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Sometimes Maris Baratheon hated her father.

It was not that he was a bad man. A little impatient and a little ignorant, yes. He did not know how to read, and could not be bothered to learn, which to a voracious reader like Maris seemed like blasphemy. When debating something with his wife, his voice would rise up so high it seemed to ring against the very rafters of Storm's End, and that gave Maris a headache. He was frustratingly fixated on having a son, though her lady mother had borne only daughters and hadn't been with child for eight years.

But she knew he loved her and her sisters very much. He was very proud of them - of headstrong Cassandra, sweet Ellyn, and beautiful Floris. And of clever Maris.

On the day of Prince Aemond Targaryen's arrival at Storm's End though, she walked out of the Round Hall wishing she could strangle Lord Borros Baratheon's big fat neck.

Unlike her mother, she was not surprised at Father feting and fawning on Prince Aemond. He had both Baratheon and Targaryen pride in him, which was an awful lot of pride considering how powerful and arrogant each family was on its own. He had never been very close with Princess Rhaenys, though she was his first cousin, and he greatly disliked her husband Lord Velaryon, who he had more than once called an upjumped sailor. And he thought Princess Rhaenyra was a foolish and promiscuous woman.

On the other hand, he was quite flattered that Prince Aegon had sent his own brother to woo him to his cause, especially once he revealed that he meant to marry one of the Baratheon daughters. By that point in the feast, Father was so in his cups he practically fell all over the high table in his delight.

"I have four daughters," he said, hiccuping, and gestured down the high table at them all. "Tell him, Elenda."

Mother's face was like stone. She barely moved her lips as she spoke now, but Maris had no doubt she would be tearing into Father in private at the show he was making of himself. "Our eldest, Cassandra, who is fifteen. Next is Maris, who is fourteen. Next to her is Floris, our youngest. She is eleven. And finally, all the way down, here is Ellyn, who is thirteen."

Ellyn attempted a smile; Maris was rather impressed by this, as Ellyn had confided in her earlier in the evening that Prince Aemond's eyepatch frightened her. "He looks like a pirate!" she'd whispered.

Cass was busy trying to subtly adjust the neckline of her dress, since she was the only one of them with breasts. She was also the heir to Storm's End currently, and though Father insisted he would have a son out of Mother yet, Maris expected she would inherit too. Prince Aegon already had children, so Prince Aemond could easily become the lord of the Stormlands if he wed Cass. She would be the logical choice. But then Mother said royalty were not very logical.

"All very lovely and dutiful daughters," said Prince Aemond. He sounded impatient.

"All my girls are good girls! They can dance and sing and read books too!" Father bellowed. Though Maris was sitting three seats down from him, she could smell the wine wafting off his breath. "And you can have your pick of them - eh, cousin? Cass is the oldest, so she'll be first to flower. And she's my fierce girl, a real Baratheon. She'll lead you a merry chase, eh?"

Cass went on wearing her cat-like smile, but then she was shameless like that. Prince Aemond looked at her for a moment, and then very, very briefly, looked at her breasts.

"But Floris is the prettiest one," Father continued, and Cass's smile drooped. "My father used to say she's the spitting image of Princess Jocelyn at that age, and everyone knows what a beauty Princess Jocelyn grew into."

Floris preened. It was true that everyone fawned over her black curls and big sea blue eyes, but Maris was of the opinion that it all made her spoiled. As her older sister, therefore, Maris worked very hard to humble her. It was a bit hard to do, since Floris was so featherbrained she sometimes didn't realize she was being mocked.

She was pleased to see that Prince Aemond barely glanced at Floris now. He probably thought her too young.

Father seemed to notice his lack of interest too, because his eyes drifted in Maris's direction.

She sat up straighter, folding her hands all ladylike in her lap, and curved her mouth very slightly.

There was a portrait of Alyssa Velaryon, her great-grandmother, which hung in Mother's study, in which she'd been painted facing the sea, all dressed in pearls and sea-green lace. Maris had spent many hours in front of a mirror trying to mimic the mysterious, faraway look on her face because she thought it was the epitome of beauty and grace. Prince Aemond was said to be a stern, almost austere man, so he must surely appreciate a woman of restraint.

"And if it's a clever wife you want," said Father, "there's Maris."

Maris waited, silent, for further elaboration.

Father belched, then added vaguely, "Not comely as the others, but she reads books. Now, my daughter Ellyn, on the other hand..."

He rambled on, saying something about how Ellyn was sweet and patient, probably. The blood was beating so loud in Maris's ears that she couldn't rightly say. She didn't care. As though Prince Aemond was going to choose Ellyn - she was so quiet and boring.

Really, Father? Maris thought. She reads books? Clearly there was no reason for him to talk about her sisters' good points any longer, since he had completely bowled everyone over with that description of her virtues.

Maybe Prince Aemond would find her more attractive if she tried to commit patricide. He had also had an incompetent father, so he must surely relate?

Sure, Maris knew she wasn't as pretty as her sisters. She wasn't blind. She was much taller than the others, and very skinny, and her black hair grew in straight as opposed to Floris's pretty curls or Cass's thick waves. But her eyes were deep Baratheon blue like Cass's, and she had pretty white teeth and only a couple of pimples, which Mother had assured her would clear up with age, since she too had suffered from the same affliction when she was young. Maris wasn't ugly.

Still, Prince Aemond looked at her even more briefly than he had at Floris. It seemed he did not care about having a clever wife.

Through the rest of dinner, Maris pushed the food around on her plate and worked very hard not to fume. She reminded herself Father was drunk, and it was the first night of Prince Aemond's stay. He had not decided who he would marry yet. He would be here another few weeks to work out the details of the betrothal, and in that time he would get to know all of them.

Then he would find out that Cass was arrogant and argumentative, Ellyn was dull and scared of everything, and Floris was vapid and tittered instead of laughing properly. Then he would realize exactly how funny and smart Maris was, and that she had silver flecks in her eyes and that her hair was very soft to the touch, and would insist on marrying no one but her.

Besides, she had seen the unimpressed look on Mother's face as Father described each of them to Prince Aemond, and she was certain that she was going to rip Father's hair out once they were together in private.

And because Father said that Mother yelled at him only because she loved him, maybe after they were done with the yelling they'd try to have another baby again, and it would be a boy. When he was born, Cass would be disinherited and have to marry some boring old knight, while Maris pointed and laughed because she was married to Prince Aemond and was a Targaryen princess now and got to go riding on his big old dragon with him.

Or so Maris decided to dream.

—

Two weeks later, Maris was much more certain of her position.

Prince Aemond spent much of his mornings closeted with Father discussing politics, or training in the courtyard with his sword. (Shirtless, said the servant girls! Mother had, alas, strictly forbidden them from going to see for themselves.) But in the afternoons, he often spent time with the sisters, going hawking in the woods above the sea or playing cyvasse and taking tea together.

True to her expectation, he had spent very little time getting to know Floris, because he would have to wait longest to have children with her. For a few horrid days, he had shown a marked preference toward Cassandra, until he caught her flirting with one of Father's knights. While Maris knew that Cass only flirted for fun and never meant anything by it, she didn't really care if Prince Aemond thought the worst.

Because once Cass too was removed from contention, it was just Maris and Ellyn remaining, and she was not worried about Ellyn. While her younger sister had become more used to Prince Aemond's eyepatch and once even said to Maris that she felt sorry for him, while actually in the prince's presence she would clam up and simply nod along as he spoke. He must be bored to tears.

In contrast, Maris did her level best to always keep him entertained. She took him on a tour of Storm's End, telling him all about the romantic tale of Orys Baratheon and Argella Durrandon's marriage and all the additions which had been made to the keep since Aegon I's time. When they rode along the top of the cliffs, she pointed out the different ships out in Shipbreaker's Bay, explaining what they were called and from where they hailed, and encouraging him to guess at what goods they must be ferrying. She asked him about his favorite songs, so that she could be sure to dance them with him at the nightly feasts Father hosted for him.

