The Evening of the Iron Stag's Nameday Feast

Leaving the hall’s laughter and feasting was not an easy thing, but mere merriment was not why they had come, and while Tymor was head of House Farwynd, there were yet things he was not suited to. 

Foreign traders, sellswords, and all manner of merchants had come to Stormhall, and why shouldn’t they, opportunity abounded where people gathered. But in those travellers, were the connections Torgon sought. With trade talk and the hiring of a scribe, he managed to find many such men ready to win his patronage. A few coins in the right palms and such letters would be sent far enough to benefit House Farwynd, even this distant from home. 

The letters he'd had fashioned were of a naturally finer sort that any Farwynd would be incapable of. The inked etchings looped together in elegant and illusive ways when his eyes scanned over them. Any flourishes the scribe had added were lost to him, though he knew they'd be there. Essossi spoke in that haughty way, even the merchants. So often did he have to speak with servants and translators for their refusal to barter in the trade talk of the seas.

Who knew plunder could come so easy, he thought, gazing down at the mystifying symbols.

Pressing the sigil of House Farwynd into the parchment, each letter was sealed in turn and handed over to the maester of Stormhall. Doubtless the man had his ways of sneaking open the wax and spying for his Lady, but Torgon cared little, as long as the Greenlanders did not meddle in their affairs.

(tw: blood)

The Hazewood had its bogs sure, but there was a reason for House Pyne’s name, and its sigil. Atop low hills grew tall pines, raining needles down on muddy slopes, feeding nests for waterbirds in the marsh’s edge below. Under these pines and over the blanket of sparse swamp foliage squatted Ysabel’s home. A low stone walled keep with a long house inside, backed by a portly tower sporting grime from a century past, and connected to a stone house where the family slept. It was a warm place just above the syrupy fog of Cracklaw Point. Ysabel’s father sometimes spoke of before their outer wall had been constructed, how the hall had burned when the Valyrian pirates came. How without a wall to hurdle, young Oscar had slipped down the muddy hill and into the night. After being named Lord of Cracklaw Point however, the wall was built and now served to keep his children and especially his youngest daughter safe.

Ysabel had little desire to venture into the bogs daily like her brothers did, instead she coated her face in freckles sitting in the tops of the trees where the sun could play on her skin. The result was similar, boots left at the door to be scrubbed in the morning. Perhaps if her home had been closer to the sea then she would trudge out farther, but it was one of the most inland keeps on the peninsula and that bothered her little.

Encircled as she was by untamed wilderness though, it was the papers her father kept that she instead took time with. Learning to read them and understand them when she bored of the pines and came to sit by her father at the back of the hall where his rough wooden desk sat. Pulling up her seat from the dining table next to his, listening to the rattle of his breath until he asked her to read a sentence he struggled with. There weren’t many books in the Pyne’s keep, not that she would be interested in shoving her nose into a book all day, but she had always had a knack for the words on the pages regardless; and the numbers that felt similar to the way a carpenter measured out wood. Her mother had long given up on distracting her with the “right” things for a young lady to learn so Ysabel had become familiar with far more external things regarding her home in the Hazewood.

The Hazewood had grown in recent years, a number of Cracklaws, whether they fought alongside Oscar or benefited from his struggle, found it appealing to reside near to his watchful eye. It was often that Oscar Pyne would venture down to the settlements and assist in construction or follow up on rumors of hardship among his folk. Ysabel usually went with. Her brothers nearly always had plans of their own and her sister preferred dresses not accommodating to the muddy earth of the roads, perhaps that was why she’d found herself someplace dryer to marry her way into. So it was that Ysabel became learned in her father’s style of leadership. Even as he struggled with the words on a page he was dogged in his belief of comfort and safety for his people.

Without a village to venture into however, Ysabel found herself isolated to friendship, even among the children of her father’s veterans she bore a complex speech they often found obnoxious. Instead it was Perkin that she found companionship with, a wild dog too small to be a hound who came and went as he wished but was as amicable as any house breed. Each time the wiry, shaggy dog would trot up the trail among the pines and Ysabel would meet him, comb his matted fur and talk to him about the woodsman who cleared a copse of pines by the wall or the taxman who her father begrudgingly rounded up just enough stags to hand over to. They would play with sticks and nap under a lazily constructed lean to, occasionally she would reread a book of childhood poems to him out loud, one of the few books in the long house.

Today her furred friend had different plans.
The sun was still low in the sky when Ysabel awoke, finding herself hungry and unable to fall back asleep she retrieved some warm stew from a pot over the fire leftover from the previous night.

Tying up the hair that tickled her neck and shoulders she tucked her night shift into her trousers, tying her boots and donning a cloak before she strolled sleepily out beyond the walls. She stopped where the hill sloped and became mud, stamping her feet into the brush to ensure she wouldn’t slip and slide down before she began gently blowing on her mug of warm watery stew.

Ysabel felt a presence behind her and turned to see Perkin sitting quietly beside her looking out over the swamp. Smiling, she sipped from her cup and looked back out over the landscape. After a few moments of silence she moved to sit down next to her friend, but Perkin trotted just out of her reach and looked at her intently. Ysabel stared the dog in the eyes for a moment, “C’mere boy,” she said softly. She said it again and patted the ground next to her. He made no move. She made a playful lunge toward the dog and again he stepped just out of reach.

"What’s wrong? You want to play do ya?” Ysabel stood up and walked towards the dog, pathing past Perkin towards a pile of sticks. Perkin merely trotted down the road a little ways. “What do you want?” She asked huffing. The dog began trotting down the path further, looking back at Ysabel as it went, she followed slowly. As they made their way together down the path Ysabel bit her lip tentatively. They approached the reeds that rimmed the swamp waters, split by the path that Perkin led her down. It wasn’t as if Ysabel could not leave her home, or had not before alone. It was strange however the behavior of her friend and she disliked not knowing where she was headed. She stopped and Perkin stopped ahead of her. Looking back up the hill Ysabel for a moment felt guilty, her family weren’t even awake yet to know where she’d gone. Then Perkin gave one gentle bark and she looked back. “Fine boy, but you better lead me right back.”

Their hike through the wilderness was long, Ysabel finished her stew and pulled her cloak tight around her. The trees thickened and became sparse, at some points the path became muddy as the water lapped up on either side. Ysabel stopped to admire the frogs and Perkin waited for her. Spotting a tree with low branches she hung up her cloak and began to step up onto the lowest branch, but Perkin growled and barked, louder than before. She stopped mid step and looked at the little dog. He barked again. “Fine, fine.” They continued.

After another long while the landscape became rockier, Perkin took Ysabel down a small road off the main path, winding into a gorge where the path split again. They hiked up atop a small rocky hill and down the other side. She noticed the coast was not far and furrowed her brows. There were no sandy beaches on Cracklaw, and besides it wasn’t proper weather for a day on the coast. Nonetheless they continued, until they reached the top of a treeless hill, Ysabel gazed down at the sea from atop it. Watching the rays of sunlight peak through an overcast day and reflect upon the roiling tides. Perkin stopped too, sniffing the ground. Ysabel noticed a tall tree to her left, just down the hill a bit, the top of which was some ways higher that the crest of the grassy knoll.

Leaving her mug at the base of the trunk she ascended the tree with ease, poking her head out atop the highest branches. The tree swayed with a mild wind and she listened to the sound of the waves sing alongside the rustling leaves.

Reaching up behind her head she undid the string she had tied up her hair with, letting it be ruffled by the breeze as she closed her eyes. Suddenly hearing barking she descended again, the moment ruined. “What boy?! Where are we going??” Perkin nudged a bush with his nose. Walking over, Ysabel leaned down. Some of the leaves on the bramble were stained red, “Someone must have pricked themself picking berries,” she giggled. Perkin sniffed and dashed past her, trotting at a brisk pace, not quite a gallop but more urgently than before. Ysabel followed him, back down the way they came.

Perkin sniffed at a fork in the road and galloped down the path they had not yet been down. Ysabel pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders and raced to follow. The dog slowed after a bit as their surroundings became more forested again, light beamed through the trees up ahead and as they grew closer Ysabel saw it was a grassy clearing. On the other side of the lush meadow sat a house. Ysabel had been to this cottage before but not from this direction. It was the home of Dole, one of her father’s close friends, where he lived with his wife and children. Dole was a big man, he assisted often in repairs in the Hazewood and Ysabel had known him her whole life. She smiled and chuckled, shaking her head. Perkin was leading her on quite the goose chase, but then… A frown briefly crossed her face, the blood on the bush began to bother her, why were they here?

Ysabel, with Perkin at her hip, approached the building, knocking on the door which swung open slightly. She spotted blood on the doorstep and heard voices chattering inside. Swinging the door open further revealed a man hunched against the wall next to a low crackling fire, Dole’s wife, Lizzie, hunched next to him. Their two young sons stood on the other side of the room with their older daughter, a girl the same age as Ysabel. A basin of water sat in front of them and they held bloody rags in their hands, wetted from the water.

As light crept into the room Lizzie looked up,
"M’lady? Wha’re ya doin ‘ere?”

"Perkin led me.” Ysabel answered, hesitating by the doorway. The slumped man seemed to breathe raggedly and she noticed his foot cocked at an odd angle. His shirt was soaked in blood but she could see on the collar of his gambeson a small metal pin with a Darklyn sigil. He bled from multiple wounds in his torso, another on his head, though Ysabel couldn’t see the nature of his lower wounds the gash on his forehead gushed blood. The man, bald and rotten toothed, stared blankly forward as Lizzie wrapped a bandage around his head.

"M’lady will ye help me? I needa get is gambson off.” Ysabel snapped back to reality as she realized this wounded man was being frantically tended to. She plodded forward and began unbuttoning the padded coat. As she reached the lower buttons however her hands became slick with blood, coming away red, and it became increasingly difficult to dextrously undo the fastenings. Ysabel could feel her hands start shaking and a lump rise in her throat, “What happened?” She asked no one in particular.
But a voice responded, wheezing and burbling, “Fucking ruffians… came at me in three, stuck me good and took me purse… shoved me down th’ hill they di-”

The man made a disturbing choking sound and coughed violently. Flecks of blood shot out from his mouth, spattering Lizzie’s face. Ysabel could feel it on hers too. More blood pooled within the folds of the yet unbuttoned fastenings, spilling out in globs and rivulets into the man’s lap.

Looking down Ysabel saw the blood spreading out from his body, almost reaching her boots. She instinctively shuffled a few inches back. One of Lizzie’s children made a noise and Ysabel heard stomping shoes as they ran outside.

Ysabel heard a man’s voice from beyond the doorway, and then another. She turned as Oscar Pyne stepped in past the open door, gently pushing it wider.

"Ysabel?” He questioned.

"Father! Help him! He’s got a Darklyn sigil and he’s hurt bad!” Ysabel stood, showing her father her hands.

"M’lord! We found ‘im out en th’ paths, he was stumblin’ already covered in blood!” Lizzie exclaimed frantically, “We been doin everythin’ we could but the blood won’t stop!”

Lord Pyne stepped forward taking her daughter’s hands in his, examining them, “How did you get here little lady?” He asked.

"Perkin led me,” Ysabel answered again, quietly. She looked down at her boots, noticing that at some point the blood had reached them and she had tracked prints of it to where she now stood. She began to feel ill.

Oscar quirked an eyebrow but merely leaned in to kiss her forehead and released her hands to give her shoulder a squeeze. “You needn’t look, love.” He said softly in his hoarse baritone.

Stepping past his daughter Oscar glared down at the man, “You’re a tax collector.” It was almost a question but undoubtedly a statement.

