A/N: Enjoy the chapter and let me know what you think!
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Year 300 AC
Sunspear, Dorne
"Where is Samwell Tarly?"
The words came out before Aemon had the door fully open. His boots were on, his sword belt crooked on his hips; he corrected it by habit while stepping into the corridor's heat. He needed Sam and Gilly in front of him while he still had the nerve to speak.
Four men stood outside his door. Two Martell guards flanked the left, spears upright, orange cloaks pinned at the shoulder. Two Unsullied held the right. They had not moved since he last saw them, and he was not sure they had blinked.
They had set themselves like an honor guard he had not asked for.
One of the Martell guards dipped his head too far, a bow meant for altars, and caught himself. "We will take you, Your Grace." He said it the way men recited oaths they had only just memorized.
Aemon let them lead because standing in the doorway invited an audience.
The corridor ran along the inner face of the Spear Tower, open on one side to a narrow courtyard where pale mortar dried in streaks across a patched wall. The crack still showed beneath the patch. A wide fracture where the kraken's arm had punched through during the attack. Othell Yarwyck would have torn the whole section down and restarted. This crew had slapped lime over the wound and hoped. It would not hold a second blow. If the harbor wall had taken similar damage, Sunspear's seaward defenses were a courtesy.
A serving woman pressed herself flat against the far wall as he passed. Aemon did not slow.
Farther on, a cart of broken roof tile rattled around the bend. Two boys pushed it with heads down, shoulders straining against the weight. One nearly clipped his shoulder before a guard barked and raised a gauntleted hand.
"Leave them be," Aemon said.
The guard's arm dropped.
"Go on about your business."
The boys muttered thanks and scrambled past with the cart clattering louder in their haste. One glanced back, grey meeting startled brown, and then thought better of it and kept moving.
The guards led him through a covered arcade where Sunspear ran on two tracks at once, a castle and a war camp stitched together with lime dust and bandage linen. Masons were rehinging a shutter that had been torn free. A steward argued with a carter about where to stack timber. For a stretch of twenty paces, nobody looked his way at all. They had shingles to stack and mortar to mix, and a king was less useful than either.
Then the arcade opened into a wider gallery, and it ended.
Arianne Martell was on her feet behind a table spread with harbor tallies and petitioner lists, speaking in clipped Dornish to a mason who held his slate like a shield. Nymeria Sand leaned against the far pillar, turning a blade between her fingers, watching the room and not him. A knot of minor Dornish retainers that Aemon did not recognize stood in conference near a column. One wore a spotted surcoat while the other wore purple and lemons.
The retainers noticed Aemon first. The conversation among them died mid-word. Then the mason looked up from his slate, and the silence spread outward through the gallery like a crack through ice.
Arianne did not look up. She finished her sentence to the mason, set down her quill, and dismissed him with a hand signal. Only then did she turn.
"Your Grace." She pitched her voice to carry, filling the silence before anyone could fill it with panic. "My father usually requires Areo and a longaxe to hush a gallery this effectively. You manage it by breathing."
"Princess Arianne." Aemon inclined his head. "If you would excuse me, I need to speak with Sam and Gilly."
"You need a maester." She stepped out from behind the table and put herself in his path. Not blocking him, just making him decide whether to brush past a princess in front of half her court. Her eyes ran over his hands, then the set of his shoulders. Looking for a tremor, he thought. Something she could use. "You just fought a great battle. Rest is required."
"He stands well enough," Nymeria Sand drawled from the wall. She tapped the flat of her blade against her thigh. "Such a... resilient vessel. Though if he needs to lean, I am softer than the stone."
Aemon ignored the bait. "Princess. Sam and Gilly. Where?"
The amusement drained from Arianne's face. What replaced it was reappraisal.
"The Fountain Court, beneath the tower," she said. "The wet nurse needed shade for the child, and I needed them close until I knew your intentions." She smoothed the parchment on her table. "Let me take you to them, Your Grace. I need this court moving again before the next quarrel starts."
Aemon gestured for her to lead. They went down a short stair, the gallery resuming its noise behind them in cautious murmurs. Nymeria kept three paces behind, close enough to hear and far enough to deny it.
From the stair, he could see where the wall's footing had shifted. Surface work would not fix that. A section of the outer wall had collapsed where it met the arcade, and a crew of laborers were hauling rubble into a line of carts. The harbor beyond it was choked with timber and rigging where the beast had gone down.
