxes, and Torrhen spared his young son, but house Dustin had set upon one of the former King’s cousins and raped her.

There would be no quarter for the self-declared “King of the Barrows.” His youngest daughter was spared only because Queen Rhaenys asked that an infant not be put to the sword. And so, Brandon Snow knelt a bastard and rose the Lord of House Stark of the Barrowlands, and when she came of age, wed the last living Dustin and had many children. They still look less like Starks and more like the Barrowmen of old. Bran thought; beside him sat Roslin Frey, who was heavily pregnant and stroking Sansa’s auburn hair as his sister laid her head on the lady’s swollen stomach. It’s only because the girls are fighting. Sansa thinks women should wield their minds and not swords.

Mother said such notions were proper but that his sister spent too much time with the old crone lady Redwyne when she was forced to come up North on some trade issue. A contract for the sale of grain and barley for winter, most like. Bran thought Sansa had been taken with the shrewd woman no taller than Bran was now yet cast a shadow as great as Roark was tall. “don’t you think so, Bran?” Robb asked him, calling him over to sit beside the older boys. Bran felt Roslin Frey squeeze his hand gently in greeting as he moved to stand beside her husband. Ever desperate to forge more connections throughout the realm, the ancient, wealthy, and miserly Lord Frey offered Lord Torrhen his bride’s weight in silver. Yet he chose the slender lady Roslin because she was the most beautiful. And the kindest. Bran thought she was sweetness, personified, and stronger than most people thought. “Present company excepted, of course,” Robb added hastily, making Lady Roslin laugh softly. “It’s all right, my lord; princess Rhaenyra is..exotic.”

That was an understatement; Bran thought as he gazed out at the Albino of the royal family. Her white hair, pale skin, and eyes were blood red.  The Great Jon called her Bloodraven with tits, but I don’t see it. Indeed, she didn’t know any magic, unlike Prince Daeron, who had amazed them by using several of the candles to conjure a Direwolf out of flames and sent it harmlessly scurrying about the air. Prince Tommen had scowled at his brother, but everyone else was delighted. Prince Maelys and Rhaenyra seemed to be the warriors of their family, for the heir was able to hold his own against Jon yet lasted no more than a pair of heat beats against Robb. “She is beautiful.” Bran added, “And she’s watching you, Robb.” He said as an afterthought, causing his elder brother to flush.

Rhaenyra had been fighting Ygritte, Arya’s sworn spear, and the two were vicious in their fight. Both had bruised the other, Rhaenyra’s swift movements that Robb said were inspired by her training in Braavosi water dancing matching with the lightning swiftness of Ygritte’s snake-like fighting style. They were girls, but many of the better swords among the men were watching them with keen eyes. Viserys Tully, the newest Kindsguard member, was standing behind Prince Maelys, who was having his shoulder massaged by his “Squire for the day” Arya, who had her sleeves rolled back and was deep in her duty Maelys is amazing; he took that thrust to the shoulder by Robb and kept fighting for another five minutes. And when the Kingslayer entered the fray, the arrogant Knight defeated Robb in but a few moments, but he helped the boy up and was impressed.

Ser Jaime wasn’t as he expected; he constantly smiled, arrogantly and brashly, and carried himself with an arrogance that many found off-putting, but the smile never reached his eyes, and something in them looked sullen dangerous, and hungry. He was less acerbic than he’d been when they arrived as well. Bran didn’t know how it was in the South, but in the North, he was seen as a hero for putting that lunatic out of his misery before Aerys could feed them to his dragon. And Aegos abandoned the King by that point, but he was so mad that he confused the wildfire pits with a dragon.

Jaime had seemed confused ever since he was slapped on the back by the Great Jon and praised for Kingslaying. “She’s amazing...” Bran added, watching as Rhaenyra switched her blade behind her back and then nearly broke Ygritte’s ribs with the force of her left-handed side swipe. “Aye, but it’s a dirty move, unfitting of a knight. Or a lady.” Everyone turned to see Ser Barristan the Bold; his finely polished white armor was almost translucent, his eyes kind but firm. He’s the greatest living Knight, mayhap even more deadly than the Kingslayer.

During the war of the band of the seven.  Pirates, the Tyroshi-born tyrant of Myr, a deposed Dothraki Khal, and a fleshsmith from Volantis all funded by Myr and Volantis to take back Tyrosh and the stepstones from the seven Kingdoms, it was said that Ser Barristan, the mad King (who was not mad then and seen as a gallant and daring prince.), Lord Robert’s father and Brynden Tully killed over two hundred sellswords when they stormed the pavilion of Alequo Adarys to put an end to the mad war to drive the seven Kingdoms out of Essos. Rickard Stark and Tywin Lannister entered and found the self-proclaimed “Emperor in the East” impaled on Brightflame, the new sword of House Targaryen, and the greatest knights of their generation, exhausted and blood covered. Bran’s eyes widened when he realized he’d reflexively pointed out that neither of them were knights, but ladies and a lady’s armor may be courtesy, but their weapons were poison and bitter steel.

Selmy laughed at that and patted Bran on the shoulder. “Aye, boy, that is so, and I can see why such traits would be prized here in the North.” He offered without judgment or scorn. “Even with the wealth I see on display, I also know how much food the North buys from harvest hall and the Reach. This is not a land where Southron honor can long endure.” There was a hint of sadness in his voice, as though he recognized either a flaw or a thing and saw it as tragic. “But there is honor in the North, would you not say, Ser Knight?” Sansa asked with her gentle but elegant voice.

“Aye.” Barristan smiled, his wrinkles making that smile seem warm, grandfatherly, and not as hollow as Ser Jaime’s. “An ancient form of honor, I learned from your grandfather. One that I have come to admire.” Honor in the soul, in what one does in the service of upholding one’s values, not merely in blind adherence to oaths, marks us apart from the realm. Father’s words echoed through his head, and he said that of all the lords of the South, only Stannis Baratheon and Lord Seaworth seemed to understand this best. In front of them, Ygritte had cast aside her spear and was lunging at the princess with a flail, and the two had wild grins on their faces. “I believe those two have made friends…Though I should probably intercede before my charge and your sister’s sworn sword kill each other, I beg your leave.” Ser Selmy bowed and moved to end the spar that had gone on for almost half an hour.

And was promptly tackled by both girls for his trouble, causing the old Knight to laugh and rise to pin them both in a wrestling hold that Bran would later find out Quellon Grejoy had taught him. What an amazing life; I should ask to squire for him; I keep the Seven and Old Gods both.

Is that the life you wish to lead, one of service? A voice asked in his head.

Without thinking, Bran whispered yes.

Then perhaps, you are destined for a different path than a white cloak.

Chapter Text

The Lady of Winterfell

They’re talking to the bastard and not my son Catelyn thought with barely restrained fury as she watched from the walkway above the training yard, fifty of the finest men and women in the realm congregated there, and there was sparring and jesting and betting, and Robb acquitted himself brilliantly even if he lost to the Kingslayer later. So why were her eldest son and the heir of Winterfell conversating with the King’s second son while that Dayne, in the guise of a Storm, sat beside Daenerys as she held court on a table off to the side? Princess Rhaenys and her betrothed were seated together; Rhaenys, who looked more Martell than Targaryen, was in Daeron’s lap, her eyes longing and her head nestled under his neck. The boy is three years younger than her yet towers over her. Elia was always a sickly woman, and it was said that she remained in King’s Landing with her father, Lord Hoster, because she was too sick to travel without risking death. But her daughters don’t look frail or sickly… The queen was absent; she had retired to the sept. Cersei hates Lady Rhaella…she hates me too.

Catelyn dreaded that the queen might have sensed their suspicions, and thus her aloofness and obvious false courtesies were a result of the queen having pierced their veil of secrecy. But the queen seems a fool, Catelyn, thought. It was such an awful notion, even as her lord husband believed the only people with the resources to get to someone as puissant as lord Aenar were the Lannisters (Though she suspected the Tyrells, had they not poisoned whole settlements in the Stormlands?) it was still improper to see even a treacherous queen as a fool And yet, she neglects her firstborn, disdains her second born. The girl is treated as a freak because she’s an albino! And before the court, which implies a weakness the royal family can ill afford. Perhaps she was just unsettled and overthinking such matters. It was alarming, after all, the bastard’s ease and grace around the royal family and their willingness to tolerate him. But then House Blackfyre was founded by a bastard, a noble and kind one…The bastard is not truly noble, nor is he kind. Yet he looks as though he is at home with them.

Cat felt a pang of guilt; that wasn’t true. If he were a brute, it would be easy for her to hate him, but he was nothing but doting to her children, and they defended him as though he were the embodiment of knightly honor. My house rebels against me where Jon is concerned. Rhaella’s doing…

It was clear to her now how much Daenerys cared for Ned Stark’s get and Lord Steffon, and Prince Daeron loved the princesses. It was almost romantic, like out of a song. Ned and I hardly loved each other at first. But the gallant prince and the mighty heir to Storm’s End were enraptured with their intended. No, Steffon and Visenya are already wed. She realized, fingering the Tully medallion that rested above her breasts, that she wore a gown of Tully blues and reds and a cloak of grey and white. A trout of Riverrun enshrouded by wolves. But Daenerys wasn’t for Jon Storm of House Dayne, as Visenya was betrothed to Lord Steffon, so the last Targaryen daughter should be wed to the king’s closest vassal.

Blue eyes narrowed down at the yard below, through the crowd’s din and the noise focusing as hard as they might as if she could will herself to hear the bastard’s conversation. A hand gloved in dough skin gripped hard, not the stone ledge. My lord husband was so nervous about his bastard standing at parade for the coming of the King. And he hid it well, but I could see it plain on his face while others could not. Cat, though, eying the yard again. At last, Bran tried to talk to the sullen Prince Tommen, who had such a hostile scowl at him, and whatever Bran tried to say to him must have upset the prince because he got up, leaned forward, and said something to Bran in a harsh tone and then stormed away leaving her boy stunned and embarrassed. Princess Rhaenyra begging Ygritte’s pardon, took off after her little brother with the Kingslayer close behind.

Odd… Cat thought. The manner in which Ser Jaime..follows the prince.

And the princess, there was an exasperation in her steps and eyes. She knew well what it felt like to manage an impulsive and ungainly younger brother, but that was different. She was resentful of him; she looked as though she was being forced to play nursemaid to a changeling.

An uncomfortable thought tugged at her heart, which might have been more treasonous than entertaining an accusation that the queen’s father might have murdered the Hand.

……

Promise me Ned.

“Damnit, Ned! She should have been laid to rest in a meadow, under a tree with flowers and fruits. That she might be surrounded by nature, she loved so much….” Robert’s voice cracked and was haggard for a few seconds. Even in death, Lyanna’s visage was subsumed by the titanic shadow of Robert Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End. A massive bear like handset against the marble statue’s cheek. Lyanna’s crypt was behind it; to one side, the Direwolf of House Stark standing sentinel, and beside it resting on all four legs, was a bronze relief of “Soldier,” her favorite horse, a horse that followed her down to…The horse’s eyes were gemstones that would matched the amethyst of his sister’s eyes in life. She looks so much like her mother and like Arya. There were times when Ned wondered if the kindness Rhaella showed Jon was because she knew the truth or if she held the Targaryen view of Dragon seeds and therefore cared little that his name was Storm.

“Arya looks like her, doesn’t she?” Robert asked, his voice low, his face shrouded in the torchlight. He sounded as though he’d been crying, and the pit in Ned’s stomach deepened and twisted his guts. “She does, aye; they both took after Lady Rhaella.”

“Your mother’s a good woman Ned…She and the girls are the only Targaryens I’d die for rather than crushing with my own hands.” Robert bellowed, holding his huge fists up before Lyanna’s crypt. The candlelight twisted his shadow into something monstrous that seemed ready to devour his sister or save her. I never found out if she was raped, though initially went willingly. I think she must have been towards the end, but…Would her life have been better with Robert?

It was an evil thought, and he felt sick to his stomach for thinking it, but Lord Robert descended from Argella in full battle armor, his blue eyes sparking as if the sun was being reflected through a pair of sapphires and he was enormous, not fat but muscled beyond reason for a man his age and with long black hair and a lion-like mane for a beard. He dressed for war, and that was all he could talk about since they reunited. How the king’s enemies were everywhere, how as the Lord Marshal of the royal armies, it was his duty to train the troops and how Robert thought they should have taken their Dragons and put the Dothraki sea to flame and killed every Khalasar they could find instead of burying the hatched with them. And then there was that whisper of his in a low and dangerous tone that the king ought to have “let me have my final revenge against the Tyrells for Renly.” Which almost sounded… What has happened in the South?

“Daenerys is a good girl as well, Robert.”

The Baratheon grumbled, “Of course she is! I included her with the girls…seven hells Ned. Did you know Tywin Lannister used what he thought I’d do to them once I killed Rhaegar as his excuse for attempting to assassinate the princesses?”

Ned frowned. “I had not…” in truth, Ned had fully suspected Robert would have demanded of the King the right to kill every Targaryen, but all he did was lift Rhaenys and Visenya into his arms and shush them with a paternal growl that lulled them both to sleep as princess Elia’s fear transformed into relief. When I saved them, Gregor was about to rape her… Daemon had raised them as though they were his daughters, and he knew it not to be an act, for they called him father with the same tenderness Dany did when addressing himself. Still, the mad glint in his eyes and his casual threat to feed Viserys to Argella once they found out where that “impudent dragon spawned brat” went “skulking off too like a Wyrm during the sack.” And the manner in which Argella slaughtered Syrax and they both had butchered dragon and rider had made him…

“We were meant to be bound by blood….” Robert suddenly wheezed. “And she was meant to be by my side…” after a moment, he cleared his throat and composed himself, wiping a tear from his eye. “To that end, I’ve a request. My son is promised to princess Visenya and his sister to Galladon, Selwyn’s boy. But I’ve another son, the overlord of the Rainwood, the knightly and lordly houses there and in Cape Wrath. I’ve given the boy overlordship of it all…Weeping town and house Whitehead will pay its duties to him now.“

Ned almost frowned, Gendry had undoubtedly earned such a lofty reward, but would the ancient and proud noble houses of that area tolerate a bastard? Then again, he has a dragon, and Gendry is a good lad and true…mayhap.

“I want him and Arya to wed when she’s older. He needs someone of her character, fierce and ungovernable, to watch his back against any who would undermine him and the houses of the Rainwood. You can see it plain as day with her, Ned, she’ll never be a proper southern lady, but the Stormland’s needs a she-wolf, not a flower.” There was a strangeness in Robert’s eyes, almost pleading.

There’s a war coming, Ned.

He swallowed hard. It was a good match, the Rainwood was filled with prominent First men families, and many of them were descended in part from the Northerners who went south with Cregan Stark during the dance. The incomes from that area alone and there were opportunities to further bind the North and the Stormlands as several minor nobles in those lands had gone extinct, their lands were unclaimed, and the smallfolk left to their own devices. If things were as bad as both men believed them, Arya was of the North and had the wolf’s blood in her; she would be needed for what was to come. And she was infatuated with Gendry beside. But Arya was so young… “I would want to send some Valyrian and First men families to settle farmland in that area long abandoned and five hundred men at arms…Northern men to be knighted to occupy some of the abandoned keeps. Of course, they’ll swear fealty to you and Gendry, but I want them there to protect my daughter. And the betrothal would have to last until she was thirteen, and the wedding must not have a bedding.”

‘Hah! Agreed to both! A bedding! Bah! Ned. Did you see how Arya walloped Steffon? Any attempt at bedding and she’d feed them to Nymeria!” Robert laughed a powerful laugh that echoed through the ancient crypts of winter, off the walls, and the statues of long-dead Stark Kings seemed to join in with their own faint whispered laughter. Eddard looked into the dark, staring toward the stairs leading to the oldest and deepest pits in the crypts. Bran, the builder, lay down there, at the very bottom, surrounded by a mechanized contraption that no one else could have conceived of, much less build. There was a power in these stones and in that room, a power that Ned felt at once at home around and frightened of. Accept the offer. The dead kings seemed to whisper You can’t fathom what’s coming…take the offer, wed dragon, wolf, and storm. He shuddered at the silence and the darkness. Was he Tywin Lannister to barter and trade his progeny and build a bulwark with their virtue? And yet….He swallowed and grabbed Robert by the wrist. “Very well, brother, we will merge our houses.”

“Beat me to the punch Eh Baratheon?” The King was standing at the top of the stairs into the crypt, his silver-white hair and violet eyes reflecting torchlight as he stood above them. Gloved gingers traced the hilt of Blackfyre in a way that reminded Ned of his father and Aerys. Ned smiled tiredly at the King. “You also wanted Arya’s hand?”

Daemon laughed. “No, but she’ll either make someone a good wife or slit his throat if he tries to domesticate her and we,” he said playfully, adopting the royal self-reference said to have been utilized by Aegon, the unworthy. “Well, we would pay a fortune to see which way the wolf’s wind would blow.”. Robert laughed richly and clapped Ned on the back, the heat Robert felt against Daemon a moment ago was gone, and he was back to speaking to the King as though he were a brother. “But I was going to ask for Sansa’s hand for my son Maelys and offer Rhaenyra to your son Robb as recompense..with..a proper dowry, of course.”

Ned was as silent as a statue for a moment, frozen in place by a sense of wonder and fear. I may be his closest friend, but the North is already well entrenched in the Council, and he needs to strengthen ties with the Reach..why. Of course, the North would rise in his defense, and the safest place for Rhaenyra would be in the North; same for Maelys if Ned could convince Daemon to allow his spare heir to become a vassal to Winterfell Unless he means to offer Maelys Myr. Gods…what he was thinking was insane. He was planning marriages to shield the royal bloodline, keep his heirs and the King’s safe, and build a strategic alliance that would bind several of the Kingdoms deeper in blood. I’m thinking as my father did…I…I am not cut out for this nonsense. And yet Daemon would not have made such a grand and menacing display when he entered Wintertown if the straights were not dire indeed…He must be worried if he would place Robb in the line of succession as a potential King-consort…

“These proposals are…humbling..I…I must run them by my lady wife and my mother before.” Ned glared at the face Robert made and what that face implied. Causing the Lord of Storm’s End to erupt with laughter so loud even Daemon had to turn his head in an attempt to aid him in not likewise erupting in laughter. “Ye…yes Lord Stark..consult the wo-“ at Ned’s glare, the King damn near fell to his knees in laughter. “Ahhh…Gods, I’ve missed this…Elbert and us being fools for foolishness’ sake.”

“There is one other offer I intend to make…One that I would have your answer now.” Daemon straightened, his eyes hard now and seemingly flickering in the torchlight. Ned glanced up and became keenly aware of both how tall the King was and how the shadows seemed to coil around him as though they were wings. A dragon’s wings…Black dragons..

Robert had moved away, and he too seemed to stand as a ghost, barred from reaching the world that now comprised only he and Daemon and existed only between the stairwell and the tombs of his sister, his father, and his grandfather. Ned looked up at the King, shrouded in shadow; he felt his heart pounding. Mother and Cat both warned that this was coming; Aemon Aetheryon is too young to succeed his great-great grandsire, and he’ll pick me because he knows I despise politics and am an outsider.

The King finally spoke after a long moment. “Being necessary to root out the last vestiges of nepotism and corruption of the regime of my predecessor Mad Aerys and being in line with precedent established during the reign of Aerys first of his name, needing the wisdom of an outsider impartial to Southron biases and infighting. I Daemon of the House Blackfyre first of his name. Master of the Andals, Rhoynar, first men, and Valyrians, lord protector of the realm, and King of the seven Kingdoms do formally nominate you, Eddard, Lord Stark. Warden of the North and lord of Winterfell for the position of Hand of the King and do so formally prevail upon you to accept my request for the sake of the realm.”

When Daemon spoke, his voice boomed and sounded less like that of a king and more like the proclamation of a God laying a task before a trusted devotee. His eyes blazed, his jaw was set, and there was power in his request—a beacon of dark flame in an ocean of snow and a cascade of winter winds. Ned fell to his knees at that moment, and the King’s hand was extended to him, the jeweled symbol of House Blackfyre blazing off torchlight. Around them, the shadows of the Lords of Winterfell and the Kings of winter seemed to rise as wraiths to surround him and his boyhood friends. Am I making the right choice?

There were whispers, Ned tried to tell himself it was the wind, but they bid him accept, set aside his sheltered life, and let his children become men and women. Winter is coming…And this time, the world of men cannot long endure if Dragon, red and black, and Direwolf are fallen.

Destiny awaits, boy!

It was just the wind.

It was just the wind.

After a long moment.

Lord Stark reached out, taking his friend’s hand, and kissed the ring.

“I accept.”

Gods preserve us….See that my family survives what is coming.

I accept…please shield them.

Even if it costs me my life.

Chapter Text

Arbor Gold.

No matter how many times he gazed upon the magnificent purple and blue creature lying atop the largest boulder at the end of one of the many jetties of the beaches on the outskirts of Vinetown. The cooked tuna in front of her must have weighed as much as one of his prized horses. That would have fetched a fisherman enough gold to get him several fishing boats; lives are turned on that sort of money. Willas thought as he watched Vhagar gnaw contentedly, and to be fair to the dragon, she’d caught two and realized it was too much for her to eat, so she allowed Willas to present the catch to one of the local captains.  Being that close to a dragon was the most exciting moment of my life. He would never forget it, Shireen calmly telling Vhagar to be easy, that Willas was hers and she would have to see him as part of their family.

He loved Shireen at that moment, truly loved her.

Vhagar’s eyes glowed an eerie blue, but she leaned forward with her long neck, and he felt a forked tongue trace the palm of his hand, and then she grabbed the one tuna for herself and shuffled off happily. That would have been an ending fit for a well-practiced satirist, the heir of House Tyrell consumed by a dragon when his ancestor was elevated to the paramountcy of the Reach, specifically because he was wise enough to escape dragon flame in the first place. The thoughts were grim, but he couldn’t help but laugh at them and then let out a relieved sigh as Shireen kneaded away tension in the muscles in the back of his knee. A marriage negotiated by a desperate Highgarden to mollify the hatred of Stannis Baratheon when it became clear that Vhagar wasn’t just going to survive but that, like Stannis himself and his faithful onion knight, had flourished in the Reach. A stag amongst the roses as the bards sing it. It was easy to see why if you knew what to look for. Lord Stannis may have been an outsider, but he was a judicious man and harsh but fair. His tax reforms put a great deal of silver in the pockets of the tradesmen in the Arbor and were efficient enough that his grandfather Lord Leyton adopted them in Oldtown. After all, when the commons enrich themselves, our wealth is amplified by orders of magnitude. The discontentment amongst the smallfolk drops considerably. And there had been murmurings and stirrings; when Maelos and Daemon burned the countryside, the gentry, and the smallfolk both called it the wrath of the Gods for the nefarious deeds the flower of Highgarden committed during the rebellion. And for defending a madman, Willas thought ruefully. As a boy, he had wanted to be Aerys, who hadn’t truly lost his mind and was seen as a cross between the near-mythical Corlys Velaryon, Aemon the Dragonknight, and the first Daemon Blackfyre.

That had all changed when he spoke with the Blackfish. They had been on the ramparts fighting men at arms to distract the castle garrison so that Ser Barristan could make his escape from the Dunfort with the mad king in tow when he saw Tywin Lannister appear as a lone man in golden armor seated atop a magnificent silver horse. He unsheathed Brightroar, the gold and red Valyrian steel blade shimmering like a second sun. And then he roared Drakarys, the voice of the brutal lord Lannister cracking like a clap of thunder upon the walls, and Aegos fell from the sky like a crimson comet and unleashed his blood-red fire into the castle. The hatred in Tywin’s eyes was matched only by the bloodlust of the King. He personally nailed young Dontos Hollard to the wall outside the Dunfort and slit the throat of Denys Darklyn, had his cousins and nephews skinned alive by Roose Bolton, and fed Serala of Myr to Aegos. The friendship between Tywin and Aerys was a deep one for a dragon to obey someone without a drop of Valyrian blood in his veins.

Willas ceased wishing to emulate Aerys after hearing that tale. Not that he still didn’t want to be a great knight, but accidentally falling under your horse tends to end such dreams. Willas suppressed a laugh at the memory, which had served as a harsh teacher about the true nature of chivalry. The man who saved him was also the man for whom he nearly lost his leg. Father hates Oberyn for that, yet his order set me to compete in that tourney; Oberyn, the master of poisons and sellsword company captain, taught me more about chivalry at my lowest than most of the Knights at Highgarden ever taught me at my highest height. It had been the wisdom of Archmaester Marwyn that kept his knee bones from being fused, Willas could still bend his knee, but he would walk forever with a cane.

Yet he would rule House Tyrell better than his father, much as he loved the man. Who couldn’t see that his vassals championed Stannis because, as an outsider, it allowed them to settle their ancient vendettas against House Tyrell with clean hands and that their plan to discard Stannis the moment that was achieved were dashed when he won the respect of so many of their vassals and sons who considered his absolutist take on law and justice to be quite fashionable. And perhaps more importantly. Stannis represented a means to an end for many of the Reach houses with more Gardener blood in their veins than the Tyrells.

“Are you still in pain, my lord?” a sweet voice asked, and he looked down to see a mass of black hair atop a head that held a face that reminded him so much of Margaery. Baratheon strength, Baratheon fury, and Redwyne beauty. Except for her left eye, which was replaced by a sapphire, with silver circlets that formed the outline of a pupil. She’d lost the eye after a catspaw tried to slit her throat five years ago, missed her throat, got her eye instead, and left a scar along her cheek. No matter, Willas still found her beautiful. They were both lame in their own ways and found beauty in books and animals and the study of faith. Shireen rose and lay against the rock, nestling into his shoulder and chest, her thick black hair falling over her missing eye. “Does it still itch?” asked Willas. He had commissioned the false in Oldtown from one of the houses of false limbs in the foreign quarter. The people of greater Moraq were a queer sort, but they were masters at the creation of what they called “the prosthesis,” enough that the Citadel had considered paying their master shapers to come and teach at the citadel, which he imagined caused quite the stir. But they don’t have a choice; the grey slaughter reduced them to nearly half their original number. And then the edicts of King Jaehaerys the second ensured that the Oldtown Citadel would not be the only place of power for the order.

Willas would never understand why his grandfather not only endorsed that but had funded it. Except it has done much to strengthen the influence of the Reach..influence my father lost us.

“No,” Shireen answered; she seemed nearly asleep, lulled by his heartbeat, and my father wants me to disgrace this poor girl in some nefarious plot.

Gods help him, but he respected Stannis Baratheon, not that he’d ever allow a Stormlander to control the Reach, but an alliance between their houses could counter the rising and shifting balance of power.  Father wants me to break off the betrothal and hitch myself to a Lannister…The others will knock on my door and ask me to dance and tumble as a mummer before I consent to such insanity. His father didn’t see it, and neither did his grandmother, not entirely who still believed the old ways and the old world’s rules were set in stone. But the world had changed; dragons came into being two score years ago. With them, magic came roaring back to life as opposed to the slow trickle from centuries past, and everything changed. We have the blood of the greenhand in our veins. Even if they dispute it, we will not be reduced to vassalage in our lands and to do that. We must align with House Baratheon…The Dragon Riders are the future.

And Willas Tyrell truly loved Shireen, the girl who didn’t look at him and see a cripple. “I wish to thank you again,” Shireen whispered. She had nearly cried when she was given the gift of the gemstone eye and had worn it and cherished it for the last year and tended to thank him even though it had itched her something fierce until they figured out how to clean it properly. The moon had begun to show across the ocean, making the waves appear like beaten silver.  Ahead of them, Vhagar lifted her head, her long snout rising into the wind, wherein she let out a calm bellow in recognition of the scents coming her way. On one end, there was Nymeria Sand, a tall, pale-skinned woman with thick dark hair and the Valyrian features of an aristocrat of Volantis. A bastard daughter of the man blamed for his laming who’d become a lifelong friend and a Red Priest of immense size, a lion of a man with a great maned beard and tattoos of flame upon his cheeks that seemed to change colors before his very eyes.

Moqorro.

The Red Priest had arrived four years after the end of the Blackfyre rebellion, and instead of ministering to the foreign quarters in Oldtown or Ryamsport, he had opted to minister far and wide in the reach. His alleged magical powers, arcane knowledge, and insights into the Red Faith. He debated Septons in their Septs and administered aid and healing to the poor alongside Septas and was said to know the seven-pointed star as well as any adherent to the faith of the seven. He made offerings to Weirwood trees and yet convinced men and women of both faiths to join the Red Faith. And he converted Lady Alicent through her Orys and Shireen. Willas swallowed thickly, bile in his throat rising as he watched the behemoth of a man walk through the sand. The only time their relationship waned was over their respective faiths, but then Shireen seemed to pray to the seven and the Red God, and while that horrified Willas more than he cared to admit, it at least mollified him. Moqorro once said that competing Gods were as two bulls in the same pen. They would destroy each other through their adepts unless a different path was found.

Seven help him, but he agreed with the hedge wizard then. That had been the justification he needed to accept Shireen, her gentle heresy. “Good evening, red prelate,” Willas said formally and with a welcoming smile, causing Moqorro to chuckle. “Good evening, man of the rainbow.”

“Have you heard the latest heresy from Thoros in the capitol?” Willas asked with an amused grin. The one thing we both agree on is that synchronism is a horror.

Moqorro made a tsk, tsking noise and shook his immense head. “Worse, I hear there are members of the leadership of our faiths that believe there is merit to the argument.”

“What are rainbows if not aspects of the Lord of Light,” Willas said, shaking his head ruefully, earning a pinch from Shireen. “In any case, what brings you here, my friend?”

“Stannis does.”

Nymeria smiled the smile of a child caught with her hand filled with cake. “Sorry, Willas…it seems like nothing escapes his notice…Though the Lord of Light alone knows why. It infuriates me how…accommodating the Reach is to this one.” And Dorne, but that happens when you lose so much and require Crown funds to rebuild. At least a quarter of a million dead smallfolk was a number we could absorb easily enough. Willas thought grimly; the Dornish census men had only begun to report births numbered similarly to the final decade of mad Aerys. Of course, that hadn’t stopped Houses Florent, Tyrell, and Tarly from importing lamb men under a plea of “relief.” It surely had nothing to do with father’s realization that if given grounds even half again as fertile as their grassland home, they would weave for us gold from wool. It had seemed utterly imbecilic, and everyone mocked Mace for the order until the particular breed of sheep they used with their incredible horns and foul temper began yielding meat of comparable quality to the beef consumed by so much of the gentry of the realm. Their droppings were almost as effective as mammoths at enriching the soil. The Reach hadn’t needed them, but for the last five years, there was a slight, if noticeable, increase in revenues from the lands. Stannis uses his iron will and willingness to act as a focus for grievances against Highgarden to win the if not loyalty but the support of the lords of the Reach, my father’s avarice.

“He would see you both now,” Moqorro added in a voice so deep and somber it sounded like an elephant’s deep, vibrant grumble, and Willas wordlessly rose despite the pain in his knee and helped lady Shireen along. So, we’ve been found out…I wonder what Lord Stannis will do to me. Surely not feed me to Vhagar; he knows she tolerates me.

“Come, my love,” Shireen whispered, tugging him along. It might be her outward looks save for her eyes and hair appeared of the Reach, but the strength in her grip was all Stormlander, all Baratheon…All Targaryen.

All his…

Providing Stannis doesn’t kill me for what my father did to his brother and what Shireen and I were about to do.

…..

Dragons and Ravens.

The wind was howling, and a fog descended upon the mountains and the lands around them, vast and great, obscuring the view for miles around. The air was rife with the smell of ash, humid steam, and blood. And as he soared through the air, descending into the dog, the boy could hear whistling and humming. Voices great, inhuman, voices soft and subtle rich of root and stem and bark and rock and river and…the voices of men.

No matter the race or age, they all sounded grim in their resolve.

CRASH!

An explosion of sparks and a pair of cruel red eyes the size of carriages narrowed. And suddenly, a great gout of crimson fire burned a deep wound into the mountain’s bones. Someone screamed as he was unable to get out of the way of the flames in time. His pickaxe dropped, only to be retrieved by a little girl with red and black hair.  She turned a sad look in her eyes, resigned, and walked off mourning a father and wielding his tool. There was a shift in the mist, and blocks of wood long and strong were laid as Wildlings with resigned looks on their miserable, filthy faces began laying great frames of iron that reminded the boy of the skeleton framework of glass houses.

“Cold!”

“The air and water flowing.”

‘Haardd! The Land we call our own.”

“Work to keep the dark from coming!”

“Feel the weight of what we are.”

“Cold! The air and water flowing, hard the land we call our own.” The voice was deep, enormous, and inhuman, and the boy realized he was now shadowed by the gait of the biggest giant he’d ever seen. He was carrying an entire tree and beyond….the giant redwoods of the Reach and Riverlands that towered like castles into the sky, and they were being pulled on smooth rock by mammoths with tusks as large as the mammoths bran knew were tall.

“Work! To keep the dark from coming! Feel the weight of what we are!”

‘This, the song of sons and daughters, hide in the heart of the realms of men!”

“Cold, the air and water flowing. Hard the land we call our own.” An elderly giant collapsed, toppling like a tower and crushing a small green child below his mighty skull. Another giant stepped over him and pulled his harness off, and began to continue his laborious work. “Work to keep the dark from coming…Feel the weight of what we are.”

The song continued, “Strong united, working till we fall.”

Thousands upon thousands.

Men tall and pale of skin with white and gold and blue hair and eyes of violet, or turquoise, or crimson or yellow or jade. They stood tall and were armored in a style the boy had never seen before, and they beckoned and spoke in a language that to his ears might have sounded akin to the tongue of the first men and the ancient scripts he saw once that were said to belong to the great empire of the dawn than Valyrian.

Dragons of a sort Bran had never seen before flew in the air, four legs like a horse or a dog, but their immense wings rising from their broad shoulders carried them through the air effortlessly as they gorged on the dead or wielded their fire to melt enormous blocks of water which were frozen again by children the colors of leaves and root and river who offered newly made blocks that glimmered with runes to giants who hefted them onto carts.

It was awe-inspiring, it was horrifying, it was grotesque. “And we all work together! We all lift together! Together! Together! This the song of ice and fire! Together! Tooggettthheerr til we’re all in paradise and root together!” “Tooggettherrr”

The boy realized it wasn’t a song, but a chant, an invocation. They were surrendering their essence, their lives to the great work. Their blood mixed with the ice, the fire branding elemental magic. The ancient Dragonlords knelt to a will stronger even than their own, and then Bran saw them.

One was tall, with raven black hair and blue eyes. Beside him stood a man who was not a man, not entirely, for his fingers were cloven, and he had only four of them, and his head was crowned by antlers that rose into the skies, and green were his cloven hands and immense was his will. Beside him, a figure like the other Dragonriders but mightier still and tall and with a face Bran thought he recognized.

But all yielded to the artificer.

A man short in stature but tremendous in presence, Direwolves surrounded him, and fur and brown hair rested on enormous shoulders and whiskers. A great beard obscured a face that caused the boy to feel fear at the familiarity. “No…no..”

Beyond him, a great wall of ice was rising.

And the boy was pulled then flying away and tumbling until a hand rested on his shoulder, old and wizened yet young. “Hello, little lord.”

He knew that voice…Gods.

“Not quite…But they’re here, helping, watching..waiting.”

“For what..”

He couldn’t look back…he dared not to.

“Do you still wish to serve…Bran Stark.”

Bran woke with a start, gasping. His auburn hair fell around his cheeks and eyes, which must have looked wild because he felt someone shaking him, and he turned and espied Princess Rhaenyra. “Are you okay, my lord?” her eyes were frantic with worry, an oddly astute worry. Does she know what I dreamt?”

His eyes squinted, adjusting to the change in light, and his nose took in the smell of candles burning, and he could feel his direwolf nuzzling him. Bran still hadn’t settled on his name yet and looked down with a small amount of regret over that. Princess Rhaenyra gently petted the Direwolf, who seemed to relax against her touches. Even Shaggydog likes her…and he doesn’t like anyone. Hullen said the royal family were queer folk that had more in common with the Valyrians of old and that hosting them for a long tie would bring down a hate upon the House of Stark as the lands of ice mistrust beings of flame. But Bran wasn’t so sure; after all, grandmother lived here, and nothing terrible happened. “I had a bad dream,” Bran whispered, not wanting to lie to her.

The princess nodded, gently brushing hair from his face. Bran rose from his seat, stretching away sleep before he set the pup down, and the two trotted away after Princess Rhaenyra.

Chapter Text

A feast of Kings.

Troubadours and bards from as far away as Braavos joined Lorathi merchant princes who sat with knights from the vale, free riders from Dorne, and heroes from the crownlands and Stormlands. The banners of two hundred of Westeros's three hundred noble houses fluttered beneath the rafters of the great ‘Builder’s Hall.” The grand feasting hall of the Northern Keep, the great two-towered castle built into the curtain wall around the northernmost neighborhoods of Wintertown.  The hall Gerion was told the Starks only used for guild meetings, important annual festivals, and events such as a royal procession.  There were only two ways to reach the feasting hall; the first was through an underground walkway where pools of clear blue water were lit up by a kind of underground fish that hunted by a lantern on its albino nose. The grizzly things reminded him of gargoyles, but it was a fascinating walk through carved and hollowed cave walls and grottos large enough that they doubled as training yards for the Order of the Wolves and strange bones of long dead animals trapped within stone along the walls. Telling the stories of lives lived and died ten thousand thousand years ago. The immense skull of Aragor the grim, the great sapphire-colored dragon of the last King of the coast and seas who bent the knee to House Stark sat, its mouth open in a roar beckoning the guests towards a stairwell leading to the entrance of the feasting hall. Aragor wasn’t as large as Balerion, but he was near enough to make it so that ten men, shoulder to shoulder, could walk through his immense jaws. Even in death, the dragon seemed to be watching Gerion, sustaining itself like a life-sucking phantom out of a Volantene cribtale off the heat of the torches.

That was the most beautiful entrance, Gerion thought. He’d been to Winterfell as a boy and walked the sky entrance, a long bridge sustained by columns that rose into the air some two hundred feet and supported the sky bridge, which was covered and had a roof of glass and windows so that one might look out and around and see the light of the town below. It, too, was beautiful but lacked the fascinating antiquity of the lower pathway. Still, the queen had insisted that the royal family not “Tramp around underground like some wildling cave dwellers.” Much to the disappointment of her children, even the sullen little Tommen seemed to want to see all the death and monsters below the ground. Gerion suppressed a shudder, that boy would one day become a lord of the Crownlands sworn to his brother or, in Essos, sworn to House Blackfyre of the Narrow Sea, and he pitied what smallfolk would end up on the receiving end of his wrath.  All the cruelty of his elder brother as a man grown and in the body of a boy scarce past his tenth nameday.

Gerion made a cutting entrance, he made a point to adorn himself in the dyed furs made by Lorathi tailors, giving him a scarlet bear fur cloak with a samite tunic with gold threads depicting the lions of house Lannister and he was carrying Lament and the rains. The Valyrian steel longsword and daggers that were fashioned to go with the new Brightroar gifted to his elder brother by Aerys and Valarr, who were all one day destined to become bitter enemies. Gerion cut the image of a dashing rogue, and as he sat beside a bard playing the “Bear and the maiden fair,” the younger lord of Casterly rock managed to steal Cersei’s thunder with his charming singing voice. A voice that was high and rich and melodic and harmonized with a remarkably elegant deep singing voice of the Great Jon earlier when they sang a duet about the battle over the Gods Eye wherein Aegon the uncrowned fell in battle against his wicked uncle Maegor the cruel. Above the din of the various lords and ladies and merchants and masters and Knights were the tables set for the royals and the Lord of Winterfell and Houses Baratheon and Tully, who were seated, the heroes of the rebellion.

Gerion noted his dear niece’s scowl.

House Lannister was omitted.

Though, to be fair, neither was house Blackfyre of the narrow sea; though Prince Jacaerys sat with Maelys and Sansa Stark, he was merely lumped in with the King and his kindred. And yet he isn’t indignant. Cersei was seated next to Lady Catelyn. The two discussed Joff the last time he had gone over to greet the royal couple and the Starks. Joff, the first-born son of King Daemon who didn’t live more than an hour, Gerion had been present in the Red Keep when the time came. He was told the little one had a full head of golden hair and green eyes, but his lungs had been malformed, so he gasped and rasped away his sole hour of life in this dreary world. Other children came, Cersei was as fertile as a field in the reach, and the king seemed to plow her regularly. And more children came, of course, with clearly Valyrian features, looking like their father and grandfather and like Aerys (Maelys would be the spitting image of the mad king but for his bald head.), and Gerion breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least, there seemed to be some good years where Cersei was happy to be the wife of Daemon Blackfyre, first of his name, but most of the gossip in King’s Landing suggested she hated her sons and daughter and shunned the babes as “Monsters, not of my flesh.” She should be less obvious…They’re her children as much as his, but she treats them like Dornish vipers. Gerion thought with a frustrated sigh, then Tommen came, and she doted on her children more.

She needed to be less obvious.

Tommen was listening to a story Robert Baratheon was telling the youths of the royal party, and seated between him and Ned Stark was Jon Storm looking somewhat nervous. Cat embraced Gendry warmly and took my Joy to the kitchens and sang with her earlier. She has no hatred for bastards for being bastards, yet she seems to revile the boy.

Then again, with those purple eyes and dark hair, it was apparent who his mother was, and good luck living up to that. Ashara was a woman out of story, more beautiful than even the queen Rohanne had been and more beautiful than Lady Rhaella (Gerion was so taken with the woman near ten years older than him that he vowed to challenge Rickard Stark to an honor duel for her hand.) who was fifty-three and beautiful still. Not that the Tully sisters weren’t living beauties, both were nearer to forty than thirty but looked to be in their twenties, and both were as passionate as the Blackfish at times, and it was easy to see why Ned was able to move on from the fallen Star of Dorne. Of course, that was still a shadow. The boy had the sense to look mortified as Robert slapped his back and moved his massive hand about as if he was trying to mimic a dragon’s flight. Tommen listened to all the parts with burned men, no doubt. Gerion was happily seated next to Garland Tyrell and one of the Hightower boys though Gerion could never remember which. That was probably another slight, but it hardly bothered him; he rather liked Garland, who reminded him of Jaime before the madness of King Aerys unleashed the worse in him.

Garlan Tyrell was discussing the situation in the Reach, how Lord Stannis had taken the realm by storm, and how he had grudgingly won the respect of many of the Reach Lords, particularly those of House Florent and House Tarly (with Stannis interceding in the Horn Hill succession issue.) but that he still dodged blades in the night and how his youngest lost an eye to a catspaw. There was a special place in the seven hells for someone who would harm a little girl, especially for no other reason than to spite the father. The discussion moved to pirates House Greyjoy of the summer islands, and several other prominent summer island families were preying on commerce out of Dorne and the Reach. One of the groups of islander pirates was led by a man of brown skin with one eye who cavorted with sorcerers and fleshsmiths, and Gerion suppressed a shudder and prayed to the seven and the Old Gods that the man was not whom he suspected it was. The discussion may have continued, but the doors near the Dragons maw entrance opened, and a sudden silence descended upon the hall, followed by gasps.

Banners fluttered behind the mismatched pair that entered, a golden lion with three tentacle-like tails on a field of black. We do not sow; became, we do not yield. Gerion thought as pity warred with respect in his heart. Tyrion waddled in, walking with a confidence that belied just how much the boy detested himself and how much the boy hated the world. He was adorned in the most delicate cotton tunic and a samite surcoat with the pelt of a black bear over his shoulders. His golden hair was wild about his head, long and threaded with beads and precious stones. Beside him stood a tall, slender woman of twenty-seven, heavily pregnant and adorned in an outfit that matched her husband’s. At her side was a Dothraki Arakh and a set of nine daggers; there were scars on her throat and chin, brown-skinned with thick black hair and dark eyes. Asha Greyjoy was beautiful and terrifying, and Tyrion's tiny frame cast a long shadow. Flanking both were two giant apes dressed in the livery and armor of House Lannister of the Iron Islands, hooded with dark green eyes and long fangs and hands that looked like they could crush a man’s skull with ease. They walked upright, but it was evident by the callouses on their knuckles that they preferred to support their squat trunk-like legs with their fists, and behind them was a man carrying a chest of finely varnished oak.

When Tyron, son of Tywin, was made Lord of the Iron Islands, they were a dying land, peopled by a shattered race.  Over the next nine years, he transformed them into a thriving land due to a tuber discovered that was edible and could grow almost anywhere but thrived in the harsh climes of the Iron Islands. It was in high demand in the vale and the North and vogue in King’s Landing and the Riverlands. He’d used the wealth from that trade to bring Westerland miners to the Iron Islands, and within two years, iron and copper, steel, salt, and seaweed began to show up in markets worldwide. The Ironborn had been driven to the brink of annihilation. Lord Tyrion had offered them a second way, and most embraced his vision, too battered and scarred from the rebellion to do anything else. It helped that his nephew showed a kind of ironlike mercy that appealed to the Ironborn. Half man, they called him, but it was said with respect. He paid the iron price for the Seastone chair when he put down a rebellion by house Drumm by eradicating their entire bloodline and putting a tenth of the remaining population to the sword.

No one had expected him to come when he was even later than anticipated, and certainly not with a retinue this exotic. Two boys walked out of the shadows, one was eight and the other six, and they were tall for their ages and had the golden hair and green eyes of house Lannister but the dark skin of House Greyjoy. They scowled murderously at Jason Lannister, who bore their contempt with the imperious grace his father was famous for. As they drew closer, Gerion could see the look of fury in Cersei’s eyes. That’s twice her thunder was stolen in as many hours.

“Tyrion, son of Tywin, Lord of the Iron Islands, lord reaper of Pyke, founder of House Lannister of the Iron Islands!” shouted a herald.

“WE DO NOT YIELD!” his sons chanted as they knelt, and both Tyrion and Gerion smiled at the apparent contradiction.

Tyrion did not kneel. Instead, he bowed his head. ‘Hello, sweet sister! Your Grace! And Lords Stark and Baratheon! What a menagerie there is seated before the throngs.”

“Lord Tyrion.” Daemon greeted. “I trust you have a reason to be late.”

“There was a raid by wildlings on Torrhenton.”

There were murmurs; Torrhenton was a country village only two days’ ride from Winterfell. “We volunteered to assist the wolves.” Tyrion gestured to his apes. “Mandarr and Sobarr here put an end to them quick enough. We turned the two survivors over to the Wolves for justice, and further interrogation should these prove to be scouts. I hope you’ll forgive the presumption; we were merely in the area.”

“I thank you for your assistance in these matters.” Lord Stark responded with more gratitude than Gerion expected; honorable Ned Stark, whose word was as good as Lannister gold, lived up to his reputation, it seemed, for he offered Tyrion the hospitality of Winterfell for however long he desired. Had someone taken care of barbarians in his brother’s domain and loudly announced it at a feast, Gerion would have placed good odds on him not lasting the night. But the North was different; everywhere he went in this frigid country, even the wealthiest lord knew that everything they’d built over the last thousand years could vanish in one rough winter. It was jarring for someone from the Westerlands, where even the rudest of the smallfolk had a few more coins to his name than anywhere else in the realm. Sometimes I wonder if the only reason our dynasty has endured so long is that we buy longevity. The Hightowers wield the faith as a shield and the Citadel as a lance; the Baratheons have their tenacity and martial prowess, which endears them. The Tyrells feed everyone, the Reach claims to have invented chivalry, and the Arryns boast they possess the finest knights in the land. What’s not to love? Apart from the fact that they hurl criminals off that wretched mountaintop they call a castle. Quite chivalrous that Gerion thought with an amused grin. I suppose it then stands to reason that the Northern lords win over their smallfolk by being miserly, fearful hoarders…

To his credit, his nephew bowed and then gestured to the chest. “On that note, I brought gifts in recompense for my tardiness.” He gave a lopsided grin to the dais, his mismatched eyes meeting Lord Stark and the King without fear. “That’s a lie; forgive me, your grace, my lords. I already came bearing gifts. I took some more from the wildlings, the iron price and all, but they were scarcely worth the iron they were wrought from.” Asha stepped forward, accepting the chest and hefting it with a grunt of effort; she bore it forth and set it on the table before the King and his kin, then produced a drako from her tunic and lit it on a candle. None failed to note the barely disguised look of hate in her subdued eyes. We should be thankful Aerion isn’t here; else the Aetheryon knight might have been set ablaze by the fury in her stare. Daemon’s posture changed as well, though it was subtle. He’d gone from welcoming when interacting with Tyrion to a cold and domineering gaze, lifting his face slightly so he might look down on the last living member of House Greyjoy. When Asha stepped back, the blue smoke synonymous with drakos filled the air, leaving her enshrouded in a cloud. Great, now every ass addicted to fyreleaf and bittercane will begin to partake. Gerion never liked either, though Tygett was an enthusiastic user of bittercane as he said the alertness it conferred was a boon to even a master swordsman such as himself. Gerion would never forget his father’s hacking cough and blood coming from his lips. The Maesters said his heart had failed on a climb up the stairs, but to Gerion, it was that accursed vice. 

The King inclined his head in gratitude before eying the chest. It was made of ebon, thick and black, and polished and varnished so that it nearly shined like an onyx gem. Gold-filled engravings depicted lions, unicorns, stags, dragons, fishmen, Kraken, and sea dragons. The chest was old, likely a century or more, and when the King opened it, he raised an eyebrow and then laughed. “I do believe Dagon Greyjoy took this one; the other was thought lost during the dance….” He reached in and withdrew a crown, causing the crowd to go silent. “And this one was lost in Dorne..” he said, lifting it into the air.

A simple band of Valyrian steel, simple and gray with its iconic wavy patterns but several large cut rubies shed any doubt on whose crown that was. “How..fortuitous,” Gerion muttered.

The conqueror’s crown.

What game are you playing, nephew?

……..

The Watcher on the Wall.

Benjen Stark was furious. He sat towards the rear with the freeriders and the sellswords, listening to a series of ribald japes, and stared with his gray eyes ahead at the raised dais. To put Jon that close to the king! Daemon was no fool; Lyanna once said that while he lacked the power of Robert and the skill of Ser Arthur or Ser Jaime, he possessed the sight of a sorcerer. He sees little brother; people flock to him because he sees. A discerning mind in a king was a good thing, but of the men Ned counted amongst his closest friends and brothers of the soul, if not blood, Daemon Blackfyre always scared Benjen. From the first meeting, when Daemon accompanied Ned and Robert North to visit with father and Brandon. His eyes which seemed to shift between amethyst and darker purple spoke with a powerful voice even then, and his discerning eyes seemed to pierce any guard that any man set up. The King knew how to speak to people, as a good king should, yet he took it a step further and seemed to know how to inflame a man and drive him wild, unman him or inspire him. He lacked magic, or so he always claimed, but that was because House Blackfyre was principally a noble house that founded its wealth on trade and because they ruled Tyrosh, the Stepstones, and Myr. That it was essential to be able to speak to men thusly else, his people would all be assassinated by their subjects.

It's easy to see why the first King Aerys and his father before him could have lost the throne to the King’s namesake. Granting a newly made cadet branch of House Targaryen control of one of the wealthiest of the free cities, its mainland domains, and the Stepstones…Maekar followed that precedent when Myr and Volantis invaded, attempting to drive the seven Kingdoms from their shores and the second of the three daughters to stand in the way of the seven Kingdoms came under the dragon banners.  At the very least, Myr should have been granted to the royal family and made an overseas domain, and when the disputed lands fell to the Seven Kingdoms? Father once told me there are masterly houses with the name Stark in the Dragonlands, as well as Tyrell and Arryn. All are sworn to the black dragon and not the crown.

It was easy, then, to see why old Jon Arryn and Valarr Blackfyre did what they did; nearly a century of poor decisions by House Targaryen culminated in kinslaying madman on the throne. One who fed his own nephew to a dragon that grew so disgusted with him that it abandoned the very maps of the world to escape him. When matched against men who were expert confidence men, Aerys never stood a chance. And a bitter part of Benjen would always hold that it was by design all of it. Which was why having Jon so close to the black dragons was dangerous. Daemon isn’t the boy you knew; his throne was paid for with four lives. And countless thousands more; what he did to Dorne was an unforgivable act of horror and the Reach more so, yet no one else saw the trappings of madness there. He broke the iron islands! Ben remembered screaming once at Ari when the Targaryen bastard and Commander of one of the Watch’s castles had tentatively defended Daemon’s rule. He killed so many of them, like as not, they will never be the same! The same could be said for the Reach, who accepted a Baratheon in place of a legitimized Redwyne bastard because they feared what three or more dragons might do when one killed damn half the population of King’s Landing’s worth of smallfolk in the reach and destroyed tens of thousands of acres of farmland that didn’t recover until several years after. Everyone loved them, but to Benjen, all he saw when he gazed upon the banner of the black dragon were the faces of Brandon, father, and Lyanna. There was a murmur in the crowd as the great apes belonging to Tyrion turned and took their seats behind the tables near the entrance. Another insult to Ironborn culture having armored apes double as men at arms in place of his own household guard. Not that Ben cared much for a bunch of rapers who worshipped a monster below the waves. But even he couldn’t help but notice that his wife looked upon Tyrion with eyes that held the kind of perverse respect that the Ironborn valued. She loves him because he paid the iron price for her in the way that only Lannisters can.

Apart from his mother, nephews, and elder brother, Jason Lannister was the only one who had come and talked to him at length about the Night’s Watch and its status and the affairs of the Freefolk. It was hard to dislike him; he had a kind smile and was gregarious besides those green-gold eyes…They were cold and calculating and nothing like what a boy of ten should look. The crown of Aegon, Benjen’s mislike of Lannisters grew when he saw that. It was almost mummery in his eyes, and he did not doubt that in his mind that it was planned between the King and Tyrion. Lord Gerion and Garland Tyrell noticed it as well. Still, typical of those Southron fops, there was a look of admiration in their eyes (Though at least the older Lannister had the sense to mix concern in with that glare.). There was a commotion, and the King rose, and so a thousand people in a feasting hall eclipsed solely by the ones in Harrenhal, and Highgarden echoed with the movement of masses.

And then the King raised a goblet. “To Tyron, the iron lion! May the Gods smile on him for his generosity!” people cheered, but for the Lannister delegation that remained silent but for the slight smile on Gerion’s face and the applause of the Kingslayer who was oddly devoted to his misshapen sibling. Tyrion was said to have vowed to kill his father one day; out of the corner of his eyes, Benjen noted Greywind and Shaggydog, the direwolf pups of his nephews Robb and Rickon, had sat down next to the great apes and were laying down in the manner of an animal trying to show a mightier one that they meant no threat. To his surprise, one of the apes, the one called Mandarr, uttered something in a tongue that was guttural but oddly eloquent for something so inhuman—reminding Benjen of the giants who remained behind the wall when their kin accepted the offer of the Umbers to move South. Mandarr began stroking Greywind, and while the tranquility of the other ape settled, the wild Shaggydog.

There was an odd nobility in those creatures.

The King’s powerful voice broke his concentration.

“Two hundred and ninety-eight years ago, my ancestors gazed upon a wounded, divided continent at war. A place that had known five years of peace in one hundred and had endured loss and carnage unceasing for thousands of years and vowed to bring them together.” The King set a hand on the conqueror’s crown. “For a century and a quarter, that unity and peace was kept on dragon back and then for a century and three decades. Through alliances, marriage, and institutions, the Builder Kings and their greatest vassals! The mightiest lords of the realm created so that we might be bound closer together! “

“And through all those bloody wars, those upjumped cheese mongers and flesh peddlers in Essos kept starting because they couldn’t abide men of quality like the first Daemon Blackfyre and his many sons ruling lands they never deserved!” Robert roared, earning a roar of laughter and wraps on tables that turned into howls of laughter when the King mentioned how lucrative those wars had been in dispensing bastards and third-born sons to new lands they might claim so that their fathers didn’t have to divide up their realms further. Perverse, Benjen thought.

“For a century House Targaryen guided us all, in eras of peace and in wars that ravaged not our homelands but were fought overseas to the advantage of all and the liberation of millions from the bondage and horror of slavery.” There were nods of approval and “Hear! Hears!” and “Ayes,” and “praise be to the Gods old and new!” and “In R’hllors name!” in response. A softer version of the red faith, opposed to human sacrifice, had arisen in the Crownlands in the last century, and rather than face schism, the main church in Essos issued an edict stating that human sacrifice was apostasy and that only criminals convicted of the most heinous of crimes can be burned. Though according to several fire worshippers on the Wall, this was because the fire God had ordered it, but in Ben’s experience, Gods seldom spoke to anyone. In any case, power derived from a sacrifice freely given is greater than any form of ritualized murder. Or so it is believed in the North.  “And then Aerys the mad brought his dynasty crashing down…as it began in fire and blood…and in doing so, nearly sundered three centuries of blood, sweat, tears, and faith and work by all of our forefathers.”

Daenerys looked like she’d been struck, and he noticed Princess Visenya was clutching Steffon Baratheon’s hand. Only Rhaenys and mother (who looked as radiant as ever and sat next to Cat, who looked as queenly as Cersei.) seemed to smile at his words. Good ol’uncle Aerys gave me a toy knight for a name day once when I was a boy with a wolf’s head, and I thought him the noblest King to ever sit the Iron Throne, and then he killed my father and fed his nephew, my elder brother to Aegos.

Benjen had liked Aegos the few times the King had flown North to visit before he truly went mad. The crimson dragon was the embodiment of all the cribtales that depicted Dragons as noble creatures possessed of rare dignity. If Aegos returned now and presented his neck for Ice to atone for the deed, Ben was confident neither Ned nor himself could swing the blow. The King moved, set a hand on Dany’s shoulder, then passed her and walked from the dais. His Amethyst eyes must have blazed in the lamplight, and his shadow as black as the dragon on his symbol was long, and Benjen thought he could see crimson intermingled with the blackness. “The antics of mad Aerys reduced the mightiest dynasty the world has ever known since the days of the Dawn to five true born survivors, one of which has been missing these fifteen years and an assortment of bastards, most of which are valiantly manning the wall.”

 Most of whi…Gods!

Benjen’s mouth went dry. No, ignore it. He didn’t mean.

“Now, now House Velaryon still lives!” Monford Velaryon shouted, rising from his seat and waving a gem-studded ringed hand in the air, causing a row of laughter. “And Dragonstone is replete with Seeds!”

Daemon laughed. “I Stand corrected, most noble lord of the Tides, whose family has been an eternal and constant ally and kin to us, I might add.” Monford bowed and sat, gratified that people still remembered they existed.

“Whereas House Blackfyre has been more fortunate. There are a hundred and fifty of us across the narrow sea and on Dragonstone, and that’s just the legitimate ones!” Jacaerys announced, earning a row of cheers.

“And that brings me to my point.” Daemon turned and eyed the crowd, his eyes bright and a look of severity on his slender face. His crown glimmered in the lamplight, a beacon of posturing for all to see. “House Targaryen lost its right to rule when Aerys violated many of our most sacred rights and rites. But its life shall not be forfeit, nor would I have it said that it should be reduced to a lineage of knights or minor nobles.  Lord Stark and I are kin through our mothers, yet dragons are not of the North. Therefore I shall create a new Paramountcy to divide Myr and the Dragonlands from our overseas holdings.” There were whispers of awe, and Ben was speechless; the Dragonlands was the name given to what had once been the disputed lands—taken when the self-proclaimed Emperor in the East initiated his war of conquest against the lands controlled by the Seven Kingdoms. Once rich lands turned into wasteland a after the doom, they had only begun to heal and grow since the disputed lands knew the peace of plate and sword. They were not quite rich lands but profitable, and there was opportunity there, and more besides, Myr and its holdings and ports were a wealth as great as Oldtown. In one stroke, the wealth of House Blackfyre would be halved (This was not correct, no King would do this to his own House. No one with any sense would, there had to be more to this.), and Dany would become one of the wealthiest women in the realm. Benjen could already smell the avarice in the air; she would, after all, need a husband, and that House might potentially become candidates in the line of succession should the worse happen, and a black dragon was born as mad as the last red one.

Though numerous, House Blackfyre cannot rule nigh half the coast of a continent, and it is high time we help preserve our kin.” Turning Daemon smiled an avuncular smile at Daenerys. “Dear lady, you are the head of our progenitor house, and I would not see it vanish, and so, Myr and what was once the disputed lands are now yours!” Daenerys was well trained in the art of composure because if anyone had done that to him in front of a crowd, Benjen would have struck them.

“Of course, a great lady needs a worthy husband, but what am I to do with that? If I wed you to another, your name perishes…Unless..” The King seemed to pause and ponder, and the mummery made a weasel-faced Riverlander shout, “My grandsire has no shortage of other bastards if I’m not suitable! M’lord and lesser heirs who would gladly cast aside the name!”

Others soon joined in until mother and Catelyn Stark rose and glared down at the thousand men baying like hounds scenting a bitch in heat, and they quieted down to a man. Benjen grinned wolfishly. “Stark women.” He muttered under his breath.

“Alas, I have spoken with Lady Rhaella and the new Lady of Myr and the Dragonlands and have determined that the only suitable candidate for her hand is the boy since I’ve arrived. Despite his sense of discomfort and shame, he has overcome that to sit beside his King and has shown himself to be as judicious and gracious a host as his lord, who is born from an ancient and puissant House. One of the oldest in the known world! One that has been loyal to me, kin to me, and devoted to me from the start!”  Daemon Blackfyre downed his wine and turned from the crowd.

Benjen’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

No…Gods, No…he can’t….Gods…

And then he caught the horrified look on Ned’s face, who seemed to clutch his chair's arms so hard that Benjen imagined his hands were as white as old lord Aenar’s hair. “To Jon Storm! Whose formal betrothal to Daenerys Targaryen Lord Eddard Stark, my most gracious host, my brother in soul if not blood, has so nobly permitted me to announce here tonight!”

There was a silence over the crowd as if the wind had been stolen from a thousand, thousand sails.

Daemon Blackfyre was the most cunning man Benjen Stark had ever known.

But he was a bastard through and through.

Jon looked confused, as though he were ready to run to Dany and embrace her, yet as though he did not deserve this honor and felt some pang of guilt over it.

“Of course.” Daemon continued, “Such youths cannot rule so mighty a domain alone, especially when one was not taught to rule. And so, by leave of Lord Tywin.” Daemon turned, his scarlet robes curling about him in a flourish, as a serpentine-like hood. Young Jason Lannister nodded his head in acknowledgment, those cold eyes unreadable, but Ben had to admire how he’d handled being put on the spot, for he was certain Daemon was supposed to announce all this at some later date.

“I intend to raise Gerion, son of Tytos of House Lannister, to the position of Lord Mayor of Myr, a position to be held by him and his descendants until the breaking of the world!” there were a few more names read off, cousins of Mace Tyrell and their sons who would be given vacant lands to hold and raise in what was once the disputed lands. A Forrester was given dominion over a coastal forest, and a lesser member of house Manderly was engaged to a Blackfyre daughter and made master of one of the port towns in the sea of Myrth. Still, Benjen didn’t hear any of it in detail. He was too busy trying not to vomit up his own heart as fifteen years of secrets threatened to burst like a damn, and his worry and fear consumed him.

Ned Stark would be hand, the King decreed, and Daemon gave what was no doubt a magnificently worded speech but again, Benjen couldn’t hear it. Ned looked ready to kill the King for doing this to him in his own house, and when he rose from his seat, he looked like a man walking to the executioner's block.

A dragon had cornered the wolf.

And the wolf bent.

Lya…I’m so sorry….

Chapter Text

A lady of Winterfell

Catelyn Stark had only seen her lord husband so angry once in their life together. When she brought up Ashara Dayne in conjunction with the bastard, there was a part of her that feared her Ned would strangle her for it. In the years since came to realize that he would never harm her and the shame she felt at believing he would. It was yet another sin to lay at the bastard’s feet and another reason for Catelyn to hold no love for the get of Starfall. But tonight? Catelyn Tully of House Stark was convinced she would face the block because her husband ran the King through with the nearest candelabra. And she shared her husband’s fury, for it was bad enough betrothing the bastard of Starfall to their ward who might have been queen consort in another life but to make him Lord Paramount of Myr and the Dragonlands in all, but name was an affront to the realm entire. And a personal slight against House Stark, Bran could have been picked, Rickon…And the betrothals made between Robb and princess Rhaenyra and Maelys and Sansa. All good matches she and lady Rhaella had been working on them for the better part of a year, and while Sansa was unsure (Maelys was handsome, but he kept a bald head save for his thick silver eyebrows. Much as the girl was learning to be a lady of the North, she was still a sweet summer child who loved songs, and heroes from songs were never hairless second sons.) Robb and Rhaenyra seemed to take to each other quickly. Arya…Well, she would leave that for tomorrow. All of it was going so well, and when Jacaerys offered Storm a place in his household on Dragonstone, even lord Velaryon made a similar offer as they wished to get into the new Hand’s good graces…if she could pawn the bastard off on them. He managed to live up to even a tenth of his uncle Ser Arthur’s skills with a lance or blade. But then the King announced their betrothal by the look in her goodmother and ward’s eyes that had been planned. Outmaneuvered by an old woman and a girl of fourteen….And the King, to dangle such a fine piece before the assembled lords only to pass it to the natural born son of Ashara Dayne! Was he trying to start a war?

Daemon was always canny..why such a grave misstep? Am I missing a thing? Why would a bastard and an orphan girl be worth the risk?

Or was the king using her ward, a girl Cat had come to love as a daughter, as bait to draw out his enemies? No, there were far less disruptive methods of achieving that. Ned looked so pale when he accepted the chain of office and excused himself, citing trouble with the spleen and when convenient, Cat excused herself from following him, and she found him naked in the cold night hair in the Lord’s towers. The Eastern keep, a great gray and black stone keep of three long towers that rose over the curtain wall was designed to deploy dragon riders from the top three drum-like towers where they could soar into the wind and descend on an attacking army like a winter storm. The view was impeccable from the top, and it was said giants helped build them. It was said that Aragor’s flames fused the stone as he had with the rest of the interconnected castles of Winterfell built after the original ancient keep was converted into one part of a greater whole. On a clear day, one could see all the way to the White knight; no doubt they were designed with that in mind. So far above the ground, even in the summer, it was unbearable cold without layers of blankets or dragon blood. Ned looked grim even by his normal standards, and she went to him. After all, if he had finally seen sense about the bastard, it would be a shock to his system. She held him, and he took her fiercely and desperately. They made love in a way they hadn’t in years, and she prayed the whole time the seed spent in her would quicken into another brave and strong son.

Afterward, they rested seated in their bed, drakos, where the fyrleaf was cut with bittercane and powdered poppy extract, were lit, and the two smoked in the privacy of their rooms, the one place they permitted themselves to partake in a habit they considered to be improper in front of children. Bluish smoke wafted into the air cascading against the stone and ironwood ceiling, tracing the engravings of wolves and mammoths and dragons and direwolves and harts and creatures she didn’t recognize and likely hadn’t walked the earth in millennia. “I have a mind to break off the betrothals and return his chain of office,” Ned spoke; at last, his body was still muscular and scarred, like chiseled but worn granite. Cat froze in the bed, her blue eyes narrowing as she fought to calm the fear welling up in her heart. All this because of their affection for a bastard…How dare Rhaella and Daenerys undermine me in my own home!

It was all collapsing! “My lord..you do that..you insult the king.”

“He insulted us!” Ned almost yelled.

“Jon…”

Ned blinked and looked at her in a way she’d never seen before, and he rose and walked from the bed, leaving her feeling empty as he made his way to the window. Disgust. Cat realized, and she looked away. “Forgive me.”

Ned took a prolonged inhalation of his drako and then tossed it out the window, the smoke from his lungs and the heat from his breath a vortex of blue and grey swirls. “This isn’t about him, Cat; it’s about Daemon. How could he…and before the whole realm! He puts Daenerys and Jon in incredible danger.”

Cat blinked, Daenerys and…Of course. She sighed, looking down at the sheets, her fingers absent-mindedly tracing through one of the large fur blankets resting upon the mounds comprised of layers of cotton, wool, and silk. Her auburn hair fell over her oval face as she tried, struggled, and warred with herself. Did she explain it or allow her husband to fester in silence, horrified at the notion of defending a living insult to all that they had built together? In the end, the better part of her won out. “My love, my…lord husband. Granting Daenerys and..the..young Storm such a profitable domain allows him to bestow a kingly gift upon his niece so far away, and by marrying her off to a bastard, she loves it both diminishes her claim while giving her something far beyond what even we could gift her. It was an act of kindness.”

“Kindness!” Ned spat, his eyes blazing with that quiet fury that made him such a deadly foe in both rebellions. “She would be a target of Volantis!” he said through gritted teeth. “And Jon…should there ever be war.”

“Volantis has a slave rebellion to address, and the Dothraki are on the move again when last Maester Luwin reported.” She hated defending the bastard, but her husband’s fury was great. “By the time they are ready, so too will your ward and her…husband.”

“That is not what I meant, Cat..” But Ned would say no more, and she was left to hold back tears, naked in the cold Northern air, until her beloved lord Stark finally returned to bed and embraced her. “You must let go of your hatred of a boy you hate in his mother’s stead.” No, she thought, Cat could never do that, not ever, and not after tonight. “You must not renege, my love.” “My mind is made up.”

Cat swallowed. “He’ll take your head.” she pleaded.

“Then he is no true king….Nor was he ever my brother.”

All for a bastard.

A knock at their chamber doors and a servant opened them from outside. An old gray figure with a many-linked chain (which included a link of Valyrian steel.), piercing gray eyes, and a few strands of gray hair on a bald crown matched his shabby gray robe, which possessed an unnatural number of pockets for which the dear Maester was always either retrieving or storing things. “My lord…”

“Maester, we missed you at dinner.”

The old Maester smiled a tired and comforting smile. “Alas, I was embroiled in a riveting conversation with several Southron Maesters and our own Archmaester Norridge on the nature of our dragons. They seem to be of Valyrian stock, yet their magics are somewhat different though to what degree that difference is…well…I....” Luwin seemed to smile sheepishly as Ned managed a soft laugh. “Forgive me, my lord, the King wishes to see you.., see us both.”

Wordlessly Ned rose from beside Cat and vanished down a hall to the wardrobe. And as her lord husband finally left, Cat allowed herself to weep.

It was always the bastard.

………….

The dragon and the wolves

It was a summer night like this, Rhaella realized as her purple eyes traced the leatherbound bookmarked with the year two hundred and sixty-nine. Her fingers slid over the ink; the vibrant and deep strokes of the pen signified her late husband's handwritten words. Rickard was no great calligrapher, and once when he saw a poem she had written for him (she was fourteen when they wed, silly girls do silly things for those whom they are smitten with.), he confessed that he didn’t quite understand the language of poetry but was so moved by the skill of her penmanship that instead of being offended she was fairly certain that Brandon was conceived that very evening. Of course, his love for her work with a quill had been a curse, for he trusted her to write all his correspondences thenceforth. The Great Jon sometimes still calls me the winged scribe. She rather liked that. And even rode as a mystery knight with a winged inkpot on her shield in a tourney at Riverrun, causing the Great Jon to laugh so hard Lord Hoster thought he’d gone mad or had water in the lungs for his wheezing.

She lost, defeated by Ser Barristan but proudly, it had taken four lances to knock her over. I believe Benjen was conceived that night with bruised ribs and all. how she loved Rickard’s rough, uncouth calligraphy. The morning of that summer night, Rickard had tried to write her poetry, and it was so poorly constructed that it was a masterwork in its ineptitude, and she loved him for it and treasured it. But her skill was still to her detriment because after she arrived, so little of her late husband’s writing remained, and as her grandchildren grew and began to leave the wolf’s den they called home, she would miss Rickard even more than ever. Until the great-grandchildren come anyway, I shall remain Winterfell's second lady for a time yet. Especially with how adrift the lord and lady were. She couldn’t be reunited with Rickard yet, not yet.

Her mind drifted down to the book, the ledger. The lamplight made shadows dance in the dark, conjuring shapes in her mind that reminded her of treks in the snow, hours spent aback Winter and her first battle against Wildling Raiders, and when she and the King who never was; Valarr Blackfyre flew beyond the wall and burned the armies of Hagon the warg to a cinder. In the summer of A.C, two hundred and sixty-eight, she was one and twenty, Rickard three and thirty, and her Brandon and Ned were six and seven, and Lya was still in her belly. King Aerys and Ser Gerold Hightower, the legendary White bull, descended on Aegos, his great red dragon with its black underbelly and wing membranes. It was slightly before Duskendale, and everything went wrong, and the worst aspects of his nature were given free rein over the rest of himself. He landed in the summer snow, needing to climb down Aegos, who at that point was some seventy feet long and eclipsed only by Argella in size. His boots landed on the soft snow, and Aegos, the oddly…polite dragon, only snapped at Ser Gerald Hightower slightly for the extra weight he was forced to bear from the knight who insisted on bringing his shield even if he was denied his armor. Immediately the king was assaulted by two tiny barbarians what tackled her royal brother, sending him into the snow. “Ser Gerold! I am beset by Wildlings! Do thy duty!” he called between spasms of laughter as he righted himself and embraced her sons. Syrax the gilded landed then, and Rhaegar descended, followed by his lady mother. Her nephew gazed at Aerys tumbling in the snow with his cousins with longing.

That was a tragedy of the Dance or the Blackfyre rebellion, whichever name the Maesters and bards chose to give it. It was a tragedy seldom remarked upon but was deep and cutting nonetheless.  Rhaegar was the older cousin of the current lord of Winterfell and, before Ned left to foster in the Eyrie, was closer to her grim son than anyone. And Aerys loved Brandon…almost cruelly, for he oft compared Rhaegar to his cousin. That had made their deaths in King’s Landing so horrifying for so many; even at his maddest after Duskendale, Rickard could still reach Aerys even when Tywin could not, and more oft than not, Tywin and Aerys encouraged the worst in each other…they were brothers to the bone…the worst sort. And why the court was horrified when Aerys slew Rickard and ordered Aegos to kill Bran, the young man who had ridden the dragon's back between Aerys arms so many times as a boy, who dared to sleep between his immense wings on visits to Winterfell.

It was said Aerys sobbed when Brightflame pierced Rickard’s heart and tears of blood when Brandon was eaten by the Dragon he loved. But singers say many things; that last perceived betrayal seemed to be what broke Aerys and Rhaella refused to allow herself to feel any sort of guilt for that. Except that Rhaegar had known Lyanna her whole life, to where Lya slept between him and Elia whenever I flew to the Red Keep on Winter with her in tow. And she had never once seen any sort of love in her eyes for Rhaegar apart from sibling love, and Rickard trusted her in that matter, even against his instincts. But what is sibling love to a Dragonlord but romantic love? Rhaella suppressed a shudder. Seven hells…Rhaegar was present in the tree's hollow when Lya was born! Not my finest moment that, trapped in an ancient tree in the Stormlands during a terrible windstorm with Winter acting as a guard to the mouth of the hollow and without a Maester and only Rhaegar and poor Oswell Whent for company and his dark humor made me laugh so hard I wonder if Lya didn’t come faster for it.

Little Rhaegar wrapped her in his cloak; she recalled his eyes gazing down in wonder. Lyanna roared into the world, a dragon in wolf’s fur.

They had been close, Baratheons, Arryns, Starks, Targaryens, Blackfyres, and Lannisters. The great pillar families of Westeros, with Jon being the eternally frustrated nuncle in their lives and the others like siblings, and when the Blackfyre rebellion began, it was almost an unsubtle mummer’s tragedy in how deeply personal it was and how many of her dear friends must have died with tears in their eyes. But that was likely why it was so vicious…And why Rhaella felt as though she were the world’s greatest fool for not seeing the signs there, if any existed. I need to speak with Arya. Eventually, she is so much like her aunt, and I’ll not have a repeat of the last generation’s sins; I’ll not repeat my own.

And Jon Storm…Born in the Stormlands, he says…when any who knew Lyanna close enough to know her well would tell you how unsubtle that was my son.

And Ned, so enraged as he excused himself. The fury in his eyes reminding her so much of the look on the faces of Rickard and Aerys at Harrenhal made her feel sick. For the rest of the feast, she sat insensate, trapped in the past, trapped in the terror of believing that your gesture of kindness, your gift to grandson and mother, niece and son and daughter, amounted to a poison-tipped dagger aimed at their throats and thrust by dark, unyielding repetition’s doom. She knew she had to do something to ensure this did not end all in horror.

And so, when the King made his way to Lord Stark’s solar, Ser Barristan in tow. Rhaella was there, in her night robes. Her eyes were a picture of Northern steel as she assured the King who by marriage as the daughter of King he deposed before him, her nephew be. That she would not yield and sit in participation of this discussion, and to her surprise, Daemon held her in gratitude. “Thank you; I was hoping you’d help me talk sense into him.”