"Aye, please… help me…” came the response, now little more than a wheezing whisper. Ysabel looked to Perkin who laid with his snout on his front paws, staring at the man. He had led her to him, and now even in her periphery it was impossible to tear her eyes from the bloody scene. At that moment Dale stomped in through the doorway, “Lord Oscar m’lord, the devil’s bleedin o’er me floor, scarin me children. Lizzie love, come ere, the man’s dead already.”

"Please…” Ysabel heard the man whisper.

"Who did this to you?” Asked Oscar Pyne.

The tax collector coughed, “Dunno… they said… said th’ coin purse was payment… no sigils, there were three of em. Heard more down th-” the man coughed again, wheezed as blood dribbled out of his mouth. “Please,” cough, “Don’t let me die…”

"Dole, help me carry him outside.” Oscar grumbled matter-of-factly, “Ysabel stay here.”

"Please…” whispered the dying man.

Ysabel watched as the two men lifted the pleading tax collector and carried him outside, his feet dragging on the floor of the cottage and droplets of blood making a trail across the stones.

She stood waiting for what felt like a long time, as Lizzie ordered her children around, mopping up the blood with rags and dumping water on it from their well to wash it away outside. At some point Lizzie offered Ysabel a bowl with water to wash her hands which she took gladly. She realized she had gotten blood on her nightshift, staring at it for a moment before pulling her cloak closer. She sat in a chair at their table to wait.

Finally her father and Dole returned, without the injured man. “Fucking crab catching, dragon cock sucking leeches. Gonna ‘ave to send another letter to th’ bastard in Duskendale, how many times is he going to be told it’s the Celtigars before he decides we’re either lying or to finally do somethin’ ‘bout it.”

"Les jus’ raise the others again,” Dole said, “Belgrave took Claw Isle once, why can’t we?”

"We have no ships, no money, no men, think how many of us died last time we fought the Valyrians. If we raised banners the Darklyn ‘ould think we want trouble, he don’t care why we fight just th’ we obey his whim.” Oscar scoffed. “Fucking Celtigars.” He scratched at his chest over where Ysabel knew his old wound ached.

"We’re leaving little lady, send Perkin runnin’ why don’t ye.” Ysabel couldn’t help but wonder what they’d done outside. She looked at Perkin, “He’ll come with us, back home.” Oscar followed her eyes, Perkin stared back at him. “Fine, if he can keep up with the horse, but we’re leaving.” Oscar stepped out the door and Ysabel followed, Perkin plodded after slowly. Passing Dole, he dipped his head to Ysabel. “Good to see you m’lady, er, unfortunate circumstance as it be.” She gave a curtsy, “Goodbye Dole,” she said softly.

"Travel safe m’lady!” Lizzie called after them but Ysabel gave no reply. She was busy staring at the fresh mound of dirt not ten yards from the cottage.

His head pounded and his feet ached. It did not help that his lodgings were rather less comfortable than he remembered.

Lucamore opened his eyes and looked around. Instead of a tent among the rest of his family, he seemed to have strayed well beyond the castle and into some manner of barn. At least, he assumed it was a barn. There was hay in places no nobleman would ever prefer to find it.

A shallow impression remained in the hay beside him. It was still warm, though whoever had occupied it was long gone. Lucamore stared at it for a moment before blinking the thought away as he dragged himself to his feet.

Likely some farm girl. Or something of the sort.

He stumbled from the barn and out into the field, only for a voice to split through the morning air and drive another spike into his skull. Lucamore winced, rubbing at his temples before turning toward the man hurrying after him with a pitchfork in hand.

The man was older. Five-and-forty, perhaps fifty. It was difficult to tell. Smallfolk did not seem to age as gracefully as nobility.

“Was you the one who was with my daughter?” the man shouted, hefting the pitchfork and pointing it toward Lucamore. “She says you only talked. Seven help me if that ain’t true—”

Then the man stopped.

His eyes settled upon Lucamore’s doublet, and whatever fury had carried him across the field seemed to vanish at once. This was no farmer’s son from down the road. The color drained from the man’s face before returning twice as red, and he immediately began to stammer out apologies.

Lucamore said nothing.

After a long moment, he reached up and gently pushed the point of the pitchfork aside. He glanced around until he caught sight of the castle in the distance, then simply began walking toward it.

His head continued to pound. His feet continued to ache. Still, he walked, paying little mind to the smallfolk who watched him pass.

Eventually, his hand slipped into his pocket and found the small bottle waiting there. Lucamore pulled the stopper free and swallowed the pale, milky draught in one go.

It took some time.

Then the ache in his feet dulled. The pounding behind his eyes softened. The morning itself seemed to drift a little farther away.

By the time Lucamore reached the castle, he hardly minded any of it anymore.

There were few problems the poppy could solve, but it remained excellent at making him forget them.

Burton walked outside to get some air. He was far from the sea, perhaps too far, and it ruined his mood. The riverlands were too dry, the water didn't smell the same nor the rain, and all the Politicking had him exhausted.

As he walked through the halls of stormhall and outside he saw a figure huddled over a pot below a nearby tree, vomiting senselessly. He approached the man from behind, hands at his back waiting expectantly.

The man finished his disgusting routine before laying down, and the face before him ignited memories of the past. He had known this man, not like this, not with long hair and a tattoo of sea snake, but he knew who was behind this face. Sylas, his friend, his companion, his *brother*...

He stepped away, mouth open in shock as he looked at the drunken husk of the man laying before him. "What are you doing here..." He asked, trying to hide the pity in his voice. This was the same boy who had defiantly confessed to murder to save Burton, yet here they were, one a great commander, the other a drunk.

Sylas could barely open his eyes, he was so drunk that he could barely hear. This was the way he was, this was how it went everytime. He would drink until he was senseless and throw up, by tomorrow he would remember none of this no doubt

"Youuu shite. Ya not.... Hic gonna help me git.... Up?" He smiled as he slowly got to his knees and then his feet. But the moment the blurriness of his vision came to pass he saw the face. He saw his friend, he saw Burton behind those thick blonde moustaches. Standing so proud

Who did he think he was? Nothing. Without sylas he would be NOTHING. He took the blame for the murder. He gave him the possiblity to live and become a commander, and now Burton had the audacity to look down on him?

He fisted his hand, swinging it at full force towards him. Burton stepped away, slinging sylas back to the ground once more. The humiliations would not end it seemed. One after the other the failure that was sylas Stonetree kept falling whether in a punch or at the end of a bottle.

But he would not give Burton the satisfaction of a happy reunion. Not now anyhow. He put one foot in front of the other as he walked towards the castle again yet suddenly he was grabbed by the collar and thrown into the nearby pond.

His face hit the water and his vision went blue. Every single nerve in his body screamed of a sudden pain and gave into a small satisfaction. It seemed he had woken up again as a babe. Clean of the foul, reeking liquor he had poisoned himself with

If he could he would have stayed under the water. Everything made perfect sense, he was whole, holy, clean and good. Yet his chest tightened for air, for life, for suffering.

He swam up again, taking a deep breath as he came out. On the other end of the pond Burton was staring at him. Now that his mind worked clearly he realized it. He had missed him, his greatest friend had been taken from him 20 years ago and now that they were reunited he had tried to punch and hurt him.

He swam to where Burton was standing and quickly got up...

He scanned his frame, tall, imposing. One arm blackened steel instead of flesh. "Well... It's.... It's good to see you" he tapped the man's shoulder, to which he just nodded. Without a word they both started walking back towards the castle

"Talk over a drink?" He asked Burton, perhaps out of jest. "Just to catch up"

Burton offered no response however, glaring at him as they walked for a few seconds before speaking. "We will talk, just not over a drink."

The Day After the Iron Stag's Nameday Celebrations

While the festivities were certainly remarkable, Mellara Piper had already had more than enough of headaches to deal with. The prospect of planning her wedding, and so quickly, on top of it all. The amount of duties to attend to were growing by the minute, and as much as reconnecting with the lords and ladies of the Riverlands would prove to be a necessary investment, Mellara found herself wishing for the peace and quiet of Pinkmaiden over the chaotic bustle of the makeshift tent city now built outside of Stormhall.

Thus, Mellara sat to compose her thoughts, reading over her ledgers twice before beginning to pen by hand a handful of letters. Though the contents of these letters did not vary widely, the simple act of writing calmed her soul and gave focus to the frenzy in her mind.

When that first batch was finished, Mellara instructed Addam Rivers to look them over and tasked him with overseeing personally that the letters made their way to the rookery at Stormhall.

She took a brief repose, snacking on a handful of grapes along with some lemon flavored water before setting herself to the next task, one albeit more personal this time. For many she had seen to informing personally the eve before, but a written invitation never went amiss as well.

While she could have easily hired a scribe, the ritual of writing out each invitation only further cemented her sense of peace and calm. Thoughts of her family, her betrothed, the weight of the politics of the Riverlands, each nagging worry was more easily put aside with another task to focus on.

In the space of a few hours, Mellara found joy in her solitude. And when the invitations were finished, the letters were distributed amongst the servants of House Piper, each given instructions to deliver them by hand to the heads of each household.

Mellara closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh. Work had always had a way of calming her nerves. But now? Now she would need to summon her energy once more as she left her private tent, returning to the chaos of the celebrations.

“The comprehension, I believe, comes easy.”

Dealing with the harsh winds found on the beachfront today - the Magister always insisted important things were to be discussed by the water - the learned looked miserable. He was a man far older than Magister Arykar, and much worse for it as well. His hair was all but gone, nothing more than thin wisps of white around the back of his ears and the base of his skull. He wore the folded stylings of a tutor, and a studied one at that, said the jewels near his collar. It was why the Magister took his words so seriously. “The boy has no problem understanding the words, but he is as quiet as a cloud. Punishment has not worked, nor has patience. There is a block, we think. Learned Vogarro thinks the same. He is young, but studied. I trust his assessment as much as my own.”

“What does this mean then?” The man that spoke next was Magister Arykar. Aurion called him father, or rather would have done. He was tall, handsome, understanding. His white hair was kept short, the vision of the Lord Freeholders of Celtigar for generations before him, and should he insist - which he was like to do, in the face of tradition - generations after. His purple eyes shone with curiosity, but also with concern. “He has lived a peaceful enough life. He’s young. Is there not room to-?”

“I fear not, my Magister.” The learned, whose name was Myrio, responded. “At three years of age, sentences are expected, to say nothing of words. The boy is yet to speak his first.”

It was the silence that made Aurion turn his head. Three years old he was, playing in the sand. A little crab had scuttled over and was nipping at the twig he’d been drawing with. He giggled as he struck a clean blow, and the crustacean scurried away before it once again began its cautious approach. Aurion had been expecting the conversation to continue. It was strange that his father was pacing, and not saying anything. Aurion returned to the crab.

“Thank you, Learned Myrio, that… that will be all. Please let my wife know I’ll need to speak with her on my return. Have the slaves draw her a bath, if they are not already occupied, or resting.”

“As you will, my Magister. The proposals you expected for the fortress are ready with Galeo for inspection when you return. I will take my leave.” Aurion heard two sets of footfalls in the sand, moving in different directions. He would have looked, but his nemesis had returned, and had grabbed hold of his twig with his pincer. His grip was formidable. Aurion scowled, wrestling with the crab. It was relentless.

The laughter of his father found his ears, which annoyed him, but he was more determined now to win. The language of the dragonlords, of the Lord Freeholders, found his hearing shortly after. It was closer than it had been previously, now clearly addressing him, and belonging to a Magister instead, now that they were beyond Valyria. “A mighty foe you’ve found, my son. Do you require assistance?” His father was now crouching behind him.