Arianne watched him take it in and after a beat, spoke, "When my father heard the Targaryens had returned with dragons, he did not speak for three days. He sat in his chair by the window and had every letter he had written in twenty years brought to him. Then he burned them and started again."
Aemon glanced at her. She had offered that freely, and freely meant it cost her nothing, which meant she wanted to see what he did with it. Mance Rayder had played the same game in a tent beyond the Wall. Give the other man something true. Watch his hands, not his mouth.
He gave her nothing back. "Go on."
"He remade every alliance," Arianne continued. "Dorne was going to crown Viserys. Then Viserys died, and the plan died with him. Then Connington came to us with a boy he called Aegon." Her mouth thinned. "My father looked at the boy, looked at the proof, and sent them both away. He does not bet on mummer's dragons."
A beat.
"Then you landed on our beach and tore a kraken apart with your hands." She glanced at him. "We understand your strength but we Dornish are stubborn. So, what makes you different from the other two Targaryens?"
There it was. The question of a woman who wanted to see how he answered. As a Northman, Aemon could understand that stubbornness.
"The first two asked your father to believe in a name," he said. "I am asking him to look out his window."
Arianne's mouth curved, just slightly.
"How many dead?" he asked.
The curve left her mouth. "Forty-three confirmed. More under the rubble in the weavers' district."
Aemon was quiet for three steps. He did not have gold to offer. He had not come to Sunspear with a war chest. What he had was the fact that without his fire, those forty-three would have been four thousand, and every person walking these corridors knew it.
"I want the names," he said. "Every one. When I hold court, those families will hear them spoken aloud, and they will hear what Dorne is owed for what it lost."
Arianne's stride did not falter, but she looked at him sidelong. Not the test this time. Something closer to surprise.
"Most conquerors call it glory and move on," she said.
"I am not most conquerors. And Dorne did not ask for this fight."
She studied him for another three paces, then faced forward. "No we did not. But, that means we are all the more grateful for your intervention."
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Gilly sat on a bench near the basin with the baby in her arms. Sam stood a few steps off, holding a cloth bundle and a skin of watered milk, keeping his eyes on the space between them and waiting for the first word to go wrong.
When Aemon walked into the court, Gilly lit up. "Jon!" she called, and the name carried across the water loud enough to turn every head in the courtyard. The name she had always used at Castle Black, said without a thought for titles.
Aemon's mouth tightened, then eased. He wanted to mean the smile more than he did. He gave Gilly the look back for a heartbeat, then his attention moved past her to the shade across the court.
Myrcella Baratheon sat in the cooler shadow with Trystane Martell beside her, a light veil pinned to cover the left side of her face. The wind had nudged it aside enough to show what was left. Stitches still tight, scar tissue raised and pink, and the clean gap where her ear should have been.
"She is under Dornish protection," Arianne said. She did not raise her voice, but the words were meant for every ear in the court.
Aemon crossed to Myrcella and lowered himself to one knee, keeping his hands visible on his thigh.
"It has been some time since Winterfell, Princess." He nodded toward the veil. "Who did this?"
"Gerold Dayne," Trystane said, and the words came out with spit. "Darkstar."
Myrcella's fingers tightened around her cup. "He ran away seeing Ser Aero. My horse shied. He missed the neck and took the ear."
"Good." There was no warmth in it. He kept his eyes on Myrcella. "Are you being kept safe now, or are you being kept quiet?"
She looked at him. Nothing dreamy in it. A girl taking stock of a man. "I am safe. Prince Trystane does not let anyone near me with steel."
Her voice thinned. "If you go to King's Landing, Your Grace, what happens to my mother?"
Aemon did not soften. "Cersei is not a subject for this bench," he said. "You are." He let that sit between them, then added, "I will not harm you, Princess. I will not use you to strike at her, and I will not allow anyone to do it in my name."
Myrcella held his look another moment, weighing him, then asked the question she could not keep down. "Are you truly a dragon?"
"Yes," Aemon said. "But I am also a man who uses fire when there is no other way."
Trystane's hand found Myrcella's shoulder. He tried to look calm and failed.
He rose and turned back to Arianne. "Princess. I need a word with Sam and Gilly. Alone."
Arianne held his look, then nodded once. "Clear the court," she told her household. "Trystane. Princess Myrcella. Walk with me."