He was furious…

But Ned was his kin still.

Would Jon still be his kin?

His eyes narrowed for a second when he released her, accusing and suspicious and so much like Valarr’s. “You knew?”

Lady Rhaella smiled sadly. “My son never told me, no. But how could I not?” And what was Ned thinking? Hiding the boy in plain sight at the feast would have saved him from Robert had he been King and not Daemon, but Daemon was no fool. Though it was evident by the speech that he’d long held his suspicions, they were only confirmed by his interactions with the royal family. And by how he fights, Lyanna and Rhaegar had similar movements. Jaime also noticed it, but the self-absorbed Lannister knight who put her brother out of his misery seemed to dismiss it as a mere inheritance. Thankfully Bran moved the same way when attacking straw dummies, else….” And we still do not know….”

Daemon frowned. “Aunt…”

“No, truly, how many cousins thrice removed share your look? And do you accuse Valarr of impregnating all their mothers?”

Daemon almost flushed, and the look on his face reminded her of when he was a child and was being admonished; she suppressed a laugh as she reached up to touch his elbow. “We will let him talk…. first. He will be wroth, and we must let him spend some of it before we speak.” Her voice was gentle but commanding, and she gazed into Daemon’s eyes with the eyes of an aunt and a mother and grandmother.

“Yes, your grace,” Daemon said with a mischievous smile before sinking into the room like a phantom. There were times when she shared Benjen’s perception of the King as a clever mummer who weaved a theme and made men follow it as though they were personalities in the farce and not living men and women with their minds. It was rare, and she still loved the man and was glad in her heart to call him king, but there were still moments, and when she waited in darkened silence with him, she saw the signs of fatigue in the profile of the king, and she wondered if he did not sometimes know which version of him was indeed him. When her Ned finally came in, his jaw was set, his eyes were hard, and Rhaella felt herself swallow down her fears. Maester Luwin, gracious and kind Luwin who had pulled every one of her grandchildren from betwixt Cat’s legs and whose ministrations kept all of them alive besides…

“I shall excuse myself, your grace, my lady, my lord.”

“No, I command that you remain, take paper and quill, and be seated. I want this writ and preserved. So that one day, what is discussed here will be of paramount importance.” The King was seated, still not out of his formal robes from the feast earlier, and his eyes were tired but narrowed and awash with different emotions. For a moment, Luwin looked from the King to Ned, then back as Ned gave a subtle nod, barely noticeable to undermine the king but enough to show the respect and deference the Maester held for him. The doors were barred, with Ser Selmy and the guards ordered to mind themselves and deny entry to all save her son until they were done or by leave given, and when all was done, her son stared down at the seated King. A mix of emotions in his eyes, among them indignation and betrayal. Think, my son…it’s not as you believe it.  She wasn’t afraid for Jon; she did not know why, except that Daemon seemed to share the Stark sense of duty and understanding of family.

An unbearable silence filled the room, and neither man moved nor broke eye contact, and suddenly images of fields in Reach burning and ash and storm clouds roiling over the mountains of Dorne filled her mind, and she wondered if, in her fear of repeating past mistakes, she hadn’t made a new one just as ruinous. He won’t kill my grandson… It hadn’t even entered her mind until now; Gods…

“You have an interesting way of demonstrating gratitude Stark.” Daemon began, his voice hard and cold, his eyes narrowing to near slits, and his words came out almost as a hiss. “I give your ward and young master Storm a paramountcy near as rich as my kin in the narrow sea and a seat on the Lord's Council.” Daemon paused, composing himself, trying to mask his tone, which broke slightly as if he was as much of a mess of emotions as she was. He likely is; there are embers of the rebellion here…

“A gift that comes with incredible danger. Volantis eyes the Dragonlands and Myr greedily, and our domains, free of slavery, stand as beacons that have caused no end of rebellion to the remaining slave powers. Powers that, if they ever united even with Dragons, we wouldn’t be able to defeat.” Ned was always the one who was best at strategy; Brandon was a tactical boy and lived for the fight, whereas Ned saw the wider war, and Benjen saw only the battle.  She could see the working of his mind in his dark eyes as he assessed the odds of a new Lord Paramount being able to contest the invasion of her borders, and they would invade, specifically because Daenerys and Jon would be unique and untested. “And even if they did not, armies would be on their lands within a year. You sent my family to be murdered.”

Daemon stayed silent, his features still hard, and slowly nodding his head as though he were weighing the value of her son’s words taking them for wise counsel and not solely the words of a terrified father. “You’re quite right; Volantis and the Dothraki would be breathing down their throats in short order. Well, ordinarily, in any event.” His eyes sparkled with amusement. “But Khal Drogo has it in his mind to make for himself a settled Kingdom for the Dothraki, and he views Volantis and its domains as an easier target than the Dragonlands.” The King laughed softly, but there was none of the joy or kindness in it that she was accustomed to, and her heart started to pound. “Never mind that there are twenty-five thousand men at arms who choose to remain and twice that in levies, most of which are freedmen who came to those lands to seek a better life. They may not be warriors, but they’ll fight like hell if you say you need their help. Loyal people see the Seven Kingdoms as a paradise compared to their old lives. If you don’t believe me, ask Robert. He helped me with the Dothraki matter years ago. Do you think I’d leave my cousin at the mercy of a bunch of monsters, Ned?” He inclined his head, looking up at her son with quizzical eyes. There was more in the meaning….

Ned swallowed. “What you did in Dorne and the Reach…However necessary was...Killing on a scale that I could not comprehend and it made me fear you.”

Daemon smirked a sad look in his tired eyes. “But you left out the Iron Islands; everyone leaves them out and, in doing so, undermines the point they always raise next.”

“Damnit, Daemon, this isn’t a debate at Ethics in Jon’s High Hall!” Ned roared, and Daemon slammed his fist onto the table with surprising force despite his seemingly calm exterior. “I am your king…Stark.” Daemon responded in a voice that was an inhuman snarl. “And you who do me such wrong would dare to feign a wounded heart at my attempts to protect my cousin and my nephew from harm by granting them a domain far from eyes that might exploit her and use her to further their advantages! I give a Stark by blow the spot as lord consort of a domain that can muster a force near the size of the Vale’s armies…A gesture of trust, I might add, given that we overthrew her father by blood, and should she stir to mutiny House Blackfyre would bear the bulk of her fury alone while the mainland mustered. I place my kin in the narrow sea at considerable danger and do it all for her, and you and you come here and look down upon me with the same disgust you held for Balon Greyjoy? How dare you! How dare you, you sanctimonious fool! We are kin! How could you think so little of me!”

It was queer how he said nephew, but Ned didn’t seem to notice it. And it was true, whatever Jon’s parentage was, that through his mother, Ned’s cousin, and in Essosi culture, your cousin's children were seen as nephews. But the inflection was subtle but in the High Valyrian of the court…Luwin caught it as well, and the Maester glanced up for the briefest of seconds before his need to focus on transcription compelled him back to the parchment.

Ned swallowed, looked struck, and guilt slowly crept into his face, years of guilt, fear, and shame that made her surviving eldest son seem so old. She wanted to reach out to and hold him, but not even Cat could do that without making him seem weak in a situation such as this, and this confrontation needed to happen. “You may think that you are doing them a kindness, but it is not yours to do. I can give them a large demesne in the North….I can shield them; I can protect them.”

“It’s their birthright to be great lords of the realm Stark.”

The switch to the common tongue was so swift it was jarring, and Rhaella had to remind herself that Daemon was the first monarch to sit on the Iron throne who spoke common fluently from the cradle and hadn’t learned it in his adolescence from fosterage. Ned himself looked confused and flustered, and then when he moved to speak again, Daemon raised his hand. “You think me capable of butchering a baby? Are you worried about Dany and the boy being killed by Dothraki? Or are you worried I'll have him assassinated the moment Jaehaerys sets foot in Myr?”

“She didn’t name him Jaehaerys,” Ned said without thinking, and then his eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets, and he looked down at the King like a cornered animal. Rhaella looked at him with horrified eyes. How could you fall for such a trap?!.

Abruptly the King leaned forward, and a queer sound came from his mouth. Rhaella thought it might have been the beginning of a sob, but instead, it turned into raucous laughter and how the king laughed, a mad, cackling noise that was one part rage, one part indignation, and all amusement at a boyhood friend. He stamped his feet onto the ground, slapping the ledge of the chair, and after a moment, he leaned forward, removing his crown to set it on the table. After a slight wheeze, he regarded Ned with sad eyes. “Ah, but Gods Ned, how easily you fell for a trick you’ve no doubt used on your own children….”

“Then…you’re not.” Something queer shifted in her son’s eyes as if he couldn’t quite comprehend what had transpired and so he asked a question a boy in the Eyrie might have asked his best friend and brother. Correcting himself, he swallowed and looked down at Daemon, and Rhaella realized that the look on Ned’s face was the look of a man who was prepared to die, and she felt tears welling up in her eyes. Oh, Ned…he won’t kill you…you must realize that now.

“Please don’t tell me it was Aegon…with the names of his half-sisters.”

“Aenar, actually.”

Daemon blinked. “Truly? Lya hated the old bastard, hated him down to her bones.” The King asked, and all of the rage and coldness of before was gone in a flash despite how real it seemed mere moments ago, and Rhaella felt profoundly unsettled and now for the first time. Truly afraid…

“Aye, but it was the name of the exile, who founded the house of the Narrow Sea that would one day conquer Westeros; she thought mayhap it would be a fresh start…for House Targaryen even if it was for only one of them.” Ned’s tone remained even, but he seemed as disturbed as she was; how quickly Daemon could switch his emotions reminded them of Aerys, but where there was no control in the old king. But in the eyes of Daemon Blackfyre, there was nothing but measured discipline. “Why was I not told?”

“Because of what you did in Dorne and the Reach. I had no reason to believe you would not butcher Jon or fly North and try to do the same to my people in retribution.” Ned stated and then took a breath. “The truth of it? After what I saw of you and Robert with Rhaenys and Visenya, I felt a terrible shame in me. It is why I accepted Daenerys at. First, I wished to somehow atone for what I felt was an act of betrayal and slander.”

Daemon’s control faded for a second, and that second was enough for her to see how wounded he was and how he knew Ned was right. The extent of the rage brimming below the surface caused Rhaella to know true horror. If he falters in his discipline for an instant, one of them will surely end up dead at the other’s hand.

Maester Luwin was pale, the revelation of what he’d just witnessed leaving him dumbstruck, his hand continued to move, but it was clear he would be writing a second paper from memory and preserving the pair of them, for he was likely writing a frantic mess at present. “My..your grace….”

“You’re here as an archivist for the nonce Maester,” Daemon spoke slowly and barely above a whisper, and even Ned stepped back as the King turned back to the Lord of Winterfell. “Who first knew?”

“Benjen.”

“Of course, they were closest in age. Why did he remain silent?” Daemon asked; his tone remained even and without acrimony, but every sense Rhaella possessed told her to be wary, to be fearful because there was something dark there behind those amethyst eyes. However, it seemed to lessen with every passing moment. As though Daemon was beginning to realize this was less a conspiracy and more the folly of desperate children. Or perhaps his rage had begun to abate in him as he remembered the bonds of family and friendship, bonds that were fraying before her very eyes.

Ned closed his eyes, searching for something, trying to recall the frantic answers of panicked children while Rhaella steeled herself. At last, I’ll know what the final moments of my only daughter’s life were like. She felt a hand on her shoulder then and looked up to see her little Ned looking down at her with eyes brimming with concern. “Mother..”

“It’s all right, Ned, this is a story that’ll be glad to hear no matter the outcome in truth…I’ve longed for this” Rhaella was surprised at how tired she sounded at that moment, how much strength she derived from Ned’s simple touch. Beyond the towers, she could hear the deep howl of Warden, her son’s direwolf, and if in answer, Winter’s roar.

“It is the same for me, though not to the same degree, my lady,” Daemon admitted, rising and walking from the seat towards a tapestry from Yi Ti that depicted an outlandish version of the Blackfyre rebellion in which her son was a beast man and for some reason the Frey’s were giant weasels who were valiantly fighting for what Rhaella always assumed was supposed to be Aerys, except it was a three-headed dragon with breasts… Unless that’s supposed to be me, why would I fight Freys?

She was grateful for the momentary distraction.

“Benjen indicated to me that had they told anyone of their plans or announced them that there would be some manner of calamity. Rhaegar believed someone disloyal to the crown was scheming, and if it came to light before the deed was one, then there would be nothing but death waiting.” After further silence, Ned remarked on how Lyanna was told she was fulfilling a prophecy. “Lyanna believed it was something worse…If they announced to the realm that they had run off together, something dark would come for us all, and some disaster would strike before we were ready. She died believing this; Rhaegar had her convinced the Others were returning.”.

Those words made Rhaella’s blood freeze, and she wasn’t sure why except that she was a daughter of the Freehold, and while she had become a northern dragon, the concept of ancient demons of ice and death was such anathema to her kind that her revulsion at the tales was always instinctive as if a piece of whom she was recognized a natural enemy to her kind. “It sounds as though Rhaegar was mad in the end...” Rhaella whispered more to herself than the others.

Daemon traced his fingers along the heroic weasel’s snout before he shook his head ruefully and laughed. “So, he went mad because of Daenys the dreamer and her insane song.” Both mother and son looked up at Daemon with quizzical eyes then, and he shrugged. “It is an old Targaryen legend that old lord Hand spoke of often; he did believe there was something up North; the seven know he explored more of it than any living man south of the Wall.” Daemon turned and faced them both and then let out a laugh. “Even a Stark can fall victim of the Dragon’s madness it seems.” When it looked like Ned would speak up, Daemon waved it off. There is something queer about his response.

It was as if upon hearing those words, all of his bitterness toward her son evaporated, and Ned was talking to Daemon as a boy in the Eyrie. “The short of it was that Aenar, the exile and later his descendant Aegon believed a savior of some sort would come from his bloodline and take the fight to the forces of darkness and win a final battle. But neither the exile nor the conqueror ever mentioned how they expected to face inhuman monsters that could raise the dead with a unified continent and not grant them the largest army ever to exist. or why they believed such a thing existed at all” Daemon let out a sad laugh and shook his head, long silvery hair swaying as he did so. “By the Gods…I knew Rhaegar was a maniac, but I hadn’t known he was an invalid.” At Ned’s confused reaction, Daemon smiled ruefully. “So, Jon is a boy; wed him to one or both of his sisters, he is a bastard after all, and Rhaenys or Visenya would pass the Targaryen name to any children they’d have, furthermore Jon would have been King consort. There is no reason to conceal The lad. It is utterly mad for him to have done so.”

“War with Dorne…fear that a grave insult offered against Elia would provoke them.” Ned reasoned, his eyes frantic with realizations that he might never have considered had Daemon’s insight cast a very different light into this tragic affair. One that had the unfortunate consequence of casting Lyanna into the role of an even bigger simpleton than Rhaegar, one that visibly angered Ned but left him with no way to refute it that he could think of at present.. That’s partially my fault; she was always intended to wed Robert, who shared her hatred of the great game and politics. And so, Rickard seldom tried to educate her, and I struggled to get through her stubborn resolve to shun the game.

“Were they wed?”

“If they did, it would have been before a heart tree, but neither Ben nor Lyanna divulged that and only said his name, not if he was a Storm or a Targaryen.”

Daemon nodded. His eyes seemed filled with fury and amusement that Rhaella had born towards many of her children, Rhaegar and Robert himself. “Then any potential wedding didn’t nullify Elia’s, nor would his place in the line of succession be voided. In the South, Red and Weirwood weddings are not considered legally binding to the same degree that marriages in the light of the seven are….” The King’s tone was of pure vexation, and Rhaella was acutely aware that Daemon had made a conscious effort to continue the path of Daeron the second and Aegon the fifth. “Defenders of faith and not the faith.” Was the common denigration by their opponents. Rhaella thought about it, seeing where the King was taking that, and she frowned sadly. “That would have undoubtedly enraged Brandon,” Daemon began again, taking a drako from a box on Ned’s task and leaning in to light it on a lantern. “but your lord father was canny enough to realize he would still get a great-grandson on the Iron throne.” Daemon inhaled the burning smoke and released it, crowned himself with blue-grey smoke.  “Near a million people died across two wars that never would have occurred had they simply announced After the deed was done. If that prophecy drunken simpleton feared demons beyond the wall!” Daemon seemed to grow wroth again, but it wasn’t at Ned and more at a man dead these past fifteen years. “I loved Lyanna like a sister, but she was a deeply self-absorbed young woman. Stubborn to a fault and determined to reject the world's conventions to do whatever she wished, trapped as she thought she was in a betrothal to a man much alike her in temperament and nature.” The words stung mother and son, and before she could stop, Rhaella called her a child and asked him if he could say the same of Rhaenyra.

“If she started a war that forced her father into an early grave and his cousin to commit what Lorathi call atrocities to keep the war from being prolonged until it broke us as a people? Yes, yes, I would. Though I would be casting my aspersions from beyond the grave!” Daemon reached up with his left hand, rubbing the bridge of his nose, ashes falling as the Drako burned. He looked old and weary between lamplight and shadows as if this conversation had aged him years. “Maekar…The hand always said the young prince Aenar’s face reminded him of Maekar…did you tell him?”

Rhaella frowned, another thing that she missed.  Old Lord Aenar was hinting at it to us the entire time, and he thought it was just whimsy on his part or an attempt to needle Catelyn.

“No, but nothing escaped his gaze.” So much for the prophecy of the world ending if anyone found out, Rhaella thought bitterly. “I believe they loved each other, to some degree, your grace…At least in the beginning.”

“Who else knows?” Daemon asked abruptly, startling the trio. “Only Howland Reed and Ser Aerion Aetheryon and Tormund suspects it but he is off the beaten path and thinks the child was Aerys’ for he was convinced Rhaegar was a man who liked the company of other men in his bed chamber.”

Daemon let out a rich laugh that finally sounded genuine. “Tormund may not be wrong about that, from what a few of my cousins have said, Rhaegar may very well have preferred the company of men. My cousin Aegon does, though he still loves his wife and son, it's not uncommon for men in such positions who have no choice but to wed to choose someone they respect and couple, they oft do right by them as well though not if you heard a septon tell it. And from what you tell me, Lya felt trapped and would have jumped a faceless man to escape it.” Again, the King muttered something under his breath and crushed the drako in his hand (Causing Rhaella to wince, Dragonlords might be resistant to heat, but she never consciously tested the degree.) he looked to Ned again with blazing eyes. “I did what I did in the Reach and Dorne to end the war sooner. I did it to enemy assets.”

“Smallfolk and…”

“EACH PLOW REPRESENTS FOOD FOR A SOLDIER!” the King thundered. “Each city, a staging point, each road…and mind ye the crown rebuilt all of this! Each road and canal are means to move troops faster, and each farm and hamlet a means to produce food and produce men. I denied the enemy resources, Lord Stark.” Daemon’s voice thundered, breaking off the solar walls and penetrating down to her son’s marrow. “I denied an enemy that had by that point poisoned tens of thousands of Stormlanders and killed the youngest brother of our foster sibling, and you think I’d do the same to the son of a girl I considered a friend?”

“Rober..”

“Don’t bring him into this, Lord Stark…Robert would have been a broken man as he already had been; in that, Lysa Tully has been a balm to him, and He might have insisted Lya’s boy be raised in the Stormlands, and I’ll admit that would not have been prudent, or might have betrothed Shiera to Jon, but that’s hardly braining a newborn with a war hammer!”

Those words struck Rhaella in her very soul, and a deep and dark fear danced through her mind, images of a storm raging across an island and pain, sorrow, and death. A life that could have been, a life stolen, and a girl who bore her face consuming a city in flame. She gripped her seat, doing all she could to keep herself from growing faint.

The King fell back into her son’s seat and leaned backward, reclining seemingly in exhaustion. “You are a fool Lord Stark, but an honorable and loyal fool. The kind of fool I need in the capital, the betrothals will stand, your house will stand, and I still need you as my Hand.”

Your house will stand? Gods, he truly was deciding whether or not to attaint us and execute us all!  “Daemon…he did what he did for love of his sister….”

“He lied to his king, by omission mayhap but a lie nonetheless, and in doing so concealed a thing that was of vital importance to the security of the realm aunt. That is treason by law, but I do not believe it is morally treasonous. And since I am the King, I will choose to honor the spirit of the law and not its letter.” After a moment, he added. “And, besides…your son thinks me worse than Aerys.”

“I do not!” Ned protested.

“Truly? I killed more people than Aerys, I’ve killed more people than any of the mad Targaryens, even Rhaenyra and Aegon the second could not boast the mountains of ashes I left behind.”

“..Aye…but you did not make that decision out of sadism. You did not take pleasure in it.”

“Indeed! For I’m a conscientious butcher Lord Stark.”

“I will resign as your hand in the morning. I imagine after this, you no longer wish me to serve.”

“I need your brand of idiocy in the South, Lord Stark; if anything else, my children need you.”

“Your grace.”

“Daemon.” The King responded, his voice low and sorrowful, and Rhaella thought at once that there stood the boy from Eyrie pleading for a friendship he believed shattered. “I am not just your King; I was your brother once.”

“Once…” Ned agreed.

And Rhaella laughed, an exhausted, long laugh, and she was vaguely aware that she had thrown her head back and damn near cackled and that she must have looked half-mad, for when she remastered herself, tears were streaking her cheeks. “Seven above and the Old Gods in their trees and rivers and winds…preserve the realm from my fool son and nephew.” When they both turned to look at her with shocked eyes, she slammed her hand on the table. “Do not look at me in such a manner, you prideful boys! I swear, Robert Baratheon is the genius amongst you, and you the fools he shoulders and not as you see it the other way around.”

“My lady. I do not.”

“Silence, boy!” she snapped at the King in the admonishing tone of a mother whose patience was long ago exhausted. “Robert would have punched you and Ned, there’d be a fight and then drinking, and tomorrow you’d still be brothers, and one of you fools would be Hand and the other the commander of the royal army this noble fool has been building for years! Because he understands the power of a fellowship as unique as yours.”

When the two stayed silent, the winter dragon let out an annoyed sigh. “Your friendship spared the realm of Aerys madness, your friendship avenged my murdered husband and son, your friendship gave Robert the power to crush Rhaegar the mad prophet on the Trident. And together, the three of you and Lord Elbert Arryn form a core of an alliance that has kept the peace and laid unshakable foundations. Ned did what he did out of love and in a moment of panic, and he has shouldered that burden for long enough that it has driven a wedge between himself and his lady wife, and despite that, he kept it quiet to protect you as much, my grandson!”

“And you, Daemon, could behead us all tonight, and none would fault him if the truth were known. House Targaryen would be extinct; House Stark reduced to a cadet branch in the barrowlands and a bunch of bastards in the dreadfort and in these halls as servants and men at arms..the Winterfell line, the first line..gone. Instead, he elevates your nephew and promotes your ward to a new paramountcy! And do not think that could potentially sow the seeds of a third dance down the line when a descendant of Daenerys wonders why he denied a seat in the west. Tell me, without that friendship, what then? Friendship binds you all and must bind our houses for centuries to come, so be done with this nonsense and make amends!”  She hadn’t realized it…but the room was silent, and she was standing now, and her son and the King were both shrinking back and gazing at her as though they were boys again.

They were in awe of her, even Maester Luwin seemed to gaze up with wonder in his eyes, and Rhaella felt like a girl again beside Rickard for the first time, and she almost bolted out of the room. “I..forgive me, your grace, this was most improper….”

After a moment, Daemon smiled the first genuine smile she’d seen in hours, a humble smile. “All hail Rhaella Targaryen of House Stark, the queen of winter!” the King and Ned laughed, and the King rose and walked towards Ned. “She’ll make us go into a courtyard and pick out branches for switches if we don’t reconcile.”

“Aye, beaten as boys in the capital of the North.” “The story of King Daemon Blackfyre, first of his name as king and..fourth of his name in the annals of his family lineage, scourged as a boy by an irate she-dragon in the frozen North.” The two embraced as brothers, and the King's eyes narrowed when the embrace was broken. “I need you south, Robert often speaks of the potential for war, and he is right…something wicked runs around my Kingdom, and I see a storm on the horizon.” Ned nodded. “I will serve you, Daemon; we will bind our houses in blood.”

 Rhaella breathed a sigh of relief, her mind wandering back to what Catelyn told them of Lord Aenar and the truth of his death.

It may be that we have saved the realm here today. She thought and vowed that she would pray in the Sept, the Godswood, and the fire temple before sleep.

We’ll need all of you lazy gods to help us now!

  The wind howled against the tower, and Rhaella could have sworn she heard a whisper in it. She hoped it was a good omen. For the sake of the realm…for the sake of her family.

Chapter Text

The Rose and the Stag.

It was different than he remembered. The displays of wealth were far more subtle than when the Redwynes ruled here, but the castle of the Arbor and the seat of House Baratheon of the Arbor were no less beautiful and splendid than when lord Paxter was alive. Owing perhaps to Lady Alicent and her calming effect on the otherwise implacable Lord Stannis, the rich tapestries and ornate decorations that lined the walls of the inner keep and its halls and apartments hadn’t all been torn down. The banner of House Baratheon of the Arbor flew in the moonlight. It rested between tapestries depicting victories and conquests of both House Redwyne of old and of House Baratheon and the Durrandons before them. Their new sigil is certainly her idea or was inspired by her words. The stag of House Baratheon was burgundy, and the crown about its neck was replaced with a crown made of green grape vines on a blue field. “Ours is the fury” became “We are the Storm.” There was no greater declaration than, “We’re not here for you; we’re here because of you.” A storm already possessed two dragons, even though only one was large enough to ride for any time. It was apparent why the nobles of the Reach did what they always did with Dragonlords and opted to court and “befriend” and utilize them rather than oppose them. It doesn’t help that Stannis is the only person who shows any sort of acknowledgment to Lord Samwell, and Axel Florent hopes to use him against my family. Unlike House Seaworth, which seems to have won genuine love, mainly owing to the antics of Lord Davos when he was a youth and because he oft served as a bridge between the Arbor, Highgarden, Oldtown, and the Iron Throne. It was reflecting on the present state of the Reach. There were four paths for the peoples of the Reach.

The fury and resentment of his father, grandmother, and grandfather. Mace Tyrell still believed himself jilted, humiliated, and subjected to harsh treatment not befitting his station and calumnies. He was merely serving his King, that commanded him to deny the rebel lords access to the resources and manpower of the Stormlands. Father pined away for a Targaryen restoration, calling the Blackfyre’s usurpers and plotting and scheming fruitlessly while his grandmother Olenna engaged in subterfuges and schemes of her own, which were far more successful yet in Willas’ mind courted disaster. And there was his grandfather’s path; Lord Leyton would have the Reach become a puppet kingdom of Casterly Rock to free itself from House Blackfyre and their Northern allies. Or so it’s said, I haven’t spoken to Lord Leyton in twelve years, and he has not left the Hightower in a decade. But trading one master for an equally brutal master with none of the velvet over the mail of House Blackfyre does not strike me as a sound strategy nor the purview of my grandfather’s intellect.  There were many things wrong with the state of the seven Kingdoms; the looming civil war brewing below the surface was just the start. And with so many dragons and dragon riders with experience, the danger of destruction of a scale like the doom of Valyria itself loomed over Willas like a sword over a condemned man. They passed through an archway, and Willas espied several helms belonging to the personal men at the arms of his lord father; their helms shattered and bent, melted, twisted things. A reminder of what they stood to lose if Willas should fail more than that…I find myself unwilling to part with Shireen.

Orys Baratheon and young Devan Seaworth were waiting at the end of a servant’s staircase. Orys had a tired look but was otherwise as robust as any boy of fifteen. He was tall and gaunt like his father but had the thick hair of his uncle Robert and the Redwyne features that made many of their most famous knights handsome, as well as brave and piercing blue eyes. Devan was as common as his father and, like his father, possessed a quick mind and a willingness, to be honest even in the face of his betters, even in the face of violence. Willas liked the Seaworths. If more men, noble and smallfolk were like them. This world would be a merrier place. There would rarely be wars, and he had a suspicion he wouldn’t have had to try and elope before his father's meddling ruined his chance at happiness and the survival of their house. “Lord Willas.”

“Nothing escapes the Master of the offices of the Peace and lord high justice of the knightly orders; it seems,” Willas stated, leaning on his cane. “I am surprised you haven’t offered to duel me.”

“Moqorro believes you have honest intentions; he saved Shireen from the poison in the blade that took her eye.” Reflexively, he reached for her hand, and instead of going to her brother Shireen threaded her slender arms through his cape to grip him with surprising strength. Her one remaining eye was a pool of emotions. “Is my word not enough?” she asked.

“It is for me; father is still infuriated that you went behind his back.” Orys gestured to the stairs and looked back to Willas, his blue eyes as hard and judging as his father’s, yet there was a lightness in them as well. Orys misliked the Reach lords, for he could see plain as day how they used his father, how genuine respect from the youth of the Reach went hand in hand with the hatred of their fathers. None of them imagined Stannis Baratheon’s ideals would become so popular in the minds of their sons. They saw him as a mere battering ram to bring to bear against Highgarden. Not that Willas could blame them, he was no longer a young man at six and twenty, and he sometimes was disturbed by this notion of “Justice absolute.” The youth were calling it concerned him for its lack of nuance or seeming lack. Lord Stannis surprised him more oft than not, but he understood perfectly well why the notion was so popular. The Reach had been humiliated by the war's outcome, and their deeds and actions were deemed despicable by all but the Westerland. That scorn had cost them preciously in treasure from trade and in national prestige. And while the number of smallfolk dead wasn’t enough to seriously cripple their agricultural capacity, it had left a bitter taste in the mouth of peons who had begun to look at Stannis and the Florents and ask themselves, “why do we yield up our harvest and coin to a Highgarden run by underhanded cravens?”

“I will explain everything….” Willas said before he felt the grip on his waist tighten, and he laughed softly as Shireen glared, then turned and smiled sweetly at Orys. “No, we will explain everything together.”

But how he loved this girl!

They walked up the stone steps, heading to the servant’s entrance to the great solar of the castle. Blue and green were not his color, but upon seeing Stannis in a doublet of burgundy and a tunic of the same. Stannis was an imposingly tall man, only a few inches shorter than his legendary brother and bald (Having taken to shaving his head after he had begun to lose hair.) a neat, perfectly groomed goatee rested on a prominent chin and covered a square jaw on a face that seemed frozen in a perpetual scowl. He had taken up smoking drakos to mitigate the grinding of his teeth, or so it was said, and both he and the lady Alicent were prodigious smokers. Stannis hadn’t risen from his seat, where he rested more like a rigid statue depicting a man at work and not someone living and breathing. Iron was his will, brittle was his patience, and unyielding was his cold blue-eyed stare as he bore into Willas Tyrell with an intensity that made the heir to Highgarden step back slightly. To one side, lady Alicent Redwyne, a cousin to Paxter Redwyne and not of the main branch but the oldest surviving member of the family that wasn’t a bastard. She was also tall but slender with an hourglass figure, much like her daughter, and vibrant brown hair with golden streaks. On the other side of the lord of the Arbor stood Desmera Redwyne, his cousin, in a beautiful flowing gown of blue with green tresses. She had kind eyes, freckles, and brown hair with the same gold streaks; her eyes were violet, and she spoke to her mother, a member of House Sunfyre of Lannisport.  Mace Tyrell always insisted that Desmera was a prisoner in her castle, raised almost as an Essosi slave to be a peace cow for Orys Baratheon. But the look of sisterly affection that passed between her and Orys or Desmera and his lady Shireen or seven hells, even Stannis looked at her with eyes that were slightly less murderous. And Olenna hoped to void the marriage pact between Orys and Margaery so that she could link Desmera and Orys and ensure that the next generation of Baratheons is more Redwyne’s than Baratheon, an act of passive aggression he honestly felt was beneath his brilliant grandmother. It’s moot now; she’s destined to wed Jacaerys Blackfyre and become Lady of the Narrow Sea domains, a lady of Tyrosh, the Stepstones, and Dragonstone. Besides, if you genuinely wanted to bind the Stag of the Arbor to the Rose of Highgarden, it’s Shireen for me and Margaery for Orys; she’ll certainly temper his nature. The future is rising above the ashes as a Rose and not trying to fend off dragons with our tiny thorns.

It indeed was odd how Lord Stannis could inspire the devotion he did or how he could build a proper family even when surrounded by those who despised him; He should hate his lady wife; it was her cousin’s blockade that made the poisoning possible. Orys was to be his goodbrother not merely by marriage to Shireen but because Lady Margaery would soon come to the Arbor, where she would wed Orys by the end of the year. One of the conditions of his lord father’s pardon. Men of the Reach wondered why Willas was willing to court merchants from the gentry or the daughters of minor houses in the Riverlands, Crownlands, or the North. You’d think the heir to the fourth wealthiest House in Westeros, the overlord of the second or third, and the commander of the largest army in the realm would endear women. But no man wants his daughter to wed a cripple….

Except for Stannis, when Willas brokered the betrothal, the Lord of the Arbor had accepted without much consideration. He received a rather curt letter imploring him to “not consider this a sign that his hatred of that fat, cravenly butcher you call a father has been tempered. Merely that he wished for his daughter to be given her due honors.” Her due honors, that phrase had given Willas pause. Stannis was the second son of one of the most important vassals of the King. Still, his ascent to the Arbor was one imposed on the Reach, and he and the dragons growing in the coves and caves along the Arbor’s northern cliffs would alter the balance of power in the southern Kingdoms for centuries to come. These dragons seem more fecund than the old Targaryen Dragons, and there is a chance they will live as long or longer still…Any who does not see that Highgarden is now a paramountcy that is a puppet of the Arbor.

Stannis remained seated, the living statue embodying wrath and judgment. He seemed to weigh his words which was a rare thing for the infamously brusque lord of Highgarden. Or perhaps Stannis was merely considering the most efficient method of dispatching him from this world. The room was warm and smelled of fyreleaf, and Willas told himself it wasn’t his nerves accentuating these smells; Willas wasn’t secretly glad that Shireen was there, her firm grip abating his nerves. He was a Lord of the realm, the heir to great power in the world, and he was here to preserve that status as much as to save his lady love. “Did I not say this betrothal would wait until she came of age? You are a man near thirty; you can wait five more years. You’ve certainly waited enough, near as long as my daughter has been alive. Are you this impatient? And a fool? When I brokered this farce, I did so with the understanding that if all else fell short, you would not possess your father’s lack of intellect.” Stannis paused; his eyes never left Willas’ own, even as his wife gripped down his on the shoulder as if to stay his hand. Or his low character, Stannis was about to say. Willas realized an insult that would protocol and tradition must needs engender a very different sort of response than the one the heir to Highgarden was thinking of giving. “You would elope with my daughter? A child.”

“I’ve flowered,” Shireen muttered in a barely audible whisper, and her father’s jaw set. The sound of pix axes and hammers and chiseling emanating from his mouth as though it were the entrance of some great cave was all in his imagination, he told himself. “I did not hear you, daughter.”

“Nothing, Lord father.”

“Ah, I thought I had the solution to my problem for a second.”

“Father?”

“In that, the two of you must be possessed by spirits of feebleness, for the heir to House Tyrell is no impulsive fool, no matter what the singers may say about his lame leg. And neither your lady mother nor I raised a daughter so stunted in the mind that she would muster such an addle-minded excuse.”

Well, Willas thought. This was going better than he anticipated.

“Why should I not slit your throat and defenestrate you?”

Never mind.

“You’d leave me without a lordly love that is gallant and wondrous, and I should join the faith and become a Septa if you do,” Shireen responded sweetly sometimes the resemblance between her and Lady Olenna was uncanny, and other times she reminded him of many of the portraits of Rhaenys Targaryen he’d seen on Driftmark as a boy, she was all Baratheon and yet held the beauty of the Reach within her and the ferocity of a dragon. How could he not love her? This would always be more than just politics to him.

“Your God is fire, and the priestesses of R’hllor do not abstain from matrimony, nor do they take vows of silence.” Stannis admonished in a tone that implied that as a nonbeliever, he should not know more about her faith than she did. “And the faith of the seven do not generally take in heretics unless they’ve repented.”

Shireen sighed, seemingly defeated. “Because I love him, father.”

“I’m aware of that daughter; he is still dishonoring your house and acting in a manner disrespectful to us all. I’m well within my rights to retaliate appropriately.” Stannis groused out, his blue eyes narrowed and darkened. “You were asked a question, Tyrell!”

He would get no help from Alicent beyond preventing Stannis from inviting him to murder and without Davos present. Willas proceeded with the only thing he knew Stannis valued and the only thing that might save him. “I mean to depose my father.”

“I did not realize you were betrothed to me and not my daughter; that is not a gift she would appreciate, Tyrell.” He spat the word out with such venom that Willas nearly missed the humor in his words. I hope he doesn’t react the same way to his grandchildren. “It isn’t for that…But I believe my grandmother’s plans and schemes. And hers are far more effective than my father’s.”

Stannis made a noise that might have been some sort of spasm or some sort of snigger; Willas wasn’t sure which, and he moved a hand to rest on the pair of tiny but vice-like hands gripping onto his waist. Drawing strength from a girl he knew would one day soon likely become a dragon rider. Highgarden’s dragon rider.

Why Stannis Baratheon even considered that was beyond Willas’ capacity to understand. Stannis hated truly hated his father, and Lord Robert once joked at a banquet about flying with Argella and Stormwind to Highgarden and “Showing you miserable flower’s how it’s done.” At a banquet in Oldtown once, it was no secret that if Lord Robert were given the order to make of the fields of the Reach what Tywin Lannister made of Castle Castamere, then it would be the end of the Reach entire. He would do it while laughing joyously from atop his great blue she-beast of the Dragon. Daemon had burned nearly a quarter of a million smallfolk to death and wiped out several entire families of landed Knights and one minor noble house, but upon the war’s end, the crown gave generously and with a purpose to restore the lands ravaged, and he went out of his way to bar tax collection in the burned region for a decade to allow the new families to settle and gain a foothold. He also sent aid in other ways, healers for the survivors, and sponsored a mission to the lamb men of the Dothraki sea at the behest of his lord father.

Then again, Stannis was ordered to take the Arbor and turn the Reach around. To make the region a power once again, like a Maester cleaning out corruption. Cut deep and pull away the rot, which meant that having a dragon inside Highgarden and a rider that had already earned its allegiance was a paramount concern. He means to consign my siblings and me to dragon flame and ensure that only our children inherit Highgarden should it appear as though I am my father’s son.

Willas was his father’s son, but in a way that counted. He embraced his father’s love of his children and the great multitude of cousins, trueborn or otherwise that he possessed and remained loyal to his blood. All the moves he made were made in the furtherance of his family first and foremost and in the furtherance of their agenda second. One of the biggest reasons he bent the knee to House Blackfyre was to protect his sons; pride be damned when it became clear that Daemon Blackfyre and Robert Baratheon were going to come for Highgarden. He did it for his children and his people; whatever could be said of his father, Mace Tyrell was loyal to the Reach. “I intend to depose my father and wish to do so with the official support of the Master of Laws….” Willas finished.

“And why would I do that...” Stannis asked dismissively, though Willas could tell it was a mask. “And why would a rushed marriage to my daughter aid you in that quest?”

Willas Tyrell was silent for a long moment, a hesitancy coming over him as the magnitude of the decision loomed over him and took form in his mind. He hadn’t been this nervous in a long time, not since the joust that nearly cost him his leg. And not since the feverish nights he spent abed languishing in the dark alone. My father would not see me; he was overcome with guilt and believes I am unfit to be his heir because I am a cripple. He believes that his pride has cheated me out of my birthright.

You are wrong, father.

He couldn’t go back; he couldn’t turn back now when it was well beyond mere words. And cold sweats and second-guessing were not the qualities one expected in the Lord of the Reach. The moon began to show through the stained glass in the solar’s windows, casting a cascade of silver, yellows, greens, purples, and blues and wrapping Stannis in the rainbow colors of the Gods he despised so vehemently for making him an orphan. Perhaps it was his mind; Stannis suddenly seemed to be a beast-like figure. Snarling and trumpeting, shadows in the forms of horns thrust forward at a charge, and Willas imagined himself gored, impaled, and bloody on those monstrous horns. Only for a soft sigh and a voice gentle but filled with iron to whisper, “Be not afraid,” When he opened his eyes, the shadowed horns passed around him to lash at blades in the dark. This is all in my mind; I am fearful for my family. Fearful that he might seize on an excuse to kill us all. It is not that the shadows are alive…This is not the power of the blood of the Godsgrief.

Willas couldn’t go back.

Only forward, no matter painful. Those feverish nights where he lay abed, a hollowed and opened knitting needle-like tool draining fluid from his knee. “My lord father means to terminate my betrothal pact because he suspects I am too close to you…He does this because we know...Because I know.”

Stannis regarded him with calm, dangerous eyes. Searching for something, searching for confirmation, and perhaps waiting to act in his capacity as the Lord High Justice, master of the offices of the Peace. The position that replaced the old Master of Laws post in the Lord's Council meant that Stannis was charged with crafting the laws that the King decreed should govern the land, drafting and framing them, and submitting them for approval to the King and Council. It also meant that he was the chief of all the knight’s inquisitors and of the orders of the peace, such as the Order of the Wolves, the Order of the Greenhand, and the order of the Lions. Not that they answered to anyone but Lord Tywin in truth. With the Hand of the King deceased and the King at Winterfell in search of a new one, Stannis Baratheon was the most powerful man in the realm, one that could easily have the son of Lord Paramount and Warden killed and justify it as that he gave a confession to treason. Which I am on the border of doing…

“I know that envoys have arrived in Peikeng and that….” Willas took a breath at last; what had Roundtree told him to say again?

“The seed is strong….”

If the room was drowned in tension, it was asphyxiated and dead now. The silence was such that the only things he could hear besides his heartbeat were everyone else’s breathing. There was silence…silence…and then.

Stannis nodded his head. “You have chosen to do your duty to the realm, then?”

“I have.”

Stannis searched his eyes, seeking, discerning with his overwhelming gaze. The word duty was uttered in an oddly brittle way for the man whose voice was deep enough. It was said to startle Vhagar when she was a hatchling. As though the word, nay, the context, had some significant personal meaning for him, and he wondered if the man who would either be his goodfather or his executioner had not sat at a table much like this. On a night much like this, with the moon about and the waves an eerie calm and endured the terrible war within his heart between duty and family.

At length, Stannis’s eyes shifted to his lady wife, and her eyes welled with joyous tears.

“Moqorro.”

The giant came forward from the shadows where he’d remained so silent that Willas had forgotten the monster of a man had been there. “I trust it is not blasphemy to conduct a wedding ceremony in the Godswood? It’s secret enough.”

Willas felt his heart pounding; suddenly, he was a boy again. Shireen was crying softly, her head buried in his chest.

“So long as we do not make abeyance to the old Gods of your land, it is not.”

“Alicent summon the Septon, that useless drunk performed a rite such as this once before, and he can do so again and rouse Lord Tarly from our library; he has spent enough time buried amongst books. He can stand witness for his new overlord.” Stannis spoke swiftly as though he were less commanding his own family and more troops on the battlefield. He’d seen Tywin Lannister do likewise, but where others obeyed him in fear, the ward and wife and son of Lord Stannis nodded with enthusiasm and rose to go about their duties. We were such fools to think that because half the Reach despises Stannis, the other half wouldn’t fight to the death for him and beyond.

“And you, I’m told idiots, and fools say it is an ill omen to behold your bride before a wedding but seeing as you spent the day with her knowing that you would be wed and nothing ill befell you, I will not part you.”

“Thank you, Lord Stannis.”

“You are a Tyrell; on that account, I’ve no love for you, but that is not acrimony I care to extend to my grandchildren as it seems flowers will encircle me. I will solely judge you by your conduct and not the accident of your birth. But you are expected to remain slim; I’ll not have you become a bloated buffoon like your father. I’ll not suffer that upon my daughter.”

“Father!” Bleated Shireen, her cheeks burning red.

“It is a simple matter of leverage and support, girl.”

There was a part of Willas that wanted to laugh and even smile, but something else told him that was an ill idea with the new members of his family.

And so, it begins… Willas thought.

Gods preserve us all.

…….

The Lord consort of Myr

Jon knew nothing about politics, he decided. That was always Robb and Sansa’s purview and Dany’s, of course, but he knew plenty about sums, figures, and currencies. That was something he insisted on learning as Robb struggled with that aspect of running a Kingdom as dependent on trade and merchants as the North was. Thinking back, he marveled at how simple his life was before last night. His lord father had told him that he was destined to be a bannerman for Robb, earn a name mayhap in the South. He was serving and gaining experience serving in the city watch alongside Roundtree, the infamous warg captain of the gold cloaks, and learning how to handle disorder in one of the largest cities in the realm—learning commerce from father’s distant kin in Gulltown in the Vale. He knew Elbert Arryn had offered him a position in his household so that he might gain experience in the shadow of a high lord of the Seven Kingdoms, but his father wanted him close to home for a while yet. Which was fine; he was always supposed to be Robb’s second, his right hand—trained in the gaps that Robb lacked, compensating for the lord of Winterfell and happy to serve.

Jon was even with Lady Stark’s hatred of him, Jon enjoyed his life here in Winterfell, and he was content to pass his years away in service. The Black Wolf of Winterfell or some such would have been his moniker, and he would earn a name worthy of Daenerys, and they would have children, and that was that. Yes, Jon thought as he rubbed his sore thighs and shifted in the chair, trying to stretch out the boredom-induced sleepiness from his limbs as he watched Daenerys accept congratulations and gifts from yet another Frey.  Gods and I thought House Blackfyre and the Lannisters were numerous. There were so many of the weasel-faced toll men and each with a name that began with a W (To curry favor from their grandfather, a man with the reputation of a miserly old goat who refused to control his lust and so continued to sire heirs and bastards.) that they all began to blend for Jon. Presently, he was trying to stay awake through a lively debate (For the ones participating anyway.) on the nature of House Targaryen’s status in the realm, a lord buckle? Or some such from the Stormlands who questioned whether Daenerys considered her new Paramountcy a part of the Seven Kingdoms or a mere colony thereof. It was an absurdly insulting affair the moment Jon realized the implications thereof, and he wanted to strike the man, but mercifully Steffon Baratheon and Prince Daeron entered.

“She’s lord Paramount of Myr and the Dragonlands, admiral of the Sea of Myrth, and far more deserving of your respect than such needling nonsense.” Steffon was the tallest boy Jon had ever seen, towering over every youth Jon had known except Gendry. With long silky black hair and the piercing blue eyes of his father, he wore a jerkin of soft black leather over a cotehardie of a wool and cotton blend that was black as well but for the gold outline of the placket from what Jon could see over his jerkin. And he wore a linen turban on his head with part of the wrap trailing down his shoulder and cloak, something that was fashionable in Dorne and Essos that Jon found oddly practical though Steffon was likely wearing it wrong since his hair was still visible. “Young Lord, I merely sought to….”

“Question the lady because she is a lady? And a Targaryen besides?” Prince Daeron asked; like Steffon, he had long hair and was tall, but where Steffon, like Gendry, was built like a mammoth, Prince Daeron was sleek and fibrous like a Shadowcat. The prince was adorned in a dark red robe unfastened and loose, revealing a black doublet with the tri-headed dragon of house Blackfyre in a steel-like silver color that made Jon wonder if that was his standard. Instead of a turban, the prince had his long hair loose about his shoulders with several gold strands braided. His mismatched eyes reminded Jon of Tyrion, albeit with one purple instead of a dark black. The prince was beautiful, and his features reminded Jon somewhat of Arya and his grandmother, but that made sense; his grandmother was my grandmother’s sister. Daeron was warm and mischievous, and his love of sorcery combined with a shrewd mind that men weary of him, but Jon felt more at home around him than anyone except his half-siblings and Dany. He felt the same way with Viserys Tully, the newest and youngest member of the Kingsguard. He shared none of Edmure’s aloofness towards Jon and was eager to spend time with the youth of Winterfell or to spar with Toregg or Rodrik Cassel or Ygritte or the princess. Steffon lifted Dany into the air and into a burly hug and then did the same to Jon. He is a beast of a boy… Jon thought and made a silent prayer of thanksgiving that Steffon was a good-natured soul that was as quick to forgive as he was to anger. “I’m surprised Prince Jacaerys isn’t here,” Daeron remarked, completely dismissing the Buckle lord, who silently fumed and bid they excuse him.

Steffon obliged him and begged pardon. “The Bucklers are good folk, but they suffered terribly during the rebellion when the rivers and wells were tainted and the reservoirs damaged, and the lord’s son died of thirst in Storm’s End.”  Jon knew the story well and reached a hand under the table to squeeze Dany’s as he sensed the guilt well up in her heart. Steffon smiled, shaking his head. “Don’t mistake me, cousin; you didn’t deserve that. Aerys was a maniac, but Mace Tyrell could have ignored the order to take “any measure to bring the Stormlands to heel” he chose to do that.”

“A vassal’s conduct reflects poorly on his overlord, and at the time, my father was his overlord,” Dany said sadly; she squeezed his hand harder under the table, and Steffon smiled at her warmly. “Look at that, a born lady. And while that may be true, madness makes exceptions for many things.” Steffon said, dropping down onto a chair. He let out a bored sigh and beamed, “I’m as useless in the field of politics as Lord Snow and my father and uncle are…But whereas my father and Stannis have Davos and my mother, I’ve Gendry, and he’s as useless as me.”

“Not so; the two of you handled that guild strike rather brilliantly.” Daeron offered.

“Ah, but that was easy. They were being overtaxed; we settled the matter by bashing in the skulls of some fool civic servicemen.”

“Civil,” Dany corrected playfully. “And you have Visenya! She seems quite astute.”

“He has her the way Sansa has Maelys.” Daeron teased, earning an obscene gesture from Steffon. “They aren’t wed yet; they shall be when your father comes South….”

When we make our journey South as well.

“Have you spoken to Gerion Lannister yet?” asked Daeron as he pulled a drako from one of the pockets in his sleeves and then another for Dany, who politely refused; Jon took it though he hated partaking. However, it would seem rude for a bastard to refuse. “If he’s to be your lord mayor….”

“Ah yes, another Lannister cadet branch, just what the world needs.” Steffon groused, causing Daeron to raise an eyebrow. “That is my family, you know...” at the incredulous look in Steffon’s eyes, Daeron laughed. “We’re not exactly close, though I spent a few months at the Rock…my grandfather is a brilliant man if brutal. You’ll like him, Jon, Dany…Gerion, not Tywin. Tywin would sooner chew his arm off than ever look at either of you.” Jon stood there, his violet eyes narrowing, baffled at how cavalier the disdain for his kin Daeron was. It was almost to the point of being a mark of low character. Then again, he saw how the queen treated her eldest son and the heir to the throne, and Jon suppressed a shudder; at her worst, Lady Catelyn never looked at him half as hateful and half as cold. But Jon held his tongue; the topic was going to be delicate. How do I ask if Gerion will stab us in the back or not?

As he contemplated this, Steffon began poking at Ghost, who bit down harmlessly on his arm and made as if he intended to hurl Steffon across the room. Ghost barely reacted or interacted with anyone, as solitary and grim as his human companion, but both Steffon and Gendry had a way of bringing out his inner puppy. He was free with the Baratheon heir, free and playful in a way he wasn’t with anyone else. Is this the effect Lord Robert had on my father? No wonder they are seen as masters of war if they can win affection so easily.

Then they heard a low and deep rumbling growl from beyond the door, and Ghost perked up just as Steffon was about to put him in a mock choke hold. “Ho there, Mandarr!” Barristan the bold called from outside the door, and they heard in response. “Hnnmmmhhrghmm…Bah’stan!” the low growl being what Lord Tyrion had explained was their version of a gesture of respect. The two hooded apes from the Summer Isles were as soulful as the mammoths that wandered Westeros once again, and Jon regretted that he hadn’t had any time to meet them, for he liked their immense frames and stoic eyes. They seemed to be a breed of noble monsters where their Sothori and YiTish cousins were said to be mad beasts and blood-drinking demons. “Small..one…wish lea..leaf? Leave....Enter.”

“And he may have it!” Dany called; Tyrion, more than any, had been the man they wished to seek council from on these matters. When the doors opened, the mighty ape bowed slightly to the group within and pounded his chest in respect to Prince Daeron, who repeated the gesture. “You’ve certainly a way with him.”

“You should see Rhaenyra; she says she thinks she could learn his native tongue if given the time. That girl has a way with animals.” Daeron remarked with a wry smile. It was true, Jon thought, watching the little lord called “the iron lion” or the “iron imp” or unoriginal variations thereof. Robb was right about Tyrion; anyone who underestimated him was a fool of the highest order. That is the only true giant in Winterfell Storm, Robb had said and within earshot of Mag, who just looked down at them and then looked to Tyrion, grunted in agreement, and grabbed another barrel of wine. He won the heart of the last Greyjoy in Westeros and the respect of a brutal, if broken, people. It shouldn’t surprise me that the chief of the giants also took to him.

Rhaenyra would be remaining in Winterfell with her betrothed; their wedding would be tomorrow evening before a heart tree to honor the old Gods of House Stark and later before a Sept. The albino sister to the heir to the Iron Throne was going to be the future lady of Winterfell, and it behooved her to learn the ways of the North as Lady Catelyn and Rhaella had before her. The queen was not happy about that. Jon had done his best to ignore her after her retinue passed him in the hall, ordered him to stop, and she touched his chin and turned his head as though he were a prized horse and not a man.

She had gazed at him with a queer longing in her eyes, with a recognition that unsettled him profoundly and, in a voice full of an odd tenderness, had offered him a place by her side should he ever “Tire of these wolves and giants and the snarks and wargs and grumpkins.” He nodded, thanking her and vowing that his sword would be hers should ever she need it, trying to be as honorable as his father, but as the golden lioness departed, an ethereal creature whose beauty like the Valyrian houses was too great to be fully human and he felt as though he’d made a terrible mistake in that pledge. No woman had ever looked at him the way the queen had, not even Dany, and it had left him feeling a fear he hadn’t known he could feel. We’re only to suffer her a few more turns of the moon; once we get below the neck, canals will ferry them to King’s Landing and Dany, Ghost, and me to Myr.

Away from the queen and her mercurial nature.

As Lord Tyrion waddled in, Jon gazed down at the man with an overlarge head and mismatched eyes and nodded. “Dwarf”

Tyrion smiled, recalling their conversation after the feast. Bastardry won’t matter much in Essos, even in lands more Westerosi than not, but in that land, you are the usurper, the bastard who comes to steal in the night, and half your subjects will love you, and the other half shall hate you and your duty will be to use that hate as armor. Bastard, usurper all that Lady Stark no doubt names you in the darkest of her thoughts if not in the light of day. Use it…And you may yet survive Lord Storm.

“Bastard!”

Dany bristled until she saw the warmth in Jon’s eyes and merely let out a soft laugh. “See what I am forced to deal with, cousin?” she asked Prince Daeron with a proud smile. “No sense of propriety,” Steffon teased, shaking his head. “We’ll be well to be rid of this reprobate, my prince! Come let us away!” as the two departed, Tyron smiled at their passing, and it was an oddly relieved smile. “It is fortunate that one is the eldest.” Without elaborating further, he walked to a pitcher of wine and, retrieving it served Daenerys and Jon first, then kept the pitcher for himself. “I need no cup! I am a reaper of Pyke, am I not?!” Daenerys rolled her eyes and gestured for a servant to bring a fresh pitcher. At that moment, the Imp took a seat, his eyes scanning the territory once known as the disputed lands and whistling. House Blackfyre, it seemed, would keep the coast of the heel of Essos closest to the stepstones, including the peninsula that looked more like a long finger than a spur to Jon and the lands inland for up to a hundred leagues. The rest and the coast of the sea of Myrth would belong to House Targaryen to Volon Therys and Valysar. “That is a most impressive domain.”

Daenerys nodded. “And a dangerous one; Lady Catelyn believes my gift is a blade dipped in poison.” Jon blinked…The King had plotted to hand her lands that were a danger?! But why when he had been so kind before? Alarm welled up in Jon, and he was overcome with it, nearly speaking but for a sharp look from Tyrion. “It can be aye, Westerosi hands have ruled Myr for nigh forty years. Enough time for two generations to grow up under the banner of the black dragons and their vassals. Half of which will now be yours, vassals that may not trust you and resent you both until they are made to learn to respect you. And there will be murmurs from those who remember the Myr of old, and they are many. They won’t love you at all.  The disputed lands were gradually conquered over four score years and instigations. They were a ruined place replete with sellswords, bandits, and slavers, and the peoples there will love you for you are of Westeros, and we, as you know, despise slavery.”

“But…will they love House Blackfyre more than us.”

Tyrion nodded.

Dany truly knew politics as well as Sansa, Lady Stark, or his grandmother. The only people Jon knew who knew how to play the game. Sansa sighed. “And House Blackfyre will be handling most of our trade as we will lack a commerce-based Navy for some time.”

“Blackfyre, Sunfyre, Baratheon, Manderly, and Aetheryon,” Tyrion corrected.

“But only House Blackfyre has the favorable contracts,” Dany grumbled; Jon realized that she was still sore about that. But to him, it made sense even if it wasn’t entirely honorable. They were willing to relinquish their control of such a wealthy land because while they would be making far less from them, they would still likely pocket as much in that they no longer had to invest in garrisons and keeps and men at arms and the Order of the Ash. The Knightly order that policed those realms would now have a third source of funding that would take a burden from them. Jon misliked gifts that came with a cost, but when it came to the fate of Kingdoms, he understood well why such things came with a cost, and at least this one didn’t come with a knife in the back.

“House Aetheryon and Baratheon of the Arbor ought to be friendly to us,” Jon answered, earning a quizzical look from Dany and Tyrion. He swallowed his wine to hide the nervousness and then pressed on. “In that one is a vassal…to..oh.”

“Precisely, neither of you is under the wing of House Stark anymore. You are masters of your lands; as someone who had to tame one of the seven Kingdoms and bring it up from ruin, I feel like a bit of an expert on the matter and its risks.” Tyrion took a long gulp of wine from the pitcher, allowing it to swirl in his mouth before swallowing it whole without a hiccup, a splutter, or a cough. It was almost a feat worthy of a song, the amount of food, drink, and women Lord Tyrion could go through in a single evening, he and his lady wife both. A satire mayhap thought Jon.

The Imp rose from his seat and shuffled to the map. “My uncle is a good man; in my youth, he was.....He was the only one besides Jaime who did not follow my father’s example towards his dear second son.” Tyrion spat the words out, and Jon was again reminded of the stories, a girl no older than ten and three raped to death and Tyrion storming the golden hall axe in hand, demanding his father face him and finish what he started with Tyrion’s wife. Other renditions had him caught with a blade attempting to enter his father’s sleeping rooms in the dark of the night.  Despite the attempted Kinslaying, Jon found himself trusting the malevolent little cretin though he couldn’t understand why. Only that, neither he nor Asha ever spoke falsely, at least not to him and not to Dany, and he could not discern the reason for that. But he appreciated it nonetheless and found it admirable.

Eying the map, Tyrion tapped the two cities on the Western side. “Volon Therys and Valysar are where your greatest weaknesses lie. When Volantis was forced to yield them after the death of the Emperor in the East, and Aerys burned their ships at port….” Tywin Lannister and Balon Greyjoy had also fought there, shattering a mighty fleet of sellsails and the remnants of the Myrish navy who were hoping to buy precious time for the fleet at Volantis to muster. But Aegos, Urrax, Argella, Winter, and Maelos were too much even for Valyria’s proudest colony.

“Walled cities and hard to address, to be sure, and fortified even more so by House Blackfyre in the decades since their loss. A great deal of trade will come through their river ports, a lot of revenue, but that shall be a breeding ground for treachery and dissent. Do not worry over Gerion; he is the obvious trap, the misdirection. The King means to test you both, to see that you might win generational loyalty from a Lannister but these cities.” Again, Tyrion tapped his finger on the map. “Appoint someone you can trust as Lord Mayor of each, someone you can trust but is not always honorable.”

Tyrion paused…considering. “Might be you establish a family of Wargs as your vassals there. Have their clan rule both and the lands around it…One you can count on to be loyal to you personally and maybe the third son of one of the Wildling-descended Masterly Houses. People who would never betray you for the offer you grant them. Loyal but not necessarily honorable.”

Jon and Daenerys gazed in silence at the Lannister dwarf dressed in black and gold, his sea salt-stained face and calculating eyes. But before they could thank him, he gave an indifferent shrug. “But it is your lands, your decision. You must not only rule there but build and cultivate, and you must choose how you sow your crops, Lady Daenerys.” Tyrion rose, draining the pitcher with a satisfied sigh, and on setting it down, turned to leave.

As he departed, Jon couldn’t help but think he’d make a fine King if he were a Blackfyre.

Chapter Text

The heir of Winterfell

Garlan Tyrell, Loras Tyrell, Prince Maelys Blackfyre (His future goodbrother!), his soon-to-be wife Princess Rhaenyra Blackfyre, Ygritte, a drunken Sandor Clegane, and himself on one side. Ser Barristan the Bold, Aghorro the grim (A Dothraki who had become a brother of the white cloak after the conjuring at Summerhall), the Kingslayer, and Ser Viserys Tully of the Harrenhal Tully’s, a cousin to his mother and through her himself. He’s the newest member of the Kingsguard and the youngest currently serving—the greatest swords in the realm arrayed in the training grounds at Winterfell.

Well, minus Tormund Giantsbane, who had already set forth for the Capital, the Red Viper of Dorne, Ser Brynden the Blackfish, Robert Baratheon, and the Sea Dragon knight Ser Aerion Ironbane of House Aetheryon. But Robb wasn’t about to let that dampen his enthusiasm for what was about to be an exhibition of skill and strength, experience, and wisdom.

The combined martial styles of four different regions of the Seven Kingdoms and, oh, the spectators! Jason Lannister was seated with Torrhen Stark and his wife Lady Roslin, the two shared a love of architecture and horse racing that saw them become fast friends (Robb would have to watch that, he respected Jason’s mind, but unlike the iron Imp there was no warmth there and no little boy should have eyes that calculating.).

Lord Robert and Gendry sat beside the great Jon Umber and Rickard Karstark were drinking dark beer (All except Lord Robert who tried to drink with Mag and was told by the Maester this morning that if he wished to live to see forty, he would drink not but lemon water and abstain from beef not but once a week for the next three months to allow his liver time to heal.) The Lord of Storm’s end was grudgingly obeying; getting near blind from drink was no easy thing, but Lord Robert managed to achieve it and was left far too hung over for any fighting. And Gendry? Well, he participated in a wrestling match in the morning.

It was a common misconception that Tourneys were not held in the North due to a lack of faith in the Seven. Most Smallfolk south of Winterfell and in the domains ruled by House Manderly were all descended in part from smallfolk who followed work and opportunity up north or belonged to dissident sects of the faith of the seven who sought lands that were more tolerant of variations in dogma. There were many, many First men families with purple eyes as so many Valyrians followed the examples of Aurys the fugitive and Glenys the tinkerer’s (The mad inventor and patron of the citadel who led the colony that migrated to Oldtown and whose descendants still ran most of the builder and mason guilds and the City Watch of Oldtown.) example and sought a chance at wealth or even stability away from the slavery, intrigue, and murder of the Freehold that the North’s population doubled from that alone.

There were many, many First Men families among the smallfolk with partial Andal descent on that fact. Most of his father’s subjects worshipped the Old Gods and then also honored a variant of the faith of the seven or R'hollorism. There were even some worshippers of the maiden of light in White Harbor courtesy of hedge seamstresses and silk alchemists from Yi Ti who defied the horrific laws of their ancient Empire to come North with their silkworms. Though there were more of those in Lannisport as the climes of the Westerlands were better suited to silk production, and they had their queer ability to make gold into cloth via their worms which made Houses Lannister, Lanny, Serrett (Though they did it with silver and Northern Platinum) and Sunfyre. In Lannisport, they even had a temple; in White Harbor, they just prayed at altars in their homes.

As a result the North had many faiths; most citizens seemed to venerate more than one pantheon, God, or Goddess. And all of them valued martial traditions as much as any other culture. No matter where you were in the known world, smallfolk, gentry, noble, King, or Emperor, all men loved a spectacle or, as the Valyrians said, “Valar jorrāelatan ānogar” All men love blood. And every lord loved the boon to their treasury that the fees from Tourneys and merchant stands and wool/silk/trades fairs provided. Southerners dismissed the “Grand events” of the North as non-tournaments because of the lack of Jousting, as Northern events tended to focus more on melees, wrestling, and the tournaments of fisticuffs and horse racing.

Horse racing was the gambler’s joust, and Lords Baelish and Tully once made a hundred thousand Gold Dragons a piece speculating on a series of races. For the Southern Knights and smallfolk, these weren’t tourneys. Still, circuses or athletic competitions, and of all the Southern Houses, only the Reach participated, and that was due to Willas Tyrell and Samwell Tarly being an avid horses. Dog breeders and Willas had a fine Jockey in a Dothraki slave rescued by Garlan several years ago. Though more and more Southern lords are showing up these days…gambling lures everyone.

The Tourney prizes were also different, owing to the long history of austerity and scarcity of the largest of the Seven Kingdoms before the coming of House Aetheryon. The prizes tended to be commodities awarded. Large amounts of seed to sow crops or sell at market, wools and furs and wheels of House Umbers prized mammoth cheeses and rolls of silks, tools, and weapons.  Horses and well-bred dogs and Willas Tyrell won a mammoth-elephant crossbreed that was taken from a pirate by House Manderly in a,horse race once before he wounded his knee. The idea was to award the champion with not a small purse but in a manner that reminded him or her of the past and encouraged said champion to keep their heritage close and acknowledge that all summers end and the prosperity of the North could end at any moment.

That was probably another reason the South didn’t consider Northern Tourney’s true Tourneys. Up until the end of the Greyjoy rebellion, when it became too ridiculous not to deny that some women and girls were as capable as most men (It was a simple matter of anatomy in Robert’s mind.), and some might have been as good as the best of men (His grandmother and her feats during the war against the Emperor in the East and his band of petty Kings and both rebellions were said to be responsible for this, but Robb also believed the sheer crowd sizes, women, fighting brought also had something to do with it.),.

Tourneys in the south were exclusively the purview of men. Whereas in the North, even eunuchs competed though they lost more often than not owing to what the Maesters said was a lack of bone density and muscle mass because of castration doing something to the body. “When the shit starts.” Sandor’s deep and irascible voice broke his concentration. “You and Lord Garlan rush the bloody Kingslayer; leave the Dothraki to me.”

“What about Ser Barristan and Ser Viserys?” Garlan asked. “Leave the Tully to your brother and feed the girls to the old man. They won’t be able to beat him, but if any one of us manages to win our bloody fight, he might be able to turn on the old fucker.”

“You truly think we’re going to lose then?” his betrothed asked. “Aye, princess, otherwise I’d not have told my boy to bet against us,” Sandor said with a scoffing laugh. Despite how cruel he sounded, he clearly had a soft spot for his future wife.

Sandor Clegane was a hero of both rebellions, fighting beside his Lord father and Lord Gerion at the Trident but being too grievously wounded fighting off knights attempting to burn a family alive after one of them killed their lordling to prevent rape. And so, they missed the fateful fight at the ruins of Summerhall, where Lyanna Stark and three members of the Kingsguard met their doom.

He was a cantankerous old dog with a burned face that had been partially healed by Maester Luwin using sorcery after the Greyjoy rebellion saw his jaw broken. Robb remembered as a boy, one could see most of his jawbone and dark muscle and teeth through the cheek but not the cheek had healed, and there was a mass of grizzly scar tissue over that cheek and gnarled flesh around the eye, but it was much improved. Luwin had offered to try and continue the healing procedures, but Sandor had refused. The hound wanted to keep part of the wound, allowing himself to be healed just enough to avoid bone rot and corruption that would one day have doomed him, but he said he wanted to remember.

He's still a miserable bastard but far less hostile and cruel now. I suppose he was in pain all the time back then, and in truth, he found respect here in the North.

Sandor was Roundtree’s right hand in the gold cloaks and an enforcer for Gerion Lannister, and he had asked to be made a part of Lord Tyrion’s Household guard once Gerion and his daughters departed for Essos. The iron imp had agreed, something that surprised Robb, given that he seemed to have little love for anything that reminded him of his old life. Robb rather liked the insolent Hound, and he laughed at the comment. “Then I’ll reimburse you for the loss you’re about to take.”

“Just try and last longer than six moves; I bet you’d make it to ten.”

The crowd in attendance grew silent as Ladies Catelyn, and Rhaella arrived along with Sansa. The three would be the judges of this content of arms, another Northern custom of their Tourneys that were not tourneys. The belief was that the ladies of the House, having to run estates during the most brutal winter months, would be better prepared for the impartiality required to judge a contest of arms than the menfolk whose friends and comrades would be in the field. All three women were adorned in the grays of House Stark, and Arya appeared wearing a dark blue tunic with a black doublet and a red cloak fastened by a broach shaped into a running direwolf. On her doublet was a single-headed red dragon in flight encircled by a white direwolf, a blue and red trout, and the gray dragon of House Greystorm. So, Lord Robert talked to her, I suppose? Robb thought, amused.

After all, Arya had only punched a wall until her little fists bloodied themselves when informed of her betrothal after the feast. She had gone from sullen and enraged and now nearly enthusiastic. It looks like Lord Robert convinced her that the Stormlands possess a warrior culture, so she would never be asked to be delicate. Arya, it seems, would be the umpire of this fight. In charge of explaining the rules, the duration of the rounds, and how the Judges would determine the victory.

It was hard not to smile; Arya was remarkably imperious when she wanted to be—possessing in her a powerful and vocal and wolfish authority compared to the quiet force of his sister Sansa. For this fight, it would be training blades and the thicker armor common in Northern Tourneys with added linens beneath to ensure no one was concussed or maimed. Clegane was adorned in his new livery a black tabard over a cuirass that would have fit a bear and a black robe with gold running along the seams of the shoulder and wrists and the placket and collars. The others were all adorned in the colors of their houses, Loras and Garlan in a splendid set of green armor with silk tabards gilded the golden silk of the Westerlands in the shape of roses. Loras wore a cape of purple and Garlan a cloak of red Colors that depict aspects of the seven through their rainbow.  

In front of them are the Knights of the Kingsguard in their shining white armor and white cloaks freshly washed. Ser Barristan took point, his pale blue eyes weighted with all the long years of service but with a sharpness to them that spoke of how dangerous a foe he would be, and Aghorro beside him held a look in his golden eyes that reminded Robb of Greywind and Warden. Of violence and a youth spent on the Dothraki sea, the sun at his back, the wind in his hair, and a hawk soaring above him as he rode down countless enemies. Aghorro was near as old as Barristan.

Aghorro was rescued from the fighting pits when the slave barge he was transported in was intercepted by a Valeryon vessel patrolling the seas for slavers close to Tyrosh. He'd been a high-value slave and converted to the seven's faith in gratitude and fought valiantly for House Blackfyre, eventually replacing Prince Lewyn Martell whose death at the Trident was itself the source of many songs. Aghorro took nine arrows during the battle of the trident and fought Uncle Brynden for an hour in the mud before his wounds dropped him. And ser Jaimie, with his white on-gold armor, his lions’ helm, the arrogant smile, and the traditional golden blade he ordinarily wielded, replaced by a training blade that looked no less deadly in his hands. He seemed utterly bored, as though this entire affair was beneath his contempt. Above them all, father and the King leaned against posts and watched the spectacle below; both were drinking lemon water in solidarity with Robert, who was less miserable than he ought to have been for the gesture. His father had a grim, proud, solemn face, and Robb tried to imagine why. Oh…Summerhall.

Ser Jaime looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here, and Prince Tommen, seated with his mother, looked like he wanted to be beside his uncle and nowhere else. They should let the boy fight; he isn’t useful for anything else. It was a good thing that sullen venomous youth wasn’t the heir to the Throne, earlier Tommen had been tormenting a cat until Maelys slapped him so hard the boy whirred and stumbled into a stairwell wherein the prince dusted himself off and then promptly charged Maelys with ferocity as great as any feral wildling. The prince still had a swollen lip and a black eye from that exchange.  When Arya was done narrating, she stepped back and roared, “READY…STEADY…BATTLE!”

They were off, and true to his word Aghorro and Sandor locked blades, and when they did, it was after the hound lifted his and, in a roar, as loud as a dragon’s, he brought the blade crashing down against Aghorro’s who had slashed upwards from the side intended to batter Clegane in the ribs. Robb tried to tell himself the sound didn’t echo like a mighty set of hammers pounding steel. Loras Tyrell moved like flowing water and was on Viserys Tully like a sudden surge in a flash flood, and the knight of the white cloak laughed and merrily dodged and blocked. “You’re a pleasure to duel as always, Lory!”

“And you, Sery!” called Loras back as they exchanged thrusts and parries and dodged each other’s blows. Ahead of them, Barristan the Bold fought the princess and the Wildling with a mix of deadly grace and unbridled savagery. They knew they didn’t stand a prayer’s chance against a knight so seasoned and skilled, for few truly did. So their strategy was to make as many unconventional moves as hard and fast, and aggressively as possible to try and tire the old Ser out before he disarmed them and rounded on their comrades. Barristan’s blade moved like lightning, and he saw through their antics at sliding between both women and catching Ygritte’s morning star and, with a savage jerk, nearly thrust it into the face of the princess, who slid under and rolled away.

The crowd was cheering and howling, but Robb couldn’t pay more attention to it, for he faced Jaime Lannister. Ser Garlan came with two swords, and both men fought like mages, their swords not merely moving swiftly but vanishing. Robb felt his blood rise in his veins, and a desire to be as good as they were burned within him. With a howl of “Winterfell!” he charged and thrust his sword towards Jaime, who used the tangle of Garlan’s blades to knock him off balance and throw him in the direction of Robb’s shoulder but not my blade; he stopped short of dishonorable conduct.

Jaime’s style was brutal and he preferred to Garlan’s, not that that the Tyrell knight wasn’t astoundingly skilled. However, to Robb it seemed Ser Jaime was a predator on a kill, whereas Ser Garlan was a dancer, dancing a dance of murder and death, and Robb believed he wasn’t built for such a style. Garlan regrouped and then slashed at Jaime’s head, but it was a feint, and the Kingslayer blocked it and forced his blade down to block the other, which was aimed at his thigh. “Two blades are a distraction, Lord Tyrell.” Jaime crowed in a mocking lilting voice.  Robb lunged then, and Jaime released Garlan and swung forward, hitting his wrist with the tip of his blade. He’s trying to break my arm. Robb realized, causing his eyes to darken. Very well then, the wolf thought, let him be surprised.

The blade fell from his right hand, but Robb caught it with his left and swung down, managing to hit the lion’s helm on its snarling snout. Jaime leaped back and tightened the grip on his sword. His eyes no longer appeared bored and disinterested. “Ah, another one of you cursed fuckers who can use both hands…Perhaps this will be entertaining after all.”

“Point to the Stark side,” Grandmother called.

“AH FUCK!” Sandor hit the dirt, leaped up, and launched back into his savage fight; he and Aghorro moved with the speed and ferocity of the white lions that now spread from the Westerlands across the realm. Their movement’s shockingly fluid for two giants, and when their swords connected, they clanged like great bells as though they were presaging doom most terrible.

“Point to the Kingsguard, another point to the Kingsguard.”

Mother was not going to show any favoritism, it seemed. Robb pivoted on his ankle and launched at Jaime, who was locked in a duel with Garlan that was occurring with such speed and precision that Robb felt humbled. However, humbled did not mean discouraged, and Robb was back on Jaime with velocity and renewed ferocity that made the golden Knight grin with delight. Lannister was almost too fast for Robb, but every time his blade vanished, the young heir to Winterfell could find it again just before the point connected and block and block, but that was the problem. He’s conserving more of his strength than us, which was a thing that shouldn’t be possible. Garlan was hitting him savagely, and Jaime blocked everything effortlessly, minus a single blow to his shoulder, which got their side a point. Robb felt an impact to his ankle and nearly tumbled but righted himself on his knees and jerked his head to the side, Ser Jaime’s blade glancing off his helm and costing him a point.

Robb suddenly felt a ripple reverberate through the blunt steel and down his forearm into his chest, and he heard a gasp from the crowd and wheezing as the Kingslayer stumbled back. Jaime Lannister had been hit in the sternum off to the side hard enough to knock the wind out of him and send him reeling, struggling where Garlan Tyrell came at him, leaping through the air with both blades crossed before him as some sheep shear from the seven hells and still unable to gain his breath Jaime threw his sword forward to block. Still, a man barreling at you is not a thing easily stopped. The lion of Lannister lacked the strength to arrest the man’s momentum, and so Garlan impacted against Jaime with a thunderous clatter and sent the lion knight sprawling along the paved floor. Robb rose and was on Jaime in an instant, pointing the tip of his blade towards the Kingslayer’s throat.