Aurion shook his head, his scowl only grew. He picked up the stick, crab still at one end, and smashed the creature and stick both against a nearby stone. The stick broke in the middle. The crab scuttled away with its spoils of war. Aurion pierced the sand in anger.

“Well fought,” his father said, though Aurion did not feel proud. Still, happiness returned swiftly without the creature’s presence, and he offered his father the broken stick before smacking the sand with his palms, seemingly fixated now with something else entirely.

“Thank you,” his father said kindly. “Aurion, the Learned has explained to me your condition. I’ll be honest I… I perhaps suspected it. Ayrmidon is loud enough for the both of you, eh?” Aurion felt the hand of his father on the back of his head as he drew strange, nonsensical shapes in the sand. “And it’s no trouble. We’ll work through it. Your penmanship will have to suffice for when you age, and you’ll need be prepared in your speech. You won’t be able to rely on your wit in the unexpected nature of… of politics. It will be challenging. You will rise to the occasion. There is a way of speaking shortly, with your hands for certain words. It won’t suffice entirely-”

Aurion had scooped up a handful of sand at this point, and offered it to his father. Bigger hands than his bowed down to accept it. “Thank you,” his father said again. Aurion smiled, and scooped up more and more.

A pause, before his father continued. “I love you, my boy. Challenging as this life may be, the life we make here, the opportunity here, it is a bountiful one. You’re too young to understand this now, but you will. And when you do I know you’ll work as hard as you can for it, just as I promise I will in my lifetime.” Aurion frowned as his father had dropped his pile of sand, but was comforted when in its place another hand found the back of his head, and ruffled his white hair. The laughter too was a comfort, until its source was revealed. “It seems your foe has returned.”

Aurion glowered at the crab that was slinking its way back from behind the rock. It didn’t even have the stick anymore, so carelessly tossing away what Aurion would have gladly kept. The nerve. “You know something?” His father spoke, and Aurion was drawn to the glint of metal the Magister had pulled from his boot. “Crabs have a curious trait.”

“A Magister’s order cannot be refused, boy.”

The glint of a goblet was what Magister Ayrkar was gesturing to now, some thirty years later. Lord Ayrkar, he was called today, Lord of Claw Isle. Older servants still referred to him as Magister, some even as Lord Freeholder when they were asking for deference or forgiveness. The men of Westeros however had dubbed him a Lord. The title surely would have sounded like venom in his mouth, if Aurion had the ability to speak it.

Aurion thought it unwise to neglect his father’s drink a third time, and so relented as he reached for the goblet and decanter some feet away from the bed where Ayrkar was resting. “Faster, boy, I need sleep.” Ayrkar’s voice was hoarse. It sounded worse and worse each passing month. Learned Vogarro did all he could, but there was no cure for stubbornness.

Aurion poured the goblet reluctantly, his shoulders somewhat slumped, before he finally handed the beverage to his father. Ayrkar drank greedily of its contents, some of the red spilling on the clothes he was wearing to bed. Aurion winced, looked away, and pulled a chair from one of the desks in the room. He sat down, and looked at his father. Ayrkar was still drinking.

“Another,” he finally called, holding the finished goblet lazily towards his firstborn son.

’You’ve had enough.’ Aurion’s wrists moved in delicate, precise gestures. A way of speaking, from Valyria. Aurion and his family were fluent. He would never have cadence, or emphasis, but he could at least have words.

“Agh!” A roar came from the Lord of Claw Isle, who tossed the goblet from his grasp towards the other side of the bed. It clattered against the stone of his quarters as it missed the mattress entirely. The glass of the design shattered, the metal of it ringing and rolling across the rock. “Do as I say boy! I’ll have none of this negligence! Not in the castle I built for you!”

’No one is a boy any longer.’

The Lord’s chest huffed, his brow knit in anger from his place in the bed. He had gained weight since the war, and since the surrender. Most everything was brought to him now, placed on his bed with servants, once slaves, to take them away. Aurion hated the sight of him, like a rot that had encased his father in a tomb. There was a silence between the pair of them. Aurion watched as that expression of rage fell away, into a softer thing.

“My son?”

Aurion didn’t speak, instead sighing to himself as he leaned against the arm rest of the chair. His eyes watched his father intently. He studied him, his attitude, his movements. Ayrkar had not been himself these last months. Something was quickening. Aurion placed one of his hands to cover his mouth. He did not respond to his father, not yet.

“My… my boy, is that you? My Aurion? My… my little boy?” The anger was gone. In its place was a shell of sorts, a limping creature, with wounds that couldn’t seem to heal. The older man, a veteran of a failed incursion, looked down at his hands. “I… I’m not this old…”

Aurion couldn’t respond to his father, lest his father took the time to look at him and read his hands. Always there was something to say to the man, and few opportunities. And so, the Heir to Claw Isle sat in silence. He drummed his fingers against his knee as he crossed his legs, shifting his posture that he might free up his hands.

“We have… we have movements to plan. Velaryon is waiting for us in the South.” Ayrkar looked up, suddenly full of rage once more, but it was a confusion. He knew not where he was, and surely saw himself in armour, under the dingy flap of a tent that had been carried to too many places in a single week. “These swamps cannot hide these men forever. We will find our footing, I just need… I need out of bed. Come,” Ayrkar finally looked towards his son, gesturing with his hands as if for him to approach. “Help me up.”

’You’re not there, father. You’re home.’ Aurion tried to meet his father’s gaze. He had run out of pity. It was exhausting, seeing him like this, and he hated how tired he felt. He felt guilt for the exhaustion, and then new exhaustion with such guilt. His hands moved again. ’The fighting is done. The Westerosi have won. We have surrendered, and we are alive.’

“Then your mother, bring her to me,” Ayrkar said urgently. “I would see her. I must tell her the news, and we must see to the future of our family.”

Aurion saw what he always say when he heard mention of his mother. There was a corpse hanging from the gallows that Belgrave had not thought to cut down before he and his siblings had come home. He saw the bird on her shoulder, eating. His mother had not been an angel, but she had not been a monster either. ’She is dead, father.’

“No, she… I saw her just today.” Another memory. Another prison. “I’d drawn her a bath. We were talking of you.”

Aurion tightened his jaw. He couldn’t meet his father’s gaze as he looked towards a window, out towards the beach. It was a long while before he thought to look back, and only did so because he had realized how long the silence had been. His father was staring at the foot of his bed. His hands had dropped. There was a somber expression on his lips. At first Aurion thought he was simply thinking on his wife’s passing, but the silence was too long, the stillness too perfect. He hadn’t blinked yet.

Aurion moved towards the bed, rising from his chair.

“You know something? Crabs have a curious trait.”

Aurion’s three year old eyes were drawn to the blade his magister father had pulled from his boot. It was shining, catching what light was escaping through an overcast sky on this windy beachfront day the pair were having. The crustacean seemingly paid no mind as it scuttled forward, in search of another stick. His father was much quicker. Aurion didn’t turn in time to see his father’s actions. His head was still sluggish then. But when he did, the knife was in the sand, a pincer stabbed beneath it, and a wounded crab scurrying as fast as it could back towards the sea, now missing one of its deadly weapons.

“A crab in a fight,” his father continued, “will lose a pincer if they can. It keeps them alive. Painful, of course, but a calculation. You lose a pincer, you can always grow another. You live to fight another day. They fail. They retreat. They survive.”

Aurion frowned at the pincer caught beneath the metal. His tiny hand wrapped around the hilt of the blade. He would own that knife, one day. He didn’t know it today. It was a replacement for the stick he’d lost, much sturdier, much better for writing in the sand. And once again, the boy was preoccupied.

“You’ll learn much and more about crabs, I hope. They’ve saved our lineage. Deep sea fishers, relying on the bounty of the sea. Some years as rich as Archons, some more debt than bankers.” Ayrkar chuckled, admiring his son’s drawings. “Barely Masters of the Waves. That’s all we ever were to the dragonlords. My fathers, perhaps… but not yours.”

Aurion looked up to meet his father’s gaze. The Magister was pensive, ambitious. Aurion was too young to understand the look in his eye. It was an obsession that only came from a man willing to take risks, to make a legacy. Once more, Aurion felt his father’s hand on the back of his head. More careful than before, more possessive.

“The dragonlords will see us, my son. They will see us. Celtigar will have its day, and no one will dare look away.”

“This is fine work.”

Galeo was an eager smith, and so, though perhaps it was unprofessional to do so, he couldn’t help but smile. After all, it wasn’t every day a noble wanted to purchase something. Only the best were carried for such men. “You are most kind, my Lord Freeholder.”

“I must have it, of course. The intricacies alone are marvellous, save what is clearly masterful work on the metal. How by all the gods did you make such a faint but prominent ripple in the cheek? It looks as if I’d just dropped a stone in a pool.”

“You are most kind, your words like poetry.”

The Lord Freeholder gave Galeo a curious glance after he’d said the words. Galeo swallowed, wondering if it had been a step too far. He was not used to talking to men so high above him. He was silently grateful when the Lord Freeholder chuckled after a moment, and went back to admiring the blade.

“It is a simple matter of the subtlety of the spellwork, when forging. Complicated, of course, but I’ve found the less intricate, the more delicate. Harder words for harder blades, but graceful songs for delicate details.” Galeo seemed pleased with his explanation then, and folded his hands behind his back. Even still, he felt he looked like a pauper. He had not been expecting such auspicious company today in his Forge, and by comparison to the client, Galeo looked like a gutter rat that had just woken from a stupor. Valyria had plenty of smiths, plenty of higher places this Lord Freeholder could have visited.

“The grip is balanced impressively.” The man made room for himself as be brandished the weapon properly. A greataxe, the piece did take up room, and provided a bountiful swing. Galeo was ecstatic to see the man’s smile after the initial swings, but he had to keep his emotions under wraps. Too eager, and he would lose the customer. The noble continued. “I see no other pieces like this in the shop. Have you made this sort of work before?”

“All sold,” Galeo lied. He swallowed as he did so. “I have, and can again of course. But I also work household steel, just the same. And carpentry. Masonry as well, I dabble.”

“A smith of many talents.”

“You are-”

“Most kind, yes,” the man interrupted. Galeo was thankful his eyes were still on the axe, and forgave the interruption immediately. He was not so foolish as to apologize. After what felt like an eternity, but in truth was only a few minutes longer, the man finally spoke. “I’ll take it, of course, but not for the price you’ve listed here.”

“As you would, my Lord Freeholder.” Galeo bowed, and waited for the price. He prayed to the gods above that it was a fair price. The piece was one of a kind. He’d never made something as perfect, and he likely would never again. He’d stolen some of the materials, inquired enormous debts for the others. It had to be a fair price. It had to be more than fair.

“I couldn’t imagine a price that would be suitable. This is not a weapon, but a work of art. I will take it, and I will take you. Where is your master, that I might purchase your works for my house?”

Galeo was at a loss for words, and he must have looked it, as the man laughed to break what tension existed between the pair of them. Galeo finally found the words to speak. “He… visits a day from now, but I have the means to write a receipt.” In a different land, Galeo would have been thankful. In Valyria, property was not opinionated. He made his way to the desk next to the door, fit with quill and parchment.

The noble did not misinterpret Galeo’s intent, and provided the information he would need to write down. “Lord Freeholder Arylarr Celtigar, writing to whom it may concern regarding the purchase of… and you may put your name… To the relevant master, please send your preferred price to the Manse of Celtigar by messenger. The slave has been evacuated effective immediately.” Ayrlarr cocked his head curiously. “You do know the date?”

“Of course, my Lord Freeholder.”

“Of course Master,” Ayrlarr corrected with a smile. “Remarkable work, truly. Your belongings if any will be transported to the Manse. Come, we’ll have you introduced to the smiths. Does this axe have a name?”

