"How do you do it?" Laenor asked finally. "How do you keep going when everything's wrong? When you have to pretend to be something you're not?"
The question hit Harry like a physical blow.
*How do you keep going?*
He'd been asking himself that for seventeen years. Hadn't found a good answer yet.
"You don't," Harry said quietly. "Not really. You just... wake up the next day. And the day after that. Because the alternative is—"
*Stepping through the Veil. Trying to end it. And ending up here instead.*
"The alternative is worse," he finished lamely.
Laenor wiped his face roughly. "Is it? Worse than standing in that Sept in three days and swearing vows to someone I don't love? Worse than pretending Joffrey never existed? Worse than living this *lie* for the rest of my life?"
Harry thought about seventeen years of talking to ghosts. Seventeen years of searching through ruins for survivors who didn't exist. Seventeen years of slowly losing his mind in the silence.
"Yes," he said with absolute certainty. "It's worse."
Laenor looked at him for a long moment, something shifting in his expression. "You sound like you know."
*More than you could possibly understand.*
"I've lost people," Harry said carefully. "Everyone loses people. The question isn't whether it gets better. It's whether you can find something—anything—worth staying alive for."
"And have you?" Laenor asked. "Found something worth it?"
Harry looked down at his borrowed hands. Thought about the Deathly Hallows humming with power. Thought about the strange new world outside this tent, full of dragons and politics and people who thought they knew him.
Thought about violet eyes full of tears, calling his name—*Harwin's* name.
"I don't know yet," he admitted. "Ask me in three days."
Laenor let out a sound between a laugh and a sob. "Three days. Gods, three days." He stood on shaking legs. "I should go back. My father will be looking for me. And the Princess—she'll want to know what happened."
He moved toward the tent flap, then paused. "Ser Harwin? Whatever happens... thank you. For trying to stop Cole. For caring that Joff died. That's more than most would do."
He slipped through the tent flap before Harry could respond, leaving him alone with a stranger's face in a bronze mirror.
Harry turned back to his reflection. The light green eyes stared back at him, haunted and lost.
*What am I supposed to do?* he asked the stranger silently. *I don't know how to be you. Don't know your world or your life or the people you love.*
No answer. Just the distant sound of chaos from the tourney grounds and the weight of three impossible artifacts that had followed him across dimensions.
Harry reached up and pulled the leather tie from his hair. Dark curls spilled around his face, wild and untamed. In the mirror, he looked even more dangerous—like some barbarian prince from a legend.
*Not my face. Not my hair. Not my life.*
But it was all he had now.
Through the mental connection he could barely understand, Harry felt Harwin's consciousness—still there, still aware, watching in horror as a stranger piloted his body. The other man's emotions were a chaotic storm: confusion, terror, fury, and underneath it all, desperate love for a princess Harry had never met.
*I'm sorry,* Harry thought to him again. *I don't know how to fix this. Don't know how to give you back control.*
If Harwin responded, Harry couldn't hear it. Just felt the roiling confusion, like trying to communicate with someone through thick glass.
*Maybe if I figure out how I got here, I can figure out how to reverse it,* Harry thought. *Give Harwin his body back. Go... somewhere else. Anywhere else.*
But even as he thought it, he knew it was a lie. He had no idea how the Veil worked, no idea what magic had brought him here or how to undo it. For all he knew, Harwin's consciousness would fade eventually, leaving Harry truly alone in this borrowed body.
The thought made him sick.
*I didn't want this,* he thought desperately. *I just wanted to die. Or find them. Or—*
A commotion outside the tent. Raised voices. Someone arguing with the guards.
"I don't *care* if he wants privacy! Let me through or I'll have you all replaced!"
A woman's voice. Young, imperious, with the kind of authority that expected to be obeyed.
*Rhaenyra.*
Harry's—Harwin's—heart lurched painfully in his chest. The borrowed emotions surged: love, fear, desperate need to protect her, to hold her, to—
*Stop. Those aren't my feelings.*
But try as he might, Harry couldn't completely separate himself from Harwin's emotions. They bled together, mixing until he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
"Princess, please, the Lord Commander gave orders—"
"And I'm giving *new* orders. Move. *Now*."
The tent flap swept open, and Rhaenyra Targaryen stormed inside.
She was breathtaking. There was no other word for it. Silver-gold hair still elaborately braided despite the chaos, violet eyes blazing with emotion. She wore a gown of black and red silk that looked expensive enough to feed a village, and carried herself with the unconscious grace of someone born to rule.