Both boy and man were pale; neither could believe what had occurred, and both stared bewildered at each other. And then the Lion of Lannister laughed a loud and brash laugh, “Ah, of course, the only two warriors’ outside of Storm’s End and Dorne that I consider dangerous to me would be of the North; I yield, Stark, I yield.” He threw up his hand so that Robb could grip it and assist him in rising, and when he did, Jaime took it but pulled himself up on his own with a speed Robb found nearly inhuman. He was holding back. The boy realized, and yet it wasn’t all for naught. Robb had caught the Lannister off-guard, surprised him even, and he could see in the Kingslayer’s eyes that fact had rattled him.  An achievement that had silenced the room until Arya bid that the fighting resume.

They continued their battles until the sun began to reach the middle part of the sky, wherein a final victory was determined. The White cloaks won, as was expected but by a margin far slimmer than any expected. In the end, the crowd erupted in cheers; there was probably a small fortune that changed hands as well as the betting had grown furious while Robb fought for his life. In the end, each side shook hands, but when Jaime took him, the grip was iron, and the smile never reached his eyes.

Eyes that were filled with hatred.

The Kingslayer is a poor sport, it seems…I shall have to watch myself in the future.

………

A wolf that was promised…

“I’m not nervous” Robb Stark, heir to the North and future Lord of House Stark, was pacing his rooms, walking in circles with such velocity that Jon had joked that he was trying to drill a hole in the granite so that he might descend the towers that the Stark family slept in. The lights of the towns flickered in the glass windows, and he could see clear to the Wolf’s Wood and beyond, but the view which was ordinarily Robb’s refuge bought him little comfort tonight. Tonight, a flurry of emotions and thoughts flashed through their head. A wedding before the heart trees, a wedding in the Sept; I’m surprised we aren’t being asked to do a Red wedding. The faith of the Gold Gods was different than it was practiced below the Neck by House Blackwood was going to be interesting; she’d done the same for his mother and father, and he knew little of the ritual as it was supposed to be kept secret being shared only with those who joined in matrimony and those who officiated. Still, he knew it involved fire and blood and some ritualized scarring, but Rhaenyra insisted it was okay.

Gods, he was going to be marrying a princess! And not just any princess, but one with haunting blood-red eyes, silver-white hair, and skin pale as the moon. She was beautiful in an exotic and haunting way, kind, wise, and a warrior! He couldn’t tell if the Gods had blessed him or cursed him because Jon made an excellent point; he would have to give up going to brothels or be gelded in his sleep by his royal wife. His royal wife…who had within her the blood of Dragonlords, mystics, conquerors, and heroes and if she was to be believed.

The blood of First Men as well; Rhaenyra said she believes the ancient Dragonlord families kidnapped first men from the shores of Westeros in the time before the Andal invasions so that they might add warg-like powers to their already unnatural blood. She says to better control the dragons, but she isn’t sure if it helped.

Robb could understand that ever since Greywind came into his life, he’d been having the wolf dreams. While it made Winter more receptive to him, Roark was quick to point out that Dragons were intelligent enough that they might consider an intrusion into their minds to be a great offense. “It’s why few Wargs attempt it with Mammoths or elephants and why I’d never try it with Mandarr.” Roark had explained when Robb came to him months ago with his suspicions about his bond with Greywind. “There are two sorts of animals a skin-changer must never bond with, the first being insects and the second being man…But we’ve learned there’s a third category for which a bond is possible but very risky: animals with extreme smarts.”

A man-like intelligence, but then again, they entered the minds of Ravens all the time, and they were brilliant birds. But seldom crows, parrots, those multi-colored talking birds from the summer isles, and Sothoryos Roark said he witnessed a warg lose his sense of self inside one of those birds.

The welcomed mental distraction faded when he noticed Greywind had abandoned his game of pacing alongside his master and settled for leaping onto a sofa and shutting his eyes for an early nap. “Traitor!” Robb teased. The shadows cast by the lamp lights danced along the walls and table of his room, a room that was a mix of sweet childhood memories in the forms of old toys and blankets folded and resting on shelves that were filled with copies of scrolls and books that he had requested brought to him from the great library in the Eastern Keep and Winterfang which rested on the wall near a portrait of grandfather Rickard and Rhaella when she was fourteen, the same age Robb was now and Rickard was twenty-six?

He’d forgotten how much older the old Lord was than his grandmother.  A similar portrait of his parents was set on the opposite wall; Lady Catelyn’s Tully features were so strong in Robb that Viserys and Edmure looked more kin to Robb than Jon and Arya ever could, even though they were his true siblings. The servants had brought in Wolfsbite. Twin Valyrian steel daggers that were part of the sword set Winterfang belonged to, along with a dirk whose grip and the pommel were fashioned from whale ivory. He could be cloaked in the raiment of his house tonight, with all its ancient power and history.

On a table meant for dining in small groups of threes or fours rested his cotehardie with his personal standard. A golden direwolf encircled by a dragon, chasing the tail of a direwolf, chasing the tail of a fish in an endless loop. The cloak was black and red with the direwolf of House Stark in red with white eyes honoring their connection by blood to the royal house of old. The rest of him would be Stark colors, and he would drape Princess Rhaenyra in the cloak of House Stark at the Sept, and before that, in the Godswood, she would kneel a Blackfyre and rise a Stark of Winterfell. His heart was pounding in his chest, his throat thick as he reached down and ran his fingers along Winterfang’s pommel, made of mammoth tusk, its blade containing swirls of white and gray in the form of phantom-like Direwolves. All of this is a testament to the power and heritage of House Stark. There’s mother’s hand in this, father mislikes pomp and pageantry even when necessary, but this wedding is to be a symbol of Northern might—a warning to the King’s foes in the realm and beyond.

In Essos, even in the parts conquered by the Seven Kingdoms, the people told stories of demon magic and human sacrifices. That the Starks were man wolves who bathed in the blood of the innocent and hung men by their entrails on Heart Trees, that part might have been true, but he doubted the Starks could ever turn into beast men, Robb grew up around Wargs in the city watch, and they never turned into their animals. No doubt everyone from Yunkai and Astapor to far away Qaarth would believe by year’s end that Robb would transform into a half-man, half-wolf creature and mate with a blood-covered Princess Rhaenyra while the heart trees of Winterfell laughed and jeered and made lurid japes and convocated with dark powers. Not that Robb cared what a bunch of flesh-pedaling degenerates believed, but if that gave Jon and Dany an edge when they went East.  

I must calm myself. Something touched the palm of his hand, and he felt wetness and the smell of a summer’s breeze, of mulched leaves and the ashy oak smell that he knew to be Winter’s lair, and he knelt and chuckled. “You still visit grandmother’s dragon while I sleep, eh boy?” he asked, scratching under Greywind’s chin, causing the direwolf pup, who was not but turn months in age yet looked like a medium-sized hunting hound to growl pleasantly as he inclined his head. Two of the seven Direwolves did not sneak out at night and wander to the Wolfswood to sleep with the albino she-dragon that had stayed loyal to House Stark for nearly four decades.

Warden and Cryxus, the other black-furred and green-eyed Direwolf, gifted to Princess Rhaenyra. Or at least that was the name chosen today, for she had gone through several names in her quest to find which one the she-wolf responded to the best. Cryxus was the name of the second dragon that was brought to the western coast of the North by House Aetheryon; believed to be a she-dragon, she was said to have dark blue scales and a long serpent-like body. She laid one clutch of four eggs; Robb had seen them the one time he visited Sea Dragon Keep, the palace built into a great hill overlooking Sea Dragon Point, and Dragontown, a nine-towered castle with each tower designed to launch dragons, dragons that were never born. Of course, they might yet be.

His great-great-grandsire King Aegon the fifth had brought dragons back from extinction, and they were alive and thriving. Aetheryon dragons looked very different from the Targaryen dragons that were synonymous with the South and Westeros as a whole, being longer and possessing six limbs, not four. Still, Maester Luwin believed that was the result of the Dragons of House Aetheryon being more primitive or of an older version of a breed. Each Dragonlord and his house bred his dragons as he saw fit; Aurion’s dragon Saerkyoz was said to have two sets of jaws within his great maw and incredible physical strength as he was bred for working Dragonstone and swimming and flying and digging for Valyrian roads. The Targaryen’s bred primarily for aerial combat, thinks Archmaester Marwyn. The Aetheryon dragons must have been bred for exploration and swimming. Or else it was just a relic of the first dragons before the lords of the Freehold began their insane experiments in fleshsmithing.

Robb was proud of both sides of his heritage, but there were times when he was glad for the drops of Andal blood his mother gave him. Their history contained the least amount of nightmares, even if they were a plague on the North. “Thank you, my friend,” Robb said, looking down at Greywind, who had leaned into his thigh and was gazing at the door with the same mask of calm that hid the roiling emotions he was no doubt feeling. The bond between a Direwolf and a member of House Stark is sacred, honoring an ancient compact between men and gods.

“You look so gallant.” The voice shook him abruptly from his thoughts, and his pale blue eyes settled on the figure in the doorway. “Mother,” Robb said softly, in a far too childlike voice for his liking. She was adorned in blue robes with red satin lining, but her gown was the colors of House Stark, and her hair was braided with silver strings of thin satin woven between and pearls joined several smaller braids that came down across her chest and neck. Her red hair glimmered like flame, lending credence to Tormund’s belief that the dragons wed the Tullys because they wished to absorb some of the fire that kissed the Riverlords.  Mother was four and thirty but looked over ten years younger than that.

Unlike Grandmother or the Queen, Lady Catelyn possessed an earthy beauty that blended well with the ethereal blood of House Targaryen and the ancient and stout lineage of the first men in her veins. There was a sadness in her eyes, and Robb swallowed. So, it’s true Bran will accompany Jon and Dany to Essos. Dany had made the offer, and he knew Mother wasn’t happy about it, for she believed Bran would become Robb’s trusted right hand. But that was what Jon was raised to be, Bran was for the white cloak or a Lannister marriage ere father soured on them if what grandmother tells be true.

 She walked forward and took his measure, her pale blue eyes so much like his own, and then she reached up to fasten one of his laces better and moved to take the doublet from the table. “Arya, Bran, and Sansa.”

“Sansa? I thought The King wanted to keep Maelys in the North.” Gods knew there was still so much unclaimed land in the old days. We paid tourney winners, the finest masons, smiths, and wrights in land and masterly titles; why do we not do so again? The North had a population comparable to the Reach, yet you could still ride for a fortnight or more and see not but ruined and ancient keeps or nothing but grass and snow or river and forest. Something to consider when he became Lord of Winterfell, or rather when he began to rule in his father’s stead as he ventured South to be the Hand of the King. Cousin Artos is there. He thought, along with Roundtree and several other wargs in the city watch. It was almost hard to believe any sort of complot was possible with Roundtree alive, but then again, whatever was puissant enough to kill Lord Aenar could easily have blinded his wargs. Robb met the old Lord Hand once or twice; those turquoise eyes terrified him; they were always searching and discerning. Eyes reminded him of the King in some ways and of himself in others. 

“His grace, the King and Lord Tywin have been draining and refurbishing and restoring Castamere castle. Evidently, the mines ran out of gold, but they had veins of silver a mile thick and rubies and sapphires in splendid amounts.” His mother spat that out and made him wonder if she believed the emergence of precious stones the color of blood and water was the result of the massacre of House Reyne and its people, an evil blood pact made by the Lord of the Rock.

An entire village lived before the ground at Castamere; Tywin and Aerys were returning triumphant from Essos when they heard tell of House Reyne and Tarbeck mounting a rebellion in protest of Tywin calling in their debts without the knowledge of Lord Tytos, who most assuredly would have forced a peace even with such abusive vassals. But Lord Tywin and the future King had other plans, and they fell upon the Reynes and the Tarbecks like the living wrath of angry Gods; both houses were annihilated in dragons flame and the wrath of the streams that fed the reservoirs for the castle. To settle Sansa in such a ghostly place.

“It would make her the lady of the third wealthiest house in the Westerlands, and she’ll have to design a new sigil for House Blackfyre of the Westerlands; she’ll like that.” He offered his best reassuring smile as his mother helped him slide into his doublet. “It is dangerous, Robb; King Daemon means to use Prince Maelys to check his grandfather's power, and a Stark hasn’t married into a Westerland family in two hundred years; it bodes ill.” She began to fasten his doublet.

It was a curious thing for Robb, Rickard Stark was as close a friend to Aerys and Tywin as Valarr Blackfyre and Steffon Baratheon were, even though he was older. And he knew that friendship continued in some ways. Gerion Lannister was always welcome in the North, and Daven and Lancel Lannister had been frequent guests of Winterfell whenever Kevan and Tytos Sunfyre fostered in White Harbor until they were all abruptly called away two years ago. Only Lord Stafford of Duskendale and his son Daven maintained contact with the North outside of Gerion. Then again, father sided with giving Tyrion the Iron Islands, and Lord Tywin no doubt took that as a personal slight.

“You raised us, well mother, you raised us well,” Robb reassured her, earning a gentle smile from the tired lady Catelyn. Catelyn nodded, her eyes mixed emotions, and then laughed, almost weeping. “And here I am, talking to you about politics when it’s your wedding night.” A ghost of a sob escaped her lips before it turned into laughter. “Your grandfather did the same for me.” She smiled sadly. “And I am sorry to bestow that particular tradition on you.”

Robb laughed. “As far as tradition goes, I shall take it. I am glad you worry for Sansa and not me, especially on my wedding night.” As he said this, his mother wrapped a silk sash across his waist, tying it by his hip, and fastened it with a broach of gold with a large sapphire in the center. “You’re my eldest, the best of me, and the best of your father and the blood of your grandparents flows through you.” She squeezed his arms below the elbow. “you’ll do fine, though you may stumble and fall, you will rise again because you are a Direwolf, my son, a direwolf with the wisdom and cunning of House Tully, the might of House Stark and the majesty of House Targaryen in your veins. I fear not for you, only for those who would hinder you.”

……….

The walk to the Godswood was the longest of his life. For the first time, Robb was acutely aware of how difficult addressing a Keep that was, in truth, a complex of castles, palaces, and keeps spread out across a city and connected solely via bridges and underground pathways that only had fourteen doorways above the ground And only four of them lead anywhere beyond a single one of the buildings everything else must be reached by a walkway or secret entrances outside of the city on the opposite path an army would take.

To take Winterfell, one had first to breach the outer and inner-city walls and then fight through twenty city blocks of locals who received levy training every other fortnight and then breach the curtain walls and then either manage to get into the underground tunnels through those tunnels upstairs to palace walkways. Even the servants primarily used a water-powered system of winch elevators that brought them up to the only entrances that weren’t connected by bridge or tunnel. An exhaustive fight, one that might break any army that attempted it. Unless that army had dragons...

It took a quarter of an hour to arrive, and Robb surmised that it was likely the hour of Ghosts by the time he arrived. Which was no doubt calculated, having a little fun at the expense of the more superstitious and ignorant Southron guests who likely thought the power and wealth of the North came from skin-changing and dark magic. As Robb set foot in the Godswood, he took in the cold summer air, the scent of water on faded stone, and the smell of millennia of growth and history in the soil and the trees.  A row of sentinel pines flanked the entrance to the original Godswood on either end, but the Godswood had expanded as the castle had, with it becoming a ten-acre garden and place of worship tended by Snow’s from all the great houses of the North.

At the new entrance, statues of dragons carved in dragonstone by Aragor rose ten feet into the air, their wings bowed, their necks curved, and their snouts gnashed and snarling, but they were not the true threat that warded off evil spirits. For indeed the dragons were between the legs of two immense Direwolves who towered above them protectively, their bodies made of the same black stone, and beside the men, Auryn, the last of the Sea Kings who, bent the knee and pledged the west coast of the North, all their armies, their trade fleet, and their remaining dragon and beside him one of Robb’s ancestors.

A Brandon, I believe.

Their statues are silent sentries, a fusion of both ancient cultures that made up the North.

Walking through the Godswood, Robb heard a soft rustle in the trees, followed by a sort of deep chirp, and he turned and saw the red glowing eyes of Maelos and Argella beside him. As they walked together, Robb found his father adorned in the Valyrian steel armor granted to him by King daemon and House Blackfyre. Father wore Ice on his back, and his long flowing cloak was lined with the softest furs. He looks like a King. Robb realized, and his father embraced him. “Are you ready, my son?”

He smiled. “I worry she won’t love me..she’s taken with me now…but.”

“True love comes in time, your grandparents on both sides were an exception to that rule, but that doesn’t mean you fail by not finding it.” Father set a firm hand on Robb’s shoulder and smiled. “I am proud of you, son…Now go, make me an even older man by becoming a husband.” Robb felt himself smile despite all the mounting tension in his nerved, and he walked on ahead, his boots leading him along the Valyrian stone laid walkway towards the ancient Heart tree of Winterfell and its two younger siblings who were planted eight centuries ago by green men. Winter loomed in the shadows, her red eyes glowing in the dark as her brother’s had been, and Robb noted every Stark was present; even Jon, adorned in Targaryen livery, wore a black bear fur-lined cape and the direwolves…all of them were there! Each Direwolf was seated by their companion, their master.

Each one sat as a sentry beside those he loved, all of whom looked elegant and strong. Sansa is as queenly as Cersei, standing tall with her auburn hair, blue eyes, and a circlet around her head of silver with direwolves imprinted on it. She will be the lady of Castamere soon and should tragedy befall Dearon, the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

The royal family was there as well; the Queen looked sullen and grim but as beautiful in that unsettling way that was all her own. She’s like Dragonlords; they don’t look like people but living statues. But there was always warmth in the Valyrians he knew who traced their lineage from Dragonlords save for the old Hand. In Cersei’s case, something in the queen’s eyes made the wolf blood in him want to snarl and bear teeth. Still, in her black and scarlet, with gold trimmings and a crowned ringlet of gold studied in gems carved to look like lions, she looked like a queen of old. The King stood tall, adorned in crimson robes and the most delicate silk with black dragons sewn into it, creating a pattern of black on red that made it almost seem like there were rippling waves of dragons therein; he was tall. His shadow seemed to meld with the shadows of Winter, evoking the image of a man on the verge of becoming a dragon.

Besides his group, the princesses Visenya and Rhaenys, each around the arm of their intended. Braziers burned around the heart trees, each flame molded by Maester Luwin and Prince daemon to burn with the colors of the rainbow of the seven. Standing before the Heart Tree was grandmother, adorned in the colors of House Stark but for a mask on her face, blank and serene in black with swirls of red.

A fusion of Valyrian and Old First Men customs, Robb could never determine if moves such as these were made as a natural matter of having two ancient cultures side by side or if it was a cynical maneuver on the part of an ancestor of his. Still, Robb took a breath; he knew what came next.

Rhaenyra was in a crimson gown; her hair looked like cascading rivers of silken silver, and her blood-red eyes sparkled in the moonlight. On her back was the cloak of House Blackfyre. She was adorned with a silver choker wherein onyxes and rubies were set, and she had a bouquet in her hands. She is lovely, Robb thought, and he wondered why so many men of the realm cast her side glances; the allusions to the Bloodraven were foolish; she was no witch. Just a good-hearted and kind girl with discerning eyes and a loving disposition.

Though Robb would be the first to admit she possessed the spirit of fire in her and the reputed ruthlessness and tenacity of Bittersteel. This was a good match, and it would not fail; they would love each other in the end. How could he not? For his part, he was utterly smitten by her looks and presence and the ease at which she carried herself with smallfolk, nobles, gentry, and beasts alike. And the way she looked at him and her cheeks reddened, it never occurred to him to think about why the marriage was taking place now and not say two years from now or more.

But he did catch the look of barely contained hate in the queen’s eyes and the mild reproach in Jason Lannisters towards his elder sister.

“Who comes before the Old Gods tonight?!” Rhaella asked, her voice a roar upon the winds.

“I! Rhaenyra of House Blackfyre out of Cersei Queen of House Lannister by Daemon! King of Firt’a’mun! Andalmen, Rhoynemen and Valyriamen! Magnar above all Magnars! The Dragon of Black! Master of the realms of men from Dorne to the wall, from the narrow sea to Essos!” Rhaenyra called back; her voice as steady as a girl nearing thirteen could make it in such a situation. Mercifully there would be no bedding, but she’ll cut her fingertip, and the maids will find blood on the sheets…That was another suggestion made by Daeron that should have alarmed him.

Perhaps if he wasn’t so drunk on the moment, he might have realized that it seemed as though the King feared treachery from his own household. The queen scowled at the phrasing, and Lord Robert laughed softly. “Out of..by” was how Dragonlords of old established their pedigree. A holdover from the days before incest became the norm, no doubt.

“I! Robert! Of House Stark, out of Catelyn lady, of House Tully by the Ned! Magnyar of Winterfell, Magnyar of the North, and warden of the North! The Stark in Winterfell!” there was power in those words. Robb could feel it, and it seemed for the briefest of seconds there was a whisper on the leaves of the Heart trees, old and tired and wistful and filled with a resigned sort of respect.

“Does Robert the Stark in Winterfell come to claim Rhaenyra princess, out of Magnya Cersei of House Lannister by the high Magnyar?”

“He does!”

“Does Rhaenyra, princess, wish to be claimed!”

“She does!” her voice cracked but not in sorrow.

“Who gives her away?!” Rhaella boomed.

“I! Daemon Blackfyre, out of Vaella of House Targaryen by Valarr Magnyar of the narrow sea, King who never was! I! Daemon! King of First’a’mun! Andalmen, Rhoynemen and Valyriamen! Magnar, above all Magnars! The Dragon of Black! Master of the realms of men from Dorne to the wall, from the narrow sea to Essos! I! Do give her away!” The King’s voice was like thunder, and it reverberated off the woods, the trees, the stone floor, and the scales of the Dragons, and Robb was glad the cunning King was not his enemy.

“Then come forward,” Rhaella spoke, calm and grave, and they did.

Rhaenyra left her flowers at the roots of the Weirwood, whispering that she had picked them for her Lord Husband but was happy to pass them to the Old Gods. It was such an endearing gesture, something that belied her youth. Rhaella took her hand and made a slight incision on Rhaenyra’s palm and then rubbed Weirwood paste into the fresh, healthy blood, and then the same was done for Robb on the opposite hand, each cut by the same obsidian blade. The Queen looked disgusted, but she held her composure and soon Robb and Rhaenyra knelt and clasped their hands together, and Robb felt a surge of power through his veins, something old and new and wonderful and horrifying.

A thousand, thousand voices passed through him as power surged up from his arm. “I swear to you, Robert of House Stark and Tully, by earth and water, by air and by sea to be yours, in soul and body, by this pledge of life’s blood that I do yield my fire unto you, so that our children may be warmed in the deepest of winters, that I yield my heart for you to protect and I take unto you myself, to holdfast and keep. From now unto eternity.”

“And I swear to you, Rhaenyra of House Stark and Blackfyre, by bronze and by iron, by ash and by leaf. To be yours, in soul and in the body. By this pledge of life’s blood, that I do yield my heart unto to you to protect and take unto yourself as I receive yours, and I so swear that by these oaths and by this union of blood and faith that I will cherish you and nourish your flame, so that our children may thrive in our heart’s hearth in the darkest of winters and warmest of summers. From now unto eternity.”

In unison, they spoke, a voice of two harmonized into one before the Gods.

“From now unto eternity and woe unto all those who would seek to part us. For we are one before the Old Gods, this we do swear. By root and by stone, By ice and by fire!”

The two leaned forward, pressing their foreheads together, wherein they prayed silently, each reaffirming the vows the other had spoken and giving their wishes before the Old Gods for life ahead of them that waited, and when they rose, they rose as man and wife.

The other ceremony at the Sept passed in a blur. Still, he remembered Visenya and Rhaenys crying and embracing their “little sister” and one of them threatening to feed him to her Dragon if he dared to hurt her and Arya loudly boasting, “Not before I geld him,” and much laughter following.

Robb reasoned that likely happened after they were wed in the eyes of the Seven.

He didn’t remember the rest, save that at some point before dawn, he carried Rhaenyra to his bedchambers, and the two slept in each other’s arms with Greywind ever dutiful, watching as a chaperone.

If this was married life, then it wasn’t so bad, and as he woke to behold her pale form asleep in the morning light, he whispered a prayer begging the world to remain peaceful and calm for the entirety of their lifetimes.

 After all, if he was right about her household.

His lady wife deserved peace.

Chapter Text

The boy…

If there was one thing, Bran loved more than the time he spent with his direwolf when he traveled with Maester Luwin to inspect Winter and ensure the she-dragon was well and minding herself out in the Wolfswood. It was climbing! And what a Keep to climb through! Winterfell was once a single large castle, built up and expanded over the centuries, with the last editions coming in the decades before the last Sea King yielded. But as the population of the North grew, and so did its wealth, The ancient central keep was largely given over to its Godswood and converted in part to a great feasting hall, kitchen, laundromat, and bathhouse. Towering above it were the new palaces and castles and fortresses, which were all raised by their Aetheryon vassals with the Aragor the mighty and after his death with that liquid stone from the Westerlands. Each one rose some sixty feet at a minimum above the tallest building in the city, and most of them were smooth and warm even in the coldest of winters, and dragonstone or liquid stone bridges connected all.

Maester Luwin says Winterfell would be considered the largest castle in the realm were it a true castle and not a network of palaces and keeps and castles interwoven with bridges and underground passages.

Bran was fine with that; living in the most unique castle in the realm was nothing to sneer at, and all those bridges and walkways meant ladders for the servants who maintained and cleaned the towers and cranes erected by guildsmen and masons to repair weather damage. The boy, kissed by fire as Torment said, was currently climbing through the skeleton of a monstrous siege tower that had been converted into a maintenance scaffold. Ironwood beams smoothed by years of use shielded by great folds of canvas that obscured him from prying eyes allowed the boy to make his ascent unmolested.

If Bran had just tried to climb the ladder grown out of the side of the river tower, then Bran would have indeed been caught by the city watch or Knights from the Order of the wolves who patrolled the tops of the outer walls. The river tower was named so because one could see the White Knife from its apartments at the top of the four-hundred-foot tower on a clear day. The top room contained one of the wonders of the North. It was a window that went around in a full circle around the top of the tower allowing the person who dwelt there to see everything for several leagues in either direction and no matter the time of day, it stood vigil over the White Knife and allowed sentries to spot fleets coming upriver.

The tower was outside the city walls, stood like a sentry, and connected to the rest of Winterfell via a dragonstone bridge enclosed with stained Myrish glass. I’ll be in Myr soon…Along with Jon and Dany. Bran thought as he suppressed tears; it was so exciting, he would be going to Myr on an adventure, and he would learn how to run a city and become a lord of his own keep sworn to his half-brother and his foster sister. I was your age when I was sent to the Eyrie Bran, and you will be a great lord of trade, the Hightower to Dany and Jon’s Highgarden. We will see each other again and very frequently, I’d wager.

Bran didn’t understand why his father believed that about him. He didn’t think he was born to be a great lord but a warrior; he was good with sums and liked counting coppers when other noble children thought it repellant, but he enjoyed riding and racing more. And he was heartsick and terrified and yet, filled with wonder. Myr was a city of science, learning, and magic, steeped in innovation and intrigue where spies were as valuable as Knights and martial prowess walked hand in hand with skill in the higher mysteries, as Maester Luwin told him. It was fascinating for a boy of nine, but it also meant he would miss his mother, grandmother, and father terribly. Then again, Grandmother can visit with Winter; I’d like that.

Bran always wanted a dragon; maybe he’d find some ancient eggs in a hidden place somewhere and hatch them. At least one of the dragons on Dragonstone resulted from a dragon’s egg said to have been laid by Meleys or Meraxes. The dragon was nameless and blue and white and was said to have taken up residence in Driftmark, the castle of House Velaryon, which was abandoned when their vassalage to House Blackfyre brought them renewed wealth and prosperity. Hightide was said to have risen again, more beautiful than when the sea snake ruled it; one thing about the new home he would enjoy—being able to sail to Driftmark and Dragonstone. Maybe one day I’ll ride a dragon.

You’ll have to close your eyes first. How can you see the world atop a dragon if you can’t see?

A voice whispered in his head, and Bran suppressed a shudder as he shifted his weight on the scaffolding and leaped to the side catching between a wooden pillar and the ladder steps for the palace. From there, it was an effortless pivot upwards, and Bran spent much of the morning seated atop the tower’s roof. Arya was the one with dragon dreams like their aunt. Lyanna was, or so mother said. Father never spoke of Bran’s aunt or his brother or father, though he knew that Rickard was one of the greatest lords of the seven Kingdoms, a boyhood friend of Tywin Lannister, Valarr the uncrowned and the mad king even though he was older than they were. He knew that grandfather was the only man who defeated the White bull when Ser Hightower was in his prime in a joust and that few were better swords than he. That was why he challenged the Mad King to a trial by combat…but Aerys proved the better sword in the end.

Bran knew of those details; the Mad King took a terrible wound to his thigh from ice but plunged Brightflame into Prince Dearon wasn’t wearing Dark Sister. Bran thought, realizing it was an odd thing to consider when on top of the world, thinking about the moment Mad Aerys killed his grandfather and ordered a dismayed Aegos to burn Brandon alive and eat him. It was no wonder father vowed never to ride Winter, too great was the grief. But Winter was a gentle dragon, if terrible, when roused to anger; Bran snuck out one night to see the full summer moon, and Winter was below chirping and growling in concern. Her red eyes were glowing in the night sky, and steam billowing from her body; Bran took a leap of faith.

Literally.

He threw himself from the tower, and Winter caught him in her talons and flew with him to the Wolfswood, where he slept comfortably between the coils of her massive body, with wolves and ravens for sleeping companions. Dragons might only have one rider at a time, but that didn’t mean they could form attachments to other people; Winter knew him to be a hatchling of her rider, a wolf-wyrm and cared for all Stark children with matronly devotion. It was almost comical sometimes to see such an enormous and powerful creature fuss over children, but Bran was glad she was gentle and not furious and wild like the Cannibal or the Grey Ghost were said to be in ages past. It might have been too hard for father to fly, but Bran was born to be a knight and a dragon rider. You were born to serve, dear boy; you can serve just as easily as a great lord and be no less skilled.

But if I have to close my eyes to see? How can I ever wield a sword?

Do you need eyes to wield a sword?

Arya had the dragon dreams, Robb and Sansa, and Jon understood beasts and animals better than even Roark sometimes did though they kept this fact hidden from mother, fearing her Southron faith would make her fearful of her own children. And Bran heard voices and saw things better than any trick he used to conjure flame and shape it. Or rather, it was no trick, and he could see the phantoms that walked the old keep at night and heard the voices of the Starks beyond or what he hoped were the spirits of his forefathers. Bran never told anyone these things; he didn’t have a reason to either. Only Rickon seemed to share in his gifts, little Rickon, who was born looking like a Targaryen of old, but every day grew and more Tully-like (Except his eyes which were an eerie indigo color.) with each turning moon. These thoughts and thoughts of departure filled his heart, for he knew that he would be leaving soon; everyone would be going soon.

Father would come with them the longest, but they would go their separate ways once at King's Landing. He to be Hand of the King and Bran to be Jon’s right hand in Essos, but Bran wasn’t even certain he’d see his new holdings for several years yet. It was midday when he descended from the river tower. The smells of Wintertown mixed with the scents from the woods around it and created a vibrant aroma that was once rich and foul. The sewers tended to work overtime in the afternoon months, carrying the city's waste two leagues away towards an artificial lake dug centuries ago. From there, the waste would be carried out to sea eventually. But in the team time, it fertilized the riverbanks and estuaries that formed the further south one went in the North. It was an ingenious design that kept the underground hot springs from drying up and free of human filth. Bran didn’t remember exactly how it worked, but it was second only to the sewer systems of Lannisport and Oldtown.  But it, unfortunately, meant the city smelled the way Bran imagined the seven hells smelled.

He was able to shimmy down the scaffolding and onto the roof of a smaller building and, from there, leap onto the fourth floor of one of the ward houses and climb to the top. Sometimes he’d visit the poor boys, orphans, and urchins who lived within and worked for the civil services. It was said the poverty was lesser in the North than anywhere but the Reach, but Bran wasn’t sure; they all looked so tired and haggard and were always starving whenever he brought over melons, meat, and mead. From that roof, he leaped up to grab the underbelly of one of the aqueducts that ran below the walkways and flipped himself around so that he landed on his knees between the walkway and the aqueduct. He could follow the flow of water until it began to descend, wherein he did as he always did leap from there to an abandoned manse that belonged to one of his great uncles, where he would tumble between the gargoyles and roll harmlessly along the flat roof.

Sometimes some crows sunned in the afternoon, and they would come and pester him for corn, nuts, and crumbs of bread. He would sometimes bring them small cubes of salted pork, but he felt bad knowing that the birds likely ate better than most smallfolk. Earlier, when his father and mother tried to stop him, the Knightly Order of the wolves. The peacekeepers of the North would chase him along the roofs, not that they could ever catch him. One time he slipped and fell two stories but was able to turn and fall into several canopies, making it less a fall and more like he was bouncing on rough sheets the way down. That had been fun! Though he crashed into the ground between six stray dogs who were fighting over meat. Those dogs were now battle hounds working with the knights. Maybe I do have the makings of a great lord in me? I do help where I can.

The Gargoyles here, fantastic somber beasts with the faces of men and bodies that were man-like with long tails and out-stretched wings, always looked sad and contemplative. Old Nan once said Gargoyles were once a living race of men-like beings who slept by day as stone, were warriors at night, and did battle alongside Knights in old Andalos. But that sounded silly, and Bran didn’t believe it. I’d like it, though, an order of flying knights. Did they fight the Valyrian dragons? I wonder…Would they see me as a friend or foe?

He set a hand on the shoulder of one Gargoyle, seated with his head resting upon his great fist, back stooped and wings folded over his back like a cloak. He looked thoughtful and sad but like a great warrior and a titan. There was a soft rustle, and then something moved, and Bran blinked, was there noise coming from within? Bran walked towards the courtyard's edge and cautiously found his footing around a column. This is why I don’t wear shoes…when climbing. Had he been forced to wear shoes, he’d have fallen half a hundred times today. And there was no risk of stepping on glass or debris or rusted nails with dragonstone.

 On these roofs, he had to be cautious, and he always minded his footing. He'd made it down two floors and swung into a balcony area; in the grounds of the courtyard below, a Weirwood tree had begun to swallow up most of the southern wing, and Bran could see the howling face of the tree looking upward in a strange rictus. People always said this manse was haunted, but Bran never saw any ghosts here nor heard any. Sliding through one of the empty rooms, Bran espied abandoned tables and chairs, sofas, and futons whose mattresses were rotted entirely through, and Bran could see the signs that insects had gnawed upon the leather and down. Bran would concede an eeriness to the place, a power in its emptiness that he always found comforting, but that emptiness was disturbed now by whispers and groans and the sounds of fabric shuffling. Someone is in here.

Originally Bran had wanted to make this place his own, but now he suspected it would go to the Lord Commander of the Wolves. But then, who was in here? Bran stuck to the shadows, moving through the room until he found an open archway and slid through it. The pair were in the solar, a beautiful place once filled with books, paintings, and tapestries that now hung mottled and rotten against a wall of rotting plaster and decaying wood. “I mislike this…You should be the hand.”

“Gods forbid, with all the work involved, I’d get fat and weak.” A drawling, lazy voice seemed to be at once strong and furious despite the merriment therein. It was the voice of someone Bran recognized, though it sounded dreadfully bored. And deadly. Bran thought though he couldn’t see why. He moved closer, remaining in the shadows and crouching behind a small granite statue of a firewyrm, coiled in battle with a dragon. There were some like it in the Godswood at the old keep; they spat water from their mouths and fed ponds. “Don’t you see the danger this puts us in?!” It was a womanly voice, lyrical and rich though filled with nerves and hate and something else Bran couldn’t identify. He saw her first, naked as the day she was born, and by the great window, the shadows obscured her face, which hung in darkness, and she was smoking a drako that smelled funny and made his eyes water. He could see her legs, perfectly shaven or waxed. She must be highborn and muscled, but slender legs and golden hair that fell over her breasts. “Daemon isn’t just choosing him because he loves him like a brother; he chose Stark because his faction on the Lord’s Council is the largest, if not most, well organized. They oppose our family at every turn!”

“On nonsense like a reversion to some primitive state or other.” The man still obscured in shadows, responded, shrugging his shoulders indifferently. They were slender shoulders, but in the shadows, they looked almost beasts, and Bran felt bile rise in his throat as though he suddenly became aware that he was in a room with predators. “It doesn’t matter what; it’s still opposition!” she spat. “House Stark might have been a close friend once, but they have no love for us! He means to move against us!”

“When has he ever directed his proxies on the council to do more than block the revocation of laws to protect smallfolk?” The other voice spoke in lilted laziness that seemed to contain now; an undertone of hunger.

“Daemon listens to him!” hissed the woman, speaking in such a familiar tone about the King that Bran felt sweat trickle from his temples. “What if he uncovers our plans?”

The other shadow laughed. “He’s no Hoster Tully or Elia Martell. Give me a fanatic like Stannis or an honest man like Stark any day of the week over a vengeful snake or a murderous trout. Tully hates Lannisters almost as much as Aerys did by the end. Though I can never remember why. Maybe it’s because I wouldn’t fuck his miserable fish of a daughter.” The voice yawned. “Did you know she’s become a money lender now? The Lady of the Stormlands, how pathetic.” The figure shrugged when the woman retorted that their house also loaned out money.

“He hates us because we are Lannister; that’s reason enough and all the more reason to worry about Lord Stark! He has many ears, and if the old lord Hand….” The woman’s voice no longer sounded lyrical but frustrated and frantic.

“Ah yes, how did you manage that?”  asked the man with a tired yawn.

The woman sneered as she stood and passed the drako to the other figure; Bran caught the side of her breast and body. She looked young but not so much younger than his mother, and the boy heard a voice in his head whisper to prepare. But Bran wanted to run… “If I could kill Aenar the mage, do you think I’d worry about honorable Ned Stark? You’re just as foolish as the rest of them.”

The figure shrugged and reached out to cup her breast. “All the more reason for you to leave me out of your scheming sweet sister.” His voice sounded…hungry now, and the laziness contained an aura of menace and murder. “STOP THAT, YOU FOOL!” she hissed. “It’s bad enough. Lysa thinks we tried to kill Shireen and took her eye; it’s bad enough she blames that month of sickness her daughter had on us! If she gets into her sister’s ear.”

“Lord Stark doesn’t have proof.”

“The King won’t need it.”

“Daemon?!” Came the laughing reply.

“You know what he did to the Reach and Dorne and worse to the ironborn!” the response came hissing from the woman, who grunted as he was pulled down onto the man’s lap. “He doesn’t need proof.”

“He’s convinced father to grant Maelys and that wolf bitch Castamere!”

“You should be happy for your son.”

There was a slapping sound, and Bran realized the woman had struck the man. “Those…Dragonspawn may have come out of me, but they’re not my children. They’re his!” There was such hate and venom in her voice that Bran almost whimpered; it terrified him. “He’s placed Maelys there to threaten our family.”

“Of course, sister.”

She moved to slap him again, but the figure grabbed her arm and turned it behind her back. “Now.” He whispered. “All the Wargs in Wintertown are busy; half of them are traveling to the capitol with Lord Stark; we won’t have another opportunity to enjoy ourselves, so stop conspiring incessantly and come here.” The last part was a growl, and Bran began to hear a wet sound and gasps; the shadows mingled as his heart beat faster in his chest. These people…sister..and brother and kissing? Are they Valyrians? But…no.

Horror filled his heart. The queen!

He bolted, trying to run but stubbed his toe on the base of the statue and came sprawling around along the window. His face ground into a decaying rug, and he felt blood and realized he had likely cut his cheek in the fall. The woman was screaming, “HE SAW US!”

Bran was wrenched to his feet by vice-like hands, and he looked up through dizzying panic-filled eyes and saw a handsome face with golden hair falling loose about his shoulders and brilliant jewel-like green eyes. He was tall and naked, and Bran tried not to focus on his body all that much, his throat clenching and his breaths coming ragged. “He did indeed…but did he hear us?”

An oddly gentle hand ran through his hair. “It’s a shame he doesn’t look like his…half-brother.” He heard a woman whisper in a motherly tone that sounded sad yet cruel. “What did you hear, Bran? It’s okay to tell us.”

He swallowed.” No…nothing. I came in here because I heard a noise and thought there might be wild ravens…I..feed them sometimes.”

‘Tyrion and I used to do the same.” Admitted the Kingslayer, who turned to look at his sister, and Bran hung his head, a deep fear overwhelming him, they were going to kill him, and he should be brave and shame them all before they took his head. Like Rhaenyra did before she was devoured by dragons or how Aemon the Dragonknight always spoke true. But all he could do was weakly look up to meet the Kingslayer in his eyes. Bran.

A voice whispered.

Brandon Stark.

“Alas…the things I do for love.”

Bran suddenly felt a knee larger than his stomach smash into his chest. Something cracked, and he let out a gasp. Tumble, Brandon Stark, use the heartbeats given to you.

Everything hurt, blinding pain overwhelmed his thoughts, and a frantic, animal-like desperation filled him as he tried to gather his breath until a new pain filled his senses. He had been launched through the ancient glass by the knee, and he felt himself fall forward as barbs tore into his chest. You know what to do, Bran.

He did, Bran twisted, and it turned him into the stone. He felt his arm tear as flesh and fabric were caught on an iron post, and then he felt bone breaking and was vaguely aware of screaming coming from somewhere. Was it his throat? His head hit the side of a Gargoyle One of my friends.

That blow did something to him because the last thing Bran saw before the impact on the Gargoyle was the smooth stone side of the manse and the sky. Bran felt his shoulder bounce off a canopy, and his hip and leg hit the ground first and then his head, and there was nothing but a dream.

Brandon Stark….Do not die yet, Brandon Stark.

Not today.

……

The Young Dragon.

He liked Yi Ti; they’d been serving as sellswords for ten years, and he decided he liked it. An ancient place, filled with histories and lore older even than Valyria and so extravagantly rich that Ser Jonothor said the average noble of the land was as wealthy as Lords Hightower and Stark. Perhaps it was an exaggeration, but there were days when it felt like it was so. Today was one of those days upon his return to Peikeng city, a great regional capital of the Golden Empire. A river town, its ports were critical to the water-based commerce that was the life’s blood of the oldest and mightiest Empire of the East. A day by sail from mighty Yin, his reward had come before he even arrived back home. Seventeen ships, each ladened with gold, silver, spices, platinum, rolls of silks, hundreds of suits of armor, and a thousand blades and deeds to lands that were twice the size of the Crownlands and the title “Lord shield of Yin and great general of the armies of the Golden Empire.” It might not have been a crown and the Iron throne. Still, Viserys of House Targaryen was uniquely aware that he very likely commanded more power and authority under the Azure Emperor than he ever would have back home. Though he ruled over less lands, the people in the golden empire’s domains were just as civilized, and there were far more of them.

Arms wrapped around his waist, and he felt a pair of lips trace his skin below the ear. “Welcome home, my love.” Her voice was always barely a whisper when they were alone together, and he turned and beheld a woman a year younger than he; her silver-gold hair was styled straight and loose but for a bun at the back of her head and braids that looped upwards and were styled into the bun. She was Aelora Brightflame, a descendant of Sera Bittersteel, the daughter of Aegor Rivers, who took the name Bittersteel in exile, and from her father’s side Maegor Brightflame, the son of Aerion Targaryen. He took his father’s moniker as a name when he won the city of Peikeng from rebels for an Azure Emperor. No one knew what happened to Aegor himself; Westeros likely believed he died in a storm while being sent to the wall. One of his sons founded a mercenary company in Leng, but the scribes of Yi Ti all concluded Aegor died in the Dothraki sea, perhaps in a ritual to revive a dragon. But most likely butchered by an irate Khal who was tired of his foul spirits and even fouler temper. The two kissed greedily, for he’d been fighting to bring Trader Town, the traitor, and false Emperor Pol Qo, and his legions of cone-headed zorse-riding barbarians to heel these past years.

Viserys had crushed them after a two-year campaign. Zorses and lightly armored beast men were no match for the copy Knights of the company of the Red Dragon. Ser Jonothor trained us all well..me above all others. He had missed Aelora more than life itself and his children and his goodfather Aethan Brightflame and his half Yi Tish wife, who had been a surrogate mother to Viserys in the years he’d lived here. Their great uncle Aenys Brightflame ruled Peikeng and the lands around it, its riverports, and the small satellite cities and was the chief tax collector for Yin. They renounced their claim to the Iron Throne, which granted my great grandsire his ascent. All agreed even here in Yi Ti, Aegon had been a just and wise king. His grandsire was too sickly and injured from fire to rule long, but his father was.

Viserys once believed Aerys to be pure and benevolent.

Then he learned the truth, and he was overcome with shame.

I’m a father now…will I grow mad as he did? I worry and pray to all the Gods that my fate is not his every day.

Aerys had been a war hero once as well, several times over, but in the end, he murdered his nephew Brandon and lost a dragon for it. “How are my boys and my daughter?” “Strong and hardy, my love, and full of character, and little Daenys has your fiery temper.”. Viserys frowned, he did have a temper, but he had prided himself on never striking any of his wives or taking them when they were not in the mood. He had never lashed out save for against one particular enemy most dishonorable that ate the flesh of children. But he had a temper; he was quick to anger as the Baratheons were said to be, and he made himself forgive and ask pardon. I am a dragon, and dragons must not be mad dogs. “I hope that her temper becomes as yours in time, my love.”

“Ah, but she will be a warrior as you; I have foreseen it! A great Admiral of the waves whose sons will kill the Sorcerer Lord of Carcosa six times before her daughter will deal him a final death.” Aelora looked up at him with mismatched eyes, one lilac, and the other gray; she had leaflike ears and a face that was said to be mannish by Yi Ti standards but would be beautiful to behold by Westerosi and Essosi. “She will need your temper and my discipline!” Viserys suppressed a shudder. “Speak not of the false Emperor. I’ve crushed one already, and I’d hate to hex that and thus be summoned by the Azure Emperor to dispatch the second.”

She smiled. “Fear you magic, my love?”

“Magic drove our ancestors mad and brought the long night if the mythos of the Bloodstone Emperor be true.”

She spat to avoid evil, and a servant hurried out of the shadows to scrub it off their immaculately varnished wooden floor. The precision and the efficiency of what the Yi Ti called the “peons,” their version of smallfolk, always amazed Viserys, and it made it hard for him to maintain the aura of aloof praise and gentle neglect that was expected of those in the higher classes in Yi Ti towards the smallfolk. If our commons were this efficient, Westeros would rule the world. Aelora took him by the hand. ‘Come, come; my love, let me show you a new painting I buy for household.” Her common tongue needed some work, but her High Valyrian was better than his, and she even spoke a guttural version of the Old Tongue taught to her by wildling slaves. In another life, he might have hated House Stark, the hounds of the usurper as errant knights who found their way into his mercenary company would call them once they found out who he was.

They swiftly found that he had little patience for denigrations of what the Yi Ti called “honorable enemies.” He had thought of writing to Lords Stark, Baratheon, and the King, assuring them of his unwillingness to claim the throne, as he’d abide by the Kingsmoot no matter what agitating lords back home might believe. I also do not have dragons, and nothing can be done unless I find a way to neutralize them or gain a weapon of comparable potency. And even so, he read about the rain of fire, death, and slaughter visited by Daemon Blackfyre against two of the seven Kingdoms in one rebellion and what he allowed to happen to a third in another. The resentment boiling below the surface must be strong. Viserys thought as temptation warred within him. Unless Daemon is another builder king, then he’ll be too well-liked.

One of the earliest things he learned in Yi Ti was how lucrative graft from what the YiTi’i called “public works projects.” Or what would just be called construction in Westeros if it had a name at all? The nobles descended upon such projects as great vultures and reaped a windfall of treasure, influence, and promises. He had been horrified until the emperor’s master of assassins. The great eunuch Lo Han told him it was unseemly for him not to embezzle likewise. And Viserys spent an entire year plundering the equivalent of ten thousand Gold dragons per sennight and was politely told, "He was great with a sword, but the finer arts of politics require improvement.” That might be the only thing that truly bothers me about these people. How much they encourage corruption. Viserys was no fool, a little bit of corruption was inevitable, and Ser Jonothor always told him that his father’s attempts to clean up the cities of the realm contributed to his madness in later years.  But the Yi Ti took it to such heights that even the grubbiest Essosi flesh peddlers would take a vow of poverty and hide their faces in shame at the Yi Ti.

Six thousand Ryon per sennight for an entire year. Ten thousand gold dragons back home money that bought noble titles and land deeds in Westeros. He’d embezzled enough to raise an army and equip and provision it for six moons and spent that time purging the rivers of pirates, which netted him even greater wealth which he had used to better the lives of his peons and, in turn, produce better profits for his lands. This was what Kings were supposed to do here in the Golden Empire, so why would he ever wish to go back home? Especially with that dreaded Lord Aenar. His name was known even here in Yi Ti, the evil mystic, the monster sage, the Northern Dragon. The eater of souls, he who changes shapes, he who wielded the dragon men like flesh puppets (Viserys had seen a flesh puppet show once, in Carcosa, it took him many turns of the moon to be able to sleep whole nights again.). There was no conceivable way of ever taking back the throne as long as that old wretch lived. I don’t want my children to die for an ugly iron chair when they inherit a throne made of jade.

The succession laws in Yi Ti were very different. Anyone of the blood, even bastards, could succeed, and when Aenys died, his lordship over Peikeng and the province entire would pass to Viserys. Governor of one of the most important regions in the empire, lord of a port town, and war hero. What awaits me in Westeros except for a fiercer foe? Aelora led him to a painting that covered the whole of the western wall of one of the courtyards in his palace, which was as big as Harrenhal was yet considered small for a man of his station. In the traditional style of Yi Ti, paintings often doubled as wall dressing, and this one was no different. It depicted a great battle between knights, some of whom were water turtles, and above them were storm clouds who rode down men in the form of weasels who wore silk robes with towers on them. What is their fixation with House Frey?

 In every single painting or tapestry he’d ever seen of Westeros, there was always a Frey depicted as a man weasel, and it was always either dying or dying valiantly. He knew a Frey established a prosperous trading house in Yin two centuries ago, but his descendants no longer bore the name. Had he become some form of folk hero? Viserys had never heard the tale.

But Yi Ti was ancient and had many tales, and he would never be able to hear them all. Viserys was vaguely aware of his wife leaning against him, her breathing measured, and her slender hands guiding his hands to rest on the lower part of her midsection. A not-so-subtle hint that she wanted him to put another child inside her. His mother died in childbirth and a sister he would never know died with her. He always feared the same for Aelora. As his eyes scanned the field of warriors, he found himself laughing. A giant towered over mountains, armored in tree bark, and beside him was a young dragon. “Ser Duncan the tall.” Lamps covered with colored wax paper started to ignite, and the peons had come to do their task of lighting each of the oil lamps that illuminated various parts of his mansion. The Sun would be setting soon, he supposed, which meant dinner was soon to be served, a five-course affair as it often was. Soups with something called noodles that Viserys was convinced he could win back the love of the people of Westeros for his house if he introduced them. Easy to prepare and cook, they would save who knew how many tens of thousands of smallfolk from starvation. “Ser Duncan the giant, he was known here.”

“The tall.” Viserys corrected with a soft laugh as she looked up at him, craned her head, and gave him an annoyed smile. Their hair intermingled, whites and silvers and golds, two different branches of the same house united by marriage for the first time in nearly a century and unified by blood. Duncan the Tall was indeed known here, as was Aegon the fifth or the lucky dragon as he was called here. Some mishaps saw them captured as slaves as they journeyed to the wall. Aegon was posing as his twelve-year-old squire (which he was, but not common-born.), and they were traveling together after Ser Duncan fought an honor duel against Prince Matarys, was it? Or Aerion Brightflame?

 No! No! Viserys finally remembered. It was a duel with Maekar to avenge the honor of his fallen mentor Ser Arlan of Pennytree, a famous Hedge Knight and later captain in the knightly orders of the peace in Tyrosh. Ser Arlan failed to stop a robber knight from stoving in the head of Baelor Targaryen, who was heir to the Iron Throne and a legendary adventurer in his own right. Baelor, the lightning thief as he, was known for drawing Dark Sister so swiftly once that he was said to have cut the wicks off seven candles, which floated into the air as feathers and still burning. Ser Jonothor insisted that was impossible until he witnessed one of Aelora’s brothers do it with those thin swords the Yi Ti used. Taken as slaves and when sold to YiTish slavers, they killed the crew and escaped or thought they were escaping.

The tide had blown them to Yin, where they were given gold and elephants to bear them home. They would not be seen in Westeros again for another three years, but tales of their exploits and deeds of valor and heroism across Essos were the stuff of puppet shows and legends. Operatic ballads were performed of their fight with the brindled men and fleshsmiths of Gogossos in Braavos. And their defeat of four Dothraki Khals in four separate battles were chronicled in a dozen different mummers plays and books. And who could forget the tale of Aegon mistaken for a girl and claimed as a princess by forest-dwelling monstrosities in Mantarys (Both the Maesters and Viserys dismissed this one as crib tales.) and the defeat of the Saan family in the seas on behalf of House Blackfyre.

Viserys admired Aegon the fifth, the redeemer of that name. He wasn’t just elected King at the great council because he had the best claim. Indeed, Maegor had a better one but was passed over as the infant son of a maniac, and there might have been one or two Targaryens in Essos as sellswords with better claims, Viserys thought as he struggled to recall the lessons. But Aegon was chosen in part because he had performed the deeds of a champion and a conqueror; he upheld the righteousness of the seven-pointed star. He brought a hundred freed slaves home with him, and he and the future Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had even more adventures in Westeros that made them the subject of songs, mummers plays, and puppetry. Who could deny a hero out of the old stories? Aerys had been that way as well until he went mad. Yes, why claim a throne in better hands when like Aegon first and fifth, I won my place here by deed and ordeal?

He had no interest in stirring up trouble for his kin across the narrow sea, and why would he risk the murder of his children? “Do you like it, my loving husband?”

“Of course!” Viserys said with a genuine smile. “A piece of our homes, both old and new.”

“When we move to the governor’s palace in Yin, I will have them make one of your victories over the false orange emperor!” she beamed brightly at him and leaned up to kiss him. “Come, put another daughter inside me; I will not have our children marrying their cousins as the first spouse! No, no, no! They may be second and fifth and third, but not first.” That was another queer custom of Yi Ti, a man had a duty as head of his family to ensure all of his family was raised up, and that man also was expected to have a harem. Both of legitimate wives and concubines, but Viserys shunned the tradition to the extent he could do so without alienating his host. Even Ser Jonothor has nine wives. No wonder he pushes me to press my claim; I’d go mad with nine wives and twenty-one sons and wish to flee them as well.

Viserys was content with only three wives, each a member of House Brightflame, of course, and one Lengi concubine. I like tall women. And she was tall, nearly eight feet, and fanatically loyal to all his children, whereas the others conspired. “Ah, before you make me pregnant! I had near forgotten!” She twisted out of his arms, switching to High-Valyrian, and leaned up to kiss him. “Second wife found this delivered to our sentry gate. A gift from a Westerosi merchant.”

“Oh? Why did you not invite him in? I should have liked to talk with him.” If he were part of the Manderly or Aetheryon trading fleet, he likely would have had far more up-to-date information as their sailing ships allowed for a greater range, and Mammoth Cheese and Northern lumber were prized luxury items here. She smiled. “Great conquering hero needs rest, you know? Especially if you’re going to be making a child with me. That saps the fire a little, and you need to rekindle it before the grand parade tomorrow! I will bid him come to join us as our guests after the festival games.”

There would be ten days of those.

No one save his his own men knew his identity as Viserys Targaryen; there were laws within Yi Ti society that allowed the people of the Golden Empire to restrict their names from foreign ears. It had been a boon to avoiding assassins. To the rest of the world, Viserys Targaryen was Aegon Rivers, a bastard of house Sunfyre or Aetheryon got on a Riverland woman during the infamous tournament at Harrenhal. How long that deception would last now that the Azure Emperor would be conferring on him a silver crown and ennobling him before a city of eight million people was anyone’s guess. He felt nervous, but Westeros was six months by ship from here, and news traveled slowly, even if it didn’t. Anyone who dared assassinate me would find the vengeance of my children swift when they came of age.

His wife brought forward a box carved of finely polished Ironwood with gold inlays depicting red dragons with three heads. In beaten red gold, the sigil of House Targaryen was displayed on the box top, and Viserys swallowed; suddenly, all his ease was gone. So, they know…Did some of his knights send letters back home? No, most were Hedge and robber knights or had fought for the wrong dragons. None of them had family, and he paid them well enough to ensure their loyalty. And so, what if they did know? Half a world away and able to take the Maegor exemption, as Jonothor said, the legal scribes and Maesters who specialized in-laws were calling it. He tapped the box and let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. “Was there any letter with it?”

“No, my loving husband. Only that, it was wrapped in silks, and the merchant said, “From an old friend.” I thought…Oh, forgive me, my love.”

He smiled gently. She was almost weeping, which was the custom in Yi Ti for women who felt they had errored for some reason he never understood. “Hush now, first wife, you’ve done nothing wrong…But this box..it..do you feel it?”

She nodded. “like..a soft fire….warm and familiar.”

Viserys opened the box, and his jaw set, eyes filled with wonder ere they narrowed in thought. “I would very much like to meet with this merchant, my love; pay him whatever he needs to be paid to remain until the games are over, should he not be staying already” he paused and then turned to her and offered a smile. “And prepare thyself and our dear concubine; I want to put a child in both of you.”

She bowed and scurried off, leaving Viserys to look down at the box’s contents.

He swallowed.

The temptation to go home was never stronger than it is now.

Maiden made of Light, grant me the strength to stay true, or if it is your desire as the Goddess who rules these ancient peoples that I turn to the West…please, send me a sign.

Send me a sign and let this burden pass from me.

Chapter Text

The Ladies of Winterfell

Lady Catelyn was in another of her moods, Daenerys realized. She was pacing the hall after their luncheon with the King and his wife, who looked like she wanted to be anywhere but in a room with her family and goodfamily. Pleasantries were exchanged, but the luncheon had been incredibly awkward, with the King and Lord Stark chatting amiably and reminiscing about better days. But Daenerys knew the man who had been the only father she knew and loved, and the conversation was incredibly strained. Something happened between Lord Stark and the King…She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something had happened between them, and a rift was recently mended. Rhaenyra was always a pleasure, and Robb was beaming with enthusiasm and seemingly moonstruck by his new wife. Jon and I are like that, or so Sansa and Jeyne say. Yet we aren’t even wed yet…I suppose that bodes well for us.  Daenerys wore Targaryen colors, gifts given to her by Prince Daeron and Princess Rhaenys, made of the finest silks, linens, wool, and rich and vibrant dyes and rubies on the clasps and in the buttons. And a broach with the Direwolf of House Stark. You love him as I love Daemon, the love a daughter bears a father.  She would never forget the gift; she would carry the Stark broach wherever she went. There were barbs between the queen and Lady Catelyn, but not the expected barbs of a protective mother. Rhaenyra and Cersei scarce looked at each other, and it was sad and reminded her of Lady Catelyn and Jon and how she treated him, constantly undermining and reducing him to tears. We’ll be out of here soon enough, and he can heal. Rhaenyra bore that neglect with a fortitude Dany admired, but she knew the rest of the day would be bad when the queen began probing Robb about Jon. She had an odd interest in Jon, whom she remarked had such a familiar face. That made the King and the Hand uncomfortable, and Rhaella merely laughed. “Lord Aenar always said he resembled Maekar, but I always saw my father Jaeharys in him. I see much of Lord Hoster and Rickard in Robb’s face; I sometimes catch myself near about to call him by either name.”

“I was going to say Aerys.” Cersei had said.

The meal ended shortly after.

She was comparing the heir of Winterfell to the mad King while comparing Jon to heroes of the realm and a beloved King, an unlikely King, a warrior King. It was a naked insult and sent Lady Catelyn into a frenzy. “The queen is miserable,” Daenerys responded; at last, they took tea together frequently, but lately, Daenerys had been distancing herself from Catelyn Stark since the exchange where she called Jon Lucerys Strong.  However, the woman had raised her, and soon, she would leave Winterfell and return only as a lady of the realm. A peer of her husband but not her, Daenerys had to remember that Lady Stark was no longer her governess, and they would never be equals. “I hope the bastard treats you well; why can’t he have betrothed you to another one, like Lucerys Waters or Rickard Snow? I understand why he did it, but you deserve so much better.”

Rickard Snow was eighty…and the second most infamous Velaryon bastard was half pirate, just like his cousin Aurane was rumored to be. “Lucerys was accused of selling slaves,” Daenerys said with a frown, her violet eyes darkening. She’s mad; it’s the only reason I can think of to explain why she’d be so gentle and wise one moment and appear a moron regarding all matters concerning Jon. The woman she called a mother, the only she truly knew besides lady Rhaella was telling marrying a man blind and insensate with age or a man accused of piracy and slaving was preferable to the sweet boy who’d only ever defended her and shown nothing but loyalty and love for this infuriating woman’s children.

Catelyn bristled at the reproach, rising slightly in her seat as if straightening her posture would somehow add an element of righteousness to her position. “He was cleared of those charges,” Catelyn whispered in a hushed tone with a hint of wrath.

Daenerys couldn’t help it. She giggled before she could stop herself and then added an apologetic smile. “Because he’s a better swordsman than anyone gave him credit for.” She remembered that well, for she was in attendance at an Evenfall Hall when Lucerys Waters demanded a trial by combat to clear his name. Most thought it was an honorable way out, that Luke had chosen to die by the blade rather than face the executioner's block or a trip to the wall for the man who levied the accusation was none other than Selwyn Tarth, whose son Galladon and daughter Brienne (And her sons by the Mountain) were all some of the most formidable blades in the seven Kingdoms and much of Essos.

Lord Selwyn might have been old, but he was a titan amongst men in his youth and still able to disarm men half his age easily enough.

Lucerys cut him down in ten moves.

“Aerion of House Aetheryon then.” Lady Stark shrugged, and Daenerys raised an eyebrow before swallowing. “Yes, he would be a good choice; he’s a man who lives for his dragon and his sword and is like those sword monks of Moraq and Leng who focus only on the art of combat. But my heirs need be Targaryen Lady Stark and not Aetheryon.” Ser Aerion also terrified Daenerys, but she couldn’t say why. There was just something in those turquoise eyes that seemed to drink in the light and the living fire of others, and she’d seen him at the jousts. There was a joyless precision in his movements. Theon Snow once said he was a living weapon crafted by old Lord Aenar to serve as an attack animal in King’s Landing and across the realm, and that seemed to be the truth. During the Greyjoy rebellion, Aerion and his dragon Vaegon wiped out whole villages.

Though he did have heroic moments, Euron Greyjoy, the mad mage, had summoned a Kraken, and it had turned back the fleets of the realm when Aerion flew down its gullet on Vaegon and incinerated its innards. Dany had witnessed that as she’d been taken hostage along with Robb by Victarion Greyjoy. The monstrous warrior took that as a sign that the Drowned God had abandoned them. When a soaking, bloodied Vaegon pulled himself onto the Kraken’s wrath, Victarion leaped into his maw, trying to stab it to death from within, but Vaegon burned him until there was not left but two boots.

The entire time Aerion’s facial expression never changed.

She suppressed a shiver; this was a line crossed as Lady Stark knew how much the Aetheryon knight scared her. “Jon of House Targaryen will be my husband not solely because the King commands it but because I love him and will love no other so long as I should live. And as the head of my own house, I make the matches for my house Lady Stark, not you.” She responded pointedly. She was tired of this game, listening to her griping, and having to defend the boy she loved for the crime of not dying in the crib.

“Lord Sta-

“Is my peer not my overlord Lady Stark? Or have you forgotten that I rule Myr and the Dragonlands? We are not equals, and I’ve suffered your abuses, slights, and denigrations towards my betrothed out of courtesy and love for you and your children, but I will endure them no longer for their sake as much as my own. These calumnies do you a disservice, my lady, and undermine your own children. Who will shield House Stark of its enemies now that Robb’s right hand has become mine?.” Daenerys nearly flinched as soon as those words came out of her mouth, but she held firm and bore into Catelyn Stark with hard lordly eyes. For her part, Catelyn rose coldly stiffly. “I will not be accused of subversion in my own home.”

At that moment, Daenerys came very close to saying something that would have necessitated an honor duel to remedy. But there was a sudden scream, and both women looked down at the entrance of the doorway where Rhaenys Targaryen and Prince Daeron Blackfyre were rushing into the hall, their garb stained with blood, and behind them, Ser Arys Oakheart with a grim look on a face that was suddenly pale. In his arms was his white cloak, bundled and something frail and small within, shivering and making inhuman noises. Catelyn could see bone jutting out of a wound, and her first thought was that one of the Direwolf pups provoked Mag or one of his grandsons and was kicked by a giant until she saw the mass of tangled auburn hair…

Gods…no…

“Bran?!” both women shouted. “What happened to him!?” Daenerys asked as Catelyn suppressed a panicked sob and called for Maester Luwin in a voice as forceful as it was shrill. “He appears to have fallen from the old manse near the square,” Daeron said, his voice haggard. “Ser Arys was escorting us as we met with some sworn swords to house Forrester in the lonely light.” Ah, yes, the one eatery which wasn’t a brothel that never closed. Run by a family of Ironborn who renounced the Drowned God a century ago. Right across the street from the manse. “I tell you, he was defenestrated,” Rhaenys whispered, her eyes stained with tears of grief and outrage. The princess and Bran had struck up a friendship, with the two bonding over a love of scary stories and old lore despite the age gap. Daeron frowned, his mismatched eyes torn between allowing this line of discussion to be pursued or ordering her to focus on Bran. Before he could say anything, Ser Arys showed his agreement, nodding his slow head in concurrence. “Indeed, Lady Daenerys, I saw his fall; the boy vaulted as though he had been cast out from the window or had was from something terrible enough to risk hurling himself from the window.” Here Arys ran towards a table, setting the boy down, dark red blood pumping from torn flesh, falling like an overflowing river across the ironwood table and cascading below. Rhaenys rushed over and began to tend to him; Bran looked so pale and groaned in pain; delirious, he muttered words about white light and the shadowed cats and looked up with unfocused eyes.

Around statues of bronze and marble and dragonstone in the shape of wolves and Starks of old in the hall seemed to cast grasping shadows at Bran as though to beckon him. “What are you doing?!” Lady Catelyn’s voice shouted. “We need to move him to his bed!”

“My lady, if you move him now, he shall surely die of shock,” Arys said in a surprisingly firm voice for an otherwise silent knight said to be somewhat dimwitted. Lady Catelyn blanched and sobbed when the haggard Maester Luwin came in and beheld Bran’s condition. “He has the right of it, my lady. Who tied these tourniquets?” he queried. “The prince and princess,” Arys answered.

“Have you any skill in the healing arts?”

“From Archmaester Wyld, we learned the healing mysteries from Maester Torolous of Pentos.” One of the Maesters of Kings Landing who assisted the Grand Maester, though the two feuded as oft as not, and he was more known for seeing to the sick in flea bottom and the wounded among the gold cloaks. Still, the foreign-born Maester had cemented himself as a master of the higher mysteries of healing and, according to more salacious rumors of flesh-shaping. Luwin considered for a moment, then nodded. Turning to one of the pale servants, he ordered that the boy run to the gates of the Northern Citadel at the other end of town and bring forth Maester Rystwind, another specialist in healing. “Prince Daeron, have you more healing knowledge than your betrothed?”

“I do not.”

‘Then go fetch me the clear wine and bittercane and my tools from my offices, the oak cabinet with the basilisk near the dear leading to the rookery.”

“Ah, yes, I know it, Maester!”

“Go, my prince! Post haste!”

Turning to Daenerys, the girl who was older than she yet also her niece bid that she find a servant and tell them to bring three live chickens from the kitchens, and Catelyn hissed that she would not allow blood magic to be performed in her hall. “Either work with all tools available to us, or your son dies.”

“His eternal soul”

“Will not be marred nor harshly judged by the Gods because we sought to use a softer kind of sorcery to aid in the worldly ways of healing. Consult your Septon if you doubt; he will tell you that it is a distinction recognized.” The princess reached for Lady Stark’s hands, taking them and giving them a gentle squeeze “Lady Stark, help me save your son.”

There was a moment of dangerous silence, and then she relented and sagged. “Do it...”

By the time the Lord of Winterfell and the second Lady Stark arrived, the doors had been barred, and Daenerys had embraced her foster father and promised to enter the hall and keep Bran company. With tears in her eyes and fear causing her heart to race faster than she could have imagined, Daenerys Targaryen stepped through the doors and locked them shut behind her.  The realm she entered was at once the hall she’d dined in a thousand-thousand time through her life with the pack of wolves she loved and treasured so. But it was also something else entirely, a different world or a world between worlds where a bottomless, unyielding maw of something utterly alien waited on one side. A blinding light of red and orange flame danced, casting the shadow of a heart tree across the great hall. In her mind’s eye, she saw the statues move, the bronze and stone wolves snarl and gnash their teeth as the dark as the ancient Starks banged their swords and shields against the tiled floor. Things began to shift and twist, to dance and Bran went from barely breathing to gasping in pain as Maester Luwin and the Prince and Princess started to work their arts. Luwin was setting bone and cleaning wounds with the practiced patience of a man who’d done such things his entire life, even before donning the grey and the other with more sublime arts. Bran cried out; someone told Arys not to give him milk of the poppy, and the Kingsguard Knight obeyed, saying he witnessed a sellsword die of shock after imbibing large amounts when he’d lost much blood. People called Arys stupid because he held his tongue, and perhaps, he was no great mind, but he was no fool.

“In the Reach, the old women say the mark of Kingship is healing hands…Red and Black Dragons healed the lands they burned, and now heal our flesh.” He whispered, his tone almost reverential.  That was one white cloak that could be counted on to never betray the royal family, unlike Ser Jonothor, who stole a brother she never knew and vanished into myth and legend in the fabled far east. As they began their great works, Dany promised never to tell anyone what she saw here, not even Jon, the shapes and whispers and miasmas. The sound of Bran’s bones as they mended, how the boy’s eyes went from pale blue to a bloody red just as the shadow of a great paw passed across his face or how Daenerys knew at that moment that he would never see again and how he would serve her as fatefully as Jon would. How she was sure her destiny and her little brother in the soul, if not flesh, were now bound inexorably together as were the fortunes of every person in this room. Gods preserve him…please. He’s an innocent; he doesn’t deserve such…suffering.

There was something warm next to her, gently interlinking its fingers with her own, and she knew it wasn’t mortal…whatever it was, and she knew if she looked over, she would be struck dead and somehow knew that meant all was lost. But she felt no fear, only a mother’s love, and when it spoke, it sounded as she imagined Rohanne Blackfyre of House Targaryen, queen of the seven Kingdoms, beleaguered wife of Aerys would sound…Her mother. Not all suffering is in vain, my darling dragon. Holdfast, the sun hasn’t yet set on Bran of the House of Stark, born in the place where Winter fell, nor has it set on you or prince Aenar.

Who?

You’ll see.

No, Dany thought, she would tell no one what she saw here.

………

The Quiet Wolf

“You used blood magic on my son?!” The voice of Eddard Stark was quiet and calm, and Rhaenys had never been more afraid in her life. His solar suddenly felt cold and remote, and the fury in his eyes filled her with a mix of terror, sorrow, and annoyance. We saved Bran’s life, yet he looks at me as though I were a monster.

Tyrion once told her never to meet her heroes, and Lord Eddard Stark was unquestionably one of her heroes. After all, it was Winterfang wielded by Lord Stark that cut through all of the mountain’s armor and severed his spine, and it was Ice which later beheaded Ser Gregor for the attempted rape and murder of Prince Elia Martell and her twin daughters. The man she remembered was young, handsome, and brave, with sad, contemplative eyes and a relentless sense of fairness and justice. Here in his solar, surrounded by maps, stacks of books, tapestries, and his Valyrian steel armor Lord Stark looked haggard, angry, older than his years, and frightful. Maester Luwin stepped forward. “No, we used a combination of more mundane healing methods and a bit of sorcery. I ordinarily would never have approved that, but Bran’s injuries were extensive. He tore open his arm, a rib broke in a manner that put it out of his skin, and there was a five-inch piece of glass between his shoulder blades.”

Ned paled; he knew what an injury like that could do to a man, much less a boy, and the blood loss that was described; she could tell he understood the implications of that as well. “If we hadn’t blended the two disciplines, my Lord, we may have saved him only to lose him to corruption or failure of the heart later. We spared him of that fate….” Rhaenys whispered through tears. Lord Stark sighed and slowly slumped into his chair, the coldness and fear wore away, and she tried not to cry. “I never thought I’d ever have to account for my deeds with my life before you, Lord Stark..you of all people.”

The man blinked, and then a look of utter shame filled his features, and Rhaenys felt a swell of guilt rise in her. “Princess, your grace…I was overwrought that was low of me, and if you believe I intended to charge you with heresy, know that the Old Gods have no such considerations, and he is a poor host who rewards kindness with treachery and accursed besides….”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save his eyes.” Rhaenys felt herself whisper.

“You saved his life….”

“More besides, he won’t be a cripple of limb because of the royal family,” Luwin responded in a soft voice. “At least, if he lives through the next two days without fever. I believe he’ll be able to walk again inside of a moon’s turn, although he may never have the strength in his left arm to draw a bow or wield a tourney lance. He will walk again. “There was an urgency in the Maesters tone, and Rhaenys wondered if that wasn’t some deep and personal fear of Lord Stark’s or if his fears moved him. Bran nearly died from the pain of resetting his bones, and we had to drain his lung. The boy would heal, but he may never fully be whole, and his eyes…his pretty eyes. “I’m sorry we couldn’t save his eyesight.”

Lord Stark smiled sadly. “Meria Martell wasn’t slowed down by blindness Princess Rhaenys nor was Cregan Stark when he dueled the Dragonknight in several melees.” Rhaenys looked up, and the Lord mouthed ‘family secret.’ And that was a terrifying thought, old and blinded, and he still gave the greatest swordsmen who ever lived the fight of his life. Starks are made of sterner stuff. Were Rickard’s last words, according to mother. “I am grateful for all that the three of you did.”

“I owe you a debt Lord Stark, for saving my life and the life of my sister and mother,” Rhaenys whispered, barely audible. A warm hand set on her shoulder, and when she looked up, to her surprise, it was Lord Stark, and the terrifyingly cold figure from mere moments ago was gone. “Bran will live, I swear to you.” She vowed, looking up into his eyes. My sister adores Sansa and Robb, but Arya and Bran are for me if anything were to happen to either of them...

No, Rhaenys decided. Visenya was right; coming South would be more dangerous than anything the Starks had done since the age of heroes. The murder and treachery in the air and the darkness that seemed to be rank within the capital, they would protect the Stark children and pay their debt, and who knows, maybe I can bind one of my daughters to Arya’s sons? Well, assuming she doesn’t geld Gendry.

“I swear it.” She repeated, her eyes blazing with conviction.

“I shall treasure that oath, your grace, and you, Prince Daeron, you’ve my thanks as well.” The Stark Lord said in a voice that seemed suddenly so old. She reached up and placed a hand over his and squeezed gently.  Two families bound by tragedy and loss, fire and blood, and love and hate spanning three generations. The alliance that held the realm together was forged in tragedy and reforged a new in sorrow. The Lord of Winterfell looked tired, as though he was a man who had recently shed a tremendous and terrible weight from his shoulders only to be burdened once again. The only comfort being offered is that of a half-saved son “Lord Stark.” It was her love, Prince Daeron, who spoke then, his voice calm and consoling even though there was a hint of offense in his eyes. “If you wish, I can speak with my father about delaying the departure until Bran wakes at least.”

“No.” Lord Stark said, sighing as he gazed out a window in his solar, the sun was beginning to set, and a cascade of orange and purples, and yellows filled the room as cloud, stars, and moon warred bitterly, jockeying for position in the great and wonderous nightly game of who should replace the sun. “No, my prince, I thank you for that, but he should remain here, tended by his mother and grandmother, who can fly him South when he wakes and then with him on dragon back across the narrow sea.”

Rhaenys’ eyes widened at that. “Winter allows for such long trips with more than one rider. The She-dragon tolerates that. Truly.”

Lord Stark laughed; it was the first genuine laugh she’d heard from him since the day they all arrived. “Aye, she does; she and Aegos were the only ones in truth, Syrax had his moments as well, but for the common, they were the only ones. Winter has always viewed the children of House Stark as her hatchlings; I believe that’s why she doesn’t eat the Direwolf pups when they sneak out to sleep around her and when I was a boy, I would oft sneak off to the Wolfswood and spend my rest days reading books and sleeping betwixt her coils. As far as dragons go, I believe she is the gentlest. Argella was the most gregarious, and Aegos…he was the noblest.”