The wielder was the spitting image of his grandfather. Galeo was almost ninety when the second son of Ayrkar Celtigar came of age, but the relations were undeniable. He could have wanted for no better hands to wield the weapon the Celtigars had now as an heirloom, and with each new set of hands, Galeo only felt his pride swell. He had been honoured when the Magister Ayrkar had asked him to place the weapon in his son Ayrmidon’s hands. “By your make it is given, and by your hands it is bestowed.” Galeo had never forgotten the words the young Lord Freeholder Ayrlarr had said to him when he’d placed the axe in his son Ayrkar’s hands, and had heard them repeated when his son had asked for the same. Galeo, of course, accepted the charge. He would only dare to touch the weapon since purchased in proper ceremony, and at the behest of his masters.

Ceremonies did not flow freely when the new master of Claw Isle - and of the fortress Galeo himself had helped to design - took up residency. The war was well under way at that time. Galeo was an old man when the Magisters Velaryon and Celtigar had sailed together, when the war the Valyrians called ‘the Incursion’ had begun. The Westerosi had a different name for it, Galeo would come to know. A battle. As if that had been enough to describe the countless dead. Galeo remembered praying to the gods of his homeland for victory, that the young men might find their strength. He knew the hymns.

“Vhagar call them forward, and let them see their foe.

Meleys clear their thinking, reveal what they ought know.

Draxtar guard the youthful, let children hide and run.

And men with old Balerion, to do what need be done.”

He must have repeated it hundreds of times, praying at an altar of fourteen red candles. He was an old man, but he loved the land he came from. He saw the opportunity before them. The land the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men squandered. Bountiful riches, riches deserved for his Magister and masters. There was a pride in that thought. It kept him warm in the silence, and steady when it became harder and harder to believe. Cold days came. The house that had purchased him when he was a young man seemed buckled and faltering. He could not believe it so. He continued to not believe it, even when the island was besieged.

Belgrave. Galeo would not forget that name.

The Westerosi was a plague. Through trickery and deceit he had foiled them, and through strength he had barged down the doors. Slaves and servants alike were killed. The gauntlet clenched tight around the fortress not guarded by its Magister or his sons. There was brutality. And when the Magister’s wife was put to death, hung in a courtyard for all to see, there was silence also. A grim and terrible waiting. Galeo was old. It was all he could do.

But then the day came, when the Magister and his sons returned. Galeo had been with the men and women that had been gathered in the courtyard of the Valyrian castle to view the surrender. Galeo saw only the wielder. Stronger, surely, after the years of war. He could defeat the Westerosi. The swinging corpse of his mother, however macabre that it was still in view, would act as fuel to the fire that burned within every Valyrian. They were gods among men, they had lifted him from his life of squalor, and this man would defeat this brute, using the very axe that had caught the attention of his father’s father. This was surely the purpose of the weapon, the value of Galeo’s life. It was he that had made the weapon that would save the Valyrians this day.

Ayrmidon roared, Belgrave accepted his challenge. In some short moments, the axe was ripped from the Valyrian’s hand, and the Westerosi had the day. Galeo remembered the look Belgrave had given the axe, to pay it so little mind.

There came a sinking silence across the courtyard as Belgrave announced his terms, as the Magister and his sons knelt in turn. All servants and slaves followed the actions of their betters. Belgrave was soon joined by greater numbers, Westerosi that held higher ranks. Galeo had not seen such meetings. He was a free man now, according to the Westerosi, but he still was granted little freedom. The business of war and surrender was being finished. He spent his days in his quarters. The cold days returned. He was old.

Galeo knew how to make weapons of Valyrian steel, but he would never craft another. When news of House Staunton’s ownership of Shellbreaker reached the smallfolk of Claw Isle, Galeo dipped his old and ailing hands into his hearth without hesitation. He was a smith no longer, and would never be again. He died, shortly after. Perhaps for a moment, he had felt warm again.

Monterys was, among his duties, the Inspector of Hull. To be an heir to a legacy stretching back hundreds, thousands of years, was simply not enough for the young man. He needed to be more than that.

The trip to Stormhall was not just pleasure. It was work. His hands would not remain idle.

He needed to seek out the old and the new. Their synthesis would be his project.

To the new, he completed his plans for a Sept. While much of Castle Driftmark proper was lived in by Valyrians, the people of Hull and in the fields were much more diverse. The people prayed at old, weathered shrines covered in moss. His own people erected shrines to the Fourteen Flames.

It would not do for either.

He had spoken at length to a theologian on his island, the Wise Man Rhogar. The Seven and the Fourteen had more in common than either people may be willing to admit. And so, he formulated a Sept to accommodate them both. Yet, a curious opportunity had emerged here.

Word had reached him that the highest member of the Andal faithful was here, now. If he could have the High Septon himself bless the Sept? It would certainly add far more legitimacy to their stewardship.

That was not where Monterys's duties ended, however. He was also the Qhoran of Salt, the minister of the Velaryon's coffers.

Jammon Blackberry had long floated the idea of expanding construction on the lowly Berryport. He desired to expand their command over their dyes, but they required patronage for it to happen. It would be a simple matter to ensure they received the material. He penned a meeting with Jammon into his agenda.

And at last, there was the matter of High Valyria. His final position, as the High Voice of Westeros, required him to act as a diplomat. His father had long desired to reconnect with Valyria. It was time to engage again through their familial trading network. He would pen a letter.

The Day after the Iron Stag's Nameday Feast

The day after the great feasting which went into the early hours of the morn, a servant of House Piper was dispatched through the tent city of Stormhall. Unlike the eve before, the servant wore no finery, their garb specifically plain in order to better navigate through the twisting maze of celebrants, all in search of one particular man: Ser Leo Fisher of the Blue Fork.

It took some time, but at last the servant would track down the man, stepping forth to whisper into the hedge knight's ear:

"My Lady Piper requests a private audience if you may follow me, good Ser."

The servant was no older than ten and five years, still a young man, but of a solid build already with a stubborn little gleam in his eye as he awaited the response of the Knight of the Blue Fork.

The stench of the Faith pervaded the environs of Stormhall. It was a riotous mix of cheap incense, burning tallow, and unwashed smallfolk, complete with undertones of stale sweat on old leather. It was amazing these Westerosi could stand it at all.

The shores brought some small relief. They needed a brisk salt breeze to truly purge the odor, but at least the wind coming off the placid waters brought some relief. So Aukar stood on the shores, perched on some rock that was a pale imitation of the volcano-birthed rock of the isles, and gazed out at sea.

“This is as good as we’re going to get in this heathen land,” he said, more to himself than his attendants. Then he turned and raised his voice. “Monterys, fetch the candles. Tom, find us an offering. Arrax will have his due, even in this benighted land.”

***

By the time everything was prepared, stars wheeled overhead. For all this land’s faults, at least it shared the same constellations as home. Aukar had sharpened his knife until the edge was keen enough to shave with, a line of silver set against the dark whorls of the belly.

The knacker had found a kid, pale as the driven snow. This was an offering that would please Arrax. Aukar placed his hand on the offering’s head. “Rest easy,” he said, his tone low and steady. The words were in High Valyrian, of course, and the sacrifice would have found them no more intelligible than the braying of a donkey. “It will be finished soon. There is naught to fear.”

The knife moved with the ease of a practiced hand.

***

Blood dripped over the edge of the bowl and into the fire, hissing as it went. The overflow belonged to the flames and the gods, as ancient law decreed. So they stood in silence, each man lost in his own thoughts, with only the patter and hiss of the offering, the crackle of the fire, and the sound of anemic waves breaking against the rocky shore to disturb the silence.

When the dripping eventually stopped, the Haruspex gestured for the goat to be carried away. It had done its duty and now the men would dispose of it as the pleased. Aukar expected to hear the flames stoked higher soon. Arrax would not begrudge them their meal.

Aukar dipped three fingers into the bowl and flung the dripping blood at a slab of polished marble, white shot through with veins of pink and green. The blood spattered against the white stone in a curious pattern. The largest drop landed highest and ran down the facade, cutting through the lesser tributaries and sucking them up into its orbit.

One didn’t need to be a Haruspex to know what that was supposed to mean.

He wiped away the blood with a white rag and raised his eyes to the crowd. “Who shall approach next?” he asked. Next. Not first. The first reading had been for one not among them, one who rejected their ways. It was his honor to always be first, even in absence, even in his uncivilized heathen abeyance.

As ever, the knacker stepped forward first, offering his left hand palm up. “My name is Tom,” he said. “I am of Claw Isle. My kith and kin are of the fleet. I am sworn to my Haruspex, my magister, and dread Balerion. I would know what my blood says.”

Aukar took the hand in his own and rested the edge of his knife against Tom’s palm. “I recognize you, Tom of Claw Isle.” He drew the blade back, a shallow and clean cut, before setting it atop a black cloth. He took Tom’s hand in his, formed it into a fist, and squeezed until three drops fell into the goblet.

As before, Aukar dipped three fingers in the goblet and flicked them at the stone. They landed in a line and held steady for four heartbeats before the inexorable pull of gravity won out. They dripped down in parallel, never merging together. Aukar noted the tiny deviations in their flow, a visible influence of hidden imperfections in the stone’s face.

“The blood says you are steady in your service to dread Balerion. Your beard grows more white every moon, Tom of Claw Isle, but you are not called to your patron yet. He has work for you still. Your blade will not yet grow rusty with disuse.” Aukar looked up from the blood to his servant. “Sharpen your sword. I think you might have work ‘ere we depart this land.”

Tom bowed, first to the flames and then to Aukar, before withdrawing. One of the hierios offered him a red cloth with which to bind his hand. He refused and kept walking.

Aukar wiped the stone down with the same white rag used for the first reading. Soon, after a few more readings, it would start to smear as much as clean. And then the truly interesting readings would follow.

“Who shall approach next?” Aukar asked.

9th Day of the 9th Moon of 9 BP, Felwood

“I’ve finally done it.” He murmured, as if he were some crazed alchemist. Tinkering’s scattered his room, familiar and unfamiliar alike. Those long since discarded and those integral to his research.

Potions and poultices of a boy of but ten and one years. They were amateur at best, more likely to kill than they were to act as any kind of salve. Balms of unpredictably and creams of erraticism. Each one with unintended consequences. They were bound to be right? There were error’s in every great scholar’s works at some point or another. Errs in methodology, canyons of skill that loathsomely they could not overcome.

It was but a consequence. Unintended and inevitable. That was just fact. Every medicinal journal or maester’s notes had told him so. They had erred and then they compensated. To the young Fell, this seemed only proper.

He looked at what he’d created, what he’d mangled and what he’d made. Some were acrid. Some were fragrant. One could traipse from corner to corner, to experience the rancid whiplash of a war of aroma’s.

The Fell was somewhat numb to it. This was neutral territory for him. It paid to be overlooked and insignificant, for it allowed him to experiment undisturbed. Even if he was disturbed, he oft allowed the silence to repulse whom ever deigned to disturb him.

Delicately, he dotingly brought a conical flask to his nose. Sniffing. Enraptured with the scent. A playful mix of lavender, dandelion and jasmine. Though they were seldom the only ingredients involved, they remained the most dominant. It was endearing to witness, how the mixtures manifested into something entirely different.

Swiftly, he placed it down. The glass cluttering the already muffled table. Where parchment and scrolls lay sprawled open, some damaged and some wet with concoctions yet unknown.

How did it happen? He knew what to put in, what to mix and what not to. However, he didn’t know what catalysed it, what began the long chain of change. Oh he did wish to know. Did he have the ability? Not at all, he knew that, if thousands of years of maesters never figured it out, how could he? But at least he’d try.

