Chapter 19

  It had been two days since the victory feast, yet with the morning sun shining bright over the road snaking out of the Lion’s Mouth, I was still feeling a headache throbbing behind my eyes.

  Barring a near obligatory chugging competition with Lord Steffon and half the stormlanders in attendance, I had not even drank much to be feeling like this. But the feast had been in my honor and my presence was required through the night.

  I danced first with a shyly subdued Cersei then with seemingly every other lady present. Never had a day’s training hurt my feet more than that. Nearly all nobles in attendance had come at some point to congratulate me, and I lost count how many marriage proposals for the daughters of minor lords and duel offers by overeager young knights I had fended off.

  To make matters worse, I then spent the entire day and most of the night after—yesterday—kneeling in front of the statute of the Warrior in the Rock’s gold-studded sept. Knowing what I know, the Faith didn’t hold much appeal to me in this life. Beyond the blatant corruption, treatment of bastards, and many other small, insidious doctrines, I was also wary about House Hightower’s influence over the Starry Sept.

  I had no quarrel with them, but neither would I trust my spiritual concerns to septons who might whisper back my words to their Oldtown masters. To say the least about the Citadel. I didn’t expect to rid myself of maesters anytime soon—if anything, I planned to make use of them, but a healthy dose of suspicion was due.

  Still, I had an image to maintain. I didn’t need to be pious, just not an unbeliever. It wasn’t even all bad. I knelt, I prayed, I thought of life and family and love. And despite nearly falling asleep a few times, my father, Lord Steffon, and even Ser Barristan Selmy each came to hold vigil with me for a while.

  It was to be a moment of quiet reflection and solitude, so no words were exchanged. Yet the gesture moved me still.

  It made me feel lousy about my thoughts on Ser Barristan. I could question his strange sense of honor as much as I wanted, but I couldn’t deny the legendary knight’s earnestness. He was a good man. I should just keep in mind that even good men can err.

  As if noticing my tiredness, Smoker neighed softly and pushed his muzzle against my chest. I patted my horse on its hairy head. We stood to the side of a great line of supply wagons being readied for the nearly three week trip back to the Stormlands.

  You could mount a small army with the number of horses and oxen needed for such an undertaking.

  Closer by, groups of noble lords, ladies, and knights readied themselves to mount up and take to the road. For a distance this great, none but the most foolish and foppish ladies would insist on carriages, even with the Gold Road being a well-maintained highway.

  I only pitied the guardsmen, groomsmen, and servants who made up the rear of the train. Most would walk, and the amount of dust they’d be breathing in could not be healthy.

  My own family would accompany the stormlords until King’s Landing, where they would then take ship to our island home. Both my sister and mother could ride well, and all our party of guardsmen had come mounted too. So despite the long time that came with horse travel, they would likely arrive at Tarth well before me.

  “There, there, buddy,” I raked my hand through his mane. “I know you wanted to come with me, but you’ll be much happier on the road than stuffed inside some moldy ship’s hold. It won’t be for long either, and I’ll take you out for a run in that meadow you love the first day I get home. I swear it.”

  A girlish giggle interrupted me, and I lifted my gaze to see my two sisters approaching from the castle.

  “Are you having a conversation with Smoker?” Alysanne asked with a playful smile.

  “He is, indeed, the weirdest person I know.” Arianne stepped up to take Smoker’s lead. “You need not worry, brother, I’ll take him out myself for a ride. He’ll be glad for the better company.”

  Moving the leash from one hand to the other, I pretended I didn’t hear what she said.

  “Oh, what’s that, Smoker? You don’t want to go with her? I know she’s evil and mean and she smells terrible,” I said, already dodging the first kick coming at my shin. “But you’re going to have to suffer through it, buddy.” Jump to the side. “Someone must, and you drew the short end of the stick.”

  My sister lunged at me. “Come here, you big stupid lump,” she growled.

  I laughed, feinted her to one side, and scampered away behind Smoker.

  “Are you quite done teasing your sister, Galladon? You as well, Arianne, leave him be.” Addison Tarth’s voice stopped us all dead. When I turned to her, she fixed an amused eyebrow at me and chuckled. “Lord Baratheon will arrive shortly and we must not delay the party. ” Then she pulled on her gloves and jumped up onto her horse in a single move.