She was also nineteen years old and looked terrified.
"Harwin," she said, and her voice cracked. "Gods, Harwin, what *happened*? I saw you—saw what you did to Ser Criston—and then you just *left* and—"
She crossed the distance between them in three quick steps and threw her arms around him.
Harry stood frozen. Harwin's body knew what to do—arms coming up automatically to hold her, muscle memory taking over. But Harry's mind recoiled from the intimacy, from the desperate way she pressed against him, from the fact that this girl thought she knew him and she was *wrong*.
*This isn't me. I'm not Harwin. I don't know you.*
"Are you hurt?" Rhaenyra pulled back, hands running over his chest and arms, checking for injuries with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done this before. "You're covered in blood—gods, so much blood—"
"It's not mine," Harry said automatically. His voice came out flat. Wrong.
Rhaenyra's hands stilled. She looked up at him, really *looked*, and something flickered across her face. Confusion. Uncertainty.
"Harwin?" She said his name like a question now. "You're... you're different. What's wrong?"
*Everything. I'm not who you think I am. I'm a dead man from a dead world wearing your lover's face like a costume and I don't know how to tell you that.*
But he couldn't say that. Could barely process it himself. And looking into those violet eyes—so full of genuine concern, so trusting—Harry felt something break inside him.
"Someone died," he said instead. "That boy. Joffrey. Cole beat him to death and no one stopped it."
"I know." Rhaenyra's voice broke. "I *saw*. Gods, I saw it all and I couldn't—I was in the royal box and I couldn't do anything, couldn't stop it—" She pressed her hands to her face. "Poor Laenor. Poor, sweet Joffrey. And Cole just—"
She looked up at Harry again, and there was steel beneath the tears. "What you did to him. I'm glad. He *killed* someone, Harwin. Murdered Joffrey and would have murdered you if you hadn't stopped him."
*Would he?* Harry wondered. Harwin's fragmented memories suggested Cole had been going for the killing blow, but the context was murky. Politics Harry didn't understand. Rivalries he couldn't piece together.
"I don't understand what's happening," Harry admitted quietly. "Why Cole did what he did. Why everyone just... watched."
Rhaenyra blinked, clearly not expecting that response. "Because of my stepmother. Cole is *hers*—her sworn sword, her creature. And Joffrey was—" She stopped, biting her lip. "It's complicated. Court politics. The alliance with House Velaryon. Alicent fears my power, fears what my marriage to Laenor means."
She said it like it should all make sense. Like Harry—like *Harwin*—should understand these dynamics instinctively.
But Harry didn't. He had fragments of Harwin's memories but no context. No framework to fit them into. He was blind, stumbling through a political landscape he couldn't see.
"I need you to explain it to me," Harry said. "All of it. Like I've forgotten. Like I'm—" *Like I'm someone else entirely.* "Like I took a blow to the head and everything's confused."
Rhaenyra stared at him. "Harwin, what are you talking about? You *know* all this. You've been at court for years. You're the Lord Commander of the City Watch, my father's Hand's son—"
"Humor me," Harry interrupted. "Please. Just... tell me what's happening. Why Cole wanted me dead. Why Joffrey died. What this wedding means."
Rhaenyra's expression shifted from confusion to concern. She reached up, touching his face gently. "Did Cole hit you? Did you strike your head in the melee?"
*Yes,* Harry wanted to say. *Let's go with that. Much easier than explaining I'm a time-displaced wizard from another universe who accidentally stole your boyfriend's body.*
"Maybe," he said instead. "Everything's... foggy. Just explain it to me. Please."
Rhaenyra studied him for a long moment, violet eyes searching his face. Then she sighed, taking his hands and guiding him to sit on one of the camp chairs. She knelt in front of him, still holding his hands, and began to speak.
"My father named me his heir when I was fourteen," she said quietly. "After my mother died birthing a son who didn't survive. The lords all swore oaths to uphold my succession. But then my father remarried. Married Alicent Hightower, my former friend, who was barely older than me."
Her hands tightened on Harry's. "Alicent gave him sons. Aegon, then Aemond, then Daeron. And now there are those at court who say a son should inherit before a daughter. That my father's new sons have a better claim than I do."
Harry started to piece it together. "So Alicent wants her son on the throne."