And when she lay in bed, kept awake as usual by Cass's snoring, she started imagining what her life would be at the Red Keep. She would be best friends with the beautiful Queen Helaena, she decided, and would even advise King Aegon on matters of the realm over dinner, once he had come to understand how clever Maris was. She would go flying with Prince Aemond on his dragon, which she now knew was called Vhagar and had belonged by Queen Visenya herself long ago.

And she was have lots and lots of children with him, all with that beautiful shimmering Targaryen hair, which she thought would look lovely paired with Baratheon blue eyes.

So she was not surprised when, one afternoon, Mother sat all four of the girls down in her solar and announced that Prince Aemond had made his choice of wife.

But she nearly fell out of her chair when Mother said, "He has decided to marry Ellyn."

"What?" said Cass.

"WHAT?" said Maris.

Floris squealed and hugged Ellyn, who sat there blinking her big blue eyes and staring up at Mother like she didn't know what was going on. Her face was going blotchy with blushing.

"Prince Aemond told your father that he thought all of you were very lovely and pleasant girls," Mother went on, "but he said that Ellyn would suit him best. Queen Alicent and Queen Helaena will like her very much."

Cass scoffed. "Oh, I'm sure they will. I'm sure Ellyn reminds him very much of his sister."

There was that flinty look in her eyes which told Maris she was on the verge of erupting. But with deliberate effort she seemed to swallow back her rage and smiled at Ellyn. "No matter. I've still got Storm's End. I don't think Prince Aemond would have been a very good husband to me, but he had the sense to know our Elly is a sweetheart! You'll have me up to the Red Keep to come visit with you, won't you, Elly?"

Ellyn looked relieved. "Of course, Cass! You and Maris and Floris, and Mother and Father too -"

"I don't understand," said Maris.

Because she was sweet and stupid, Ellyn leaned forward to touch her on the arm and said, "Maris -"

Maris pushed her away. She did not want to be touched by Ellyn, or by anyone else for that matter. She was still trying to comprehend the fact that Prince Aemond had chosen Ellyn to be his bride - Ellyn who had hardly said ten words in his presence, but just smiled and nodded at everything; who had cried when Prince Aemond's hawk caught a rabbit because "It's just a baby, Your Grace!" and rode off on her horse to avoid having to see it skinned and gutted. She had even told Prince Aemond that Vhagar frightened her!

Yet it was Ellyn he wanted to take to bed and make pretty Targaryen babes with.

If it were Cass, Maris might have wondered if she'd slunk off with Prince Aemond into some dark corner to seduce him, and secured the betrothal that way. But this was Ellyn, who looked terribly hurt at being shoved, so Maris swallowed her anger. Ellyn had not made Prince Aemond choose her.

"What's there to understand?" sneered Cass, wrapping a protective arm around Ellyn. "Prince Aemond got sick of you always flapping your mouth at him. 'Ooh, Prince Aemond, imagine if I was Argella and you were Orys! Ooh, Prince Aemond, listen to me doing maths in my head! I'm sooooo smart!'"

"Stop being mean to Maris!" Floris interjected, tears already thick in her voice. But Maris knew that it was more about Floris hating anyone fighting than her particularly wanting to support her. Besides, while Ellyn was not an appropriate target for her rage, Cass certainly was. So with further ado, Maris flew at her and grabbed a hold of her hair and began to rip at it.

"YOU LITTLE BITCH!" bellowed Cassandra. Like Father, she had a voice which could blow the tiles off the roof. Unlike Father, she had very long nails, which she now used to great effect to scratch at Maris's arms. Maris howled.

"Please, don't!" bleated Ellyn. And Floris started wailing.

Mother waded into the fray immediately. She elbowed Cass away from Maris, then disentangled Maris's hands from Cass's hair and shoved her back onto her stool. "Ellyn, take Floris down to the kitchen for some sweets," she instructed.

Ellyn and Floris scurried out of the room, meek as mice. Mother shut the door after them, then turned around and fixed Maris with a stare.

“Maris, I know you like Prince Aemond very much, and you are disappointed at not being chosen. But you’re fourteen, nearly a woman grown!”

“Cass is the one who started mocking me,” said Maris through gritted teeth. “She -“

To her shame, she could feel her eyes burning with tears. “Cass,” said Mother. “I know you were trying to defend Ellyn -“

Cass had backed off into a corner when Mother pulled her off Maris, but now she advanced again, bold as brass. She looked past Mother to address Maris directly.

“I don’t know what’s happened to you,” she spat. “Ever since you turned twelve you’ve become an arrogant little prig. You think you’re so much better than all of us! You didn’t think even for a moment that the prince might like one of us better than you! And Mother just keeps coddling you like a baby and saying we have to be nice because you’re so sensitive -“

“Cass -“

“- and you’ll cry and sulk about it. You’ve become so spoiled -“

“Cassandra!”

Mother didn’t raise her voice much. She didn’t have to. She could not roar like a Baratheon, but she had been born a Caron of Nightsong, and her voice sang with warrior’s steel when she was angry. Cass shut up.

“Cassandra, go to your rooms. I will come speak to you later.”

Cass went, glaring over her shoulder as she did. Maris hoped fervently that the next time she went riding along the cliffs, she and her horse would take a tumble straight into Shipbreaker’s Bay.

Mother closed the door behind her, then came and knelt by Maris’s side. When she spoke now, her voice had become soft and coaxing. “My little Maris. I am so sorry that Prince Aemond will not be your husband. But I know you’re a good girl, and I wish you would be happy for your sister.”

Maris gave a hard sniff. Her nose always started running when she cried, and annoyingly her mother’s kindness undid her more than Cass’s fiercest rages. “I know it’s not Ellyn’s fault. But she doesn’t even like him!”

“But she does like him,” Mother insisted. “You’re clever enough to know that. And I think Prince Aemond is being sensible in choosing the bride who would best suit him. If you were married, both of you would want to be the one in charge, and would fight all your lives. Ellyn will listen to him, and always put him first.”

“You and Father fight all the time,” argued Maris. “And you have a good marriage.”

“Your father knows that I am the one in charge,” Mother joked. But when Maris looked into her face, she saw that she had an odd expression, as though she was thinking about something else.

But I love him, she wanted to whine, except she knew perfectly well that she did not. What was really the matter was that Maris was tired of being one of the Four Storms. She wanted to be her own person. Prince Aemond’s wife would be someone important, and she wanted that for herself.

“I’ll say sorry to Ellyn,” she said finally, in a very small voice.

“Yes, you will,” said Mother. But then she gave Maris a big hug, and that made everything feel better.

She apologized to Cass too, but only because they slept in the same bed and it would be awkward otherwise. Cass said she forgave her, and Maris was glad she hadn’t actually managed to rip out any of her hair.

Now that they had made up, they huddled close together under the covers and discussed what Ellyn’s wedded life would be like.

“She’ll want ten babies,” said Maris. “Five boys and five girls. Do you think Prince Aemond will make them all marry each other?”

“Let’s see how she feels after having one baby first. And I don’t think Targaryens have to marry each other if they don’t want to. Queen Alysanne had thirteen children, and only two of them got married to each other.”

“Some of them died when they were little,” Maris pointed out. “And some of them married cousins. Didn’t Prince Aemon marry his aunt?”

Cass made a gagging noise. “Imagine marrying Uncle Pearse!”

It was a bad thought. Maris liked her mother’s brother well enough, but he was old and cared mostly about breeding warhorses. Also, he was her uncle.

The discussion cheered her greatly. Ellyn’s husband might ride a dragon, but at least Maris’s children wouldn’t have to marry their uncles. She had also realized at some point between her bout of crying after Mother’s announcement and bedtime that Prince Aemond might even take Maris for a ride on Vhagar if Ellyn asked him nicely.