Wherever he is, Rhaenys thought. He likely still is the most gallant dragon ever to fly our skies. “Mother told me he was as valiant as Aerys was cruel.”

“Your grandfather wasn’t always cruel.” Lord Stark said abruptly, his mind far off and contemplative, and from the shocked look on Maester Luwin’s face, she realized it must have been a rare thing indeed for the Lord of Winterfell to speak thusly. “Ser Barristan told me once that he oft compared Rhaegar to your elder brother.”

“Aye, sometimes it is easier to show tenderness to the sons of your brothers and sisters than your own, foolish though that is. When I was a boy, Aerys would fly to us when there was a lull in the capital. Oft Rhaegar on Syrax would accompany him; he was different then. A good uncle and he had a way of telling stories….” Lord Stark trailed off, then laughed a bitter laugh. “He killed my father and fed my brother to a dragon who by all accounts tried to refuse to do the deed, a dragon Bran, and I spent many long hours tending to as boys. Despite it all, sometimes I miss the man he was, the king he was before it all went wrong. And I still miss Aegos, the Knight of the clouds, and if he returned today and sought out one of my children as a mount, I would welcome back not the murderer of my brother but a dear old friend whom the realm has missed these long years” Lord Stark turned and smiled sadly at her and her Prince. “I say this because I wish to explain why I took Daenerys in and saved you three, even the evilest amongst us has one spark of light, and whatever calumnies are said about you. What you did today for my son reminded me of the best of your grandfather and the best of your father. If you hold to that, my children would be blessed to count you as a friend. Both of you.”

“I am a Blackfyre Lord Stark.” Daeron said, his eyes sparking with gratitude. “You can have no better friend.”

Lord Stark laughed."Nor fiercer foe."

“In an hour, I will tend to Bran again,” Maester Luwin cut in. “And if it pleases you, my lord, I will have my young attendants with me when I do.”

“I would be glad for it.”

This family will be one of our strongest supporters when it’s Daeron’s time on the throne. Rhaenys thought the amount of love and solidarity she felt here in Winterfell was something out of a dream; the Starks and the Tyrells had their flaws. Still, they loved and cared for one another and took into their homes. Those they valued were not among them and could be argued to be a value greater than honor. In the future, in the storms to come, it would be vital to keep the Starks, Baratheons, and Arryns by their side, family alliances that changed the face of the realm. More than that, more than the debt she felt she owed. The princess had come to care for the wolves of Winterfell. I will not fail this family, not now and not ever.

It would be like failing her own.

No, Rhaenyra married into the House. It would be failing her own.

…………….

 Bastards, mothers and broken things.

There were many things Eddard Stark had to account for when at the end of his life, he would be made to stand before the Gods, be they old or new, red or rainbow or green. He lied to a friend and did little to try and assuage the fears of a sister that were utterly unfounded. Trusting in Lyanna’s word that things between her and Robert would be well and good and that her fears that he would turn her into an old and a kept woman enshrined in glass at Storm’s End while he feasted and hunted and whored when the smile never reached her eyes. Eyes that would suddenly grow sad and resigned, perhaps trusting that his sister would have the sense the Gods gave a turnip and observe Robert as he went about his days around her and around others to see that he meant to change. Instead of expecting a terrified girl who always fixated on her misery and never on the world around her to make the worst decision at the worst possible moment. Another of his many sins was cowardice. I lied to Daemon Blackfyre about the parentage of Jon because I was afraid he’d burn Winterfell out as he had done in Dorne and the Reach. But Daemon raised the issue in a war council. Elbert Arryn and Hoster Tully, of all people, were the only ones who spoke up, raising concern over the stain upon Daemon’s honor and his soul when the path to the King’s heart had always been to convince him a better way was found in the practical not the ethereal.

He knew Daemon and Robert well enough to know how to sway either, and telling Daemon that while incinerating villages might end the war, there was a real possibility that his atrocities might have acted like a crucible towards relations between Dorne and the Reach. At which point, short of leaving the two southern Kingdoms a graveyard of ash and skulls, there was no way the rebellion would end in either of their lifetimes. Had Ned argued this point, there was a chance he would have stopped the King, and so his silence and horror at Daemon was a mere smokescreen to hide his own crushing guilt. I can say that I was raised to follow and not lead, but that isn’t true either. Mother and father insisted that each of us receive a princely education. I wished to be a follower, not a leader, so I held my tongue and judged those willing to step forward.

Roark had said that to him after the fight between himself and the King where the truth came out, and Rhaella knocked sense into both of them, and Ned had been so angry he nearly dismissed the warg spymaster; instead, he ordered Roark south to coordinate with his brother in the Gold cloaks and to meet with Viserys the Blackfyre family spider and master of whispers for the crown. I sent most of the wargs away, and within hours…Bran.

Ned had run; all his life, he ran from his guilt and his pain. Delegating authority to their voices in the South, men like Aenar and Artos, a Stark of the Barrowlands whom he’d never met save at a winter festival when they were both boys. He ran from the pain of the death of Jon Arryn during the rebellion by submersing himself in duty and ran from the breach of his betrothal to Ashara Dayne by running into her arms. A child conceived and lost days after Howland Reed helped him kill Ser Arthur Dayne and before they interrupted the…. No! He would not so much as permit himself to dwell on the things he killed as he tried to save Lya at Summerhall.

Ned ran into the arms of Catelyn Tully when after presenting Dawn to a broken Ashara, she flung herself from the top of the tower Before my very eyes. He heard that Elric Dayne had named his only son after him Eddard or Edric Dayne, whom everyone called Ned, a youth of one in ten said to be as good as Jaime and Aerion were at that age. Ned remembered the cold certitude in the eyes of the Aetheryon Knight, who was a squire then, two and ten, as he mercilessly opened Ser Gerold Hightower’s body from groin to throat with one of the most savage blows Ned had ever seen.

He suppressed a shudder.

Neither the Kingslayer nor Aerion were men to aspire to be. Jaime for his self-hatred and how he refused to disclose the Wildfire plot, which Roark and Stannis only discovered after Ned had departed for Summerhall. Any man who condemned Ser Jaime for killing Aerys would have harsh words from Lord Stark. Killing Aerys was a mercy towards us all and to Aerys himself..to the man I remember as a boy. No, as with Aegos, Ned would never harbor rancor in his heart towards Jaime for that.

…Allowing the people of King’s Landing to live above a fiery death for six months, however. And his response, “well, ask Lord Tully.” As if his goodfather’s actions against House Lannister were some great crimes. Cynical politics, perhaps, but not a great crime. If anything, his merciless use of leverage weakened the Lannister position, while Ned misliked that and found it dishonorable. When weighed against the rape and slaughter perpetrated by House Lannister that did not possess even the trappings of the strategic excuses of Daemon’s rampage atop Maelos? His mind returned to the Dayne boy. I’ll never understand the love House Dayne of Starfall bore me when all I did was cause them pain. And he ran from that as well, losing himself in ruling the North and burying himself in his family. He seemed to run from everything until he had no choice but to face it, and Ned Stark would always wonder if he did the right thing whenever he finally met his demons.

Perhaps that is why mutiny found purchase in my home.

A Sennight had scarcely passed since Bran fell; the boy slept most days, waking to take meals and make his water in a chamber pot beside his bed or to cry out for more bittercane and milk of the poppy. Otherwise, he hung like a wraith between life and death, though he appeared to improve after the Direwolf was allowed to come and sleep in his bed. Occasionally, Ned would glimpse glowing eyes outside his window and realize that Winter or Argella had flown up and mounted the tower and would hang themselves like bats and watch the boy sleep. If there was more evidence needed on how much of a brother Robert was to him, he had taken it upon himself to lead Arya Jon and Robb in the famous drilling routines of the prized infantry of the Stormlands. A welcome distraction was further aided by King Daemon himself spending time with Rickon telling him stories and once taking him for a ride above Winterfell on dragon's back. That boy is a natural dragon rider Ned; if you’ll permit it, I’d have a heating chamber prepared for one of Winter’s Eggs or perhaps one of the ancient Eggs from House Aetheryon?

Ned said yes to both, for Rickon’s sake, if nothing else. And so, one of the precious few eggs laid by Aragor’s mate sat in a heating chamber beside a white egg, warmed by fire and nourished by goat and chicken blood.  And Ned sat in his solar, once again, only this time it wasn’t the prince and princess (Whom he owed more than he could ever repay.) but his beloved wife, Princess Rhaenyra, Robb, Daenerys, Jon (Who looked ready to crawl out from his skin to escape.) and his mother.

And he’d never seen Daenerys so angry, nor his wife’s face contorted in such a rictus of hate. Cat looks half mad. And she had a bloodied lip which was swollen where Daenerys had struck her, and Cat was demanding they be banished from Winterfell and also rescind the request to ennoble Bran in their lands. An act that was so extreme it would deny the North a valued trading partner and deny Bran the prospect of becoming one of the mightiest lords in the East. No, he refused her instantly and ordered Daenerys to sit and remain calm and keep her calumnies silent.

“They aren’t calumnies.” Rhaenyra had whispered, fear in her eyes as she said it. Catelyn whirred on her with venom in her eyes, and Ned paled. “You're too young and enamored to know what it's like! Keep Lannister thoughts in Lannister minds!” Catelyn hissed, and Ned slammed a fist down on the table. “Your grandchildren will have Lannister blood woman.”

“And I’ll not take such words from an attempted kinslayer!”

Catelyn scoffed, her eyes blazing with hate. “I’ve wished death on the boy before, and the bastard still lives, if the Gods mean…” she went silent, her features suddenly grew hollow, and Ned nearly collapsed, steading himself by gripping the seat and when Cat turned to face him a look of shame and guilt crossed over her features. “Ned..I…”

“I knew it,” someone whispered horrified, though Ned couldn't say who and from what came next he prayed it was all in his mind. “The rumors about your mother, that she was a river witch…Jon’s illness.”

“No!” Cat all but screamed. “No! I prayed for him after! and begged the Gods to spare him because I was overcome with shame!”

“You’ve enough Targaryen in you to be an aunt to Jon. Yet he nearly dies of Winter fever, and you wish death upon him in place of Bran?” Rhaella asked, her voice soft and sorrowful Ned noted a hint of disappointment, and his heart began to pound. This was unraveling too fast; this had gone from bad to worse, and the cascade of words came before Ned could put a stop to it.

“Mother,” Robb interjected, doing his best to mimic Ned’s lordly tone. “Why would you wish death on my brother?”

“Half-brother.” Cat spat.

“Brother.” Robb’s tone was a growl, and when Ned observed Jon recoil as if he’d been the one struck, the Lord of Winterfell wondered what madness had been going on in his household that he’d been too blind to see. “He is my brother, half or not, and from this point forward, you will address him as Jon. Or Lord Consort Storm as befits his station as the intended of the master of Myr and lady Paramount of the Dragonlands.”

“I am your mother!” Catelyn responded, indignation rising in her voice.

“Who wishes murder upon the betrothed of my closest ally? And the overlord of my younger brother, for whom he and the Lady Targaryen wished to stand vigil, mother they approached that room out of kindness!”

“Prince and Princess.” Rhaenyra corrected. “Father planned to reveal that to you tomorrow as a gift; he plans to assign you the same titles of the Lord of Dorne and the Narrow Sea Paramountcy, a prince and princess of the realm.” This added an entirely different level to this as it was an acknowledgment of kinship with the royal family and made the accusation against his wife even more severe.

“A Prince and Princess of the realm....”

"You don't know what it's like! Half the North thinks me a usurper!" Cat wept. Didn't they understand? The bastard wasn't just an insult to her personally but a rallying cry for the nobles who wished to diminish her influence and undermine her husband through the exploitation of her reputation. "By the Gods, I wish I could love him! All the other Stark bastards are like my brothers and my sisters, my cousins, my friends..." she nearly whimpered the last. "Were...this..it's torn at me. But Do you have any idea what it's like to walk through your own home knowing you were a woman the other half of your soul settled for. Or to see the wistful looks of Lords and Masters who see Jon and think "Ah but there could be the perfect union of First man blood, the son of the last hero and the son of Bran and not some upjumped river pirate's daughter! I tried, seven knows I tried but how could I love the living embodiment of my husband's regret and what could have been."

Rhaella reached out and took Cat's hand gently pulling the younger woman close. "Cat, those lords are fools Do you think that empty-headed waif would ever have been able to master the North? Or survive a single day in the cold? Ashara was a sweet girl, but she was not made by the Gods to rule beside her husband as master of an empire in all but name. And you? Dear girl, you are no fool. How could you allow yourself to be devoured by doubt like this? Have you learned nothing from me in all these years?" The tenderness was replaced by a hardened glint in her gem-like eyes. 'If Lyanna had acted in such a fashion I'd have shipped her to White harbor to spend a season at the Seven pointed Goodly House of invalids, where all the addled children go.." And the stick, at last, came after the carrot, and Cat looked as though she had been struck.

Ned was horrified, this wasn't a moment for instruction! This was a moment to try and repair the rift forming in his family!

Mother! Have some shame, truly!

“I...Rhaella please..understand..”

"Understand what? That the smartest woman I knew decided to forget she was smart and let a bunch of overly indolent gossips set her against her own son's finest champion."

"Rhaella truly! I may dislike the boy but I've never compared him to a fine hunting hound!"

"I love my grandson Lady Tully."

"I didn't mean that and you know it!"

“Enough, all of you! My women are acting like girls and my girls women!” Ned rumbled before he rose from his seat and walked to a box wherein he grabbed a drako, one with fyreleaf and bittercane. He was going to need it to steady his nerves; lighting it on a candle and taking an extended inhalation, he leaned against his personal table, allowing the blue smoke to dance above his head and fall upon the floor. “Robb, you are not yet acting Lord of Winterfell; that is your mother and you.” His gray eyes turned to Catelyn and Daenerys. “tell me, Dany tell me true. What happened.” When his wife moved to speak, he silenced her with a glare, taking a seat at the large table where Lord Stark ordinarily took his meals when too busy to join his family.

A table now occupied by members of his family.

He longed for a day like this, but it tasted bitter in his mouth now that it had arrived. It is good that Sansa joined Maelys on the hunt Lord Robert put together with Robar Snow. Was Robar a half-brother? He was certainly older than Ned by almost fifteen years, but Rickard stopped making bastards when he wed Rhaella. Not that mother would have cared; she loved children and would have given him more if she could have. That seemed to be the main difference between Cat and his mother; both women were monsters when defending their families and had the strength to compete with any man. Still, Rhaella had the Northern attitude towards bastardry which born of living and ruling in the North beside a husband who loved her dearly and in ruling for a time after his murder. Cat possessed it to a degree, but she could never take Jon into her heart. Another thing that is my doing. I thought I needed her anger towards Jon to make the lie more complete, yet I’ve allowed that to turn to hatred and for that hatred to fester into something perverse.

No one suspected honorable Ned Stark because no one thought him capable of politicking.

Perhaps they were right because when the words “It should have been you” left Daenerys mouth, Cat did not bother to deny them. “This is my doing…I’ve ill-used you, my lady wife.” His mother’s eyes flickered, and the slight incline of his head put her concerns at ease. “Jon is of my blood since you showed no hostility towards bastards in your own keep; I thought perhaps it would be the same for one in mine.”

“If my father had kept around the son or daughter of the only woman he loved, no one would fault my mother for being harsh,” Catelyn said, her voice even, but there was a hint of fear in her eyes. Whenever she brought up Ashara Dayne…But she slandered the poor girl.

“Cat, Ash is dead. Any chance that I could have had at a life with her, ended with the Rebellion. When I came back from war - I had a choice, and I chose to live past the deaths of my family, and to love you, and our children, every day till my last day. Tell me I do not love you, and I will call you a liar, my wife. I beg forgiveness as to the wounds I’ve inflicted upon you in not saying so.”His face was hard now and dark; the lord's face and pale gray eyes shifted to Daenerys. “Princess Daenerys, while your new status affords you certain privileges striking my wife was not one of them. Her words were grotesque and vile, and she will make amends for them, but you will apologize ere you leave my home. Else you’ll not be welcome back in Winterfell again.”

Daenerys’ eyes blazed with that quiet fury that reminded Ned so much of his temper, and when she apologized through gritted teeth, Ned had never felt more pride in her than in that moment. She passed her first test as a ruler. Ned thought, “Lady Catelyn, your anger has become unnatural and ungodly. You are my wife, the mother of my children, and the only woman I will ever love, but you are accused of neglecting Jon and do not deny it and worse. Your reasons for such cruelty are base.”

“It was either him or you,” Catelyn whispered.

“And cravenly it would seem,” Ned added, and he felt as poorly as Cat looked at that moment. “If you must hate someone hate not the dead nor the living; hate only the wrong of your actions and your own rage. You will not remain here; I will not allow your bile to poison Rickon nor Bran against a House that will become an integral part of our trade, a source of food in Winter and support and alliance. I will not allow this to continue any further...For the sake of the both of you...”

‘My lord..no..please…”

“You will accompany us to the capital, but you will ride with the Septas, you will sleep with them as well, and you will not speak to your children for the duration of the trip and when we arrive in the capital? You will reside for the first moon's turn in the Riverland quarters or in a Sept if your lord father has no use of you. You will reflect, pray and serve House Stark as best you can from your position outside the pack and when that duration is done, then and only then shall we share a bed again. But you will never speak ill of  Jon so long as you live, nor will you show him any hatred on the journey.” When Cat moved to speak up, Ned hardened his eyes. “Reflect, take time to mend the wounds to your heart, to sate your rage, and to quell the madness within you. For if this folly persists to where it undermines our position, I will set you aside and then we shall both be sad and lonely for the rest of our days.”

Gods help me, but it feels as though I’m tearing out my own eye. See reason, my love!

After a long moment, Lady Stark rose and looked toward Princess Rhaenyra and Robb. “Will you...Rickon and Bran...” Her voice was so quiet, so beaten, Ned felt a monster in that moment..

“As though they were my own children,” Rhaenyra promised the kindness in her voice, the opposite of Queen Cersei “I will love and guard them and be a second mother to Rickon after Bran departs.”

She nodded, and without looking at either Daenerys nor Rhaella, she turned back to Ned and bid she be excused. “I will go to the Sept to pray...But I pray you meet me halfway on this my lord.”

"Lady Stark...I" Jon sounded like a beaten dog and one wracked with shame over a deed he'd never committed. 

Cat stood, her features a near-perfect mask, and Ned allowed himself to be blind to the brief flicker of murder in her eyes. "If I could trade my life for Bran's eyes I would..."

She shifted at that moment and reached out and set a shaky hand on Jon's shoulder and his nephew nearly pulled away. Her eyes widened and then they narrowed and as tears fell she struggled through the mix of emotions with a strength that Ned had always loved in her. "They have taken my eldest son's right hand, a position you were groomed to fill just as Lord Aenar bred Roark to serve our House as a master of whispers of sorts. And you are now elevated to a status similar to mine, you will be your wife's constant balance as I have been. So let this be the only piece of advice you ever take from me, Daemon Blackfyre is giving you a basket of venomous serpents and calling them toys. See that you don't get my son and my foster daughter killed in Myr, step into their traps, die for them if necessary as you promised. But I will never forgive you if you let them die in the King's crucible." 

Gods....she's right.

Catelyn left with tears flowing down her cheeks, and Ned never felt so alone. He felt someone run into his arms a moment later, realizing it was both Rhaenyra and Daenerys. And then, as he pulled them into an embrace, he wondered why he was sweating when he’d opened a window earlier. The only person in the room who seemed greener and rawer than he was the nephew he raised as a son. Have I broken my family to fulfill a vow? Entering into the muck that is the capital, I shall need Cat’s mind as much as I will need her love….

The horror at Summerhall filled his mind.

Promise me, Ned.

Stark shuddered.

Chapter Text

On the road.

There were three things the future lady of Castamere knew about her future husband, Prince Maelys Blackfyre. He was a better warrior with ax, pike, halberd, spear, and sword than nearly all boys his age and half the grown men around him. That he was truly stupid, so stupid Sansa spent several hours speaking with Maester Luwin to ascertain whether or not he was a classic imbecile (He assured her the prince wasn’t, he far too discerning to be that simple.) and that he was the sweetest boy Sansa Stark had ever known. But Gods, is he a gentle thing? Unless he was fighting, he was an unstoppable artifice of the stranger who happened to be the sweetest and dumbest boy who ever lived.

Sansa loved him, she was certain of it, and if her sons bore his disposition, she wouldn’t mind them being lame of mind either, so long as she found them clever brides who would cherish them as she was starting to adore Maelys. He was handsome too; even bald, he was rugged and gallant and elegant and possessed a grace on the dance floor men (Especially men that large.) ought not to have. Maelys towered over her, and at one and ten, Sansa was already as tall as Prince Daeron was and was starting to peak over her father. Lord Robert joked that the Tully’s of old had giant’s blood in their veins, and Sansa was always secretly jealous of Arya for being ordinarily proportioned if a little on the short sight. She looks like grandmother too, she doesn’t realize it, but she will become the most beautiful woman in the seven Kingdoms one day.

Sansa would compete with her in beauty, but with her freakish height, everyone would dote on Arya, but it’s okay because Maelys says a great mind like mine needs a big body to house it. That should have been horribly offensive, but he had said it with such innocence and wonder in his voice that she hugged him and thanked him for his nobility. That was another thing Sansa would have to adjust to, but it was hardly a great inconvenience. All her life, her mother had raised her to rule beside her husband, saying that a proper Southron Lady’s duties were more than just the management of a Household but to have a hand in governance. And Grandmother? She was often seen as the co-warden of the North. She spoke for father often, flying out on Winter to represent House Stark and mediate disputes between noble houses, acting as advocate or judge and in legal matters,s even the officers of the peace and the law. They enforced the King’s peace in matters that superseded Northern jurisdiction and often consulted mother and grandmother if her father was not around.

But the Westerlands aren’t the North or Dorne or the Stormlands. You’ll be expected to be silent and obey. The queen had said.

And then Gerion Lannister erupted in laughter and asked the queen if she remembered how often her lady mother held court in the Rock when Lord Tywin was in the capital or otherwise too busy to bother. “Castamere’s mines were poor in gold ere the new veins were discovered when my brother had the mines drained. But its lands are rich in soil, and with the rubies and sapphires, you will need to be one part merchant and one part factor and two parts a great lord of the realm if you wish your family to thrive.” He’d told her and then added Especially if you wish to win the acknowledgment of Lord Tywin.

She shuddered; Lord Tywin was like the King, who scared her. Oh, his grace was gracious and noble and kind. Still, she read her history books as Grandmother had instructed her to, and the passages that described King Daemon’s involvement in the Blackfyre rebellion contained idioms and phrases she had to consult a book of words to understand, and they frightened her. Words like “Genocide” and terms like “Total warfare in the ancient Valyrian style” and “population reduction.” things that were unnatural on her tongue and foreign in a world that had not known such methods of fighting since the doom centuries before the King or Sansa were born. He loved his children, a fact that was obvious to her even if the queen didn’t seem to (And that had been a hard truth to endure, Sansa still believed in songs and nonsense like that wouldn’t do. She would love her children properly.), he was even fatherly to her and never gave her cause to fear him, but that was what frightened her so about the King.

If someone that generous can kill so many people without pause…

And then Tywin Lannister was not kind; Rhaella had said he was an old family friend and cruel and austere as he was. Lord Tywin still wrote to her occasionally and seemed still to hold some regard for the name of Stark. But that he would be the most dangerous man she would ever meet in her life. Grandmother said that even if she were brought before the Sorcerer Lord of Carcosa himself, would she not find anyone more dangerous…  

Grandmother Rhaella had sent her with two eggs; Winter had picked them out of the heating chambers herself, gently depositing them in Sansa’s tiny arms and tracing her immense snout along her cheek. Sansa had seldom been this close to Winter, and she was always told to be weary of her maw. But despite her nervousness, she leaned forward, kissed the she-dragon’s snout, and thanked the dragoness that guarded and did battle on behalf of her family for so long. Though looking back on it, she wondered if those were her eggs or ones laid by Silverwing so long ago, as Winter was supposed to have laid a scant few clutches. Sansa hadn’t been alive for any of those either, only that she knew the she-dragon laid them in the hot springs and then would summon either her father, mother, or Rhaella would ride out and collect them and either send them to King’s Landing or Dragonstone or they would be kept in Winterfell. She felt something wet and cold brush against her knuckles and looked down. Lady was seated patiently beside her, and now her dainty head reached passed her hips, and the tips of her ears could touch Sansa’s rib. Poor girl, cooped up on a riverboat.

Nymeria had taken to jumping between boats to relieve the excess energy. At the same time, Jon’s Direwolf Ghost and Father’s Direwolf Warden remained as maidenheads on the prow of their barge, looking out across the horizon and taking in every scent and every sound with fascination. They had begun to shed a well, as Lady had, as if their bodies were adjusting to the change in temperature. Not that Sansa could blame them (and she enjoyed brushing lady and Nymeria.), they had crossed the neck a Sennight past, and the temperature change was noticeable. Sansa had given up wearing heavy wool and was wearing linens and silk robes given to her by the ambassador from Yi Ti, that lived in Wintertown during the cooler months of the summer season. As she understood it, he didn’t have an embassy here and was based out of the Oldtown embassy. Still, people in Yi Ti of wealth and means took something they called sojourns wherein their God Emperor paid them to take rest and rejuvenate and dedicate themselves to leisurely activities so that they might be better servants of the realm when they returned rested.

She liked the idea; the Guilds in the North and Lannisport did something similar, only it wasn’t for four to six turns of the moon every two years during the colder months of a season, but it was every three turns of the moon for a Sennight, and they had two days of rest every other Sennight.  Something that her Lord Grandfather in the Riverlands had adopted to great effect, or so her father had told her.

Mother hadn’t liked Sansa taking knife work lessons (And Sansa didn’t like them either.). Still, when Grandmother Rhaella and father proposed their daughters receive the same education women in the Riverlands, the Reach, and King’s Landing received, she enthusiastically encouraged it. Politics and economics, history and sums, and even a smattering of the sciences. Mostly of agriculture and healing, and from what she remembered of her history lessons, this was due to the old Sea Kings of House Aetheryon. The Ironborn could no longer prey on the North’s Western Coasts since they ran the risk of dragon fire and the well-trained armies of the western dragons. So, they fell upon the Westerlands, the Reach, the Vale of Arryn, and the Storm Lands like locusts on a Yunkish wheat field (Sansa didn’t know what this meant since she’d never seen a locust, but she read about them and spent an entire moon’s turn checking under her sheets for them.).

Each realm responded in its fashion. Women of the West and Reach were raised to be governors, administrators, spymasters, and merchants, as well as mothers and housekeepers so that if their husbands died in wars, it was the women who could manage the kingdoms until their sons came of age to take up the sword anew.

One queen of the Rock became regent for four of her sons and nine of her grandsons, each dying in turn until Tyrion the terrible finally succeeded to the throne. Women in the Storm Lands and the Vale were raised as fearless warriors and wardens. Raya Arryn was a legend for becoming the first woman ever to be knighted (And for putting down the religious revolt that arose when the Starry Sept chose to amend the rules for knightly vows and trials of the seven and her own Septs declared the High Septon an apostate.) for driving back a thousand raiders from House Greyiron. Sansa allowed herself a smile, her auburn hair fluttering in the wind as she remembered how mortified Arya was when Lord Robert told her that in marrying Gendry, she would be expected to fight by his side.

She listens to Ygritte and Val and the women of House Thenn too much, they all think Southron women weak, but like in the North, they hold steel. That was like a song to her; they were the perfect contrast. Women of the North ruled beside their husbands with mystery, intrigue, and steel. And in the South, whether Dornish or Valeman or Stormlander, they ruled by war, and in the West and the Capital with velvet covering obsidian blades. Something flopped at her feet, and Sansa yelped and nearly tumbled over Lady, who caught it in her mouth and wagged her tail with zeal. It was a giant fat catfish, and Lady began to eat gingerly as though she were presiding over a feast.

Sweet and loyal, Aerax bounded out of the water happily seconds later, taking flight with his wings which were as wide as sails now. He let out a proud cry in the air as he soared with a lizard lion twitching in his talons. There was a loud whistle from the lead boat as Edmure, in his blues and reds, gestured towards a small island where he might eat in peace. She liked the silly dragon, who seemed utterly devoted to her uncle. He’s as well-behaved as Lady. Like elephants and mammoths, direwolves and dragons possessed an incredible amount of intelligence, and it had been evident from the start that her little lady was so docile and well-behaved because she enjoyed being the proper one of the family. That wasn’t to say she was incapable of ferocity; when necessary, the other night, she had killed one of the royal hunting hounds who attempted to attack one of the hatchling dragons that had flown out to greet the fleet.

Father says there are nine hatchlings on Dragonstone, six in the capital, three more in the Eyrie, and six in the Storm Lands, but they aren’t counted as they haven’t found a rider yet. They grew slower without a person to bond with. Sansa knew that from her studies. And when they were first mounted, they began to grow faster. The Maesters believed these dragons would live longer than the original Targaryen dragons, and Sansa wondered how large Winter would be when Robb’s great-grandchildren would sally out to try and win her devotion. Sansa didn’t understand why the hatchlings flew out to meet them, if it was yet another ceremonial display of the King’s power or if they had departed the Dragonpit in search of their lost kin. The Dragonpit was something she wished to see, even though Arya was more for architecture. Once an abandoned ruin, it had been rebuilt and refurbished, with the chief difference being that no dragon would ever be chained in the depths below, nor would there be a dome over the structure.

The Dragons slept under the stars, came and go as they pleased, and seemed to thrive for it. Sansa understood it well; she didn’t like being confined either. Once when she was not but four name days of age, there was a pox that ran wild through Wintertown, and her mother kept her and her siblings confined for a fortnight. She’d grown terribly sick and nervous from the isolation and had only felt better when they were finally allowed to be free.

It feels similar now.

Sansa had been on river barges before, but she had never been on one for a fortnight and would be glad to arrive at their next stop where she could bathe and sleep in a feathered bed instead of a hammock. Of course, Arya was thrilled when she slept in a hammock, saying it felt as though she was floating, but Sansa felt unsafe suspended in the air, and she was oh so cold no matter how she positioned the warm furs meant to rest below her body on the hammock to keep her backside warm. In the distance, Sansa’s blue eyes could make out the looming towers of the garrison at Kermit’s town, a river town named for one of her Tully Ancestors. Was he the lord of the Lads? Made famous during the end of the First Dance?

During the reign of Jaehaerys the first, the Targaryens continued the great canal projects that interconnected the South, adding to the roads that consumed so many kings of old. Both to increase commerce and make trade between East and West easier, but also to ensure that the naval forces of the realm could ferry troops anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. Sansa knew, even with the Valyrian-style roads that travel across such a great continent would take time. Father said a trek to the capital without the river systems would take a quarter of a year.

She couldn’t imagine that, but she was glad she didn’t have to. At the top of the tower flew a black three-headed dragon on a field of red, and below it, the towers of House Frey.  Sansa remembered mother’s words on House Frey. Apart from the Tully’s, they control more river towns, bridges, and locks than any other noble house in the realm; only the Baratheons of the Reach and the Reeds of Greywater Watch match our Houses in that regard. It is a precarious position because he who controls access to the waterways control access to a quarter of the realm’s movement, if not more. The Frey’s were numerous, and unlike the Tullys, who posted men at arms and sworn laborers to the locks and towns, there was at least two Frey’s in each of theirs. Mother said the Frey’s were wealthier than the Manderlys but not as wealthy as the Blackfyres, Lannisters, Hightowers, or Starks. But they were locked in bitter competition with the Aetheryons of Sea Dragon point and House Tyrell for the spot below the great houses. And my future House as well, I suppose.

The wind seemed to pick up as they grew close to the looming tower. There was something ominous about it that Sansa couldn’t quite name, only that she felt a foreboding when she gazed at the castle and suppressed a shudder, pulling her cloak tightly around her shoulders. In the distance, she could make out a bald man with a thin gray goatee. He wore a cloak of bright blue, and his cuirass and surcoat were a faded silver, and the only thing that looked respectable on him was the diamond studded rings he wore and the sword with the fine ivory handle and jeweled hilt. “Aenys Frey.” Jory Cassel muttered from behind her, “At least one of his sons is a notorious river pirate and his other son is a grotesque named after the man who abducted your aunt. Mind your tongue around him, my lady; he is a clever and vain man who might twist your words and use you against your Lord father.”

She nodded, thanking Ser Jory and bidding he stay by her side. “I mislike these Freys, it’s silly, but I mislike them.” “It’s hardly silly, my lady; men hate them for silly reasons, aye, chief among them that they were descended from upjumped smallfolk. But it is not silly to mislike them; they are avaricious and prone to using their coffers to wash away the stain of ill-gotten things.”

Wash away the stain? How might coffers do that? Sansa wanted to ask more, but there was a fierce bellow as Maelos and Argella descended, landing on the shoreline of the riverbank. Sansa couldn’t help but notice that while neither the King nor Lord Robert was armored, the Lord of Storm’s End held his immense war hammer aloft, and the King was wielding Blackfyre. Her Lord father joined them shortly afterward, followed by four of the seven Kingsguard who stood like ivory columns beside their King as he walked toward the kneeling Frey and held out his hand—making a Frey kiss his ring. A thing was ordinarily done when a rebellion ended, and an oath of fealty was renewed between a liege lord or King and a rebellious vassal. He made Lord Reed do the same, and his daughter was quite wroth; why make such slights against others? That the Frey’s delayed during the war was true, but they hadn’t taken up arms against the King either. And they had participated in the second battle of the Blackwater Rush, wherein the remnants of the royalist river fleets were destroyed. How many more slights like this could one’s allies bear before something happened?

And then she remembered those new words she had to learn to understand how the Blackfyre rebellion was fought and how the Ironborn were defeated, and she suppressed a shudder. Kings weren’t supposed to fight like that; men weren’t supposed to do those sorts of things to each other. Not only in her favorite songs but in life, it was one thing to oppose the wicked, but what Daemon Blackfyre did to win the Iron Throne was a sin she was starting to believe was worse than Kinslaying. And my future children will have that seed of evil in them; I must show them a better way, Maelys must.

When Aenys Frey kissed the ring, Sansa felt something pass through the small fleet of ships bearing the royal party and the Starks and their retinues, which were nearly sixteen hundred people. A collective sense of tension or fate crawled through the masses, and it all centered on that gesture.

They’d bear any insult they had, too, Sansa realized.

To prevent themselves from ending up like the dead in the Reach, Dorne, or the Iron Islands.

Gods help us; let Daeron be better than his father.

…….

A river wolf.

Arya found Kermit’s town incredibly dull and was overjoyed when they finally set sail for Harrentown. Though Arya would have to admit she began to miss her uncle Edmure and Aerax when they departed for Riverrun, she missed her mother more than she cared to admit. Nymeria missed them, but she missed Aerax more than her mother or uncle Edmure. It was all so stupid; she wanted to be angry at Dany for striking her mother (And how stupid that was! Arya didn’t care about politics, but even she knew striking the wife of one of the Wardens of the realm, especially one that raised you, was insane. She was lucky father loved her; any other Lord would have insisted on some kind of restitution for that insult.) But your mother is cruel to Jon. A voice whispered in her mind making Arya shrug, maybe she was, but it was better than Jon living on the streets in Weeping town or worse if what she overheard Rhaenys and Visenya discussing was half true…

It was better than being fed to Maelos. Those rumors had distracted her for the moon’s turn to depart the North by boat. Wasn’t Jon her half-brother? How could he be her cousin!? No one else was talking of this, and she could never muster up the courage to confront father, who had been sad since he left Bran and Rickon and Robb behind and since he couldn’t speak to mother because of his silly punishment. It was his fault anyway; if what her new goodsiblings were saying was true, then he lied to mother when he should have told the truth. But you and I both know she would never have loved Jon.

No, Arya thought. But she didn’t have to love Jon to help raise him to be the consort of a girl who was going to become one of the most powerful and wealthy nobles in the realm who needed a lord consort skilled in more than just stabbing things with the pointy end of a sword. Thank the Gods. I’ll be Lady Greystorm and not Lady Blackfyre. All Gendry and I must do is beat up bandits and pirates and help keep the King’s Peace, and Robert said he wouldn’t let Gendry put a baby in me until I was ten and seven.

That had made her adore the giant warrior. Not that Gendry would ever touch her like that, she hadn’t spent more than a Sennight with him before he departed and then maybe a fortnight in total on this trip together, but the impression she got from Gendry was that he wasn’t some lusty brute. He was a much more polite brute, which was fine by her, Arya was a brute, too, and she was proud of that fact. Sansa was the smart one; she had an eye for politics and was almost (But not quite) as good at sums and finances as Arya was. But it seemed as if Lord Robert was Adamant in ensuring she wasn’t just a lady of the Stormlands but felt as if she were kin to the Baratheons. I guess I am; Gendry’s great-grandmother was a Targaryen. And Lord Robert’s wife was her aunt. Gendry had left back to the Stormlands with Prince Steffon and Princess Visenya, who would later meet them in the capital for the weddings of Sansa and Maelys and Prince Daeron and Princess Rhaenys.

Why were they getting married so fast?

None of the grown men and women seemed to ask that question, but Dany and Sansa agreed with her that it was mighty strange. Not that she wasn’t happy to count them as family, Arya really enjoyed the Targaryen twins' company; prince Daeron was everything his father was without any of that madness that seemed always to be present in his eyes hidden behind smiles and charms. Daemon was a great king despite that, she knew Sansa was all horrified by the things he did, but on some level, Arya understood why he did it. She thought it was wrong to do, but if she were in Daemon’s place if she had the power to stop a war from lasting long enough to destroy Westeros…

Arya didn’t like thinking about it; she hated politics. Just point me in the direction of an enemy, and I’ll do my duty. Cousin Viserys Tully of the Kingsguard had said that, and she agreed with that sentiment completely. The Hatchlings had left back for the Crownlands too, and Arya was as sad as Dany was about that, but for different reasons. On some level, her foster sister wanted to be a dragon rider; it was her birthright and Arya’s. Dragon dreams are stupid, but I know Morgha is out there, as impossible as it is. She’ll be mine one day. None of these chirpers are for me, only the greatest dragon of her era for Arya Stark.

For she would never settle for anything less than a legend.

It was perhaps odd how little Jon’s possible parentage surprised or hurt her. Dany wasn’t her sister by blood, but she would always be her sister. Visenya and Rhaenys and Rhaenyra weren’t her sisters by blood, but she loved them all the same, and Rhaenys best of all, for she saved Bran’s life and then after came and told her true the full extent of his injuries no matter how angry and sad that made Arya at the moment. And she had been more infuriated than when she found out she’d been married off to Gendry before Lord Robert told her how it was down South. She cursed and howled and spat and stabbed a tree stump bloody and then later that night fell asleep with Nymeria curled around her and woke the following day and found the Princess leaning against her door, sleeping there.

Blood or no blood (and there was blood.) Princess Rhaenys was part of her pack now and forever. Prince Daeron as well since he was there as well. So that didn’t bother her at all, and it made sense. Everyone said Jon looked like father or like the sword of the Morning. But to Arya, Jon looked more like her. I’ve seen the portraits done of Ser Arthur and Jon has nothing of him. The eyes, possibly! They were purple, but to her, Jon was all Targaryen minus his nearly black hair, hair Arya possessed as well, and hair like Lyanna.

Why were grownups so stupid? She was convinced that if she had been born Robb’s twin sister, they’d assume she was Jon’s sister and a bastard instead; both looked like Rhaella and that one old painting in a book she saw of Maekar. All grim and serious but all Targaryen, seven hells Prince Jacaerys Blackfyre was a dead ringer for Jon but with pale and silver-white hair. But no one walked around accusing Ned of lying with Daemon’s sister,  the wife of Aegon Blackfyre, the Prince of the Narrow Sea. Why did no one see this? And why was her mother so rattled by the language used against her? So, what if the Karstarks lamented Ashara Dayne’s death and called her a usurper? The Karstarks were all inbred idiots, and the other minor houses who barked to their tune were petty and jealous and wanted to control her father. It wasn’t Jon’s fault people were idiots.

This could have easily been avoided if Father had just told the truth to mother. If that’s all true. Arya’s curiosity would get the better of her one day; Old Nan always said so. As the shadow of Harrenhal loomed over Harrentown itself, Arya looked up in wonder. The Tourney that changed everything was hosted here. Alys Rivers cast her dark magic from here; the founder of the Harrenhal Tully’s took this place in a siege and won it with blood and steel during the reign of Aegon the Unworthy from a group of bandits. It’s said to be several million square feet. Arya thought to herself in awe, as large as Magister’s palace in Myr, the soon-to-be home of her half-brother or cousin. House Strong died here, minus the clubfoot, given over to unnatural fires by Prince Daemon Targaryen, the King consort of Rhaenyra Targaryen, the renegade queen. The blood of my ancestors lies in this mortar, thralls descended from Tully’s and likely Starks as well, and my ancestor Aegon, the conqueror, ended House Hoare here.

A cadet branch of House Tully was now thriving in that mountain of a castle, which was garrisoned by the knightly order of the peace headquartered at Duskendale, six hundred knights and a thousand foot as the officers of the peace ready to deploy at a moment’s notice to augment local forces against the ever-present threat of piracy or banditry. The creation of waterways and roads made Westeros richer and grew the number of its peoples like a harvest, but it came with costs. The Tullys of Harrenhal produced some of the finest swordsmen in the realm, and old Gaemon Tully defeated the Sword of the Morning before Ser Arthur as a boy of ten and three and fought the White Bull to a standstill in a two-hour duel that was said to be one of the finest in history. Six and seventy now, but even the King slayer seemed to show him respect. Arya wanted to be like that when she was an old woman, with men and women a quarter of her age still deferring to her. She’d never command the regal grace of her mother or the power her grandmother’s presence exuded. But she could have the kind of personal might and menace she saw in the eyes of Gaemon Tully, who faced the King who burned the Reach and met his gaze without fear.

They were met at Harrenhal with a feast, the Lord Commander of the knightly Order of the Peace (A grandson of Lord Leyton Hightower Sansa said.), Lord Gaemon and his army of grandsons and granddaughters met them. Each one was either in the services, a merchant, a knight, or headed East to seek fortune and lands in the new domain created by the king. Why did the King elevate Dany to a princess and do the same for Jon? Why is he allowing them to gather men from those unable to enter the services, the citadels, or the Septs? Even accepting that the local lords would be glad to part with extra mouths to feed, having the betrothed of the new master of a new Kingdom take men from your lands by leave of the King first and not yours…

Arya knew she knew nothing of politics, but it seemed like the King gave to both sides with one hand and slapped with the other. Why does father adore this man? He was a great King, to be sure, but great did not always mean good; benevolent didn’t always mean kind if her studies of history bore any truth. Was Daemon being benevolent? Or was he solving multiple problems at once while wrapping the solutions to his problems in a bow and convincing them that it was some great gift? Robb and Dany are enamored with him, and so is Bran…Jon seems grateful, but he is keeping quiet. They were going east, and Arya would miss them terribly, but Gendry said their trade needs meant that they would often visit Myr with Steffon and Visenya. She would still miss them and worry about them. And the specter of the conversation she overheard loomed in the shadows cast by the immense castle. Arya was grateful that she could lose herself in the feast and in the telling and retelling of old war stories by Ser Brynden Tully or by Gaemon the valiant or by Lord Robert or Ser Barristan the bold, who chuckled and recounted some of the adventures of Ser Duncan the tall as was told to him by the old Lord Commander himself and not telling any of his own.

Why was that? Ser Barristan the Bold killed Sargoso Saan, the self-titled last Valyrian, and Barristan the Bold stormed the shattered doors in the Black Walls of Volantis during the war against the Emperor in the East. Barristan, who slew the great General Saelarys Belaerys reputed to be descended from the Dragon Lord that explored Sothoryos on the back of Terrax. In a sword duel in the domain of the Old Blood of Volantis as a whole city stood paralyzed in awe and wonder. A hundred men were said to be slain by him, Aerys the mad kinslayer, and the Blackfish. She wanted to hear those stories, but Ser Barristan, the bold, was infuriatingly humble. Still, the story of the flight from the haunted forests of Qohor and the claim that Ser Duncan and King Aegon had indeed encountered a minotaur was a lot of fun, and Ser Barristan told it so well. If only Bran were with us to hear this.

Everything went so well until the following day when Prince Tommen ruined everything.

……….

“I’m glad you’re with me, my lady.” Maelys muttered as he ran one of his hands over his head which seemed to shine in the sun as though it were as freshly polished as a Myrish mirror. He was handsome today and had been so happy when she offered to help shave his head so he wouldn’t cut himself. A soft fuzz of white and gold hair had begun to grow from his bald head, soft and baby-like. He was making Sansa wonder if he’d resemble Prince Daeron or his royal father with a full head of hair. He wore a red tunic and cotehardie, with the black dragon of his house woven into the fabric. Its eyes and flames were onyx stones sewn into the pattern. Maelys wore a long sword at his side, and Sansa enjoyed that he was a head and a half taller than her. It was romantic in its way; while he lacked the wits of a prince of song, Sansa noticed that he saw things in ways that made her believe he was sometimes the smartest boy she knew. Maester Luwin has the right of it; he has a way of seeing things that shows wisdom of its own. His voice was deep, and as she rested her head on his shoulder as they walked, the Prince had turned as red of cheek as she had, and both shared a laugh.

The isle of faces in the Gods Eye was one of the most mysterious islands in Westeros, where the green men lived. Sansa had seen one once and suppressed a shudder at the memory. She never saw its face, covered in robes and with a leper’s mask over its mouth, but those eyes were yellow, and she saw a hand that looked…cloven. There was a power in the island as well; Aerex dwelt there and was doted on and spoiled by the Green Men, who seemed too delighted in having such a ferocious tenant to help manage pirates fool enough to sail into the lake and then try and assail the island. But the dragon dwelt there for the same reason Sansa felt a pull to the island. The power that rested there was ancient and intense, familiar in ways that haunted her and pulled Lady, Ghost, and Nymeria to the shore. Mother would know a prayer to help me sleep at night. Sansa thought and tried not to allow how much she missed their mother, who was present but not allowed to speak with them until after they reached the capital. Sansa thanked the Gods for Maelys, who was a comfort and a distraction. Earlier, they had spoken of creating their own sigil as they would be establishing a new branch of House Blackfyre, he wished to honor the fallen Reynes by creating a red three-headed dragon on a silver field, but Sansa had quickly talked him out of it. Instead, they had settled on a silver direwolf, seated and howling, encircled by a black dragon eating its own tale on a red field. We’ll have to pick new house words…But that can wait until our wedding day.

It was a welcome distraction, and both father and the King had enthusiastically approved. “Do you enjoy my company that much, my prince?” Sansa asked, her smile slight and eyes calm. She didn’t wholly enjoy teasing Maelys, but from what Septa Mordane told her, a degree of edged humor was necessary during courtship to establish where a man’s limits might lie. But Maelys never took offense nor grew course. After a pause, Maelys nodded. “I do, but that isn’t why I’m glad…I.” He seemed to frown childlike and then gazed down at her with nervous eyes, the eyes of Bran and Rickon in some ways. Before he spoke again, admitting that he was glad because he felt like her Northern blood held enough magic to protect him from the ghosts of Harrenhal. It took every ounce of her strength not to laugh at that, as it would have been cruel given how genuine the fear seemed. Harrenhal was supposed to have ghosts, the ghosts of so many of the men and women mercilessly crushed by the curse placed upon this wretched old mountain of a castle. A curse lifted only by the defiance of House Tully, which made Sansa smile. “It would be my Tully blood that makes the ghosts yield, but I promise you, my prince. The phantoms won’t harm you, why you’re descended from the conqueror himself! Doubtless, they’d be too scared.”

Maelys beamed, and Sansa squeezed his shoulder tighter. “My lady is wise!”. As they continued walking along the shore, Sansa’s eyes shifted to Harrenhal. How much gold must the royal treasure burn through maintaining that castle? Winterfell was vast, but it was primarily wrought of dragonstone, which needed very little maintenance save for a few towered keeps and the underground parts of the castle complex. Its design saved on cost, but Harrenhal was like the grand palaces of the East that she’d read about, myriad buildings, an underground reservoir to feed it, and a sewer system that probably contained more piping than the largest towns in the Riverlands combined. Sansa began to wonder how much of the wealth of Castamere’s mines and farmlands would go towards the upkeep of that sprawling underground castle, and then Sansa found herself fearing two sorts of ghosts.

The specters of the women and children and smallfolk boiled alive or drowned by Lord Tywin and the mad King and the haunting shape of a ghostly abacus. Ahead of them along the coast, Sansa could make out three figures; the first was Arya, who had worn silk tunics in the YiTish fashion to escape the sweltering heat of the South. Sansa didn’t mind the heat, unlike her father and Arya. She, Jon, and Dany weren’t scorching from within and miserable as if the dragon's blood spared them. It’s interesting, Arya is more Targaryen in looks than any of us, yet she blazes, and I feel as cool as I do in the North.

Sansa’s temperature seldom changed; like Dany and little Rickon, she never got sick. Jon had gotten ill once and almost died and then was never touched by pox or pestilence again. Robb was similar, wherein the blood of the wolf and the trout was stronger in Bran and Arya. A war had been fought over the fact that the Velaryon sons of Rhaenyra Targaryen were pug-nosed and black-haired when they had Baratheon blood which could have explained all save the noses. Children died because of their little noses… Sansa concluded that madness compelled people to view the inheritance of men the same way they viewed the passing of traits between dogs or horses. Will our children look like the Blackfyre’s? Amethyst or lilac eyes and silver and gold or white hair, or will they look like me? Or father? Or would they come out, Lannister? Sansa didn’t like that thought. From her limited experience with Lannisters, only Gerion seemed like a pleasant person.

Tyrion was funny and charming, but there was a darkness in his eyes; his sons were boisterous and wild, and she liked Lady Asha, but there was a hint of malice in the last living Greyjoy’s nature. Jason Lannister was charming, but his warmth was totally false, and his eyes were cold and calculating in an unnatural way for a boy. The Queen was hateful and remote, had been mean to her for no reason, and nearly made her cry, and Lancel Lannister, the chaperone of Prince Tommen, was like a pretty silk scarf serving no purpose save for adornment. Prince Tommen looked nothing like his brothers and sister. Prince Tommen didn’t possess the friendliness that Prince Daeron had nor the sight of her dear Maelys. “Who are the other two with Arya?” Sansa asked, wishing to take her mind off her darker thoughts.

“Syrio Forel! He’s the Braavosi who instructed my sister in water dancing; he was the first Sword! A great master!” Maelys said with no small amount of childlike enthusiasm. Perhaps I should take lessons from him? If I’m to be the lady of Castamere… “I believe the other is Presten Serrett, the grandson of Lord Serrett.”

“I suppose my father hired him,” Sansa said as she noted the master Swordsmen was adorned in Stark Livery. She knew of the diminutive Swordmaster from a ballad called “the Griffon’s folly.” Which was popular among the bards at court in Wintertown who thought erroneously that father would enjoy hearing a song about the death of someone who had once been his enemy. Her father was too honorable for that, and the verses were quite harsh towards Jon Connington and his cousin Raymund. The story behind that song was that he and his cousin, Connington not worthy of remembrance, for he was never given a name. Chose exile over submission to House Blackfyre with them went several loyal knights of House Connington. Fighting as swell swords, while Lord Ronnet Connington and his house served the Blackfyre Kings faithfully (And Ronald Storm, the bastard son of Lord Ronnet, was squire to Lord Greystorm. She had to remember to tell Arya that!), these men lost much of their honor as mercenaries. Eventually, they grew despondent and sought a worthy death at the hand of the First Sword of the Sea Lord of Braavos and his protégé Qarro Volentin. Neither man obliged them until steal was drawn against the Sea Lord himself. Despite his short stature, Syrio made quick work of the man who had been a constant companion to Rhaegar Targaryen and left him a disgraced heap on the streets outside the Sea Lord’s palace.

Syrio Forel was one of the most dangerous men in the world; he had left the service of the Sea Lord, confident in his successor’s skill, and traveled first to the Blackfyre domains in Essos and then to King’s Landing. Wishing to test his skill against Westerosi Knights, he humbled and defeated many of them, losing only twice, once to Ser Jaime and again to Aerion of the Sea dragons. He fought Ser Barristan to a draw in a melee, and his two defeats were narrow enough that the Kingslayer often talks about facing him again to know for a certain.

It was like one of the songs, and Syrio was like a trickster knight, the teasing mentor who forced the arrogant youth to see the world through wizened eyes. It was all so exciting and when Maelys moved to ask her something, then hesitated, Sansa giggled softly. She too wanted to see this, even if she hadn’t begun to enjoy cheering her brothers and sisters on when they sparred or fought (She also decided she might enjoy gambling as well but would never admit this in public.) in mock conflagrations. She would still go and see the training session solely because she was smitten by the look of sheer joy on Mealys’ face. This morning he told me he was no great poet or thinker but did several things well. He fought like no man to ever take up the sword before him. He sang like a bard, and he loved his family with all his heart and would love me with the same heart.

If more men were like Prince Maelys, the world would be a merrier place. As they approached, she could see Arya swaying with a wooden stick with a grace that would have mortified her sister to know she possessed. “She moves like a smaller version of you.” Maelys said in a soft voice, causing Sansa to laugh softly. “She’d be upset to hear that; Arya believes I’m too Southron.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Maelys said, frowning as though he were deep in thought, trying to work out some grand moral quandary. Arya had managed to disarm the young Serrett, who was rising and waving his arms and gesticulating wildly as the melodic sound of Syrio’s laughter echoed across the earth. “Swift like hare, strong like boar, is this not so Ser Lyle?” the melodic accent of the Braavosi made it as though it sounded as if they were singing whenever they spoke. Sansa would often accompany her mother or grandmother when they met with Braavosi envoys so that she might listen to their song-speech. Arya joined them often because she found she enjoyed how they discussed finances. After all, they saw the world through disparate eyes. Wait, Ser Lyonel?

The figure that emerged from the tree line was a giant of a Westerlander, clad in armor with thick black hair and gray streaks in his beard and the mane that seemed to fall about his shoulders. A long black and white cape, brindled in color, flowed behind him, and he had a battle ax on one hip, a long sword on the other, and daggers in between: the Strongboar, a great warrior. Sansa thought; he fought Aegon Blackfyre in a melee at Barrowton during the games held in honor of her sixth name day. However, Sansa couldn’t remember any of it, only that he won but lost on a point score to her grand-uncle Ser Blackfish in the next round. Mother had made that a lesson in cleverness over strength. Ser Lyle had hard eyes, but they weren’t unkind, and he seemed to be all steel and muscle and bone. When he spoke, his voice was deep and loud and sounded like the low grunts of the boar of his House’s sigil. “I know little of Water Dancing master Forel, but you don’t move like a hare. You strike like lightning, and in our spars, despite your little size, when you hit me, it feels as though a boar had indeed gored me.” There was a low laugh, and he nodded. “Aye, swift like a hare would these little ones need to be in battle.”

He disapproved of women warriors, but even he could see her sister's potential and nodded approvingly. Sansa wondered if she would ever win respect like that in her life, perhaps a different sort of respect. I don’t have skill with a sword, but my mind is sharper than any steel. Jason Lannister had told her that it was the only praise that left his lips that she believed was genuine. He had told her not to fret about being martially inclined or not, that she would be a lady in the same vein as the Queen of Thornes or Alicent Redwyne or her lady mother, the velvet curtain that hid the venomous serpent. Perhaps he had meant that as an insult; she could never tell with him, but the words had inspired her despite her reservations about Lannisters. “Armor has gaps; an enemy swift enough will find them before he is cut down.” She heard Maelys say, bolstering a point the Stongboar had made that she missed. He was drawing his sword now, and Sansa had seen it for the first time. It wasn’t an authentic Braavosi sword, it was long like a bastard sword, but the hilt contained a sort of basket made of many lines of steel that coiled around the grip like a series of vines around that wove out from the block and “grew” around the quillons.  Though it wasn’t Valyrian steel, it was beautiful. The blade was black, and the steel around the grip was red with a ruby in the pommel. “I had this sword made inspired by Braavosi rapiers and our long swords. There is much merit in the Braavos dance!” answered Maelys enthusiastically.

“The sword of a simpleton!” Sansa’s eyes narrowed as indignation filled her heart, and upon recognition, she grew wroth. Prince Tommen! Why would a brother say such cruel things in front of others? Robb and Jon never spoke to each other like that around strangers, and they never said cruel things to each other with such venom. Arya and I used to, Sansa thought with no small amount of shame. Tommen walked forward, his red gambeson stamped with the Blackfyre Dragon in gold Lannister colors. He rested his hand on his short sword, for he was still too small to carry a proper longsword, and his cape covered only half his body in the Dornish style. An odd mix, as if the Prince did all he could to stand out from his brothers. “A basket hilt on a long sword! Truly.” His green eyes flashed with contempt that seemed to conceal something below it—resentment, perhaps jealousy. The Prince is the only one without a marriage pact…

Beside him was a tall man with high cheekbones, gold hair, and red streaks. His armor was polished plate, and the tabard had a silver shield with a green saltire painted on it. Four red double-headed eagles with their wings spread filled the spaces between.  House Estren of Wyndhall. A minor family from the Westerlands, vassals of house Lannett. Who themselves are vassals of house Farman. Sansa had been learning the different major and minor houses of the Westerlands in her spare time as she was to be a lady of the West soon. In the North, these lords would have been considered a masterly house and not noble, yet they were aristocrats. They produce valiant archers but ever since the decline of House Clegane… She focused on the features of the young knight. His pale blue eyes were deadly and calculating, and his body reminded her of depictions of those hooded serpents from the Dothraki sea. Nagas, they were called, and it was said their venom was so potent it could make the flesh melt from the bones in under an hour.

He wore a green cloak that folded around him like a hood and had six daggers and a long sword. But the most striking thing was the hair Lorathi hair and Valyrian-style eyes, and he was slender and tall like the Ghiscari. She knew that Ghiscari fleeing the Freehold, had settled in the Stormlands thousands of years ago and helped the Storm Kings forge the fabled infantry that now was among the greatest in the world. Had they gone West as well? There are more Valyrians in Lannisport and Old Town than in some smaller Essosi cities. Did some of their old foes follow? Or was this a more recent union? “Ser Aeron, the Stark pup wishes she could eat my liver.”

“No doubt your grace.” The Estren Knight responded in a sardonic tone that was far too at ease around royalty for Sansa’s liking. “I suppose the bastard is better off with her.”

“Yes, looking at her, she’s far too much like the daughter of the mad king. I could never wake up next to that without worrying such a hideous face would frighten me to death.” The Prince sighed and dusted his shoulder slightly. “It’s to be expected, I suppose, when you use fleshsmithing and alchemy to bond dragons’ blood to your own spawn and then allow them to make congress with each other for millennia, you’re bound to end up with hideous, droll, and repetitive, looks. Thank the Gods I take after my mother and not my lord father….Not like my idiot elder brother here” He was so casual about the calumnies that Sansa stood still and stunned and didn’t react until she felt Maelys stepping forward. “Brother, take it back.”

“Which part? I’m sorry, my poor, dear, addled brother, but you must be more specific.”

“All of it.” Maelys snarled, hands balling into fists, one of which clenched around Sansa’s hand so hard she almost cried out. I should stop this before something happens.

But it was Syrio who interrupted with a slight laugh. “Ah, dear boy, if you are so eager to learn dancing lessons from Syrio Forel, you need only ask and right beside the boy and the lady you will be!”

Tommen sneered. “Silence, dwarf; I need no lessons from you. Especially not of your ineffective style.”

“Braavosi water dancing is the greatest form of sword art in the known world.” Snarled Arya, who stepped forward. She hadn’t cared about the insult to herself, but the dig at her new mentor sent her blood to a boil, and as she stepped forward, Tommen laughed. “For eunuchs and women, maybe, but any real man with a real sword would skewer your dancing master and rape you bloody.”

Gods! What a little monster.

There was a crack and a cry, and Tommen stumbled back, blood oozing from his lip and nose where Arya had struck him with the tip of her wooden blade. The boy sneezed as he stumbled, trying first to breathe in, attempting to catch his breath. But that was a mistake because he inhaled blood and began to cough loudly. The Estren knight moved between Tommen and the crowd, reaching out to help his ward up, but the youth pushed past him and, with a curse on his lips, drew his short sword and cut through the wood of Arya’s blade when she moved to block it. Splinters flew everywhere, and the edge avoided Arya’s nose solely because her sister could jump out of the way with cat-like reflexes. Arya scowled. “You little fiend!” she hissed and hurled the remainder of the blade at the prince, who ducked and lunged again.

Something darted from the bushes, and the prince screamed as Nymeria’s enormous body slammed into the prince, ramming him into the shoreline, wherein his blade flew from his hand and slid into the water. Nymeria must not have liked his screaming because she put one of her large paws on Tommen’s throat and loomed over him, snarling. The prince had gone from cursing through tears to sobbing hysterically as Arya called Nymeria off. Leave her there atop the prince! Sansa thought, let Nymeria restrain the prince until he was calm; he clearly couldn’t be trusted not to do anything rash.

She was proven right, for as soon as Nymeria was off his chest, the Prince sat up, blood streaming his nose and lip. Eyes wild with hate “Ser Aeron…Kill the direwolf and arrest Arya Stark for attempted regicide.”

Regicide? What?! He isn’t a…No. Nymeria! Sansa ran forward and threw herself between the pup and the Estren knight, who stalked forward with eyes that were cruel and full of malevolent laughter. “As you order, your grace.”

“I would not be doing either of those things,” Syrio responded lazily, though his voice came from behind the Knight, not as he had been, from beside Arya. His rapier had been drawn and was pointed at the spine above the rump of the Estren knight, who was now frozen in place. Though he had the mark of a deadly killer, he wasn’t a fool, and it was clear if he advanced further that, the diminutive master would render him paralyzed with a gesture. “Children fight; it is a natural course, pauper, merchant, or prince. It is not in the doings of wise men to intercede in their squabbles less it becomes dangerous, yes?”

“Yes…” Ser Aeron agreed, those eyes blazed with hate, and his tone was tight and controlled. “I agree, Master Forel.”

“And when matters such as discord between the innocent reach a point of blood, is it not the duty of a sword to inform the parents and allow justice to be placed in the home fire?”

Estren flashed an ironic smile, and his eyes sparkled with cruelty and amusement. “Just so, Master Forel.”

“Then would Prince Maelys not be so kind as to help his brother up and hold him as Ser Aeron so generously walks to summon the King.” Questioned the Braavos.

“I would, Master Forel.” Maelys stepped forward, his boots thundering into the muddy earth as he bent and wrenched Prince Tommen’s arm, causing the royal boy to yelp as he was pulled to his feet and then whimper when her sweet Maelys twisted his arm behind his back. “Father will hear of what you said about our forefathers.” Maelys snarled, “And how you called the lady Arya ugly! When she looks like Rhaenyra and Princess Daenerys.” Tommen looked away weakly, defeat in his eyes. “Ser Aeron..please inform my mother as well.”

Something flashed between the eyes of the Knight and his prince, and he bowed and turned to make his leave, and he did so; Sansa couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of unease. It had been such a good day; then, a wicked prince ruined it.

Just like a song…

Chapter Text

The Princess and the dreaming wolf

There had to be some power to the cold in the North or at least in how the magic of the North reacted to the fires in the blood of Dragonlords (And there was power here, she lacked all of Daeron’s talents but even she could feel it.) that caused Targaryens and those descended from Targaryens to age much slower than ordinary people. The first men as well, the Greatjon, hasn’t lost an ounce of his puissance with age, and Erik Snow says he is closer to eighty name days than sixty yet looks to be a man in the twilight of his fifties. Her great aunt Rhaella was three or four and fifty but looked closer to her mother, the queen’s age to Rhaenyra’s eyes, and the same for Lady Catelyn. Though that may be Tully blood, Lady Baratheon still looks one and twenty. And she could only hope this bizarre reaction was as kind to albinos as it was to ordinary Valyrians.

These thoughts came to her as she set down the quill she had been using to write a letter to her grand uncle Aemon, the chief Archmaester at the Wall, chief among Maesters who served the Night’s watch. He was near as old as Aenar Aetheryon was upon his death, and upon Daeron’s departure, he had urged Rhaenyra to write to him as he had for years.

At first, Rhaenyra was hesitant, as she knew the Targaryens and Blackfyre were kin, but the division among their houses occurred so long ago as to make a difference in their blood. But she also knew that her grandmother was a sister to the mad King, just as it was with her lord husband. That made her kin to Aemon Targaryen and Aerion Targaryen, the legitimized bastard of the mad King who rejected his crown at the great Kingsmoot of A.C 282. There were six other Targaryen bastards there, as stewards, builders, and rangers. And Benjen Stark is kin as well. She had taken to writing all of them; Aerion replied warmly and confided that he, Lord Stark, and the now Princess Daenerys corresponded regularly.

The others lamented that their letters would be brief as they were, as one builder put it, “too damn busy maintaining bloody castles that are thousands of years old and filled to the brim with men and boys who came here chasing coin and not duty.” She liked that one, Aethan had been his name, and he had been born to Prince Duncan of the dragonflies and a scullery maid before he found his Jenny. Benjen was kind but brief, but Aemon’s letters were the ones she had come to enjoy the most. When Bran wakes, lady Rhaella promises to fly me there with Rickon in tow so we might make our first Northern progress.

Winter was such a patient dragon to bear three riders. But evidently, she was accustomed to it, and the same was said of Argella, who frequently bore Lady Lysa so long as Lord Robb rode her, and Aegos was famous for tolerating a Kingsguard on his back with Aerys as well. The dragons of old would have torn anyone fool enough to try that to shreds, but these seemed to be very different creatures.

Things like this fascinated her, even if she lacked the talent for magic that her elder brother possessed, and the natural world fascinated her. Robb says he likes the idea of journeying with me one day when Rickon is older to see the wonders of the world. He had encouraged her to one day write a book about her observations regarding animals. Rhaenyra might have lacked magic, but she had a knack for communing with beasts, making several of the remaining Wargs ask her if she’d like to be tested to see if she had the gift. I declined, but mayhap I’ll take them up on their offer.

Wargs fascinated her, but they also concerned her, for she wondered how the soul of both beast and man might hold up under constant intrusion. As she walked down the tower hallway where the Stark children slept, Rhaenyra pulled her robes tighter about her chest. She never really felt cold or hot. Her body was a fire at times, and she seldom needed protection, but there were days when the flames of R’hllor were withdrawn so that she was reminded that while she was of the blood of the dragon, she was not but a thirteen-year-old girl and the North was bloody cold. My brothers keep the seven and honor the Old Gods, save for Daeron, who honors all four faiths of Westeros, even the drowned God. But I’ve always honored the Old Gods and the Red Faith. She didn’t mind admitting her marriage before the Sept mainly was for politics, though she found a lot to admire in the seven-pointed star. The Northern way of revering the Old Gods is much different from the quiet ways of House Bracken and the Crownland houses that practice the old faith.

Though, she had to admit.

When she saw Bran’s state, Rhaenyra prayed to every God in the world that one of them might show some love to the poor mangled boy. “Try and be nice to the guards this time, hmm?” Rhaenyra asked her ever-present shadow. Adorned in well-polished leathers and a cuirass, she was convinced he’d stolen from the Red Keep’s armory and painted dark blue and gold. Her ever-present shadow gave her a half smile. “Yer father don’t pay me to be nice girly; he pays me to watch yer ass and ensure that no one kills ya.”

“And my dear husband, what does he pay you to do, Ser Bronn?” Rhaenyra asked the man with a wry smile. The man behind her had more in common with a hooded serpent than a man, both in looks and how he moved; he was ruthless, amoral, and opportunistic. She was pretty certain he only stayed loyal because her family had obscene amounts of money and dragons, at least most of the time. In truth, he wasn’t just a mere knight. Her father elevated him to the lowest level of the aristocracy when he saved Prince Daeron’s life from a raid by river pirates when her brother was four. But Bronn, founder of House Blackwater (He took the name because he claimed he was born in the blackwater rush and abandoned on the shoreline by his mother.), held a paltry four hundred acres and four smallfolk families. What he stayed loyal for was the endless supply of gold her father seemed to hurl at him. Lord Bronn insisted on being addressed as a knight since “A hundred acres and a country manse don’t make me a proper fancy lad.”. Rhaelle Waters, his wife, is the daughter of a long line of Targaryen bastards. I’m still surprised father allowed that marriage.

Then again, there were so many Targaryen bastards in King’s Landing that half the merchants in the nicer neighborhoods had purple eyes, silver-gold hair, or both. Most of the Gold cloaks, too, and they called themselves the Flea Bottom dragons. Bronn chuckled behind her. “And what makes ya think I’ve worked out a second contract with yer husband?”

She smiled and gave an innocent shrug. “Maybe because you’ve watched me since I was six name days, and I know you.”

“Aye ya do at that,” Bronn said, shaking his head, his serpent-like face taking on a regretful and exacerbated expression. “You know if some cunt came to me and paid me to kill you, I think they’d have to offer me Highgarden or some other big fancy lad castle for me to betray you, and then I’d probably give yer husband a chance to double it.”

Though the comment would see any other sworn sword beheaded near instantly, from Bronn, that may as well have been a declaration of undying love and friendship. “Are you getting soft on me, old rogue?” Bronn laughed. “Aye, maybe or maybe you both pay me enough to keep me sotted. As to your lord husband, he seems to think having a perspective like mine to advise him will help him deal with the mountain of southern shit his father’s ascension to the Hand will see dumped on his doorstep.”

Good, Rhaenyra thought. Robb would need all the help he could get to manage the North in his father’s absence, especially if Daeron’s fears and what they both suspected were father’s plans turned out to be true. As they came close to the doorway, Rhaenyra looked back at him, making her best imperious glare before Bronn could say anything insulting to the guards. “I come to relieve your lady.”

One of them nodded; he had the look of a Stark bastard; the other was a slight and small man and likely held Crannogman ancestry. “Of course, princess, you may pass.” One looked around and then sighed in relief. “Cryxus remains with Lady Winter then?” it had been amusing to find out that the guards and smallfolk referred to the Stark dragon as “Lady Winter” and more amusing when she learned that the guards were terrified of her black direwolf. They confuse her for her twin shaggydog, who is a wild soul. Cryxus is vicious but only to her enemies. She’s a darling to anyone else. She’d also bonded with Greywind; when she wasn’t trouncing through the Godswood or Wolfs Wood, she was by Greywind’s side. “She does good, man indeed; I would not worry about it so much. She hasn’t developed a taste for man-flesh like Shaggydog has…yet.”

Neither wolf, in truth, had ever killed a person, but she knew it was a joke run rampant around the castle that the two black wolves were the spirits of dead Starks of old summoned by the Old Gods to reap terrible vengeance against any who would threaten their successors. It was an exciting tale, but she didn’t see that when she looked into the eyes of Cryxus, eyes that reminded her of Mandarr or an elephant or dragon’s eyes. Intelligent eyes, soulful and full of ancient memory. That’s what I feel here, the same as Oldtown and Storm’s End. Here, even the Valyrian people are but children, and I am the youngest as a Blackfyre. When the door opened, and the pair entered, she found Lady Rhaella curled up around Bran, her features at peace despite the worry lines in her eyes. The boy’s breathing had grown stronger over the next few days, and streaks of black and silver seemed to form in his hair. It’s the same for Rickon, but on the other way, his hair grows redder in parts, but his eyes are like father's. She watched the woman who easily could have been the dowager queen sleep soundly, clinging to Bran as though she were a literal dragon and her red eyes welled with tears. Mother never ever showed her that sort of love. Lady Catelyn and Lady Rhaella have been more mother to me than mine own.

And of the two, Rhaella was the most demonstrative, often hugging her or joining her and Robb when they broke their fast as often as she could without becoming too intrusive. And now, she hesitated to wake her but decided it was better she rest in her bed and in proper night clothes, not her Valyrian steel armor She expects violence, and so does Daeron. She leaned forward and gently set a hand on Rhaella’s, and the woman woke with a smile. “Come to kick me out of my grandson’s sick bed?” she asked, her eyes sad with worry but sparkling with a hint of wry amusement.

Rhaenyra flashed an imperious stare. “It is unbecoming of a former princess to sleep in armor.” She did her best imitation of her grandfather Tywin’s voice, and Rhaella laughed heartily and loudly. “Joanna used to do the same thing.” Rhaella sighed, looking up at the ceiling painted with stars and the moon and dragons, all the things a child should look upon to feed the fires of his imagination and fuel the forges of his dreams. “That is why I was glad for your marriage to my eldest grandson Rhaenyra, Tywin, Valarr, Rickard, Steffon, and Aerys, with old Jon Arryn at times along for the ride. The friendship bond grew to encompass Tully’s after some misadventure in the Riverlands saw Aerys duel a fourteen-year-old Brynden Tully. My brother had better control over his madness then, and he also impressed Hoster. Later they would all fight together in the war against the band of seven and the Emperor in the East.” She slowly sat up, letting out a lazy groan as she rested against the headboard, her right hand gently running her fingers through Bran’s hair.

“I always believed Tywin and Aerys brought out the worst in each other, but Rickard and Steffon held them to their best. Tywin lost a piece of himself when Steffon died, and I think his fury against our House stems from the fact that Ned defended Hoster’s actions during the sack.” Rhaella smiled sadly but bid Rhaenyra sit opposite her in the bed, and she found herself lying down, a hand resting on Bran’s chest, her chin on his head as she looked up at the ice dragon. “Mother says Tywin didn’t truly care for the wolves, that he used Rickard’s death.”

Rhaella quirked, giving Rhaenyra a look that implied she was questioning the Queen’s sanity. “Tywin’s soul shattered when Joanna died, but I would hardly say he didn’t care for Rickard. In many ways, he and Lord Aenar were the only men older than he who was strong and whom he respected and looked to. I suppose my grandfather, as well, but the closeness was to the old Hand and my husband. I doubt he cared much for my Bran, but he did care for Rickard, and I know he was aggrieved. Though I can’t tell you to what extent, your grandfather always put little stock in the bonds between the living. He honored the past and built a temple to a legacy, but what is a legacy without warmth? Light? Or blood bonds and fellowship? You can’t raise a prosperous family on legacy alone, my love. You have to ensure that your children are of good character, strong character. Else how will they take advantage of their legacy? Without love, ambition is as deadly a vice as the overuse of bittercane. House Targaryen learned that harsh lesson twice ere we lost our purchase on the Iron Throne.”

The Throne, her progenitor, forged with dragon fire. No… our progenitor as well for what is a Blackfyre if not descended from House Targaryen.

“Your house is one of the first new dynasties of Dragonlords since the Doom. I pray you hold true to the lessons your forebears failed to learn.” Rhaella whispered, though, to Rhaenyra; it sounded as if she was speaking to Bran as much as she was imparting wisdom. My love, it was an old Braavosi phrase of endearment, and she wondered where the lady Rhaella No, Princess if Daenerys is one now, I will take that as a recognition of the restoration of House Targaryen to at least the status of a Princely House.

From what she remembered of the ancient Andal customs, those houses were called Ducal Houses. Their lords were addressed as “your grace,” while ancient Andal Kings were addressed as “your majesty” Dukes was close enough to the royal lineages that they could become Kings themselves should a line of Kings fail or should they prove unworthy. Though I can see why Andals left that behind as they crossed the sea, were it not for so many feuding Princes and tired Kings, the Andals might have held out longer against the Freehold.

She was right either way, and Rhaenyra smiled softly in gratitude. “My mother never speaks to us in this fashion..I…I thank you, your grace.”

“Rhaella child, my name is Rhaella, poor Cersei. She has all of her mother’s beauty but none of Joanna’s intelligence.”

Rhaenyra swallowed and watched the beautiful woman who would be her children's great-grandmother one day and was treating her now as though she were merely another grandchild and not someone married into her family. A family that has lost so much over the last fifteen years. Rhaella knew her grandfather before he became the cold, hateful monster he was now, and she knew the mad King and the other heroes and villains of the rebellion that put her family on the throne. Her father seldom spoke of the war and seldom of much more than his youth at the Eyrie. Prince Aegon of Dragonstone spoke of nothing at all when it came to that era, and she was always afraid of Aerion and so never asked, even though he was the youngest hero of that era. “Rhaella…might I ask you..was my grandmother kind?”