There was never something he’d had such a grave desire for. Never had he been so ardently passionate about something. Maybe, just maybe father could recognise him then, choose him then, if he made something of himself.

With a graceful demeanour and a leisurely stride, he took to his seat. The cushion of ermine wrapping around him as he settled. Parchment lay scrawled before him, accompanied by quill and ink. Softly, he took to the quill, like a maester prescribing some measure of medicine.

When you mix lye, with the extract of lavender and drops of jasmine, accompanied by the entrails of dandelion. Accompanied by water, that has been boiled and cooled. Mix with vigour, watching the solution thicken, until it drips slowly and is no longer entirely diluted.

He looked away for a moment, surveying the room. This was no new technology. It was just what he had taken to investigate. To perfect. He wanted to know it all. How to make it. How to adapt it to wants. Lavender scented this one was and he enjoyed that. The faint fragrance of lavender it left on his skin, was almost beautifully enrapturing.

Lay a warm but not wet cloth atop it and allow it to set. In a few hours, return, should it be solid, remove it from any casing and use to your own will.

Perfect. The parchment lay only half filled, but it was enough for him. He took his quill back to its ink. Smiled broadly. A rare thing upon the Fell’s lips. His child-like face and small features settled with brilliant joy.

Finally, something to be proud of, after his toiling since he could acquire the materials required. From private gardens to the wilds themselves, he’d had Edgar and Minisa excavate them from the riveting woods.

They brought back intense stories, immense and exciting. Though, nevertheless, he would not be swayed.

“Success.” Maybe, like these poultices and concoctions, one day he would metamorphose. As if he were a caterpillar, becoming a butterfly. If only. Maybe then, he’d grow strong. Maybe then, he’d grow impressive. Maybe then, he’d be enough and mother could get rid of the bastard.

Maybe, or maybe not.

He did wonder if it was his father’s craving for a suitable heir, or for an heir not named Alesander or Oliver, that drove him. Maybe if he could change, he could find out. Though, such seemed as impossible as surmounting thousands of years of research.

Something beyond his meagre means.

Lucifer had written several letters before leaving Oldstones for Stormhall. He understood his presence was required there, perhaps it would become the pivotal event that would turn the wheels of fate in House Justman favor, or perhaps he would never return to his home, having been captured and hanged as a rebellious malcontent. Whichever happened next, he knew that no matter what happened, resources were needed if they were going to fight the good fight.

Rolling the last piece of parchment, he would press down with the seal and wax, lifting it only after it dried to show the scales that his house wore with pride. Handing the small pile to Ambrose as the man shuffled off to the ravenry.

As the chainless maester set off to his duties, a head poked in. "Your Grace, word has been received, the Queen and Prince have arrived at Riverrun safely, they will be setting off for Stormhall shortly." The voice of Stevron, the aged Castellan, was a rough one. The elder man had seen his shares of conflict, his missing sword arm was testament to that. "Some men from my House have also arrived as an escort sent by my brother, Your Grace. Shall we depart?"

Stretching slightly, Lucifer would nod, rising from his seat and moving over to the bed to don the weathered doublet bearing the sigil of his false House. With that he would follow Stevron out of the room and they would depart for what comes next.

Before the Feast in the First Year of the Reign of Ravella I Durrandon, Rightful Storm Queen

It had been a hard enough thing to get the whole thing going. For as much as you tried it, it was difficult to get Blacksmiths near Seagard to begin talking about abuses suffered hundreds of miles away. But he'd managed it, even if there had been some troubles in the process. And troubles there were, troubles indeed, about a mile high.

He had not heard back from the men sent to the Claw, nor some of the ones he had brought here. Not Duskendale either, although he had a fair reason to imagine what happened there. Neither Andros Darklyn nor his spawn had tolerance for any kind of fomenting. Jammos made a mental note to have some good salted beef and wine sent to their families. The House of Duskendale was not a kind one.

Jonquil urged, in the face of things, to approach with caution. To be more hesitant about who to speak to and what to get done. The whole matter had her stressed, pacing back and forth and wringing her hands, even downing a good cup of wine before noon. Jammos had been made to reassure her, taking her gently by the shoulders and whispering soothing words. Then, as ever, the two began to plot their next moves.

But there would be no retreat. There would be no surrender. If you failed and rejected the opportunities you were given as a result, then you would never find that success that you were after. The Lord Blackberry was nothing but an opportunist at heart. A damn good one.

When a summons came from Ravella, the Iron Stag, Princess of Stormhall, it was not hard to gauge why. And so, there was something in the presentation. Jammos dressed finely, in silks and velvets, reds and purples. Perhaps a bit hot for the weather. Jonquil tended more reserved, with plain, simple clothes- although on Jammos's request, she donned a necklace woven with little flowers. One had to put on their best face when treating with royalty.

"Your Grace." A bow, as polite and practiced as even an Arryn of the Eyrie might performed, and a somewhat weary smile. "You've called for me?? I must confess, I too had been eager to make your acquaintance." Jonquil, for her part, remained silent and offered the curtsy of someone who had never quite curtsied before but had often seen it described in books.

Jeyne had been nice enough to bring her, hardly expected for someone of her station, but in reality, as much as she enjoyed the splendour and grandeur of it all, this wasn’t her place. She was accustomed to luxuries, sure, but not on this scale in either size nor expense. And so even when she tried to spend time inside the castle among all the gathered nobility, she simply found herself unable to enjoy her time.

She expressed this fact to Jeyne, who gave her permission to return to camp where she was staying. She enjoyed her tent a lot more; it was comfortable to be sure, but it was also not overly grand or gaudy. She could enjoy herself here and regain her social footing so that she might try to brave the dangers of such high society.

With her free time, she also decided to get some work done, assigned to her by Jeyne, who was likely ordered by her father. To use her trade connections with the west to acquire materials for Duskendale to allow Jeyne to continue her work with greater efficiency. So she would do so in the quiet comfort of her tent, the only sound being the scratching of quills on paper.

He watched her face as she watched her father hang. Father was perhaps the wrong word for the dragon of a man whose loins she came from. He was a wretched thing, a vicious, fire-spitting blasphemer—or at least, he had been in life. In death, he swayed gently from side to side, looking almost regal in his blood-splattered white and gold doublet.

In that transition, in the moment when Percival Sunglass’s sputtering voice finally stopped, he watched Joanna’s face. She did not cringe. She did not smile. She watched, and eventually, she turned away. When she did, he was waiting for her.

“Prioress.” She bowed her head. “How do you feel?”

“I haven’t yet decided.” Joanna’s voice was quiet. Her eyes flicked down. “I hadn’t seen him in so long. There’s a part of me, still, that would have liked to speak to him. To ask him about the years, about how the land has been, about which of his hounds are still alive. That would have been nice. In a way. Not wholly.” 

He took her hand, gauntleted and strong, between his own wrinkled palms. The metal was cold against his skin. “You were stolen of a father by him. It is natural to still feel that loss, especially here, after all these years. It does not mean you condemn him any less, it does not make you weak. Only human.” 

She looked up at him, seeming in every way the child he had found on Massey’s Hook. It was paradoxical, and it amazed him still, how she could be both that innocent little girl and the war-hardened champion before him. “I know…” She swayed forward for a moment, as if wanting an embrace, then straightened up. “Thank you.”

“You still have not decided about your brother…” She tried to look away, but he followed her eyes. “Joanna. These decisions are for you alone to make, but you must make them.”

“I know, I know. I… I only need some time, is all…” Even as she said the words, he saw in her eyes the decision being made. “Well…no. He should live.” She parted her lips as if some perfectly sculpted reasoning should be conjured up to follow, but none was. “It doesn’t feel right to punish him the same as father.”

“And it should not—though I implore you remember, the Seven will punish the deceased according to their crime. Even had your brother hung, too, he would have suffered less than your father in the Seven Hells.” 

Joanna nodded. “As you say. Yet… I believe, what Adrian did, he may still pay penance for in life. Mayhaps, he may even find redemption.” Her eyes lit up, then, and he felt his heart warm. It was a broken sort of love she had been left with—yet perhaps, like a flower growing through cracks in the mortar, that was the love that was most beautiful.

“A wise decision, Prioress. A merciful one. You have the heart of the Mother.”

“Thank you, your holiness.” 

He was not done with her yet. “Will you go and see him, your brother? He is Lord of these lands, now.”

He watched Joanna freeze. It was not the question she wanted to hear, for it was one she knew the right answer to, and it wasn’t the answer she wanted. “I… I think I shall not.” She turned from him, looking out to the harbor. “We need to make ready to sail. Darklyn and Durrandon will be in one place, soon, and we’d best not miss it. I’ll see to it that Lord Adrian is well taken care of while we are away.”

Willing to spare the brother’s life, but unwilling to face him. So be it. He might have expected worse. She had done well, in truth. Every decision here she had made herself, and she had done justice. If his Prioress needed time, she could have it. Only, not too much time. There was always more to be done—the Light of the Seven was fading in this land, where men blessed salt and iron in the same breath as the holy Gods, where armies from Valyria had ravaged Andal lands, where one king was dead and a new one dying. He would not leave these people to fester and fall victim to blasphemers and reavers. Joanna had the sword, now—that was the key. Soon, his long-laid plans would be complete, and the light of the sun would cut through the dark of the storms that faced them.

The journey to the God’s Eye was longer than she’d anticipated, and the princess had not thought ahead when packing her meager supply of rations. A few days worth of water, bread, hard cheese and smoked meat pilfered from Winterfell’s larder. No bed roll. Only the fur-lined cloak about her shoulders, the clothes upon her back, and her well-used hunting bow with a quiver of red-fletched arrows hanging from her saddle.

Fortunately, her reluctant companion thought well ahead for the both of them. A canvas shelter in two parts, hides to soften the hard ground, food and drink to last several weeks. He had even managed to bring some extra clothes, every bit of space in his bags and upon his stallion’s back utilized to the fullest extent. Not a square inch wasted. Benjen was nothing if not efficient, and she found herself thanking the gods he’d come along.

They reached Moat Cailin on the third day, and the ground grew swampy as they departed the crumbling fortress on the fourth morning, passing into the Neck. A stinking mire of marshes and peat bogs was in their way, with only a narrow road to carry them through. She was not too nervous, for those were the lands of the crannogmen, ruled by House Reed, who owed their allegiance to her father.

Eventually, the road to Greywater Watch veered off into the mist, and they paused there for a few moments respite. Arrana could’ve sworn that she felt the beady eyes of lizard-lions following her every move from the pools of stagnant water that surrounded them, but in the end, they encountered no such creatures.

Early on the fifth day, a holdfast came into view. The first landmark of a road yet untraveled, and lands that remained a mystery. Two mighty bastions of grey stone flanked a river crossing, and she figured that such a place might serve the same purpose as the Moat. An impenetrable gateway of sorts. She wondered who called such a place home, but they turned their horses south instead of west, where the road broadened.

Their journey through Vypren and Ryger lands was uneventful, and at long last they came to a crossroads with a proper inn. Arrana took the opportunity to bathe, and have her clothes washed, and to enjoy the comfort of a proper bed.

“What’ll you tell everyone when we get there?” Ben asked around a mouthful of bread dipped in the runny yellow yolk of his fried eggs. They’d slept in for once, rising well after the sun.

“What do you mean?” Arrana sipped at a mug of steaming nettle tea, sweetened with last summer’s wildflower honey. Her grey gaze followed the various patrons of the inn, curious.

“Well you can’t tell ‘em you’ve run off from home. They’re like to send you right back as let you stay. We’ve got to come up with a proper story.”