So it was with a sense of renewed optimism that Maris went down to breakfast that morning. She had taken plenty of care in dressing that day, so that when it was announced that Ellyn was the chosen bride and everyone looked at all the girls for their reactions, Maris would not be found wanting. When Prince Aemond knelt and kissed a catatonic Ellyn’s hand, she clapped along with the rest of the hall, and felt very proud and grown up.

Her contentment lasted all of a day.

At least had been a good day. Father had gone around with his chest puffed up with pride, and Mother had told Maris that she was proud about what a good sport she was being about it all. Ellyn’s face turned beet-red whenever she saw Prince Aemond, which had made lunch in the Round Hall quite interesting for the other sisters. Cass and Floris, with the assistance of a book of genealogies, had already started making a list of suitably Valyrian names for Ellyn’s future children.

“Though you must sneak a few Baratheon names in too,” Cass had insisted. “It’s only fair.”

Ellyn covered her face with her hands. Maris laughed so hard she choked. It seemed Mother was right about Ellyn liking Prince Aemond.

But by the time supper came around, Maris was not so nonchalant anymore.

It was of all things a matter of precedence. She was second born, and so she was used to having to follow in Cass’s wake, to have her name called after hers. That was only right, because they all knew that Mother was never going to have a son, and so Storm’s End would be hers after Father died. Everyone in the keep knew this was the case, and kowtowed to her appropriately.

Maris had also long accepted that everyone made a pet of Floris. Not only was she the youngest sister, but she was so pretty with her black ringlets and her dimples, and so winsome when she wanted to get her own way in something, that it was only natural.

Today, though, everyone treated Ellyn different. When the servants passed her in the corridor, they bowed and curtsied deeper. At lunch, the serving maid gave her the choice cuts of meat after Prince Aemond without asking anyone first. Father’s squires elbowed each other and whispered when they spotted her walking along the covered walkway by the training yard, despite the fact that she wasn’t even watching their sparring.

Even their old septa, who had hitherto always blatantly favored Cass, came by when they were all sitting together charting out the pattern for the maiden’s cloak and started going on and on about how she had always known Ellyn was a rare pearl and clearly destined for great things.

“To think I have taught a princess!” she said with actual tears in her eyes.

“Well, she’s not a princess yet,” cut in Maris, rolling her eyes.

Unfortunately, Floris seemed to take this as an invitation. “The wedding will be soon! I heard Mother and Father talking about it - he and Prince Aemond are almost done discussing dates and dowries. Do you think the king and queen will come to see them married?”

“I don’t see why they couldn’t, seeing as they’re both dragon riders” remarked Cass. She looked up from the length of black satin draped over her lap and added, with a sly smile, “But I’m more interested in knowing why you’re eavesdropping on our parents again.”

“I wasn’t!” Floris protested. “I was just… uh…”

Cass cackled so loud that Septa Edyth winced. “You can’t tell a lie to save your life, Flory!”

She went on to provide some hints on how to weave a more convincing lie, but Maris was not listening. She glared down at her embroidery box, in which she had been sorting all the gold and yellow kinds of thread which might be used for the maiden’s cloak.

Ellyn was third born, but she was going to be getting married first. And when she married, she would be a princess of House Targaryen, the wife of a dragon rider and a great warrior. Maris knew all of this, but somehow she had not until then realized that this meant that she was going to have to always curtsey to Ellyn. That was what you did to royalty, after all.

Once Prince Aemond draped his house colors over her narrow shoulders, Ellyn was going to be more important than Cass, more important than even Mother and Father. And when she was, it would be Maris who was the least important Baratheon.

Cass the heir, beautiful Floris, and Maris, who read books.

“Are you alright, Maris?” asked Ellyn in her soft little voice. “You look ill.”

“My stomach aches,” she said, curt. Then, shutting up her embroidery box and setting it aside, she got up and left the room.

As she shut the door behind her, she heard a confused murmur from Floris, and Cass replying, “Just give her some time…”

Maris did not think time would improve things. She went back to her room and flung herself face down upon the bed. She waited to cry.

No tears came.

Be honest, she scolded herself. You’re not happy for Ellyn. You’re a selfish little beast, just like Cass said.

But was she being selfish if she was trying to keep Prince Aemond from making a mistake? Sure, he liked Ellyn’s quiet nature. And Maris could admit that Ellyn would make a good wife for some lord who just wanted a thoroughly domestic life and a passel of children. But being a princess was different.

There was so must unrest in House Targaryen right now. Prince Aemond had flown down to Storm’s End not for a bride but for a guarantee of support for his brother’s claim. If the realm broke into civil war over Princess Rhaenyra’s attempts to claim the throne, then King Aegon and Prince Aemond would have to fly into battle, leaving their wives behind in the Red Keep.

Princess Rhaenyra’s side had eight dragons, and King Aegon’s had six. Two of those, belonging to Prince Jahaerys and Princess Jaehaera, were too young to ride. Another was the mount of Princess Helaena, who Prince Aemond had admitted was no warrior. If the realm erupted into war, it would be an uphill battle for King Aegon.

Ellyn would make a good peacetime bride, but she did not have the nerve for this. Gentle Ellyn, who liked to sing and play her harp, but did not have the courage to do it in front of anyone else - how could Prince Aemond take her into this mess? He had to marry a Baratheon daughter to gain Father’s allegiance, but the daughter he had chosen would only make his life more difficult. The trouble was that no one was willing to gainsay a prince.

Well, Maris would.

—

She could hardly sit still at supper that night. She bolted her dinner down so fast that the serving maid kept coming by to make sure she had actually been served.

“I’m just hungry!” Maris barked at her. Floris, who was sitting next to her tonight, gave her a strange look.

She could not seem to sit still, no matter how much Cass glared and her mother looked askance at her. It was with great relief that she jumped up when her father clapped his hands and called for dancing.

“And play well!” he cautioned the musicians. “This is my daughter’s betrothal feast!”

He turned and looked significantly at Prince Aemond. Maris did not think he was very inclined to dance, but he dutifully stood and bowed to Ellyn, and they went together to the floor. Ellyn’s whole face was so red that Maris feared it might catch aflame.

Cass was immediately claimed by one of her many admirers, and Mother, with a little coaxing, went off with Father.

Maris needed to talk to Prince Aemond, but even if he were not currently dancing with Ellyn, a lady was not the one who issued the invitation. She must wait until he approached her. And in the meanwhile, she could not simply haunt the edges of the floor, waiting for him.

“Lady Maris,” said someone behind her.

She whirled on the spot; the frenetic energy running through almost made her shriek. “Oh, Titus! You startled me.”

Titus Peake was one of Father’s squires. As Lord Peake’s only surviving son, he was also the heir to House Peake’s three castles in the Reach. Brown-haired and brown-eyed like his father, he had in the past year shot up about a foot in height and towered over Maris now.

Maris had always been deeply curious about how he’d divide his time between the three seats. If it were her, she would spend a year in each, rotating her residence to make sure she got to enjoy the good parts of each place. When she finally asked Titus though, he had said he’d just stay at whichever one he liked best, which seemed to her a poor way of managing things.

“Sorry, Lady Maris,” he said. “I was only wondering whether you’d like to dance with me?”

Over his shoulder, she saw Father’s other squires staring and nudging each other. The three of them usually sat like lumps at the dinner table gossiping behind their hands during dances, so Maris supposed they were just in awe of Titus having bothered to get up this once. He was sixteen now, and had probably realized he ought to practice his dancing if he was going to have to find a bride soon.

“Yes, why not?” she said lightly.

Titus looked startled, but after a moment’s gulping managed to take her hand in his and place the other on her lower back. Then he steered her into the crowd of dancers out on the floor. The musicians were playing “Six Maids in a Pool,” the dance for which involved much skipping, but wasn’t so energetic that you couldn’t talk with your partner.