"Yes. And she knows that as long as I have powerful allies, she can't simply set me aside. So she undermines me. Uses her creatures—like Cole—to chip away at my support." Rhaenyra's voice hardened. "Cole loved me once. Did you know that? Years ago, he thought... well. It doesn't matter. I chose duty over his affections, and he's hated me for it ever since."
*Rejected lover turned enemy. Lovely.*
"And Joffrey?"
"Was Laenor's closest companion." Rhaenyra's expression turned pained. "Laenor and I are marrying to unite our houses. My father's blood with the blood of the Sea Snake, the richest man in the realm. It's a powerful alliance. But everyone knows that Laenor and I don't love each other. That we have... other attachments."
She looked up at Harry meaningfully, and Harwin's emotions surged again—love, possessiveness, fear.
*Oh. Oh, gods. She means me. Harwin was her 'other attachment.'*
"Joffrey approached Cole today," Rhaenyra continued. "I didn't hear what was said, but witnesses told me he was warning Cole to keep certain secrets. To protect Laenor's privacy. Cole must have seen it as a threat. Or an opportunity to strike at our alliance through Laenor's grief."
"So he murdered him," Harry said flatly. "To hurt Laenor. To weaken your political position."
"Yes." Rhaenyra's voice was bitter. "And it might work. Laenor is devastated. I don't know if he'll be able to go through with the wedding now. And if he doesn't..." She trailed off, but Harry could imagine. Political chaos. The alliance shattered. Alicent's faction strengthened.
"That's why you can't show weakness," Rhaenyra said urgently. "Why you can't seem strange or compromised. My stepmother will use anything against us. If she thinks Cole's attack affected you, made you unreliable—"
"She'll use it," Harry finished. Because that, at least, was universal. Political vultures circling wounded prey.
"Yes." Rhaenyra stood, her hands still holding his. "I need you, Harwin. Need you clear-headed and strong. You're one of the few people I can trust completely in this viper's nest of a court. Promise me you're all right. That whatever happened today won't—"
She stopped, studying his face again. "You really are different. I can see it in your eyes. Something's changed."
*You have no idea.*
Harry looked at this girl-princess, barely out of childhood, already drowning in political machinations and death. Trusted by someone whose body he'd stolen. Expected to be someone he wasn't.
He could tell her the truth. Could explain that Harwin was gone, replaced by a stranger. Could ask her to help him figure out what happened, how to fix it.
But what would that accomplish? She'd think he was mad. Or she'd believe him and be horrified. Either way, Harwin's—*his*—usefulness to her would end. And from what he understood, she needed allies desperately.
*Besides,* a dark voice whispered in his mind, *where else are you going to go? You're in a strange world with no understanding of how it works. At least here, you have Harwin's position. His resources. His connections.*
*At least here, you're not alone.*
"I'm all right," Harry lied. "Just shaken. Seeing someone die like that. It brought back... memories."
*Of watching everyone I ever loved turn to ash.*
Rhaenyra's expression softened. "I forget sometimes that you've seen violence before. Real violence, not the sanitized courtly version. The City Watch deals with terrible things."
She reached up, cupping his face gently. "I'm sorry you had to witness that. And I'm sorry I can't make it better. But I need you with me, Harwin. These next few days—these next few *years*—they're going to be dangerous. My father is dying. When he passes, Alicent will move against me. I know she will. And I'll need strong men at my side. Men I can trust."
*Men like Harwin Strong,* Harry thought. *Not men like me.*
But looking into her eyes, seeing the genuine need there, Harry made a decision.
He couldn't go back to his world. Couldn't undo what had happened. Couldn't restore Harwin to his body, at least not yet.
But he could protect this girl. Could use Harwin's position and his own power to keep her safe from the political vultures circling her.
*It's what Harwin would want,* he told himself. *And it's what I do. Protect people. Even when they don't know they need protecting.*
Even when he failed more often than he succeeded.
"I'm with you," Harry said. And meant it, at least partially. "Whatever's coming. I'm with you."
Rhaenyra's smile was radiant. She stood on her toes and kissed him.
Harry stood frozen for a heartbeat—this was wrong, she thought he was someone else, he was lying to her—but then Harwin's body took over, muscle memory and instinct responding even as Harry's mind screamed that this wasn't right.
Her lips were soft and warm and *real*. Not a ghost. Not a shade. Not a memory of something lost.
*Alive.*
For the first time in seventeen years, Harry was touching someone who was *alive*.