Myrcella rose before anyone had to prompt her and took Trystane's arm, chin level, hand extended the way Winterfell's septa had drilled into Sansa. The servant gathered her cloth and basin and withdrew without being told. Nymeria stayed a breath longer than anyone else, her eyes moving between Aemon's face and Sam's fear. Then she followed her cousin.
He faced them. Sam had gone grey.
Gilly looked up. The baby squirmed in her arms, fat and healthy.
"Jon," Gilly said, and the name came easy. Then she faltered, frowning at Sam. "Is it Jon? Or Aemon, or do I have to say Yer Grace now?"
Aemon's mouth twitched. "Jon. From you, it stays Jon."
"Good. Jon, Sam says you were that giant dragon that saved us, I still can't believe it! I wanted to say thank you, for all of it. For everything."
Sam made a small sound that might have been a warning.
He could have let her gratitude close the door on what he came to do. He did not.
"It is my duty, Gilly. Though I appreciate your sentiment. But there is something important I wished to speak to you about."
He sat on the bench across from her and clasped his hands between his knees.
"When I was Lord Commander..." he began, and the words sounded armored, stiff with the formality that had kept him upright on the Wall for a year. He could hear it in his own voice.
Gilly nodded, bright and grateful. "You gave us a chance, and they killed you for it. Sam told me. I hope they are —"
"Gilly." The king's cadence fell away. "I wronged you."
The smile died on her lips, fading into a small, bewildered frown.
"Wronged me?" She looked from him to Sam, then back. "I don't... Jon, I don't know what you mean."
Sam stepped forward. "Jon, let me —"
"No, Sam. She needs to hear it from me."
Sam stopped short. His hand clamped to his side.
Aemon kept his eyes on Gilly and spoke it plain.
"Before you left the Wall with Sam, I ordered a swap. The child in your arms is Mance Rayder's son." He made himself keep going, even as Sam's breathing hitched behind him. "Before you think the worst, your son is safe. Val has him now, with the spearwives. In warm rooms with women who know how to keep a child alive. I did that. I chose it. I did it without your leave."
He let the words land. He did not soften them.
"Melisandre needed king's blood for her fires. Mance's son carried it. I was afraid she would burn him."
He met her eyes. "I took your child without asking. I gave you another woman's son and let you believe he was yours. I was afraid. That does not excuse it."
Gilly's face had gone still. She stared at the child in her arms. The baby gurgled, reaching for a fold of her linen.
"Where is he?"
"Winterfell," he said. "That is where I sent him. My younger sister and brother hold Winterfell, so he will be safe."
Gilly's breath caught. "Your sister," she said, trying the word on for size. "And you're telling me that means I can see him again."
Aemon nodded.
"You knew," Gilly said to Sam.
Sam opened his mouth. Closed it. Nodded, a jerk of the head that cost him something visible.
Gilly looked back at Aemon. The baby had begun to fuss, picking up the change in her body. She shifted him higher without looking down. She had done the same thing a hundred times at Castle Black, in rooms colder than this and with less cause to tremble.
"If he is dead," Gilly said, and her voice cracked on the last word but she forced through it, "you have to tell me yourself."
"You will hear it from me," Aemon said.
"Nobody names him but me. Whatever name they gave him at Winterfell, whatever they called him while I was gone. His name is mine to say."
"I accept your terms. All of them."
She studied him, searching for the lie. She had learned to search for those at Craster's Keep, where men's promises meant nothing and the cost was always hers.
"I trusted you, Jon. You are like my br—" She looked at him hard. "If your red woman comes near my son, I gut her myself. Even if I die trying."
Then she rose from the bench with the baby clutched to her chest and walked toward the arcade.
She made it six steps before the tears came. She kept walking, not hiding them.
Sam stood rooted. He looked at Aemon, then at Gilly's retreating back.
"I should have told her," Sam said. His voice cracked. "On the ship. In Oldtown. Every day I should have..."
"Go to her, Sam."
Sam gave him one last look and took off after her.
Aemon sat alone in the Fountain Court, hands clasped, wondering if she would ever forgive him.
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"The weavers' district is still pulling bodies from under the stones," Arianne said. "The harbormaster says the wreckage will take weeks unless we pay extra hands. Ser Daemon and Obara hold the streets, and Ser Jorah has been useful, so we are stable. But I can only keep it that way for a day, two, maybe three." She did not soften it. "After that, grief turns into knives."
