Chapter Text
i.
The stick had come from his lady mother’s favourite tree in Dragonstone. Bark as black as obsidian, boughs overfull and wreathed with briny mist, the tree brooded in the private garden of the consort of the lord of that castle.
Here in the Red Keep of King’s Landing, Her Grace the Princess Myriah Martell kept the stick clean and safe in a perfumed box of its own, and this box, in turn, was always locked in an ornately carved Dornish chest whose key was practically part of her person. A golden key at the end of a golden chain. The only constant amongst the ever-rotating set of jewels that adorned his lady mother’s warm brown throat and collarbones. It went well with anything she wore. It poured into the neckline of her gowns, this finely wrought chain, slipping into shadows and curves. The key would not be far off. Baelor appreciated the precaution. His lady mother had explained it to him once. All this precaution, for she loved him so very much.
Baelor disliked the stick all the same. Long and slender, its bite was terribly fierce and left red welts across his calves.
He was glad that his lady mother rarely used it on him.
ii.
Baelor was counting in his head. Twenty-four hits now. Twice as many name days he’d had so far. How funny.
He blew out the breath he’d been holding, a long trembling exhale, as though he were smoking with Mother’s medwakh. The back of his legs stung hotly; a thousand angry red ants supping on his skin.
Another hit, and his hands shook from where he was holding his bedgown bunched up to his hips.
Mother had never hit him this hard before.
He had never seen her so angry and fearful before, her strong, imperious nose flaring, her mouth mute with fury that she’d commanded him to position with nothing but curt gestures, and all because of him. It shamed him. Why had he lost his temper? And on Daemon Waters’ twelfth name day feast of all occasions. He ought to have been smarter than that. He ought to have ignored his grandfather’s jibes, as he usually did.
Sweat started to bead behind his knees. It made the stinging worse.
Another hit, much harder than the last. His thighs jumped and spasmed. Baelor bit back a wet whimper. He wouldn’t cry. Why would he cry? This was for his own good; Mother had said so, and he agreed with her. He counted this as part of his squirehood. Pain was part of being a squire. Blisters turned to calluses, thickening the skin.
Another fierce hit, and another, and another, until he lost count.
*
His lady mother had such strong arms and stronger hands. Baelor loved that about her. He loved her so very much.
Mother loved hunting and hawking and playing the harp. She played melodies on a set of Dornish crystal glasses with such elegance and measured delicacy. The strokes of her handwriting were large, confident, and firmly impressed on paper. She knew how to row a boat. How to swim. How to scale a fish. How to debone a fish. How to pull herself out of a quicksand with a length of rope, a dagger or a spear, and the strength of her arms. She knew how to skin a hunt. The noble Houses of Dorne had been teaching their children the finer points of the arts of skinning and gutting a hunt ever since House Uller of Hellholt felled the dragon Meraxes and its Targaryen rider, the greatest hunt yet in that princedom. To this day, the lords and commons of Hellholt still spoke with breaths redolent of well-spiced dragonmeat, Mother would say in a voice thick with envy and admiration.
She would have ruled Dorne in her own right as her father’s firstborn, she often reminisced to Baelor, had her marriage to Baelor’s lord father not pushed through when she was one-and-twenty and Prince Daeron was six-and-ten.
Baelor would never admit it to her, but he was guiltily glad that the marriage had pushed through after all. He wanted to be the Prince of Dragonstone eventually, and after that the king. The gods knew that Baelor fervently desired kingship. How could he not want to reap what he had been sowing all his life? He wanted to do well as a ruler besides, to be as just and wise and honourable and energetic as his lady mother would have been. Her perfect son. Her heart’s desire and old dreams made flesh. He knew that would please her.
But how could that happen if his grandfather the king got into one of his moods and disinherited Baelor or his lord father? For over a decade now, the king, like a petulant child, had been threatening Baelor’s lord father with either Aegor Rivers or Balerion Otherys.
Foolish, foolish boy. Why did he have to lose his temper? What had possessed him to shoot to his feet? Chair scraping loudly and rudely, upending his cup, startling poor sweet Rhaegel. What had possessed him to stride out of the banquet in the middle of the king’s speech? Stupid, stupid, the Others take his stupid self.