Rhaella sat there in the dark, listening to the sound of Bran’s breathing. Her eyes were far away, deep in thought as if trying to ascertain how to answer that question without breaking her heart, and Rhaenyra shuddered as anxiety filled her heart. “Joanna loved me like a sister, was doting on Kevan and Gerion and Tygett, your grand uncles. She was in awe of Rickard and Lord Aenar and utterly devoted to her husband and her twins…But I believe her kindness did not extend beyond those she cared for. She had no room for mercy or understanding of those not of her innermost circle or her closest kin who bore the name Lannister.” Looking back, she searched Rhaenyra’s eyes and smiled sadly while smiling approvingly. “You remind me of Sansa..she too likes stories but has a sober enough mind to recognize that the material realm is..complicated.”

Rhaenyra giggled. “In truth, if you told me she was as sweet as honey wine, I’d have known you were lying. There is no way a man like my grandfather would fall smitten with someone who was all silk and had no taste for blood.”

“You are wise, my love, that wis..” she paused and suddenly jerked up. Her eyes were wild and shocked as she bore down at the window. Rhaenyra looked up and saw small tendrils of gold and orange at first, and then… “Fire.”

“Near a granary!” Rhaella remarked with alarm.

There was a rumble from the window, and the end of Winter’s tail dangled down from swishing across the glass like a lance made of snow. “Go with Winter Rhaella! Bronn and I will protect Bran..”

“I’ll leave the guards.”

“No, you’ll need every hand to fight this fire.” This..rather…convenient fire.

The older princess must have thought the same because the two exchanged a wordless look. Take them and go.  “It’ll be all right, lady Rhaella…we’re probably just being overly worrisome.”

“I’ll hold you to that promise.” She leaned forward, kissed Rhaenyra on the cheek, and then rose and opened the window.

To Rhaenyra’s shock, Rhaella threw herself out of the window, precipitating a cry of annoyance from Winter, who dove down, overtaking the princess and then catching her in her massive talons. From within Winter’s feet, Rhaella called for her to head towards the fire. She was leaving Rhaenyra alone with a sellsword of dubious loyalty and Bran’s wolf for protection. Waiting for a trap she prayed would never be sprung.

……

The Lord of the air.

So, it was true; Aegos did lay with Terrax. Elbert thought with no small annoyance as he watched Terrax, the copper dragon with her long snout that reminded him of certain types of horse-like hunting hounds, and her gem-like sapphire eyes gazing down proudly at three young dragons that were only months old. They had been dormant since Terrax laid them seventeen years ago when Daena took her from King’s Landing and claimed her. His Tully of Harrenhal bride had been all of fifteen, and Lord Jon had sensed danger on the horizon when Lord Rickard decided to sail to King’s Landing instead of to fly borne on the back of Winter carried there by his lady wife. My uncle knew what was coming… him and Hoster…but Hoster did everything he could to encourage it, while Uncle Jon wanted nothing less than to settle matters.

But Aerys, the kinslaying madman, cut Rickard Stark in half with Brightflame, grabbed the nephew he had loved like a son, and threw him into Aegos. Poor Aegos, no man nor beast ought to be forced to strike down a loved one and to be forced to partake in his flesh…If he never returned. Of all Westeros's dragons, the only one who reminds me of his noble spirit is Aerax. I hope Edmure proves a better rider and companion than Aerys. Companion was the right word; in sixteen years of marriage to Daena, the one thing he learned was that a dragon didn’t serve you because you trained it well. It chose you because it saw something in you that it wanted as a friend. That had been how Daena won Terrax; she snuck into the capital all of sixteen and swayed the ungovernable dragon before departing barebacked on a dragon! He loved his wife, he loved her before they were even married, but his respect had become admiration that night. And she fought during the rebellion; Randyll Tarly cut Jon Arryn in half with heart’s bane; in return, Daena and Terrax destroyed twelve thousand Reachmen in six hours. Randyll Tarly had been burned so badly that he would suffer a long and deformed life, dying a week before the birth of his second son. Good, and as a final measure of vengeance, the matter of the succession of Horn Hill was settled when Dickon declared that he wanted nothing to do with usurping his elder brother, which had caused Lord Stannis as the Master of Laws and Lord High Justice to nullify his will.

The boy had earned lands when he assisted in repelling an attack by pirates from the Summer Islands alongside Lord Davos Seaworth and his sons. Despite being a nine-year-old boy, he killed two Summer Islanders descended from Ironborn and captured one of their ships. Paying the “Iron price.” For a Valyrian steel spear that would become the ancestral weapon of House Tarly of Starpike since no more male Peakes were alive after Daemon Blackfyre got done with them. The King didn’t leave the female line alive as he did with the Redwynes or Beesbury, and at least she was allowed to wed a bastard and carry on her name.

He spared no one… The castle was rebuilt, and the land made fertile, but Dickon was lord over more lamb men of Lhazaar than he was Andal, or First men descended smallfolk for the King had been…harsh with those who assisted Mace in the great poisoning. Not that the Lord of the Eyrie could blame him, but there were days when he wondered if Daemon would have gone to such extremes if Uncle Jon were still alive.

Starpike, Whitegrove, and Dunstonbury. If he recalled his histories rightly when the Lord of House Peake of Starpike was brought before the Iron Throne and saw Daemon Blackfyre standing beside Daeron, the second he drew his blade and slashed his own throat in despair. The gesture was so brutal and obscene that the King had decided not to punish the rest of his house, and thus House Peake kept their lands and castles. Lands and Castles were ultimately forfeited by extinction at the hands of yet another Blackfyre. They should have declared for Daemon like the Hunts, Hutcheson, Serrys, Rowans, and Osgreys had. Of course, those Houses paid dearly when Garth the gross “put those lands in order” during the rebellion. Garth Tyrell was so fat that when Maelos incinerated him, he exploded and rained molten fat upon the dragon’s chest.

He doubted that was true; Maelos probably had to chew him well. Osbert Serry had lost his left arm below the elbow due to corruption in the dungeon of his keep. It was no wonder many Lords of the Reach had ultimately embraced Stannis. Many of them likely hated the Tyrells for the horrors visited upon them both by the Tyrells themselves and the ones they found due to Daemon’s wrath. His mind wandered back to the world in front of his face, and he saw the three red dragons, each the size of a large hunting hound, crawl along their mother’s back. Red-colored dragons hadn’t been born before. Except for Vermax at Dragonstone, Vermax was an old egg from before the Dance, hatched due to the awakening of this new magic.

Old and new, the world was changing and filling with something wondrous and terrible, and the only thing Elbert Arryn knew was that he was glad his children would have the opportunity to become dragon riders because a storm was coming that would likely envelope the Seven Kingdoms and all of Essos if the present course wasn’t altered. And that’s assuming it’s just the Lannister and Tyrell machinations. Elbert thought grimly; the old Lord Hand had confided in him some years before his death that the reports from Roark’s spies amongst the Wildlings told of an ancient power stirring in the lands of always winter. That matched reports from Lord Viserys, the master of whispers whose spies in Essos suggested that there were stirrings in Asshai and far beyond the five forts. There was rain in the great sand sea again, and reports that green pastures had slowly begun to crawl out of the sand. And disturbing reports from Dorne that water magic was starting to work again.

It was as if the powers of life were awakening, almost akin to a burning fever trying to purge corruption from the body but in response to what? Perhaps the most disturbing element to Elbert was how magic was seen not as some solution to all the world’s problems (Nor should it be.) nor some ungovernable wild force, but a resource like iron or copper, or ash or fire. As a boy, I remember hearing of the rebirth of Dragons at Summerhall. I felt a sense of wonder as if the world would be set right. Instead, magic merely became another tool in the arsenal of the fantastic games played by kings, magisters, nobles, bandits, khals, and all other assortments of potentates.

That was what happened in Yi Ti in the time before times when the Great Empire of the Dawn brought the Others unto the world if the tales were true. That was also what happened in Valyria, arrogant men who had blended draconic blood with the blood of man to make themselves a race they believed was to be superior to all others. Yet they destroyed their empire because of their scheming ways. When magic becomes another tool of intrigue and politic, it threatens all life.

The Maesters of old were on some level right about magic; it was a dangerous force like that special breed of black tar that, when pushed to the surface, can presage horrific fires. Where the Maesters were wrong was in attempting to murder magic by killing dragons and men and women with the gift, by seeking to rid the world of it by thinning the blood. Had the Arryns still possessed the great eagles of old, perhaps the last Arryn queen could have given battle to Rhaenys in the sky with lance, talon, and beak. Great golden eagles roosted around Terrax and seemed to regard her as a friend, but they were not near the size of their reputed ancient ancestors. Well, minus the giant one Ned still swears he saw on the night when we were hunting, and he was a boy. That one, he said, had a Wingspan the length of Argella’s.

Gods, they were boys, Elbert was eight and forty during their time at the Eyrie and had his first grandson by then, and yet Daemon, Ned, and Robert were akin to little brothers to him and less as second sons. Then again, with Uncle Jon around, all were as his sons, even the smallfolk. His death had galvanized the Vale, and the death of Elbert’s wife, sons, and grandson to the Reach's trickery was one reason he would always defend Daemon’s actions during the war. As he descended the stairs towards one of the open gardens, Elbert finally noticed his eldest son, Jon conceived during the rebellion, walking out from between Terrax’s chest and her wings, carrying one of the crimson hatchlings on his back, bearing it as though it were a wounded hound. The Dragon coiled its neck around Jon’s, and its head rested lazily atop Jon’s. I suppose that one found its future rider.

His daughter Jeyne was promised in matrimony to Monterys Velaryon, the heir to Hightide, and she had already begun the process of bonding with the nameless white and blue dragon that had taken up occupancy of the old castle Driftmark. Robar Arryn, the son of his fallen cousin Denys reported favorably on the relationship that was budding between Monterysand Jeyne. The Velaryons had been without a dragon rider, and when the long serpentine-like beast had taken to allowing the six-year-old Jeyne to ride his upon back without a saddle. Daena had not been happy about that, nor had Elbert, who had already buried one family and knew he would not likely live to see grandchildren this time. But she had proven a natural rider, and the Velaryons were more than exhilarated. They had sent a gift of twenty rolls of a hundred yards each of silk, six breeding pairs of dwarf elephants, and a type of mountain goat from the bone mountains whose droppings had been a boon to soil health on Driftmark.

The Dwarf elephants were ill-suited for the mountains, so he sent them to Dorne as a gift to House Martell, where others of their kind were put to good use digging for water and enriching the soils. Maintaining good ties to Dorne was the proper thing to do. They might have been honored by the fact that Rhaenys would be queen and that Elia was given a place of honor at the Lord's Council. Still, they had not forgotten the deaths caused by Daemon during the rebellion and the fact that they were mortally dependent now on water carried to them via aqueducts dragons could destroy quickly. Twenty thousand Dornish smallfolk died of thirst and the damage done to House Dayne.

Elbert suppressed a shudder.

“Have you named that one yet, Jon?” he asked his son, who turned and beamed at him. “I was asking Terrax for permission to name her son..she gave it to me!”. Elbert decided he would not scold his adolescent son for thinking he could speak to a dragon today, at least. However, it wouldn’t do to allow him to say such things in polite company. The Lord of the Eyrie watched with a sigh as the boy reached up and scratched the Dragon’s muzzle. Jon was good, but his skill lay in knife work, battle axes, and riding. One could put any beast below his legs, and he would make it do tricks within the hour as though he had trained it for years. Bronze Yon said only Lady Rhaella and Lyana were better riders. He said only Willas Tyrell handled a horse on his level and perhaps Ned’s bastard if the rumors were true.

He'd wanted to foster the boy here, but Daena told him to leave it be. That Ned had his reasons for keeping the boy close and had reacted poorly to suggestions that they ought to be parted in the past. And now the boy will be prince consort to the Princess of the Myrish Kingdom…One of the most important oversea vassals.

Coming into dominion of a major realm was no easy feat, even when you were prepared for it. Elbert hoped the two would succeed and prosper and that it wasn’t a trap. As his son finished fawning over the dragon, he turned and flashed a proud smile. Looking up at the long snout resting on his head, Jon nodded. “Yes, Artys, after the founder of our bloodline.” The dragon seemed pleased with itself, for it uncoiled from around his neck and, leaping from his back, took two passes above the castle before returning to land beside his mother: Artys, the first King of the Mountains and Vale. An auspicious name, but no dragon ever settled for a simple or ordinary name. In five years, he’ll be large enough to ride; our house will have two dragon riders by then, if not three.

If only Lady Lysa and Ned Stark could delay the coming war by a few more years or somehow prevent the King’s death. Then maybe none of the plans he was quietly laying were necessary. “If Terrax is here, where is your mother?” Elbert queried; it was rare for Terrax to let anyone close to her save for the dragon keepers when Daena wasn’t present. A sign that she trusted young Jon, but Elbert could have gone his whole life without seeing it as fearful as he was of his heir being devoured by an annoyed dragoness. They were supposed to be different from the Targaryen dragons of old, but they were still incredibly large predators with all too human-like emotions. Jon turned back and smiled at his father, his blue eyes sparkling with amusement. “She won’t eat me, father. I may look like an Arryn, but I smell like a Tully.”

That was true enough; Jon the younger was the spitting image of his cousin Harold Hardyng who was an almost exact copy of Lord Jon Arryn. The man who called his banners to defend three youths whose only crime was being the sons of men who sought to right a terrible injustice. Elbert resembled neither of his parents; in his youth, he had shaggy brow hair, which was now straight and thick, and ash-colored and green-gray eyes that resembled the eyes of the secretary of the treasury, the aid to Lord Hoster Tully. Lord Baelish is another one to watch.  He was slightly less corrupt than Elbert believed he would be. His financial success in Gulltown had brought him into the services of the same man who had ejected him from Riverrun shortly before the rebellion. Being more virtuous than the lowest expectations placed upon you was a low benchmark he knew, but he supposed the man was as loyal as he could be. The alternative was being fed to a dragon or rolled in a carpet and trampled to death by destriers. A Dothraki method of execution Daemon brought home with him when he interceded in their civil war.

A Khal named Bharbo had united the Dothraki people, witnessing the power of the Seven Kingdoms. Knowing that much of that power derived from heavy horse, he reasoned he could fashion a kingdom of his own, stretching from Qarth and the ax to Slaver’s Bay. He succeeded in uniting the Dothraki but was killed when a bastard son slew him after Drogo was named his heir. Bharbo was said to have descended from the great traitor Aegor Rivers; Bittersteel was better known. It was said there were also some descendants of Bittersteel in Yi Ti. They had been absorbed by the Lord governor of Peikeng’s line. The Brightflames of Yi Ti, or so it was said.

The truth was that no one knew what happened to him; Bloodraven died in the Nightfort, so it was believed. Old and bitter, he’d been forced to join the Night’s watch by King Maekar. But the gossips believed that was the first of many decisions Lord Aenar made through the mouths of the many kings he served. Trying to recall history lessons from when he was a boy was growing harder each day, which was tempered by his experience working with the old Hand when he served on the Lord’s Council. I was at Vaes Dothrak when King Daemon wrote the accord that buried the dream of a great empire of the grass sea—creating peace between Qoggo and Drogo. That dream never truly died if Visery’s spies were telling it true.

He knew little of their pedigree. Both men did possess purple eyes. Qoggo’s half seemed to be the least stable of the two, although wealthier, and recently a band of thirty thousand of his screamers had departed for Pentos, and no one knew if that was under his orders. As he walked through the white halls of the Eyrie following his son’s advice on the location of his wife, Elbert Arryn wondered how many more storms he would have to endure.

At three and sixty, he had endured far too many and buried far too many loved ones on account of them.

Please, Gods, let my family survive this even if I do not.

……….

A waking wolf.

He floated in a pool of water; there was not but an endless ocean of blackness save for swirls of purple and greens and blues and innumerous dots of silver that seemed like little rays of sunlight peaking through a great curtain of satin. It was comforting, with a softness that he found peaceful, even though it sometimes felt as though he was adrift for more days than counted a life age of the world he left behind.

Very astute little one.

It was a gentle voice; a woman’s voice reminded him of his grandmother even though it sounded indescribably old and childlike at once. A copper-colored hand traced slender fingers along his cheek, and when Bran opened his eyes, he found he could see a woman who was so beautiful Bran would have wept were he still within his body. She looked like depictions of women from Yi Ti, from Valyria, she looked like his mother, like his sisters, like all mothers and all sisters, and in her empty eye sockets, he could see an endless swirl of stars. She floated above him in a radiant silk dress made of blue sunlight, and her hair was the curtain of night. “Are you.A goddess?” Bran asked; in all his centuries floating in this void of starlight and dreams, he had felt only three presences, one his wolf, the other the Old Gods and their gentle roots which whispered for him to trust the one made of light and another presence. Immense, fierce, foreign, and prideful.

 It had left its home in bamboo jungles, bid farewell to its mate and its progeny, and started a great journey by sea, by river, and by land but not by air. Bran thought it was a dragon at first, and yet…It had no wings? It was a noble, regal, and arrogant type of presence, but Bran wasn’t afraid or disgusted; it was alien, but it had a warrior’s pride and his father’s sense of justice. He didn’t know what it was, only that it urged him ‘to hurry his sojourn amongst the realm of the dead for I am not wandering halfway across the world to wait.’. What an odd prompting; Bran was dead, he supposed; if he was wandering the realm of the dead, how was he supposed to meet this great grump?

The woman laughed softly as if sensing his thoughts, and Bran became acutely aware that she was floating directly above him, and when he beheld her in all her beauty and majesty, he felt safe and warm but also afraid. “I am called Goddess; in other places, I am called by other names. In Yi Ti, they call me the Maiden made of Light. Your Southern kin calls me the maiden and the mother; my husband is the warrior and the smith in their telling; I was Elenei before that, and the giants called Ansu-Tsunkaste. She who is mother to the dawn, I like their slow rumbling tongue. In another place far from her,e I am a sun goddess by which men more wicked than Valyria of old hath committed all manner of atrocities against their neighbors even though I asked them to stay their hand. I slew the drowned God with the aid of the burning one and the old root and tree Gods who nourish your lineage and champion men.”

“The Old Gods don’t care about men.” Bran frowned.

“I know that’s what you believe; in a long-ago war, we destroyed the great chiefs of evil that plagued your people, monstrous alien gods of darkness and madness. But as they fell, parts of their power infected your world. And some of their champions endured...We focus on many things, Bran. We believed that was that, and when I returned here over a thousand years ago, I beheld what we left behind and was ashamed.”

Bran blinked; Gods could feel shame. “Gods can feel as many emotions as men and more besides, for we are Gods, dear one.” His auburn hair coiled in her fingers, and Bran suppressed a shudder. “But why come to me?”

She smiled a sweet smile that made him feel at ease yet again, though her face seemed to be all peoples and no peoples; it was as though he spoke to all the women in his line at once and all yet born. Bran might have been fearful had he been older, yet he felt only a fleeting fear at the recognition that before was a thing utterly inhuman and older than he could comprehend and powerful beyond measure. “But why save me?”

“You are a Greenseer Bran; the most powerful your Gods have ever seen. Greater even than the one we lost a century ago. Greater even than the one who tried to reach but who took our words wrong and served your realm as only a misguided sage can. Originally, we meant for you to take the place of one we allowed to die, but their role is now passed; it is not for magic and the races of magic and men to die. We have decided that you should live if you take for yourselves your freedom from the old fate. That you strike your chains and rise to meet the darkness that comes.” Her voice was no longer soft; she was no longer a gentle maiden doting on a sick boy or a mother or grandmother consoling a wounded boy. Here before him floated a Goddess, older than the world yet younger than creation, and she was resplendent in her fury, finality, indignation, and hope.

“To that end, Brandon Stark, you must follow the one you call brother east; you must raise the sword named for that which you no longer possess. You must kill the easy heart and win the heart that is frozen. You must father wolves and teach dragons; you must seek out the lost Stark and bind your blood with she who is descended from myself and the lion of Night. You must become the blind knight and learn not from the stallion but from the rose. You must mount the wingless dragon and learn to call the thunder so that you might teach the Stag the ways of lightning. You must become great to help the heroes retake the sun and fight the last battle of your grandfathers” Gently, her hand cupped his cheek and her eyes blazed with the heavens. “Brandon Stark, you are between life and death, in the state in between, and if you vow to me, you can do this. I will return you.”

“Will I walk?”

“Yes”

“Will I fly”

“No, but when you raise your hand, a thousand wings will fill the sky.”

“Will I be a knight in time?”

“Though blind, there will never be one greater than you.”

“But I will not be King or Emperor?”

“Iron, jade, and adamant, your descendants will mother those who are.”

“Will I grow old?”

“Too old, and you will curse me in the end.”

“But what if I love you.” It was such an odd thing to say, especially to a Goddess, but at that moment, he believed it with all his heart.

“You will curse me because you love me, but I will forgive you, and, in the end, you will be at my side, little one.”

“..Are you saying.”

She smiled. “Only if you win, Brandon Stark, only if the Wolf, the Dragons, onyx, ruby and jade, the Stag, and the Rose prevail, and the lion redeems himself in the end. Serve by ensuring victory. Do what the sea dragon could not, what the one-eyed dragon turned his back to...Or else all life is over, and there will be no more direwolf pups and no more knights.”

“I don’t know if I can do all of this….”

“But you wanted to serve.”

“I still want to serve.”

“Then serve me, Bran. Each god gets one champion; won’t you be mine? Could you be mine?”

“I can; I will.”

“Then wake up and name him.”

…….

Once again, Princess Rhaenyra thanked her father for allowing her to train under a master as glorious and grand as Syrio Forel. Because if it weren’t for him, she’d be on the floor bleeding out instead of merely having a bloodied shoulder. The dagger had sliced through her leathers and furs, but she had twisted well enough to avoid being stabbed through the muscle and joint and merely came away with torn skin.  That was good steel for it to have so little resistance cutting through my garments. This was a dagger far too high in quality for the four ragged men who stormed the room as the guards and Rhaella battled the flames below. Bronn had killed one of them, opening his bowels and sliding his blade right up through his chest to his throat before whirring on the second one and shattering his teeth with the pommel of his sword. That one was down, and she shot him a glance and shook her head; they would need one alive to interrogate. Something flashed in the corner of her eyes. She saw red and frowned when she realized that it came from her hair which was stained in blood from the throat she had slashed (And from her wound.), the other was driving her back towards the bed; his knifework impeccable and savaged—honed to near-lethal perfection from a lifetime fighting in the slums and allies of Wintertown. “I’ll make it quick, love; a little princess ought not’t to suffer. Just stop yer mov’n an..ah there we go ‘ats a good girl.”

Rhaenyra had indeed backed against the bed, where she felt the side of the bead and soft cushiony feathers. Bronn was converging on him from behind, and she flashed him a deadly smirk. “Like a dog…You’d beckon like a dog?” she hissed out venomously, making her best mummer’s impression of her namesake from all the plays she’d seen in her short life that always cast Queen Rhaenyra as some half-mad, overweight strumpet and not the regal overly stressed woman driven to madness by loss and grief that Rhaenyra suspected her ancestor was. When the man stepped forward and laughed, “What Dragon? The bastard of one maybe; Blackfyre’s ain't true dragons no matter how many actual dragons ya go-“He never finished his sentence. Something silver and gray streaked across the room and careened into the ruffian with enough force that she heard his sternum crack. “FUCK’N SEVEN HELLS!” she heard Bronn shout, and blood sprayed as the Direwolf ripped the man’s head clean off with its ferocious jaws before he brought off. There was a look of muted horror on the severed head, whose eyes contorted in pain as the direwolf shattered the former criminal’s jaw, and a wet tearing noise filled the air. The next thing she knew, Rhaenyra Blackfyre contorted over the opened window and emptied her stomach as Bronn laughed. “Look at ‘em, Princess; he brought a little gift for his master.”

She gave Bronn an obscene gesture but smiled despite herself and then looked down at the bed and gasped.

There was the wolf, presenting the tongue it tore from the ruffian’s throat to little Bran Stark, resting it on his chest. Suddenly, the boy’s eyes opened, and they were unfocused as his hands fumbled, seemingly in the dark. Dread filled her heart, and her heart pounding drowned out the sobbing of the one surviving attacker. She ignored the sting from the wound on her arm and watched as her goodbrother touched the wolf’s snout, his hands now covered in blood as he leaned up to kiss it on the nose. “Thank you, Summer.” He whispered. Then turned and, despite the vacant stare in his eyes, fixed Rhaenyra with a gaze that left her convinced he had seen her clear as day. “And you, Good sister…thank you for taking care of me.”

“I promised your mother I would.” She whispered, there were tears in her eyes, and Bran beckoned her to come to him.

To her surprise, she did; she threw herself into the boys’ arms, embracing her new brother, and wept heavy sobs. She was crying in relief, crying in joy, sobbing for herself and the life she took, and at the uncertainty of it all.

There was something miraculous here.

And she prayed that it was a boon and not a terrible curse.

Chapter Text

The Justice of the Black Dragon.

It had been almost two turns of the moon since that fateful confrontation in her lord husband’s solar. Two turns of the moon since she had been banished to a Septry to contemplate her failings as a woman and as a mother in the eyes of her lord husband. Or so she felt. First, she was furious, bitter, and resentful for the first fortnight, scarcely eating and consumed by a feeling of betrayal that transformed into a bitter and almost all-consuming sorrow when not even little Arya snuck into her pavilion tent at night. She’d felt alone, crushed, and almost murderously angry at Daenerys for striking her, stealing her family, and turning them against her. That could be the only explanation as to why Robb looked at her the way he did, why Sansa sadly lowered her head and walked away when Cat looked at her with pleading eyes, and why her children would choose her over Ashara’s bastard. But the more time she spent away from them, the more people came. Men at arms from Winterfell first, then chiefs of masterly houses, and then Lord Wyman dined with her one night and Aurion Aetheryon, one of the many descendants of Lord Aenar or one of his siblings. Came and bid her good fortune and well wishes, saying that this would pass as with all pains and slights. She stared at the youth with silver-gold hair and turquoise eyes as though he were a fool, but she appreciated the attempt at conciliation. Another Aetheryon, a man at arms, assured her that everyone knew she was a great lady and that the Karstarks were a bunch of simpletons for spreading such foolish rumors.

Which rumors? She’d thought there were so many. The Southron whore, the Trout who seeks to usurp the wolf, Ashara’s Bane. That one had been harrowing, as if she had something to do with the horrific circumstances behind that woman’s death. Jon had always been a political rallying point for detractors who wanted her dead or set aside and her children disinherited so they could put forward their proxy and wield control through Winterfell. It was a game as vicious as any in the South and played with the kind of power the Valyrians of the North called “Soft power.” The ability to wield wealth, trade, and access to foreign ports as easily as the West wielded gold, the Storm Lands wielded steel, and the Dornish and Reach wielded oranges and corn. Ned never understood it; with the bastard present, it undermined her constantly, and she had felt as though he were a living reminder that had Ashara not killed herself, she would like as not have been set aside. early on at least, before Ned grew to love her. It had hurt her but seeing the look in his eyes. The good thing about being forced into isolation was that she had plenty of time to reflect.

And she realized how foolish she’d been regarding Jon. Rhaella was right. By hating the boy for the sins of his parents, I weakened Robb’s position and…undermined myself. Those rumors would never have gained the strength they had, nor would they have plagued her nor set her in competition with Rhaella, whom Catelyn had come to love as a second mother. The boy nearly died once, and part of her did blame herself for that which had contributed to her venom. It was easier to hate a boy you already were sore over rather than hating yourself. And it was an irrational fury; she’d grown up around bastards. Ever since Daemon, the true remained loyal to his brother, the stigma around bastards had faded, and the bastards sired by her cousins and granduncles were some of her closest friends growing up. Often, Snows in the service of Wintertown or of Winterfell itself called her cousin, and though it bordered on overly familiar, Cat had always allowed it; she treasured the friends she made when she so often felt so alone. As time wore on, some of them grew distant with her over how she treated Jon, and she grew sullen and angry over it when she should have taken stock.

The boy was no threat to her or her family, and when she realized how easily Daenerys could have cut Northern exports off from the markets of Myr had she been less attached to Cat, it filled her with enough shame that she had contemplated remaining in a Sept. She struck me, which was a grave breach of protocol, but she could have cost the North a million Gold Dragons yearly in trade over how I reacted. Wealth needed to continue growing the North and enuring its people against the winter. Daenerys hadn’t because she sees me as her mother, and I’ve been unfair to her.

The more she looked back on the boy’s flinching away from her, the more she realized he wasn’t trying to feign being a beaten dog but because he felt just as awkward and guilt-ridden as she felt shamed and enraged. He hadn’t spurned her attempt at a kind gesture so much as been surprised by the act (And Cat had been astonished at herself.); he hadn’t even raised the issue. It had been Cat who said the thing, Daenerys who had been in the room, and Cat who didn’t notice because she was so lost in grief.

I was not even allowed to bid farewell to Bran. Gods, he denied me my right as a mother.

He had! Lord Stark.

And the injury done would have undermined her far worse had he not sent her away to seek solace with the faith. She understood that now. The surprisingly subtle game Northerners played when the occasion called for it resulted in the North seeing Catelyn Stark not as a bloodmad foreigner trying to drive out Ashara’s son and alienate a close ally but as a mother lost in her grief who said ugly things as any man or women who faced the possibility of burying a son or daughter would.

It lessened the hurt and dulled her rage, but the truth was that it had been her weakness that allowed her to become so venomous and her husband’s lies that had fed her fears and fueled them well. Were my doubts a forge, I should fashion a metal greater than Valyrian Steel. Gods, what a fool I’ve been; I should have spoken this through with him and then approached the boy.

Purple eyes were rare outside those of Valyrian descent, some Starks of old in fable were said to possess them, and some members of the nobility of Yi Ti possessed eyes of various colors, including purple. They claimed descent from the Dragon Riders of the Empire of the Dawn though no Maester could ever find evidence of their claim. The Aetheryons had their sky blue eyes, and their Valyrian features seemed to grow more prominent during the reign of Jaehaerys the second and Aerys, As well as Daenerys and the Blackfyre’s generally. As though whatever sorcery with dragon blood was believed to have done in the Freehold of old to make Dragon Lords more kindred to their mounts, then men had been rediscovered and reworked. Still, there was one family besides the Starks and those descended from the Greenhand and the Storm King who had not needed to sell their souls to preserve their power.

The Daynes.

She met Elric Dayne, a cousin to little “Ned” Dayne, either the Lord or heir to Starfall. Cat didnt recall which as the poor man had been on death's door since the rebellion. Ser Elric was a capable warrior with purple eyes and pale hair, but she saw nothing of Jon in his eyes. But she saw plenty of Jon in Prince Jacaerys, Prince Maelys, and the bastard son of Aerys who married Dacey Mormont. She had ignored that for years, but dwelling on it now. Their mannerisms and certain smiles and laughs, all of that reminded her of the boy.

And she had been too lost in her rage to see it.

And when Daemon announced his intention to elevate Daenerys to the status of the lady of a Great House and then to that of a Princess in the same vein as the Dornish and the Dragonstone Blackfyres, the look on Ned’s face. Jon's as well…At first, she assumed it was merely a bastard’s fear of knowingly being held above his proper place, and then she laughed at the foolishness of that. Jon was a deer caught in a hunter’s torch but her Ned? A father should be proud of such an elevation; seven hells Catelyn should have been happy. Not only were the boy and her beloved foster daughter elevated to a major holding, but he had grown up with over-indulgent half-siblings, and it had all but guaranteed they would have a doorway into Myr and the Dragonlands for a century or so.

Yet both had been nervous all day and night since the King had broached the topic.

And the boy had been utterly terrified after the fact.

Pieces of a riddle long ignored came together slowly in her mind as she was cloistered away from the source of her rage. If it were true, she would let go of all her wrath towards Jon and refocus it on the idiot who had lied to her and kept her out of a conspiracy when she was the only person in Winterfell besides Rhaella with any experience in managing such things! Her husband’s honor was blinding at times, dangerously blinding, and would have severely hobbled the North had he not been raised by Rhaella and Rickard as if he were a ruler and not a soldier and by growing up alongside Lord Robert and Daemon and having the honor obsessed yet far more pragmatic Elbert Arryn as an older friend. Honor, it was the same nonsense that compelled nobles of both sexes to lead troops in battle to win a war only to die from their injuries besides their firstborn and lose it all when the remaining sons fell upon one another.

  The Riverlands weren’t known for it, but they were no stranger to warrior women as Dorne, the Stormlands, and the Vale were. It was merely that they tended to be admirals of the Riverfleets as her grand-aunt had been. But as Lysa Rivers always told her, no successful Admiral storms a longship with her men at arms. That ultimately was why House Tully prospered under their ladies, even when their men were frequently killed in battle. I suppose the same could be said of the Reach and the West, albeit for different reasons. Honor was the glue that bound the realm together more than Dragons yet also its bane. A Valyrian warlord once said, “Sacrificing an empire on the point of honor is neither honorable nor the mark of a sane man.” And Cat couldn’t have agreed more. And yet she was a Tully…family, duty, and honor were all they lived for.

But Tully honor differs from the Arryn honor that my Ned grew up embracing. It was far more comparable to Stark honor, pragmatic, loyal, steadfast but willing to accept dirtied hands if it meant protecting those you loved. Perhaps Ned is more Stark than Arryn, then.

If she was right…

He’d deceived and used them all.

It robbed me of the chance to decide if I could care for that boy and robbed the boy of his true name.

All to protect Lyanna's memory, not even her son, not truly.

Family, duty, honor.

Cat laughed bitterly as a servant helped fasten the broach that fastened her linen-lined silk tunic. “The Samite dress tonight, the one with the golden direwolves.” She was still the Lady of House Stark, and if what cousin ‘Sery said was true, then what she had been summoned to be part of could herald disaster for her children, and she would arrive and present a united front with the only man she would ever love, whom she still loved even though he was an utter imbecile. “And the diadem.” She added. “The platinum one with the direwolf with blue eyes.” Her servant was, in reality, a novice with the traveling band of Septons and Septas that had followed them from the North and the drunken Greenman who served as a cleric of the old Gods, something that she still found jarring even years later. None of the Southrons who worshipped the Old Gods needed prelates. Yet in the heart of pagandom in Westeros, there were clerics, and the influence of Valyrian religions on how the North practiced their faith was as evident as it was insidious in her eyes.

It mongrelizes their faith, and it diminishes it as well.

And yet there were moments where it only made the Old Gods more terrifying and majestic.

Dwelling on exotic faiths her mind wandered to R'hllor. Cat met both Moqorro and Thoros, she respected the deep, powerful wisdom in Moqorro’s eyes, but his zeal frightened her. Thoros was an adorable man, charming, pious in his heathen way, and a valiant warrior who defied all the better knights around him by leading the first charge through the breach at Pyke as dragon fire raged above them. Cat had been present for that. Thoros, Ser Aghorro, and Barristan the bold through the breach alongside Lord Jorah Mormont, who was later killed facing Balon himself.

what a dreadful rebellion!rThe Ironborn had stolen his heir and his foster daughter. She even gave birth in a pavilion tent as the smoke of Pyke rose into the sky. The King killed so many Ironborn I thought their race would vanish into legend. She shuddered at the memory. Arya came into the world during a rainstorm that saw the droplets of rain mix with the ashes that had once been Ironborn. Catelyn remembered wiping away the gray film that covered Arya’s tiny cheeks when she’d walked outside in the following days.

It rained dead reavers for half a moon’s turn.

Ned’s fear was understandable in light of that. Rhaella might have been the most experienced of all living dragon riders, but she was one hero with one dragon, and if she was right and the King ever found out…

Cat put the thoughts from her mind. They made her sick to her stomach, Daemon Blackfyre was easy to love and was a kind friend in return, a great and generous King, but there was another side to him that was more horrifying than any Targaryen that came before him. A side that made Black Harren look like those pacifists from Moraq who dedicated their lives to making mechanical toys for children, false eyes, and wooden legs and arms for broken men. That one could replace the other as quickly as Cat slipped on gloves was what terrified her more than anything. Daemon would exterminate everyone in Wintertown and bring Winterfell’s castles down on top of the ashes without much thought. If he felt it would make peace come easier.  “Thank you, novice Ella; I will take my leave now that you might sleep.”

Dressed, she walked out of her exile and into the night air, Lady of Winterfell again. Her pale blue eyes centered on Viserys Tully, her cousin, who was talking with a man in a red tunic with the black dragon of House Blackfyre, but the robe he wore had silver stars in the form of a crown on a field of burgundy and black. His night-colored hair had three gray streaks, and his goatee was finely trimmed and pointed. Alton Langward was a celebrated Tourney Knight who made a fortune losing to men by betting against himself through proxies, the fourth son of a second son. He had plied that fortune into creating a commerce house that his second son now ran. They’re based in the Crownlands, but his son sells timber to Braavos and Pentos, and his younger brother works for the Forresters as one of their premier factors in Norvos.

It was rumored that with his children grown and his wife no longer among the living, he had taken up service to the Blackfyre dynasty as a way to pass the time. The Northern Langwards was a fine example of discarded sons earning a fortune in the North and becoming new members of the merchant-based gentry that fueled the largest kingdom.

They owned the racing campus outside of the Wolf’s Den as well. Undoubtedly, he pays a fine tribute to his elder brother and lord of House Langward of the Crownlands. That was a nasty habit Cat would see stopped one day. It was one thing to support and help your cousins and brothers and sisters and honor your roots, but it was another thing entirely for petty lords in other Kingdoms to extort residents of the North for the privilege of striking out on their own. Ser Alton was now the Captain of the Blackfyre guards. They called the crimsons to distinguish themselves from the red cloaks of House Lannister. The latter was the fourth largest armed delegation in the capital behind the Knights of the Stormlands and the City watch, the personal forces of the Blackfyre Kings being the largest. Fifth now, my husband insisted on sending five hundred sworn swords South; they should arrive in a fortnight.

Rhakkaro Whitewolf of Myr would command them. The Whitewolf’s are proud knights, the founder of the line was a bastard brother of Lord Edwyle Stark, who married a Khaleesi, that followed him home after he killed her husband. Their House words, “It is known.” They were said to be both a tribute to their Dothraki heritage and a threat to their enemies. Rhakkaro was a fifth-born son and had been sent North to serve with honor in his ancestral house and perhaps earn his lands. The young knight was a good swordsman but wasn’t amongst the greatest. He is an archer without equal save Prince Daeron and that youth who won six consecutive archery tourneys. And Rhakkaro possessed a natural talent at command; he was a born general. One could not help but notice the warning Ned sent to the Lannisters when he dispatched that one to come to serve him alongside Roark.

“Ser Langward,” Cat said, trying to forget the crimson stains on Viserys’ white cloak and fine white armor. “Lady Stark!” Alton bowed and then, with an overly dramatic flourish of his cape, fell in line beside her as Viserys led them toward the gates of the immense castle of Harrenhal.  “What happened?” she asked at last.  “Why is there blood on your armor, cousin?”

‘Because I had to carry Lady to Lady Sansa’s tent.”

Lady?! Gods! “Pray cousin, tell me truly, what happened?!” “I can’t say for a certain,” Viserys grunted. “I was protecting the Queen with Ser Oakheart when Prince Tommen came in with a broken nose and a bloodied lip. He claimed your daughter Arya set her direwolf upon him after assaulting him with a training sword.” Catelyn paled, and Viserys raised his hand defensively with a warm smile. “Peace, cousin. I report what he claimed, not what I believe to be true.”

“Aye, and then the Queen ordered Ser Viserys to fetch the king, and the King bid he and I retrieve the Stark girls before Lannister men did so as not to avoid an upset.” Langward paused as if wondering if he could trust her with what he was about to say next, and when she nodded ascent, he added. “The King said he did not wish to execute any of his Goodfather’s men for foolishness. And so off we went in search of your daughters, their wolves, the Prince Maelys, and A Braavosi sword master. The most unlikely of quarry, and we found lions had beat us to our prey, and Captain Gerold Lantell, the Lannister puppet in charge of the red cloaks, was in the middle of besieging some stones and branches they had hastily assembled as a defense.”

Catelyn struggled to keep her breathing calm; a lady didn’t sweat in nervousness. It was most unbecoming, but the more this story persisted. Lannister men had acted before the King’s men to seize her daughters, the Prince, and two direwolves. Gods, be good! Wars have been started over less! As they stalked through the cobbled stones and passed the gardens of eerie, twisted roses and bushes that grew in the wake of the conquerors’ slaughter of the Hoares, she ran all the possibilities through her mind of what could happen. From the worst-case scenario to the most fantastical and optimistic. None of it ended well if Ned was allowed to argue alone. So she pressed on with the image of a butchered pup and a heartbroken child taunting her mind. “they had taken to loosing arrows into their makeshift fort, specifically targeting Nymeria but missed, and little Lady took three darts to the leg, shoulder, and hind quarters. Prince Daeron and Princess Rhaenys are tending her now and were quite wroth.”

“Princess Rhaenys even called forth Dawn and has had her menacing the Lannister camp ever since.”

Gods! She could easily end up being accused of her grandfather’s madness!

No doubt the Lannisters, Sunfyres, Frey’s, Hightowers, and Florents all had been waiting for an excuse to try and disrupt the marriage pact between the heir of the old dynasty and the new. To put their blood on the Iron Throne instead Though I wonder if they’ll be so insistent upon it with Daemon seeming sympathetic to our children.

“How bad is the pup?” asked Catelyn, her heart aching both for the gentle beast and her sweet and pure master, Catelyn’s eldest daughter. “Daeron is adamant that Rhaenys will be able to save her and that the wounds themselves were not too grievous. Syrio Forel killed several Lannister guards, and the Kingslayer demands the right to face him in a duel to satisfy the slight to his sister’s honor.”

“And how did it end?!”

“Well, we both arrived, and I ordered my Crimsons to kill every red that did not lower their arms. Ser Viserys pulled Captain Lantell from his horse and kicked him into a stream, and that was when your husband and Prince Daeron showed up; they were not pleased, and Lord Stark ordered that they be taken into custody charged with assaulting his daughters. Prince Daeron wanted to slit Lantell’s throat, and only master Syrio and Lady Sansa could calm them all down.” Langward grumbled with an annoyed voice. “It is awful, and Ser Estren claims that Arya attempted to murder Tommen, a lie to be sure, but the Queen demands your daughters be questioned.”

They weren’t going up a mountain; why was she suddenly so light-headed? She gripped her cousin’s wrist to steady herself and nodded numbly. Torture my daughter? Was I dragon rider, I would make a second Harrenhal of Lannisport if she dared! Was it not enough that the Lannisters likely murdered the old Lord Hand?! Did they have to now try and rob her of her daughters? A horrifying thought filled her head, and she almost fainted like a spring child drunk on tales again. What if this is a mummery designed to grant them a pretext?

“The commotion roused Lord Robert, and upon seeing Dawn outside the Lannister Camp, mounted Argella and had her land on the tower wherein the Queen’s closer Kin and more high-ranking Westerlanders are sleeping. He seems to have taken the attack on his future gooddaughter Lady Arya, to be a slight against his house. He is demanding that Captain Lantell be executed in the fashion of the Kings of Winter of old.”

Catelyn stopped.

Was Robert Baratheon’s bloodlust up to such a frenzy that he wished to disembowel a Knight and hang him on a Weirwood Tree? She blinked at him and then laughed, “This is madness; we are not starting a war because a bunch of children acted like children and fought like children. I will not allow this!”

“My lady is wise.”

“Your lady is a mother and thus accustomed to dealing with foolishness. Come, my good Knights, let us make haste!”

As they entered the doors to one of the great halls, Cat looked up and espied the glowing eyes and immense frame of Argella. Whose figure was like a malevolent storm cloud encircling the stone and tiles, preparing to disgorge its tempestuous deluge. Argella had stayed with Winter outside Bran’s window, sometimes taking turns with her old friend.

She was said to be the easiest to trust and befriend men of the original seven, but Winter would always be Cat’s favorite dragon, for the same reason Rhaella was like a second mother to her. Because they had always stood by her side, even when she foolishly believed Rhaella was undermining her, they always fought for her children. For Ned and Benjen, noble Aegos would occupy a close second in their hearts for their favorite dragon, but for Cat, it was Argella who had no reason to stand vigil beside her and Winter, yet she had, and Cat would not soon forget that.

A small gathering of fifty people was present in the hall, most were still adorned in sleeping robes and were barely awake, and Catelyn realized it was near the hour of the wolf, or it had to be. The Lord Captain of the Order of the peace for this area and her distant uncle Lord Gaemon stood alert and erect though, and Gaemon’s eyes blazed with fury. Lord Gerion was seated to one side of the King, his eyes a mix of fury and indignation, but they were boring into Queen Cersei and not Sansa.

 Lord Jason was seated further down on the dais, but his eyes were utterly devoid of emotion as usual, but the look he gave Prince Tommen had the other boy withering under it. On the other side of the King, to her surprise, was Sansa, who was speaking through tears with the King, while Arya and the short man she knew to be the Braavosi fencing master stood beside her, Ned. Princess Daenerys was there well, seated beside the boy, and she noticed that Ghost and Warden were lying upon the tables beside Jory Cassel and an irate Prince Daeron, seemingly keeping the temper of the Prince in check. Captain Lantell was firmly guarded by Nymeria and Lord Robert, who held his immense war hammer in one hand with the rest draped over his shoulders, smiling malevolently down at the captain. Maelys was standing like a sentry next to Sansa in the back, and she had only noticed his tall body as the moonlight shifted.

The King was seated on the marble Throne of Harrenhal, which had turned an eerie blood red and gray since Harren Hoare burned to cinders while seated upon it centuries ago. He was adorned in samite and crimson, the black Dragon of his house on the breast of his robe and upon the cuirass, he had adorned before entering the hall. His crown shimmered in the candlelight, and Cat noted so did his eyes, the same way Lord Aenar’s used to, with a similar albeit distinct potency to them. The King set a hand on Sansa’s wrist and looked up at the Queen. “The Prince, Tommen, assaults the daughter of the Warden of the North, accuses his kin of practicing fell sorcery to make ourselves more than human, then attempts to order his sworn sword to arrest said daughter whose only crime is defending herself. Who then is forced to barricade herself in a primitive earthen fort of her own making while her future goodbother our other son, the dutiful one, comes to fetch me.” His voice was calm, but there was something furious behind that quiet, and though he spoke softly, Cat did not fail to notice how it echoed in the room.

Her eyes shifted to Ned, and he flashed her such an anguished look she wished to run to him.

“They committed treason.” The Queen said offhandedly.

“When last I checked, a quarrel between children that degenerates into a siege is not an act of treason; it is a child’s feud made into something treasonous by the grown men and women in the area.” His voice grew louder, and The Queen seemed to take a step back.  “Direwolves are dangerous beasts, not pets for children. They should be destroyed.”

“An attack on a direwolf of House Stark is akin to an attack on Maelos, Daeros, or Dawn,” Ned responded coldly. “They symbolize our House as much as Winter does.”

“Agreed, old friend.” Lord Robert responded, clutching his war hammer tighter. “Let me cave the skull in of this reprobate for trying to shoot my future Gooddaughter, and I’ll send his bleached bones back to that shack the Lantells call a keep in Lannisport!” Men cheered, and Catelyn noticed not all of them were Baratheon or Stark, and more than a handful were men of the order of the peace whose pride was slighted by the fact that nobles made a mutiny within their mandate, and they had been late to put a stop to it.  The Queen’s eyes darkened at the slight to her House honor, and Prince Tommen seemed to shrink into himself as someone brought up the attempted murder of Visenya and Rhaenys. This is going to get out of hand.

Daenerys had done her best to remain composed when someone mentioned how the Queen’s brother murdered the Princess of Myr’s father and when the boy visibly tensed, she calmed him with a grip on the underside of his wrist as she did with Ned. Cat was immensely proud of her at that moment and wanted to smile, but this was the wrong place.

“I..if I may…My Lord husband...Your Grace...” Catelyn interceded, her eyes shifting apologetically to Ned, who was steeped in his cold fury, and gazing at the King with the kind of eyes she knew from a lifetime of marriage meant that he was about to make a decision based on emotion. I laugh; they accuse me of doing such things, yet guilt and loss drove my husband to make a decision that could have killed us all. Assuming she was right, and she prayed she was not. When Ned nodded, Catelyn swallowed and turned to face the King, who seemed to be furious and growing ever angrier. “Our children fought; it occurs with children.”

“Just so.” Added Master Forel, and Cat reciprocated his defense of her stance with a bow of her head. “Indeed, it seems the Strongboar and Master Forel were the only men of majority who behaved as men ought to.’’

“The lady of Winterfell is most gracious to refer to us as mere men in majority,” Syrio responded, slapping Ser Lyle on the forearm, eliciting a deluge of laughter from the ferocious warrior and soon the crowd. Something passed across the King’s face, gratitude it seemed, for the three of them had defused the mounting tension in the room to where even Ned found himself smiling as Lord Robert seemed to simmer in his rage. “Your daughter was still attacked.” He growled, “My future gooddaughter.”

“Yes, and my daughter trounced him with a broken wooden blade and knocked him down so low he had to fabricate a story of a conspiracy by a girl a year shy of her tenth name day attempting to kill the heir to the Iron Throne to soothe his unearned pride. My daughter Arya is headstrong, but she isn’t daft.” Cat said, adding a bit of levity to it. Her eyes shifted to Cersei; please see that I’m saving your son; Daemon’s eyes look dangerous; please do not see this as mockery for the sake of it.

“That’s true; I didn’t target Prince Daeron. If I were an assassin, I’d be better than a stupid one who picks the spare for the spare!” Arya dared to mouth in her most innocent tone.  The entire room erupted in laughter, with only the Queen and her husband remaining as silent as tombs. And the Queen's eyes grew malevolent.

So much for that.

“You see how she mocks your son!” Spat the Queen.

“No, my regal wife. However, I see how you mock him; the Lady is correct. The boy has done nothing to earn the pride he possesses. An ill-tempered pride, the same pride that motivated your father to sack the Capital. You fill his mind with delusions and poison, and I’ve long endured it because, as my third son and fourth born, the odds of him ever sitting atop that monstrous iron chair is so low you’re far more like to see a Child of the Forest than see Tommen as King.” The King, at last, leaned forward, his visage was partly shadowed, and his long, regal face was a mask of eerie calm as he spoke words that all but condemned his son to a life of obscurity before the court. “You treat him as if he is the golden child, wheat may be precious, but straw is golden in color as well.” When she made to speak up, he dismissed her with a gesture. “Ser Estren, why did you recant your original statement to my queen and then refused again to lend credence to his false testimony?”

“The Lord of the Rock pays me to protect the Prince, even from himself. I realized that in supporting his lies, I endangered his well-being over the length of his life.”

There were murmurs in the crowd. Even the mighty lion of the Rock held no faith in the boy, and suddenly some of those murmurs became bolder, and others reinforced Sansa and Arya’s version of events. “How much does the old lion pay you?”

“Three hundred Silver stags per Sennight, my lord.”

The King nodded. “Then I’ll add two gold dragons per Sennight to the pay.” There were whispers; it was almost three times what the average sworn sword made, as if the King was making a point that the generosity and wealth of the Crown were not to be dismissed even by the Lannisters. It was a fairly obvious maneuver but necessary to further emphasize how intolerable the events that transpired were. After a long moment, the King seemed to sigh, and the rage evaporated as though it were steam from a soup cauldron. “What am I to do? A fight between children nearly resulted in a civil war, am I wed to Rhaenyra come again? Tommen is no Strong passed off as a Velaryon” why did the queen turn white? Cat wondered in confusion.

“Captain Lantell will be exiled to Pentos, shall live there one year for every arrow that penetrated Lady’s hide, Tommen’s whipping boy shall be freed from his post and serve as Roundtree’s cupbearer, and later squire should the City Watch Captain wish it.” The King gestured to his son, “Come here, boy.”

At first, the Prince hesitated to cling to his mother, and Cersei held him firm until something flickered across the King’s eyes, and she let him go.

Slowly the boy walked up to the King, hesitant and afraid, his eyes a confluence of emotions that ran from shame to sorrow, fear and rage. The King’s moves were sudden and far too fast for anyone but the most skilled warriors present to see, and Tommen let out a sudden cry of pain as he spun where he stood, crumbling to the floor, blood gushing out of the eyebrow above his left eye where the King’s ring had torn open his skin.

“Mother! It hurts!”

“Be silent, you vicious little idiot; you’re lucky I don’t cut off your hand for striking your good sister! Rhaenyra is married to her brother, and her sister shall be Maelys wife. Their children will be your blood! Kinslaying is an abomination, and if you had succeeded in maiming Arya or worse, I would have had to send you to the wall or else take your stupid little head!” Daemon loomed over Tommen, and Cersei was shrieking. And then, as if it were over, the King knelt and gently pulled his son up. “You have earned nothing, no pride, and no glory to be salvaged, and saving face by lying only serves to worsen the sin, do you understand?” His tone became gentle and calm.

“I acted shamefully, father.” The boy whispered, but Cat couldn’t tell if it was sincere. “And I deserve this punishment, but I’ll never have respect now, for this was done in front of too many great lords…I thank you for the lesson, father, but you have damned me with it, so I no longer love you. I will see you no longer as a father but as my king, sovereign and liege.”

The room was deadly silent, but for a soft gasp from Sansa and the Queen, who looked as though she was watching her son commit suicide. He may very well have; that was a foolish thing to say. The boy has nothing save by the King’s leave.

To her surprise, that seemed to hurt Daemon more than he let on. She knew the King to be nearly granite in his core, almost unshakable and calm, but it was as if his son had stabbed him. It was a pain she knew well; looking back on that night with Ned, Cat was terrified Robb would lose all love he had for her, such was his fury at her actions. But he hadn’t; her sons would never say such a thing to their parents no matter what was done, save if she suddenly went mad like Alys Rivers or some such equally preposterous thing. “I understand; this was a lesson I had to learn at your age, the year before I left for the Eyrie. So great was my fury at my father for it that I snuck onto a ship leaving for Sea Dragon Point; I intended to join the watch. Instead, he found me and gave me my brothers, the father, and goodfather of the girls you defamed and tried to maim.” Daemon pulled him up and looked down at Tommen with sad eyes. “I hated my father until he called his banners for me, and I never got to apologize to him for that, to reconcile because dragon fire consumed him along with Urrax during the first days of the war..” He waved his hand towards Ser Jaime, who stepped forward.

“You are to escort him to Duskendale, where he will learn what it means to be a man and earn his spurs from Ser Alton in the service of your uncle Lord Stafford. Viserys, you are withdrawn from protection duty for the prince and will travel with Prince Maelys and Sansa Stark, wherein you will protect him in Castamere and its haunted mines until death takes you or a King recalls you.” Viserys seemed to hesitate before nodding.

“I do not disinherit you, boy, not yet. But I strip you of the name Blackfyre; you wish to find honor and glory? You say that I have robbed it from you; you are wrong. I believe you can be more than what you are. You will regain your name when you discover this for yourself, and I shall welcome you home as my son.” The King’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet it reverberated about the hall like thunder. “You will never be the swordsman Robb and Maelys are, but you are solid with a battle axe and halberd and spear, and I believe your mind is far better suited to commanding as a general than Maelys. Perhaps you will be remembered as the greatest master of war Westeros ever produced…I know that you will prove worthy of the Blackfyre name.”

“I will die in the attempt your grace, if for any other reason than to spite you and force you to restore my name and grant honor to my ashes,” Tommen responded, his voice weak yet baleful in a way that made Cat’s blood chill.

“That is your choice Tommen. You are still my son, and if you wish to harm yourself to harm me, I will mourn the son I failed in allowing him to become so stupid. But you will not escape this judgment.”

“You cannot do this.” The Queen insisted. “Parting a mother from her child.”

“Interesting that the father he detests can think only of his future, and the mother he worships can think only of herself.”

Daemon no! Catelyn wanted to intervene again, but she held her tongue; this was far too dangerous.

“Lord Stark, are these results to your satisfaction?”

“Aye, your grace.”

“And you, lord Robert?”

There was a grunt of acknowledgment, but it was hardly satisfactory; she could see the Storm Lord wanted to kill Captain Lantell, and she doubted he was pleased. “But neither of us are the one wronged.”

‘It is more than enough, your grace,” Sansa whispered, her face white with guilt. Poor girl, she loves so freely she feels as though she has condemned the Prince herself. Again, she wanted to hug her daughter, to reassure her, but like Tommen, she too was in exile from her family.  The King’s eyes shifted to Jason and Gerion, the two most ranking proxies of House Lannister save for the queen. “And does House Lannister wish to protest any of this?”

“Only our treatment by Princess Rhaenys and her Dragon. You bring up the sack, speak ill of your goodfather and my father, and you slander us even as we are attacked; what this idiot did is on House Blackfyre and not House Lannister. I will have an apology here and now for these calumnies and abuses, or I will urge my father to force this issue at court.” It was odd to hear those words from a boy scarce above ten namedays of age yet without any hint of the false bravado and wounded pride she expected from such a boy. Jason was so cold, and by the look in his eyes, it seemed that he didn’t particularly care about the slight but pressed the issue because he could, because it was expected and because he sensed leverage.

“The balls on this little prick, and they haven’t even dropped yet!” Lord Robert howled, his voice cracking like waves upon cliffs. “The Sack of King’s Landing was dishonorable upon your house.” It was Gaemon Tully who spoke at long last. “Would that my cousin Hoster had beheaded your father and not some shabby tabby in a coat of red.”

“My Lord Gaemon is a great lord and renown knight, yet I wonder if his honor would have stood the challenge of the ages were it not for Lord Hoster’s guile.” Retorted Jason Lannister without any fear in his eyes. “Would the Riverlands long endure the backstabbing and unwarranted ambition of its petty lords? When vermin like the Frey stand within arms reach with daggers at the ready?”

There was a hiss of anger, and the King raised an eyebrow, seemingly as confused as Catelyn was about what the boy was doing. “You have kin who are Frey.”

“My grandfather was a gentle man. Gods bless him.” Jason turned, bearing the full intensity of his green eyes at the King, matching his immense presence with one of his own, and for an instant, Cat thought the shadows cast on the wall by lanternlight took the shape of a giant lion warring with a dragon.

“Rhaenys, leave off them.”

She bowed and withdrew from the room, her purple eyes brimming with gratitude towards the King, for he would not force her to apologize.

“And the demonstration of contrition House Lannister is owed?”

“Will be given by me, for Princess Rhaenys did you no harm, it was I who brought up the sack of the Capital, and the damage to Lannister reputation that fear has long concealed is not visible but save by my conduct, and if you wish an apology, you have it. But you will not torture her; do you understand me, boy?” The King’s voice was hard and commanding, and sensing that he had gained all that he might, the youth bent to one knee and thanked the King for a restoration of a measure of the Lannister honor lost here today by all these sordid actions. “I will speak to my father about this from my perspective. I will show him where the fault lies, your grace.”

Daemon inclined his head in ascent, then rose and banged his hand against the nearest table. “With the King’s justice done, I hereby dismiss these proceedings, and I would thank the children in this ordeal and Master Forel and Ser Lyonel for their wisdom and discretion, all of you acted well, and the realm saw that just as pride can cometh before a fall, so too can truth right the stumbling course. You’ve raised your daughters well, Lord and Lady Stark. Take pride in them, as I take pride in mine.”

With disaster averted, the crowd began to disperse, leaving Catelyn to wonder if this had been allowed to go so far out of place as to bring the realm close to a knife’s edge as a test to determine the true measure of her daughters and if that were the case…Catelyn would never forgive Daemon Blackfyre for taking such a wholly unnecessary risk. As she departed, a part of her whispered something more What if it wasn’t to take Sansa’s measure but as a means to exile his youngest son and further antagonize the Lannisters? But if so..why?

These were questions Cat vowed to ascertain the answer to, no matter the cost.

No matter the cost.

Something was foul within the royal family, and for the sake of her children, she would discover the source of the rot.

Chapter Text

A.C 221

Very few people could stand before his grand uncle and show any fear. And perhaps only two men Aemon Targaryen, Maester of the Citadel, knew of that could gaze upon the scarred visage of Brynden Rivers, the Lord Bloodraven, and feel no fear. The first was his other grand uncle Prince Daemon Blackfyre who was busy putting Tyrosh in order and consolidating his new domains. The other was the youth clad in indigo and lighter blues who stared up with turquoise eyes without fear.  There could not have been a greater contrast between the men, for Uncle Brynden was adorned in a very simple tunic and cotehardie with a crimson cape and a pendant with his sigil, a white one-headed dragon on a black field. Opposite him, the younger, who smelled of the sea whore rare gems woven into his tunic, wore a silk robe depicting sea dragons fighting leviathans. Which was open and trailing in an inverse of the Yi Tish styles that had become fashionable in the Crownlands to escape the sweltering heat of the harsher summer months. His long white and silver hair was tied by a ribbon and flowed down his back and shoulders like a stream, the wealth of House Aetheryon on display even in his hair which had the bones of rare animals tied within—playing up the Northern Barbarian image. Aemon thought, and he was incredibly uncomfortable; he’d been summoned here to give an honest accounting of what was about to transpire, for his father had insisted that he record it for posterity.

Prince Maekar had little love for Brynden, he had been raised by Prince Daemon, who had been like a second father to him, and the bitter feuding between the two men transferred to the foster son as well. Uncle Brynden was never convinced that Daemon’s revelation of the conspiracy was genuine. He never took the claim that Daemon was visited by one of the seven well. Aemon didn’t know what to make of it, for he had doubted they even existed at certain points of his life and had only recently begun to discover magic that seemed to work in incredibly small and subtle amounts. Except for when it came to these two. Lord Aenar was thirty namedays, seven years older than Aemon was at three and twenty, yet he always seemed so much older, for he had achieved more than most men did in their lifetimes. Perhaps even some of my granduncles.

He had sailed his first voyage as a deckhand at seven, much like the Sea snake of old. Captained his first voyage sailing through the canal at Sea Dragon point, wrecking his ship in a river storm, then tracking down Greywater watch over three turns of the moon, surviving alone in the swamps of the neck. A year later, he sailed to hardhome in a galley and brought Wargs back to Sea Dragon point; fell sorcery was said to have occurred there, yet the Wargs seemed happy enough. The Citadel was unhappy about that; no one had recorded a skin-changer South of the Wall in six centuries. After that, he made it to Yi Ti and then to Yeen, where he dared the madness of the demon city. But his most famous adventures had the Sea Dragon sail into the West with a fleet of ships and then returned years after all the world thought him dead. The life of Brynden Rivers needed no description, one of the Unworthy’s great bastards, Brynden had spent his life uncovering traitors, serving his legitimate brother and nephew, and fending off the rebellions Aegon’s misrule had caused. His Ravens Teeth were the deadliest band of archers in the known world, the monstrous scar on his cheek, and his missing eye courtesy of the young Dagon Greyjoy, and it was Ser Brynden helped Lord Aenar set up his wildfire trap on the seas. Two sorcerers and one Maester.

Two members of the small council as well, one the Hand of the King and the other the youngest master of ships in history. Soon to be former Hand, for it seemed that Aerys would die soon, and Daemon Blackfyre (once called Daemon the younger to delineate from his father.) declared that he was too busy to return to serve as Hand to yet another King. And pacifying so much of Southern Essos so far from Dragonstone will take up the rest of his life and his sons as well. Another reason Aemon’s father misliked Grand-uncle Brynden for he believed that the entire war was designed to kill off House Blackfyre, not that he succeeded; there seems to be more of them now than ever. Aemon had mixed feelings about his cousins. Daemon and Aenys were fine men, and Haegon was one of the most eloquent and elegant calligraphers, Aemon had ever seen, even at the citadel. But their siblings were trade and profit-obsessed, flamboyant and inherited too much of Uncle Aerys love of the Higher Mysteries. The sun began to set, casting orange and pink rays through the open window in the room that had been chosen for this meeting.

A study room that hadn’t been used since the days of Viserys the First if the cobwebbed-covered Hightower motifs were anything to go by. Prince Maekar did not love Brynden, and it was clear he would soon be demoted back to his old post as master of whispers. Lord Aenar stood perfectly composed, his arms gently folded behind his back and his eyes a full display of neutrality, betraying none of the emotions roiling beneath the surface. “The King has lingered at death’s door for much of this past year, but he slipped into a coma this morning.”

“I take it the Grandmaester does not believe the noble king will ever rouse from that coma?” Aenar queried with that odd accent produced by someone whose native tongue was the ancient dialect of Valyrian spoken in the frozen North when filtered through common. Lord Bloodraven’s eyes narrowed imperceptively. “Know you anything about this?” it took all of Aemon’s energy not to look up from the parchment when his granduncle made the accusation.

“You know that I do not; why else would you bring me here and insult me by forcing thy nephew to make record your groundless calumny.” Aenar’s voice was mild and calm, but his eyes flickered with something akin to disdain as though he were sneering at a once-worthy adversary that had fallen low and hard. “Had thou suspicion, even without proof, I would be dead and Lord Edwyle most wroth.”

“Yes, the Lord of Winterfell does seem to have an odd preference for you; I suppose that is why you were elected as Lord to replace your father at the Dragonmoot and not your elder brother.” Brynden leaned back. “But my insult serves as a pretext; my nephew hates me and will likely order you to produce some sort of charge to have me arrested and condemned.”

“You’re a kinslayer; you butchered an errant nephew solely because his father was Aegor Rivers, you could not be certain of his loyalty, yet you did it all the same. I would not need to fabricate a charge, the boy came under a banner of truce, one you accepted ere your misdeed.” At that point, the Lord of House Aetheryon moved away from Brynden, walking towards a dusty old cabinet filled with ledgers and letters so old and yellow Aemon feared they might start to disintegrate if Aenar were to touch them. His back turned to Bloodraven; the Master of Ships and Lord of the Royal Navies did not see the look of sheer hatred in Brynden’s eyes. “I would recommend that thou be nailed to a post while still living. I would be honest, my lord Hand, I do not believe thou deserve an easy or clean death.”

“Nor shall I receive either, for I desire to take the black.”

“I should challenge it. Prince Maekar won’t care as long as he does not have to swing the hammer himself.” The Northern Lord retrieved one of the scrolls and read it, his eyes sparkling with amusement as he walked towards Aemon and placed the paper next to him. “Read that; it pertains to the Dance.” He said, as though the bastard hadn’t just explained the gruesome death he had in mind for uncle Brynden, Aemon’s blood, as though he were ordering a servant to bring him warm tea. “Ordinarily, in any case, but I know why thou seek to don the trappings of a black brother.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room, and then, at last, Brynden nodded slowly. “So, it’s agreed then?”

“Agreed, with the provision that your murderous mistress comes not with you. Set her aside and let another take up Dark Sister.”

“Regular steel will not assist me in my journeys to come.”

“Arrangements shall be made.”

Brynden Rivers quirked an eyebrow. “So, the rumors out Dragonstone are true?”

Aenar shrugged. “That is not what I speak of. House Aetheryon has..reserves spirited away during our exile. And others plundered over the long centuries since. You will not be lacking if thy intentions are true.”

“They are.”

Aemon continued to scribble furiously, stopping only when the men ceased their talk as servants entered to light the night lamps and replenish their stocks of oil, leaving Aemon to contemplate the implications of what they were saying. The Maester swallowed thickly; if true, then in a generation or so, House Blackfyre would reap a windfall few houses ever could, and a tiny bit more magic would return to the world in the form of Valyrian steel. The Lord of Sea Dragon point was silent for a long time before he smiled a slow smile. “Thou art the greater mage Lord Bloodraven, more puissant and learned. Contesting thy power is a venture for fools.”

“And yet you may be the most dangerous, how bitter a tale of irony the Gods weave for us.”

“Gods, my lord, or ourselves?

........

A.C 298

What an odd memory, or was it a dream? The Archmaester remembered being present for that conversation and feel like the rabbit trapped between two serpents. But the details of the discussion constantly changed in his mind. Sometimes they postured, brimming with insults and pettiness that benefitted neither man and was extremely unlikely; other times, the two bitter rivals had an amicable conversation where both admitted they had misread the intention of the other and made friends. Other times, his mind took him to deep and dark corridors wherein he witnessed a discussion between two black sorcerers who spoke of the finer details of fleshsmithing (A slander oft repeated about both men.), a conversation part of him believed did occur. Yet, the more rational part of his mind cast shame upon him for such low thoughts about a grand uncle and mentor. Aemon Targaryen was old; with the death of Lord Aenar, he was likely now the oldest living man in Westeros and was certainly the oldest living man at the wall, with only old Ramsay Bolton at seven and ninety coming close to his age. The elderly Commander of Greenguard had served with distinction as a black brother since the time of his father, King Maekar, and was the only brother in black who’d been here longer than him. There had been others once who were old and gray when Aemon was still a young Maester with silver-gold hair and purple eyes that were keen and not dark from age and cataracts. They were all dead now. “There are no graybeards on the wall unless they came for one last stand before the stranger came for them.” It was an ancient Andal saying from the days of the invasions, but over the last five centuries, that had steadily changed. With his forefathers being patrons of “civil institutions,” the watch was transformed from a place filled with a thousand criminals barely holding on to the edge of their sanity and a hundred disgraced knights huddling around fires for warmth surrounded by daggers in the night and hungry Freefolk that the stories all said were willing to feast upon their flesh. To one of the premier military orders of the known world.

That change came over the last half millennia, when the Watch became something grand again, its castles repaired, the gift settled by small colonies of men and women from Essos who followed one exiled Dragon or another or were the survivors of countless wars of conquest by the Freehold who brutalized an entire continent to fuel their endless need for flesh and fire for their sorcery. Andals who invaded the Neck and weren’t slaughtered, those who were descended from the Hungry Wolf’s vengeful slaughters millennia before, and First Men families that make up the majority. They hunt, farm, and fish the valleys, farm lumber and occasionally sell the ironwoods down the canals and rivers to the Forresters for silver and trade furs with the Ibbenese and Braavosi. There is a hardy breed of auroch that are used for meats as well as boar. Castle Black, Greenguard, the Nightfort, and Rimegate even have dwarf mammoths assisting the stewards and builders. Aemon finds them grouchier than even the Lord Commander, but he likes the beasts whose long trunks snuffle him when he passes as though they were greeting an honored elder of their herd and not another two-legged creature without fur in funny robes. They also seem to have a taste for metals, for they’ll steal his chain and suck on the Valyrian steel links if they can get away with it. He and the other Maesters have come to rely on their formidable senses of smell and hearing, for they can often detect illness in the black brothers well before any illness is manifest.

It had been interesting to learn that Tyrion Lannister had come to the wall with his two eldest sons; Asha Greyjoy was a patron of the Shadow tower and often brought pirates who opted to take the black rather than be keelhauled by the Sea Lion’s wife. But she was great with child again and had wished to sail back home to wait for the birth. Quellon, the eldest, was a defiant little Kraken but had a curious mind and was more than happy to help the Maesters in their library work and with the Ravens. That one would make a fine Maester if he wasn’t a gifted warrior and navigator. Disowning Tyrion was perhaps the greatest mistake Tywin Lannister made in a long line of mistakes.  From what his little nieces and nephews in Winterfell said, Jason Lannister was far too clever for his good. He lacked any of Tyrion’s sense of self-preservation which made his risk-taking impressively dangerous, a trait that reminded him of Uthor Hightower, the grandfather of the current lord Leyton, who was famous for sailing his ship through seas burning with wildfire to kill one of the Admirals of the Tyroshi navy in A.C 219. I was three and twenty then, and I knew the grandfather of a man two and seventy.

There were no two ways about it; Aemon was old.

As he walked from the great library of the Nightfort, he glided through the halls towards the courtyard where no doubt Melario Vaelenys, newly made master at arms of the Nightfort, was putting the newer recruits through the wringer. We sometimes gain a thousand recruits a year; some come seeking honor or glory, and others seek a way to escape a crime while helping their family out of poverty. Even in a realm as prosperous as the seven Kingdoms, poverty was an eternal blight, and most criminals stole because they had no choice. Many came to take the black because of the reforms made by the conqueror and expanded by Egg that permitted the family members of a black brother to receive a stipend for the service of their kin on the wall. Black brothers also received coin, but it was a pittance, enough for whores, Aemon supposed, and the occasional exotic meal. Still, most of the compensation came in the high-quality uniforms and clothing that prevented one from freezing to death out beyond the wall and the excellent steel supplied by the smiths of the gift who contributed swords and armor as part of their rents. Some of those Smiths are quite talented. Aemon thought one of them had fashioned his cane, made from a single long walrus tusk framed in and reinforced by good steal with a leather grip on an ironwood base. It made a peculiar sound Krazmo the Ghiscari and First Man-descended Master craftsmen who insisted it helped the blind focus.

He was correct; it reminded him of the tuning rods his sisters used to employ to help them with their singing voices. The soft echoes and hums the cane produced when it hit the floor could likely only be heard by the animals of the castle and their best hunters and trackers but old as he was, Aemon’s ears were as sharp as they were in his youth and the soft sighs his cane produced helped him focus and in the two decades since he lost his sight. He’d never needed aid to walk these halls. Several men bowed their heads as he walked; he could tell by the rustle of their clothing and the motion he could feel on the periphery of his tactile senses. He could also sense the perpetual aura of amused despair that emanated from Eddison Tollett, commander of Long Barrow, who had spent the last seven years engaged in an endless war against the rats he claimed infested his castle and was likely here to request more stoats for the task of pest control.

“The watch has ten thousand swords, and Long Barrow has ten thousand-thousand rats.” He’d always say. There were unusually large rats in the Nightfort and older, darker things beside. Though no Black Brother had died from whatever it was that occasionally haunted the halls, not in the six and thirty years since Aemon Targaryen was sent back to the still semi-ruined citadel and made Archmaester and returned to the Nightfort. There were times, though, when even the son of a dragon knew not to venture out alone into the dark halls at certain hours of the night. Luckily there were so many people in the Nightfort that it hadn’t seemed as menacing as it was when he first arrived at the wall, and it was still in repair. Some disaster had befallen it during the reign of Jaehaerys. The first, all six hundred men within vanished, and the castle had partially collapsed. All that was found was a bloody scroll delivered to Castle Black by a bloodied raven who died of its wounds moments later, and all that it said left more questions than answers.

We were wrong.

It was a mystery few cared to ponder.

Especially since it was reclaimed and repaired.

A warm summer sunset greeted him, not the ominous one from his memory, and though he no longer possessed eyesight, he had a fairly solid idea of how it must have looked. An ocean of orange and gold and reds and purples breaching and washing over white clouds a deluge of color, the last stand of the light yielding to the queen of the night, the silver moon who rose like a warrior queen to blanket the cosmos in a curtain of the night filled with diamonds. “He isn’t here anymore.”

The confidence that belied a certain charming petulance could have only belonged to one person, the younger son of Lord Tyrion and Lady Asha. “Ah, master Tytos, never fear he’s likely gone off to hunt.” The “he” they both referred to happened to be a young dragon conceived by Maelos on Winter (or so the Dragon keepers believed, no Maester dared to verify draconic mating habits.). He hatched a year before the rebellion in the days after the infamous tourney at Harrenhal. He had never claimed a rider, nor had his siblings or the dragons believed to be his siblings. One had taken up with a crew of Ibbenese sailors and made himself a lair on the coast of Ib, where he was revered as a leviathan slayer and seen as a great asset to their whaling fleet, but none dared ride him.

The other slept in a lair above West-Watch-By-The-Bridge; he was all white and with red eyes like his mother and an armored club on his tale. Commander Thorne reported that hot springs had begun to flow within the bedrock below the tower and that steam was seen rising from the gorge during the hotter summer months as if the Dragon had awoken some ancient defenses. Thorne appreciated the Dragon's help in killing wildlings that attempted to cross the bridge. If the Aetheryon’s accepted more freefolk than mere Wargs and greenseers and other mystics, then mayhap we would not need to fight them. But that had been a fruitless debate with the old Lord Hand, and Aemon never liked him, respected him, oh yes, admired him once perhaps. Still, there was a darkness in his power that Aemon could never fully bring himself to trust, and he knew that Benjen Stark, his more wolfish nephew at the wall, agreed with him on that sentiment. “Not this time.” Tytos Lannister whispered almost sadly. “This time, I think he means to find his rider.”

“Indeed?” Aemon asked.

That dragon was long and serpent-like, with very long wings and a long, prominent snout with a beak-like scute of armor over it. Its underbelly was a dark purple, it had two Antelope-like antlers, and its eyes were a dark green. He’d been beautiful, truly beautiful, and he had been named Obyroth. When he’d first heard its description, for a talking serpent from Valyrian folktales, a lord of a mysterious people from the ancient east with multi-colored eyes and pale hair which it was said took the form of the black-winged serpent to mate with wild dragons and who taught the men of the peninsula how to tame dragons. “And how would you know that little master?”

The boy shrugged. “I’ve spent the past Sennight sleeping with him, reading books about the dance, showing him pictures of riders. I asked him if he would not mind a friend and companion, a battle brother so that he might pay the iron price for his food and find himself a family he could live amongst through the generations with endless brothers and sisters. He seemed to listen; dragons are brilliant.”