When they finally broke apart, both breathing hard, Rhaenyra looked up at him with something like wonder.
"I thought I'd lost you," she whispered. "When Cole was standing over you, morningstar raised, I thought—" Her voice cracked. "I can't lose you, Harwin. You're one of the few real things in this entire cursed court."
*I'm not real,* Harry wanted to say. *I'm a ghost wearing your lover's face.*
But he didn't. Just held her, feeling her warmth against him, and tried not to think about how many lies he was telling.
"The wedding is in three days," Rhaenyra said against his chest. "After that, everything changes. We'll have to be more careful. Much more careful. But we'll find ways. I promise."
Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Harwin's emotions were overwhelming—love for this girl, desperate need to protect her, fear of losing her. They crashed over Harry like waves, and he didn't know how to separate them from his own feelings.
*Or maybe they're the same now,* he thought distantly. *Maybe I'm becoming him, or he's becoming me, and soon there won't be a difference.*
The thought terrified him.
"You should go back," Harry said quietly. "Before people talk. Before your stepmother makes it into something it isn't."
Rhaenyra pulled back, studying his face. "Are you sure you're all right? You seem... I don't know. Distant."
"I'm fine," Harry lied again. "Just tired. It's been a long day."
*The understatement of two lifetimes.*
Rhaenyra nodded reluctantly. She kissed him once more, quick and fierce, then moved toward the tent flap.
At the entrance, she paused. "Harwin? Whatever darkness you're fighting right now—and I can see it in your eyes, don't think I can't—you don't have to fight it alone. I'm here. Always."
Then she was gone, leaving Harry alone with a stranger's face and a dead man's obligations.
Harry turned back to the bronze mirror. The light green eyes stared back at him, no less haunted than before.
*What have I done?* he asked his reflection silently.
Stolen a body. Lied to a princess. Committed to protecting someone in a political situation he didn't understand, in a world he knew nothing about.
*Same as always,* the dark voice whispered. *Stumbling into situations you're not prepared for. Making promises you can't keep. Getting people killed.*
"Shut up," Harry muttered.
The Elder Wand pulsed against his spine, warm and insistent. The Resurrection Stone hummed from his sword's pommel. The Invisibility Cloak rippled around him, barely visible.
The Deathly Hallows. Master of Death.
*Maybe,* Harry thought slowly, *I can use them. Use this power I've been given. Learn about this world, understand its magic, and actually make a difference this time.*
*Maybe I can save these people where I couldn't save my own.*
It was a fool's hope. Harry knew that. Knew he had a talent for making things worse, for being too late, too slow, too weak when it mattered.
But it was all he had.
*Three days,* he thought. *Three days until the wedding. Three days to figure out what I'm doing here and how to survive it.*
Three days to decide if he was going to try to find a way back to his body, or if he was going to commit to this stolen life.
*Three days to figure out if I'm Harry Potter or Harwin Strong.*
*Or something in between.*
Harry reached up and tied his hair back again, dark curls confined by leather. In the mirror, he looked slightly more civilized. Still dangerous. Still a stranger.
But maybe, just maybe, someone who could do some good.
*For what it's worth, Harwin,* Harry thought to the consciousness still trapped in the back of his mind, *I'll try to protect her. Try to be the man she thinks you are. It's the least I can do.*
If Harwin heard him, there was no response. Just the distant sense of roiling confusion and fury.
*I really am sorry,* Harry thought. *But I don't know how to fix this.*
Outside, the tourney continued. Politicians plotted. Alicent schemed. Cole recovered under the maesters' care.
And in this tent, Harry Potter—last wizard of a dead world, Master of Death, accidental body thief—tried to figure out what happened next.
*One day at a time,* he told himself. *Just like before. One day at a time until I understand what's happening.*
*And try not to get anyone else killed in the process.*
Given his track record, that last part was going to be the hardest.
But at least this time, he wasn't alone.
He had the Hallows. He had Harwin's memories, fragmented though they were. He had a position of power and resources.
And he had a princess who trusted him completely, even though she had no idea who he really was.
*It'll have to be enough,* Harry thought grimly.
Because it was all he had.
The Master of Death, standing at the crossroads of someone else's fate.
Time to see if he could do better this time around.