“I hear you’re going back to Starpike soon,” remarked Maris.

“Yes, my father’s called me back,” said Titus. “He wants me close for when war breaks out.”

“So he agrees war’s going to break out?”

Father said that it would not. He thought that once Princess Rhaenyra learned how much support King Aegon had across the realm, she would submit to her brother and acknowledge him as the rightful ruler of Westeros. Since he also acknowledged that she was a proud and arrogant woman, Maris didn’t understand why he thought she would give in so easily, and had said so.

Titus, though, was much more nervous of Father than she was. He lowered his voice before replying, “He wants us to be ready. When the king calls for his men, we will join forces with the Hightowers and march out together. He wants me to serve as his squire, since now he has none.”

Maris’s eyes went wide. “So you’ll leave Father behind?”

He looked uneasy. “Gawen and Qarl are both staying here with Lord Baratheon. But my father -”

The song ended then. Normally Titus should leave her now, so that some other man could ask her to dance, but Maris wanted to know what he’d been about to say and held a tight grip of his arm. “Dance with me again,” she demanded. “I want to know what your father says.”

She could go looking from Prince Aemond afterward.

The musicians started up the next song, a slower one this time. Titus, with a nervous glance sideways, pulled her a little closer so that he could talk into her ear.

“My grandfather supported King Viserys at the Great Council over Princess Rhaenys, because he believed woman should never rule over men. My father believes the same, and he says nearly all the Reach is of the same mind. Lord Hightower had commanded that everyone must be ready to call the banners at a moment’s notice. My father has already mustered a force of a thousand men.”

Maris was impressed. “Your father told you all of that? What else does he know?”

Titus talked on, explaining Lord Peake’s speculation about what regions would support which claimant. Old Lord Tully was for King Aegon, as was Lord Lannister. Because Lady Arryn was Princess Rhaenyra’s cousin, it was expected that she would support her, but Lady Arryn also had so many troubles of her own in the Vale that Lord Peake doubted she would do much for the cause. No one was sure which way the Iron Islands or the North would go, but everyone knew the ironborn only cared for themselves, and the North was terribly far away.

“Now that Lord Baratheon is declaring for the king,” he concluded, “Princess Rhaenyra’s cause must fail in the end.”

The song ended, but she went on dancing with Titus again. Though she’d gotten hints of how things stood with the realm from things her parents and Prince Aemond had said, no one had given her so much detail before. This was the sort of thing a lord discussed with his son after all, not his daughter. It occurred to her that Titus had more between his ears than she had thought.

“I hope the fighting won’t last too long,” she said, fervent. It could all be over in a couple of battles, even!

She had the sudden thought that maybe Ellyn could withstand the stress of being a princess for a handful of battles. Only for a moment, though.

Titus smiled. “I hope it lasts just long enough for me to be knighted.”

Maris laughed at that. “Yes, and then you can stay in the Reach and not come back here again. I suppose you prefer the weather there. I remember when you first came here, the lightning scared you!”

He made a face. “We don’t have storms like that in the Reach. I suppose you’re too attached to them to leave the Stormlands, though.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Maris lightly. “I love the Stormlands, but Westeros is so much bigger than that. I wouldn’t mind marrying a lord from another realm.” After all, when she married Prince Aemond, she would be living in the Crownlands.

It occurred to her that Titus’s hand had gone a little sweaty in hers. “The Reach is a nice place,” he said. “I would certainly recommend it. You should see the library at Starpike - House Peake has been building the collection there since before the Targaryens came to Dragonstone.”

That was over three hundred years ago. Maris’s eyes went wide. “Invite me to Starpike after all of this, won’t you?” she asked. “I won’t ask anything of you - just lock me in the library for a year or two, and I shall be perfectly happy.”

Titus laughed at that. “I think I could arrange that with my father.” Then, in a complete non-sequitur, he added, “Do you know how pretty you look tonight? Your eyes look like the night sky.”

“So you think I’m pretty?” asked Maris, spirits much buoyed. If Titus, who she’d known since she was a little girl, had noticed she was pretty, then surely Prince Aemond would.

This song ended too. Maris was in half a mind to keep dancing with Titus, because she wanted to know more about the library at Starpike. But Cass swooped in and said, with a hard look at Titus, “Three dances?”

He blushed a little at that. Maris supposed it was quite rude of him, considering there were three other Baratheon daughters and very few men of an age to partner with them. “I’m thirsty,” she said quickly, and left Titus to partner with Cass.

Besides, she could always dance with Titus another time. She had only a very short window in which to convince Prince Aemond to change his mind and wed her instead. Right now, it would just be awkward; once the marriage contract was drawn up and signed on the morrow, it would become a legal matter.

She looked around for a glimpse of that long, moonlight-pale hair. Ellyn was dancing now with some Wylde cousin whose name she could not remember. Floris was capering around and laughing with Father, and Mother was up at the high table, sipping wine and staring into thin air in that fixed way she always did when she felt a headache coming on.

Maris felt a momentary pang. Mother never left a feast despite her headaches, but she would do it if Maris went up to her and said she wanted to be put to bed. She’d made that excuse for her many times in the past, even though Father joked that she was too old to be put to bed by her mother now.

She would do it after she danced with Prince Aemond, she resolved.

But first she had to dance with Ser Marq Thorne, and then with Ser Arthur Ambrose, both of whom had hurried to Storm’s End after Prince Aemond’s arrival to make their obeisances to King Aegon’s cause. Both of them very enthusiastically congratulated her on Ellyn’s good fortune. It took Maris a great effort to not start laughing in their faces. Then Father came up and swept her up with all the force of a sea gale, whirling her round to one of those endless marcher ballads.

“Did I see you dancing with my squire Titus Peake?” he wanted to know. “Isn’t he a clever lad? I always thought so. What do you think of him?”

“He said I can visit the library at Starpike,” Maris replied. “But never mind that. Father, when will Ellyn’s wedding be?”

“Weddings on the mind, eh?” he chuckled. “Well, Maris, you’ll have your turn soon enough. Prince Aemond has to go onto the Iron Islands after this, otherwise we would have the wedding in just a few weeks. As it stands, he will be returning in a month or two for the wedding with his family. They’ll be married here at Storm’s End. And we shall be hosting the king himself! What do you think about that, my Maris?”

“I think Mother will need every minute she has to get Storm's End ready for their visit." She had been thrown into enough of a flurry when Prince Aemond came without notice; she would never let herself be caught on the back foot a second time.

Father pinched Maris's cheek, still laughing. "But you and your sisters will be there to help her, won't you? When you are lady in your own keep, you might be visited by royalty again. I know Ellyn will always want to come and stay with all of you."

Maris felt a twinge of guilt. Father was so very pleased with the match he'd arranged. It was certainly a good one, since it was marrying off Ellyn of all people into royalty. When Prince Aemond broke the betrothal off with Ellyn, it would be a hit to her marriage prospects. People would wonder what was wrong with her.

But that was an easy enough fix, Maris decided. She would just ask Prince Aemond to act as though he were madly in love with her, so that people knew the broken betrothal was not caused by any lack on Ellyn's part.

"Father," she asked. "Are you going to be looking for someone to marry Cass too, soon?"

"One daughter gone is enough for me," he joked, after a moment's silence. "Am I to have even Floris fleeing the nest now?"

The truth was that Cass should have been betrothed long before now, except that Father could not make up his mind about who she was. The husband of the eldest Baratheon daughter was a different kind of man than the husband of the Lady of Storm's End. Everyone knew that Cass would be the latter, but Father did not want to admit that he would not be having a son. And so Cass had waited and waited, and her sisters waited after her.