  Sitting tall on her saddle, Mother looked like a dashing heroine in her riding leathers, her honey-colored hair tied up into a tall ponytail. Unlike my sisters, she was tall for a lady of the realm, though not quite tall as Brienne would group up to be. As a joke, I always told Father that she had only chosen to marry him because of how tall he was.

  “I was hoping to keep at it a while longer, but if you insist,” I joked, letting my sister take Smoker’s leash. Huffing, she narrowed her eyes at me and snatched them from my hands.

  “I must agree with Arianne, dear brother,” Alysanne said. She had taken the reins of her own mount, a beautiful chestnut mare with a white strip down his brow like someone had taken a paint roller to his face. “Big stupid lump seems a fair assessment. To think that you would crown a stranger instead of your own sisters… Could there be a worse betrayal?”

  I sighed. Not this again. “Are you truly still mad at me for that?”

  “I have cried myself to sleep for the past two nights.” Her lips trembled with fake sorrow.

  I shook my head. “First of all, no you have not, your room is right next to mine,” I said. “And secondly, how about this. Come here. You too, Arianne.”

  After a moment of hesitation, the two came to stand closer to me. I knelt in front of them, uncaring about the dewy grass wetting my knee.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t crown one of you this time.” I tried to sound as sincere as I felt. “Truly, I am sorry. I had my own plans and didn’t think about how you would feel. Just know that, in my heart, you will always be deserving of the title of queen of love and beauty.”

  Alysanne’s eyes softened. Still playing it up, she crossed her arms in front of her. “Very well, I will forgive you this time, but only if you promise you will win another tourney for me?”

  “Hey, I want one too,” Arianne said, pouting.

  I lifted my pinky finger, and the two of them knew exactly what that meant, intertwining their fingers with mine. We said our goodbyes quickly after that. Lady Addison offered me her hand to kiss, then she mussed my hair and rode off laughing before I could retaliate, my sisters following her on their mounts.

  The Evenstar came by with Lord Baratheon not five minutes later. When he passed by, Steffon Baratheon gave me a thumping slap on the back, while my lord father pulled me into a deep embrace before he left, promising we would speak further after we were all home.

  I watched by the entrance of the castle until they all left, taking note of a trio dressed as Tarth servants riding away on their own stocky animals, two men and a woman. Pate had been more than eager to join up; Rob, the apprentice smith, had taken the offer with his new wife as well, and now my band of misfits back in Tarth would have their own blacksmith.

  Soon enough, Jack, Jace, and Gray appeared on borrowed Lannister horses, leading a free one for myself. They were dressed as normal Tarth men-at-arms now, acting like they had been part of the household guard that stayed behind to accompany me on my new ship.

  We rode off quickly toward Lannisport after that. I had already said all the goodbyes I needed to say, and everything had been arranged for my trip back. Lord Tywin would stay at the Rock for now, while the king and his own party had already left the day prior, so I did not have to worry about ruffling any feathers.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I had come to see the royal party off, as had most present nobles, and even spoke amiable parting words with Prince Rhaegar before he took off. Though we sat close together, we did not speak much during the feast; but when we did, his voice was quiet and measured, and his interest in myself and Tarth seemed sincere.

  I asked him about life in King’s Landing and the Red Keep, while he was curious about our island’s sapphire waters and the ruins of old Morne. Naturally, I offered him all the welcomes he could have should he come to Tarth. No matter what I thought of him, he was still the crown prince.

  He acknowledged the invite with a grateful nod but was vague with any details. It was all very polite and practiced. As the Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Kingdoms, I imagined every landed knight and lord in the realm had extended an invitation his way through the years and he’d had to grow skilled in deflecting without offending.

  I didn’t expect to have the prince knocking at my door anytime soon, but he was a man I couldn’t quite put my finger on. As far as I knew, he could get the next ship to Tarth as easily as he could mount one of his solitary expeditions to Summerhall.

  Feeling the wind on my face, I let those thoughts fade to the back of my mind and looked out toward the distant city of Lannisport. This far, the docks looked tiny, and the ships like miniature toys bobbing on the waves.