Daenerys kept her hands flat on the table. The shutters were drawn against the heat, but the harbor's stink still crept through, tar and salt and something underneath that she did not want to name. In the far corner, Strong Belwas offered the only sound besides Arianne's voice: the wet crunch of fruit as he demolished a bowl of dates.
Prince Doran sat by the window in his wheeled chair, face grey with fatigue, eyes on his daughter. He had not interrupted her once.
"So I am not asking whether Dorne submits," Arianne continued. She stood close enough to her father to speak without raising her voice, and she was speaking to Daenerys, not around her. "I am asking what we tell Dorne to obey while the king is gone, and what we tell the realm when it comes sniffing for weakness."
A pause. Then the line she needed to be able to repeat in her own hall.
"Give me a chain of command, and give me words that do not start a fight between houses that already think they are brave."
Doran answered before the silence could settle. "My daughter is not contradicting herself," he said. "She is naming the danger." His voice did not carry far, but the room leaned toward it. "Sunspear can choose submission and still be torn apart by rumor. If we do not set the terms, other men will do it for us."
He looked past Daenerys to the table. "He already holds the North by loyalty, and the Riverlands by right of rescue. The Vale is listening. If Dorne hesitates, the realm will call it defiance. If Dorne rushes, the realm will call it worship." His mouth tightened. "That is why she asks you, Your Grace. Not for permission. For alignment."
A servant poured wine at Daenerys's elbow. The girl's hands shook. A drop struck the table and she flinched as if she had spilled blood instead of wine.
Dany had seen that look in Meereen. It never led anywhere useful.
"Go on," Daenerys said to Arianne, not the girl. "Tell me what you need."
Tyrion Lannister spoke from the corner, where he had been sitting with his cup and his silence for the better part of an hour. "The Battle of Titans," he said. "That is what the sailors are calling it."
He tipped his head toward the window, toward the water still choked with splintered hulls and bloated tar.
"I saw the Blackwater burn. I watched wildfire eat a fleet until the river ran green." Tyrion swirled his cup. The red wine coated the glass, thick and slow. "That was alchemy. A trick of the chemist." He looked up, and the performance dropped from his face. "But the harbor. The tentacle was thicker than a mainmast. He tore it like wet bread. With hands."
He let the word sit in the center of the table. Hands.
Nymeria Sand peeled herself off the wall. She studied Daenerys with the cold, assessing look of a woman measuring a blade's reach against her own.
"Your dragons are terrifying, Your Grace," Nymeria said, her eyes far away. "But that man is a flying castle."
Daenerys felt a muscle jump in her jaw. She forced it still.
"He handled Rhaegal the way a man handles a hound pup," Tyrion said. He drank, emptying the cup in one long, un-courtly swallow. "By the neck. Lifting him clear."
Aurane Waters whistled through his teeth from the pillar he had claimed. "A dragon with hands. I would pay good silver to see that again from a safer distance."
"And Drogon," Tyrion said, ignoring him, "circled the harbor the entire time. Do not think we do not sympathize with your position, Prince Doran, but you are forgetting they are kin."
Barristan spoke from behind Daenerys's chair without moving from his post.
"I have served this house long enough to learn the truth of it. Dragons did not ruin the Targaryens. Targaryens ruined the Targaryens. When kin turned on kin, the realm bled for it." His voice was quiet and carried the weight of a man who had stood behind too many thrones. "If you and he pull apart, the realm will choose sides again."
No one reached for the wine after that. Except Tyrion.
"We are circling the problem," he said, pouring. "His existence changes what people will do. Some will crown him because they want a savior. Others will reach for a knife because they want to be safe. A third kind will pretend to follow, just to avoid being chosen as the dragon's enemy."
Daenerys met Doran's gaze and held it.
"I understand what you are asking," she said. "You want clarity. You want the realm to see cooperation, not competition." She let the room hear it. "You will have it."
"Aemon and I will work together," Daenerys continued. "He saved Dorne. He saved my dragon. I am not fool enough to resent that, nor fool enough to ignore what he is."
It was true, and the truth sat in her chest like a coal she could not spit out. She had watched a man tear a kraken apart and walk away unconscious and bleeding, and the part of her that had walked through the Red Waste and come out the other side recognized what she was looking at. Someone that could burn her or burn beside her, and she did not yet know which.