When Maris was a princess, she decided, she would find Cass a good match. She would ask Cass what she herself wanted, and force Father's hand, if need be. He was not a bad man, but he was indecisive and usually moved only when forced to the point.

"I think Floris will be around a while yet," she said. "She's just a little girl."

"Only three years younger than you," pointed out Father.

"Yes," she agreed. "So, a little girl!"

He let out one of his great booming laughs at that. "I suppose you're the one all grown up now, Maris. Will you be telling me soon who you mean to marry too? You look so very pretty tonight that I'm sure some lad's caught your eye."

"Perhaps," she said, coy.

It was true she had taken particular care that day when she dressed. She brushed and brushed her long black hair and braided and coiled it low on either side of her head in a piquantly old-fashioned coiffure. Her dress, Baratheon gold and black, was one of her newest ones, with a neckline scooped low and gathered so tight at the waist that the wrong movement had her feeling about cut in half. Rubies glittered at her ears and wrists.

She thought the logic of her argument would be the most compelling thing to Prince Aemond, but it did not hurt to sweeten the deal a little. Ellyn was no Floris or Cass, but with her heart-shaped face and almond-shaped eyes, she was still prettier than Maris.

The musicians plunged on into the final verse of the song. Father drew back a little and looked hard at Maris. "You're up to another one of your little schemes, aren't you?"

Maris was offended. "I don't scheme."

"That's what your mother tells me." Father sighed. "But then, your mother has a soft spot for you. I, on the other hand, know that you can be a little too clever for your own good. Take care, daughter."

"I will," Maris insisted. "Now the song's over, so go away and let me dance with a young man!"

Father laughed and pinched her cheek again, but he did finally leave. Maris craned her neck to look for Prince Aemond. She did not want to get caught up with some other partner again. The crowd had gotten rowdy enough that no one would be paying attention to their conversation, but any rowdier and she knew the prince would be heading for bed. She would have to speak to him now, or not at all.

Then, irritatingly, Floris came skipping up to her and grabbed a hold of her arm. "Dance with me, Maris!" she insisted. "You danced with boys all night. I want you to dance with me!"

Maris wanted to shake her off, but resisted the urge. It would upset Floris, who was terribly sensitive about being the youngest. Besides, no matter how she scanned the crowd, she could see no telltale Targaryen hair.

There was a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Did Prince Aemond already leave?" she asked. "I thought he was still dancing with Ellyn."

Floris wrinkled her nose. "He went upstairs. I should have known he didn't like dancing." Her childish voice was filled with as much venom as though she was naming him a kinslayer. "He only likes his dragon. I'm glad he didn't choose me. I know he's going to be mean to Ellyn, because he won't care about his wife."

Maris was taken aback, and perhaps a little pleased. So she was not the only one who thought it was a bad match. "You think so?"

Her sister nodded vigorously. "I wouldn't want to marry a prince. I want to marry a gallant knight who has lots of children, and I can play with them. I'm going to tell Father so."

Trust Floris to want something so odd. Of course, she was only eleven, so she might change her mind when she matured. But if she wanted to be some cosseted third wife with little to do but occasionally attempt to rear her step-children, that could be easily arranged.

"Tell him later, though," she cautioned. "I think he's sad enough about one daughter getting married."

She danced a romping dance with Floris because she insisted on it, then another with Cass who, in her attempts to outdo Floris, flung herself crazily all around the floor. She danced with some knight that she never caught the name of, and then with Father's squire Qarl, who kept asking her about what she thought about dressing in black and orange instead of black and gold, and smiling like he was making some private joke. He was only a year younger than her, but Maris thought he was extremely stupid.

After that, when she saw Ellyn approaching with her shy smile, Maris declared that she was exhausted and was going to retire to her chambers. Part of it was because she could not suppress a twinge of guilt at her sister's face all aglow with happiness. More pertinently, though, she had figured out what she was going to do.

She needed no escort. This was, after all, her home. She knew every brick and every torch of Storm's End intimately. She knew which corridors were busy and which were quiet, and where one might run headlong into a servant rushing to the Round Hall with a newly uncorked barrel of beer if you were not careful. And she knew where Father had assigned quarters to Prince Aemond.

They were chambers fit for a prince - Maris thought especially a dragon prince. They were high up in the Storm Tower overlooking Shipbreaker's Bay. From the window it seemed like you were adrift at sea, for you could see all across the water but nothing of the cliffs or any solid land at all. She had always thought it must look a little like the view from dragonback.

And it was a private part of the keep, quite separate from everything below. Maris mounted the spiraling steps so quickly she started to pant for breath before she was halfway up. She ended up pausing on the landing before the door to catch her breath and smooth her skirts. At least there were no guards before Prince Aemond's door to see her so dishevelled and bar her way.

Father had offered, but the prince had refused. “Do you think I cannot defend myself?" he'd demanded.

It was the only time Maris had seen him be rude. Since he was known to be one of the best swordsmen in the Seven Kingdoms, he must have been offended by the implication. Even in King's Landing, it was said he did not let any Kingsguard attend to him, but bid they safeguard his sister and mother instead. A man who cared so much for his family must have some kind of softness to him, didn't he? Even if it was very deep down.

Very, very deep down.

She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

There was no answer. Surely he could not have fallen asleep so quickly? She knocked again, harder.

No reply. Indignation flamed through her. Had he lied and gone elsewhere? But where? Maybe to have some last dalliance with a serving maid before he was wed - even though Prince Aemond didn't seem the type, Mother said men were all the same when it came to some things. Well, she would know the truth one way or another. Steeling herself, Maris pushed the door open.

She was instantly reassured when she saw that he was there after all. He was standing by the window, peering out at the inky black sea, and she had the fanciful thought that his hair looked like starlight, flowing loose down his back. Then he looked over his shoulder at her, scowling, and her stomach twisted in on itself.

Everyone knew that Prince Aemond had only one eye. He had lost the other some years ago in some scuffle with Prince Lucerys over Vhagar. It was said Queen Alicent had raged so violently that King Viserys had been forced to send Princess Rhaenyra and her family all away to Dragonstone. Here at Storm's End, the prince always wore a black and gold eyepatch. Maris had idly wondered sometimes what lay under it.

Well, now she knew.

There was a horrible gash drawn across the sunken eye socket, still puckered and red along the edges after all these years. One scratch, and it looked like it would start bleeding anew. The eyelids were mottled and purplish, like the scar left after a terrible burn. However, Prince Aemond had not left the eye socket empty. A large blue sapphire glittered from within, beautiful and blank and hard.

It made Maris think of folktales she'd heard of sorcerers, who also wore one real eye and one false one. In the stories, though, the sorcerers had willingly made the trade, because that false eye was powerful. With their eye of flesh and blood, they could see the ordinary world like anyone else. With their false eye, they could see past the mortal veil, into the terrible and beautiful world of spirits and dead things.

She had the faint thought that if Prince Aemond could indeed pierce the mortal veil, he had seen many things there that he did not approve of. Of course he could see nothing with his gemstone eye, but the weight of it upon her pinned Maris in the doorway anyway.

"I did not answer," he said quietly, "because I did not wish to be disturbed. I did not think you would take it as an invitation. Allow me to correct your assumption. You are not wanted here."

Maris did want to retreat, really. There was some animal instinct which had lain within her hitherto unexpected which now rose to say, like a doe alerted by the baying of the hounds, Flee, flee flee. But she was not a deer in truth, and so instead took a clumsy step further into the room.

She had never been alone with Prince Aemond before. The awareness of this fact reared urgently in her face. Flee, flee, flee, said the alien animal lurking beneath her skin.

"I must speak to you, Prince Aemond," she said. "I promise I will be quick."

And she closed the door behind her.

"Talk about what?" he snapped. In the torchlight his eyes seemed to blaze like fire, both the true and the false one. "I tell you, I wish to be left alone."

