In the second year of Ronan's life, the snows came early to the Vale.
The winds that swept from the mountains sang mournful songs through the halls of Runestone, and Lady Rhea's hearth burned longer than ever before.
Yet even as the flames danced upon her family's walls, no warmth could drive out the chill that had settled upon the realm.
Word came from King's Landing that the youngest child of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, sweet Princess Gael, had cast herself into the sea.
She had been called the Winter Child, gentle of heart and fair of face, and her death struck even the hardiest knights dumb with pity.
Some say it was summer fever, or just winter fever.
But the tale spread quickly... of how a wandering singer had won her love, how she had borne his bastard stillborn, and how grief had driven her to her end.
When Lady Rhea heard it, she went silent for a long while.
She knew too well the whispers that followed a woman shamed by "love" and scorned by those who do not know the truth of it all.
Though Gael's sorrow had drowned her, Rhea lived still... bound to the same dishonor by a husband's denial and a realm's indifference.
"A child born in wedlock and yet named a bastard." She murmured once, holding her son close.
As if the weight of that word might snuff out his life as surely as the sea had claimed the princess.
Though she wondered, if Princess Gael's babe lived, how would the Targaryens treat said child of the Winter Child?
Would it be the same as Ronan's fate? Or something different?
Accordingly, in the wake of Gael's death came another loss... Septon Barth, the Hand of the King, passed peacefully in his sleep.
To many, it was a mercy. To those who knew the old man's worth, it was a doom.
The wise septon had ever been the voice of reason beside the Iron Throne... tempering dragons with faith and fire with sense.
With his death, the realm lost not only its Hand but its conscience.
The Old King, stricken by grief from Gael's death and that following loss of the Septon... named Ser Ryam Redwyne to take Barth's place.
A Kingsguard and knight of great honor and renown, yet no man known for books or policy.
To those in Runestone, the choice was of little concern, but in the great tapestry of the realm, it marked an array of frayings that happened during Jaehaerys's later reign.
Which was a worrisome development...
But still, the realm went on...
Within Runestone's bronze walls, young Ronan began to take his first steps.
His babble echoed through the halls that had so long known only silence, and for a time, Lady Rhea smiled again.
He had his mother's strength of gaze, and though his hair stayed black as jet, his eyes gleamed with a strange grey... flecked faintly with violet when caught by torchlight.
The maester took note of it more than once, but dared not speak the thought aloud.
To the smallfolk, the boy was known simply as Ronan Stone.
The name clung to him as the winter winds clung to the cliffs.
To Lady Rhea, he was Ronan Royce, son of her body and heir to her blood, though only a few would say it so.
Even if said babe should still not be cognizant... she taught him words of the Vale, the runes of her house, and the old songs that told of bronze knights who cowered to no dragon... even if the latter was but a wish.
Beyond the mountains, the realm wept for a dead princess and a fallen septon. In their mourning, no one cared to hear of a boy in the Vale... half-dragon, half-warrior of bronze, and wholly unwanted by the royal line that had sired him.
Yet the mountains remembered, and the runes endured.
Thus passed the second year of Ronan's life, in a world where his truth found no ear... and his blood no honor... all the while that the king's peace began to wane and sorrow swept through the Targaryen line...