Not now.There was a council to finish.
"As for command," she said. "The war against the dead is his to lead. He has fought them and no one in this room can say the same." She looked at Grey Worm. "My Unsullied answer to me. My dragons answer to me. But when the army marches north, it marches under his word. I will not split command against an enemy that does not negotiate."
Tyrion's eyebrow climbed. Missandei's pen moved, scratching quietly from the side table where she had kept her ledger open. Doran inclined his head, just enough to signal approval without submission.
"When it comes to the Iron Throne, the laws, the taxes, the peace," Daenerys said, "… those will be addressed at Harrenhal."
Grey Worm stepped forward. "How do we guard him? Where does he sleep? Who stands his watch? What do we do if someone poisons his wine and he burns the palace down in his death-throes?"
Nymeria Sand pushed off from the pillar where she had been watching Aurane with an attention that made him visibly uncomfortable. "Keep him safe?" she said. "Since when do dragons need guards?"
"This one is asking what this one must know to do this one's duty," Grey Worm replied. He did not look at her.
"There is no need to worry about a healthy dragon," Missandei said, not looking up from her ledger, "when children in the Shadow City bleed."
Tyrion flinched. Not at her tone. At the reminder.
"The wounded need bread," Missandei continued. "The docks need clearing before sickness spreads. If the streets fill with rot, you will lose more people to fever than you lost to the kraken."
Tyrion set his cup down. "Then we are talking about ships, not songs. Hands to haul wreckage, hulls to bring in grain, captains who will sail even when the water stinks, granted all the krakens are gone."
Aurane straightened. "And if they are not? If King Aemon takes his wings north, every captain on this coast will start choosing sides by sunrise. Some will chase his shadow for safety. Some will run."
He tipped his chin toward the harbor. "Give me leave to manage the docks, and you will still have a port when the next shipment arrives."
"The authority is yours," Daenerys said. "But you will share it with Ser Jorah. See that the ships remain."
Nymeria gave a short, humorless breath. "Men may worship storms. It does not stop the storm from breaking houses."
"That is why we are here," Daenerys said. "Planning for what the storm leaves behind."
A silence. Strong Belwas crunched a date pit and spat it into a bowl with bright satisfaction.
Tyrion glanced at him. "A keen strategic mind."
"Belwas fights men," Belwas said cheerfully. "Strong Belwas prefers enemies that bleed when you cut them."
A small laugh tried to start. Aurane caught it and smothered it. Even Nymeria's mouth twitched.
The Maester walking in the room sobered it. Doran gestured, and a maester stepped forward with a stack of scrolls.
"King's Landing," Doran said. "Connington tightens his grip. The city is hungry. Riots in Flea Bottom. Goldcloaks killed seventeen last week."
"And Cersei?" Tyrion asked.
"Below the Red Keep. No public appearance since the Sept burned. There are reports of wildfire stores across the city."
Tyrion's jaw worked. "Reports."
"Reports the Reach could have used," Nymeria murmured, and Doran did not correct her.
"The Reach bleeds," Doran continued. "Coastal raids have cut trade. Oldtown rebuilds slowly. Hightower calls for vengeance. How is Loras Tyrell doing?"
"Healing," Arianne said. She was pacing near the terrace doors, restless with her thoughts. "He takes broth. He sits up."
She stopped, looking out at the water where the kraken had died.
"But he screams if he sees the sea," she said. "He sleeps with a candle burning. If it goes out, he wakes up fighting."
Doran picked up a different scroll. He read it once, then again.
"The evacuation of the North is underway. Free Folk and northern smallfolk moving south of the Neck."
The room went quiet in a different way than before. Political danger was familiar to everyone at this table. What the scroll described was not.
"So we speak of corpses that refuse the grave," Doran said. His voice did not change, but his hand stilled on the arm of his chair. "The lords of the south will listen only when fear makes them."
"For centuries the great houses have laughed at talk of dead men walking," Tyrion said. "They have treated the Watch as a place to dump thieves and sons they did not want." He reached for the carafe and refilled his cup, taking his time. "Now a man turns into a dragon and kills a sea-beast on a beach in full view of half a city. The south does not need proof of grumpkins and snarks. The south needs proof that the world has teeth again." He drank. "I wish I could see Cersei's reaction."
"You don't have to see it to know what follows," Doran said, "Panic."