Was this how Targaryens felt when approaching a dragon for the first time in hopes of claiming it? Father had told her once what his aunt, Princess Rhaenys, had said about claiming Meleys, the Red Queen.

"It could have annihilated her with a single breath," he'd told Maris. "And she was terribly afraid, but she knew that the prize was worth having. To be a dragonrider means knowing true freedom, the kind of freedom beyond the reach of ordinary mortals."

The kind of freedom that being Prince Aemond's wife could afford her, Maris thought fuzzily.

When he did not stir from his place before the window, she grew a little bolder and slunk so close she could see the facets cut into his sapphire eye. It was an unusual color, leaning more violet than blue depending on how the light hit it. He stood so still before the ink-blank window that she could pretend he was just another portrait hanging on the walls of Storm's End, a counterpoint to that of his great-grandmother hanging floors below in Mother's solar.

"I had to speak to you," she said finally. "I had to tell you that you were making a mistake. You cannot marry Ellyn."

Prince Aemond stared at her. Maris interlaced her hands behind her back, where their trembling would be hidden, and waited.

She knew this trick. Stay silent, and the other person would be compelled to fill it with foolish prattle. Her nerves twitched and burned at the quiet, but it would be doubly worse if she started babbling. She needed to keep Prince Aemond from thinking she was foolish, or else this would be over before it even began.

Finally, he sighed. "Tell me what is wrong with your sister. Is she ill? Is she no longer a maiden?"

"What?" cried Maris, horrified. "No, no - not all! There's nothing wrong with Ellyn."

He made an impatient noise. "Then what?"

The words fluttered out of her mouth now like feathers from a slashed pillow. "Ellyn won't make you a good wife. She's too quiet and shy and - she would be frightened in Kings Landing! She won't be able to help you at all. When my father told you all about us, he said Floris was beautiful and Ellyn was gentle and I am clever - and don't you see, Your Grace? A prince needs a clever wife, especially in times like these."

"I see," said Prince Aemond.

"Ellyn is afraid of you," she went on. "She will be terrified of you when the war starts and you will have to start killing other men. She does not understand your bond with your dragon. My father does not care which of his daughters you pick, so I bid you change your mind before it is too late. I will make a better wife to you, I swear it."

She wanted to keep on talking about how badly she wanted it, how she would do anything he asked of her. She was a second daughter and he was a second son, and they must both understand how that felt. Ellyn would faint the moment she saw him without his eye patch, but Maris did not care. Maris would kiss his scar if he wanted it. She would even kiss the sapphire that was his false eye if he demanded it of her. Something strange prickled in the pit of her stomach at the thought, oddly not unpleasant.

"Will you?" asked Prince Aemond. He spoke in the same even tone now which he used in front of Father. It was such a turnaround from his initially rude manner that Maris's spirits skyrocketed.

"I am telling you nothing but the truth, Your Grace. I am your humble subject."

"My brother's, you mean."

"Yours," Maris insisted. She contemplated dropping to her knees as she said this. It would have been in line with the strange thoughts thrumming through her mind, and like from a snatch of an old ballad, but in the end she just leaned against the damp stone by the window and waited. Her knees were swimming.

There was Valyrian blood in her veins too, the blood of Alyssa Velaryon, same as Prince Aemond had. She had been King Aenys's queen before she was Lady Baratheon, the wife and mother of dragonriders. Before the Doom, there had been Velaryon dragonriders too. It must have been that blood singing in her body now, telling her that she must not flee before the dragon as everyone else, because it must be faced if she were to gain a prize beyond measure.

Prince Aemond went on looking at her for a long moment. Then, alarmingly, he began to laugh.

It was a stiff, cracking noise, like the hinge of a little-used door. He laughed and he clutched at his stomach, shattering the image of the prince all remote in his portrait, and shattering with it too Maris's fantastical hopes.

Some kind of madness came over her then. She lunged forward and grabbed a hold of Prince Aemond's collar and yanked his face toward hers. When their lips met, it was with the force of a headbutt.

It was Maris's first kiss. For the space of a second, she tasted the sticky sweetness of lemonade on his mouth, the coppery tang of blood -

And then he was shoving her away, shoving so hard she toppled backward and sat down hard on the stone floor. The impact resounded through her whole body, making her bones feel like they cracked with the force. The tears that welled in her eyes weren't from the pain, though.

“Are you drunk?” he roared.

"N-no -" she hiccuped. Indeed she had had hardly a drop of wine that night, wanting to keep a clear head. A clear head! She had not had a clear head since Prince Aemond came to Storm's End, or else she would have known better than to do something so stupid as this.

His eyes, the real and the false one alike, seemed to cut into her like Valyrian steel.

“Why you would think I’d desire a wife as foolish and arrogant as yourself,” he said, cold and clear, “I do not know. Do you think this is the first time I've dealt with overreaching wenches who think they'll gain a title by crawling into my bed?"

"I wasn't -"

Prince Aemond did not care. "If it weren't for the respect I have for your sister and your father, I would go down to the hall right now and tell everyone about what a conniving whore you are. Now, I am telling you this for the last time - leave. And if you try anything like this again, I will tell everyone, proprieties be damned. Do you understand?"

Maris was frozen in place. She managed a stiff nod, but when she tried to stand her legs would simply not move.

Prince Aemond sighed. He lifted a foot and lightly nudged her ribs, like he was dealing with a recalcitrant dog. "Go," he said again, now sounding more tired than anything else. "Unless you so desire me that you wish to crawl into my bed without anything in return - no? No, I did not think so."

She still couldn't feel any of her limbs. Somehow, she managed to get to her feet and staggered toward the door, as though she really were drunk, or like she'd been beaten. Prince Aemond, walking alongside her the whole way, politely opened the door once she got close enough. And when she was through, he shut it.

She heard him bolt the door behind her.

—

It felt like it took hours for Maris to return to her room, but it was still empty when she got back. She was relieved. She surely could not bear to face Cass or anyone else in that moment.

She wanted to rip the clothes and the jewelry from her body and fling them away, but it was not at all like her to be so careless, and anyone who saw would have known there was something wrong. Instead she had to carefully unlace and unfasten every piece. With every item she took off, her shame seemed to only weigh heavier on her. When she was down to her linen shift, she blew out the candle and crawled into bed and lay there, waiting, though what she was waiting for she did not know. There was a terrible hollowness within her.

Maris certainly believed that plenty of women had tried to get into Prince Aemond's bed. Everyone had known that King Aegon was to marry Queen Helaena nearly as soon as she was born, and Princess Rhaenyra's sons had been long betrothed to their cousins. Prince Aemond was the best match available for any highborn maid to wed. But he had been unfair to her. She did not want to be princess for the power and prestige! She knew she was better suited for the role than Ellyn.

A small smouldering flame of resentment flared to life inside her.

Maris was familiar with bad-tempered people. The Baratheon words were 'Ours is the Fury' for a reason. Maybe Prince Aemond's attachment to Ellyn ran deeper than anyone had thought, and that was why he was so upset. She could understand that. She had seen Father explode many a time when he thought someone wasn't showing Mother the respect she was owed. But the only people she had ever seen Father kick were poachers and rapers.

She was a lady of Storm's End, with Baratheon and Durrandon and Velaryon and Caron blood all mingling together in her veins. He was not even the king, but his younger brother. And he had kicked her?

He had called her a wench and a whore? Him, who'd come begging to Storm's End for Father's support for his usurping brother? The anger spread in her stomach now like molten fire.

Even after Cass, blinking drowsily, had come to bed and fallen asleep, Maris lay awake with her eyes wide open. The longer she looked into the dark the more it seemed to swim over her, like she was under a black curtain of smoke, like she lay in the depths of the ocean looking up toward the surface. After a while she wasn't even sure if she was awake or asleep. There were shapes roiling in the darkness.