Sweat had been crawling down his calves. A salty whack of the stick against the raw welts, and another, more and more, Baelor gnashing his teeth and puffing and groaning at the sensation, this grinding of dragon peppers against ant bites.
*
“It’s over,” came Mother’s voice.
Baelor blinked the sweat off his lashes. His eyes were stinging, too. He swallowed thickly.
His lady mother’s rooms viscously swam back into focus.
Qohorik, Norvoshi, and Myrish tapestries.
A painted folding screen from the Summer Isles.
Carved lamps and rich Dornish rugs.
On a burgundy floor-cushion with dark orange tassels, Mother was sat with her folded right leg raised, its knee cradling her stick-wielding arm.
The jewel-encrusted bracelets from her right arm were on the rug beside her cushion, and the heavy rings from that hand, too.
She had just come from the day-long feasting. Her layered scents wafted about her like lush wisps of silk. Her mouth was a vivid red, her favourite lip tint made from finely ground pomegranate rinds and poppy petals. Her long veil, dark green and embroidered with thread of gold, was like a coiled snake by her prone left thigh.
“Don’t lower your bedgown just yet,” she said. Softness creeped back into her stern black eyes as she surveyed Baelor’s exposed legs. “There’s some bleeding. We will have the wounds cleaned and dressed properly in a while.”
She had never attempted to mask her Dornish accent, not even once. It was a point of pride, she’d told him. Like everyone else north of the Red Mountains, his grandfather the king called it the Dornish drawl, though Baelor found it beautiful even now, that warm, throaty accent of spear-sharp rolling R’s and curling vowels and snug consonants.
But once when Baelor had slipped into it, or a mangled shade of it—such was the length of time he spent in his lady mother’s company—he got his first taste of the stick.
Her voice pulled him back to the present moment. Anchoring him. “Can you tell me why I had to do that?”
Baelor cleared his throat. He willed his voice not to waver.
“I failed to master myself, Your Grace,” he said. “I had not paused to think before I acted. In court, every word should be weighed, every deed carefully considered. How could I expect to rule others when I could not even rule myself?” He licked his lips. And borrowed her words: “I cannot do any damn thing I please, fuck the consequences. Only irresponsible Targaryen heirs with nothing but wet wool between their ears behave like that. I am not irresponsible nor am I foolish. I do not have a dragon, and I take after your peerless Dornish beauty, my lady mother, so I have to be better than the Targaryens of old who let their dragon saddles do their thinking for them and damned our House and the realm. To be loved by king and council and commons, one has to—I—I have to be seen and judged as worthy of love. To win the love of my subjects is to win their loyalty. The loyalty of a vassal means sword and spear in hand, shield across arm, and army at the back at a time when promises let out in the wind are tested. A king’s seat is upheld by loyalty as much as it is by precedent and law. Legitimacy is law and precedent and loyalty. I am a legitimate heir.”
“Very good, Baelor.” With the tip of the stick, Mother gently tapped the moist skin behind Baelor’s knee, making his breath hitch. “But you must tell me why I had to do this to you, my love, in this manner.”
Baelor dipped his chin, hot shame crawling up his throat.
“Chin up,” snapped Mother.
The gentle stroking of her stick turned into a light swat, and Baelor flinched, moaning, lower belly suddenly cramping, knees squeezing together.
“You are a prince of the realm. Firstborn of firstborns. Shoulders back, straighten your spine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Answer me.”
Baelor raised his chin. He straightened his back. He didn’t let his bunched up bedgown fall and cover his fresh wounds. “To teach me my lesson well, Mother,” he answered. “So that every time I walk and run and ride a horse for the next several days, I am reminded of the time I forgot myself. I forgot your lessons. I almost endangered not just myself, but you as well, and my brothers and lord father. You had to do this for my own good. So I am reminded of these things over and over and over again, until the lesson is part of me.”
*
Baelor had been dozing on his belly, half his face squashed against his goose feather pillow, when his sheets moved and an energetic ball squirmed up against him.
A small plump hand pushed Baelor’s mop of wavy hair off his shut lids.
Then the hand began to poke his nose. When he didn’t stir, it pulled at his bushy brows.