"I had words with Marwyn concerning the Citadel's archives," Tyrion said. He did not look at the map. He looked at the wine. "The last long winter spanned a generation. Children were born, grew grey, and died without once seeing the sun. It took a Wall of ice seven hundred feet high to check it."
He offered Doran a thin, sharp smile.
"If the south intends to panic, Prince Doran, tell them not to rush. They have years to get it right."
Daenerys stood.
"Send ravens tonight," she said. "To every lord who has not declared. Harrenhal will be the council, and winter will be the question none of them can dodge." She looked to Grey Worm, then Missandei, then Arianne and Doran. "Count grain, ships, horses, and swords. Set food and shelter plans for the refugees. Not tomorrow. Now. And keep the court from turning one man into a faith. We need a coalition, not a shrine."
The council broke apart into motion. Orders, scribes, footsteps, the room turning back into work.
Arianne Martell did not move.
"One final matter," the princess said. She smoothed a crease in her silk, her voice dropping to something private. "Protocol. We saw the dragon land. He rides alone. No guard, no retinue." She looked up, and her eyes were bright. "No wife on the beast's back. Does a queen follow by ship, Your Grace? Or do we set only a single chair at the high table?"
"A single chair?" Daenerys asked.
"Unless the realm has missed a wedding," Arianne said. "If we are to greet him as King of the Seven Kingdoms, we must know if there is a consort to be honored. Or does he stand solitary?"
Tyrion snorted into his cup. "He was Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, Princess. He wore the black. 'I shall take no wife, hold no lands, father no children.' Unless he found a bride amongst the White Walkers, he sleeps alone."
"He was Lord Commander," Arianne corrected softly. "Now he is a Targaryen."
She did not need to finish. A king that was a dragon. A claim. And a vacancy.
Arianne smiled.
"He stands alone," Daenerys said.
"Good to know," the princess said.
Doran spoke from the window, his voice carrying the dry patience of a man who had been listening longer than anyone remembered.
"My daughter tells me that the king's first act upon waking was to ask to speak to Samwell and the wildling girl." He turned a scroll between his fingers. "He was... quite firm about seeing her. Before anything else."
"Why?" Daenerys questioned with a raised brow.
"From what I have gathered," Arianne said, pausing to choose her words with a care that Daenerys did not miss. "the girl is his friend. She served at Castle Black while he was Lord Commander. The maester, the girl, and the child traveled together from the Wall."
A friend.
The tightness in Daenerys's chest loosened, and she hated that it loosened, because it meant the tightness had been there.
Tyrion studied the rim of his cup with sudden fascination.
"If there is nothing else," Daenerys said, and her voice was level again, "I will take my leave."
She turned for the door. Behind her, the council's noise faded into the murmur of a castle deciding what to believe.
She kept walking. She had given them cooperation, command structure, and clarity. What she had kept, and what she suspected Tyrion had already seen her keep, was a reaction she had not been ready to have about a man she had not yet spoken to.
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Stokeworth, Crownlands
Jaime Lannister shifted in the saddle. Stokeworth loomed out of the dark, a squat shadow against a starless sky.
He had expected pickets a mile out. He found none. He had expected a challenge at the outer perimeter. Yet all he found was silence. The sort of quiet that got men killed, the complacency of a castle that thought the war was a story happening to other people.
"Open the gate," Jaime shouted up at the battlements. His voice cracked the stillness.
A torch sputtered to life above the portcullis. A helmet peered over the stone lip.
"Who's that?" The guard sounded bored, perhaps drunk.
"Ser Jaime Lannister."
A pause. Then a scramble of metal on stone, the sound of a bow being dropped, a curse. "Open it! Open the bloody thing!"
The heavy timber groaning upward told Jaime everything he needed to know. Stokeworth was fat. It was soft. It was ripe for the taking, which meant Bronn was either getting lazy or he was baiting a trap.
Jaime rode through the archway, his small escort of fifty men filing in behind him. He didn't dismount immediately. He watched the courtyard. Torches flared, revealing men in Stokeworth livery who looked more like tavern brawlers than soldiers.
A steward rushed out, fumbling with a ring of keys, bowing low enough to sweep the cobbles with his nose.
"Ser Jaime! We were not expecting—Lord Stokeworth is—"
"Eating, I imagine," Jaime said. He swung down from his horse, the landing jarring his teeth. "Or counting coin. Take me to him."