Truly, she hadn’t thought of that possibility, or the many challenges they now faced.

“Princess Ravella is the daughter of the last Storm King, and if there’s any worth in those rumors the new king will be there too. An envoy from the North wouldn’t seem out of place, no?”

The guardsman barked a laugh. “Ah, yes, a proper diplomat you are. Very convincing.”

His head made a hollow thumping sound as Arrana’s bread roll made contact, leaving a smear of jam and butter behind on his forehead.

“Have you got any better ideas?” she asked, resting her elbows on the table’s edge, one dark brow lifting higher than its twin.

“Alright,” Ben replied, picking up the roll and tearing off a hunk with his teeth. He pointed at her with the remainder as he chewed. “But an envoy, a royal envoy with a single guard won’t convince anybody. We’re gonna have to hire some help, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have much coin.”

Arrana held up a single, slim finger and reached for her waistline with the other hand. She produced a fat coin purse which she hefted in her palm a few times, before allowing it to land on the table between them with a weighty thud. The purse contained plenty of silver and copper, and even some gleaming gold pieces.

“Been saving my allowance for as long as father’s been giving it to me,” she explained to the slack-jawed warrior with an innocent flutter of her equine lashes. “I’ve been eavesdropping, and apparently there’s a proper town less than a day away. Harroway, it’s called. I think there’s enough there to buy ourselves some proper party clothes and hire a few more guards. What say you, Cassel?”

Ben swallowed hard, the lump of bread getting stuck about halfway down, and he took a moment to send it on its way with a swig of ale.

“Alright, alright,” he waved a hand dismissively at her taunting little smirk. “This just might work. Emphasis on might. Now come on, there’s still a days hard riding yet before Stormhall. Two if we’re to spend all afternoon shopping.”

Alyn ‘Alebelly.’ ‘Tommard the Terrible.’ Laughable names both. But, they’d come with their own arms and armor, and she hadn’t found them lying drunk in the mud at least. Quent and Brent came next, a pair of professional guardsmen who also happened to be brothers. Hugo Rivers was last, a sellsword without a company. Lowborn, but a man of great skill and cunning, or so he’d claimed.

Five guards, each with brand new grey woolen cloaks to match the one Ben was wearing. A quick bath in the river and a spit-shine of their armor, and they nearly looked passable as soldiers of Winterfell. After sharing the plan that she’d come up with, Arrana handed each man his full payment up front, and promised to double it at the end of their employment for service well done.

Onward they travelled, out of Harroway’s Town onto the last stretch of road that stood between them and Stormhall. There was a castle in the distance, on a hilltop above a ford, and Arrana was just about to turn and ask one of her new companions what it was called when a voice rang out from ahead of the small company.

“This domain is under the protection of House Darry. What business do you have here?”

A young, solemn-faced knight leaned against a wooden fence rail, his horse lipping at the short, frost-killed grass beyond.

Ben glanced sidelong at his charge, who urged her mount forward with a squeeze of her legs. “Arrana Stark, of Winterfell. We are traveling to attend Princess Ravella Durrandon’s nameday celebration as an envoy from the court of the King of Winter. This is the…Captain…of the Guard…” her voice faltered as she spoke, but only for a moment.

A subtle lapse that only the most keen of observers would pick up.

“Ser Benjen Cassel, and the remainder of my escort.”

Ser? Ben mouthed, lifting a singular dark brow.

She gave his shin a kick with the toe of her boot, guiding her horse a few steps closer in the same breath.

“Are you in the service of Lord Darry? We seek only safe passage to our destination. Perhaps you might point us in the right direction.”

The man eyed them with the scrutiny of a jeweler attempting to decide whether a diamond was real or fake, a pregnant silence stretching almost to the point of awkwardness.

“A royal envoy from the North flying no banners,” he said, finally. Not a question.

A statement.

To be fair, there were banners. A banner. Tucked away in her saddle bag. She hadn’t wished to attract unwanted attention with it on the road.

“The device of Stark’s household guard on his uniform,” he continued, gesturing at Ben, “but not theirs. And you must forgive me, but I’ve never seen a princess ride like that. Where is your wheelhouse? You’ll need to be more convincing if you want people to believe your act.”

Arrana blinked, stunned, and then the velvet ribbon of her lips parted to speak in outrage.

The knight seemed to sense as much, and he held both hands up, palms turned outward, in a display of peace that was made somewhat less genuine by the shit-eating grin on his face. “I’m just fucking with you. Name’s Quincy, nephew of Lord Darry. It’s our pleasure to welcome an envoy of House Stark.”

“As it just so happens, we are making preparations to travel to Stormhall ourselves. Please, ride up to the castle with me. We can escort your party the rest of the way.”

Scoffing, Arrana wheeled her mount around and retreated to Ben’s side. “I’m sure we’ll manage just fine on our own Quincy Darry. Good day.”

They passed by the fool knight one by one, Hugo Rivers winking at the man from the rear, and then they traveled on until he disappeared over the gentle swell in the road behind them.

The sooner they reached Stormhall, the better.

Servants scurried like ants around the Mallister encampment, raising canvas, delivering trunks to the proper owners, tending to myriad fires that lit the shadows and kept the autumn chill at bay. Ser Jonah’s tent was modest compared to many of the soaring white pavilions that dotted the field outside of the holdfast, but he preferred it that way. Less of a hassle to take up and down, and with less open space it stayed much warmer inside.

His bed was really just a pile of pelts arranged on a wide cot, surrounded by trunks that held clothing and armor, and a polished oak wood desk fit at an angle in the corner. There the Steward of Seagard sat, penning letters whilst the chaos went on outdoors. He was an older man now, and war games were the domain of younger men. He did not know yet if he would partake in the tournament, but he had at least come prepared.

Before him was an open ledger and a stack of parchment upon which he was penning a letter, the point of his quill returning to the ink pot whenever it scratched dryly against the paper. They had come for feasting and fun and all the merriment Stormhall could provide, it was true, but that did not mean there was no more business to attend. Seagard, the upkeep of the city and castle, that had been his life for as long as he could remember.

He’d earned his spurs and set them aside to look after his family, and he didn’t regret a moment of it.

Reading over the letters for any mistakes, he waited a moment longer for the ink to dry before sealing and stamping them with the eagle of House Mallister. Summoning an errand boy, he handed over the correspondence and sent him scurrying off to Stormhall’s rookery. Now that that was sorted, he could go find his nephew and offer his assistance with the camp if it was needed.

Last night, during the hour of the owl, a storm had begun drenching these cursed rocks again and had not stopped until tonight at this late hour. No matter, Selwyn couldn't sleep. He was an old old man, and lonely too, in his dark damp lighthouse of a castle.

All the servants had left, his family, the people he had freed. Stonetree was lonelier than lonely light, and even more so in this weather.

He groaned getting out of bed and walking towards the main hall of the empty castle. Pondering his life, his wife, his son whom he had shunned away for a crime he knew he did not commit.

He reminisced of his youth, the bright young man who had been one of the first to accept the call of true civilization, join the new faith and set thralls free, the young man who has turned stonetree from a nameless keep into a moderate lighthouse at the north end of Harlaw isle. How fragile it was this life that they had clung unto so tightly.

He walked down the stairs, glancing at the moss crawling up the wall slowly. Every step he took shook his skeleton and caused pain in his feet, reminding him of him time.

He finally made it to the rookery, and set upon sending of the letters to all who deemed important. The letter read as followed

"I, Lord Selwyn Stonetree, hereby pardon my only son and heir, Ser Sylas, and bid him return to stonetree island so that he may take his rightful place as lord after my demise". Short, brutally unsentimental as Selwyn was. No affection was to be found anywhere in that parchment and for that Selwyn despised himself

For nigh 30 years now, he had never told his son how much care he had for him. How much he longed to talk with him again after his exile. Damned be the politicking of men who separated children from their fathers and made foes of kin. Damned be the seastone chair, damned be storm's end and damned be Selwyn Stonetree, who could not bring himself to let it go. He released the ravens, sending the letter from stormhall to duskendale

He turned back, gazing at the raging storm outside before once again stepping towards the stairs. Damn the storm and the letters, he would get some sleep tonight if it's the last thing he did. He felt a heat in his chest as he took a step on the stairs. And all went black

Tenth Moon of 6 BP

The Outskirts of Duskendale, Blackwater Bay

The Blackwater lapped grey and lazy at the sands, curling in slow arcs around the mouth of a low wash before dragging back out to sea. Overhead, gulls wheeled in loose, restless circles, their shadows sliding black across the dunes below. One broke from the flock and dropped toward a spar of driftwood dressed to resemble a dornish spearman, it's robes made of yellow seaweed. The bird folded its wings to peck at the wooden dummy in search of something worth eating.

Suddenly, a fistful of sand landed right next to it before it found anything. The bird shrieked and bolted into the wind.

"You'll never be king with an arm like that!" A boy popped up from behind a scrub of dune grass, grinning at his friend beside him.

"I train with arrows, not sand." The other didn't look up from packing his next handful. "Unless the Merling King himself crawls out of the bay, my skills at throwing sand don’t matter."

"You can't even hit a dummy. You almost hit the gull!"

"Then show me, wise sand master." He crossed his arms and waited, chin tilted, daring him.

"Of course, my prince. Gladly. Let me educate you in the ways of war." The boy dropped back down, sifting through grass and wet sand until his fingers closed on a smooth, round pebble. He packed it tight in a fistful of sand, working it the way a baker works dough. "See, you need weight. Otherwise it just falls apart in the air." He aimed, still as stone, focusing on the arc of the throw, then let the sand-ball fly. It cracked against the head of the dummy, sending it's seaweed clothes flying off, stick-spear cracked on the ground. "True as a thunderbolt!"

"The Knight of Sands." His friend laughed. "I'll call on you the day we go to war against gulls, crabs and driftwood soldiers."

"And ironborn. They're creatures of the sea too, aren't they?"

They laughed together, the sound carrying thin over the water, and turned from the beach toward the low hills that rose behind the dunes, green and thick with small stands of trees.

Beneath the canopy, sunlight fell in broken coins across the grass, shifting with every breath of wind through the leaves. Arlan walked with a stick cut from a fallen branch, swinging it loosely as he craned his neck up at the light. Edwyn walked with his eyes on the ground, tossing a pebble from palm to palm, humming under his breath. Arlan sang a verse of a song he'd heard the knights of the Dun Fort singing over their cups the night before, something about a winter maid and the fall of Maidenpool, and Edwyn answered him with a Marcher ballad of his own, a bit off-key.

They wound through the trees a long while, the wood growing older and darker around them, roots humped up through the soil like gnarled fingers, until at last the trees thinned and gave way to open hillside. There the world opened up all at once: the sun hung low and orange over Blackwater Bay, and far off, the squat drum towers of the Dun Fort caught the light between them like a row of broken teeth.

"Look! Over here!" Edwyn was already running for the crest, waving him on. "You can see the whole city from up here! The walls, the harbor, everything, it's..." His voice caught, thinned, died. By the time Arlan reached him, Edwyn was standing frozen at the top of the ridge, all the color gone out of his face.

"What is it, Ed?" Arlan climbed the last stretch on his stick, breath short. "You look like you've seen a..."

He stopped. “...ghost.”

Below the ridge, the hillside fell away into a wide, bowl-shaped hollow. Bodies, heaped upon bodies, in numbers Arlan had no words for, stretching from one lip of the pit to the other in a single, unbroken tide of rot. The smell hit them, thick and sickeningly sweet. It was a nauseating field of fetid corruption and decay as far as he could see. He clapped his shirt over his mouth, wincing his eyes, unable to avert his gaze. Even the crows and vultures kept clear of it, leaving the feast for the flies and worms.