There was a rat crawling along the ceiling, rolling before it a huge wheel of blood-red cheese. A great black tree collapsed upon a rearing red horse, crushing it to bloody pulp. Two white geese scratched and bit at each other until they both fell dead. Two entangled dragons - or were they worms? - crashed to the ground, too preoccupied with devouring the other's tail to care. There was blood clouding an ocean, a river, a lake. And then it was a black night sky over her, lit up with blood red flame...

Her ears pulsed with the steady drum of rain. She should have been frightened, but she only felt fury.

There was a sheet of fire spreading across the world. With one hand she could have reached out and snuffed it out in the palm of her hand. Instead, Maris puckered her lips and blew.

In the morning, Cass rolled over and started at the sight of Maris's face.

"By the gods! What's wrong with you? Your eyes are all swollen!"

Maris could well imagine. Her head throbbed, and her eyes felt as though they'd been sandpapered. She had not slept at all last night, it seemed. When their maids came in to dress them, they too exclaimed in horror over Maris's face and tried all the tricks they could - ice water, lotions and unguents, a massage - to fix the issue. She could not blame them.

When she looked into the polished silver mirror, even after their best efforts there were purple hollows beneath her eyes, and her skin was blotchy, like she was coming down with something. "Perhaps breakfast in bed?" one of them offered.

But Maris shook her head. If she stayed in her room, Prince Aemond would think she was hiding from him. Her pride would not allow her that.

Instead they dressed her in an older dress which had worn soft with use and laced it as loose as possible. Her hair too was arranged to hang mostly loose, with a few braids pinned over it to keep it restrained.

Cass kept fluttering around, half excited and half suspicious. "Maybe you're about to flower," she suggested. “Imagine if you were first? Then I’ll have two younger sisters getting married before I do.”

“I’m not getting married,” Maris snapped before she could stop herself.

Luckily, Cass just laughed. “Testy, too, like Mother on her moonblood-“

She prattled on, but her words poured through one ear and out the other. Maris went on thinking about her - dreams? Reveries? Fantasies? - from the night before. If she had been actually asleep, they would have been the stuff of nightmares.

But the thought of them now only brought her a strange, spiteful pleasure. It was the feeling she’d gotten when she was little and, angry at one sister or another, she'd gotten down on her knees in the sept and prayed. The septon would smile and compliment her for being so devout, but that was only because prayers are private things and he did not know what Maris was asking for.

She was very bad when she was angry. She prayed that Cass would go blind, that Ellyn would go bald, that Floris's stomach would burst open and kill her. That Father would ride his horse off the cliff and leave Mother a widow, so that she would not have to keep birthing babies that came too early and died. She could not kneel in front of the Stranger's altar, but would slant her eyes over to gaze at them.

Of course, usually by the next day, she would have made it up with whatever sister it was and desperately ask the gods to ignore the previous days' prayers. But the difference was that she loved her sisters, and she cared not a whit for Prince Aemond. Even as her head ached and Cass had to hold her by the arm to keep her walking in a straight line, Maris went on smiling beautifically.

Mother started when she saw her. "Are you quite well, Maris?"

"Yes, Mother," she murmured, and sat down between her and Cass and gestured for a serving maid to bring her some apple preserves for her bread. Maris was not actually hungry, but it would look odd to sit around with her plate empty.

There was a heavy feeling in the air, she thought, but it was the feeling of a storm, one that everything grow still and made your skin go tight over your bones. She could hear the sheet of rain pouring over Storm’s End and Shipbreaker’s Bay, the gusting of the westerly wind battering away at the old seawall.

Inside the Round Hall, Mother was murmuring quietly to Father, and Floris was telling Septa Edyth about the dream she’d had last night. “When I got to the top of the tree,” she was saying, “I looked down and saw-“

But what Floris saw no one would ever know, because it was that moment that Vhagar let out a roar so loud it shook dust from the rafters.

Prince Aemond sprang to his feet immediately. It would have been gauche to draw a sword at breakfast, so instead he snatched up a paring knife from the board and looked around wildly. Whose eye will you put out with that? thought Maris.

Father too had risen to his feet, though he seemed more confused than panicked. “Is something wrong with your dragon, Your Grace?” he asked. “Does she mislike the rain?”

On the other side of Prince Aemond, she saw Ellyn’s face had gone pale as wax.

“Borros,” said Mother, and her tone, so soft and quiet, was almost as jarring as the fact that she had called Father by his first name. “Perhaps-“

Then the doors at the far end of the hall were shoved open, and a bedraggled little figure came sauntering in.

Whatever you said about Prince Lucerys Velaryon, you could not say he was a coward. When he had touched down with his dragon Arrax out in the courtyard, it was beside Vhagar. He must have known who was inside the Round Hall before he came, but he came in anyway.

Everyone was so quiet that Maris thought she could hear the squelching of Prince Lucerys's boots. Everyone watched as he walked up the aisle between the long tables, head held high. When he stood before the dais, finally, he inclined his head in the shallow bow that a prince accords a great lord.

Father's face was red. One might have mistaken him for angry or even jovial, but his eyes were showing their whites like a spooked horse's.

Maris knew something very bad was about to happen.

Prince Aemond tucked the knife into his sleeve as he turned to face his nephew. "Look at this sad creature, my lord," he said. "Little Luke Strong, the bastard. You are wet, bastard. Is it raining, or did you piss yourself in fear?"

She thought it a rather weak taunt, but figured Prince Aemond was too angry to think straight. His face was so fixed, the tendons so tight in his neck and temples, that he might have been carved from stone. When was the last time the princes had seen each other like this, face to face? Prince Aemond was a man grown now, taller than stronger than his nephew. But did he still see that knife coming at his face when he looked at him?

Prince Lucerys so pointedly did not react that you could have thought his uncle's voice was nothing but the wind. To Father, he said, "Lord Borros, I have brought you a message from my mother, the queen."

"The whore of Dragonstone, he means." In a single swift movement Prince Aemond vaulted over the table and landed, catlike, in front of the dais before anyone could react.

He was actually wrestling Prince Lucerys for his missive before Father unfroze enough to roar, "Unhand your nephew now! That message is for me!"

A pair of Father's household knights shouldered their way in between the scuffling pair, wincing audibly for neither of them seemed willing to actually raise a hand to royalty and instead let their ribs take the brunt of the blows. But finally Prince Aemond let go of the letter and staggered backward, breathing hard. He really thinks Father might change his mind, realized Maris.

Maybe Father would. There was a reason people said he was changeable as a storm at sea. He was looking at Prince Lucerys closely now. If Rhaenyra's son could convince him that she thought of him still as her valued cousin -

Prince Lucerys stepped forth to present Princess Rhaenyra's letter to Father, who had risen and come around the table to receive it. This time, the prince even bowed a little deeper as he retreated to stand by his uncle. He stood on the tips of his toes as he waited, as though poised to take flight at the slightest alarm. If he had to run, though, thought Maris, he would not get very far.

Father tore the missive open, then unfolded and glanced over it. Of course the letters on the page were useless to him, seeing as he did not know how to read, so it was a somewhat comical moment. Maris knew he was looking for Princess Rhaenyra's seal, both to confirm its authenticity and to buy time for Maester Wylis to reach his side.

It did not take long, because Maester Wylis moved so fast he nearly tripped over his grey robes in his haste. He took the proffered letter and read it over quickly, mouthing silent words that Maris wished she could make out. Then he leaned over to whisper the message into Father's ear.

Mother was gripping Maris's hand so tight under the table that it was going numb.

Father frowned. He stroked his beard - buying more time to think, she thought - then stared hard into Prince Lucerys's face.

The prince looked back impassively. It was astonishing that despite how wan his face was under that mop of brown curls and how small he was for his age, he did not strike a pitiful figure. He stood with his shoulders back, ramrod straight. An air of haughtiness clung to him as surely as did his rain-sodden cloak.