"He is in the solar, my lord. With Lady Lollys and the... the child."
"The child," Jaime repeated. He adjusted his sword belt with his left hand. "Lead on."
He didn't wait for the steward to finish his bowing. He walked toward the keep, his boots loud on the stone.
Bronn did not stand when Jaime entered the solar.
The former sellsword sat at a high table cluttered with the remnants of a feast—capon bones, heels of bread, a flagon of wine. He wore velvet now, a deep green that clashed with his eyes, but he wore it with the casual disdain of a man who knew he could strip it off and kill everyone in the room in under a minute.
"Ser Jaime," Bronn said. He picked a piece of gristle from his teeth with a fingernail. "Or is it Lord Commander? Hard to keep track of which cloak you're soiling these days."
"Just Jaime," he said.
"Just Jaime." Bronn grinned, a flash of white in the dim room. "Sounds like a man who lost his army."
"I have an army," Jaime lied smoothly. "They're marching south. I rode ahead."
"With fifty men?" Bronn poured wine into a silver goblet. "That's not a vanguard. That's a hunting party. And you look like the fox."
Jaime walked to the table. He pulled out a chair with his left hand, the wood screeching against the floor, and sat. He placed the golden hand on the table with a heavy thud.
"I'm not here to trade insults, Bronn. I'm here for swords."
Bronn laughed. It was a dry, rattling sound. "Swords. You Lannisters. Always thinking you can buy iron with promises. I heard about the Sept. Heard your sister decided to redecorate the city with wildfire."
"She did."
"And now you want me to march back into that?" Bronn shook his head. "I like my skin un-melted, thanks. Lollys gets upset when I smell like cooked pork."
"I'm not asking you to march into the fire," Jaime said. "I'm asking you to help me put it out."
Bronn pushed a plate of sliced ham toward him. "Eat. You look like a corpse that's been dragged through a river."
Jaime looked at the meat. His stomach turned, but he took a slice. He needed the strength.
"The castle is well-provisioned," Jaime noted. "Quiet, though. Your sentries were asleep."
"My sentries are dead men if they sleep," Bronn said. "The ones you saw were the decoys. The real boys were in the trees. You passed three archers before you hit the bridge."
Jaime paused, ham halfway to his mouth. He hadn't seen them. He felt a spike of irritation, sharp and hot. He was losing his edge.
"Good," Jaime said. "Then you're ready."
"Ready for what?" Bronn leaned back, crossing his arms. "I'm a lord now, Jaime. I have lands. I have a wife who is... manageable. I have a son."
Jaime chewed slowly. He swallowed. "And what did you name him?"
Bronn's eyes glittered. He took a sip of wine, holding the cup with a delicacy that mocked his rough hands.
"Tyrion."
The name sat between them like a coin on a table.
"A strong name," Jaime said, his voice level. "For a small man."
"He was a big man," Bronn corrected. "Where it counted. And he paid his debts. Which is more than I can say for the rest of your family."
"I'm here to pay a debt," Jaime said. "To the realm."
"The realm?" Bronn snorted. "The realm is a whore that spreads for whoever has the biggest army. Right now, that looks like the Northmen. Or the Dragon Queen. Or whatever the hell is crawling out of the sea in Dorne. Why should I back a one-handed lion with a mad sister?"
"Because the mad sister will burn Stokeworth just to watch the smoke rise," Jaime said. "You think you can sit this out? You think being a lord protects you? Cersei hates you, Bronn. She remembers who you fought for. When she's done with King's Landing, she'll look for kindling. You're barely a day's ride away."
Bronn's smile faded. The mercenary hardness returned, stripping away the lordly affectation.
"So you want me to help you kill her."
"I want you to help me take the city," Jaime said. "Without burning it down."
"And then?"
"And then we survive."
Bronn studied him. He looked at the golden hand, then up to Jaime's face. "You barely know me, Jaime. We drank together a few times. I taught you how to fight with your wrong hand. That don't make us brothers."
"I don't need a brother," Jaime said. "I have one. I need a killer who knows the city."
"I'm expensive."
"Name your price."
"Highgarden," Bronn said instantly.
"You have Stokeworth."
"Stokeworth is a sheep pen with a moat," Bronn said. "Highgarden has gold. And wine that doesn't taste like piss."