—
# Meanwhile
The royal pavilion was thick with tension, the air practically crackling with unspoken accusations and barely restrained fury. Torches cast dancing shadows across the silk walls, making everyone look slightly demonic—though in some cases, Grand Maester Mellos thought wearily, that might not be entirely due to the lighting.
King Viserys sat slumped in his cushioned chair, looking ten years older than he had that morning. The left side of his face, ravaged by the slow creeping rot that was consuming him, seemed worse in the flickering light. His crown sat slightly askew, and no one had dared to straighten it.
Queen Alicent stood beside him, rigid as a statue, her hands clasped so tightly her knuckles had gone white. She still wore her green gown from the celebrations, but it was rumpled now, stained with what might have been wine or blood—Mellos wasn't certain which.
Lord Corlys Velaryon sat across from them, his weathered face carved from granite, silver hair gleaming in the torchlight. Beside him, Princess Rhaenys—the Queen Who Never Was—watched the proceedings with the sharp eyes of a woman who'd survived decades of court politics and knew exactly what she was seeing.
Princess Rhaenyra stood near the entrance, still beautiful despite the tear tracks on her face, her black and red gown a defiant declaration of loyalty to her father's house. Behind her, Lord Lyonel Strong stood with the resigned expression of a man watching his son walk into a headsman's axe.
And Laenor—poor, broken Laenor—sat beside his mother, staring at nothing, his silver hair hanging limp around a face that had aged a lifetime in a single afternoon.
Mellos cleared his throat, drawing all eyes to him. He was too old for this. Too old for the politics and the accusations and the endless grinding of noble egos against each other.
"Your Grace," he said, bowing to Viserys. "I have examined Ser Criston Cole and assessed his injuries."
"And?" Alicent's voice was sharp as broken glass. "Will he live?"
*More's the pity,* Mellos thought but didn't say. The Kingsguard knight had beaten a young man to death in what should have been a celebratory tourney. The Grand Maester had little sympathy for him.
"He will live," Mellos confirmed. "Though his recovery will be lengthy and painful. His right arm is broken in three places—the elbow joint particularly badly damaged. It may never regain full function. His jaw is fractured and will need to be wired shut for several weeks. He's lost six teeth. His nose is shattered. Both eye sockets are severely bruised, though the eyes themselves appear undamaged. Three ribs are cracked. And he has a concussion."
The Grand Maester paused, then added with what might have been the faintest hint of satisfaction, "Ser Harwin Strong is quite strong indeed."
"This is unacceptable!" Alicent's voice rose to a shriek. "A knight of the Kingsguard, beaten like a common criminal! Ser Harwin must be punished! Imprisoned! He assaulted a member of the Kingsguard—that alone is treason!"
"He was defending himself," Rhaenyra said coldly. "Cole was about to kill him."
"Lies!" Alicent whirled on her. "Ser Criston would never—"
"Ser Criston just murdered Ser Joffrey Lonmouth in front of hundreds of witnesses," Rhaenyra interrupted. "Or did you forget that part?"
"It was a *tourney melee*!" Alicent's face flushed red. "Men die in tourneys! It's the risk they take when they—"
"The boy *yielded*." Lord Corlys's voice cut through the argument like a blade. "Multiple witnesses confirmed it. Ser Joffrey yielded, disarmed himself, and Ser Criston continued to beat him until his skull caved in."
The Sea Snake's weathered face was carved from stone. "That is not a tourney death. That is *murder*."
"Cole was defending the honor of—" Alicent started.
"Defending *whose* honor, exactly?" Princess Rhaenys spoke for the first time, her voice deceptively mild. "What honor required the death of a young knight who had already yielded?"
Alicent's mouth snapped shut. Her eyes darted to Viserys, silently begging him to intervene, but the king looked too exhausted to speak.
"Ser Joffrey was a good man," Laenor said quietly. Everyone turned to look at him. His voice was hollow, dead. "He never hurt anyone. Never sought glory or conflict. He just wanted to serve his house and—" His voice cracked. "And live his life in peace."
"I'm sorry for your loss, Ser Laenor," Lyonel Strong said carefully. "But perhaps we should discuss what happens next. My son's actions were... extreme. I don't condone what he did, but—"
"Don't you?" Rhaenys interrupted, her sharp eyes fixing on the Hand. "Your son saw a knight of the Kingsguard murder a yielded man, then turn his weapon on another victim. What would you have had him do? Stand aside and let Cole commit a second murder?"
"Ser Criston wasn't going to—" Alicent started.