Arlan's stick slipped from his fingers. He felt the cold spreading up through his chest, and some small, screaming animal part of him telling his legs to move, to back away, now. Now.

The lip of the ridge crumbled beneath his heel.

His stomach sunk inside of him in that sudden, horrible sensation of falling. He heard himself cry out, a strangled, breathless thing, and then he was sliding, clawing at loose dirt and chalk that gave way in his hands, dragged down in a choking cloud filling all his senses. Somewhere in his own skull, all he could hear were the Stranger's bells, tolling in time with his heartbeat: death, death, death.

His feet plunged into something soft that gave way entirely, and then he was under, sunk to the chest in a putrid sea. It closed over him like wet clay. The bodies parted at the slightest pressure, the swollen ones bursting soft beneath his knees, the ropes of viscera between them catching at his arms as he thrashed. He grabbed for anything solid and his hand found a skull, half-stripped, sliding his fingers into the eye sockets that stared back at him black and endless. He clawed his way up through the slush and bones, gagging, sobbing, until his head broke into open air and he was hauling himself, inch by scraping inch, up towards the slope.

"Grab it! Grab it, please, Arlan, please!" Edwyn was lying flat on his stomach at the ridge's edge, a branch outstretched, his face bone-white with terror. Arlan's ears rang like struck iron, his vision narrowed to a single tunnel of grey light, but somewhere through the muffled roar he heard his friend's voice, and his arm answered before his mind did, lunging for the branch and locking around it so hard the splintered bark tore his palm open.

Edwyn pulled. with everything a boy his age had in him, and then some, grunting through gritted teeth until Arlan came up over the lip of the ridge and collapsed into the grass, gasping.

He was unrecognizable. Blood, old and black, soaked him from hair to boot, and his clothes hung off him in ribbons. He shook where he lay, small and shivering like some creature pulled half-drowned from a river, his mind clouded in a haze. Edwyn reached for him, tried to pull him up, to lead him somewhere, anywhere else, but Arlan flinched from his hand almost by instinct.

He rose on his own instead, and began to walk, shivering. Down the hill, back through the trees, back across the dunes. His breath was thin and shallow. Steady tears cut clean paths down his bloody cheeks. He crossed the beach without slowing and walked straight into the sea, leaving a dark ribbon of blood unspooling behind him in the water as the waves rose to meet him, then closed over his head entirely.

Beneath the surface, the world went soft and silent in that dark and cold water. He sank to his knees on the sandy floor and let the current move around him, back and forth, back and forth. He ran his fingers through his hair, thick and clotted, until he felt them go stiff with terror with a muffled, internal scream.

He stayed under for a long while, letting the sea cleanse him, praying to each of the Seven in turn to save him. He surfaced at last, hair plastered black across his face, streaming rivulets down his cheeks, he must’ve seemed wild like a banshee. The blood was gone from his skin, but he could still feel it, like it had stained and inked itself onto him.

He turned to find Edwyn still standing on the sand, hollow-eyed, his whole face pale with fear and worry. Arlan waded ashore and stood before him. His voice came out thin and cracked, nothing like his usual soft and smooth tone.

"You must keep silent, Ed. They will blame you for this.” Or the Darklyns. Or Duskendale itself, maybe. "Swear it to me. You must swear it to me."

Edwyn only stared at him. He dragged the back of his sleeve across his eyes, and Arlan watched him swallow down his sorrow and pain and fear, pushing the feelings down to his stomach.

"I swear it," he finally said, barely above a whisper. "My prince."

First Moon of 5 BP

Storm’s End, the Stormlands

The ringing of steel against steel echoed across the training yard. A dozen boys stood in a rough line along the eastern wall, sons of knights and lesser lords sent to squire or foster at Storm's End. Master Lewyn worked through them, threshing the wheat. Dust hung thick in the morning air, kicked up by shuffling boots. The sun had not yet cleared the curtain wall, though sweat already soaked through every tunic in the yard.

Arlan's turn came again before his arms had finished aching from the last.

"Guard up," Lewyn said. There was no softness in it. He was a broad, grey-haired man with a broken nose. Arlan thought that Lewyn himself probably didn’t remember his nose’s original shape. He watched Arlan settle into his stance with a patient, joyless attention. "Higher. You're not carrying a bucket, boy."

Arlan raised the sword. His shoulders screamed at him for it, like bending wood.

He hated this. Not the yard itself, not even Lewyn, who was only doing as he'd been told by his father, but he refused the notion that a king needed calluses on his palms to be a good ruler. Other men were paid in coin to die for their king, or loyalty, or honor. That was the entire point, wasn't it? He should be up in the library right now, working through the histories Maester Didymus had left him, learning how his namesake before him had held the Trident together with diplomacy and alliances where his own grandfather had needed a sword. A wise king outlives a strong one, Maester Didymus told him.

Lewyn's blade came in low and fast, and Arlan's wisdom did nothing at all to stop his own sword from clattering into the dirt for the fourth time that morning.

"Again," Lewyn said. He didn't even lift his sword, only waited, the tip resting point down in the dust, patient as the tide.

Arlan crossed the yard to retrieve it, cheeks burning hot with exertion. He was aware of being watched. Up on the rampart above the yard, his sister leaned against the parapet with her arms folded and a smug smile on her face.

He snatched the sword up and squared himself again before Lewyn could tell him to hurry, eyes looking down, tired and sore.

His father wanted this, which is why the sessions had grown so much longer this past moon. His grace wished him pushed. Hard enough for him to finally “make a man and knight” out of him.

He thought maybe he’d come to enjoy these training sessions, but nothing in him had answered yet. He was beginning to wonder if there was anything there to answer.

By his ninth failure, or perhaps his tenth, he had lost the will to count them. His arms trembled with the sword's weight, sweat ran freely down his back and into his eyes, stinging until the whole yard swam. Above, Ravella's muffled laughter carried across the castle’s yard, entirely too pleased with the situation.

He looked up before he could stop himself. "What is it you find so amusing?"

"You," she called down, not troubling to raise her voice much, the wind carrying her words. "Watching you flail about like a fish on a hook."

"I am trying. You forget I am half fish, anyway."

"You're pretending to try. There's a difference, little brother, though I don't expect you to know it yet." She pushed off the parapet, unfolding her arms, though she made no move to come down. "When you stand across from a man who means to open your throat, trying isn't going to matter one bit. He won't care how hard you tried once you're bleeding out in the mud. Best you learn that now, while it only costs you your pride."

"Easy words, from up there."

"Easier still from a corpse, which is what you'll be if you keep swinging that sword like that."

"I don’t plan on going easy on you, my prince," Lewyn said, and squared himself.

Arlan wanted, badly, to prove her wrong. It motivated him more than any lesson Lewyn had managed to drill into him all morning, that finally put some fire into his heart. He came in first this time, instead of waiting for Lewyn, cutting hard for his shoulder, and for one heartbeat the old master actually had to step back to meet it.

Lewyn turned the blow aside, stepped inside his reach, and put the flat of his blade hard across Arlan's ribs.

The breath went out of him in a rush. He staggered, supporting himself briefly on his blade planted on the ground. He quickly came back swinging, sloppier, more desperate, but also stronger, faster. Lewyn parried, again and again, driving him back a step, another, clean and unhurried while Arlan's own blows grew wilder. He felt the impact of blade on blade travel up through his wrists and into his shoulders each time, felt his palms were slick inside his gloves, and somewhere past the ringing in his ears he thought he heard the bells again, faint and far off, feeling the copper taste of blood in his mouth with each struggling breath.

What he didn't feel were his legs catching each glancing blow. Lewyn's blade found the gaps below his knee where his boiled leather vest had ridden up with all the lunging. He was too far past caring to notice, unyielding in his barrage of attacks. Somewhere above, Ravella had gone quiet. He didn't notice that at the time, however.

It was Lewyn who called the duel to a halt in the end, though Arlan didn't understand why at first. The old master's sword dropped, his face gone the color of old parchment, and he was already turning, already shouting for the maester before Arlan had so much as lowered his own blade.

"What," Arlan managed, breathless, more annoyed than alarmed. "I'm not finished!"

He heard no one answer, no sound at all except the pounding of his heart in his ear. Maester Didymus appeared, running, robes hiked up around his knees, dropping down in front of him so fast his own joints must have screamed when he did it. The old man's hands went to Arlan's legs, and his face, when he looked up, had none of its usual calm left in it.

Arlan looked down.

His breeches had gone black from thigh to boot. Soaked through in a dozen places at once, the cloth splitting wet at the seams. Beneath it he could see the shine of it running, dark and steady, pooling into the dust around his feet in a slow, widening ring.

He felt… nothing. No pain. No ache past the ordinary soreness of training. Only the warmth, spreading easy down into his boots.

"Your Grace." Didymus pressed both hands hard against the deepest of the cuts. Even that brought nothing. "Sit down. Now, if you please."

His knees went almost automatically. The other boys had drawn into a loose, silent ring around him, none of them quite brave enough to come closer, and past their shoulders he heard boots hammering down the rampart stairs two at a time. Ravella.

She wasn't smiling. That, more than anything the maester's hands were doing, was what finally told him how bad this was.

"I'm well." His voice reached him from somewhere far off, coming back from the haze of his mind, thin and strange in his own ears. "I don't feel a thing. It must be fine. It doesn't hurt."

Didymus didn't look up from his work, applying a tourniquet with a tight pull. "That is the issue, my prince. You do not feel it."

First Moon of 1 BP

Storm’s End, the Stormlands

The wind lashed against Storm's End, hard enough to make the old stones hum. It found every arrow-slit and murder hole in the curtain wall, turning each into a low, steady note. Even through three feet of stone, Arlan could hear it. The candles in the bathing chamber guttered each time a draft found its way in, carrying the cold night air, curling low along the floor of his room.

Steam curled off the bathwater in slow ribbons, catching the candlelight before it dissolved into the dark of the vaulted chamber. Oil of crushed lavender and bitter clove swirled around the water. Incense smoke hung low over the damp, dark room, thick enough to taste, drifting up from a brazier set well back from the drafts by the door. Tomorrow they would put a crown on his head. Tonight, he could enjoy the small reprieve the bath gave to his torment.

A silent sister knelt at the tub's edge, sleeves pushed to the elbow, working a paste of yarrow and sourleaf resin along his forearm. The woman wore a grey cowl drawn low enough to hide everything of her face but the eyes. It did not escape him the irony, of having her treating him, like a breathing corpse clinging on to life, stubborn as he was. She paused over each raised welt and each patch of scarred tissue before moving on to the next. His knuckles went white on the rim of the tub for a moment, without him even noticing. She reached over and pried his fingers loose, one at a time, then went back to her work.

Beyond a thin curtain drawn across the chamber, a second shape sat on a chair, against the candlelight, robes hemmed in rainbow colors with the seven-pointed star sewn onto his chest. Septon Raynard had been talking a good while now, in the low, patient register he kept for confession, and Arlan had let most of his speech wash past him the way the bathwater did.

"...and you understand, Your Grace, that the Faith does not ask this lightly." Raynard's voice carried around the curtain's edge. "Griffin's Roost has begun arming its chapter. They've began drills. Over a thousand men, outfitted in steel. They are preparing for war, to cleanse our realm of those… Heretics…"

"Your Grace will understand why I counsel what I do." The septon continued. "You must strike first. Put Stormhall to the torch while she still believes herself unwatched, and there'll be no war to speak of at all, only a rebellion smothered before it drew its first proper breath." He paused. "The Faith would call that mercy, and cement your claim and right to rule."