Indeed, they are, and only the son of Tyrion Lannister would be both intelligent enough to win a dragon’s affection without a drop of Targaryen blood and insane enough to spend his evenings in the coils of a wild dragon that taken the men of the Night’s Watch as pets to guard against wildlings and used the Shadow Tower as a place to live. But otherwise ignored black brothers but for those with Targaryen ancestry, whom he seemed to regard as a curiosity. Obyroth was very large for a dragon without a rider though nowhere near the size of Winter or the other older dragons. “Did you fancy yourself that rider?” Aemon asked, surprised that he didn’t detect any disappointment in the boy’s tone. The youth hardly surprised him, shaking his head. “No, our power comes from the sea and the mines of the world. It will always be thusly, but my father says we should stand in solidarity with all bastards, cripples, and broken things, and Obyroth struck me as a bastard and a broken thing. He needs a friend; I became his, and now he needs a name. He will find one.”

Aemon smiled down at the boy. Who reminded him so much of Gerold Lannister, his great-great grandsire, who was as quick to laughter and kindness as his son and successor but also a discerning man who was almost prescient in his perceptiveness. “There’s the kindness of your namesake in you, but I see much more of Gerold in you.”

The boy flashed a smile but then gazed quizzically at the old Archmaester, who had begun to frown. “Go inside, boy; another dragon is coming.”

“But why should I go inside?”

“This one is Dearos.” One of the two dragons who killed more Ironborn than any army in the history of the known world, Daeros kraken eater for as Vaegon had killed the last Kraken conjured by the insane Euron Greyjoy, Daeros had slain the other two, feasted on their flesh and then in a mad quest to avenge his fallen rider had utterly depopulated the southern coast of Blacktyde. It was only stopped by Winter and Argella pinning him to the ground and holding him until his fury was last exhausted. When Monterys died, Daeros killed twenty thousand Ironborn; only Vaegon and his rider Aerion exceeded him in the number of deaths. Aemon had no idea how the dragon might react to a boy who smelled similar to the man who killed his first rider and was glad when Tytos bowed, excused himself, and ran into the Keep as the silver-colored dragon appeared on the horizon.

Princess Visenya was coming. Has she come to visit before her wedding? Steffon will be most wroth; he wished to ask for my blessing for her hand in person. But Daeros wasn’t a dragon that allowed anyone but his rider on his back, so her arrival was most curious. Then again, perhaps Lord Stark had paid close attention to the number of defectors recently and the number of raiders managing to slip past even a ten-thousand-man watch. The sad truth is that prosperity and success have made us more vulnerable. Sneaking through a wasteland is hard if there are any watchers, but when hiding in plain sight…

It was near dark by the time Princess Visenya Targaryen with her tanned Dornish skin, a smile that reminded him so much of his own mother, a queen long dead now and whose hug filled his ancient bones with warmth and rekindled the dragon’s flames within. “Uncle, we must talk.” Daeros stretched behind her. His silver body shimmered like freshly minted coins in the son's setting, or so one of the newer recruits had said before Master Rogare kicked him into the snowy dirt. When the dragon took off again, Aemon could not help but notice that it flew over the wall as men cheered, no doubt smelling something interesting in the haunted forest and scaring wildling scouts belonging to Mance Rayder’s host out of their wits. Even the Freefolk know of the Kraken eater, but….

He remembered the reports.

Aemon wondered if it was time to attempt to prohibit Dragons from flying over the wall.

What was it the fire worshippers within the watch said? “For the night was dark and full of terror.”

…………….

Council.

“Aye, it’s dye woven into the steel during the forging process, I can do it, and old Wyn the hammer of the giants does it with purple in their big old shovels for the pioneers, Lord Thenn here musta seen it too; not giants make n’dats obvious but it ain’t the Manderly forge’s work either.”  Mikken was tall, gray-bearded, and robust from years working a forge. Mikken was a master smith who, despite being born in Wintertown, had journeyed in his youth to apprentice to the sage smiths on Dragonstone and, upon learning enough of their secrets to classify as a journeyman, traveled the Westerlands and studied among their equally remarkable smiths and goldsmiths and jewelers before returning to Winterfell where he eventually forged the suits of armor for the order of the wolves and the first weapons of two generations of Stark children. A Guild master of enough renown, he was often asked to settle territorial disputes between the Guilds of Oldtown and Lannisport. Mikken spent more time supervising work, training apprentices, officiating at the guild hall, and working with Maesters than working forges.

But he still took out his hammer and apron for House Stark, and his skill and eye for craftsmanship was second to none in the North, save the Magnar of House Thenn, who was for bronze and silver what Mikken was for steel and iron and gold. Several Southron Lords couldn’t believe Styr worked with his hands, but the Thenns insisted that the Magnars all know how to work metal else they lose touch with their roots.

Others like Lord Dickon Tarly of Starpike and Lord Richard of House Lonmouth, and one of the sons of Lord Swann found the notion sensible. They admitted to pursuing similar endeavors, with the young Dickon impressing several with his archery and leatherwork skills. And his future goodbrother, Gendry, asked if he might spend some time in Lord Styr’s forges, and the two became instant friends (With Steffon Baratheon and Sigorn becoming swift battle brothers.). The Bald thenn, with a granite-like chin, gave a nod. “So, you think it’s the work of one of Mott’s apprentices?”

Mikken shook his head. “The Princess is right though, m’lord Thenn. This is of Qohorik make, but the maker’s mark on the blade isn’t one of Mott’s boys. I seen this mark only once before when I was with Lord Rickard in King’s Landing when he was visiting the mad King ‘afore he was mad and ‘afor that duel where Tygett and that Blackfyre cousin I forget his name killed each other. Hmm..who was the smith? He asked. "What made this? Ah! Maester Vogos, there we are. I can’t imagine he’s still living, though; he was described as a wise, learned, and experienced master back when I was a boy.” He held the dagger in his hand, admiring the balance and the grip.

“Now, m’lords, this dagger would have cost two or three thousand dragons; with that much gold, you could buy half a thousand good quality daggers and equip as many cutthroats. This was probably taken from a wealthy lord’s armory. And I do mean rich; Lord Tygett said his suit of armor cost fifty thousand dragons.” Mikken urged, eliciting a whistle from Jory, who was now eying the blade in a better light. “Any lord what has something like this and doesn’t miss it or wear it to bluster is wealthy enough to have a lot of these from all over the world and maybe even something better.” His tone was low, the shadows in his forge obscuring half his face, but even without a clear look in his eyes, Robb knew precisely what he meant.

Valyrian steel.

“I thank you for your wisdom Mikken.” Robb bowed his head, and the master of Winterfell’s forges smiled sheepishly. “Twas nothing, young lord; visits like this are rare, and it is an honor to be recognized in my profession by the family I serve and love serving.” He paused, then added, “And the commerce boost after such consultations is always appreciated.”

Robb laughed and then slapped Mikken on the shoulder. “That reminds me, I’ll be needing six hundred new spurs, and much as I appreciate Dornish craft when it comes to spurs and saddles, I’d rather not let prying eyes in on this.” His smile was dangerous though not for Mikken; if his father, mother, and aunt Lysa were correct, then Robb had a duty to prepare for war and do so as discretely as possible, which meant no babbling by drunken Guild factors. “Aye, we’ll be making the full order then as opposed to the usual half. Very well, then. I’ll call a guild meeting tomorrow night and hand out the contracts. We’ll handle it in House, Dragontown, Barrowton, and Wintertown only, them White Harbor boys pay their guild dues in advance, but they get chatty ‘round sailors, but we’ll tell them its an order straight from Winterfell to stay quiet on this business.”

“Thank you, master Mikken.” Robb half embraced the older master and departed with his retinue; he would make sure to pay twice what was expected even if he knew he could count on their discretion; if the worst of the worst came to it, then these poor bastards would be spending more time in their forges than they’d be spending sleeping much less with their families. Many would be contracted to follow the armies south with all the risks that entailed. One did not expect to be rewarded for doing one’s duty, but Robb couldn’t see the harm in it; let them have a great year and enjoy the peace while it lasted. It was strange to know that war was on the horizon and yet not feel any nervousness beyond concern for the families of the men he’d be leading into battle.

Robb didn’t like the idea of making orphans of having to pay out war stipends, and injury doles for his levies because it often meant many would return broken men if they returned at all. But the prospect of war didn’t frighten him; if anything, he felt a burning in his blood, a yearning to test himself. I doubt I will ever ride a dragon, but Bran is correct. We don’t need to ride them; we merely need to command the riders.

He knelt, though in truth Greywind was growing so large in a Sennight or two he wouldn’t need to kneel, and scratched his neck and chin, getting a soft growl of pleasure from the direwolf. “So, we know for a certain that these common-born criminals held a blade. Only a few Houses in the realm would be wealthy enough to possess so many that they wouldn’t even notice it.”

“Narrows it down to ten of you southerners,” Sigorn remarked in a lazy voice. “Excepting four. The Tully’s, your House, The Manderlys, and the Sea Dragons.” His father grunted in agreement. “That leaves the Sunfyre’s or their Lannister masters, Hightowers, them flower bastards, and who are the ones what look like rats?”

“Freys,” Sigorn offered; he had begun to cut himself a piece of salted pork from a merchant’s stand and tossed a few coppers at the merchant for his trouble. "Moat Cailin Starks have the coin too but good luck ever getting them to leave the Neck." He grunted.

They hadn't even come for the King's arrival or my wedding. Robb realized, nor had the Reeds. Queer

Styr nodded. “Aye, those Black Dragons too, but I guess we can count them out.” They continued to walk back towards the entrance to one of the Keeps fused into the wall. Dragonstone, how the Aetheryon’s managed to secret away the knowledge to make it, but the Targaryens who did not retire in disgrace failed to do so was an interesting riddle for another time. But the Sea Dragons kept that knowledge alive until their last dragon died. The secret to forging such wondrous metal was rendered useless because the dominant mechanism of its creation died out, with only the Westerlands possessing true Valyrian roads. After all, some Lannister King paid so much gold to a Targaryen prince three centuries before they founded Dragonstone that he had accidentally devalued gold across the known world. To compete in the changing world, the masons in the guilds at Oldtown had invented or rediscovered (If the boasting of the Yi Ti wasn’t fanciful lies.) liquid stone, a fast-drying substance that was made from lime, seawater, and volcanic ash and rock imported either from the North or from what would become Dragonstone. “The war of the masons” was a book Jon and Jacaerys found ponderous, but Robb thought it was fascinating, just how cutthroat the feuding between tradesmen could be. They play a game of thrones all their own, right under our noses with its own ancient rules and protocols and vendettas.

That was what made him question the origin of the dagger; At the same time, he had no doubt it came from one of the great houses and most likely the Lannisters themselves (as that had belonged to a brother of Lord Tywin evidently.), he couldn’t be definitively certain that it was the Lannisters. His mind wandered back to that book, how an assassination attempted on a Gardener Prince made to look like it had been the Storm Kings plunged the two kingdoms into war. How did this benefit the mason guilds? According to Maester Kennedi, the largest Westerland guilds used the chaos of that war to steal the secret of liquid stone from Oldtown. If Maester Kennedi was to be believed, textile guilds had orchestrated the whole thing because the exhaustive war started one of those canal-building crazes for the movement of troops which in turn would lead to a trade boom for their members.

It was conspiratorial nonsense, but Robb found it fascinating. While many lords were utterly dismissive of the power of merchant houses and trading cartels, Robb was born in a realm that would collapse and suffer near extinction of its populations without importing and exporting, as widescale farming still wasn’t entirely feasible in the North, if it ever would be. Not that it mattered, other Maesters described Kennedi’s writings as “Groundless complot speculations.” One even went so far as to use a word Robb had never heard applied to anything but cribtales before “A work of the fantastical.”. Of course, Maester Kennedi was eventually shot through the stomach by a mad Ghiscari while attending a guild meeting…But, the unpleasant thought remained in his mind.

“I’ll confer with grandmother, my wife, and Maester Luwin tonight; Styr, you and your son are welcome to remain in the castles until the end of the turn of the moon.” He had received word that Jacaerys had doubled back and returned North and desired to remain another year here, sensing the trouble and wishing to lend the resources and wisdom of the narrow sea domains. And earlier today, Maester Luwin received a raven stating that Orys Baratheon, his squire Stannis Seaworth and Alicent Redwyne, the betrothed of Prince Jacaerys Blackfyre, would be sailing North on a ship Captained by Allard Seaworth one of the most trusted navigators in the Reach. Jace himself had turned back and was sailing North, as were a contingent of his cousins from Tyrosh. He’d received the oddest letter from Lord Mace Tyrell earlier inquiring him on the affairs of the North and if his children comported themselves well in Winterfell during the royal procession, begging forgiveness for not being present himself on account of illness. He didn’t wish to be challenged into an honor duel by Lord Robert.

That told Robb that trouble was brewing in Highgarden and the greater Reach, as well as if embers left to smolder after Maelos’ fury during the rebellion had begun to bloom into brushfires. If the North is to play host to counter-complots, then let it not be said that House Stark fumbles in the dark.

He would ask father to appoint a successor to Roark in the North. One that could be relied on just as well, one young enough Robb could forge a bond that would last a lifetime. Deep must the roots be when they entered the Magnar, who had been silent as if in ponderation, spoke again. “I thank you for the offer, young lord, but we should head back to our domains; if war is coming, we’ll need to look to preparations of our own, and the Mountain Clans always come down seeking bronze and steel from us around this time of the year anyway. And wildling raiders have been harassing the mammoths’ herds that graze in our valley; I’d rather not have rampaging giants about my lands planting anyone who looks vaguely guilty into the ground headfirst as a human carrot.”

That was an odd phrase, but it got the point across, and Robb nodded. “I thank you for your time then, Magnar Styr.”

“And you for your hospitality Magnar Stark. May the blood of the wolves guide you well in your hunt and the dragon's blood fill you with the fire needed to see it through.” With a bow, they departed from his company down the halls to their apartments to make the preparations they’d need for their long journey north to their valleys and lake towns that made up their humble domains. The Thenns could only field two or three thousand foot and maybe two hundred horse, but their men were incredibly hardy and were among the best trained in the Northern Forces, worth at least three times their number against any troops but Stormlanders. Not that the North would ever fight a Kingdom that was one of its closest allies, one that made up a foundational pillar of the alliance that propped up the realm.

Robb decided to head for Bran’s room, where no doubt his wife, youngest brother, or grandmother would be. Likely with Maester Luwin, who was busy helping to get Bran back on his feet and rebuild the damaged muscle in the arm. Bran, who lost his eyes yet seemed to see clearer than anyone in the castle. He’d woken up different, seemingly older in spirit and determined to head to Myr no matter what; Robb would miss him for, in all ways, the boy was still his brother and one of his best friends, and Robb would cherish the time that was left to him with his younger brother until he would again be parted from yet another member of his pack.

Father won’t return for years, if at all…Arya will spend a year here and another year in Castle Greystorm and Storm’s End and then back and forth until she reaches majority. Sansa has already left for the Westerlands, and I’ll not see her until trade interests compel me to go South.

But he knew in his heart they’d all meet again and spend time together often. Both their love as a pack and the looming conflagration meant they’d seldom be parted for long. Even the ones in Myr, Dany, Jon, Bran…we’ll all meet again.

Robb Stark hoped he’d only have to bring an army to those family reunions once or twice.

Chapter Text

The Lady of Winterfell

There was a part of her that had longed to dress in the blacks and reds of House Targaryen, the colors that for three centuries heralded the coming of the founders of the greatest empire since the dawn age. That’s what Westeros is; Tywin Lannister, for all his malice and failings, is right about that. Westeros was an empire in all but name, unified by fire and blood, maintained by dragons, and grown and cultivated and made to flourish by the many peoples that made up the subjects her family ruled for three centuries. Seven Kingdoms, five peoples, three languages, and four faiths. But united by one king, on one throne, and even if her family had been pulled down from that throne due to the insanity of the man who the history books would say was her father, Daenerys Targaryen would never shun those colors. She and Jon, they would make House Targaryen mighty once again. And not just mighty, but wise, just, and fair, with the honor of her true father, Ned Stark, and the love of Rhaella Targaryen, the only grandmother she ever knew. She would bring the fury of Arya, the curiosity of Bran, the tempestuousness of Rickon, and the stoic brilliance of Robb Stark to House Targaryen’s regal bearing, its ancient legacy, and its vision. A serving girl slid a black silk robe with three red-headed dragons over her red and black Kirtle, the colors of House Blackfyre, for whom she owed her survival. Lady Catelyn was right, and the King didn’t even deny it.

She had confronted him one night as they entered the Riverlands, asking him if he indeed arranged Myr was a crucible. When he smiled a serpent smile and looked at her with eyes a mix of pride and puzzlement and didn’t even bother to deny it… she had been stunned into silence. Then all the years of training by the matrons of House Stark kicked in, and she found herself nodding in agreement, much as it annoyed her, much as she realized the gift could quickly become poison. The realm needs to believe that I’m setting you up for disaster and removing you from the continent, I don’t want your house to go extinct, and I think you’re destined to be more than a Stark vassal. I want to help you, but I must also remove you as a threat.

Putting a domain that started in the sea of Myrth and ended on the best bank of the Rhoyne, nearly on the doorstep of Volantis, the mightiest of the surviving free cities, in the hands of one of the last scions of a deposed dynasty was indeed akin to painting a target on her back and cloaking her in straw during an archery competition. But he also gave her a speech about her strengths and Jon’s and how he believed if anyone was up to the task, it was the last living daughter of Aerys the Dragon (an honorific her father earned when he was still heroic and not utterly mad.) and the bastard of Winterfell, noblest of the Snows of House Stark. He alluded to other things that she didn’t understand that left her frightened, confused, and excited for the adventure of it all. As she gazed at herself in the Myrish mirror, Daenerys felt a stirring in her blood. A land we can claim, a land we can tame…A people whose love we would have to earn and, once we do, may last a thousand years.

She traced her fingertips along the single large braid that her hair was wound into, fingering the jewels woven between the braid and the small plates of platinum and silver that hung off the end; her eyes flickered in thought. He seemed to believe House Blackfyre was merely holding the Throne in trust for us; I would like that…An Aegon may marry a daughter three hundred years from now, reuniting the bloodlines.

She certainly had no desire on the Iron Throne for the same reason Rhaella eternally praised Lord Robert for loudly voicing her disgust with the idea that her children might be chosen at the Kingsmoot during the rebellion. Quellon was a staunch rebel; why did his son go mad and betray us? That was a strange notion, but she felt closer to the rebels who deposed her family than she did her own, save for the twins and her half-brothers and uncles at the wall. While she loved the notion of ruling Myr, of having a Kingdom all to herself, not counted as the eighth (Ninth?) of Westeros but seen as an overseas domain yet a Kingdom all the same with proxies and votes on the Lord’s Council. That interested her more than inheriting a cursed chair that caused her family nothing but pain, starting a new a place she could build into a better world for her nobles and smallfolk alike with the man she loved fiercely and desperately by her side. A boy she’d known she loved from the time they were small children. Jon was always going to be mine; I knew that. I cannot say how, but I knew it.

She knew he was different from his siblings, but she could never understand how, except that Daynes was said to be descended from the last hero. And even his legends yields to the Starks. There was something about both bloodlines, much as there was with the Arryns, something the blood of the dragon felt compelled towards, a recognition of something that preceded and preceded. Perhaps that was it? She wished she could talk to Lady Stark about that; much as she was furious with her for the things she said about Jon, Lady Catelyn had been the only mother she ever knew, and though she couldn’t fully forgive her, she still missed her.

It came as a surprise when her door was opened by one of the Blackfyre guards who bowed. The Stark guards had been given the night off after the tensions the other night, and Captain Langward had volunteered his men to do their duty while they shed their stresses and worries. Catelyn Tully stood before her, in all her splendor as the Lady of Winterfell, no longer adorned in Tully colors again as it seemed Lord Stark had lifted her temporary exile, and she held her hands clenched together in front of her stomach, a nervous look in her pale blue eyes. Nervous and, to Daenerys’ surprise, guilt-ridden. Dany did her best to steel herself, wanting to appear stern and forceful and not revert to a little girl running into the lady’s arms, sobbing and begging her to let go of her hatred towards Jon so that she could come to visit her grandchildren even if they weren’t by blood that she loved her as a mother and to do it for her if not for herself and her future children. Instead, she inclined her head, permitting her entrance. “Lady Stark.”

She smiled sadly as if the stiffness in Dany’s tone felt like a slap. Good, but..oh, but I wish this could be put to bed. “Princess Daenerys.” She responded, walking forward. “Might we talk?”

“Is this about Jon or you?”

For a moment, her eyes narrowed, and Dany saw rage billow under the ordinary calm exterior. Catelyn Tully was an amazing woman, but whichever Maester wrote at length about the blood of the dragon had never met a Tully. Her emotions can completely possess her at times; it makes her an amazing mother but a terrible mistress of the North when she lets it happen. It also frightened Dany on some level, in the way that only a devoted daughter can be fearful of the wrath of a mother she loved and respected. “He will be the father of my children, my lady; they will be your son’s overlord one day. I no longer think it’s appropriate for me to endure any more calumnies where it concerns him.”

Despite her bristling, Lady Stark gave a slow nod that seemed to be, on some level, contrite. “I know…” she said softly, trying to measure herself. “In truth, I find myself unable to hate the newly made Prince any longer; I...It has cost me much..” She looked away, gazing towards the window. They had been invited to stay in one of the immense towers of Harrenhal, one that faced the lake, where she could see the lightning bolts in the skies and the black and green gouts of flame. Aerax was a sweet dragon, kind and noble and driven to serve the men and women of House Tully, but above all, Edmure, who called her his niece even though she was a ward of House Stark and not in truth their daughter by blood. Yet I am kin to most of them, for they all have a drop of dragon’s blood in them. “I know that I am not your mother by blood…however.”

Daenerys smiled sadly; her mother had gone to the birthing bed during the early hours of the sack of King’s Landing and had died as Daenerys was being pulled from her body by serving women who had barricaded themselves in the room and prevented Grandmaester Pycelle from entering the room. Battleborn, they had called her, for she came screaming into the world just as Styr Magnar of House Thenn killed the men at arms sent by Ser Gregor Clegane. She might have been born a dragon of the South but the first man to hold her in his arms was an earless warlord from beyond the wall turned noble, and the GreatJon sang the first lullaby she ever knew.

She was raised primarily by men only by Lady Catelyn, Princess Rhaella, and Septa Mordane as women. She’d never known her father, and as far as she knew, Ser Jonothor Darry abducted Viserys and ran with him, ran and ran until the child died. The man resurfaced as a Sellsword in Yi Ti serving this mysterious Dragonseed turned noble. The only family she ever knew were the Starks. Until five years ago, when the daughters of her dead brother Rhaegar began writing, the King started to write to her, addressing her as cousin and promising he would never see her as a threat. But has to pretend to. Dany thought bitterly.

“Please sit, my lady,” Daenerys said, gliding across the room to grab a wooden box of Drakos, she knew Lady Stark hid her habit from her youngest children, but it was obvious to anyone with a sense of smell that she partook. If the fragrance was anything to go by, almost everyone inside Harrenhal partook as it was almost hard to breathe. Lady Stark seemed gratified and smiled ruefully. “Ned and I try and contain it to our rooms.” “I know.” Dany offered before she sat on the bed. “You say that you cannot hate him anymore?”

Lady Catelyn sighed as she used an offered candle to ignite the dried fyreleaf. After a prolonged intake of breath, designed seemingly calm her nerves as she enjoyed the tastes and smells of the drako, she nodded. “Aye, my fear was always that he would be used to undermine me; my second greatest fear was that Ned would always pine for Ashara Dayne…But I do my husband great insult when he explained it. It was an infatuation of youth, measured against the life we made together.” She shook her head, the precious stones woven in the lady’s hair clanking slightly as little bells as she did so. “I’ve never felt threatened by any bastard; I’ve cared for many in my youth who were dear cousins to me. I…I allowed my anger and fears to create the very thing I was afraid of, and when I prayed for Jon’s death all those years ago…I was ashamed.”

“Looking at him reminded you of that shame?” Daenerys asked, doing her best to keep her tone neutral. She didn’t like the response; the answers' implications were understandable, but it was still grievous. “You never tried to keep us apart. In light of that….”

“I had assumed it was a childhood infatuation between you.”

“Just like Lord Stark and Lady Ashara?”

“Just like your father and her, yes.” Catelyn corrected, rising to meet Dany’s eyes in a challenge. “I may not have given birth to you, but you are my child.” Catelyn responded, "And Ned’s, no matter what anyone says, no matter your name. You’re ours, and we both love you very much. We’re both incredibly proud.” Her voice was on the edge of breaking into a sobbing fit, and Dany held firm, not wanting to run to her yet, hoping that her eyes weren’t tear-stained. “We are; you’re going to be a great ruler Daenerys, wise and strong and fierce, and the next time Winter lays a clutch of eggs, we’ll send three to and ask that Dragonstone send one.”

“Four eggs?”

“Mayhap one will breed with another among them…you, Bran, your children, and yes, even Jon ought to be Dragon riders; it is your birthright, all of you.”

“The last Strong to sit a dragon participated in a war that killed all the living dragons of the time,” Daenerys responded. Cat finally cried softly; holding herself aloft, she whispered an apology. “That is for Jon’s ears, not mine, mother.” She’d give her that at least and was grateful that Lady Stark’s following words shocked her to her core and left her stupefied, speechless, and so surprised that she couldn’t do more than shed a few tears. Lady Stark confided that she had apologized to Jon before he entered the great baths below. They had spoken at length, and there would likely never be much fondness between them for each other after all she had said. She wanted no more rancor on her part and to learn to be, if not family to the boy, friends. She expects Jon to hate her when those words have been what he wanted to hear his whole life, it’s too late to mother him, but she can help me shape him into a proper Prince.

Providing she was sincere anyway, Lady Stark’s only glaring flaw was the seeming hornet’s nest of doubt and bitterness that was stirred up whenever the topic of Jon came up. There was never a moment where Catelyn Tully wasn’t the mother personified for her children, Dany included, but the venomousness in her heart for a boy who... “I...I thank you, my lady; it seems as though the boy became a vessel for you to empty all your wrath and doubt and not merely for what he represented.” She regretted it the moment she said it, for Lady Stark looked as though she had been struck in the face, but the contortion looked less like one of rage and more like she had come to a realization that had shaken her. “Gods, I think you’re right,” Cat whispered, laughing bitterly. “Ah, I’m such a fool, allowing a dead woman to haunt me. Had the boy possessed a character that wasn’t steel, he’d have cause to resent and undermine the North at the trade table, and none would fault, would they?” She took another drag of the drako and exhaled the deep blue smoke rolling down between them as an avalanche until it finally settled on the ground.

“I can’t imagine Ashara Dayne and Lord Stark ever being happy.” Muttered Daenerys. “Mostly because of what Princess Elia told me about her; she was the opposite of her. Strong and hale of body but incredibly frail and sick of mind, prone to dangerous bouts of melancholy that would prompt Elia to bring her into their bedroom at night to ensure she didn’t act rashly during those periods. Rhaegar was receptive to this because she believed he loved Ser Arthur the way you love Lord Stark..the way I love Jon, and feared that she might take her life and would shatter the Sword of the Morning.”

The look on Cat’s face seemed to paint the picture that Daenerys had never told her that she corresponded with her Goodsister. Dany felt a pang of guilt, for she honestly thought she had mentioned it. She was supposed to say that the Starks were her guardians, and given her status, such letters might be taken as something other than innocent. “I asked the King in a letter once if we could write. He encouraged it.” For years she had been immensely grateful to King Daemon, and she still was. Still, now she was old enough to wonder how much of the liberty the King granted her was due to loving his niece by politics and cousin by the blood of her mother and how much of it was it benefited him to show the world how little a threat she was by allowing her to speak to whomever she pleased. Knowing the King, it was likely a healthy mix of both, and Dany didn’t know whether to be hurt by that or feel sorrow for a man who couldn’t simply do something for a loved one solely because he loved her. The King does love me, that much I know. But I also know he’s using me.

“Was he a…Well…” Catelyn asked, shocked. “I remember the rumors from my Harrenhal cousins, but when he produced twin girls with Elia. And what he did with Lyanna..” Her face was a mirage of the same confusion Daenerys felt from the day she learned about this. “This is what Tormund and Elia say, and I would ordinarily take a wife’s insights as truth above all others; however, with my brother? Who can say he was as close as brothers to Brandon, Lyanna, and Ben, yet look what he did to our family? He loved Rickard like a second father yet did nothing to try and explain himself, causing his death. He saw Lyanna come into the world yet defiled and killed her. None may have known him in the end, but she knew Ashara well. I do not believe the woman she described could have been a Lady of Winterfell, nor could she have survived the intricacies of Northern intrigues and the demands First Man culture places on those who rule. Maybe Lord Stark was forced to wed you by your father, my lady, but I don’t think he settled for anything. I know from his eyes that he knows only you, that you have been his rock.”

Lady Stark smiled sadly, her eyes blazing with a myriad of emotions. “And so, you inquired as to the woman whose shadow taunted me on my behalf?”

“Of course, I wanted to know if there was any truth. I am saddened by what I learned of Ashara, but she would have been miserable in the North. Not solely because of the sickness of her mind but because she wasn’t made to rule a realm of that size and complexity. It probably would have destroyed her. I believe he was speaking true when he called it a youthful fancy. I…I just wanted the hatred against Jon to stop”. Daenerys rose, walking to the window, her eyes watching the dance of dragon fire and thunder as the world’s silliest dragon played in the clouds, oh to be as carefree as Aerax, to be able to find joy in anything, even storms. Turning back, she offered a smile to the woman who was her mother in presence, if not blood.

“It will take time to quell the fury in my heart for how you’ve treated my betrothed. But I love you, Lady Stark, you’re the only mother I’ve ever known, and I will always be grateful for everything you’ve given me..”

The two embraced, likely held each other for an hour, for by the time they both released the embrace, they had needed to return to their dressing rooms to wipe tears and stains from their cheeks and sort themselves out for dinner Lord Stark had called them to at the shoreline of the Gods Eye.

As Captain Langward escorted them, Daenerys couldn’t help but smile at the shadow of Aerax, who was playfully chasing the lightning in the storm that seemed to move swiftly ahead of them, preceding them down south.

Chapter Text

Promise me...

The sun had yielded to the moon when his lady wife and foster daughter came to the pavilion tent arrayed for the Stark family. Lord Eddard had requested leave from the King to have a private dinner with them, both to tell them the truth and to mend the rift that had formed between himself and his Lady wife over the fight they'd had before they departed Winterfell. Daemon wore his usual smile well and wished fortune in tackling this issue. But, brother, if any of your children have any fears or wish me to come at the end of the feast and reassure them, I hold no ill will towards you, nor that I see Jon and Dany as threats.

It had been a gracious offer, and Daemon always confused him. It was easy to hate Tywin Lannister even though he nearly wed one of his nieces before the rebellion, even though he had been a close friend of his father and a brother to the uncle he loved before the madness. But Tywin had always been a cold, dry and dour man. Not joyless, though. Ned knew that to be false; it was a lie said about him because he didn't laugh at jokes; he considered them too ordinary or ribald as a means of covering a lack of humor. As a boy, he found Tywin's cruel, dry humor obvious and rather amusing; years later, as a man, he'd felt endless amounts of shame over that. Especially after the rumors about what happened between Tyrion and him began to surface. Tywin mistrusted more demonstrable humor because he had spent his youth watching lesser men laugh at his father and was forced to put down a rebellion by two of his most powerful vassals as a consequence.

 They had been the same age at the start of their respective definitive wars and the same age when they ended, nineteen and twenty. Daemon was a year younger than he was when he took the Throne; all three of them had committed atrocities in war, but Ned was ashamed of his. Tywin wore his horrors as a badge of honor and a mark of power, and Daemon lived with his because he believed them justified. Tywin was easier to hate because he would never have taken Ned aside and inquired of Bran, nor would he have sided with Sansa, Arya, and Maelys and spared the direwolves. Tywin would have killed at least one of them, likely Warden because he was Ned's and the pack's leader. He would have done it less to avenge the "maiming of his son" and more to remind everyone of Lannister power.

It was hard to hate Daemon because he did seem to love Dany truly. Because he loved his children and Neds and cared for Ned as a brother. And it was hard to hate Daemon because no other King commanded the force of presence and the personal power to declare that the House he had deposed was wholly and restored but as a Great House of the realm and that the son of his hated enemy was a threat to no one and deserved a chance to live up to his birthright. He hadn't even balked at the possibility that the realm entire might know the truth if Ned told others. Instead, Daemon merely smiled and asked Ned if he thought anyone would risk their Kingdom to restore two adolescents who only wanted to live a quiet life together in peace and wanted nothing to do with the Throne. It was true, it should have put his mind at ease, but instead, it conjured images of the Reach, the ash rain of the Iron Islands, and his newborn daughter's vibrant black hair turning grayish with the remnants of a culture.

Daemon Blackfyre had embraced him as a brother and vowed that not only would he strike down anyone who jeopardized the happiness of his "children" but that he would never blame them for stirrings of rebellion and that he would ensure Daeron and Rhaenys were bonded in friendship with Jon and Dany so that this amnesty might last several generations. After all, who would dare with what we did during the rebellions? They all know the price.

What went unsaid was, "And so do your children," but the King didn't even need to think such things because he knew everyone else did.

Ned overthrew a madman he loved like a second father to place a rational tyrant capable of infinitely more destruction on the Throne. Who ruled without violence because the two times he struck down a threat proved to the known world how high the cost was. A quiet land… Roose Bolton used to say, and Ned suppressed a shudder. His mind wandered back to the letter Robb had sent, the coded language buried between the well wishes and mother's secondary letter.

The assassination of Bran repelled by Ser Bronn and Princess Rhaenyra; dagger of Tygett Lannister used in the attempt. Lannister involvement is suspected but unclear at this time.

Ned wanted to scoff; that was ironclad evidence of Lannister involvement, his blood boiled, and for the first time since the start of the war, he half understood Daemon's method of keeping the peace. They tried to kill my son a second time! Of course, Robb was far more adept at politics than he was, but surely there couldn't be a conspiracy against the conspiracy acting against his counter-conspiracy. That thought made him want to take up a drako laced with bittercane.

His mother's letter made him feel slightly better.

Bran will recover fully by the end of the year. Then, in two turns of the moon, I will fly him to Myr; we will stop in King's Landing for a while so Winter can meet her children and Bran can see his siblings.

Incidentally, Obyroth left the Wall, will let you know if he passes Winterfell. I Am headed with Rhaenyra aback Winter to Sea Dragon Point, then to Bear Isle, and on to the Nightfort from there. I will inquire after the matter you bid me discuss with the Lord Commander and the Archmaester. I also thought of bringing Bran with me, but something moves me; I fear bringing your son to the Wall yet.

 I look forward to seeing Benji again. Aerion and Aemon too!

Will advise on Aemon's health, write him, Ned, he's ancient and like as not you shant have the chance to visit him before the end even if he lasts another ten years. The position of Hand has a habit of taking much from its occupants.

Ned swallowed, Aemon...It had been four years since he'd written his ancient uncle. I keep meaning to, but I've barely had time to sit down.

He would write Aemon and visit him; if he couldn't, he would advise Dany and Jon to see him one last time and tell him the truth before affairs in Myr pinned them down for years and years on end. He sighed; between the lines in his mother's letter, he could read, "I am moving Bran to Myr ahead of schedule because I no longer can say Winterfell is safe."

That was an affront neither he nor his House would endure for long.

Dinner was relatively peaceful; Princes Maelys and Daeron and Princess Rhaenys had come as he'd asked, and the entire time the Lord of Winterfell debated on if they should be present for this as well since Rhaenys had asked him some questions earlier in the day that led him to believe that she knew. The girl would never betray us, though, and she and Visenya deserve to know they have a brother…She repeatedly acted as though she owed the Stark family a debt, and Ned misliked that; he saved her life because it was an act of barbarism to try and kill children for the sins of their grandfather. However, he was owed nothing from her, that she had grown up to be a strong, healthy, and, more importantly, happy young woman who was more than sufficient to fulfill her debt to him as far as he was concerned. And it was true that as Prince and Princess of the Kingdom of Myr, Jon and Dany would be some of their most important vassals. If anything, he held some small measure of responsibility to them, being the leader of the group that saved them.

Their children would likely foster together; there would probably be weddings between their houses in the next generation or the one after. In the end, he decided that they ought to stay Maelys saw more than many men the young Prince swore were smarter than he, and he was to be Sansa's husband, and Daeron and Rhaenys saved Bran. And there was also the fact that they likely already knew in any event that Jon took to Daeron's company well, and the two seemed to have formed a fast friendship, so after several hours of agonizing deliberation, he decided to include them. The King already knew anyway, and the eerie way Cersei looked at Jon made him wonder… He would have been safer at the Wall, but it would have been a wasted life; I could have kept him secure in obscurity as my man at arms when Ser Roderik grew too old, in the North unseen. But now I shall have to hide him in plain sight, cloaked in friendships and alliance.

Sansa laughed at some joke about the phantoms in Castamere ending up her greatest champions because spirits liked redheads with good singing voices and Ned once again wished it was easier to hate Daemon. To put my Sansa in Tywin's lair, a monument to his malice. In another life, he would have refused outright. Had Robert been King, mayhap she'd be the future Queen, or else he'd find her a sweet Southron lord, like one of the Tarly brothers or Lord Willas, to tend to her. But, instead, to avoid the fate of the Iron Islands or those Reach towns Daemon incinerated…he was forced to allow her to go.

Yet of his daughters, Ned worried about Sansa. Least of all, she was brighter than even she knew, and her ability to play the game was almost instinctive. If anyone could survive Tywin and flourish despite his evil, it was Sansa. Arya, he worried over more because she was less apt to manage Rainwood vassals for her future husband diplomatically and more apt to grab the nearest morning star to brandish at those who annoyed her with "politics" to batter one of them simple. As the dinner wore on, he watched his family; each bore the sorrows and troubles that had afflicted them since the arrival of the King with their sort of grace. Arya, who always had a foul temper and a cruel side to her, had begun to show more kindness to others and to pay closer attention to matters that she always believed she was ill-suited for or that bored her. And whatever Robert said to her convinced her that marriage wouldn't be that bad.

 It probably involved tales of his grandmother beheading pirates off the coast of Weeping Town. Stories he oft repeated in the Vale though Ned had no idea how much of them were true and how much of them were sensational. Still, he did know she died in a storm because she took one of the first Dragon's offspring produced by the original seven out in a tempest to try and rescue her son and gooddaughter and her mount (He could never remember what the Dragon was called.) was pulled under by a wave so large it engulfed both ship and Dragon alike and destroyed two generations of House Baratheon in a single heartbeat. Or perhaps he told the girl a kinder truth, that matrimony didn't have to leave one bereft of his or her sense of self and that Gendry was a good lad who would never cage her. Arya believed she wasn't cut out to be a lady of the South because she thought all women of the South were demure, weak things.

Enough time spent around some women who attended as delegates during the King's coming would have sowed seeds of doubt in that notion swiftly enough. Especially if she spent time around Lady Waynwood, who had earned the affectionate nickname the Tigress of the Vale from an exiled Volantene merchant in Gulltown when she was a young woman, the others changed as well; Sansa had become more assertive and less demure. She had taken to Prince Maelys as out of a song and even helped him design his new sigil their new sigil. He would miss her, but given the collaboration between the Mints in the West and North and the fact that as mother got older, he'd have to be the one to head South to handle that. So much of the silver we exchange for gold would come from Castamere as it did before the Reynes were slaughtered. He would arrive more slowly, going by ship as he never was able to acquire a dragon of his own, and every year, he and Warden would be a little grayer and a little fatter, but they would come.

Warden was the only one of the Direwolves who lay sprawled on the tent's interior, watching everyone eat with his silent eyes. The others stood sentry outside, but Warden would not part himself from his master unless it were to direct the others. He had already found himself a lover in the visage of a sweet black-colored hunting hound descended from the Northern breed that belonged to Edmure. They had been so vigorous together he expected there to be pups within the following turns of the moon. But, instead, Nymeria had bitten the throat of an ordinary wolf for trying to mount her on the camp's periphery; she was the only direwolf with the audacity to approach Maelos. Not that the black Dragon was particularly vicious, it was more that he was always a stoic, reserved beast that was difficult to read and could be nuzzling you one moment and burning down a town the next.

Ned had always had a rapport with dragons, even if he hadn't ever been able to ride one, so much so that he thought of training at Sea Dragon Point to become a dragon keeper before he fostered to the Vale. When Daena Tully "stole" Terrax and brought her to the Vale, Ned had been the only one besides Elbert that could safely approach her. He was the one that figured out that dragons enjoyed clay baths for the same reason elephants did, and so he won her acceptance by showing her a place in the Valley to roll in. Of course, the Lord of Winterfell could not be a dragon keeper, but Ned vowed he would find time to sneak away to the Dragonpit with Arya, Sansa, or Jon when he could.

Jon and Daenerys, his adoptive children, had taken everything in stride, and there were times when Ned saw the stoicism of Rhaegar in Jon and then others when he saw the fury of Aerys and the tempestuousness of Brandon. He would never say this out loud for fear of the servants hearing and rumors being spread. To most people, King Aerys was the blood-mad, child-murdering kinslayer who fed a boy he adored to a dragon they both loved for the crime of trying to defend his sister. But to Ned, there was a clear demarcation; in the years following Duskendale, he grew worse and worse, and those around him who jockeyed for position cruelly exploited his pain and fury to advance themselves.

Nursing his malice as though it were a hearth fire. But there were good years even after Duskendale when the King would fly to Winterfell or the Vale. Ned would never forget the nights the King spent weaving stories around a fire so wild and preposterous even a babe would know them to be false, yet even as boys nearly men, Robert and Daemon and himself would sit in silenced awe.

Aerys had it in him to be a second conciliator, though he knew his mother would roll her eyes at that. Ned knew it to be so, and he saw the best traits of Aerys in Dany and Jon but especially Robb, and he didn't feel an ounce of apprehension over that, for though they had much of him, they had more of Rickard, of himself and Rhaella and Cat. In them lies the balance that Daemon never had, that Aerys lost. I see it in Daeron as well, but only if I can nurture and encourage it in him. If I can, my children can form the core of the next regime, and Westeros can know prosperity and growth without the ferocity of Daemon's wrath.

At long last, when the meal was done, the pastries were eaten, and the direwolves fed their tribute in leftover meats. The Lord of Winterfell finally discharged the servants and bid all the guards save Ser Barristan the bold, who stood as Rhaenys shadow, Aghorro, and Ser Arys, who stood for Maelys and Daeron respectively, remain. Of them, he bid Arys watch them from outside guarding the entrance to the tent. He's too young to understand, he wasn't present during the rebellion, and he can be rather…simple.

Not that the Oakheart Knight was a fool or Knight of ill repute. His defense of Bran and insistence that the boy was assaulted spoke volumes of his character, but he wasn't the greatest of intellects. The Knight of the Kingsguard stared at Ned quizzically, eying him as if the decision required heavy scrutiny, and Lord Stark allowed himself a slight smile. If Arys were fast of mind as he was of Hand, he'd be counted among the greatest minds of the realm; poets and philosophers from as far as Qarth and Yi Ti would come to him and debate endlessly on the nature of stars and destiny and why sun must yield to moon and Archmaesters would bestow upon him honorary chains. I'm being cruel. Ned thought with a hint of shame; Ser Arys didn't deserve that; that was low. I shall speak to the King about sending him North in place of Viserys; I mislike the look the Queen gives him.

"Go now," Aghorro grumbled when Barristan permitted him to do so via a nod. Jaime Lannister and Aerion were able to beat them now in their old age, Master Forel possibly likewise, but the two worked so well together that Ned wondered if even Arthur or Robert could have bested them in their youth if they'd worked in tandem. Aerys once said of Ser Selmy that with his back to a good wall and a blade in front of him, none would avail against him; it was true for the aged Dothraki as well. During the Greyjoy rebellion, both men fought as though they were of one mind; he remembered a Yi Ti ambassador saying that made them both Sages of the Sword instead of Masters. Wizards of the blade, Aerys called it that morning when he was sparring with father; I wish he had told Rhaegar that instead.

He wondered how different things would be if Aerys hadn't pretended as though his son was some shade. Everyone seemed to settle, a sense of anticipation mounting as they gazed at Eddard Stark, the man known as the quiet wolf who seldom was given to storytelling save for his occasional tales of his boyhood in the Vale. I will weave them a story about Rhaegar Targaryen and my sister...About the Tourney at Harrenhal and the rebellion and it occurs to me that I've seldom discussed any of this with my children.

He should have; he didn't particularly have a reason not to. He spoke often and freely about Aerys when asked though only Robb and Bran probed him; Daenerys seemed afraid, which saddened him. Rohanne Blackfyre was covered in scars at the end...But even she told me it resulted from his night terrors after Duskendale.

Benjen had seen the King walking the halls of Winterfell in his sleep, wild and delirious, and something had happened with Benjen and the King that had turned him from his closest nephew to his most bitter critic. Before, Harrenhal and Benjen would never talk about it. Part of him feared that the mangled state of the Queen had been a thing occurring for years, and if that was the case, Barristan was going to shatter Ned's image of the man he thought he knew before the monster took hold of him. Perhaps that was why Daenerys never came to me. Well, it couldn't be helped now; they would have to discuss the specter of the mad King for any of this to make sense. "I've called you all here because I believe it is time to settle affairs between us as a family; you're all old enough now, and the shadow of terror that has haunted my life since the end of the rebellion has proven to be…incorrect."

Something flickered in Arya's eyes, and when she asked if this was about Jon, Ned wanted to laugh. Of course…she would be the one to come to that conclusion. "Yes, it is, and you and Sansa, and Princess Rhaenys and Robb and Bran and Rickon and your grandmother and grandfather, for it is about the House of the Red Dragon; its fall and a pack of loyal wolves who were caught up in the rubble I suppose." Ned felt something threatening to devour him until he felt a hand rest on his knee and his eyes shifted to Catelyn, a look of gratitude and remorse passing over his features. I've been cruel to her, and she is my love. Ned nodded, serving himself a chalice of honey wine as he steadied his mind and mood. He noticed Ser Barristan steady himself as he gazed with curious eyes at Lord Stark, for he was a man who lived much of the story he was about to tell, a man he first met as a boy of four. But he knows only one part of the tale, and I shall tell another piece; perhaps we will help to complete each other's riddle.

"I first met Ser Barristan the bold when I was a boy of four; he sparred in the same yard we held our exhibition bout in, and he defeated my natural-born uncle Theon Snow so swiftly he left the whole yard silent." Ned offered him a wry smile as Barristan chuckled at the memory. "He writes me occasionally, challenging me to a rematch." Then, again, there was laughter at the table. "He's become a much fiercer warrior since then, but I told him we would only do it at Winterfell. The hot springs are easier on old bones."

Ned chuckled. "I wish he had come from the Dreadfort, but he was sallying out to hunt the Weeper." Ned hadn't received word from him yet, but his band of warriors was recently sighted in East Watch by the Sea, so he wasn't overly worried. "Ser Barristan put me on his shoulders, if you can believe, and ran the yard with me. I've many fond memories of the visits of the King and Queen..until it was time to foster and.."

Selmy nodded. "It got..unpleasant between them, but I should say he never raped her then, as the gossips say; that was a cruel lie spread by Monford Velaryon. Of course, there was violence between them when she tried to rouse him from his nightmares, but the melancholy of Queen Rohanne came from the fact that the King was barely present in her life. She bore him many stillborn children because they had Prince Rhaegar so young. And he was never there to console her in her grief; he would fly North and grieve with the Starks and leave her and the Prince behind…I know that is not a thing you wish to hear, Princess Daenerys, but he left her in pieces and barely acknowledged her existence; he was the same with Rhaegar."

"We received all his love," Ned admitted.

"Aye," Selmy said, his gray hair flowing like the wheat on his family sigil. "The viciousness, the brutality, the slaughter of children..what he did to Dontos Hollard..he visited all of that on anyone who was not someone he cherished. But he wasn't savage to your mother."

"No," Daenerys whispered, relief warring with sorrow on her features. Aerys wasn't physically cruel with them, but he was malicious in an entirely different way, one that both she and Jon seemed to understand intimately, for they held each other tightly. A look of guilt seemed to wash over Catelyn's face. Princess Rhaenys, who had been silent, gave a slight nod. "My mother often says that the closest thing to a father that Prince Rhaegar had was yours, Lord Stark…That is why she could never bring herself to resent your role in her husband's death. She says what good was in him came from House Stark."

"I would hope to save her life, and those of your sisters earned me some additional goodwill, at least." He wasn't sure why he made the jest, save that the story they were weaving was so sorrowful. Ned wished he could hate the Mad King because what was described there was a kind of mistreatment many a formerly enslaved person that served in the castles described as a method of torture far worse than any beating their old masters could have handed out. What was it Xhazos says? When they brutalize you, they must recognize that you are there. Gratefully Rhaenys stuck her tongue out at him; she was going to make a great Queen one day and Daeron a great and good King, especially if Ned was able to spend more time with him if Arya and Gendry and Steffon could soften him. Daenerys appeared ready to tear up, despite her best efforts, and he noticed that Daeron set a hand on her wrist.

A subtle gesture of fellowship that turned into an ironlike grip between the two until they mutually broke to sit closer to their respective intendeds. "I bring this up because when the stories began to reach Winterfell of Aerys having dissident members of the faith fed to Aegos or burned with wildfire or crucified in front of the Sept of Baelor when they objected to the more tolerant practices of the Starry Sept and the Sept of Baelor compared to smaller septs. When he interceded in the guild strike by setting ten blocks of Flea Bottom on fire, none of my siblings believed them. At the Vale, we thought they were exaggerated; only Robert truly believed them. "Ned," he'd say. "There's something rotten in that old bastard, and it's only kept at bay because of you wolves, but how long can you fight corruption?" I once fought him in fisticuffs over it; he beat me handily." Ned laughed at the memory despite himself and walked towards the rear of the tent, where what little food was left from their ravenous appetites.

 A tapestry from Asshai hung there; it was ancient yet held no sign of decay. A black field where golden and silver wolves battled a wyrm. Which King of Winter was this one presented to? Ned wondered, was it a Cregan? Or Brandon? Was it the hungry wolf? Turning back to the group, he continued. "Rumors, later confirmed by Roark, compelled my father to meet Lord Tywin in secret to confirm these rumors, and as he rode back, I believe that was when he decided to initiate his marriage pacts, his "Southron scheming" as the Boltons used to say. He saw a need for more than bonds of fellowship and blood. I was in the Eyrie for most of this, but Bran was promised to your lady mother…Though she ended up with me. Rhaella decided that Elia's suggestion that Benjen would be for Arianne Martell would go forward when she comes of age."

"I hadn't known that…." Whispered Rhaenys surprised. "Your brother would have been the Prince consort of Dorne. He would have also made a good husband to her; she hasn't married anyone." There was one she had taken an interest in, but there was no way she'd bring up her secret love now. Not here.

Ned nodded, though he frowned slightly. Princess Elia had been the one to suggest that particular marriage; why hadn't she told her daughters of it? Then again, not everyone was as open with stories of the rebellion as the King was, and the King was almost as dispassionate as a Maester when he discussed it. Something that always bothered Ned, for he believed the man ought to have been more tethered in matters of the heart to the conflagration that brought him to his Throne and the men and women who died in the endeavor. "I suppose Elia wouldn't have discussed it, seeing as my brother joined the Night's watch while I was at war. He never told me why; there should always be a Stark in Winterfell, but there are enough of our natural-born cousins there that I suppose he figured it was better than waiting until I returned.."

"And for myself. I was to wed Denyse Hightower, though originally a Cerenna Lannister who died of a fever." Poor Denyse had drowned along with her husband, Ser Desmond Redwyne. Their son was attainted as a bastard, but Roark said he was a gifted knight and had an aptitude for commerce despite being only two years older than Robb and had not once shown any disloyalty to Lord Stannis. I'll try and get the boy his name back…Even if he never rules the Arbor, he can re-found the line as loyal knights, mayhap?

"I would have thought Ashara Dayne with how livid mother gets about her."

"ARYA!" screamed Sansa, Daenerys, and Catelyn in mortified unison, earning a soft laugh from Prince Maelys, who had remained otherwise silent throughout the ordeal. "No Dayne has ever wed a Stark." The bald Prince finally said, his eyes crossed in that disturbing way that signified that the Prince was doing his least favorite activity. Thinking. Ned realized it was true as well, and he frowned at that. "He's right; we're the oldest surviving Houses in Westeros, having survived the Long Night. Yet in ten thousand years, no Dayne nor Stark had ever wed.."

"Oldest in the world except for the Azure House of Bu in Yi Ti, who were stewards for the emperors of the Dawn and then for the dynasties of the golden Empire until they at least took over." Rhaenys nodded. "You should break that chain, my lord! Leyla Dayne is a sweet girl who would be perfect for Bran."

Ned laughed. "Aye, but the boy will be a great lord of the Myrish Kingdom; it is for Dany and Jon to decide his betrothal."

Neither seemed against the idea but avoided the topic for Catelyn's sake. "in any case, when the topic of weddings reached Lyanna...There was a mighty debate there. Although initially, my father wanted Aerion Waters for her, they had met once in White Harbor, and she was taken with Aerys' bastard; at the time, I didn't understand why my father would propose such a union…Valarr Blackfyre even talked of granting him lordship over a port city in Tyrosh on the agreement that their firstborn son would wed one of his granddaughters."

"Gods, my father was so mad they were preparing to raise a claimant even while my elder brothers lived?" Daenerys asked, alarmed by the look in her eyes; Ned realized she understood why; if Aerys fell any farther down the warren of lunacy, they were afraid he might kill his sons and so wanted to spare one even if that son was a bastard. Or else use a Great Council to strip the legitimate Targaryens of their birthright in an effort to prevent anotner madman from ascending to The Iron Throne. "And yet, none of you thought to depose him?"

"It would have been too dangerous...There was no telling if Rhaegar would prove as mad as his father, which he did in the end..so the Throne would fall to other claimants…who all had comparable legitimacy save one," Sansa whispered, eliciting a rare nod of agreement from Arya. When did his daughters grow so perceptive? "Aye, little one, if not for the wisdom of Quellon Greyjoy's Kingsmoot or our friendship, there might have been three rebellions." It was an uncomfortable truth, but there were more connections to the Iron Throne through female lines than through the male line. The exceptions were the Blackfyres and Daemon, who had been an untested youth, two years younger than Robert Baratheon and a year younger than Ned. Aerion Waters was of a similar age, but he had been proven in a battle against new bandits calling themselves the second King's wood brotherhood. Daeron Waters likewise participated, but he had already been fostered at Sea Dragon Keep by that point and was already wed to Dacey Mormont; he was also baseborn even if his mother was descended from Dragonseeds of old.

It was eerie how easily Ned or Robert could have become Kings Or my mother. "My father says he was surprised no one named Aunt Rhaella in his or your place." Admitted Daeron, who laughed sheepishly when every Stark in the room raised an eyebrow at him as though he were mad. "Let me guess "I'll feed  the first fool who dares put my name forward to Winter?"

"Aye." Admitted Ned, "She would have made a fine queen, though; she also had more experience in the air in combat than anyone save for Aerys himself." And she still did, Ned realized; even Prince Valarr and the Mad King had only exceeded her in leisure time on Dragon back; Rhaella had spent the first four years of her life as a dragon rider in combat against one King beyond the Wall or another or saving repelling pirates sent by the band of seven. The She Dragons of Winterfell became such a prominent sight in the skies over the Neck that the Crannogmen joked that Brandon Stark was born in the air. He very nearly was, same for me as well. She went into labor pains chasing down slavers had Winter been slower. "I do not blame her…in any case, it was Jon Arryn who inquired of Rickard on behalf of Steffon over Lyanna, and the decision was made to bind House Baratheon and Stark."

The match that damned the Targaryen dynasty, he heard Arya whisper. More than she knew…. "They were almost identical in temperament; I thought it a splendid match for that reason."

"Sounds like they would have killed each other," Jon said in a way that made Eddard pale, for he sounded just like Rhaegar at that moment, and from the haunted look in Ser Barristan's eyes, he, too, saw the same thing. "This may shock the table, but I agree with the boy." Catelyn said, "Robert and Lysa work so well because they are Night and day from each other. Lyanna was domineering, just as Robert was... In contrast, my sister Lya possesses a much more subtle assertiveness that blends well with Robert's aggressive nature; they cover for each other's faults, and even there, it took them time.".

"Hmm, Rhakars lay with each other for long to get one with child, then they part ways, or one is compelled to kill the other. It is known." Aghorro nodded his head sagely, scratching his bearded chin, the silver bells in his braid jingling. He had been guarding Elia Martell then if Ned's memory served, meaning that much of what he could offer here would be of little use. So he wisely kept silent except to agree here. Ned had to admit the old warrior was proper; looking back on it, Lyanna would have slit Robert's throat in his sleep, or they would have dueled each other to the point where they'd have died with their hands around each other's throats, drenched in their blood and likely laughing. Lyanna had a darkness that, when channeled constructively, made her a great fighter and ferocious sister and, in her final moments, the greatest of mothers. Still, he wondered if they wouldn't have fed on each other's worst impulses, Gods above, but I have been blind.

"Lyanna agreed with you both, I suppose, for she was furious. None of us would listen save Benjen, and I suppose that was when she wrote to Rhaegar. Rhaegar who..was there the day she was born, who had been a constant in her life.." His eyes shifted for a moment, watching the lanterns cast their shadows, dancing across the faces of all those present, conjuring ghosts that had long ago earned their rest. Rhaenys wiped a tear away. "Mother..princess Elia was horrified..betrayed; Lyanna was a child, a child that slept in their bed when she came with her mother to the capital on business. A child she loved like a sister, still loves I'd imagine. I want to clarify  Lord Stark; that Elia Nymerios Martell bears no ill will to your sister; she believes the blame lies squarely with Rhaegar, the man grown…not the frightened child whose trust he exploited like some flesh peddler...and that she viewed Lyanna as akin to a younger sister."

Eddard nodded. Something in her eyes made his skin crawl. Not the words, for there were no falsehoods nor the devotion in her eyes, merely how she phrased it as if she knew where this was going and wanted him to understand that Jon was safe in the capital around Elia Martell. As if she wouldn't immediately hitch the boy to one of her schemes. Ned had always liked Elia, although he detested Oberyn for the longest time (He'd come to appreciate the renegade over the years.). But there was no denying she was one of the most formidable women in the realm, and if Jon and Dany weren't careful, they'd end up owing their bones to Dorne for her negotiation skill. "It is appreciated…." He hadn't seen Elia since the rebellion; it was too awkward, too painful, but he would be coming face to face with her soon enough, and when he did, knowing her poor health, he made a vow to mend that rift if she so chose. "It made the rebellion all the harder; our names were different, and so was our blood, but we were all family, and the actions of Rhaegar at Harrenhal split that family in half."

"If I had won that last joust..." Ser Barristan shook his head ruefully. "But I was defeated by the King."

"Who in turn was defeated by Rhaegar…Who crowned Lyanna Stark, the Queen of love and beauty.." Catelyn whispered, horror filling her beautiful face as she looked up at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. And the last ember of this rebellion may end our marriage…I would not blame her..but I hope she knows how much I love her. "We first heard the news in the Eyrie nearly a fortnight after it happened, after the false spring concluded, Syrax was seen over Winterfell. He landed in the Wolf's Wood and departed that evening, under cover of dark.."

"How can that be? The squirming victim of an abduction can ride no Dragon. Lyanna would have fallen off..unless she.." Sansa paled. "Oh, Gods…"

Ned nodded. "She went willingly…."

"The rebellion..all those lives." Barristan gasped, horrified. "Had they but explained themselves..had Prince Rhaegar said something! Rickard would have broken the wedding; there's no official proscription against polygamy for Dragons, distasteful as it is." Then he paused, realizing the foolishness of his words, the realm might have been more tolerant of heathens, but they were not going to recognize another Visenya or Maegor. "…And if annulled."

"Tree wedding's not as legitimate as Sept weddings under the law; the Prince could have had both and avoided it by making any male offspring a King consort, it is known," Aghorro said, his dark face a rictus of troubled thoughts. "Many men tasted my blades…Was the Prince as mad as his father? Why start a war over a matter as settled as a stone?"

"Ser Aghorro is right," Catelyn whispered, horrified; her blue eyes were sad yet seemed to brim with other emotions below them. "Any child produced by them would have solved many political problems down the line as well… So he was insane…Or a zealot. I know he cavorted with shadowbinders in his youth and took up with those star worshippers in the port at King's Landing. Had he become a fanatic?" A heretic Prince seemed to trouble everyone in the tent as much as the other revelations; funny, Ned thought, since many High Septons would have considered the royal family's flirtations with R'hllor and the Old Gods a blasphemy intolerable before the return of Dragons silenced all debate.

"Maybe." Barristan sagged, seeming ancient as the story continued. "He…there were moments where he alluded to things, spoke of…demons and what the ancient Andals called Fairfolk and what you in the North call barrow peoples, and monsters of the old world..and..prophecy, he was consumed by it. But many days where he was no different than Prince Daeron or your heir, my lord."

"It doesn't matter; what started the war was Aerys using his dragon to kill my uncle," Arya stated, her purple eyes narrowed at the older knights with lightning-like alacrity. She seemed to grow increasingly frustrated by how the story was presented, as she thought all the answers were simple and she was the only one who saw them. How much like my sister and like Aerys.

Should it disturb him? That his youngest daughter and his heir had so much of his mad uncle in them? Perhaps, but it didn't; tempered by everything else in their souls, those traits would become great assets. "Aye, Arya, we were doomed for war the moment that happened…." His gray eyes shifted towards Barristan, searching, pleading for more insight into the part of the story that was to come, for Ned hadn't been present and what he would relay was merely the rumors they took as fact after all the bodies were set. He reached up and trailed his Hand over the great chain of office, the gold and silver chains, and the great platinum fist of the office of the Hand. Who had been Hand when my father came South? Was it poor Lord Chelsted? Or that lickspittle Merryweather? There had been several after Tywin departed the post, and Ned couldn't remember why that was, save that Aerys mocked Tywin over Tyrion to his face. No, it was that, but it happened when the younger brother of Valarr Blackfyre and Tygett Lannister killed each other in a duel over the discord between their respective factions at court, and Aerys denied Tywin the right to compensatory justice.

Daemon marrying Cersei Lannister was a grave and terrible mistake, even if Tywin had shown contrition and Jaime had refused categorically ever to request dismissal from the Kingsguard; only a fool would ever think a man who referred to himself as "The Lion of the Rock." Even in private would never go gracefully into a lesser position without ensuring that a terrible cost was paid by those sending him away. What Hoster Tully did during the sack may have saved thousands of lives, but it ensured that the Lannisters would one day have to be addressed more definitively. Was that his intention?

"I remember it well." Aghorro said, "I was there; Brandon's rage was like fire upon the great grass sea, blazing indiscriminately and Aerys! Mad with fury, his temper like a Rhakkar denied a kill. Aegos fury matched; we heard his roar from the Dragonpit." "Smallfolk said they felt it in the ground and that it broke windows along the butcher's corner," Barristan added. "Both were blood mad at Rhaegar for the same thing." Aghorro shook his head dismissively. "Aerys lamented the state of his children, yet the fool spent his waking hours invested in everyone else's."

"It was that I believe that soured things. Your brother, my lord, he overstepped in the way someone far too accustomed to the King's forbearance and his better moments did. He laughed and told Aerys to let him do him a favor and rid him of the royal disappointment, and he can have the daughter he wished he had returned to him and appoint Aerion as his successor as he seemed to wish." The room was so silent the thunder outside sounded as though the clouds were descending upon Harrenhal and not a mile out. They were all horrified! To insinuate that in front of the King certainly didn't lend credence to the official tale woven by Maesters and told by bards and court gossips that the cruel Aerys revealed his true nature and merely had a boy who demanded Rhaegar face justice detained... "My brother…said that before the court?" Ned asked, astonished; he had been raised to rule, but he was always the one who wanted to follow orders, to stay in the comfort of the shadows of duty and his siblings, yet the heir preferred could be so…so…

Stupid…

"The love Aerys bore House Stark seemed to die then, for the implications of such a comment were apparent even to him, so he had Brandon seized and charged with treason. The rest you all know well, Lord Rickard came, horrified at what was said begged forgiveness Aerys seemed ready to grant it, but then there was Lucerys Velaryon asking the King if he ruled the Seven Kingdoms or if Winterfell did." Barristan spat that last bit out.

"Vermin." Hissed Aghorro. "Sea horse, Fah! I say he was one of those multi-colored worms that spit ink and eat feces at the bottom of the ocean in the summer islands." That fool, Ned thought disdainfully, "He likely thought he could take my father's place in Aerys' heart; I hear Aegos didn't resist when he was ordered to eat Lucerys Seaworm."

"No," Barristan admitted quietly. "And there in the heart of the Dragonpit, before the entire court and the smallfolk and gentry, your father fought an amazing duel; he and Aerys clashed in a frenzy, filled with the weight of their long friendship, the memories and joys, and sorrows, all their shared victories and defeats and I swear to you that both men had tears in their eyes at the end. When Lord Rickard died and Aerys a bloody mess, he looked to the now Lord Brandon, and I saw a hint of the man he was in those eyes..filled with shame and sorrow. Then he opened your brother's belly with Brightflame and as the boy was dying threw him to Aegos…..I swear this to you, the Knight of the skies burned him to give him a clean death."

Aghorro nodded, for he was here for the duel, and his part now could be told. "I saw it in Brandon's eyes, and he whispered Dracarys as well…Yes, that was clean… However, what Aerys made Aegos do next was not. He made Aegos eat Brandon's remains."

"He raped his queen that night or near enough not to make no difference; it was the start of his true descent..He..broke something in her..I…."

"I was conceived that night, wasn't I?" Daenerys asked softly, her eyes filled with horror and shame.

"I don't…Believe...I am no Maester Princess.” Barristan muttered. "But I believe it was too early….But it continued…for months..I…Forgive me."

She sobbed, a horrified sob folding into Jon's arms, and Rhaenys and Sansa knelt beside her, rubbing her back.

"Am I a fool for missing the King who was?"

"No." Aghorro shook his head. "Before the madness, Aerys was a great man, a good Khal of Khals, and a stout man of honor. And for all that he gave you and your family, only an ingrate would fail to separate the two. In Dothraki culture, we say a man is a man and owns his dishonors and honors, but a lunatic is a demon that takes root in doubt and then hollows out the man and does evil deeds in his name and may only be held to account for those deeds and not that from before. You knew Aerys the uncle, the King; you knew Aerys the Demon of Madness; they are two distinct men." He turned to Daenerys then and knelt. "It is known, princess, and I would say that you had three fathers, and two were very good, Aerys and this brooding fool that adorns himself in direwolves  here, and they were goodfathers that you can be proud of, and you had a third, a demon and you too must be proud of him for in his madness he has shown you what to avoid and who you should follow and him who you should reject."

"It is known." Whispered his daughters. With a sorrowful smile and eyes filled with gratitude and pain, Daenerys nodded to Aghorro. "It is known, Ser…thank you."

After he gave them all a moment, Ned continued his story, and the war went much as the bards said it went; he covered the Kingsmoot and the battle of the Summerhall, where Urrax and Valar met their end and Winter was routed from the skies by Aegos fury for the first and only time in history. And the battle of the Trident, where Rhaegar and Syrax met their demise when Argella shattered Syrax's back and crushed Rhaegar's spine beneath him. When Robert killed them both with his mighty war hammer, finishing the battle that had commenced in the air. And the sack and how Ned and his band of companions saved Rhaegar's children from the Mountain and Ser Lorch. How the Blackfish and Tormund Giantsbane battered Ser Gregor Clegane around like a bell, and the short Wildling shattered the monstrous Knight's knee and fell him with an axe blow so hard two of the Mountain's ribs flew out from his shattered armor.

"I beheaded him with Ice then and there," Eddard admitted and felt no shame at the satisfaction in his voice. He told them of how Robert burst through the doors then, covered in Lannister and Targaryen blood, all but for his blue cloak, which he used to wrap Elia, how Ned knew of his hatred of Rhaegar and feared that he might kill Elia and her children only instead to scoop the little ones up in his massive arms and hold them tightly promising to keep them and their mother safe for as long as he lived. How He, Elia, and Robert all embraced each other and cried, which was a thing that did not make it into the songs. From there, to the ruins of Summerhall again, where Lord Aenar told them that Rhaegar had hidden Lyanna.

"We rode there, past the ruined corpse of Urrax, which was still rotting in the setting sun..We…We arrived to find Arthur Dayne and Ser Gerold, and Oswell, the only ones, left alive something.. something unnatural was there, dormant from the days of King Aegon the Goode. It had awoken, I suppose…a creature of shadow. To Tormund, it looked like a wight from myths. To me, it took the form of Aerys. Ser Arthur saw the Night's King and Gerold a Maester as he had seen years before. Whatever it was, it burst into light and died screaming with a thousand voices when Ice and Dawn were thrust into its being. Howland Reed used some magic from the days of the Dawn and weakened it; that's the only reason our swords were able to unmake it..unravel its nature."

Everyone was silent, horrified. "I. I thought…I thought you killed the Sword of the Morning father." Jon whispered in disbelief. Ned laughed. "It was far easier to believe, as incredible as it was, that I would overcome him with the aid of Lord Reed and not.. ancient hate that was sent to stop the return of Dragons...I suppose, but that is the truth of it. But she must have woken it.Lya…when…”

"What happened after?" his wife asked, making the sign of the seven to ward off evil; Rhaenys, Daenerys, and Sansa joined her; Arya remained silent, as did Daeron, defying the horror and remaining focused on the tale with steel in their eyes and with a knowing look in Arya's that made Ned swallow. She knows…soon they all will. There was a moment of hesitancy, where the past warred with his present for purchase over tomorrow. Blood, fever, sweat, and tears as a teenage girl screamed, and Ned held a hand that had always been so strong...She had made him promise to protect Aenar, protect him. Yet he'd failed there; worse, he sowed discord within his own family, the family he built himself on, obsessing over the family he lost.

I made a monument to the past in my home…instead. Had his mother died, what sort of man would he have become? Losing his father, brother, and sister all within the same year. At long last, he decided he could honor his oath to Lyanna and honor the family he had among the living, and after downing an entire silver chalice of wine, he turned back and eyed Jon. "Arthur Dayne had been mortally wounded fighting that…thing…Gerold Hightower did survive in better conditions, but he made the error of attempting to intercede and stop me. As if his duty to his dead Prince compelled him to prevent me from entering the ruins. I couldn't understand why, and Howland Reed killed him with a poisoned dart to the throat. Ser Arthur begged forgiveness; he said that I was the one who would have to fulfill his duty now. He asked me to protect Lord Elric and Allyria; I did not know what he meant then, for stories of the burning did not go into detail of which Lords the King burned." Ned swallowed and then looked to Catelyn, who looked away.

"I wandered through the partially collapsed hall, chasing screams until I came towards what used to be the palace Sept." Ned Swallowed, shuddering at how blasphemous the memory was. "On an altar lay my sister, covered in sweat and blood. On the floor was a bundle of clothing….inside there were two.." Ned Swallowed again. How to put that into words? A pair of masses of wriggling flesh, with their faces missing? Their soft, barely formed bones bleached as they made wordless noises, insides hanging against thin web-like skin. Fused by a visible spine that twisted and caused spasms of agony. "Your..si..the others that came before you… didn't live long..mercifully." He couldn't even look at Jon when he'd said this, but he was acutely aware of his son in all the ways that mattered, gripping Dany as though she were a piece of driftwood in a tempest. He wouldn't call them Jon's siblings. He refused. Something had attempted to stop the Birth, something foul and something evil. Ned was vaguely aware that Daemon had begun a reconstruction of Summerhall so that Daeron and his son might have domains to gain experience in ruling before they succeeded one after the other to the Iron Throne. But Ned would never set foot there.

"Lyanna had given Birth to one healthy child, and he was in her arms, and Lya she was..delirious from exhaustion, from fever. A fever so foul it was like it was consuming her from within. She begged me, "Promise me, Ned," and she said..promise me. Daemon will kill him, and he'll kill you, mother, and Benjen. You must promise me." Ned's voice was soft, far away, and it sounded younger in his ears than it ought to have, as though he were the boy back in Summerhall trying to comprehend horror. "I called her a foolish woman; why would she hide this? Yes, it humiliated Robert, but it did nothing else to the realm, and while the faith would be furious, they would accept his junior standing if he wed one of his half-sisters as a consort. None of this needed to happen.."

"My brother.." Rhaenys whispered, her eyes shifting to Jon, who had been enraptured by the story and hadn't yet realized this was a mummer's tragic tale featuring him as the protagonist. Or hadn't until Rhaenys had whispered that, looking into his eyes, and he suddenly paled and nearly threw Daenerys off him as though he were going to run. Then, to the shock of everyone present, Catelyn Tully walked to Jon and gently gripped his shoulders, holding him in place and soothing him. "Let it pass, boy." She whispered. "There's no better place to face this than here, where you belong."

"Belong?!" Jon asked dumbly, staring at the woman who had rejected him his whole life. Cat struggled for a moment, old rages building to the surface before she forced them down. "Yes, Jon, belong. You're not my son; you'll never be my son, but I can grow to care for a nephew. Even if that nephew was a venomous serpent deposited in my child's room, you've been a devoted sibling to my children, and we have both been ill-used"

"My lady." Ned was acutely aware of the danger in his voice and the fury in hers, and he'd heard nothing but the venomous serpent part. "Continue, husband." Came the response. Ned allowed himself to breathe deeply before he continued. "She believed something terrible had a hand in accelerating events, that forces dark and ancient had allied themselves with mortal men, and if they had made their intentions known, a disaster would befall the seven Kingdoms. Mayhap Catelyn was right, and Rhaegar did become a fanatic in the end, or he went mad, or both but my sister so utterly believed him...She died in my arms, her newborn son still suckling at her breast...A child she named Aenar…But she never told me if he was Targaryen or Storm... I took him home and called him my own..called him…Jon."

 "I have a brother.." Rhaenys whispered.

But all Jon could do was sit there in stunned silence until one by one, Stark, Targaryen and Blackfyre curled around him, embracing the boy who had been brother and cousin and lover to everyone present. The two white knights eventually joined as well, flanking the group, staring down at the youth whose entire life was a sequence of events that never needed to happen. If Daenerys Targaryen was called battle-born, Jon Storm ought to have been known as the Dragon's folly, Prince's bane, and calamity. Yet he sensed solidarity in the reaction to the boy left stupefied by a revelation that might have torn his family apart.

As the shadows danced in the lantern's light, Eddard Stark thought he saw two extra shadows weaving their tendrils into the long comforting embrace of family, shadows that looked warm and familiar, shadows from another life.

And Eddard Stark felt alone for the first time since the rebellion ended.

Alone with his sins.

Chapter Text

The Queen who bore her pride.

He was a dead man, the queen vowed. Dragon or no dragon, crown or no crown, the Sword of King’s or just his name. None of it mattered; she would kill him as she had Zhan Fei kill Aenar. Father thinks it was old age or one of his catspaws, the mighty Tywin of the rock, misdirected by his daughter! Tywin had underestimated her for most of her life; Daemon underestimated her. That twisted little murderer she used to be forced to call brother constantly looked down on her, and he paid for that with exile and the loss of his name until her royal husband decided that he should have returned to him.

Green and gold-flecked eyes stared murderously at the Window as she watched the immense profile of Argella saunter from the tower where twenty of her cousins and a dozen Westerland nobility were sleeping to fly away into the night. Presumably, to join that idiotic dragon Aerax in his aerial dances or fly to the coast to find a school of sharks or large fish to gorge herself on. Two and thirty, yet only one of my children is my own, and that murderous bastard stole him from me. She turned, her features stoic as she gazed naked into the Myrish mirror left for her to avail herself of, staring at her naked form. Her still firm breasts, her stomach that was flat and devoid of stretch marks even though she’d been forced to bear twins, and then that grotesque little albino, the kind foisted off on Robb Stark like some secondhand gift. They accuse me of being loveless, but sending his daughter to rut with some foul pagan?

Her mother and father had always spoken well of the Starks, loved them, and even defended them against some of the more malicious rumors surrounding them at court courtesy of the existence of that hideous mage Lord Aenar. And despite the “right and honorable Ned’s” condemnation of her father’s most generous gift of King’s Landing, Cersei would always appreciate that the dimwitted wolf stood up for her brother, praised him as a hero for stopping Aerys and his mad plot and even pleading with the King to discharge him from his oaths even if he found the notion distasteful. In another life, I might even have considered him a friend… Jaime had tried to kill Bran and was out of sorts about it for days, as if she had made him do that. When the boy could probably have been taken aside and reasoned with or terrorized into silence. Now he’s awake and blind.. was her naked form the last thing she ever saw? Because if so, it was an equitable trade.