But Maris could understand why some called the princess's sons bastards. Put alongside Prince Aemond's otherworldly pale hair and dark violet eyes, Prince Lucerys looked Andal through and through. His eyes were brown, his nose was a little squashed-looking, like a pig's, and there were even a few freckles dotting his cheeks and forehead. Was it really the Arryn and Baratheon blood making an appearance as the princess claimed? Or was it the imprint of House Strong?

Well, the Arryns were mostly blond and blue-eyed. And Prince Lucerys did not look like any Baratheon that she was acquainted with

Maris knew that it did not really matter. The princess’s sons derived their right to sit the Iron Throne from her, not from Laenor Velaryon. It was just an excuse, just as it was an excuse for the Hightowers to say Princess Rhaenyra was arrogant and ill-prepared to be queen, just as it was an excuse for the lords of the Reach and the Riverlands to say so piously that King Aegon was the one who lived clearly in the light of the Seven.

No one wanted a woman sitting above men, and that was all.

Father was frowning. He glanced behind him, at Ellyn’s drawn face, then said, “And if I do as your mother bids, which one of my daughters will you marry, boy?” He gestured broadly, though this time he did not ask Mother to enumerate their selling points. “Pick one.”

A faint tinge of pink touched Prince Lucerys’s cheeks. Was this really the time to be shy?

“My lord, I am not free to marry. I am betrothed to my cousin Rhaena.”

Until that point, Maris thought it could have gone either way. Politics aside, Father knew perfectly well who it was that King Viserys had always proclaimed his heir, and it was a hard thing to disobey a man who had been one’s king so long.

And, though he would not admit, she knew that deep down he had some fear about what might happen if he died without a male heir, if Cass had to become the lady of Storm’s End. Everyone knew about the constant turmoil in the Vale, where the maiden Lady Jeyne Arryn was constantly defending her sovereignty. If Princess Rhaenyra had acknowledged his fears, had reminded him that she was his cousin and would be his friend, then perhaps Father might have changed his mind.

Alas, the Realm’s Delight had been ever high-handed, too secure in her position, and now she would pay the price for it.

“I thought as much,” said Father. “Go home, pup, and tell the bitch your mother that the Lord of Storm’s End is not a dog that she can whistle up at need to set against her foes.”

Mother’s grip on Maris’s hand grew so tight then that she thought her bones would be ground to dust.

The only sign that Prince Lucerys was offended was how the spots of color high on his cheeks flushed darker. When he spoke, his voice was just as cool and formal as before. “Is that your final answer, my lord? I shall relay your answer to my mother.”

With that, he turned on his heel and started the long, lonely walk back to the doors.

But he had only gone a handful of paces before Prince Aemond started after him. With one smooth motion he drew his sword. “Hold, Strong. First pay the debt you owe me.”

Prince Lucerys’s stride did not even falter. Prince Aemond, in a sudden violent movement, tore off his eye patch and flung it to the floor.

There was a deathly silence all around the Round Hall. Until now, no one had seen what lay under that eyepatch - no one but Maris last night. What did that horrible red scar look like in the light of the day? How bright did that sapphire blaze in its empty socket? No one swooned, but she spotted more than one lady clutching at the table or the wall for support.

“You have a knife,” roared Prince Aemond, and his voice rang all around the room. “Just as you did then. Put out your eye, and I will let you leave. One will serve. I would not blind you.”

How outraged, how stern he appeared in that moment. But Maris knew better. He had not seen his nephew since he put out his eye and now, with revenge almost in reach, he seemed to quake in a wind that only he could feel. If Prince Lucerys rounded on him, if he started back toward him with that knife, she thought he might even break and run.

Prince Lucerys did not turn, though - not even to look back at his uncle. “I will not fight you. I came here as an envoy, not a knight.”

“You came here as a craven and a traitor! I will have your eye or your life, Strong.” And he started walking forward, finally, with the long and easy lope of a predator.

Mother turned to look at Father, her dark eyes big and beseeching. On her other side, Maris could hear Cass cursing under her breath. If Prince Lucerys was killed here under Father’s roof, Prince Daemon would surely bring fire and blood down on all Storm’s End.

Father, waving Maester Wylis out of the way, raised his voice and said, “Not here. He came as an envoy. I want no blood shed under my roof.”

He gestured again, and several guards ran forward to put themselves between Prince Lucerys and the rapidly advancing Prince Aemond, who after some frustrated attempts to get round them came to a stop about halfway down the aisle.

Titus Peake and Father’s other squires formed up around Prince Lucerys and proceeded to escort him to the door. Maris could see them talking very low amongst themselves, though she could not make out any words. She wondered what Titus, whose father was a staunch Green, would even have to say to Prince Lucerys.

That would have been the end of it. Prince Lucerys, rebuffed, was leaving, and Prince Aemond looked back at the dais. The flesh around the glittering sapphire looked so inflamed it was almost like he’d never bothered to wash the blood from it.

She thought at first that he was looking at Father, annoyed at being caged. But when Maris followed his gaze, she saw that he was looking further up the table, at Ellyn.

His face held a clear challenge.

Ellyn, though, did not recoil. She did not even frown. Instead, she smiled. And it was a soft little smile, a reassuring smile; a smile that betrayed no trace of fear or trepidation, because she did not feel any.

Prince Aemond’s gaze flicked over to Maris for just a second.

She was on her feet before she was even aware of it. Indeed, she was not aware of anything around her - not Father’s startled look, not Mother trying to tug her back down in her seat, not the confused murmuring of all the people in the hall. All she was aware of was Prince Aemond looking at her like that, amused, mocking, triumphant -

And she hated him.

“Was it one of your eyes he took,” she inquired in tones as sweet as honey, “or one of your balls? I am so glad you chose my sister. I want a husband with all my parts.”

That slashed all feelings from his face, all feelings but rage. “My lord?” he said to Father.

Mother and Cass were now working in concert to try to jam Maris back into her seat. Higher up the table, Ellyn’s face had gone white again, this time with rage.

Father, though, looked into Maris’s face. For all her life she would wonder if somehow she had managed then to infect him with whatever madness had overtaken her, for when he looked back at Prince Aemond, he did not try to placate him. Instead, he shrugged and answered, “It is not for me to tell you what to do when you are not beneath my roof.”

His knights rushed aside, and Prince Aemond rushed to the doors. When he flung them open, he let in the storm.

The wind keened through the Round Hall, so loud it seemed to rattle the mullioned windows. Fat raindrops splattered on the flagstones like shed blood. Something outside roared, though whether it was Vhagar or Arrax or the furious sea, Maris did not know.

When Prince Aemond shut the doors behind him, it seemed to release the spell over the occupants of the hall. First to move, surprisingly, was Cass, who dashed down the steps from the dais and started sprinting for the doors, following closely by a handful of household guards. Floris was already crying and clutching at Septa Edyth and pleading, “Is he going to kill him? Is he?”

Only Father and Ellyn were still. He had started drinking determinedly from his wine-glass and refused to make eye contact with anyone. Ellyn, on the other hand, was looking straight at Maris. Her eyes blazed like blue fire.

And Mother was shaking Maris by the shoulders, shaking her so violently her head lolled back and forth like a rag doll’s.

“Stupid girl!” she cried. “You stupid, stupid girl - do you know what you’ve done?”

She did not understand then, not truly. In that moment, all she knew was that she had managed to bring this terrible clawing fury out of herself, had managed to unleash it upon the rest of the world, though what shape it would ultimately take she did not yet know.

Ours is the Fury were her house words for a reason. In that moment, though Maris did not know it yet, what she had sent out into the rain was the death of all the dragons in the world. In just that one moment she had spoken, it was she, not Aegon or Rhaenyra or Alicent or Daemon, who was the most powerful in all the land.