"It also has the unhappy distinction of being on the Roseroad," Jaime said. "Which means it's the first thing to burn when the screaming starts."
Bronn sniffed, unimpressed. "You threatening me, Kingslayer? I thought we were past the shakedown."
"I'm not threatening you. I'm telling you the weather report." Jaime leaned back, studying the mercenary's greed. It was simpler than Cersei's madness. "It won't be Lannister men kicking down your door, Bronn. It won't be Tyrells trying to reclaim their seat."
"Who then?"
"A dragon."
Bronn chuckled. He reached for the flagon. "Ah, yes. The tavern tales. Riverlands got a dragon now, they say. Some bastard boy grew wings. I heard another one says he breathes ice. People will believe anything when they're scared."
"It's not a tale," Jaime said.
Bronn stopped pouring. The wine sloshed over the rim of his goblet, staining the white tablecloth. He looked at Jaime, waiting for the punchline.
"I stood in Winterfell," Jaime said. The memory washed over him—the heat, the violet fire, the scales forming on human skin. "And watched Jon Snow turn into a beast the size of Harrenhal, in a raging tornado of fire. His fire is as real as you or me."
Bronn set the flagon down. His hand wasn't shaking, but the movement was too careful.
"If you're pulling my leg," Bronn said quietly, "I'll take the other hand."
"It's not a joke." Jaime leaned forward. "He's real. He's a Targaryen. And he's coming south."
Bronn stared at him. The humor drained out of his face, leaving it grey and old. He looked at the window, as if expecting to see a shadow blot out the stars.
"Seven hells," Bronn whispered. "I thought... I thought it was just talk."
"It's never just talk," Jaime said. "Not anym—."
A sudden noise made them both jump.
Thump.
Something heavy hit the wooden shutter of the solar window.
Bronn's hand flew to the dagger at his belt. Jaime spun in his chair, his left hand dropping to his sword hilt.
The shutter creaked. The latch rattled.
Then, with a force that shouldn't have been possible for a bird, the shutter blew inward. A gust of cold wind swept the room, extinguishing half the candles.
A raven landed on the table.
Bronn drew his dagger to shoo the crow.
"Hold!" Jaime barked.
Jaime didn't move. He felt a cold sweat prickle on his neck. "Bran?"
The raven turned its head. It looked directly at Jaime. It opened its beak, and a voice—human, flat, and terribly young—came out.
"Sleep a few hours," the bird croaked. "Leave before dawn."
Bronn scrambled backward, his chair toppling over. "What in the seven hells is that?!"
"Why?" Jaime asked. The word felt inadequate.
The bird hopped closer to the wine puddle. "Because the ink is dry," it said. "Because she lights the candles soon."
Bronn was pressed against the wall, his dagger out, looking between Jaime and the bird like a trapped animal. "It's talking. The bloody bird is talking."
"Where is he?" Jaime asked the raven. "The King."
The bird shifted its gaze to the window, toward the south.
"Dorne," the bird said. "Kraken on the sand. Dead."
"Is he coming north?" Jaime pressed. "Is he coming for the capital?"
"He cannot come," the bird answered. "Not yet."
"So we're alone," Jaime said.
"You are never alone," the bird said. "The shadows walk with you."
The raven looked at Bronn. It stared at him until the sellsword lowered his dagger, his face pale.
"Do not fight the fire," the bird told Bronn. "Fight the woman."
Then, without a sound, the raven launched itself into the air. It flew out the open window and vanished into the night.
Bronn slowly picked up his chair. He set it upright. He looked at the wine stain on the table, then at Jaime.
"I don't fight gods," Bronn said. His voice was steady, but tight. "I don't fight magic birds. I fight men who bleed."
"Then come fight the men who think gods make them brave," Jaime said. "Cersei thinks she's a god now. She thinks fire makes her holy."
Bronn rubbed his face with his hand. He looked tired. "If I come... no heroics. We take the city, we kill the guards, we secure the gold. If a dragon shows up, I'm gone. If the dead start walking, I'm gone."
"Agreed," Jaime said.
"And I keep Stokeworth."
"If we live," Jaime said, "you can have the bloody moon for all I care."
Bronn poured himself a fresh cup of wine. He drank it in one swallow. "Dawn, the bird said. Better get some sleep, Kingslayer. Sounds like tomorrow's going to be a shitshow."
Jaime stood. "It usually is."
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