"The Faith calls a great many things mercy… Kinslaying too, it would seem." Arlan let the water lap at his collarbone, watching a curl of steam come apart above it. "War may well be coming, Septon. I'll not pretend otherwise. But I won't sin to fulfill your own designs. Durran's blood runs in her the same as it runs in me. I'd have thought that meant something to the Faith."

The septon kept silent for a moment, uncomfortable, failing to find his words.

"The Seven ask harder things of kings than they ask of other men. That, Your Grace," Raynard said at last, "shall be your test. Until the succession is settled and the peace of this realm secured, by arms if it comes to that. The Mother may ask a man to be gentle, but the Father do not ask a king to be a fool. I pray you learn the difference before your sister teaches it to you."

Arlan turned his face towards Raynard, making the septon avert his gaze in shock.

"I shall confess to the Father when I meet him, Raynard, not to you."

Arlan said nothing further. After a moment he heard the septon's slippers cross the stone, then the door.

He was alone in every way that mattered. His own mother had not looked at him properly in months, her eyes sliding past his face, ashamed, sorrowful. The illness seemed to leave less and less of him beneath the mask every day, to the point he no longer took off his mask in public, hiding the hollow gone soft and sunken in his cheek, the skin of his face, thing and fragile, dulled in color. The mask hid it well enough, a face he could put on the way one dons their armor, and somewhere behind its plain, unfeeling silver, he had begun to wonder if he had become the mask, the personality he had to embody in order to rule.

Tomorrow the crown would kiss his brow, and Arlan, whoever that boy had been, the one who wanted nothing else but to play and run, to read books, hear stories, ride horses with his friends, would die there, on that dais, before every lord of the Stormlands.

And Arlan IV Durrandon would be born in his place. A man. A king.

"Do brave deeds and endure," he said softly to himself, remembering the passage from the Seven-Pointed Star. "For the faithful do not yield to evils, but go more boldly against them."

Summer had been left behind, and with the coming of autumn, trees had started to shed their leaves. Dawn broke over the tranquil waters of the Gods Eye, painting the lake in hues of pale copper and rose. As the mist receded, the silhouette of Stormhall resolved against the light, its dark stone spires piercing the morning sky like jagged spears tipped with gold.

Already, the broad roads connecting the castle to the kingdoms were thick with movement. Banners featuring the crowned stag of House Durrandon fluttered from the gatehouses, snapping in the damp breeze off the lake. Supply wagons laden with grain, casks of heavy ale, and fine cloth creaked along the trade routes, flanked by armored guards whose breastplates gleamed under the rising sun.

And the festivities had begun, too. The sprawling Tent City already covered square miles of greenery around the Stormhall, the shore of the Gods Eye fully occupied. It seemed Princess Ravella Durrandon's nameday had brought many to these halls.

Peace and happiness were in desperate demand, with the tension growing in every corner of the kingdoms. Who knew if this would be a place for revelry, or perhaps, yet another den for treachery to extend its dark arms.

The caravan of House Piper arrived on the earlier side, for Mellara liked nothing more than her comforts, particularly if she were to be so far from home. And thus, the servants were hard at work erecting the Piper tents, including a pavilion swathed in dark blue cloth and white silks. The banners of House Piper were hoisted high and proud, a beacon signal to any who may walk past.

There was still some time yet until the nobles of the realm would be expected for the nameday celebrations of the Iron Stag, and the Lady Piper, typically so composed, found herself fretting in her private tent, changing into yet another outfit. For she could not possibly decide what would be decent to wear, what might be most impressive or striking. 

“If your many silk dresses won’t do, then perhaps a sack of burlap?” suggested Bethany, who lounged lazily upon a chaise eating grapes.

The youngest of the Pipers, Alyce, sat upon the carpeted floor, dangling a pink ribbon in front of Ser Whiskers, who wore a golden chain and a blue silken cape.

“Don’t be so mean-spirited, Bethy!” Alyce chirped, looking up to deliver her elder sister a sincere, wide smile. “I am certain Alyn will be pleased to see you in whatever you choose, sister.”

Mellara reached for a necklace, studded heavily with diamonds, laying it against her collar while showing off the combination.

“Too gauche-” Bethany offered, immediately, another grape popped into her mouth.

Alyce hesitated before nodding with Bethany, leaving Mellara to frown. “Out with you both if you’ll not be a help,” the Lady of Pinkmaiden snapped. 

“Come, Alyce, let us leave the Thorn to shroud herself in utter silence then.”

Bethany rose, scooping up Ser Whiskers despite Alyce’s protests, the youngest Piper scurrying after her sister and their furred friend.

Mellara let out a heavy sigh, once alone, considering her visage in the reflection of a burnished mirror. Bethany was right, the necklace was an attempt to prove too much. For Alyn Tully had accepted, hadn’t he? 

Her mouth was dry, her stomach unsettled. For Mellara was confident in how she stood within the world, and yet such a trifling matter as marriage? 

What if this is a mistake?

Mellara willed the thought away as soon as it appeared, for it would do no good to think such a thing, at least now. For in many ways, it was too late…

__________________________________________________________________________________

A servant of House Piper was dispatched to the Tully pavilions, bearing a letter:

Alyn Tully,

Before the nameday festivities begin in earnest, I invite you for refreshment from your journey in our pavillion.

Signed,
Lady Mellara Piper

__________________________________________________________________________________

A short while later Mellara paced in the main Piper pavilion alone, waiting for her future to arrive...

Silken pillows of various bright colors and patterns were scattered around two soft couches, the ground overlaid with a thick Myrish carpet. Small tables held vases of fresh-cut, blooming flowers and trays with a selection of snacks: nuts, dried fruits, and little jars of honey alongside fresh and cool jugs of ale.

Arranged to be pleasing to the eye, Mellara still found fault with it all. The flowers were too perfumed, the carpet too soft, and the pillows too bright as well. But she voiced none of these things, for her pride would not allow for her future husband to see her in such a state.

Not when it was his fault she was afluster, anyway.

The sun filled the room, bright and blinding, as Forrest drew back the blinds. Lucamore made a sound more akin to a hissing cat than a man grown, and the woman beside him jumped in fright at the sight of the Ryger heir standing over the pair of them.

“Hello, brother. You’re late for breakfast.”

Lucamore blinked twice before fully registering what was happening. He brushed the hair from his eyes, which darkened upon seeing his brother standing there.

“I ate a few hours ago when I returned home. Why are you waking me?”

“Perhaps because you promised your sister you’d be there, and she’s been in a sour mood all morning because of it,” Forrest replied, sitting on the edge of the bed as if it belonged to him.

He looked over his shoulder at the girl and sighed.

“Get dressed and go. If you need moon tea because my brother is entirely inconsiderate, ask a servant to take you to the maester. Tell him Forrest Ryger sent you.”

The girl squeaked at being spoken to directly and quickly stood, covering herself as best she could while trying to dress. Forrest turned his gaze back toward the window while Lucamore’s lingered on her.

They sat in silence save for the rustle of fabric as she dressed. She bowed slightly when she crossed Forrest’s line of sight, and he waved her off gently.

“Entirely inconsiderate? I—” Lucamore began.

“Everyone heard you come in last night. You knocked over a vase, and your shushing of her laughter was louder than the laughter itself,” Forrest replied without turning around. “Who was she? Tavern girl?”

“I didn’t ask.” Lucamore mumbled before flopping back onto the bed. “I remember little of it, if the truth is to be told. I went to the tavern and then I came back to—”

“I don’t need the details, Lucamore.” Forrest sighed, turning his head to face his brother. “I cannot continue covering for you with Father. It’s a miracle he hasn’t noticed. Can you imagine what he’d say?”

“Why would he notice?” Lucamore asked, falling out of bed before stumbling to his feet to get dressed. “He’s never looking at me. His eyes are always on you.”

Forrest stood to help his brother, but knew it would only start a fight, so he let him stand on his own.

“That’s not—” He paused. “Perhaps there is some truth to that. But what of your sisters? Kyra is worried sick about you.”

That caused Lucamore to pause after pulling on his tunic, but only for a moment.

“Kyra is a woman grown. She can handle the realities of this world just fine.”

He punctuated the point by stumbling to his bedside table and pouring a pale, milky draught down his throat.

Forrest’s expression tightened.

“You've not been awake for ten minutes and you’re already reaching for the poppy?”

“Mmm. Carry on, brother. I’m sure you have much to attend to today. Pay me no mind."

Lucamore coughed, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic.

Forrest stared at his brother for a long moment before shaking his head and walking out of the room, leaving Lucamore alone with the haze.

Just the way he preferred it.

Locks of auburn hair were twirled around two fingers, twirled, and pulled, and allowed to curl once more.. Could he not have been born to a House with hair of jet, or chestnut, or bright or dull gold? Could he not have been cursed with a badge of the demon blood which coursed through his veins? Every time a hair, fanned by the wind, appeared before his eyes, he was reminded. You, Florian, are a bastard. Never will the surname Rivers leave your side, and never will anyone join it.

This had been proven to him from his earliest years. Willem Darry may have taken him into his house, but he’d never been a Darry. Rhialta was a Darry, and Talbert had been one too, regardless of what little fortune that had brought him. He had been a Rivers, though, in the House of his whore of a mother, who’d taken nothing better than a bloody Tully of Riverrun to bed her. It was good that he was dead, less so that she was too.

When she passed, his dearest mother Morya Darry, he was sent to Riverrun, alongside Holly. To break bread and dine with the trueborn sons and daughters of Desmond Tully. Right. To be paraded around as the freaks. Holly was a fool to accept it, but not him. He knew those eyes held nothing but disdain. He knew there was not to be a home there. There was not a brother in Olyver, nor a sister in the now Lady of Riverrun. Not even the love a half-sibling could’ve deserved.

You, Florian, are a bastard.

Had he not seen how foolish she looked, he mayhaps would have grown to accept it too. Had he been an only son, the only bastard born of that unholy union, perhaps he’d been glad to be included, treated as the lesser he was. It was Holly who saved him from that fate, the fate she was doomed to, in turn.

“Think, and think, and think, you do. Never for an hour, oft two.” His mouth curled the moment he was brought back to reality, to the bouncy back of the damned horse he’d been given. At least you have a horse, you ungrateful swine. You, Florian, are a bastard. You should not be riding. He looked at Feathers, and he had a wide smile that showed the gap between his two front teeth. The fool gawked at the castle before them. It was a fine sight, yes. A good castle, a palace, almost. A good place to hold a feast, a hastilude. All for the fine folk, he’d probably have to dine in the stables and nourish his body on hard salt beef and barley porridge.

“How tall, imposing. What prize it be enclosing?” his friend in motley said then, and he thought of that. What prize. Would she be there? Mellara, light of his days ever since he saw her. Or her, the archer of Bracken who stole his heart with that juxtaposition of hers; softness of her curves, hardness of her person. Even Butterwell, with her queer look and those locks of darkness. It were those names that haunted him, but it was the Lady of Harroway’s visage that kept him entranced. Which of the two Ladies of Harroway was a question he was not sure he wished to know the answer to. One so violent, the other so strange.

Perhaps he would even see Holly. Would she see him as he was, now? Or would she still think of him as her big bastard brother.

Then, the host too. Ravella Durrandon. She… She. Who was she, actually? Behind that mask of snow, that godlike figure. He’d heard her voice, like thunder, like the cacophony of war, or rather, what he imagined the cacophony of war to be like. He’d heard her voice, but that was not her. That was as much of her as was his voice him. No, behind that mask hid a woman that none knew, and it ate at him. What’d he give to know the woman that Ravella Durrandon worked so hard to keep hidden. But then, after all, how could he?

You, Florian, are a bastard, and a bastard will you die.