"He was standing over Ser Harwin with his morningstar raised," Rhaenys continued remorselessly. "Ser Harwin was on his knees, disarmed. What innocent explanation is there for that, Your Grace?"
The title—*Your Grace* rather than *my queen*—was a deliberate insult. Rhaenys had never acknowledged Alicent as her queen, never would. She'd been passed over for the throne herself, after all. She knew exactly how succession politics worked.
"Cole was... overcome with battle fury," Alicent tried. "He didn't realize—"
"He realized enough to single out Ser Joffrey," Corlys said flatly. "I spoke to several knights who were in the melee. They said Cole made directly for the Lonmouth boy. Targeted him specifically. Beat him long past the point where any reasonable man would have stopped."
He leaned forward, and there was something dangerous in his weathered face. "My son is marrying your stepdaughter in three days, Your Grace. This alliance between our houses is supposed to bring peace and prosperity. Instead, my son's closest companion—a man who was to be part of our household—was murdered at his own wedding celebration. And you want to punish the man who tried to stop it?"
"Ser Criston is a knight of the Kingsguard!" Alicent's voice was desperate now. "The beating he received was excessive! Criminal! Surely you can see—"
"I see," Rhaenys said quietly, "that you are more concerned with your sworn sword's broken bones than with the young man lying dead in the sand. Tell me, Your Grace—which crime troubles you more? The murder of an innocent knight, or the wounding of the man who committed that murder?"
Silence fell across the pavilion.
Viserys finally stirred, pressing a hand to his diseased face. "This is madness," he muttered. "This whole day is madness. Joffrey Lonmouth is dead. Criston Cole is gravely injured. And we're supposed to have a *wedding* in three days."
He looked at Laenor. "Can you... are you able to proceed with the ceremony? I know this is a terrible time, but the alliance—"
"I'll do my duty," Laenor said hollowly. "As I always have."
Rhaenyra's face twisted with sympathy and guilt, but she said nothing.
"As for Ser Harwin," Viserys continued, "what would you have me do? He stopped Cole from—well, from whatever Cole was about to do. But the manner in which he did so was..." He trailed off helplessly.
"Effective," Corlys supplied.
"Brutal," Alicent countered.
"Proportionate," Rhaenys said firmly. "Cole murdered a man with his bare hands and a weapon. Ser Harwin stopped him using similar means. Where is the injustice in that?"
"The injustice," Alicent said through gritted teeth, "is that a common-born upstart—"
"Lord Commander of the City Watch," Lyonel interjected quietly. "Son of the Hand of the King. Heir to Harrenhal. Hardly common-born, Your Grace."
Alicent's flush deepened. She'd overstepped, and everyone knew it.
"Regardless of his birth," she said stiffly, "Ser Harwin assaulted a member of the Kingsguard. There must be consequences. Otherwise, what message does it send? That anyone can attack the king's protectors with impunity?"
"The message it sends," Rhaenys said coldly, "is that the king's protectors are not above the law. That they cannot murder yielded men and expect to face no resistance."
She stood, and despite her relatively small stature, she seemed to fill the pavilion. "You want to punish Ser Harwin Strong? Very well. But if he is to be punished for defending himself against a man who had just committed murder, then surely Ser Criston Cole must be punished for the murder itself."
"Cole was—" Alicent started.
"What?" Rhaenys's voice cracked like a whip. "Defending himself? The boy was yielded and disarmed! What was Cole defending himself against? The threat of mercy?"
She turned to Viserys. "Your Grace, you are the king. You must decide: Is this realm one of laws, or one of favoritism? If Ser Harwin is to be punished for stopping a murder, then the murderer himself must face justice first. Otherwise, you are simply declaring that the Queen's creatures are above the law."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Viserys looked between his wife and his cousin, clearly wishing he were anywhere else. His hand shook as he reached for his cup of wine.
"Mellos," he said finally. "You said Cole's injuries were severe. Will he be able to perform his duties?"
The Grand Maester hesitated. "Eventually, Your Grace. But it will be months before he can wear armor comfortably again. His sword arm may never fully recover."
"Then he can serve in a more... advisory capacity," Viserys decided. "At least until he heals. As for Ser Harwin..." He looked at Lyonel. "Your son showed poor judgment today. The City Watch is supposed to maintain order, not participate in brawls at royal celebrations."