She might have cared for Lord Stark once, but to know that the Starks of Winterfell tolerated the existence of the Aetheryons was an act of hypocrisy so perverse and twisted that she stopped caring. They were not worth her love; no one was worth her love except her twin and little Tommen. Poor, little Tommen… And little Joffrey.

She remembered it well, her wedding night. At first, she’d been promised to Rhaegar gallant, beautiful, and noble. Still, he turned out to be a prophecy-obsessed religious fanatic who preferred playing the maid for the Sword swallower of the Morning and then a boyish-looking, sickly woman. And Daemon? Gods, he was like a dream come true, handsome, powerful, with a voice that could carry across a city and an almost inhuman sense to his presence that made him deadly, frightening, and yet positively alluring. Those eyes, the platinum and silver hair, and Valyrian features made them both almost fit for a Lannister’s beauty standards, and yet Daemon had turned out to be a monster. That inhuman nature in him, the beast in the flesh of man, the thing that made him more dragon than a person, gifted him with a horrifying awareness, and when she found out that Roundtree had positioned several Wargs in the palace guard. Every rat, every cat, every cricket and roach and worm. All of them could be watching me.

She found it insanely hard, but through effort, guile, and skill, she was able to get herself moon tea, and then in a night of pure bliss, her firstborn son was conceived not by that upjumped bastard descended usurper but by her brother. It was a magical experience, and she felt the life growing inside her, kicking, moving, shifting. She was so happy; she could even experience genuine affection for Daemon then. And then, during a Storm worse than any other…he came too soon.

She knew something was unnatural about the birth from the start; a pain inside her was utterly unnatural, and a sense of impending doom. She was feverish and sickly; she had lost so much weight that she became like a skeleton, and the birth was so painful the midwives prayed and screamed in terror when Joff finally came into the world. A skinless, underweight thing that uttered one utterly horrific cry into the night before the stranger took his little soul and bore him away to the seven heavens. She was bedridden and delirious for a moon’s turn after, and Pycelle did all he could to arrest her decay, and by some miracle, he succeeded. She began to come out of her fever, drink water regularly, and eat broth and then soups. The King hadn’t been there; only her twin and Jaime shared her tears. They gave him a funeral of dragon fire as if he was a Blackfyre! He was mine! One night, she awoke to the sensation that something was watching.

The Hand was standing above her, elegant as ever with his cane of dragon bone, samite, and silks. His turquoise eyes glowed in the night, and he bid her rise and walk with him to the King’s apartments, wherein he took a seat not offered to her by the warm fire in the King’s hearth, and there was Daemon. In night clothes, his silk robes hugging his chest, his features a mask of controlled emotions, his amethyst eyes were blazing with outrage and worst! Scorn as if he were a frustrated parent forced to discipline an unruly child yet again. He leaned back in his chair and regarded her with those eyes, and she suddenly felt pinned to the floor, unable to move or to sit. Only to stand, frozen in terror, as she gazed down at a serpent in the garb of a man with reptilian cunning and lifeless reptilian passion. “You’re allowed to have one to yourself, you and Jaime, but he will not be my firstborn, nor second nor third you will learn this lesson as many times as your body can survive it if you must.” With a gesture, she found herself dismissed.

In her room, she found her mother’s jewels laid out with an old dress, perhaps forgotten as Lord Tywin departed from the Red Keep after resigning as hand. They smelled of death, she could have sworn that she saw her mother’s desiccated corpse in radiant moonlight, and she screamed and collapsed into Jaime’s arms. The next night her twins were conceived because Daemon was going to have his due…The pregnancy was without joy or discomfort, and the birth came so fast that she barely remembered anything except shoving Daeron and Maelys away when they were presented to her. She would never hold those little reptiles. Her little monster Rhaenyra came after the King took her on dragon back to Casterly Rock, where he discussed Tyrion’s ascent to the Seastone chair. Maelos bellowed in the night, and Cersei understood the meaning without needing words from the King. If you want your bastard, mine come first; anything else, and every Lannister everywhere dies. Daemon would hunt them to the ends of the earth, and Cersei was lost, exhausted, and so sick of being used as a broodmare that she contemplated the unthinkable even as her mind wandered to the prophecy of her youth. I see a golden prince and dreams of victory at the cusp of fulfillment, but the true heir shall return and bring your avarice crumbling down around you until your death will finally come at his hands.

Salvation came when Tommen was finally born; she had clung to the infant and poured all her love and devotion (Well, what she possessed and didn’t save for Jaime.) into her golden son. Raising him to be as a Lannister should be imperious, noble, generous, ruthless, and fully aware of his proper place in the world as something more than a mere man. He would be King Tommen reborn, the hero who dared fate and sailed into the smoking sea. Or his ancestors King Loreon the cunning, King Tommen the blazing lion, Tommen Andal killer, Tommen Gardersbane, and so on. Cersei Lannister of House Blackfyre would do all she could to ensure that her precious son would thrive and rise above the accident of his birth. He’ll be Joff’s shadow in this rotten world, meant to be my firstborn. He will be King; if Maelys and Daeron have to go, they must go. It’s not kinslaying, and they’re not mine! They didn’t come from Jaime!

She paced frantically, naked in the room, her mind a whirl with thoughts and fury. Poor Tommen was so despondent, but then again, he didn’t see it; he didn’t see how this could benefit him. Poor Tommen, who was saddled with a bastard’s name (Even if the realm forgave bastards their sin of birth after the first Daemon Blackfyre laughably called the True, gave up the traitors who sought to make him King in place of his trueborn brother.), who now had the chance to earn glory and prestige away from it. If only I could get him away from Duskendale and my idiot uncle! Duskendale is a boring seaside town. But where could he go? Exile in the free cities Westeros hadn’t conquered with Lantell might have made him a worthy King. The Conqueror cut his teeth, settling disputes for those degenerate barbarians, but that would still leave him attached to someone below his station.

Myr, Cersei reached up, trailing her fingers through her golden hair, proud that there was not an inch of gray in those perfect strands. Suppose I could convince that idiot uncle of mine to send Ser Alton to Myr as an envoy. Duskendale did have trade interests with Myr, and her other uncle Gerion was going to be Lord Mayor of the city, ruling it in the name of House Targaryen. Gerion, her least serious uncle, the failure, the fop, the fool who was being granted wealth, privilege, and power he hadn’t earned. Kevan Lannister had initially been offered the position, but he was wise enough to refuse it outright, seeing it for what it was, a trap to weaken her father by depriving him of his most trusted vassal. In compensation for that, Kevan had been given Tarbeck hall and its wealthy lands and then made a vassal of the idiot prince…Father is slowing in his old age for missing that.

Still, House Lannister remained strong and had enough debts to call in. Though, the thought of having to talk to her half-brother…How she hated that boy who stole Jaime’s place and her inheritance! No, she would do this on her work around that sullen little reprobate who dared to claim that her son wasn’t a Lannister! But who could she send Tommen to? Where could he earn his spurs and earn glory on the same hand? Who could he reasonably join in Myr that would give him a chance? The Targaryen brat who was raised amongst wild animals and blood magic-practicing barbarians? No, But he’s a bastard and doesn’t even have a knighthood. And yet when she looked at his face, his beautiful grim face reminded her of the somber prince she almost had. Had he married me instead of that crippled flat-chested water witch, he’d be King now, and Daemon would still be some Eastern Prince and not King.

Oh, honorable Ned Stark was clever enough, more so than anyone gave him credit for. Far too often had she heard members of the court dismiss him as obsessed with the naïve interpretation of honor that Jon Arryn embodied. Still, anyone who ruled a realm as vast and ambitious as the North was no fool, so when she beheld his bastard and caught a glimpse of the prince that by rights should have been hers in the coloration of that feral bitch Lyanna...Well, it wasn’t hard for her to sift through the past. The wolf bitch was abducted on dragon back some turns of the moon before her fool brother came howling down the King’s Road demanding blood and justice for her and then another half turn of the moon before Rickard received a warning, her father tried to dissuade him, and he and Rhaella departed on Dragon back. From the time of their deaths to the end of the war had been a year mostly, which was one of the reasons her father ultimately sided with the rebels. He expected the resources and manpower of the Reach to drag the war on for five or six years, and then Daemon brought Maelos to bear in Dorne and turned his fury upon the Reach.

The bodies would wash ashore on lakes, rivers, and canals near the Reach. The sheer amount of rot and decay and the rats and insects that brought created all manner of sickness that, while not as lethal as it could have been thanks to her father’s genius in scrambling Maesters from the Western Citadel and healers, still slowed down production in the West to such a degree that the realm experienced a minor monetary crisis or so she was told anyway, Cersei didn’t care about that. And Lord Stark returned to the capital with a newborn baby before parting ways to return North. A dead sister and a newborn in tow…and no one thought better; they just assumed he was the bastard of Ashara Dayne, and that’s why she took her own life.

No mother would kill herself because someone stole her baby; no, she believed either Brandon or Eddard had gotten her with child or Aerys, for there were rumors at court that he’d done...Things to Elia’s ladies. Cersei could also believe that Ashara gave birth to that baby, a baby which likely died in her arms days before the arrival of Eddard with Dawn. Her suicide was a perfect cover for absconding with the royal heir, the legitimate heir…It had to be. I visited him once, Rhaegar, when he was in the arms of Ser Arthur. Jaime refuses to believe me even to this day, but I sat opposite their bed, drank their poppy-laced wine, listened to their songs, and sang some of my own.

It had honestly been one of the nicest nights of her life. Neither man treated her as though she were simple, and they had asked her questions about the rock's mystical history, which Rhaegar expected her to know. That might have been presumptuous, but Cersei was always fascinated by omens, prophecies, and the higher mysteries. She was never stupid enough to admit this in public nor mad enough to practice it. They discussed fate, she spoke of her belief that prophecy could be altered or abrogated entirely, which seemed to unsettle Rhaegar deeply, and he never invited her back again. I was vindicated in the end, you myopic reptile; you died pinned under your dragon, head smashed by a bumbling brute, and I am queen. Cersei had dismissed her servants for the night, so deep was her rage at Daemon for the abuse of her son that she feared she might do something to them that couldn’t be covered up, and Zhan Fei cautioned her to hide her fury, for it would be better if a lioness used stealth to punish her enemies in a court this hostile.

She was right and the only person in her life besides her father and herself who was always right. The tall woman, adorned in jade and scarlet, with raven black hair and the air copper skin of far Yi Ti with her slightly serpent-like eyes that were a brilliant gold and features that seemed to be fairer even than the Valyrians, as fair as a Lannister.  She claims to be the granddaughter of the Sorcerer Lord of Carcossa. Maybe it was true, perhaps it wasn’t, but Zhan Fei held an enormous amount of power, and while she played at serving her Lord Father, the elegant Essosi served the queen instead. Her power blinded Roundtree and obscured Aenar’s vision, allowing him to be poisoned. It was by her hand that Cersei now had a fighting chance, and she would not long have to endure the madness ahead. Yes, she thought. Jon Storm was the answer; she could use Rhaegar’s child to free Tommen from his exile and the chaos that was sure to result in the transfer of powers and dominion from House Blackfyre to House Targaryen.

After all, had not the bastard sworn to serve her if she should need it?

Cersei had enjoyed the father's company; she could enjoy exploiting the son, and if all that was required to bend the affection-starved boy to her will was a few kind words, then that was a bargain price! The beginning of a plan began to form in her mind, and she knew then how she would save her son from obscurity and, through the forging of the proper bonds of friendship with the Targaryens, that he would one day return to the Throne. It was a perfect plan and would even remove her precious boy from any of the collateral damage of the moves they would be making here to clear the road for Tommen’s ascent. Yes, Jon Storm will unwittingly be the instrument of a Lannister King. Who knows, if he’s as honorable as his father is caricatured, then he might even become his Hand. Wouldn’t that be a bitter irony?

Like a Fleshsmith, she would cloak her lion cub in a wolf’s skin.

It was perfect, and she was in a good mood until a knock on the door precipitated the entrance of the King, who was staring at her with those calm amethyst eyes of his. He was still clothed, his hair loose, and in the shadows cast by the faint lantern lights, his features looked as young as they had when they first met at the end of the rebellion. Her blood froze as he gazed upon her with eyes that held a frozen fury in them that banished all the hope, excitement, and confidence from Cersei in an instant and reduced her to nothing but a frozen kitten in the corner of her room filled with despair, outrage and….

Shame.

As he advanced on her, Cersei Lannister wanted to back away. Instead, she felt feet carry her forward as if compelled by some primal instinct. Smooth, leathery fingertips touched her jawline, and she willed her eyes to stay open. A thumb traced along her lip as the hand gently found its way to her hair, and she felt fingers run through her silky blond strands until something pressed on the back of her neck, and she felt her head bent upwards as the same hand clutched her throat in a touch that stopped short of being loving. Internally, she laughed at herself. There were tens of thousands of maidens who would kill to be touched in this way by such a handsome king.

If they only knew the truth.

She felt the heat of his breath on her face, and she felt his gaze upon her, a gaze that devoured everything in sight with a hunger that would never be nourished or satisfied. She felt his crimson silk robes touch her bare breasts as he drew her up against his frame, and her body shivered in response. It was all wrong; all of this should be alluring and romantic….but it feels wrong…it’s all so wrong. Everything about him in private is wrong! Gods…are those even eyes?! Every instinct in her being was convulsing with revulsion and terror, and when his lips finally met hers, all she could taste was ash and death. All she could see were the twisted forms of Tommen and Jaime mangled and ruined in a Casterly Rock that had collapsed and fallen like an avalanche upon the whole of her world.

The King never needed to strike or threaten her; he never needed to say anything. Like a terrified child, Cersei Lannister’s poise, dignity, and strength evaporated the moment he showed even the slightest hint of fury. With a look, he could rob her of everything that made her strong, everything that made her whole, everything that made her Cersei.

And when he left her, Cersei Lannister crumpled to the floor in a heap and let out a gasping, horror-wracked sob before the tears came.

I hate him; I hate him so much…

Jaime…Sweet Jaime….

………

The road

“You feel better now?”

“No..yes…but..did you have to hit me so hard?” Jon (Aenar? He refused to be called by that name.) asked; he was lying in the grass as blood flowed from a wound on his head that added the color of rust to his dark black hair. Above him, he could see the perfectly bald head of Prince Maelys gazing down at him, a head that almost seemed finely polished for light reflected off his temple until a lazy summer cloud mercifully shaded out the sun. He did feel better; strangely enough, in that horrifyingly beautiful moment of revelation, he thought himself detached, slumber, as though his mind were removed from himself, and he was watching his body become entangled in the embrace of all who loved him. That night, he’d gone to his apartments, clutched Ghost, sobbed into his fur, and then shunned everyone for a full day. He refused to see anyone, whether it was Rhaenys, his fa..uncle...his sis..cousins, and anyone else, for that matter. The only person he did see that day was Lady Stark before supper, and he couldn’t explain why. The hatred between us should be mutual now..she tormented me, recriminated against me for nothing. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to hate her. Seven hells, he’d found common ground with her after that night. The two talked for several hours before she finally coaxed him out of his self-imposed exile to join House Stark for one of their family meals, a family meal that was tense for long enough that everyone grasped the absurdity of Lady Stark and Jon the bastard entering together before it resumed as though nothing had happened. In a way, it does change nothing; it changes everything but not their places in my heart. However, it may change my physical state as Arya proudly declared that she could beat a cousin more frequently than she was permitted to beat a brother.

He laughed at that, then felt a swell of hurt because he wasn’t her brother anymore. No one else had laughed at the table, and Arya tearfully excused herself. Yet that hurt evaporated the moment he saw the look in Arya’s eyes. It was an innocent joke..but everyone was afraid I’d be wroth; I was for a moment, for she has no tact nor sense of decorum yet…I needed it. This morning she insisted he was still her brother, and Sansa had come by and hugged him and begged forgiveness on her mother’s behalf. And that was the part that perplexed him; Jon hated the way Lady Stark treated him and resented how he would always be second to Robb in the order. Yet, he didn’t mind it in the slightest where it concerned Robb, as if those feelings evaporated as steam in a boiling pot around his kin. She’d spent his entire life hurting him, but the hurt faded the moment he was around those who truly meant something to him, and when he realized how little her feelings towards him mattered, he almost felt ashamed.

The woman might have been cruel, but she put a roof over his head and never tried to pit his surrogate siblings against him, nor did she ever try and keep him and Daenerys apart, and in light of that, it seemed almost rude to be so dismissive of her. Or perhaps her wounds and cruelties would come back roaring like a deluge through his soul in the fullness of time, and he was merely experiencing the euphoria of exertion before the fall. Was he furious with the only father he knew? Yes, that first day, he might have done violence against him had he seen his Lord and known that he hid away and then was overcome by fear of his Targaryen temper. After that, it became clear why his surrogate father hid him from the world. Why had he lied as if the memories of ships burning during the Ironborn rebellion weren’t enough? If King Daemon was the monster, everyone made him out to be, as opposed to a man who does monstrous deeds...But he isn’t, but I would have made the same decision father did.

Was this the maddening way how Aerys and Rhaegar thought? A deluge of conflicting emotions, hyper fixations, and then a calm silence as his mind’s ability to reason warred with his raging heart until he was utterly calm and even the most heinous of slights could leave quickly healed wounds so long as he saw the merits? He never knew his mother; it hurt, but he knew his father. Or maybe if he had grown up without Rhaella and yes, even Lady Stark and their Targaryen or Targaryen-descended fury, if he hadn’t seen Dany and loved her from the moment he recognized what love was. Maybe then he’d fear the madman who was his grandfather and the vicious bastard who was his father who exploited a girl who’d known him since birth to advance an insane scheme. But he grew up loved; he grew up with Rhaella there to ease his hurts and dry his tears when Lady Stark broke his little heart. He grew up with a stern but loving father and a ferociously competitive and loyal older brother and younger siblings who did not seem to care in the slightest who Jon’s father was and accepted him without rancor.

In his heart, a dark voice whispered that they were this accepting because they would all be parting ways soon, and he would have only Bran aside from periodic visits for trade and commerce that could occur perhaps once a year if he was fortunate. That dark voice was mercifully beaten out of him by Maelys when the bald warrior hit him in his head so hard Jon was convinced the self-professed simple Prince confused his head for a bell. “I did, Sansa told me you were being melancholic again, so I knocked sense into you….”

“You did, aye.” Jon felt the prince’s firm hands grip his shoulders as he helped prop Jon up slowly enough that the world only swirled slightly. “I should spend more time with Rhaenys and Daeron, should I not? To get to know them….”

Maelys shrugged. “Sisters are complicated; three days passed, you had two, and now you have four. Those are not good odds, Prince Jon.” Maelys warned with a voice that implied Jon was preparing to face ten thousand Dothraki screamers, not four sisters. Then again, four sisters and my Dany united in common cause…common ire.

Jon would take the ten thousand; it was safer. “Prince consort Jon” He corrected gently, “your grace” At least Maelys concluded as Arya and Sansa did that Aenar was a terrible name and that his poor mother must have been delirious in her final moments to afflict such a name upon him. Poor mother...Jon had always wanted to know who his mother was, and now that he did.

“..Tell me...Will Steffon know?”

“Visenya probably already told him her suspicions, so he probably already knows. We’re not supposed to tell Lord Robert because they say it will break his heart. But that sounds stupid, and Lord Robert is stronger than they think he is.” He paused here, nodding as if in deep reflection, then shrugged again. “But Daeron is smarter than me…So he’s likely correct. I do not believe Steffon will resent you, Prince Jon.”

“Prince Consort.”

Maelys shook his head. “We’ve no proof you weren’t legitimized, so I will refer to you as if you were a Prince by birth.”

“Wouldn’t that make me King?” Jon teased; he wanted the chance to build a Kingdom of his own just as Dany wanted, one they could fashion together with her at the lead and him by her side, but the idea of taking the Iron Throne was as joyless and absurd to him as was taking Winterfell from Robb. He had no interest in someone else’s legacy, which idly made him wonder if his name wasn’t supposed to be Jaehaerys or Aegon if the name of his half-sisters were anything to go by. Arya called him Prince Maegor and insisted that if the King ever forced him to take a name “ruling name” and his true name, as was the custom in Essos. (The father of Prince Jacaerys Blackfyre, the heir of the Blackfyre’s Narrow Sea and Essosi domains, was born Haegon, but everyone remembered him as Aegon Blackfyre for reasons neither Jon nor Arya understood.) Jon should be Maegor to spite Rhaegar. Everyone was horrified, but he found it amusing.

Besides, Maegor Brightflame became one of the kindest and most well-loved Lords in the history of Yi Ti, and when he died, over a million smallfolk and nobles from all over the world came to pay their respects. It wasn’t a bad name for an Eastern potentate, but no, as Jon Storm was raised, and Jon Storm was named by Eddard Stark only father he would ever know and need to know, and Jon Storm he would remain for the remainder of his days. “You would have to fight me, defeat me, then fight the King for that.” Maelys said, interrupting his thought. “I don’t think you’ll ever be that good, Robb, maybe.”

“All hail King Robb then!” came the voice of Prince Daeron as he sauntered in; beside him was Rhaenys dressed in a black and red silk dress that revealed much of her figure-hugging her muscular body in the heat with a red silk sash with the black dragon of House Blackfyre over her Targaryen colors. She wore soft leather sandals, and Sansa had taken to emulating her dress style, however immodest, to keep herself from roasting in the Southron heat. Daeron reversed her in colors, with a cotton doublet with no tunic underneath, red with the black dragon of house Blackfyre emblazoned on his chest with black stones.

The royal procession had put up camp along the coast, two days from the capital now, and at night, Jon could see the faint glow of city lights and traffic on the road and through the castles grew in intensity and frequency. They would be boarding the royal pleasure barge and escorted by Lord Monford Velaryon and ships from the royal navy to escort them the rest of the way, a two-day trip would become an overnight journey, and the plan was for them to arrive with the dawn. Father had warned them that they would be able to smell the city well before they arrived at the docks. Jon couldn’t smell the city yet, but the direwolves could, and at night when he dreamed, he dreamed of running with the pack, led by Warden, through the grass and fields of the Crownlands, where he took in the scent of cattle, sheep, goats, and hogs. There were wild elephants here as well, though not as many as down South and he dreamt that he felt their hand-like noses grip and sniff him and the others as if they could tell the direwolves were not holy wolves and not wholly animal. They showed no fear of us either...

It was a pleasant dream, one that Sansa told Maelys she had, and Arya had begun to wonder if they were Wargs, but he doubted it; no Targaryen had ever shown such a power, or else it would have been mentioned in the stories. Well, none save Bloodraven, and that might have been slander! The last Stark to commune with animals was one of the Theon Starks born four thousand years ago unless he was missing another King of Winter with the power. They were just dreams…I grew up around Wargs; none spoke of dreams, and when they take over their animals, it’s deliberate.

There was a power in Ghost though he could feel it, and in Warden and the she-wolves, but to him, it was more that they grew up around mammoths, giants, and Winter. Maester Luwin once said that animals have languages of their own, some of which were as subtle and complex as the tongues of men, and you learned early on just how eloquent a dragon or an elephant or mammoth could be even if it were mere looks or subtle changes in their posture or the way they shifted. One ancient mammoth hauled lumber from the farming forests around Wolf’s wood. Daredevil they named him for in his youth, he challenged Mag the mighty for dominance and lost part of a tusk. Daredevil had been all fire and fury in his youth, but now he was as calm as a flowing river but no less dangerous, and Rhaella said that he was so large he even managed to intimidate Argella and Aegos when they were younger dragons. He slept, leaning on the walls of the ruined keep Winter called her home, and absorbed heat from the stones and the dragon within. Jon had spent time with the other bastard boys in the keep observing him and studying him.

The conclusion he drew was that Daredevil was a very chatty old soul and sang in his way; songs that Winter seemed to enjoy, for she would often come out of her keep (Now far larger than even he.) and rest by his favorite stream and listen to the soft rumbling and swaying of his head. He was no Warg, he doubted any of his cousins were, but they had spent enough time around dangerous beasts to learn how to learn to speak their languages and while dragons may have ruled the skies, the undisputed Kings of the Crownlands were the elephants. We are fortunate that all these exotic creatures loosed in our lands haven’t caused all manner of problems. Luwin often said that had Westeros not been home to similar beasts in the past, Archmaester Wylde believed that they were filling what he called “a long-neglected niche.” Else there’d be calamity. And there may still be, Jon thought, for now, nothing was bad, but if the wrong sort of plant or insect was loosed here? There were worms in the summer isles that devoured trees and were kept in check by some monkey, yet only the cold kept them from destroying everything in Westeros. The cold and those birds that burrowed in the wood had been fortunate then, for they massacred those invaders.

“You’re not thinking about the land again, are you?” It was Arya who spoke up; she’d followed the future King and Queen of Westeros here; she was adorned in linen breaches, riding boots, and a thin leather doublet with her sigil, a red dragon circled by a ring of flames wherein a direwolf, a trout and a grey dragon chased each other. After the confrontation with Prince Tommen, King Daemon gave her leave to wear it if she wished, believing that she earned in for teaching his errant son his first lesson in humility.  “He’s thinking of anything to distract himself from thinking..” Maelys pointed out, catching the bread tossed at him by Arya, nodding his head in thanks before he began to devour the piece. “The girls will be coming with food soon enough, brother,” Daeron remarked, taking a seat in the grass by Maelys and shaking his head ruefully.

“I shall be living in an entirely distinct continent soon, little sister; I can’t help but think of my home. What if I never see it again?” Jon asked strange enough that bothered him at the moment more than finding out his whole childhood was a lie, how he might never see the rolling hills and wind-swept planes and valleys and gorges, rivers and canals and lakes and mountains of the North. He’d even miss the capital, having not seen it yet but knowing in another life that might have been where he was born, in the arms of a mother that was either smitten with a grown man she’d known since she was an infant or who was a kept woman, a prisoner and a hostage betrayed by that very same man. “You’re an idiot,” Arya remarked, shaking him from his thoughts. “Of course, you’ll come back, the North is one of your biggest trading partners, and you’ll have to visit the capital, and if you or Danny get a dragon, you’ll be a day away at the narrowest part of the narrow sea!”

They had received an egg from winter, one from Dragonstone that was ancient and one from Sea Dragon Keep that was even older still, and when Jon touched them, he had felt the warmth within, but something told him that the day they hatched would be when his children were young. “I do not believe I’ll ever have a dragon, Dany, though.” He smiled wistfully. He thought learning that she was his aunt would do more harm to their relationship than anything else could have and that it didn’t bother either of them disturbed him on some level as if he were bred to find kin attractive, for he never truly looked at another woman much as Ygritte might jest about it about the castle.  “Then I’ll fly to you,” Arya said with an exasperated sigh. “And the moment Dawn is large enough, and Prince Daeron gets one, we’ll all come to visit you and mock you for being the only one without a dragon.”

“Ah, I thank you for your kindness, little sister.” Her barbs had been harsher of late, but they held none of the venom her softer barbs held when she fought with any of her kin. As if she was feeling out the limits to her wit in the face of a rapidly changing world, Jon would always cherish the fact that she never stopped. “Are you well, Jon?” she asked, eliciting a sigh from Jon, who leaned back, doing his best to ignore the throbbing in his head as Princess Rhaenys began to clean and tend to his wound. His violet eyes shifted about the meadow, always mindful for eyes, but only espied Lady and Sansa with a basket of food with Daenerys following suit, adorned in silks like the others and wearing her Targaryen colors with pride. She looked queenly, even carrying a basket full of pastries, a jug of wine, and some cheese. “I should be shattered into a thousand pieces and worry why I am not.” Admitted Jon, still gazing at his beautiful betrothed. “Your father is a specter that haunted my entire life, yet he rewards me...Yes, I know the gift is meant to force us to divert our lives to ordering such a large domain..yet still. It is a generosity that I hadn’t expected.”

“Father has a way of doing that, and he believes it’s better to win the loyalty of potential enemies. To raise them up, he shows no fear in her claim to the Throne nor yours if the truth ever got out.  And if children born in Essos..” That bit went unsaid by the prince, there was a chance their heirs would appear too “foreign” to sit on a throne forged by a foreign conqueror. “I’ve dreamt of a Targaryen restoration Jon, but the King I see ascends the Throne through marriage to a Blackfyre princess after her elder brothers all abdicate or refuse the throne, it’s not a dragon dream, but it’s most likely the only way it would happen.” Daemon brushed a few strands of silver-gold hair from his face. “If our Houses went to war and all our allies joined, it would destroy the better part of two continents and kill millions, Jon.. millions, do you understand? Not since the Doom has the world known such calamity.”

“That was the genius of Aerys the mad.” Remarked Maelys earning horrified stares from everyone, causing him to shrug his shoulders apologetically. “No..” Arya said suddenly, pointing a slender finger at Maelys. “The Prince is right; I remember grandmother telling me this…she said he called it..a..a..veil? No...I shroud?”

“A curtain?” Sansa put in surprisingly helpful. It was rare that they weren’t needling each other or trading barbs, even if they had grown closer over the last two years. Arya nodded, her midnight black hair flailing about her shoulders as she shook with the usual excitement of a girl closer to her ninth name day than her tenth, that was happy to participate in conversations she ordinarily would not be permitted to. “A curtain of deterrence, a wall of allies against enemies, commanding so much power the prospect of a repeat of the dance or the wars before the conquest would be horrifying enough to dissuade them.”

“One of the few strokes of genius; alas, it didn’t work as intended,” Daenerys whispered as she was welcomed, and Maelys pulled his cape from his shoulders and set it as a mantle for their luncheon. Jon would never know how the bald Prince could withstand the insane heat; he always wore mail or leather armor over his clothing as though he were eternally expecting to leap into battle to protect his brothers. “Or perhaps it did.” Offered Daeron as he recoiled when he reached for a pastry and had his hand slapped by Daenerys playfully. Whatever could be said about the King, one thing was true he raised his children with the notion that ruling by kindness was just as important as ruling by terror. For it was easy to befriend his children and easier to forget that they could easily have become their enemies when the truth came out or worse still might.

As they settled for their meal, Sansa produced a rolled parchment from one of her baskets. “Here, Jon, Dany. The Princess Rhaenys, I made this for you.” She said, laying it gingerly on the grass; unfurling the parchment, Jon couldn’t help but smile at the artistic skill of his “half-sister” (He wasn’t sure he would ever refer to them as cousins.), it was a large map and remarkably detailed. One that a skilled cartographer had very clearly made, but the redlines drawn and the Targaryen banner had been the work of his new half-sister and his old one. It was a map of the Essosi domains of the Seven Kingdoms, the domains of House Blackfyre and House Targaryen. “When Aegon the fortunate ruled.” Sansa began doing her best to sound like a Septa initiating a lecture on ethics and righteousness. “The Black Dragons conquered everything from Tyrosh and the stepstones to the first quarter of the “heel” of Essos…the disputed lands gradually followed, becoming the Dragon lands, and then Myr fell when the Emperor in the East tried to drive our people out of Essos.”

Jon nodded, leaning forward, feeling the warmth of Daenerys as she gently pressed their cheeks together. “Over the next eight and thirty years, the rest of what is now the Dragonlands were brought under heel.”

“Aye and the Domains of House Targaryen shall encompass the Sea of Myrth down to the Orange shore, and Volon Therys will be our Easternmost Southern border…The tip of the boot and the arch are House Blackfyre’s domains.” Jon had looked over the map half a hundred times, his mind beggaring at the sheer size of the domain and the wealth of the land and trade. But he also understood the dangers; Volantis would one day make war upon his lands. They had no choice. And the territories along the Rhoyne would be directly in the path of the Dothraki, as would Myr itself, though the Horse Lords had mainly left Westerosi lands alone. He couldn’t quite see what she was getting at until the full implications of the cost of patrolling those domains hit him like a stone.

Daeron gave a nod. “You’ll have to accept a royal edict to expand the Order of the Ash, the Knightly policing order of Myr. More civil servants to assist in maintaining the census and infrastructure as well, I’d wager.”

“And you’ll have the Glass Sept to deal with as well as the Temple of tempest and flame, Myr’s branch of the Red faith.” Sansa sighed. “The King’s gift comes with many strings, all of which benefit you and will make things easier for you.” “But are chains to leash us should we be perceived as acting disloyal towards the crown.”

Daeron frowned. “Jon, unless you or your descendants manage to win the loyalty of the Ash Knights, any King on the Iron Throne could take your entire kingdom from you before you could amass your forces, even if you’d outnumber them ten to one, which you would. But if they can seize all your cities. Have you ever wondered why the great houses of the Realm aren’t in an uproar? There are plenty of eligible Tyrell bastards to wed Daenerys. Tywin might even have thrown a lesser Lannister nephew of his at Dany. Yet there have been no great protestations at the King’s decision? And his elevating you to the status similar to House Blackfyre before the rebellion and Dorne? Aegor Rivers had a cause for rebellion for less.”

Jon suddenly felt like a bigger fool than he ordinarily believed he was. “Aye, you’re saying we should not have accepted this?”

Arya rolled her eyes, and Sansa looked at him in pity. “No, it’s Dany’s birthright and yours…We’re trying to tell you that you need to make friends here and be strong and hard. Like the kings from stories..like..”

“Like Daemon.” Whispered Dany in a childlike voice.

Daeron reached out and framed her face with one hand. “I know what he is; I know that I will do all I can be to rule like your foster father and not like him, but Myr will need a different sort of ruler. Just as the Seven Kingdoms needed my father.”

“They can’t be monsters.” Maelys warned. “They don’t have it in them to disengage once they start.”

Jon felt cold.

“Yes, they do, but a land populated mostly by merchants and tradesmen and freemen won’t need a monster; make them Westerosi in martial spirit. Jon, Dany, make them proud but do not let them succumb to our greed and arrogance; let Myr be a place where the best of the East and the greatest of the West come together in a common cause; that was the original mandate of House Targaryen, cousin…One, I think our forefathers failed, but we here around this picnic have a chance to change with a little Northern austerity and a little riverman sense!” Jon looked at Daeron at that moment and, in those words, thought he saw his future goodbrother for the first time, and it wasn’t a mystic, a gentle prince in his father’s shadow but a burning light all his own. His idol was Daeron the Young Dragon, and Jon sought to emulate him. The chance to do so in Myr with his lady love was overpowering all fears, but here stood the real thing.

The best of Daemon, best of Aerys, beast of both Daerons in the new Daeron. “Thank you, your grace.”

“Wait, who let the faith of the seven have an army again?!” Yelled Arya ruining the moment and gawking at the map in alarm. “And the fire-worshippers too!”

“Your goodsister Rhaenyra is a fire worshipper, you know,” Daeron remarked, vexed.

“I know!”

That got a soft laugh from the prince. “Necessity, to protect so much land without a fully formed tradition of homegrown Knights, many concessions had to be made. From what I understand, both orders get on rather well, as the Starry sept and the Temple in Volantis have decreed that Red R’hllor and the Seven are allied in the war against the Great Other. We’ve been fortunate there as they make up the dominant religions in our side of Essos. Your biggest threat will be the cities of slavers bay and Lys. Who view us as an existential threat.”

“We should speak to the King about offering lands and titles to lesser sons and bastards and seasoned men at arms that are out of work so that we might help continue to build the martial traditions there,” Daenerys whispered once they had begun to aggressively tackle the breaded pheasant meat that had been brought over for lunch. “Though I cannot imagine they would part with such talent willingly.”

“You’d be surprised. Usually, bastards go into the civil services, sixth and fifth-born sons, the Watch, the Knightly Orders, and the builders if they come from noble families smart enough to be affiliated with the guilds in the lands they rule. But the third and fourth-born sons often venture east. Join the trade houses or seek to join service in a noble house out there, or end up owning land themselves. It has solved quite a bit of problem, hasn’t it?” Daeron admitted even in a continent-spanning realm; the nobility was always reluctant to part with their land and break pieces off to pass down to their relatives, so sinecures, government posts, and involvement in the activities of the merchant classes helped to relieve those pressures and to strengthen ties to the peoples of the lands they ruled. But there were always extra mouths to feed and extra sons and daughters to find places for. The east, Jon supposed, was where the lords of the realm looked to solve their problems; I suppose that’s why they’ve not acted as though our ascent isn’t an outrage. Whether the wall or the East, it seemed like Jon would always end up where everyone else deposited their shame, mistakes, and unwanted things. But he would have ghost and Dany and Bran, and nothing could take that from him or diminish it.

“We’ll be entering the Capital soon. We’re your family and your friends.” Daeron began, eying the Stark siblings. “You have our love and our respect, but many in the Capital will fake friendship and use you mercilessly. Vipers will surround you; understand that. It isn’t the North where the “The Stark” reigns supreme, and you are in the cradle of your father’s ancient power. You are a resource to these people and an unknown resource.” Adding to what her betrothed said, Rhaenys nodded furiously. “Indeed, and an unknown pair that will command armies as large as the Riverlands. Even with the manpower issues regarding protection, you’ll have the levies, not the men to train and command them, but that still makes you a very wealthy and powerful threat and…asset, and you? Starks, you’re the key to your father. Never give anyone anything they can use to leverage against him, and always guard your tongue even among those you think are your friends.” Those words had left the meadow utterly silent but for the rustling of the wind and the soft sound of breathing. Jon swallowed; his mind wandered back to Bran’s sickbed, the twisted look of hate on Lady Cat’s face, and his solemn vow to always protect his family even if he was an ocean away. Jon had never felt the weight of an oath in its full measure bear upon him.

But now it felt like it was all he could to continue to draw breath.

His fingers interlinked with hers, and he saw Dany there, allowing the fear to convert to something else.

For a part of him awoke in the looming shadow of doom, a part of him that told him he was bred for this, born of this, and was fitted by bearing, love, and the times he was born into.

And that together, all was possible.

When the cold winds blow…

Chapter Text

…………

Emerald Dragons

Viserys knew the box to be a trap the moment he opened it and beheld the seven dragon eggs within; he knew from the moment he prayed to the Goddess who ruled these lands and sought advice from his wives, concubines, and Lord Aethan that his suspicions were correct. He’d gifted two eggs to the Brightflames, for it was only righteous that he granted the Lord Mayor of Peikeng, who had taken him in and shown such devotion and familial support to both her and poor Ser Jonothor, to receive a gift that was his by birthright as much as it was Viserys’.  The rest he had carried with him to the mighty city of Yin, where eight million people cheered his name, making the ground tremble as he was borne on the mighty war elephant (Who was his closest companion on the field beside Ser Jonothor.) Puyi, who had charged the lines of Zorse riders and utterly shattered them. Viserys and Puyi took terrible wounds in that battle, but they cut their way through and laid the renegade Orange Emperor low.

The City of Yin could best be described as a city made by God-like men for God-like men, and even a descendant of Dragon Lords like himself  felt humbled by the immensity of it all and the cleanliness of the streets and salubriousness of its people. Their roads made of that liquid stone were near as good as Valyrian roads as to make no difference. The quality of their steel was only exceeded by Valyrian make. When Viserys beheld the Imperial Palace of Yin, he did his best not to weep in awe and wonder at it (Nor feel like a mindless primitive, for he had mistaken the towers of the damn thing for fucking mountains that he saw in the distance on the balcony of his palace.), the former prince had never seen anything so grand, not even Valyrians built anything this big. Maesters back home said that the palaces of Yin were so big they could fit the Red Keep, Harrenhal, and Highgarden in them and have room to spare. Horse shit! The Sapphire palace of light and harmony was so enormous the entirety of King’s Landing could fit in its central gardens! He’d mistaken it for a fucking mountain range from home! He’d never seen the palace before, he’d never been to Yin in all his years, and though he corresponded with the Emperor over letters (Which in and of itself was such a rare honor that many nobles that outranked him paid him tribute over the matter.), he had never so much as known if those letters were written in his hand or if his servants wrote them.

Yin utterly humbled Viserys, and Ser Jonothor, who was borne on a palanquin by his wives, japed that it answered the question as to why the Freehold expanded in all directions But for Yi Ti. And Viserys was forced to agree; the largest army ever assembled on the field of battle in Westeros was one hundred and ten thousand strong, and it was the army that encompassed the combined power of the host of the Green majesty, Queen Alicent Hightower, who had taken the field when her son Aegon the usurper had been burned and crippled. The Army Viserys equipped and brought to bear against the Orange Emperor was twice that number, and it was but one of four on the field on that fateful day. Still, two thousand dragons could decimate even a million scorpions firing a million bolts.

And no polity in the known world fielded “artillery” of that size and number. But his lingering questions were soon answered when he gazed up at the immense mountain-sized towers and their perfectly tiled roofs and saw lightning striking Gargoyles that looked tiny to his eyes and must have been enormous, for he saw them even as the clouds devoured them. And then the Gargoyles moved… They were long, longer than Balerion was said to have been, and immense, with four mighty limbs, muscled arms, and powerful claws. The eldest of the group breathed fire and had brilliant orange and pale blue scales and long white fur that fell about his snout like a great beard with two majestic whiskers like antennae and a crown of straight oryx-like horns; he looked at once majestic and gentile with the aura of a country noble and yet those eyes! Oh, what warrior’s pride was in the old Wyrm’s eyes! What ferocity! The others (His females) were blue, purple, and white and glittered as if they were painted, and each was half his length. They seemed to spark lightning, and when they crawled down, they surrounded Viserys, and that was when he first noticed a saddle of the finest leather, pure gold, and platinum sparkling with diamonds. On it sat the tallest man he’d ever seen with copper skin, a long face, and an even longer beard; his eyes were gold, his pupils slanted, and his whiskers and eyebrows were as long as his beard. He was adorned in the rarest of silks with gems woven into his robes and a bright blue Northern diamond fused into the skin on his forehead.

Everyone in the crowd fell to their knees and averted their eyes, the sound of half a million knees bending at once was thunder all its own. Neither the Golden Empire nor Valyria ever made war upon each other, and now I understand why..they had Wyrms. We had dragons, and a battle between us likely would have destroyed us. Or was he being delusional? Could two thousand dragons contest the majesty and beauty of their ancient fathers? Who stood before him now? How could they have kept this secret for thousands of years?! And then he realized…bigotry…. No one in the West or the rest of Essos would have seriously taken any claims that dragon-like beings were alive and well outside the freehold, for Yi Ti was seen as an ancient, stagnant realm locked in one moment in history and doomed never to progress. And so many queer tales, myths, and fables were told of the place, so what was one more in the endless pile of absurdity?

Targaryen dragons seemed paltry by comparison. Aegon rider of chickens…It was demoralizing but also uplifting at once. He was overawed and yet inspired, for the Valyrians of old Had made themselves peers of these mighty people. And Westeros was no uncivilized backwater but an empire larger than Yi Ti and near as wealthy even if it was only a quarter as populous. He didn’t come from backwater roots; humbled by comparison, yes, but not backwater. Puyi reached out with his trunk and sniffed the ancient Wyrm, who in turn reciprocated, and the Emperor beckoned, and when a God called you, you followed. So he rode beside the immense beasts up the stairs and onto the grand patio of a castle he had confused for a mountain range. When he knelt and offered the Dragons eggs, the Azure Emperor banished his proxy voices, did what none had ever done to a foreigner before, and spoke directly to Viserys.

“Viserys Targaryen, in service to your betters, you have proven yourself a true and loyal son of Valyria of old, a true and loyal son of Westeros, a finer Knight than has been produced by those barbarian peoples of the West. Thou art a man worthy of being our earthly son. For that is the only gift we can give a Zeilo like you, who would be so wonderful and generous to our divine personage that you would make a gift to us of the only inheritance your homelands dead Valyria and far off Westeros that you have left of you. Such an intimate piece of yourself. I weep and take you into my arms and my home.”

It was a very ancient and rare custom. Still, it was legal for a high noble of Yi Ti to adopt a member of a lesser people but no less great a house and elevate them and entitle them to a small portion of inheritance and legacy and should through toil that lesser man proves worthy he may inherit more than just that but might find his way to the top of the line of succession. But Viserys held no illusions of that; no foreigner would ever sit on the Sapphire throne nor any imperial throne. According to legend, the Bloodstone Emperor was not purely of the Dawn, and that tainted blood brought the long night as much as his appetites did. Azure Emperor Bu Lei had two hundred sons and five hundred daughters who lived to adulthood by his seven hundred concubines and wives, and they, in turn, gave him almost two thousand grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There were always japes about how the Targaryens and Aetheryons created cities from their loins and filled them with bastards, but that was no jape with the godly house of Bu, and idly he wondered if that was why there were so many Freys in the tapestries and paintings here. A second long night would have to fall, caused by the disgraceful conduct of the God Emperor’s progeny, for them to be so disgusted and desperate as to elevate him. Yet the gesture opened a thousand doors and solidified his ascent in Yi Ti. He could never go back now; he wasn’t even Westerosi anymore. He was an adoptive son of the Golden Empire and one of its greatest heroes. The eggs were returned to him, and the Emperor vowed that they would hatch and his progeny and kin would ride them in the service of the God Emperors of the Azure dynasty. For darkness comes, my son, and you will play a role in its defeat.

Viserys Lord of a few port towns and future Governor of Peikeng and the coastal province of Yin (Named so for the city.) and became the Celestial Prince Viserys Targaryen, Emerald Dragon, master of the armies of the Azure Emperor (He ignored the fact that he technically already was this because he was the only battlefield commander with any experience.) and guardian the seas, valleys, hills, mountains, coasts and all else under the stars. Aenys Brightflame retired on the spot and Viserys was made Governor mere hours later. All of this happened in a whir, and Viserys found himself the center of a ten-day feast and twelve additional days of games and festivities before he could finally sit and speak with his extended family on the nature of the Eggs and this declaration of friendship (The merchant had escaped before he could be questioned.) when they concluded it was a feint and that they likely hadn’t meant to give him live dragon eggs.  Or they had Viserys thought darkly to put the attention of all the old Lord Hand’s assassins on me and not their true puppet.

It was then that he was told the court Xi readers had sensed the end of the Old Hand’s life force but disturbingly had not felt his soul pass beyond, either to the next world or pulled into the wall as so many who died in Westeros were That part always horrified me, it explains why those who die in Westeros only see blackness and cold in death yet when the false Emperor’s assassins poisoned me I saw my mother telling me to live again. One of the Xi masters, their version of the green seers or Maesters who specialized in the higher mysteries, had revived him an hour after death as they said they had placed him in extreme cold and that had allowed him to survive the restoration of his soul without grievous damage. They weren’t quite certain what it was, but something about the brain prevented resurrections in heat from being true resurrections. Maybe that’s why those revived by Kinvara come back missing memories—knowing more of their dead kin than their living? But then again, Ser Sarwyck never had those problems, albeit he insisted on only trying the ritual on men who had been put in cold water and were gone only an hour. Two Red Priests, one very wise Septon, two animists, and one cleric of the Maiden Made of Light. Viserys had as many Gods in his armies as he had men to command, but he made do with his meager menagerie of cantankerous clerics. When Sarwyck and Kinvara aren’t calling each other heretics, Meribald, his great dog, and Lu Fen aren’t breaking them up. At least the animal worshippers aren’t adding fuel to that fire. Hmm, that pun was terrible; indeed, I am become a father.

He had been silent since then, a turn of the moon in meditative contemplation as his wives and goodbrothers managed the transference of power and began moving all their things to the Governor's palace. This would still be his winter palace, where he could come to take a respite from work and where he would always gather his armies because it was on a quieter part of the river that allowed him to send ships to retrieve them without much traffic and fanfare.  And this was one of the places in Essos with cooks who knew how to make a proper Westerosi-style lamprey pie. He’d given the palace up the river to Aenys for it contained many a monument to his ancient and remarkable career and bid him use it whenever he wished but had also performed the customary request that the old Governor assist him in establishing his new powerbase and in providing him with a list of enemies that ought to be punished before the old Governor passed from old age or sickness or assassinations.

 Targaryens, it turned out, were as mortal as any man. Still, the sorcery that made them Dragonlords made it slightly harder to poison them (In that Aenys required three times the usual dose of any poison when he was a young man but now had built up such a tolerance to the stuff over a lifetime of assassination attempts that he was immune to nearly everything.), they were also harder to kill by disease, but it wasn’t impossible. Viserys had lost a son early on to a particularly virulent chill, and his eldest son nearly died from corruption caused by a serpent bite. He had no illusions about Targaryen's invulnerability, unlike his father. The only thing that seemed to remain constant was that he was highly resistant to heat, which made sense if one was constantly mounted upon mystical animals that exuded warmth. However, that came at the cost of him being eternally thirsty. The eunuch master of assassins, Lo Han, once joked that Aethan Brightflame could drink a river dry. Viserys half wondered if the resistance to disease Valyrians of dragon rider descent were famous for was due to overcoming the deleterious effects of consuming water not boiled with tea or wine.

The old Hand has died, yet his soul hasn’t departed…The new Hand is Eddard Stark.

He was at a crossroads in his life, some of the stories he heard about Daemon Blackfyre were troubling, yet he was still a King that presided over peace and prosperity. Their spies in King’s Landing though slow to report always brought back good reports on his heir, the mystically incline yet charming Prince Daeron, and here he was needed; here he had built his dynasty, the ruler of a tributary Kingdom in all but named shielded and protected by the heart of civilization itself. A place that built cities while his ancestors were still barely men, there was nowhere. And so, the last son of Aerys the mad made his decision; he ordered paper and parchment and summoned Ser Sarwyck and Ser Jonothor. Septon Meribald and Kinvara, and Lu Fen.

To Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, Lord of Winterfell, and Hand of the King. Father and patriarch of the oldest dynasty outside the most noble and divine Azure House of Bu Heavenly sovereigns of the Golden Empire of Yi Ti. Son of the Direwolf, son of the Kings of Winter of Old. Son of the Dragon, most cherished cousin, and were things different between us, friend…

It was a start, Viserys thought; let any Targaryen that claims the Throne a new be not of his loins, for his blood was now tied to the Golden Empire.

There would be no Dragon Kings here, only Princes.

And he could live with that, aye, Viserys thought. Borrowing Northern parlance, he could live with that.

………………

A student.

She was correct; he did curse her. But not for long life, Bran was still a boy of eight, and he couldn’t even imagine being old. But he did curse her for that when he agreed to be her champion; the Goddess must have done something; for a while, he lost the use of his eyes; every other sense rushed forward to fill the void. And they had begun to stumble over themselves! The first time Bran had touched a bowl of hot soup and felt the grease from unwashed hands, smelled the pungent orders of tallow and spices, his sense of touch and taste seemed to rush together, and suddenly what had been one of the tastiest meals he’d ever eaten turned into nightsoil in his mouth and the poor boy spent the bulk of the night vomiting and crying in pain because he sounds of his retching was so powerful that he could do nothing else but the movement of his juices and the one time he slipped in his vomit and once against smell and touch collided and for some unfair reason formed taste?

Bran didn’t wake up for another two days. And during those days, he dreamed deep and long dreams where Summer ran through the forests, and Bran could see the trees and the summer snow in subdued colors that were no less vibrant than anything he saw when he still possessed eyes. His mind sometimes wandered above the clouds where an eagle that became Bran or else graciously allowed him to see. Can a…what did she call it? Greenseer also be a warg? Bran would have to ask Maester Luwin, old Nan, or one of the freefolk. Or maybe all of them? Bran felt a chill as though something was looking into him, and when he turned his mind from the bird, he saw a vast forest of tall grass that looked like stilts filled with strange bears and large apes and birds of all sorts and a breed of an immense red wolf with thick manes and hand-like paws.

But all of them yielded to the traveler who had risen from the ocean yet again to return to the mainland to continue his journey. Hugging the coast, venturing into mountains, or burrowing deep underground to escape the notice of travelers, its training engrained over nearly two centuries of life. Bran thought that must have made it old, but it didn’t feel old. His kind lived twice that, and Bran could feel the pride and arrogance waft off the being that haunted his dreams. Bran had taken to calling him “old soldier” or “The soldier,” for he knew not its proper name, and it was very disciplined and measured and proud in a way that reminded him of the stories told of Lord Randyll Tarly. But Bran couldn’t know what it was, only that it felt as if it were a living tempest and that it viewed itself separate and distinct from dragons, weaker in some respects, greater in others. But he could never take it over as he seemed to do with Summer, and it warned him that trying to do that to his kind or a dragon might be suicidal. Bran didn’t want to die; he had already been too close to death and paid dearly for it.

His left arm was so weak and his side so sore that when he woke and slipped and bumped his bruised back, he was devoured by the darkness and didn’t wake for another half day. By then, the bombardment of his senses was so disorienting he laid in bed sobbing for half a day before he heard a low rumble at his window, one deep and penetrating that seemed to drown everything else out, and he could feel and smell Winter. He learned then to focus on one sound to drown out the others and thanked the She-Dragon, that had been like a second grandmother to him most of his life. Of course, he wasn’t free of the noise entirely, he still struggled in large crowds, and certain voices were painful to listen to (Old Nan’s shrill voice was incredibly discomforting, but Bran endured it because he felt it was better to train himself to endure and he loved her stories), others like the Greatjon’s deep rumbling basso or the soft yet powerful voice of his Goodsister or of his grandmother (Targaryens and Blackfyre’s had oddness in their pitch that made Bran wonder if his grandmother’s ancestors truly did mix with dragons.) served as a focus and eventually helped him center himself.

One of the things that shocked him came when Maester Luwin left a book out, and Bran felt as though he could smell the ink. In the past, touch and smell had collided to form taste, and knowing just how sensitive his fingertips were, the boy began to trace them along the rough paper and then along the ink, and suddenly he could see again! Or, to be more accurate, he recognized each letter that painted a shape in his mind that he could gradually order into a sentence. When Bran spoke of this to Luwin, the Maester smiled, stating that he wasn’t surprised, for he knew a blind Maester who could deceive the citadel for many years due to similar senses. Certain other things changed; as he grew less overwhelmed by his new senses, he began to learn how to focus and when that occurred, he learned that voices and heartbeats produced colors. These colors sometimes bathed the person or animal in a cascade of ripples, the color of various dyes, and that allowed him to see a vague outline of their features.

Bran quickly learned that there was a rather unpleasant drawback in that he could tell when a person was lying by the tenor and pitch, the shapes of the splashes of colors, and how the ripples formed. He was also the first to catch that poor Ser Rodrik Cassel was suffering from a malady of the blood as his blood was pumped through his body like a rushing river. Maester Luwin told Ser Rodrik to try and eat less salt or give up fyreleaf, and he was rather sore with Bran over that for the fortnight it took for his body to accept the lack of fyreleaf. Bran would miss the smell of his pipe, but he was glad that he likely added five or ten years to the old man’s life, as Luwin said. He also noted a subtle change in Winter and how she interacted with him that made him sad until the giant dragon snuffled his stomach one night and made him laugh. Maybe he would never be her rider, but he would always be her hatchling.  By the time father had made it to the capital, Bran was starting to learn that his heightened senses and his Greenseer abilities allowed him to “see” the past in vivid dreams and visit men and women dead long ago. It also meant that while it was confirmed that he was blind.

He'd become as agile as a cat.

Bran proved this when he scaled the main keep’s highest tower, slid down using the gutters and drains, and managed all this despite the weak arm. Bran had lost his eyes, but he had gained a thousand new ones, and all of them would serve him well both as a Knight and as a champion for his new Goddess. And then he learned that he could indeed Warg, and he discovered this when he nearly tore his mind apart, accidentally entering the mind of four eagles, a raven, and Summer simultaneously. I am not strong enough to do that, not yet. The stress sent him into convulsive fits, and if it weren’t for Rhaenyra turning him over on his side, he might have choked on his vomit. When he slept, his mind traveled far and away, and he watched a Dragon Lord in orange and scarlet duel another one in light blue and silver in the skies as a city burned and raged below them. Their dragons were bigger than anything he thought possible, and the rider in blue and silver called the immense dragon Morgha. Her face shifted to that of Arya’s, but Arya looked like a woman grown, a beauty out of the songs. Another legendary beauty with hair the color of blood stood like a sentinel guarding a hairless drake who thrust a burning sword into the heart of a many-armed monster, slimy and wet yet covered in oily black feathers. Around the blood-haired beauty stood wolves of red and black snarling, and a wise dragon clasped a young lion in brotherhood as an old lion looked on in rage.

He saw a woman from the far east in scarlet, her serpentine eyes filled with taunting malice, and he saw Rhaella in armor, blood was in her hair, winter roaring in sorrow as an ancient sea dragon crawled from the mouth of a young one.

None of it made sense, but the image of his grandmother drove him to wake and run into her arms, where he refused to leave for another hour, bawling like a child, both out of fear for what he stood to lose and fear of the unknown. In his heart, the young Stark knew he would be leaving soon, knew riches and power awaited him and glory but also death and betrayal, and Jon and Dany, whom he now knew for a certainty were both his cousins, yet he loved them like siblings. Everything was going to change soon, and Bran didn’t want it to, yet he was excited about that change and wondered if his strange dreams were omens or, just as Arya often said, “Nonsense.”.

Arya had dragon dreams, he had green dreams, and Sansa inherited sense and clarity.

He would have to pray that his brothers inherited the hardiness of the North and the fires of old Valyria.

And the old soldier…

He would have to be a little more patient.

That prospect excited Bran more than anything, a chance to meet someone or something new and different than anything he’d ever encountered. Something older and more primal, yet it did feel like a dragon, albeit as if whenever he touched his mind, he was interacting with something that preceded dragons, alike them in nature and sense but distinct and older as though the soldier was some great father of the earliest dragons. The difference between how Summer’s mind felt to him and the sense of the Northern Shepherd Hounds descended from unions between dogs and direwolves. However, he could not tell if Dragons came about the same way, if sorcery and selective breeding were involved or if it was merely nature. One thing was certain, though, it hadn’t been the Valyrians who did it for Winter, and the Soldier was so distinct despite their similarities that Bran was convinced an ocean of time had passed between the point of separation. One older than any civilization, one that occurred so long ago as to allow Dragons to become their distinct breed far removed from the interference of any races of man or near man.

Bran rose from his bed, Summer’s wet nose tracing his wrist, gently nudging him towards his closet. Bran knelt and gently scratched his pretty neck and chest, holding his pup, which was now the size of a proper hound. “Thank you, Summer.” He was starting to reach a point where he didn’t need this kind of help, but he would never shoo the direwolf off or stop him from giving it. There was a sense of love and devotion in Summer, and Bran would never stifle that, not for as long as either of them lived, and he had a feeling that Summer’s fate would be as his, to father many mothers of mighty hounds in far-off lands. “What do you think?” He asked softly; Bran would have to design his new sigil soon for the House Stark of Volon Therys (Assuming that was the city Jon and Dany decided to put him in.) he’d been told his lands would encompass the entire Rhoynar border of the domains of House Targaryen which grandmother said would make Bran very rich but also bitterly resented by certain lords who’d been there for decades and were passed over and that Volantis would see him as their primary enemy. You’ll have to be a Knight, an Admiral, a general, a river captain, and a merchant. Bran thought of writing to Lord Seaworth about setting one of his younger sons up to run the river-based Navy Bran would be expected to build, or perhaps he could trust one of the locals or maybe a Velaryon or one of the Houses of the Reach allied to House Baratheon of the Arbor. Or a Manderly or perhaps all of the above; from what Maester Luwin said, there’s a precious lack of talent to handle that. He’d be ruling an area starting at sea and ending inland near the Dothraki; it was no wonder the Blackfyres were too happy to cede these territories.

Wealthy, yes, but so much coin would be burned, keeping them safe, that the Blackfyre would probably grow richer by trade than they had by ruling the land. I suppose that’s the cost for such a boon, though. In the North, Bran could be expected to be granted sizable lands along the west coast or dominion over Moat Cailin, whose wealth was derived from tolls and trade in its market town and from patrolling the canals, which would have made him a vassal of House Reed. Or anywhere else, the North had so much land that it was still unoccupied despite its large population. Bran’s destiny was entirely in his hands, but when he learned that it would be Rickon who inherited the Dreadfort and would be allowed to be the founder of his own branch of House Stark, Bran decided that his destiny lay in the South. At first, he’d wanted to work for one of the great trading houses that were founded by Starks centuries ago, but then he learned Braavosi primarily owned them, and the Iron Bank was immensely powerful on its own and often counted as an unofficial “eighth” Kingdom by the more discontented nobles in Westeros. It seemed that as the realm's wealth grew, the more dire the need for a good and independent banker there was.

And only the Iron Bank was wealthy enough to partner with the Banks of Oldtown, Dragonton, and Lannisport; it was the only institution wealthy enough to support loans to build and found cities. But that sometimes meant that they were a quiet yet influential force in the Seven Kingdoms, and from what Bran could gather, he might be forced to choose between Braavos and distant cousins and his siblings, so he abandoned that dream. He'd always wanted to be a Knight for as long as he could remember, and he knew in his bones that serving as a bravo for a trading house wouldn’t be the same. Serving as a Knight of the Kingsguard, donning a white cloak, and protecting the realm had always appealed to him until the fall, where now, for some reason, it filled him with dread and outrage, and pain. And then he was told why his father hadn’t picked out any lands for him, that the King wrote him when Bran was born and said to him that he had plans for the second son of House Stark. Those plans came as a suggestion to Jon and Dany, who readily accepted it.

As Summer tugged on the fabric, causing it to tumble onto the smooth floor, Bran knelt and traced his fingers over the fine-dyed linen and wool blend. He could feel wolves woven into the fabric, yet he somehow knew this was the black and red of House Targaryen, the house he would serve and of whom he was descended through grandmother and mother and whose colors he would wear until he found his colors. Bran knew what his sigil would be, with only the certainty that an eight-year-old boy could possess; it would be a three-headed snarling direwolf in a circle of flame. As Bran began to get dressed, he suppressed a spurt of anger as his left arm shook; it was still so weak, still healing, but little by little, he would build as much strength as he could from it. I may never be able to draw a bow or lift a lance with that arm, but I can steady a horse, and I will learn how to wield a sword with both hands. Could Bran hold a shield? Likely not right now, but he would one day teach himself to fight left-handed as his predominant hand. I won’t be slowed down…

He'd miss that; father always said his fondness for wearing different clothing, each one a tribute to each house he was descended from (Namely, Tully, Targaryen, and Stark.), was an indulgence in vanity. Still, Bran insisted that each of his doublets or cotehardies prominently feature the Direwolf of House Stark. The garb Bran wore now featured a snarling red three-headed Direwolf, and he smiled; yes, that would do. It was just a question of finding the House colors now. Summer went ahead of him, his sleek silvery hair neat and straight for Bran and Rhaenyra both fawned over their Direwolves grooming and brushing them; for the Princess, it was an exercise in love and to think over the day’s events. For Bran, it was a way to steady his mind and overwhelmed senses. Even now, focused on keeping his alertness calm, the scratches on the door may have been a fist pounding. And the deep rumbling steps sounded like thunder to him until he calmed himself with slow breaths. When the door opened, Bran didn’t need working eyes to tell who it was. He could hear his mighty breaths, the slow potent beating of his heart, and the body heat radiating off Ser Walder of the Hill.

No one could say which hill, for he had chosen it because it reminded him of “the place I found my first ox.” He rode oxen, for he was too massive to ride a horse. Men called him Hodor because he had an unfortunate habit of muttering “Hodor! Hodor!” ever since he received an axe wound to the head holding the door shut as Ironborn tried to force their way through to kill Lord Stark during a frantic assassination attempt when Balon’s mad rebellion stopped being a war and became a great slaughter. Roark, his father’s spymaster, ordered Walder to hold the door, but he did so through his abilities and not speech, almost possessing Walder. From what Bran could overhear of the gossip, it left poor Walder frozen until the axe, which Luwin’s skill in the higher mysteries, could remove without leaving him an imbecile. Father was furious with Roark for a long time.

Bran smiled up at Walder, it had been a while, and he always liked crawling onto the giant’s shoulders. Walder was also notable in that he was the only person Bran knew without Valyrian heritage that dragons seemed to be fascinated with, and not in the way they eyed food or a threat. Still, they were utterly taken with him to the point where Aerax followed him around, soaring above him when uncle Edmure wasn’t around. Bran liked Aerax, he was such a friendly dragon, and his aerial dances were some of the most beautiful displays of valor he’d ever seen. Maybe Aegos is the knight of the skies, but I name Aerax King of the winds! No other dragon moved like that, he was so fast, so gallant, so swift, and so daring, and he was glad he at least got to see that for almost a moon’s turn before his sight was stolen. “Ser Walder! I thought you’d have departed with Ser Rhakkaro?”

“No.” The giant shook his head, slapping his shoulder and putting his knee out, and Bran wanted to cry. The giant knew he’d been blinded but hadn’t made any effort to extend him any handicap or deference, nothing changed, and he expected Bran to perform exactly as he had before the fall. This is what it means to be a knight...Bran thought, eternally grateful, and he quickly hefted himself up to his knee and then climbed up his shoulder where he perched like one of those talking birds from the Summer Islands. “Ser Whitewolf wanted me to stay; he felt my services would be better off here, and I think he suspected the attack that was..was….” Bran waited for it; he knew whenever Walder grew worth or agitated, it would come out, and sure enough, barks of “Hodor! Hodor!” that elicited a few barks from Summer in agreement. “Going to happen, even warned ol’Ser Rodrik, but Ser Rodrik thought it was impossible.”

Bran nodded; poor Rodrik Cassel must have been consumed by guilt, but it was a wise assumption. Even the assassination attempt by the mad Ironborn on his father happened at Barrow Hall and not in Winterfell. “I bare him no ill will; he was right to be dubious; I don’t think there’s been an attack inside these walls in five hundred years.” Bran tried to remember, for it was a tale that fascinated him. It was said to have been a Bolton bastard who had managed to sneak into the children’s towers and beheaded a guard before he was captured, dismembered, and the pieces sent back to the Dreadfort one after the other over a year. Each one with the same letter reassuring Lord Domeric Bolton that Winterfell knew that Edric Snow acted on his own and that they held no ill will against the House of the flayed man.  The Stark Kings of winter was very different from the Lord of the North, who’d governed as Warden since the Dragon Kings came. Walder nodded as they walked through the hallway, oil lamps illuminating the black stone hallway, light reflecting from the glass windows casting shadows that enveloped Bran, his giant, and his direwolf. “I remember the story, some Bolton Bastard, eh little lord?”

“My Lord Father says our ancestors were hard men for some of what they’d done.” Then again, Bran thought. So were the men of his grandfather’s generation, for Theon Snowfall upon the Bolton like a farmer’s scythe, his twin daughters who were wargs were fed a kind of mushroom that was said to grant visions and drive men into a bloodmad frenzy, and he turned them loose upon the interior of the Dreadfort. Mors Umber relieved uncle Theon’s forces so that he might join father in the South; he still refuses to speak of what he saw transpire within the walls of the old Bolton Keep at my grand uncle’s hands. “Did you fight in the Blackfyre Rebellion, Ser Walder?” Bran asked, his eyes shifting to the window opposite him, there, he could see the Godswood in all its ancient glory, and there he knew he'd find his Goodsister. I miss Sansa and Arya…But Rhaenyra has been a sister, too; I’ll miss her when I leave. Bran didn’t want to think of that; he didn’t want to cry on Walder’s back.

“Aye, I did, little Lord, but I was in Tyrosh. I went with a Manderly fleet and the Knight I squired for. A Barrow Stark! Willas was his name. He was killed in Tyrosh fighting beside Master Forel of Braavos, the Princess’ water dancing master…he was…HODOR…killed by Vaemond Velaryon. A cousin of Lord Monford.” Bran nodded; during the rebellion, half the Velaryons sided with the Blackfyres and the other half with the King until Aerys fed yet another Velaryon to Aegos. Then they entirely abandoned the royal cause. The Navy of House Manderly had issued forth from White Harbor to keep Dornish pirates from running interference with their sea-based supply lines before they joined with the Aetheryons and eradicated most of House Redwyne. Several Northerners helped repel an invasion of Tyrosh by Targaryen loyal forces, including grandmother and Winter, who had just come from the battle against Aegos over Summerhall. “I was at King’s landing too, but your Lord father bid me stay to help restore order to the city; I was put in charge of flea bottom with Martyn Cassel. Who later died protecting young Robb from the Ironmen.”

Bran nodded. His senses are awash in the echo of the long walkway between towers, the echo creating a cascade of colors throughout the edifice. The Color of Walder’s voice was an intense green and vibrant, but he could sense something different about him, as if the damage to his mind from Roark’s power and the axe wound left him altered somehow. “So, you weren’t at Summerhall?”. Walder shook his head “mercifully…No..HODOR…HODOR…No one speaks of it, might odd seeing as that was where several of the greatest Knights of the realm met their end and the greatest swordsmen ever to live.”

“Aerion, Vaegon’s rider, not my uncle at the Wall; he was there,” Bran muttered, more to keep himself focused than anything. Entering a winch was still an ordeal for him, and he flinched when he realized he would not be trapped alone in a box with Walder’s “hodors” and his deep voice and the pounding of his heart and the sounds of Summer’s breathing. “Aye, little Lord. I knew his cousin, the one whom he squired for Tyraxus Aetheryon. He died at Summerhall killed by Ser Arthur, they say.”  “They say,” Bran muttered, father refused to speak of Summerhall no matter how much everyone pestered him, and he would grow wroth if one pushed too hard. And when Bran dreamed, he dreamed of everywhere except for Summerhall as though there was a great black void around it. Dawn ran through Tyraxus, and Aerion Aetheryon was said to have fought Gerold Hightower long enough for Howland Reed and Tormund Giantsbane to kill him. Aerion was one and ten or two and ten when that fateful battle occurred, and it was hard to imagine a boy achieving that even though the Goddess said he would surpass Ser Aerion and the Kingslayer both. “Do you believe Ser Aerion could have faced the White Bull?”

Walder was mercifully silent until the winch shuddered as they reached the bottom; when the doors were opened, they were joined by Osha, a member of the Wildling tribes who agreed to swear fealty to House Stark in exchange for lands to settle and build new lives on. She was the head of her own Masterly House. Which was named Aspyr, for she was said to fight with the ferocity of a venomous serpent. The tall woman always smelled of pine and perfumes, something Bran thought amusing given how battle oriented and austere she was—adorned in bronze armor made by the Thenns. Osha was the Vice-Captain of the order of the Wolves for the city of Wintertown, serving under a Snow (Though Bran forgot if he was kin to the Starks, Hornwoods, or Glovers.); beside her was Larence Snow, a Hornwood bastard few years older than Bran himself. Bran didn’t need eyes to ascertain who he was, for he smelled of the same perfumes Osha did and was ever by her side. He's going to start a trend of men wearing more floral scents… He and Jaime Lannister, that was the one thing Bran remembered about his visit; the Kingslayer always smelled of exotic perfumes, the same perfumes the queen smelled of.

Something hit Bran like a tidal wave at that moment, and he trembled, something about his fall and the bruise on his chest. “I believe it, little Lord.” Walder’s deep voice boomed suddenly, jarring him from his thoughts. “I…huh?” Bran looked down, and he must have looked as though he were in a daze because Osha asked him if he was alright then, and Bran nodded, swallowing. “He was just talking of Ser Aerion.”

“The one at the wall? What's your cousin?”

“Uncle..”

“Cousin lad, he’s the son of your grand uncle..”

“Oh...Indeed.” Bran swallowed. “No, the one who rides Vaegon.”

Osha hissed and let out a creative curse in Old Tongue that implied the Aetheryon Knight should do something with a walrus tusk and his posterior and a privy, and Bran had to stifle a laugh. “You don’t like him?” “He’s all ice and cold water. No emotion, I seen him kill Little Lord, kill and the man’s breathing don’t even change much; I killed lots o’men everyone here has sept you and little Lar’ here, but it’s a madman or a liar what says the killen doesn’t change you, make you see things different like or that it don’t weigh on your heart. That one’s mad, or he’s not a man but a reptile in a man's skin.” Walder grunted a HODOR! In agreement, “Tyraxus was a friendly man; the Aetheryon’s are a queer people's mind; my old Nan says they practice Valyrian magic and alchemies and fleshsmithing out there on Sea Dragon point, but I liked Ser Tyraxus; he was a good friend and always spread the wealth of his house. Everyone drank on him when times were hard, and he never demanded no special treatment but his squire. HODOR...HODDOOORR,” Walder shook his head, steading his breathing; Bran had never “seen” fear this close; he could smell it off Walder now with all his remaining senses amplified. Seven save me. I can taste it again...Bran thought with a whimper. “That one ain’t right”   the others nodded in agreement, and Bran had to stifle a sigh. “I’ll walk the rest of the way, Walder; catch your breath.”

“Aye, thank ya kindly, little lord.”

Chapter Text

An Arbor Red.

Men said House Redwyne died caught between a Merman’s trident and a Sea Dragon’s jaw, but most men were fools in his estimation. The main line of the House might have died out true, and none of the cousins, no matter how many times removed or close, were granted ascent to the seat of the Arbor, but that wasn’t to say they were dead. No; House Redwyne thrived across the arbor, small keeps, and Lord Mayors and Knightly houses as millennia of cousins, second cousins, and bastards were pushed out of the main palace. And everywhere he looked, the men and women of the Arbor walked around with freckles and silky hair and were all that men called beautiful. No, it was clear House Redwyne had been as prolific as House Lannister and House Targaryen in that most of the Crownlands counted at least one ancestor of Valyrian descent. So purple eyes or streaks of silver in hair were a common enough occurrence.

He'd once held a debate with Maester Cressen about that very thing, how Lys and Volantis had populations of Valyrians in the single-digit millions but that the North held them in the double. There was so much intermarrying between smallfolk of Valyrian stock and Reachmen and Westerland stock that one might call Oldtown and Lannisport “Valyrian colonies,” at least in part. And that was without the abundance of blond hair and gold-flecked green eyes amongst the West's smallfolk. Like the Stormlands, Stannis had come to believe certain families, Namely, Tyrells (Gardeners?), Baratheons/Durrandons, Redwynes, Tully’s, and Lannisters. And the Valyrian Houses. They had put so much of their seed into the land to make their family looks a regional feature. This was a thing Stannis Baratheon accepted when he founded a new House Baratheon of the Reach (And he brought several cousins over to ensure his descendants had blue eyes and dark hair or at least a chance to possess that.) under orders of the King. He also accepted that much of his task here wasn’t just to supplant House Tyrell one day but to undo much of the damage to the lands and culture that King Daemon and his brother Robert afflicted on the Reach in retribution for what was done to Renly and the Stormlands.

He hadn’t expected to come to care for the people of the Reach, to trust the lesser Redwynes who infested his islands and his castle. Nor did he expect his Onion Lord to earn the love that he had made even from the most prejudiced Lords of the Reach, and if he was being honest, he did not expect his notions of Law and Order to take such a hold on the Reach that the influence Stannis expected his descendants a century from now to only begin to wield to manifest in his generation a hundredfold. In retrospect, he supposed it made sense; the losses to the Reach weren’t that grand in that it was the most densely populated region about its size (and he questioned this because there was still so much land unclaimed and unsettled.), but the shock both of Lord Mace’s deeds and the blow to the honor and prestige of the Reach, the founders of Chivalry. The horror at realizing they came within a hair’s breadth of destruction and the hatred other Kingdoms suddenly bore for them left the Reach directionless, lost, and isolated.

In came Stannis, the conqueror's governor in all but name, and all expected the Tyrells to lose their status as Warden of the South and Lord Paramount of the Mander, and yet he hadn’t, nor had Stannis demanded the head of every adult Tyrell in Highgarden irregardless of their complicity as his brother had. Instead, he used the vast wealth of House Redwyne to make improvements to the Arbor, much-needed renovations to the city and brought in agricultural techniques from Essos and married the longstanding knowledge of the greatest farmers in the world (The men of the Reach.) to that new knowledge and Lhazareen husbandry. He reaped the windfall in profits without embezzlement or cheating. His tenure as Lord High Justice saw a reform of the Knightly Orders, and less corruption and abuses meant less hostility in the streets and rural roads. He brokered trade deals and helped settle long-simmering disputes, and his man at Greyshield, Lord Davos, was a fair and open Lord whose humility and hard-won wisdom earned him praise as a diplomat and factor and friend. Stannis had not been prepared for any of this, for he was always told that he was a sullen intractable man with little joy and even fewer friends.

And perhaps they were using him here as well.

But it was hard to believe that when he looked into his wife’s eyes. Or when he spoke with the Redwyne remnants or met with Lord Tarly of Starpike, they were merely using him. However, he would long struggle to understand how it seemed to Stannis of the House Baratheon of the Arbor that he had earned a place here in the Reach. It was a curious sensation, for he had always been in the shadows of others, his brother with the brothers he chose. His younger brother, long dead Renly, was enamored with Robert and worshipped the very idea of him. When he was denied food because they had to skip meals to keep their stores from depleting during Lord Tyrell’s siege, Renly would look at him with hurt and angered eyes and say that Robert would have rushed out on Argella’s back and burned the army to ashes. He never did; he galavanted around the Riverlands, incinerating loyalist armies until he rode to Summerhall to support Princess Rhaella and Prince Valarr and then was too injured to rescue us. Robert had been obsessed with his vengeance, not but Lyanna mattered even though it was plain to see the girl detest him. I saw her at Harrenhal, not but disgust was in her eyes for my brother. Renly died because of it; it was Stannis, not Robert, who held Renly’s hand as the poisons placed into their reservoir took their toll, and it was his name that Renly called out for when the Stranger came.