  Anchored somewhere in that harbor, one of the used cogs I purchased waited for me, ready to sail toward its new home with its Lannister crew. Hopefully, the Fair Wind would do its name justice.

  xxx

  We were quite a bit late to the ship, and we barely had time to get used before the plank was pulled, the anchor weighed, and we set sail.

  When I spoke to the gruff captain, a wind-scarred man by the name of Jarak of Feastfires, he informed me our first port would come just the next day, when we would stop at Crakehall for a few hours to wait for a Lannister carrack that would serve as our escort for the rest of the trip to prepare itself.

  I didn’t know whether to be flattered or worried Tywin had decided to send a ship to escort me back home. Apparently, it wasn’t even going to be one of the carracks I bought, as those would be taken to Tarth at a later time.

  The only explanation I could imagine was that the cog’s crew, small as it were, with only seventeen crewmen and three officers from what I heard, still needed to be ferried back home somehow.

  I was still thinking how curious the whole thing was when I opened the door to my quarters.

  As a noble and the new master of this ship, I was to be given the captain’s rooms for the trip. The three lads, passing as guardsmen, would bunk below with the crew. No doubt Jack would be skimming them off their hard won coin in a game of dice as soon as he could.

  So it’s no surprise I froze when I saw the yellow-haired man splayed across my would-be cot, while half the room was littered with gold-lined, lion-infested chests and trunks up to the ceiling.

  My mouth flopped for a few seconds before I found my voice. “Ser Gerion?”

  Lazy green eyes rose from the lines of a leather-bound book gaze at me. “Oh, if it isn’t Ser Sapphire. What a lovely surprise. Can I help you with anything?”

  I gave him a strange look. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? Are you, perhaps, coming to Tarth with us?”

  “I always wanted to visit your fair isle,” he said with a shrug.

  “Truly?”

  Gerion Lannister smirked. “No, not particularly,” he said cuttingly, like he couldn’t help himself. As if catching his own tone, he closed his book, sat up, and gave me a more neutral look. “I’ve been there already, Ser Galladon. It’s a beautiful place. Quaint, aye, but charming, so do not take it as an insult.”

  I sighed. I couldn’t care less what a pompous, gold-obsessed Lannister fourth son thought of Tarth. What I really wanted was a good bed to sleep off my pounding headache.

  He seemed to notice my forlorn look. “Don’t worry, lad, I’m not taking it from you for good. King’s Landing is my destination. On my lord brother’s task, of course, so I’ll be transferring over to the other ship once we stop at Crakehall.”

  I left quietly after that.

  I might have made a fuss were it anyone else, as I already held the deed to the ship in my name, but the crew wore Lannister red and not the quartered sun and crescent of Tarth. No need to upset the proud lions quite yet.

  The arrangement turned out not as bad as I expected. I slept through most of the day, uncaring about the strange smell of the bunk I found myself in, and that evening, Ser Gerion invited me to dine with him in the captain’s quarters.

  Besides having an arrogant streak I had simply come to associate with anyone having the Lannister name, the man was not half-bad company. We ended up spending most of the night drinking expensive arbor gold, playing terrible games of cyvasse, and speaking about all the faraway places we had dreamed of visiting.

  From cold Ibben to cursed Asshai-by-the-Shadow, from beyond the Wall to the dense jungles of Sothoryos; we traded stories we had read from books, heard from bards, or got from passing traders stopping at our home ports.

  When he casually mentioned a burning desire to find the lost Valyrian sword, Brightroar, I almost laughed at him. It was like a light bulb had gone off in my mind. I had completely forgotten he’d died in his ill-fated voyage more than a decade from now.

  Dissuading him came first to my mind, but I figured he wouldn’t care what some storm lordling had to say about it either way. Instead, I told him that, if he wanted a pointier sword so bad, he could simply march down the Ocean Road, cross the Mander, fight off half the Reach, then put Horn Hill to siege and pry off Heartsbane from Lord Randyll Tarly’s cold dead fingers.