"With respect, Your Grace," Lyonel said carefully, "my son was not acting as Lord Commander when he intervened. He was a participant in the tourney, attacked by another participant. He defended himself."
"Excessively," Alicent muttered.
"Effectively," Corlys repeated, with emphasis.
Viserys rubbed his temples. "I want no more violence. No more bloodshed. We have a wedding to celebrate, and I will not have it overshadowed by more death and accusations."
He looked at Alicent. "Ser Criston will face no formal charges, but he will be confined to light duties until he heals. His... zealousness in the melee was inappropriate."
"Your Grace!" Alicent looked betrayed. "He's a knight of the Kingsguard! To treat him like some common criminal—"
"Is better than he deserves," Rhaenys said flatly. "The boy is *dead*, Your Grace. Dead in the sand while everyone watched. And you worry about the reputation of his killer?"
Viserys held up a hand. "No formal charges," he repeated firmly. "But Cole will be removed from active duties until further notice. As for Ser Harwin..." He looked at Lyonel. "Have your son report to me tomorrow. I want to hear his account of what happened. But I will not punish a man for defending himself. Even if his methods were... vigorous."
It was a political compromise—the kind Viserys specialized in. No one was truly satisfied, but no one could openly object without looking unreasonable.
Alicent's face had gone pale with fury. "Your Grace, I must protest—"
"The decision is made," Viserys said, with more firmness than he'd shown all evening. "Cole lives. Harwin faces no charges. And in three days, we will celebrate the union of House Targaryen and House Velaryon with the dignity and joy such an occasion deserves. Is that understood?"
Silence.
"Good." Viserys slumped back in his chair, looking exhausted. "Grand Maester, continue treating Ser Criston. Lord Corlys, please accept my deepest condolences for the loss of Ser Joffrey. He will be given a proper burial with full honors."
"Thank you, Your Grace," Corlys said stiffly.
"Now please," Viserys said weakly, "all of you—leave me. I need to rest."
The assembly began to file out, Alicent shooting venomous looks at Rhaenyra and the Velaryons. As they passed through the pavilion entrance into the cooling evening air, Mellos heard Alicent hiss at one of her ladies-in-waiting:
"This is not over. Ser Criston is the queen's sworn sword. Strong will pay for what he did."
Mellos sighed. Of course it wasn't over. Nothing at this cursed court was ever truly over. Just endless cycles of revenge and counter-revenge, grudges nursed across decades.
*Poor Ser Harwin,* the Grand Maester thought. *He's just made a powerful enemy. And he doesn't even know the worst of it yet.*
Because Mellos had seen the way Rhaenyra looked at the Lord Commander. Had noticed how Harwin's eyes found her in any crowd. Had observed their careful distance in public and drawn the obvious conclusions.
If Alicent suspected that connection—and the queen was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them—she would use it. Would find a way to hurt Rhaenyra through Harwin Strong.
And in three days, Rhaenyra would marry Laenor Velaryon in a ceremony everyone knew was a sham. A political alliance wrapped in silk and ceremony, with both bride and groom nursing private griefs and secret loves.
*What a mess,* Mellos thought wearily. *What an absolute mess.*
He'd served three kings in his long life. Had seen wars and plagues and political upheavals that made today's drama look like a mummer's farce.
But he'd never seen a kingdom so close to tearing itself apart from within.
The king was dying. His heir was a woman half the court refused to accept. His wife had given him sons who threatened that succession. And between them, a growing army of loyalists and schemers, each convinced their side was righteous.
*It's going to get worse,* Mellos knew with grim certainty. *Much worse. Before it gets better—if it ever does.*
But that was a problem for tomorrow.
Tonight, he had a maimed Kingsguard knight to tend to, a funeral to arrange, and a wedding to prepare for.
The Grand Maester headed back toward the medical pavilion, his old bones aching, and tried not to think about all the ways this could explode into something far more terrible than a tourney death.
Tried, and failed.
Behind him, in the royal pavilion, Alicent Hightower sat beside her husband and plotted.
And in a tent across the grounds, Harry Potter—wearing Harwin Strong's face, carrying Harwin Strong's burdens—had no idea that he'd just escalated a cold war between two queens into something that could consume a kingdom.
*Three days,* everyone kept saying.
Three days until the wedding.
Three days until everything changed.
Three days until the careful balance of power shifted in ways no one could predict.
Three days.
It might as well have been an eternity.
Or a countdown to disaster.
Time would tell which.
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