Stannis had him buried with the full honors of a Storm king of old; he even placed the pelt of the Stag his father let him kill while hunting with his father in the Rainwood for the last time within Renly’s crypt. Robert had been furious at his actions, claiming that he antagonized the King and made certain implications that Daemon, the arsonist, never could have taken in that manner. He knew that Robert was more enraged that he hadn’t been there to mourn than anything else.  “Why are we riding to your cousin’s vineyard?” questioned Stannis again. His mind had been on Orys and Shireen all morning; at this point, they would be two turns of the moon away from White Harbor, and from there, they’d likely board a riverboat or barge and be at Winterfell within a Sennight. Plotting, scheming, secret marriages, shadowed maneuvers, feints, and counter-feints was not in his skill areas.  Behind him, his wife slid a cowhide sash with two large belt buckles around his waist, fastening it. The Leathered sash was a tradition within the Reach owing to the origins of the region’s power and wealth arising from cattle ranching and farming. Outside Oldtown, Lords of the Reach were expected to take up some form of animal breeding in deference to that tradition. Stannis had thought that foolish as no lord of the Reach had voluntarily participated in a cattle drive in at least a thousand years (Except for Davos and Dickon Tarly, who participated in his first cattle drive slightly after his ninth name day.) He’s not a complete imbecile; perhaps I might offer him a marriage pact if we have another daughter.

Both Tarly’s had become some of his mightiest supporters; Alicent was pregnant again though they hadn’t made the announcement. It was something to consider even if he detested contemplating politics and left most of that to his lady wife. As he gazed in the Myrish mirror, Stannis’ jaw set “Silver?” when his wife laughed, he struggled to restrain from scowling. He despised ostentation, though he knew a degree of it was expected, and he found the more rustic look of the more martially inclined Reacher Lords appealing. He still disliked adorning himself in precious metals. “It’s false silver, dear.” Alicent smiled a metal that combined nickel, zinc, and copper that was common for everyday use among the merchants and lower echelons of nobility. “Although we’re wealthy, you honestly could do with silver.”

“I care not for our wealth nor the opinions of others.”

“Yes, but I think you look elegant in an austere manner in silver.”

After a second’s pause, Stannis nodded; he despised ostentation but despised her frowns even more. She smiled, removed the large belt, and walked off, returning with one made of dark black leather that was surprisingly soft, the twin belt buckles connected by two fine silver chain links, and the buckles themselves had two stags rearing up, their antlers pointed at the heavens in defiance. She never had any reason to be kind to him, for he came to her home, took her name, and stole her wealth, resources, and vassals as a conqueror. But she had been, even when she detested him when she had no reason nor cause to be kind, and he could see the hurt and the sorrow in her eyes. Perhaps that had been his reason for altering the colors of his House? Beyond recognizing that he would no longer be a lord of the Stormlands but a lord of the Arbor, he needed to adopt the Redwyne colors because they were ubiquitous throughout the known world as the colors of a great trading house that specialized in the finest wines in the world. Mere pragmatism likely couldn’t have moved him, for he cared deeply for his father’s house, its traditions, and the memories of all those he lost. “You’ve never had cause to care for me.” He said abruptly and then wished he had a drako to distract himself. He was never good at conveying concepts like gratitude.

She paused and looked up at him from where she’d been gathering his cloak; she always preferred to help him dress rather than allow servants to perform the task. Since he detested that and always did it himself in his youth, it was another aspect of their marriage he had to grow accustomed to. Her lavender eyes narrowed inscrutably for a moment, a teasing smile appearing on her lips. “I was born here, in this castle husband, but I was born in the servant’s quarters, my father a man at arms in the castle and my mother a laundress; I might be a Redwyne, I might even have been his cousin but if Lord Paxter ever knew me by name it was never going to be for a good reason. Desmera is only not the lady of the Arbor because of a mandate by the King disinheriting her line had the Manderlys and Aetheryons not destroyed the Arbor fleet...Had Daeros not burned Lord Paxter, I would like as not to be the wife of some cousin higher in the line of succession. A sea captain, I’d never see raising our children alone. Instead, I am the lady of the Arbor and, more importantly, am married to a husband who sees me for my merits and not for the low status of my birth. You’ve put wonderful children in me and stayed by my side, and we’ve raised them together. We took a castle that was a monument to luxury and arrogance and made it a place of prosperity and growth.” She leaned up and kissed Stannis on his stiff jaw, and he felt her silky hair trace along his neck as she nuzzled him. “My Lord Husband, I believe I’ve every reason in the world to love you. For what is love if not the act of building a life together and writing wrongs together.”

And they had indeed done that, Stannis realized. His blue eyes narrowed at the mirror, a bauble of man’s vanity but one that made tidiness easier. When he came here, the Reach was a broken place filled with broken men; over the last fifteen years, he slowly pulled it together. Mended the wounds to its pride and helped arbitrate disputes that Highgarden was willing to allow to fester for centuries. That seemed to consume his days more than the work of the Arbor fleet, more than the trade it was repairing the damage nigh three centuries of backstabbing and squabbling had caused. And that fat bastard in Highgarden hated him for it and saw only his loss of face and prestige when he ought to have seen the resurgence and restoration both of the reach and his honor had he cooperated with House Baratheon. Not that Stannis cared; Mace Tyrell murdered his little brother and so many others, he would have broken the Stormlands beyond recovery were it not for the vast fortune in men, blood, and treasure that King Daemon spent healing the Stormlands. Magic was involved there as well, both in its healing and Mace’s foul attack. “And husband, to answer your question, it’s because cousin Luthor has something he wishes to show us, a new kind of strongwine he believes will bring great profit to the Arbor.”

“Which means he no doubt seeks coin from us,” Stannis grunted.

“We’ve enough of it, my love.”

That was true at least four million gold dragons per quarter of the year; in winter, that dropped to a mere “three,” and this was after royal dues and expenses; the Arbor alone produced more wealth than the Stormlands. Only Houses Blackfyre, Aetheryon, Lannister, and Hightower were wealthier, or so he believed. Unlike other Great Houses, he didn’t keep track of who was the wealthiest; he knew vaguely that House Stark was said to rival the Lannisters, but that was primarily due to the trading houses in Braavos and their affiliation with the Iron Bank and the taxes they collected off House Manderly and Aetheryon. House Tully of Riverrun was immensely wealthy, and no one counted the Frey’s because everyone was convinced half their enormous wealth came from usury and the “laundering’ as Maester’s called it, of ill-gotten moneys and treasure. And no one counted the Velaryons because everyone was convinced most of their wealth came from acting as a sort of glorified fence for pirates. These considerations Stannis would have been content to pass the entirety of his life never entertaining yet were the kinds of tedium he was forced to consider as Lord of the Arbor. The King cursed me even as he gifted me.

“Vermithor and Vhagar have departed.” His wife informed him as she clasped his cloak about his shoulders. There was a hint of nervousness in her voice, and he reached out and touched her wrist. “Steady woman, if Mace Tyrell were to make a move because the dragons of our children had departed with our children, then he would be a grand fool indeed.” He didn’t need dragons to crush Mace Tyrell. Dragons were a boon in that they ensured his family's power generationally. Still, he had seen what they could do up close and wanted nothing to do with commanding them in battle unless Mace brought his entire army to bear, and then he would show no mercy to the fat flower. I’ve no interest in becoming another Daemon, so help me if they force Shireen to become a killer before she is grown… Banishing the thoughts from his mind, he turned and wrapped a single arm around his wife’s back, pulling her into a half embrace. “We don’t need dragons to best Mace Tyrell; I’ll break any fleet he sends against me as I did to the Iron fleet off fair isle, and the power of Starpike, Hornhill, and the Shield Islands and a dozen other houses will march against that fool.”

She smiled softly. “I know, but I fear some subterfuge, some trap. An assassination.”

Stannis scoffed. “Dragons can’t protect us from blades in the dark, woman.”

“True enough, but they can avenge us.”

Oh…Damn that fat bastard for being the cause of such thoughts in my wife’s mind.

They were joined on their ride by Nymeria and Tyene Sand, who looked far too rosy of cheeks for his liking. “I thought you’d have gone with my daughter and Lord Willas.” Stannis had no idea why these two seemed to enjoy his company so much, they were a pair of wild, lethal bastards, and he had little enough affinity for Dorne. Only that their father had become a rather unexpected ally since the Greyjoy rebellion, with the two of them bonding over a mutual mislike of the King’s propensity to burn down cities and their mutual contempt for the Lannisters and the Tyrells except one, another thing that they had in common. “Our father bid us guard you against assassins, my lord, and guard you we shall.” Nymeria slurred; the sun hadn’t even crossed halfway through the sky, yet the woman was in her cups, which was a rarity. Ordinarily, Obara and Elia Sand were thoroughly intoxicated by midmorning, and Nymeria and Tyene were cold sober even when they pretended not to be. Alicent thanked them both, and Stannis nodded, though he didn’t look towards them, his eyes on the road. A knight in the blue and gold of House Roxton rode ahead of them, raising a hand in greeting Stannis' household guard.  

Ser Jaime Roxton was the youngest son of the current lord of House Roxton Ser Lorence so, named after a famous ancestor of his that was a member of the Kingsguard. Sworn to House Tarley of Starpike, the Roxton’s were seemingly overly grateful for the return of their ancestral Valyrian blade Orphan-maker, which had been found in the catacombs of Whitegrove. No doubt gifted to Lord Stannis by one of the Tarly cousins, young Dickon was put in charge of the extra castles that once belonged to the defunct House Peake. He was a boy of three and ten, and they already were plotting to advance themselves over him, not that Stannis would indulge in such nonsense. He thanked them, informed Lord Samwell of the foolishness against his younger brother, and that Tarly was reduced to a knightly status and another wealthier and more loyal cousin moved in. That one was a Florent, no matter at least, neither he nor his cousin and wife looked over much like one.

 Save that, she had big hands and ears; they were loyal, though, and not like that shrill harpy of a Septa Selyse who constantly prattled on about heresy trials and some reformation movement by one Luthor Flowers. Half my household worships R’hllor and the seven concurrently; I mislike the Gods in general, and the other half are devout worshippers of the seven. And then some had “rediscovered” worship of the Old Gods ever since Prince Daeron had made a true Weirwood Heart tree grow in King’s Landing again. Most of his knights honored all three pantheons, and Stannis was sure that was a sort of blasphemy, but he cared not, and it kept sectarian violence at bay and created a sort of co-existence. Moqorro had been instrumental in that, even though he was a fanatic of the Red God, he held a certain amount of respect for the moral lessons of the Seven-Pointed Star and advocated a far more peaceful form of conversion he called “Godly path” wherein he walked amongst the people, lived amongst them and provided wisdom and succor and lived the values that he preached. Stannis appreciated the lack of hypocrisy, and though he disliked some of the more libertine aspects of the Red Faith, he appreciated that they were the least likely to stir up trouble. Had they not been burning men and women alive not half a millennium prior in vile rights? Time made fools of everyone, it seemed, even prelates and zealots.

The ride to the vineyards of Ser Luthor Brytewyne was as tranquil as her cousin’s House name was absurd. That was one thing the former Stormlander had to admit he enjoyed the most about the Reach, whether it was the arbor, the other islands under its domain, or the Reach proper. It was a land of fertile ground, prairies and plains, meadows and more farmlands, merchant towns and villages that would double as cities in the Stormlands.  And more wealthy smallfolk than anywhere else save our Essosi domains. People who had been long ignored both in the Reach and the Westerlands but were often courted for support in the North and Essos for their taxes made almost as much of the revenue of those Kingdoms as the nobility. That had been one of the things Stannis did differently in his domains, he pitted the nobles and merchants against each other without fomenting violence, and it resulted in a smooth, efficient, profitable period of growth. “We’re almost there, my lord.” Ser Luthor remarked, eliciting a slight rolling of the eyes from Tyene Sand. As if none possessed eyes but the overeager Knight.

Ahead of them rose a rather large manse on a rather large hill that possessed a series of walls for defense but little else save archery towers. Brilliant rust-colored horses were grazing on a field on the western side of the hill, horses Stannis knew by their size and lithe frame that they were bred primarily for horse racing. A Northern pastime becoming immensely popular in Dorne and the Reach, gambling was a novel source of wealth that more than a few nobles counted as legitimate earnings, even if they would never dare to admit that in public. Horse breeders in the rich were as wealthy as mining captains were in the West, so if this one was asking them here to beg for a loan or a charter, it was likely for an endeavor that would be immense in its cost or immensely profitable. Ser Luthor himself was not what Stannis expected from someone with the surname Brytewyne, an enthusiastic gambler, or a breeder of horses and maker of wine. He was nearly as tall as Stannis himself, a rarity in itself, but he was an older gentleman closer to fifty than forty, yet his hair was only slightly grayed, his arms were enormous, and his chest broad. He had a fine goatee and long hair braided into three great braids plated with bells in the Dothraki style. Stannis wondered what battles he had won and what accolades had he achieved to earn the right to wear a braid and a series of bells. While his brother had grown up in the Vale, Stannis had to rule the Stormlands and part of that entailed making visits east, in the company of Prince Rhaegar more oft than not. Fool Robert believed my relationship with the Prince might put me in a position where I sided against family. It hadn’t been an easy decision, but not for the love he bore the silent prince, and Stannis bore none if all truth could be told. Rhaegar was sullen, introspective, and misanthropic to a degree even Stannis found nauseating. But he was handsome and the heir, so men and women alike endured his deviancy, and his obsession with Eastern cults and sad ballads was entirely intolerable. They had gotten along because they both appreciated the value of silence and had better things to do with their time, but that had never been the same.

It had been a hard decision because Stannis believed in law and order above all things. Fortunately, Aerys kinslaying and oath-breaking had voided any legitimacy to his rule. While he thought the great council imposed by Quellon abrupt, it was a fine piece of legal maneuvering that ultimately made the decision easy. There might have been a time when Stannis loved Robert, but to question after letting their people die in agony. The only value of my time with Rhaegar was Ser Aghorro. The Dothraki elder had taught him much of their culture, most of which Stannis found abhorrent and primitive. Still, their sense of achievement and the custom of having warriors earn recognition and, in ignominy and defeat, could once again find their honor, return to their former glory, and rise to even greater heights had appealed to him. As the man walked to him and bowed, Stannis realized he must have been doing a poor job concealing his emotions because he laughed. “Ah, I earned my first dozen when the King interceded in Bharbo’s succession matter; I slew Khal Noro and Khal Yhago. And their blood riders, although I’ll admit it was I, Sandor Clegane, and Ser Aeron Estren, what did that.”

His lady wife embraced this Ser Luthor Brytewyne, and followed by the Sand snakes, they made their way, not up the hill, but instead towards its southern slope wherein a stone door was carved into the mound. The sun was beating down on them now, and the cool ocean breezes provided little relief for nobles' company. Below them, across the acres of his vineyards, the smallfolk burned nearly copper by years of tending vibes, and other crops in the sun were no doubt suffering even greater misery despite wearing comparatively less clothing. Only Nymeria Sand seemed to endure the heat easily, but her sister Tyene looked as though the opening of a door to a wine cellar was as to the gates of the seven heavens to a poor sinner in one of those inane parables told to children. Stannis took a moment to allow the cold air to pass through him once the stone door was opened wide enough for all to give, but he refused to allow himself to relax as Nymeria and Tyene; Stannis realized how easy a place like this could be for an assassination. The bulk of the hill below the manse was one gigantic room with stairwells leading up and down to deeper layers below. Ornately carved wooden beams and stone columns held up the top of the hollowed-out hill and the manse that seemed to build both upon it and down into it. All around them, immense barrels of wine and candle clocks, hourglasses, and water clocks were illuminated by oil lanterns, torches, and finely polished nickel or Myrish glass used to reflect the light about the room. There was a similar setup in his palace within the old Redwyne Keep; bread and salt were carried over by a boy of nine name days whose reddish-brown hair and freckles spoke of his heritage. “My youngest grandson, little Horace!” the boy bowed; his tabard had a green fist clenching grapes on a dark blue field, and Stannis realized for the first time that he saw the sigil of House Brytewyne. Once the proper rights were conducted and ablutions performed, Stannis was led towards a stairwell that descended deep into the earth and passed the Keep’s dungeon. “Robbers, they’re bound for the wall, my lord. My Maester says Captain Yoren of the recruitment offices of the Watch is on his way.”

Stannis nodded; he knew of this Yoren, for he’d poached some hundred or so literate smallfolk from out of the arms of the civil services and the offices of Hoster Tully’s post on the Lord's Council spent the better part of a year complaining to him over it as if the Lord High Justice held any authority over the Night’s Watch save in a budgetary capacity. The Lord Commander of the Order of the Greenhand had also written him, complaining of Yoren’s skill at “poaching recruits.” But Lord Commander Bulwar’s tone suggested it was more playful. The Watch and the Orders of the Peace were always engaged in a friendly competition over who could lure the most qualified spare heirs of the wealthier or prosperous Smallfolk away from the nobility, whom themselves were always infuriated at it. Less for the lack of manpower, especially in the Reach, and more for how the two orders that served no noble but the entire realm seemed to make sport of them on their lands. “This is why we’re so drunk despite only having six cups.” Muttered Tyene gesturing to the brass and copper pots of a queer shape Stannis had only seen in use by his Maesters when they were distilling cow urine for the parts of it that were used to clean clothing or prevent corruption. “You drank chamber-lye?” Stannis asked with a raised eyebrow causing both the Knight and his lady wife to stifle a giggle. “No..no!” Tyene defended quickly. “You’ll see.”

“It may look like the darker urine of those with bad livers, my lord, but I assure you…this.” Ser Luthor said, walking towards a table near one of the larger copper receptacles. There, a glass cup rested, one that was simple and of the rudimentary make of the glassmakers starting to crop up on Dorne. Nothing compared to the fine glass and crystal masters of Myr, who had a thousand years on Dorne to perfect their art to its near magical perfection. Blue eyes narrowed at the liquid, which seemed to be a clearer, finer type of wine, yet it was made with a distillation process. Ser Brytewyne passed the glass to him. “I know that you aren’t one to imbibe, my lord but if you would do the honor just this once.”. Stannis turned, his eyes narrowing at the man who dared to presume that he would partake in anything that could rob one of his senses and control. And yet, he could smell it even from here, the order was fragrant and intense, and when he put it close to his nostrils, the strength nearly burned his nose. “Are you seeking an alternative to the boiled wine to treat corruption?” he asked, passing it to his wife but shooting her a warning look. Women who were great drunkards were known to produce deformed or simple-minded infants, while his wife was no drunkard...he worried. By the smell alone, the potency in this… She took a sip and held it in her mouth, flinching and spitting it out, coughing slightly. “Seven hells it burns!” she hissed, trying to master her senses, and then she took a second sip and seemed to hold it for longer before swallowing. “It is remarkably smooth, however, and I taste oak. It’s far more potent than the pear Brandy’s the Tyroshi produce”

“Indeed, my lady, we use oaks exclusively for this. I call it Abor Amber, but Arbor Brandy has a better ring. And your lordship is right; the Citadel commissioned me to see if I could create a more potent elixir to treat wounds. However, this came about before I got that far and…well.” Ser Luthor cleared his throat, the bells in his hair jingling as he shifted his head to look away, prompting Stannis to regard him with a vexed look on his granite-carved face. The Citadel would have paid relatively well, and he might have been able to deduct the cost from his taxes; however, once he perfected the method, the Maesters would urge him to provide his method so that they might begin commissioning more from other sources, sources with far more resources than House Brytewyne and its absurd name. “You wish for me to loan you funds to expand your distillery...I believe is the term they use in Tyrosh.”

House Blackfyre wasn’t going to like this; Tyrosh and Myr and Qaarth were the only places in the world where Brandy or a derivation of or else, some other sort of “hard liquor,” as it was being called, was created. It created a quite lucrative trade monopoly, with the Arbor already possessing the lion’s share of the wine market. No, this fool wants a monopoly on Arbor Brandy production and sales, all other winemakers who attempt the endeavor would be obliged to pay him a fee. There was a myriad of concerns here; this would become very prosperous. There was a race to create something similar out of grain on the mainland, and a kind of clear rum made of grain was being attempted in the Riverlands by House Ryger. Each House would need permission from their overlord House Hunt in the Reach from House Tarly of Hornhill and House Ryger from House Tully of Riverrun. It would make them wealthy, as he felt such beverages would sell from the wall to Sothoryos and from King’s Landing to the edges of Essos. That wealth would make the principal House of that region immensely wealthy, but it would also grant a great amount of wealth for the House producing and selling, which could always cause problems.

“I would have a quarter ownership in perpetuity and an equal share of the profits for the first half-century, then a quarter in perpetuity.” Answered Alicent, her eyes as hard as steel, and Stannis found himself grateful for her, for he detested haggling. “In exchange, House Baratheon of the Arbor will assume all the costs of production and expansion and transport for the first five years.” “cuz..” Whined Ser Brytewyne, whose name now made more sense. “You would have me sign a contract that is less than that of all the wine producers of the arbor?” he folded his hands before her and frowned. “You do sweeten the offer, but should not a man be entitled to a majority? You would certainly make entire fortunes from the tax revenue alone from my venture.”

“My wife does not bargain like a commoner, three quarters is a majority...” with a pause, he faced his wife, who smiled and gave the nod, and when Stannis turned and drew himself up to his full height, Ser Luthor stepped back. “And...” Stannis continued, “Should any merchants or houses of the Arbor learn your secret and begin creating Brandy of their own, by law, they would be duty bound to pay House Brytewyne an annual tribute in perpetuity correspondent with a tenth of their annual profits and two tenths to House Baratheon.” This was the part of being a Lord of the Reach Stannis detested more than anything, the commerce aspect. While he didn’t share his elder brother’s disdain of “counting coppers” he had little patience for the mendicant nature of commerce, wherein even the highest must sometimes prostrate themselves beside the lowest to beg of usurers or profiteers. And when his eyes narrowed, he hoped that Ser Luthor understood his conveyance. Else he’d be forced to strike the man or grow wroth. At last, the Knight bowed and then smiled. “It was a generous offer in truth, my lord, and so I shall accept, without taking nor giving exception, I would hope.”

“You’ve given none.” Stannis decided that he was done for diplomacy for the day.

“Then, if his lordship does not mind, I would be honored to host him, his lady wife, and their remarkable guests for a feast this evening.”

Or perhaps he wasn’t; Lady Alicent had been incensed with worry ever since the assassination attempt on the life of Brandon Stark had been reported by their spies up North (Something he was confident the Warg Spymaster Roark had allowed.), their son Orys and Lady Margaery were always fated to head into danger. Their plan to avert civil war, contain the Lannisters, and secure the Reach for three more centuries was always going to come with danger and risk, and there was not to be done on that front. They were orchestrating a palace coup at Highgarden and playing against a man who tried to poison an entire Kingdom and his mother, a woman whose intellect was as deadly as a hundred dragons. But still, it was like mothers and fathers to fret for their children as they rode into their first Storm. Perhaps it would do Lady Alicent and their child yet born some good to be amongst kin that meant her no ill will and to celebrate a victory, however small or material. Eying his wife, seeing the hopeful look in her eyes, Stannis gave a nod of ascent, and she smiled and accepted Ser Luthor’s offer.

Well, Stannis thought. House Baratheon of the Arbor might have been the storm, but even mighty tempests yielded to the pastoral life of wealthy seaside country lords. His mind wandered to Shireen and Lord Willas, to Vhagar and the uncertainty of their venture, and he wondered if he was preparing to move against the fat flower in secret. The Queen of Thorns wasn’t more dangerous than braving the endless winds of the North and the horrors that Moqorro and Septon Waters both insisted were stirring in the North.

Chapter Text

…………..

The Princess of Winterfell.

“Has Greywind abandoned you for the night, girl?” She heard Bronn ask as Cryxus sauntered her way over to him, her tail low and wagging as it always was when she beheld the sellsword-turned-landed noble that served as her protector. Bronn moved to rub her neck, which got a sort of contented grunt from the onyx-black direwolf. He would have had to kneel a turn of the moon ago, yet now she was large enough that when she sat and leaned against him, he only had to reach down slightly. Her jaws smelled of blood, Bronn pulled out one of his stilettos, and Rhaenyra marveled at the trust her wolf held for someone who was arguably the least trustworthy guard in the whole of the known world. “You’re going to start cleaning her teeth?”

“Aye, since she’s not had a bone to chew in a while.” Bronn and Maester Ormun from the Winter Citadel had a rather lively debate with Maester Luwin about how poor teeth were ultimately responsible for bad livers and ill health in both beast and man, and Bronn was fond of scrubbing his teeth is a powder used to ease stomach trouble after heavy meals mixed with mints from the glass garden. Maester Luwin believed it was the reverse, those with poor teeth were a sign of ill health and bad breeding, but she noticed that the gums of the men at arms in Winterfell bled less when they began adopting Bronn’s habit. For her part, she, her siblings, and the Targaryen princesses had all imitated him for many years and had the best teeth in court. Her giant wolf didn’t seem to mind, for she kicked her teeth as he picked the meat between her teeth. “Aye, there we go, all done.” Cryxus licked him and then happily bound off into the thick trees of the Godswood. Judging from the blood on her mouth, she and Shaggydog had led Greywind into one of the meat sheds. A recurring problem that set all the castle stewards into a frenzy of vexation.

 “Remind me to encourage the smiths to build better locks,” Rhaenyra muttered, pulling her robes tighter around her body. Below the Stark gray, there were linens and wools dyed blood red with the black dragons of her House emblazoned. She was still adjusting to the winter snows that seemed to be ever present in the North during the colder parts of the year, and it had grown cold over the last fortnight, and colder than even the Maesters expected, even though it was mild and somewhat warm during the days. It’s as if there is a power in the air that reaches and clutches at night, only for its grasp to lose its purchase when the cock crows. Her husband was asleep, having taken a mix of milk of the poppy and wine to ease his troubled mind. The inquest into the assassination had been met with multiple dead ends. And then there was the Hornwood matter to address; Lord Halys accused Lord Wyman Manderly of turning his son Daryn against him by poisoning his ear with lies of the Hornwood’s reluctance during the Blackfyre rebellion. Rhaenyra didn’t know much about that, from what her father had told her on their journey North. Roose Bolton, sensing an opportunity, declared for King Aerys and his army, which was sent to aid the Crannogmen in Moat Calin; they slaughtered the Reed cousins who held the Moat and cut Lord Stark off from reinforcements as the Houses loyal to the Bolton’s made a hasty run at Winterfell.

Theon Snow drove them back during the Battle of Winterfell, and when House Reed retook the Moat, they, well, no one ever saw the Bolton army again, but the skins of Lord Roose’s uncles were said to adorn the walls at the feasting hall of Greywater Watch. Their troops were annihilated, and Theon Snow, Lord Stark's natural-born uncle, sent ravens to the Bolton Lands. I’ve killed your cousins, your bastard half-brothers; I come to bring Winter to the Dreadfort and will do what the Kings of Winter should have done thousands of years ago. To all those who owe fealty to House Bolton, you’ve one chance. Surrender now, or the fate of your Houses shall be that of a stone cast into the sea. Father didn’t go into the details, but there were stories repeated by Roundtree, who had heard them from Roark, who was second to Lord Snow. The story was that Roark and Theon had mixed a poultice of mushrooms into the stew of the wargs they use as foragers and scouts and set them loose within the Dreadfort in their state of madness and amplified abilities. It was said the interior of the Dreadfort was red with blood and entrails; it was said that rats had bored through the eyes of Roose Bolton and feasted on his brains and that his chest had been ripped open from the inside by rodents as well. No one was spared within the Castle, and Lord Stark had nearly beheaded Theon for the massacre, for everyone was put to the sword and felled by unnatural powers.

Yet the story of the Nightfall of the Dreadfort caused most of the Crownland Houses to surrender. Rhaenyra thought, could that justify the horrors perpetrated against the innocent within? Lord Stark had to endure that, for father issued a royal pardon, and she knew he loved Theon deeply, for they reconciled after the fact. Lord Stark trusted the old warrior enough to allow him to mentor Rickon before he reached maturity and took up lordship of the Dreadfort and all its lands and vassals. House Hornwood had heeded the call to ride to Winterfell and aid in the siege, but they arrived late, and the traitor Roose Bolton had slipped through their fingers, leading to many calling them the Freys of the North. The Hornwood heir was fostered somewhat against his father’s will at White Harbor with the Manderlys. After a recent conflagration between father and son, Lord Halys disowned Daryn and was like to seek a writ of legitimacy for his bastard, the young Larence Snow. The move was plain as day, he meant to name the boy his successor, and when Daryn rode to Winterfell asking for not only sanctuary but a petition to the Lord High Justice to intercede on the matter as he had with the Tarly dilemma, her husband had instead ordered Halys Hornwood to present himself at Winterfell and to explain himself to the Warden of the North and the Captain Commander of the Order of the wolves. That was a fortnight ago, and he has yet to stir from the Hornwood. Northern politics was far more unified than Southron politics. Still, the game they played was older than her parent civilization and older than Andal culture, and grudges and enmities could last thousands upon thousands of years.

Lady Rhaella would be presiding over that hearing, with Robb Stark and the Captain Commander acting as the junior judges. One represented the King and the realm’s law, the other the authority of the Wardenship, and the third a neutral side to ensure biases and ancient grudges did not color the proceedings. Another novel invention of good Queen Alysanne, whose influence over Jaehaerys the wise was said to have established the precedent that queens and ladies were more than just companions but, when necessary, co-rulers. It was a shame her mother couldn’t be trusted to act similarly that the one time she involved herself in affairs of state Balon Greyjoy rebelled. But the duty of ruling a realm as vast and peopled and disparate as the North was a job he was born to do, yet the worry over what his father was heading into and the murderous complots and treasons foul had placed in a state of apprehension, and she was more than glad to help unload some of his burdens and rule by his side. But he still needed to sleep!

Of course, it was still too early for Rhaenyra Blackfyre, mistress of House Stark, to sleep as the sun had only just begun to set; Robb needed it, he needed more than a night’s rest, and she had sent him to bed after feeding him a thick broth, having not slept in four days her Lord Husband needed it. I suppose it’ll just be Rhaella, me, Bronn, and Rickon tonight. Perhaps she would invite one of Rickon’s cousins to dine as well? And ambassador Fu who had some from Oldtown to take his six-month sojourn in Winterfell always had stories to tell and observations on their culture that Lady Rhaella found fascinating. Not that she minded dining alone with her new family, they were beautiful and never seemed to tire of her, but she was constantly worrying that she wasn’t enough for little Rickon, who needed a mother more than a Goodsister. The breeze rustled the leaves, and the immense and vibrantly green sentinel pines seemed to sway in the summer’s breeze, and Rhaenyra rubbed her shoulders, her breath rising like steam from a cauldron into the night air. She had allowed her thick, wavy white hair to flow freely about her shoulders and chest today, preferring to let the fresh air into her locks rather than to keep them tied or styled. The newer brushes imported from Yi Ti were remarkably efficient at getting out knots and tangles, so she enjoyed the freedom. “Dragon! Dragon!!” a great old raven flew down the trees, fat and wizened with uncanny eyes nearly as large as a hawk, and landed on Rhaenyra’s arm. “Dragon! Dragon!! Jade!! Jade!” she let out a giggle as Bronn’s face paled. “That bloody thing ain’t natural.”

“NATURAL! NAATTURAALL!”

“Aye, even he agrees, see that?”

Rhaenyra giggled. “Be nice; he’s a guest of this castle. Robb says he’s the bird of Lord Commander Mormont.” She reached up and gently scratched its chest and neck. “And what are you doing here? Do you want some more dates?”

“Date! Date!!”

With a playful sigh, Rhaenyra pulled out two dried dates from her pocket and fingered them to make sure there were no seeds present before she held one between her thumb and index finger and offered it to the bird. “Is a dragon coming? Or are you calling me a dragon, you spoiled bird?”

“SPOILED! SPOILED! BROTHER! BROTHER!”

Rhaenyra blinked, her blood-red eyes wide and her ivory-colored skin paling even more as she beheld the bird. Her mind had been on Tommen most of the day, and the report of his dishonorable conduct that frightened Rhaenyra so much, she wept and wrote a series of letters, first to Arya and then to Sansa and then to Lady Stark and had them dispatched to King’s Landing. Robb found her in a state of dismay, for she feared he would love her less for the fact that her brother was an imbecile and a brute; instead, he merely held her tight and told her that even if he was tempted too, her dedication to her new family was such that he would have dismissed the notion of hand. “You bled for Bran, my love, you bled for him, and I remember being overcome with fear when I heard, and then pride for you are a deadly warrior and true and blooded when I am not; you took that hurt upon yourself for my brother, and I will never forget that.” She had felt ashamed then for such a foolish thought.  How did this bird…Bronn was right, yet she didn’t feel any apprehension toward the bird. More than that, it felt familiar to her. “I know..he’s an idiot,” she muttered.

“IDIOT! IDIOT!” no sooner had he finished saying those words than he enthusiastically attacked the second date. “You might be right, he isn’t quite natural, but I do not believe he’d ever hurt me.” She muttered as the Raven leaped from her arm and landed on Bronn’s shoulder, where the sellsword let out a curse and told the Raven to fuck himself, to which it comically responded with “CUNT! CUNT!” before taking off to land on the branch of a sentinel pine, almost beckoning them to go forward. What do I have to lose, following an enchanted bird into a primeval Godswood? Despite the protestations of Bronn, she rose and walked along, entering the dark of a forest of pines that yielded to immense Redwoods that loomed over all but the tallest of Winterfell’s Tower Keeps. Some of them were so ancient they predated the Redwoods of the Riverlands and were said to have been brought from Essos by Garth the Greenhand himself, a deity that many believe was the God on Earth, the son of the Lion of the Night and the Maiden-made-of-light who was merely recognized by a different name in the West. Perhaps that was true, or perhaps the Maester’s merely blended all stories in their quest to rationalize the world. “They say these giants came from Essos.”

“I believe it,” Bronn said. “I seen them in the forests of Qohor, or near enough like them. They aren’t red but grow as big and live just as long.”

“There’s one in the Wolfswood, so large Winter sometimes sleeps on its branches,” Rhaenyra muttered before she heard a deep rumbling growl and froze in place. The wind grew hot, and suddenly, Raven's words blossomed in her mind Dragon, dragon! Green eyes glowed in the dark, peaking behind one of the immense redwoods and rising some thirty feet off the ground, green steam rose from oval-shaped nostrils, and long silver teeth caught the moonlight. Bronn froze and cursed, extending a hand in front of Rhaenyra protectively, his eyes hard in the moonlight. “We should be going.” The raven flew between them, landing on a branch and shouting, “Down! Down!” its scruffy feathers suddenly seemed to shine in the light of the moon and stars, and Rhaenyra finally took in the whole form of the dragon. A purple underbelly of scales that reminded her of finely polished metal shimmered in the dark. A serpent-like onyx-black body curled partially around the base of the giant tree, long bat-like wings pressed against the copper-colored bark fastened by powerful talons that dug into the living flesh of the tree. She could make out antelope-like antlers, long swirling and tapering off like daggers thrust into the stars, his fork tongue flickered, and he was snarling, his gullet opened, and she beheld a deep throat that seemed to form an endless abyss with green and black flame in the dark.

“Princess…”

“It’s alright, Bronn,” Rhaenyra whispered, trying to keep the worry for Cryxus out of her voice. “We knew Obyroth left the wall...I guess he came here seeking to pay tribute to his mother.”

“Aye, well, Winter can deal with him then..we best be moving.”

“’ HARIS OBBIE! HARIS! ‘KIRI! KIIRRII!”  a child’s voice muttered, barely pronouncing half a word that, if articulately poorly in total, could easily result in an annoyed dragon rounding on the illiterate, daring to command it and tearing them to shreds. Instead, the previously wild dragon let out a low growl of mild protest and jumped from the trunk of the immense tree to land behind the tiny figure that walked out; Rickon’s pale blue eyes flickered, his silver-gold hair and its auburn Tully streaks were as dirty as one could expect a babe of scarcely five name days who lacked his mother and was far too often allowed to wander would be. He was adorned in a doublet of House Stark, his grays and whites stained, but his eyes were filled with none of the ache and sorrow of the last moons.  He’s adjusting to Lady Catelyn’s absence…For some reason, that made her heart ache more than she could have imagined… They had a perfect life until the Old Lord Hand died until we came North. Until I came North. She wanted to wipe a tear away, her heart was pounding in her chest, and she hadn’t realized just how unnerving being this close to a wild dragon was.

As with her goodfather or Daena Arryn had been in their youths, Rhaenyra was no stranger to the Dragonpit. She spent as much free time as she could there, escaping her mother's apathy and her father's grandness. She knew the riderless dragons by their colors and scents and their temperaments and knew their songs and the voices they each possessed, even if they never spoke with words. She hoped, she prayed for a dragon of her own, but like Arya, she knew the little ones weren’t for her. That one day, she would ride a dragon of her House, though she hoped it would never be Winter, for she couldn’t imagine a world without either Catelyn Tully of House Stark or Rhaella Targaryen of House Stark. But Obyroth was no dragon of the pit feasting lazily on schools of fish or sharks or feasting on boar in the Godswood or flying lazily about the South, nor of Dragonstone and its austere shores. Obyroth was of the North, born of a union between two of the mightiest living Dragons (Or Perhaps of Silverwing and Vermithor.), and he was truly wild. He had spent many years making war on freefolk and other horrors beyond the wall. Yet he yielded easily to Rickon Stark and even accepted a rebuke from Shaggydog in the form of a nip at his nose for showing aggression towards the pack.

Rhaenyra thought with mild amusement as her red eyes flickered toward the odd scene unfolding before her. With the usually bored Ygritte taking an almost religious-like reverence for the young dragon, gently touching the folds of his wings, brushing away debris or dirt or pieces of branches or the leaves caught between the folds of Obyroth’s wings as he landed. More bizarre was that this wilderness-forged maneater craned its head down and allowed Rickon to hug his snout. The Watchmen must take good care of their vagabond dragons for him to be so accustomed to people. She knew from the tales Princess Visenya told that Daeros was much the same way. While he’d gone feral after Monterys Aetheryon, he still retained his desire for contact with the world of man, made Bear Island his abode, and fought alongside the Mormont women repelling raiders and pirates. “Is he your new friend Rickon?” she asked as the boy nuzzled Shaggydog and then Cryxus as he made his way to her arms, where she scooped him up and kissed him on the cheek. She was too close to Tommen in age to do this with him, and if she had been older, she doubted her mother would have allowed it. Holding Rickon was exceptional; being trusted and loved so freely by the Starks was special. There had been a hole in her heart she didn’t even know was present, an ancient festering wound that had been cleaned and given succor by the love she felt in Winterfell. “Yessa! Nyra! Obbie is a good dragon!” Rickon announced triumphantly, and to even Bronn’s amusement, the great black serpent reared his head up and seemed to preen in pride at Rickon’s words. “He didn’t even eat the old one! But made friends!” The old one referred to the ancient mammoth that had seemingly become a personal bard to and companion of Winter in her lair in the Wolfwood.

Laughing, Rhaenyra made a mental note to advise the stewards to double the fish and shaggy cattle sent to the farmstead dedicated to feeding the dragons. So far, there’s been no needless death save that one shepherd who tried to fire an arrow at Argella when my father was a small boy. It had been almost a miracle that the dragons didn’t raid cattle and sheep and were willing to fish and feast on the sea's bounty and eat the occasional wild elephant but otherwise were content to be fed. Or perhaps it’s evidence of their intelligence, discerning that they will gain more freedom to roam if they avoid visiting violence against the smallfolk, or perhaps none has ever reported it? She knew Jaehaerys the second had instituted a law by which any farmer who could prove the loss of a herd of cattle to Dragonfire would receive just and fair compensation. She also knew that in nine and thirty years since the summoning at Summerhall, only twice had the crown been required to pay that out, and once was due to Argella and Winter fighting for the right to lay with Aegos. Who, being the noble knight of the skies he was, discretely fled the field and coupled with Terrax instead. Argella had grabbed winter by the neck and was said to have hooked her wing under the brilliant white dragon’s belly and thrown her from the skies onto a herd of cattle. Winter required some four moons to recover from that injury, and the story was that Argella visited her every fortnight and wouldn’t leave her side until she ate the whale meat that the great blue bitch brought her. Their friendship seemed to mirror the bond between House Stark and Baratheon, wherein they were thick as thieves, and then an easy reconciliation would follow very brief periods of great wrath.

“Is Obyroth going to stay with us, little white wolf?” Rhaenyra asked, eliciting a happy shake of Rickon’s head. “Obbie mine!” Rhaenyra smiled softly; a swell of pride in her heart she wasn’t certain she had a right to feel towards the boy caused that smile to widen. Behind her, yet another warm gust of wind caused her heart to sink, and she whirred around to see Bronn let out a curse and ask how dragons so massive managed to be so damn sneaky. Glowing red eyes and shimmering ivory scales appeared from the tree line as Winter, affectionately known by man as the queen of the North, rose in all of her majesty, towering over the black dragon who, despite being some forty feet long, was scarcely half Winter’s size. As she crawled closer, red smoke rose from her nostrils, and her lips curled in a snarl as her sharp fangs showed down the length of her snout. Obyroth hissed for a moment, then seemed to back up slightly as Rickon and Rhaenyra watched in wonder and concern as Winter deftly stepped around the group of humans and then shook her long neck and head and stretched her mighty wings as Obyroth seemed to shrink and curl up into himself. There was a sudden crack that sounded like thunder, and Rickon buried his head in the nape of her neck for an instant as Obyroth stumbled back, making noises she’d heard from the Direwolves but she never thought to hear from dragons.

He's sneezing, Rhaenyra realized, or the closest Dragons can come to sneezing any way, Winter had whipped her tail forward, and the tip of it had snapped his nose almost as though she were scolding an errant child. The black dragon lunged forward suddenly, and Rhaenyra thought they would be trapped between two feuding dragons. “In the Godswood, no! Winter takes to the air! Don’t disturb the sanctity!” she called in her best approximation of the Northern High Valyrian of Winter’s Dragon keepers only to realize Obyroth was crawling forward, not lunging and that he let out a low series of mollifying chirps and, to her shock...Winter leaned forward and began to rub her massive ahead against his neck. In response, the chirps became gentler, and he responded by leaning up to slide his neck and face along the length of her neck, reminding Rhaenyra of swans greeting each other after a long absence.

Then, she noticed Bronn had ceased panicking and was laughing and shaking his head. “Well, guess we know who the fuck up of that family is.” Rickon blinked and then tried to mimic the word before she hastily put her hand over his mouth and shook her head. “No, Rickon, naughty word.” Turning, her blood-red eyes narrowed at Bronn thoughtfully “how do you mean Ser?” she asked, her hair flowing along with her robes in the sudden burst of warmth emanating from the dragons.

“He means that Winter wasn’t challenging Obyroth but was chiding a son she hadn’t seen in a long time.” Bran’s voice, clear and still so young but oddly wizened since his awakening, caused Rhaenyra to turn and gaze upon the youth who had taken to wearing a crimson silk scarf around his eyes and yet walked with the confidence of someone who possessed stronger vision than any of them possessed walked into view. A smile crept across her features when she noticed the three-headed Direwolf in red on a field of black. “I see you’ve found your new sigil, my lord.” She said with a wry smile; beside her, Summer trotted over to Cryxus and Shaggydog and began to leap and play with them both as Greywind appeared out of the dark with a hare in his enormous jaws, which he tossed to Bronn as though he were presenting a gift. The Sellsword knelt and inspected the kill, and when he lifted it, she realized just how large it was. “Aye, thirty pounds, I’ll give it to the kitchen boys; make a fine stew out of this.” “Aye.” Said Ygritte, “With some of your Southron spices and those tubers, the krakens harvest.” “After a hard day’s march, a man could feel like a king eating like that,” Bronn said with a grin as he slumped the hare over his shoulder and set a hand on Greywind’s massive head in thanks.  They weren’t perfect, and the North was filled with strange magic, and the North Valyrians were a very different people than she was accustomed to. Still, here in this place of ancient power, she felt a deeper connection with her heritage than she had ever felt in King’s Landing, and she knew that this was where she belonged.

With a breath, Rhaenyra gestured for this odd gaggle of kinsmen and allies to follow her; it was time to feast, reunite, and plan over what was coming next.

……………

 Audiences

Arriving at the Capital was a different experience than Arya could have imagined; the royal pleasure barge (Which was bigger than Arya thought ships could be built.) arrived at the Capital just as the sun was beginning to rise. They were greeted at the Capital by an honor guard led by Ser Aerion of House Aetheryon and Vaegon, the dragon who tore through a kraken and slew Victarian Greyjoy, known as the Iron’s bane, the turquoise dragon, sat almost like a statue. His scales shimmered like dyed metal in the morning light, blue and green steam rising from his nostrils as he preened his head and let out a roar of welcome to Maelos, Argella, and Dawn, who flew down with their riders. Aerion himself was adorned in Valyrian steel armor, the colors of House Aetheryon, blue and ermine, and shining in the morning light. The helm over his face included a mask that covered his mouth and nostrils in a plate of Valyrian Steel, giving him the impression of a warrior from a bygone era, one that was little more than enchanted metal and cold sapphire, an empty vessel of a suit of armor pretending to be a man.

 Before the King relieved the metal man of his duties, he spurred Maelos forward. Seven times the dragons circled the city, one for God and one for each Kingdom before the King finally landed to meet the eerie Knight.  Dany’s afraid of him… Arya thought, but to the youngest Stark daughter, she only felt disgusted and a profound mistrust when she gazed upon him. There was nothing natural about him; even by Valyrian standards, he was too pretty, controlled, and calm. Even his dragon seemed to recognize the differences, for Vaegon avoided his gaze when he could and seemed to gaze longingly at Shiera Baratheon as though he wished he could be ridden by something other than a thing wearing the skin of a man. Aerion officially surrendered the city of King’s Landing, which he was charged with guarding, back to the King, quickly mounted his dragon, and took flight.  “Charming man… You should marry him instead of Lord Greystorm,” Ser Jaime had said beside her, the Kingslayer had become sullen and withdrawn around nearly every Stark since Bran fell, which made Arya suspicious, but she still liked his company. His sarcasm was all bark, but she knew he was capable of terrible things if pushed, yet they ended up forming an odd bond on the trip. Arya admitted that while glad Prince Tommen was leaving, she would miss the Kingslayer. Arya rolled her eyes. “You marry that thing if you find him so handsome, I’ll stick with Gendry.” Arya felt her cheeks redden slightly, and she was frustrated; why was she blushing like some idiot maid at a picnic? It was just Gendry; there was nothing special about it.

She knew she was going to marry him one day, and they would eventually have children. She hated all the things she hated when she thought it meant she would be imprisoned in a cage and turned into a living doll. Knowing now what it meant, she was more intrigued than anything else. But that still didn’t make Gendry anything but the former blacksmith she was promised, so why was she acting so foolish? Her father had insisted that she ride a horse rather than risk trying to mount Nymeria, who, like Ghost, was now the size of a small pony or one of those dwarf horses they use for mummer’s jousts with human dwarves. Instead, she was given a black draft horse to ride as a jest by Prince Daeron. She loved the behemoth; he was so strong and mighty, and the other horses feared him! Her entrance into the capital must have looked amazing because she rode in leather armor with her long black hair tied in a Dothraki-style braid, and she wore one of the Valyrian steel daggers gifted to her House and a half skirt over her leather trousers. All in black and gray, she was opposite her escort, the Kingslayer, who was adorned in gold and white and mounted atop a white stallion. He would be departing with Prince Tommen soon with that knight from House Estren to Duskendale, where the golden-haired prince was supposed to learn humility or something. I saw the look in his eyes; he wasn’t arrogant or mad. Arya thought, and Jaime looked up at her and said they were mistaking her for her brother.

Do they think I’m Ashara Dayne’s natural daughter? Jaime was still convinced that Jon was the son of Ashara, Sers Barristan, and Aghorro, having been sworn to secrecy by the King. Which was dumb; with the secret in the hands of nearly a dozen people, it would soon become common knowledge everyone knew this. The thought of being seen as half Dayne offended her for the insult against her mother, who had borne that lie long enough, but it also made her laugh because it meant they were saying she was connected to the morning sword. “Maybe that means I’ll get good enough to pursue Dawn? I wouldn’t mind being the first girl to wield it.”

“Ah yes, I can see it now, Arya Sand, the Sword of the morning who needed stilts to wield Dawn!” Jaime guffawed, and Arya flashed him a glare. “Afraid I’ll knock you in the dirt, Kingslayer?”

Jaime chuckled. “You Starks have the pedigree, I used to think it was one of your brothers who would one day beat me, but maybe it’ll be you. That’d be an interesting tale, wouldn’t it? The Lion and the She wolf! How the bards would love it.”

“Bran still might,” Arya muttered, a pang of guilt and worry for her brother. When they received word that he had awoken, she remembered being relieved until she heard that he had been blinded and his arm weakened. All his dreams were robbed from him; Sansa had said he would never be a knight now, nor would he ever be able to ride atop a horse again safely. Jaime canted his head slightly and nodded. “I’ve heard stories of blind swordsmen from Moraq; maybe your brother will become the first Westerosi cripple to do what no cripple ever has.” “Second,” Arya responded with fierceness; much as she enjoyed Jaime’s cruel humor, he was approaching the limit of what she’d tolerate. She noticed that he did that more often; ever since the judgment against Tommen, he kept pushing at her as if he didn’t want her company when he would be the one who often sought her out. Guilt makes people idiots; Lord Robert’s right, point me at an enemy and tell me what to do. If the enemy turned out to be the wrong person, well, it was the fault of the one who gave you orders, and Arya saw the solution as simple enough. “Cregan Stark was blind and ancient when he faced the Dragonknight.”

The Capital itself was like nothing Arya thought she’d ever see. King’s Landing was massive; she thought Wintertown, with its eighty thousands, was a large city and White Harbor, with its two hundred thousands, but King’s Landing was said to have just under one million people within. It had expanded over the last hundred and fifty years since the First Dance, covering both sides of the mouth of the Blackwater Rush, rising like a field of stone and brick and wood and beaten silver out of the bones of the land. The streets were paved with that liquid stone that was said to mimic the Dragonstone of old Valyria. Smooth and with raised shoulders and walkways for smallfolk between the buildings, some of which were five stories off the ground. Water fountains and public lavatories, public baths and street cleaners and sweeps and chimney sweeps and laborers were in constant motion, an ocean wave of flesh and bone. The Red Keep rose like a crimson forest covering the top and slopes of Aegon’s High Hill, a blood-red monument to the power of House Targaryen. Towers of redbrick were snaked with winding statues of wingless dragons, faces contorted as though they were holding up the towers. Gargoyles, sphinxes, statues of Direwolves, and lions in bronze, copper, and stone. Manses and manors and slum houses.

Public parks, one of which was the size of the Godswood of Harrenhal and consulates from as far away as Norvos and Qohor, and Ib. Great storm drains were so large that she could envision people falling between the bars and vendors on each corner, selling food, drink, and cheap wares. And above all else, the stench of the city seemed to rise like a miasma about them, choking her senses and making Nymeria stop periodically to wallow in yet another odd smell inside odd substances. She noted that all four Direwolves who went South eventually vanished to find a river to bathe in, seeking respite from the heat and the smells. “Does it always smell like this?”

“It’s improved from when I was a boy; the King expanded the sewer lines; of course, that means anyone who tries to wade into the blackwater for a league in any direction is going to be swimming in shit, but the fish seem to love it.” He shrugged at the spasmodic-looking rictus of a disgusted expression Arya was no doubt wearing on her face when she realized fish caught in the blackwater bay likely engorged themselves on the city's waste. “In Winterfell night, the soil is often processed to be used as fertilizer for the glass gardens and fields beyond,” Arya muttered, more to herself than Jaime wanting to reassure herself that everything ate everything else and if one wanted to be that discriminate one could never eat again. It was hard to imagine Gendry being born here, spending his early years here, and living in such a barbaric place. And it was barbaric; not even halfway done with their ride and Arya could make out one dead body and four urchins fighting each other in an alley for scrapes of food that she hoped was at least mostly fresh. About them, enormous banners blew, representing the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms and their Essosi domains. Banners of the Azure dynasty of Yi Ti flew in the wind over a temple to the Maiden made of Light, and a crazed Septon stood on a plinth below the broad shoulders of a copper griffon whose wings were outstretched and mouth snarling. He spoke of heresy and apostasy and how the Gods' judgment would come down against the High Septon for allowing coexistence between the faiths here and now.

A gold cloak chased him off, he was missing a hand and a face she remembered though she couldn’t say why. He knew her father, though, for Lord Stark broke from the procession to ride out and greet him, admiring his iron hand before bidding that the captain come to dinner that evening. She would later learn that he was a hero of the Greyjoy rebellion named Jacelyn Bywater and captain of the Blackfyre gate on the other side of the mouth. And that he had saved her father from arrows and was knighted by Lord Robert after the battle was done for valorous action that resulted in the loss of a hand. Men and women roared when they saw the banners of House Stark. Chants of “NED! NED!” and “LADY RHAELLA! LADY CATELYN! LONG LIVE THE SAVIORS OF KING’S LANDING!!” “They should be cheering you, not my father, for that,” Arya said. Though she knew why her father misled Jaime for delaying telling anyone of the wildlife plot, he still saved Princess Rhaenys and Visenya and their mother Elia Martell when he slew Aerys, and; on some level, she understood his hesitancy. Aerys was a kinslaying madman, but her father still spoke fondly of the man he was before the madness, and if she had been in his place and seen two rebel leaders mourn a dead raper, she too might have been hesitant. “They see me every day Lady Arya, your father on the other hand? He’s a hero returning for the first time in years; he has an aura of mystique. Give it time; they’ll get bored of him faster than they got bored of me.” Arya playfully tossed him a piece of bread she’d been offered by one of the Gold Cloaks (After tearing off a bit for herself ) and rode on in silence. The Capital was beautiful and eerie, her new home for now and a place of learning, art, adventure, and intrigue. But that was the problem, it was a city of intrigue, and the stench of blood and death was as heavy in the air as treachery and deceit. As they marched further toward the Red Keep, Arya Stark was overcome with a very distinct feeling that was primal within her.

That this was no longer a place fit for a wolf.

If it ever had been.

Chapter Text

His majesty, the King of the Winds.

There was something beautiful about Aerax, a coal gray and black dragon with black flame and golden eyes who would otherwise be seen as a duller version of Maelos, yet when beheld up close, his features were that of dragons depicted in the more romantic portraits that depicted Balerion not as an immense and overweight living cataclysm with wings, but a refined elegant old drake. His temperament was remarkable even for the new dragons that awoke since Summerhall, and he was graceful and curious. And when he took to the skies? Gods be good; he was a wonder to behold! Elbert of House Arryn, lord of the Eyrie, sat on a bench and watched with his eldest son as Artys, the young crimson dragon, took flight along with its siblings to join Aerax, who was currently soaring high into the sky, flapping his wings with the frequency of one of those nectar drinking birds from the Summer Islands the smaller dragons struggling to catch up to the larger one until all of them became so small they appeared as a flock of birds vanishing into the clouds.

Then a sudden burst of black, then bronze, and then red filled the heavens above the mountain stronghold of House Arryn as they dove downward suddenly with Aerax in the lead, his wings folded against his body, his neck straight like an arrow twisting and winding until he suddenly opened his wings altered the course and flew upwards on the mountain winds, the other dragons having broken their dive hundreds of feet before their larger cousin. Aerax was weaving and diving in the air, twisted and soaring upwards to make circles in the heavens at such speeds it seemed as though he were chasing his tail as hounds were often to do as pups. At one point, Artys grew bold and flew through Aerax’s circular pattern, weaving between the dragon in flight and turning sharply to playfully blast flame at the older dragon, who chirped in delight and took the younger dragon on a winding loop around the peaks of the nearest mountain tops, father and son had been watching the display of aerial prowess for the better part of the morning.

Daena Tully, his beloved wife, joined them a few moments ago, with Terrax standing behind her, then she dragon’s giant head resting upon the white stone ground, snout pressed gently under her round stomach. The dragon was remarkably fussy, worrying over her rider and grumbling when she was near danger or too close to the more rambunctious hatchlings. Whenever his Lady Wife was close to birth, Terrax would scarce leave her side while she was out of the castle and would sleep on top of the tower that housed their private apartments. Her long auburn and silver hair, flowing loose and wild, her pale skin and equally pale eyes were sparkling with wonder. “Terrax, my dear, after my son is born, we will have to get into the air and show Aerax how its masters do it, hmm?” Her voice was husky as it always was, and it hid her fatigue. This hadn’t been an easy pregnancy, and Elbert would speak to her about perhaps being satisfied with their children. I do not wish to outlive yet another wife and one I’ve come to cherish so much. Of course, he was being immodest, he was two name days short of his seventieth, and it was a minor miracle he produced two healthy children and looked to be nearing production of a third at his age. I may be spent. It was a thing no man could admit in public, of course.

 Particularly when he’d participated in a melee wherein he, Gaemon Tully, and Ser Barristan the bold managed to take some morning stars and maces and clean the proverbial manse, laying low some two-dozen youths before a trio of Aghorro, Ser Jaime, and Garlan Tyrell laid them low. Or the Tourney at White Harbor, where I insisted upon wrestling Harras Harlaw and ended up needing to consume the milk of the poppy and bittercane for a Sennight. He’d been a formidable jouster, wrestler, and duelist in his youth, but his youth was nigh two score years behind him. At least he didn’t look it, unlike poor uncle Jon, who’d gone bald and lost most of his teeth. Even if it was ash-colored, Elbert still had a full head of hair, his gray-green eyes were as sharp as they had been in his youth, and he could still hold his own with a flail, mace, or sword. Though not as great as before. In his youth, he’d almost been unstoppable with a halberd or poleaxe, but a wound to his knee during the war against the Emperor in the East and an arrow to his thigh during the rebellion had robbed him of his agility. He might still have it, but he preferred the peace of the Eyrie and his family. Daena deserved better than an old man.

For her part, she seemed to sense his thoughts and rolled her eyes, reaching out and beckoning him to come close. Elbert rose and walked forward, giving Terrax time to move her head from his wife’s front, pausing long enough to sniff him and gently press the tip of her copper snout into his thigh for a scratch. He reached down and rubbed the top of her nose between the nostrils earning a low rumbling growl that another man might have taken as menacing, but he knew from the years that the mighty dragon had lived in the Vale that it was not but the pleased sigh of a dragon with an itch. In the sun, her scales showed as though she were a living statue, and when the tax of a scritch was paid, he finally closed the gap and embraced the woman he loved. “You’ve got that look, my love as if you’re lamenting that my betrothal pinioned me to you, yet I am moored by you, not chained.” She leaned up and kissed his lips. “You’re my old man, and I won’t have another.” Against his linen robes, he could feel the movement within her, and he wondered if there was not more than one child inside of her, another reason to be done with procreation. The Maester said it was possible but that she was small for one bearing multiples, yet Daena always carried on the small side due to her height. Though he had to lean down to kiss her, Elbert was closer to a Baratheon in height, and Daena was just shy of passing six feet. She was lithe and feminine, but her body always held remarkably dense muscles for a slender frame, making her so formidable on the battlefield.

They said the Lady Shireen of the Arbor stags was built likewise. “All the same, I thank you for the life we’ve built together...I” any tenderness was removed from the scene by the comical sounds of Aerax landing and immediately submitting to the authority of the older, more powerful dragon who rose and made a few annoying growls as if she too was disappointed at the interruption of such intimacy. Her children, like the little clumsy tots that they were, failed to control their descent properly and so skidded and bounced harmlessly along the courtyard grass rolling and whining in indignation at their humiliating display. Terrax snapped at them, chiding them as Daena had often scolded their children. The two laughed softly as the little instruments of raw power and death crawled towards their rookery in a manner that almost reminded him of Jon when he was younger, sulking and grumbling. “Hello, your mighty Aerax!” Daena said, bowing to the dragon who seemed to preen. Elbert knew that dragons were far more intelligent than any other beast, but it had always confused him to see his loved ones speak to them as if they were men and to see that, often, dragons possessed feelings similar to the feelings that men have. He would never fully understand nor accept dragons' intelligence, yet he was eternally grateful for it, after all. Had not the canniness of Terrax saved his Lady Wife’s life on many an occasion? And his own?

Daena stepped towards him, her hair and robes flowing in the mountain winds as she reached out and set her left hand over the snout of the younger dragon, who leaned into the touch, taking in the scent of the distant kin of his future rider. From there, she stepped aside towards his neck, and for the first time, Elbert noticed that he had a leather collar that was tanned and black as his coal-colored scales. A cylinder was attached to the leather collar, and Elbert’s eyes narrowed. Is Hoster using dragons instead of ravens now? Pycelle is a serpent, but other Maesters under his service can be trusted…including some of our Houses. Yet he trusted only Aerax to deliver this message? When Daena unscrewed the top and pulled out the parchment, he felt his heart pounding, and when his Lady wife paled, he uttered a silent prayer. Shaky hands passed the letter to him, and Elbert took it up, making out the penmanship not of Hoster Tully but one who served on the Lord’s Council alongside himself and Hoster all these years, one who’d been an ally against the Lannister power block even if she was deadly in her own right. Born early, frail of body yet mighty of spirit, Elia Martell pursued the will of Sunspear with the single-minded determination of a zealot. With only her goal to see her eldest daughter seated as Queen consort and her youngest daughter protected taking precedence above that drive. A lifelong sickness would rob the world of Elia Martell soon enough, but Elbert wondered how many enemies would precede her to the halls of the Stranger to face the Father’s Judgement. Reading the letter, Elbert must have looked like he was about to have some form of seizure. 

30,000 Dothraki screamers ride to Pentos. Not riding with war banners, the Summer Krakens have closed trade from Walano, Lys agitating in protest of a return of house Targaryen to Essos, and Lady Lysa’s fears appear correct.

Zhan Fei, not mere foreign Courtesan, believed to be daughter of Yellow Emperor of Carcosa, suspected involvement with King of Thieves out of Duskendale. May be attempting to smuggle dragon eggs out of the Capital.

Agenda yet unknown.

War imminent.

King in danger.

Lord’s Stark and Baratheon (Both branches.) only hope to turn the tide. Red Dragon, wolf, and Stag only salvation of the Black…of the realm.

 Silence sighted off the coast of Fair Isle.

Gods help us all.

...........

The quiet Wolf

It was all different; it was all the same. Riding into the capital was harder than he ever imagined; the ghosts of a past he had struggled to simultaneously run from and entomb himself in warred with his present. Seeing Arya interact and trade barbs with the Kingslayer brought a flurry of memories to the surface of a youth garbed as a common merchant’s son from Essos walking beside a younger silver-haired Prince with a frustrated Prince Lewyn Martell in tow, trading jabs and japes and later sitting mesmerized by the Rhaegar’s skill with the lyre or lute or harp and for the briefest of seconds the urge to join in his melancholic tunes seizing him. Ned Stark spent a scant amount of time with Rhaegar Targaryen once he departed for the vale, and admittedly Robert’s view of Rhaegar as an eccentric, sullen, withdrawn Prince infatuated with arcane lore and dark magic and obscure cults from the far east had colored his perception of the Dragon Prince over time. Robert turned out to be correct, though… Perhaps Lyanna had gone willingly at the start, yet he knew his sister died filled with sorrow, regret, and fear for her son.

He could scarcely hear the multitude of the crowd as his mind repeated Jon’s question over and over and over. How is it that neither you nor mother saw it? The mutual attraction? The danger in it? The perversity and the madness? Rhaegar had been married, was nearly ten years her senior, and had always shown an elder brother's tenderness to Lyanna. But they had been close; Ned knew that without Benjen’s confession of helping their sister escape to meet Syrax and Rhaegar in the Wolfswood. Thousands cheered around him, cried out his name, cheered and threw flowers, others howled as they imagined wolves might when they beheld the mighty Direwolves of House Stark, and he was vaguely aware that Warden had leaped onto the plinth of a bronze statue of his father Rickard Stark, who stood grim and silent, a twenty-foot version of Ice thrust into the base of the figure, it's pommel and hilt gripped in gloved hands and then had begun to lead the crowd and the other Direwolves in howling. Out of the corner of his eye, he could make out one of the “purist” Septons, who rejected ostentation and wore simple black tunics and doublets with a rainbow-colored sash about their waists. He was jeering, bandying about words like heathen and barbarian and apostates. He was promptly chased off by members of the city watch who were adorned in red armor with the black dragon of House Blackfyre above their hearts upon their breasts and the twin golden swords crossed on a field of black that had come to be the official symbol of the City Watch covering the mid-section of their cuirasses, their gold cloaks fluttering in the wind as the man was harried off.

That was something he would always agree with the somber Rhaegar over, the religious tolerance fostered in the Crownlands was newer and far different from the coexistence born out of the necessity of the North, or the Reach, or the Westerlands and that it was only a matter of time before the rapid changes of the last century boiled over into some form of clash. It will be like lancing a boil Prince Rhaegar used to say. Painful and grotesque, but ultimately necessary and restorative. That may have been where Ned disagreed; he didn’t think it was necessary. There was a reason why even these purists, led by the mysterious Septon Luthor, were the smallest of the so-called reformist movements. They were the most violent and had been for the last nine and twenty years. “Isn’t that Ser Ironhand?” Jory asked, surprised at his features. His brown destrier was not handling the noises, the crowd, and the constant presence of dragons and was struggling not to bolt every few heartbeats. Still, Jory was a master rider and could calm the beast and keep his eyes focused on the column. “Aye, he is!”

Ser Jacelyn Bywater was a knight of House Bywater, a house of minor nobles from the Crownlands known for their pickled fish and for selling a flavorful sauce made of fermented fish, which netted income above what could be expected from such a small House and its meager lands. They also had a town charter and produced several generations of able-bodied knights who served the order of the peace in the Crownlands. Ned mostly knew all of this because he sat vigil with Ser Jacelyn when he lost his hand, and the healers had to use boiled wine and a heated rod to keep the corruption from spreading. Men said strange things after imbibing milk of the poppy between bouts of deep delusive sleep. Ser Ironhand, as he was called, did not allow the loss of a hand to dull his skill with a blade and, more importantly, his aptitude for command. What is a man like this doing clearing the streets of eccentrics and vagrants? He should be a captain by now. “Ho Ser Jacelyn!”

When the man turned, Eddard noted the broach pinning his golden cape, a three-headed dragon with ruby eyes, the badges of office awarded to the captains of the gates. Roundtree hasn’t failed me, then. He felt a pang of guilt; he should have known the brother of Roark would not squander talent. As Ser Bywater walked towards them, Ned caught a glimpse of one of the heroes of the Greyjoy rebellion; he was still broad and strong, but his hair had a touch of gray in it, and there were lines under his eyes from the sun and long days in duty. “Lord Hand! I would welcome you back to the Capital, but it seems the city itself has taken the initiative there.” He said as he reached for Ned’s extended hand. A vice-like grip took his forearm, and Stark nodded. “Aye, it seems I’ve become popular in my time apart from her.” Let it be that this fickle city doesn’t tire of seeing me soon enough. The Starks were one of the closest allies of the old regime and had turned on them in the wake of its bitter betrayal and fought like mad to install the new one; the first King of the Black Dragons had done much to rebuild the city after the sack. To expand it, cultivate it, and bring in healers and learned men from Essos to set up a crownlander Citadel where the knowledge of East and West might be combined. Hospitals and maiden houses, Septs, Churches, and even centers of learning where the smallfolk might gain literacy filled the sprawling city. Yet House Blackfyre blockaded the city once the Riverlander navy and the Crannogmen broke the royal fleet. People starved, and there were reports of cannibalism well before the ill-fated sack. Had the smallfolk forgotten? Had the people of Flea Bottom forgiven the Black Dragons? Would they recall his closeness to the King and remember that Hoster Tully had more to do with ending the sack than he did? Ned Stark had known King’s Landing since he was a small boy; he knew the Dragonpit almost as intimately as his lady wife and had spent many an hour on the mad king’s lap as a boy as he and Lord Tywin governed the realm.

But that didn’t make this city his friend. “It seems they remember my small part in ending the sack, Ser Jacelyn; I desire a quiet evening after all this. Would you care to join my family and me? If you’re wed, bring your wife and any issue you might have.” Yes, a night among the familiar company that lacked any of the baggage that had weighed him down since he departed Winterfell would do him some good even if he did have an ulterior purpose to the invitation, in that he wished to know the true state of Lannister influence in the city and if he knew anything of the Old Hand’s death. It pained him to have to use a somewhat false pretense, but when the Knight accepted, he consoled himself in knowing that at least he would be among true company this night. As the Ironhand departed, several gold cloaks on horseback rode forward, their capes billowing in the breeze, their white hair flowing freely, and each wielded a morning star with a rose-shaped head. The Flea Bottom dragons… Ned remembered Aerys describing them once when he was a boy. A unit of one hundred bastards or descendants of bastards, each one sired by a Targaryen or descended from a Targaryen who could prove his lineage. They were the fiercest defenders of the city that had borne them, and all of them were among the most dangerous fighters of the watch. Ned was surprised to see that they hadn’t been disbanded.

A grim chuckle escaped his lips as he watched Arya shout “cousins!” at them, and they rode canted around her and Sansa and Prince Maelys shouting for the crowd, “To yield ground to the fire-breathing she-wolves!” they had done something similar for Lyanna and Benjen when they first came to the capital. Outside of Aegon the fifth, no one acknowledged them as kin save Rhaella and her children And now grandchildren. They would be natural allies in ordinary circumstances, yet he wondered if there wasn’t an element of falsity to their courtesy. After all, they had always been fiercely proud of their Targaryen heritage, and while kin, the Starks had helped to overthrow their liege. Doubt faded when they beheld Daenerys and Jon and saluted with their blades for Princess and her betrothed. He heard “THREE CHEERS FOR HOUSE STARK! WHO SAVED THE LAST OF THE RED DRAGONS AND THIS CITY!” and cries of “We stand with Winterfell as we stand with the Red Keep!” which was a dangerous declaration of affection, one that would have seen them disbanded and exiled under Aerys for certainty but the King who was riding ahead of them all merely looked back at Ned and smiled knowingly with those eerie eyes of his. Perhaps not everyone in this city is a viper..perhaps…

Prince Daeron rode up beside him then, joined by Princess Rhaenys, who reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder for a moment before she steadied her mount, a brilliant black destrier whose finely maintained armor shimmered black and red in the sun.  It was amusing that the Princesses were permitted warhorses and rode them as though they were seasoned in the art of the tilt. They might be, for all their affiliation with the higher mysteries, they are half Martell. Or perhaps more Martell, was not Daeron the second wed to a Dornish woman? And Maekar after him? A Dayne, if he remembered right. In that sense, there is more pure Targaryen blood in House Blackfyre, given that Daena the defiant was the First Daemon’s mother...Not that he cared for such things, but he would remain eternally grateful when the aged Quellon Greyjoy brought that up in the now legendary Great Council of Old Wyk, or “the Dragon’s Kingsmoot” as the men of the Iron Islands and the North called it. His reminding the court that “courtesy of their proclivity to wed brother to sister, House Blackfyre has more of the blood of Aegon the second through his daughter than Lord Stark here.” It was an odd line of reasoning and flimsy besides, but it gave a pretext for Ned to withdraw himself from consideration, and he thanked the Gods for that. Clever old Kraken…would that he had lived but a few years longer.

There was a statue of queen Alicent near the entrance to the Red Keep, along the “Avenue of Heroes and Kings,” which was the official name for the street of paved stone in the YiTish style that snaked up Aegon’s Hill and led to the mouth of the fortress that loomed above the whole of the city. As history tells it, the first Dance of the Dragons was as bitter a war as the Blackfyre rebellion, or the second dance, depending on who you asked. Some scholars believed that the accounts of Corlys Velaryon, Auryn Aetheryon, and the Manderlys at court that Alicent and Rhaenyra were both close friends and loved each other as sisters before the madness, obsession with prophecy, and ambition sundered the two branches of the House of the Dragon. That war had been terrible; by the end of it, one in ten men in the Riverlands had been consumed in Dragonfire or killed in battle. All but four of House Targaryen's dragons were killed; of those four, two would not live to see the end of the decade, one went feral (wondrous Silverwing.) and fled to the South, where she made a liar by a lake, and then eventually was last seen as a fat and frail dragon flying east. Many thought she drowned, though perhaps the mysterious Shrike of the Dothraki sea was her daughter. Assuming she existed at all (And how did the Dothraki know it was female?), Aegos had flown East as well…

The renegade Queen Rhaenyra unleashed torture and mayhem on King’s Landing, venting the fury of the deaths of all but two of her sons…The Dowager Queen Alicent would flee to the Reach and return with one hundred and twenty thousand men at arms, the largest army ever assembled on a field of battle in Westerosi history, and she spent that power to win the last battle for her cripple son. Jaehaera Targaryen and Aegon the third were known as the solemn dragons. Though they presided over healing and reconstruction, it would not be until the reign of their grandnephew Daeron the second that House Targaryen would regain the number of trueborn members it held at its height. And the Dragons would not return until Summerhall...A Statue of Cregan Stark came into view, Ice at rest and one of his arms outstretched, rising above his head and pointing towards the Red Keep; clasped in his copper hand was the skull of Unwin Peake. Hand for a day; the infamous Lord of Winterfell put the last embers of the war out in blood and returned North, vowing that if he ever had to return to King’s Landing, it would be as a blizzard and not “the gentle snows of yesterday.” When Lord Peake’s toughs flung a pale-haired girl out of the Holdfast and moved to force Aegon to wed a bride connected to Lord Peake, the youth had boldly declared that his queen “Was not dead, that which committed suicide was a natural born cousin and we grieve her loss.” A yearlong secret siege was said to have occurred until the future King Viserys second of his name and Lord Cregan returned to the Red Keep in the dead of night. The year one hundred and thirty-four ended with the arrival of Rogares, Viserys the second, and one furious Stark.

My ancestor did not offer terms to the Hand’s party; he merely carved his way through the Red Keep. The battle, which had now become a tale sung by bards and acted out by mummers the world over and exaggerated to all hells and back (As good as his ancestor was, there was no way he slew a thousand men with his own hands. That was an absurdity) called now “The Wolf’s Tempest.” Culminated in four of the seven Kingsguard dead at Lord Cregan’s hand, a dozen men at arms killed by Sandoq the Shadow, and Lord Unwin Peake cut from shoulder to pelvis as he tried to cajole Lord Cregan into standing down. The bloody wolf, as he was known then, would serve as Hand for just long enough for Viserys Targaryen to learn the office’s duties before he once again returned North, according to legend, with the gilded skull of Lord Unwin in tow. Foolish stories, if Cregan Stark ever returned with the gilded skull of his enemy, it was lost long ago.

It seems every time a member of House Stark enters royal affairs, blood and treachery precede. Would he have to become another Cregan to keep his family safe and to save his friend? If he did, he would need Prince Maelys and Ser Aerion to act as his swords, for he lacked the skill of Cregan Stark. Jaime Lannister as well, but I’ve little cause to trust him. And he disapproved of the closeness that seemed to be forming between him and Arya despite the Kingslayer’s best efforts to prevent it. The only reason he tolerated it was because if Arya had a chance to get under his skin, perhaps she could grant him enough of a second’s hesitancy to put the Kingslayer down when the time came. I hate thinking like this, using my daughters like this, but they are truly gifted. And both were growing into something beautiful and powerful, even if each represented two very different sorts of power.

It was time, the Avenue of Heroes, with its statues of everyone from Gaemon the glorious, to the mighty conqueror, was coming to an end, and ahead of them was a great statue of Daemon Blackfyre, the first, the true kneeling to an immense cast bronze and marble figure of Daeron the Goode opened the way to the Red Keep. Whose mighty ironwood doors were flanked by two stone statues, one of Meraxes and the other Vhagar, and within the first ward amidst the groves of lemon trees, the smaller statues and icons of various historical figures or figures and creatures of myth and fable sat the figure that was wholly new and wrought of… Gods, is that dragonstone? Have they rediscovered its secrets?! An immense statue of Balerion, belching fresh and clean water from his mouth, consumed his vision; the pale blue flow, resembling liquid glass, cascaded down into a fountain below… Towards the inner gates, the banners of House Blackfyre flew proudly; below it, in smaller but no less mighty size, flew the banners of House Targaryen, Stark, Tully, and the two Houses of Baratheon.

Above them, dragons soared.

In many ways, it was just as he remembered from his youth; in other ways, it was different.