  It would still be a far safer endeavor than venturing into the deadly water of Old Valyria

  He took that as the joke that it was, but I hoped I had planted at least a seed of doubt in his mind. I wouldn’t want a man I shared a table with dying a horrible death in some misbegotten foreign land.

  xxx

  The Dutiful Man

  His master had been clear in their instructions.

  Follow the Tarth boy into the city. Note down the ship’s name, flag, and frame. He was to tally how many guards the boy would be taking for the trip, and how many men crewed the ship.

  Twenty. He counted twice to be sure. The boy and his men made four and twenty.

  His flat black eyes rarely missed much. Much could be said about the man. Much that was not flattering. He was not a good man, he knew that. To make a living, he had done terrible things to terrible people, and terrible things to good people. He did not enjoy doing those things, but he did them anyway.

  He was a dutiful man. A loyal man. His master was fair to him, and he would thus do his duty by them.

  So as the Fair Wind sailed away from Lannisport, its fat belly skimming through the calm waves of the Sunset Sea, a raven flew back home with a lengthy note attached to its leg.

  The raven would cross the Western Hills, follow the Gold Road east, then turn south over the Tumbleton Heights and further beyond.

  The raven was not the first bird to be sent back about the Tarth boy. Many a message and correspondence had been issued from the Westerlands by his master’s own hands to their other servants back at their home.

  This would be the last one.

  When the message arrived, its contents would be passed along to the right hands. For once, the dutiful man was glad his job was simply taking down notes. The bad things—the terrible things his master planned, those would be done by other men. Less dutiful, perhaps, but no less competent men.

  Bowing his head slightly, the dutiful man said a prayer to the Seven. This one in particular he dedicated to the Stranger.

  For as was his master’s will, the Tarth boy and his ship would not be making it home.

  xxx

  The Maid

  The Maid woke to a thunderstorm.

  She rose, confused. The hearth by her bed had gone cold, the fire guttering out at some point in the night. Her shutter was cracked open by a finger’s width, and a brisk, hissing wind blew across the room.

  It was cold. Cold and dark.

  She shivered. Gooseflesh covered her arms and legs under her shift. Why did she awake? She had not been dreaming. The Maid never dreamt. Her sleep was a short, fitful thing. Yet she felt as if she had almost grasped at something just now.

  Her brows furrowed. Had she imagined it?

  Sleepless, she left her room toward the only place that could bring her a semblance of peace. The halls of the tower were dark at this hour. She had ordered no light be lit past dusk. She moved by touch, feeling her way across walls. The stonework was old here, older than memory, and she knew its cracks like the lines in her palms.

  Lightning flashed purple across the sky. For a moment, the shadows in the hall lengthened like black, reaching arms. The world shook and pealed as the thunder rolled in. High in her tower, the stones seemed to rumble with the storm.

  It took her no more than five minutes to arrive in the solar. It had been her father’s once, but she had taken it over when she was twelve. He had given up finding an answer. The Maid had not.

  The room was long and narrow, with two tables running lengthwise at the very center. Books covered the walls like bricks, stacked neatly atop each other, leather-bound, hide-bound, skin-bound. Old scrolls and artifacts that had once been strange to her littered the tables. She knew them near by heart, now. Her own notebooks filled a corner of the room, proof of her tireless work these past four years.

  The Maid spent more time here than anywhere else, hunched over a book or several, reading and studying under candlelight. This time, however, it wasn’t a normal candle she looked at.

  The fire above the tall, twisted black candle did not waver when a draft whistled from the open door. Its strange light suffused the room, shifting dull colors into dazzling hues and turning shadows into something so dark it seemed she was looking into an abyss.

  Her breath caught in her throat. She had never seen the candle lit, only read about, thought about it, obsessed about it. Before she could help herself, she had crossed the room in a rush, stopping close enough she could feel the heat of the candle.

  The steady fire was bright, so bright it hurt to look, but it called to her like the gleam of gold to a thief. Uncaring, the Maid looked into the fire, and in it, saw a Titan.

  AN: Slow chapter. A transitory one. This marks the official end of the first arc of the story—the Lannisport Tournament arc. Going forward, I’ll try to be more concise and not let arcs drag on for too long. Chapters will be a bit longer on average too.

  On to bigger and deadlier things, then. I’m really, really excited about what’s coming.