The storm came in from the narrow sea before dusk, dragging a veil of slate-colored cloud across the horizon and swallowing what little light the day had left. The wind struck Storm's End as it always had, with the steady fury of something ancient and resentful, and the waves broke themselves to pieces against the black cliffs below. The castle did not tremble. It endured.
Within those walls, torches guttered and snapped in their brackets, and the servants moved with the quiet efficiency of those long accustomed to weather that could peel the skin from a careless man's face. The banners bearing the crowned stag strained and cracked in the courtyard below, gold stitching flashing whenever lightning stitched the sky in return.
High above the yard, a boy stood along the inner parapet, his hands resting against cold stone worn smooth by generations of Baratheons who had done the same. He did not lean out over the edge as other boys might have done. He watched the sea instead, measuring the rhythm of the waves as they shattered and withdrew.
Orys Baratheon was ten years old that night, long-limbed already and solemn in a way that unsettled older men. His hair, black as the stag upon his house's banner, had been cut short two days prior at his own insistence, shorn close around the ears so that it would not fall into his eyes when he trained. The wind pressed it flat against his head now, and his eyes, grey and watchful, tracked the line of foam where tide met stone.
Below, the courtyard erupted in laughter.
Robert's voice carried easily, louder than the wind and brighter than the lightning. "If it breaks, we'll build it again!" he shouted, as though daring the storm to answer him. A cluster of boys circled him, wooden swords in hand, boots slipping in puddles as rain began to fall in earnest.
Orys did not turn at once.
He counted between the thunder and the lightning. Five breaths. Then four. The storm was drawing nearer.
Footsteps pounded up the narrow stair that led to the parapet, and a moment later Robert's broad frame emerged through the doorway, soaked through and grinning as if the night had been made solely for his amusement.
"You look like a maester," Robert said, wiping rain from his brow with the back of his wrist. "Brooding at the sea while the rest of us fight."
"I was listening," Orys replied.
"To what? The wind?"
"To the tide."
Robert barked a laugh and clapped him once on the shoulder, nearly knocking him from his stance. "The tide doesn't matter. The walls hold."
Orys looked out again at the dark water battering the cliffs.
"The walls hold," he agreed, though he did not smile.
Robert lingered only a moment before the storm called him back to the yard. He leapt down the stairs two at a time, shouting challenges before he reached the bottom. The other boys answered him gladly.
Orys remained where he was.
He watched the waves.
He watched the banners.
He watched the way the torchlight bent and struggled in the wind.
The walls held. They always had. But they held because someone had thought to build them thick enough, high enough, angled just so against the sea's fury. They held because someone had learned from the storms before.
Below, wooden swords clashed.
Orys did not join them until the thunder came close enough to shake the stone beneath his boots.
When he finally descended into the yard, the storm was upon them in full, and Robert stood in the center of it like a young god daring the sky to strike him down.
Orys took up a blade of wood without a word.
The rain began to fall harder.
And the storm did not break the walls.