“What is it?” he mumbled sleepily. “Another nightmare?”
“Why are your legs wrapped?”
“Leg whipping from Mother.”
Baelor opened his eyes. His baby brother’s bright, chubby face greeted him. Smiling, he gently pinched Maekar’s fat cheek. “You’ve been washed by your maids?”
“Yes, Baelor.”
“Face, teeth, hands, pits, feet?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
“May I see your nails?”
Maekar splayed his fingers. He sat up and wriggled his toes. All nails clipped.
“Very good, Maekar. Did you wake from a bad dream?”
“No. I brought you food.”
Baelor beamed. “You did?”
Maekar nodded, proud of himself. He was only five yet already eager to prove himself ready for the duties of a page. “Honeycakes and fish fingers. I saved you some from our table. And I got you quail eggs from the kitchens. And mead. Aerys helped me. Lady Dyanna too.”
Baelor hummed at the names. Aerys usually kept to himself and his books. Lady Dyanna Dayne, only a year older than Baelor, at thirteen was the youngest amongst Mother’s ladies and the only one in Mother’s Dornish retinue who was willing to engage Maekar whenever he and his brothers visited the Princess’ rooms. He made a note to thank them both for keeping an eye on Maekar when he himself couldn’t.
He really shouldn’t have lost his temper, he thought sadly, as he watched his baby brother leap off the bed and carefully fetch a covered tray from a table, all the while chattering about the feast’s foods and entertainments. Who would look after Maekar otherwise? The gods knew that it wouldn’t be Mother. True, she required regular reports from Maekar’s maids, stewards, and maesters. She sent for good food and fine clothes and splendid gifts to Maekar’s rooms, yes. All of Mother’s children lacked for nothing in this regard, yes.
But she was not the one who soothed Maekar, who asked him about his day, who read to him and played with him, who kissed him goodnight and wished him sweet dreams, who walked the gardens with him and prayed with him in the sept, who shared fruits or sweetmeats with him during slow afternoons, who dabbed his dear little face with herb-soaked towels when he was sick and embraced him when he was frightened, all of which had become Baelor’s glad province.
She had done the same to Aerys and Rhaegel. She was a woman prince first and foremost. Born the heir to a princedom, uneasily coaxed into the role of consort to her people’s ancient enemy. Baelor tried his best to understand her.
And he supposed he should be glad. Mayhaps Maekar would be spared the stick.
iii.
Ever the energetic baby, his baby brother was growing up to be quite the little menace.
“I hate this,” Maekar said, loudly, of an oat bowl that displeased him. “It’s foul. The berries are too sour.”
“I mislike Brynden,” Maekar said, loudly, as they passed by their little bastard uncle and his mother, the Lady Melissa, on a garden path. “Always tapping me on the shoulder during our lessons. He’s always offering me his sweetmeats, Baelor. Or his ink. His stuffed knight doll, too. His whispering irritates me. Like nails scratching on linen.”
Maekar embraced his brothers in happiness. He elbowed little boys in the yard in annoyance. He answered frankly and in great detail when asked if he wanted any gifts. No coyishness from little Maekar, no hemming and hawing, no toeing the line. He was just pure creature, a force of nature.
“Gods be good,” Aerys groaned one afternoon, after Maekar’s loud observation of the diminutive height of the new septon assigned to the royal library. “Maekar, learn to mind your tongue.”
But Baelor only bent down and kissed the top of Maekar’s head, hiding his smile amongst the silver locks. His brother’s scalp smelled of clean sweat and sunshine and the Dornish soap that he’d instructed Maekar’s maids to use for his baby brother’s baths.
“Honesty is a virtue,” Baelor pointed out mildly.
Maekar was tugging at his sleeve. “Baelor, you promised. The book.”
“Oh, yes, I did, didn’t I? Mushroom’s Testimony.”
Aerys wrinkled his nose in Maekar’s direction. His reedy arms were occupied with a stack of fresh loans. “Isn’t he a bit too young for that? Explicit murders and debaucheries. Usurpation, politicking. Kinslaying. And it’s a read best paired with its contemporaries.”
“He heard Mushroom’s name in his lessons. He’s curious. Why, how old were you when you read it?”
“Eight.”
Baelor beamed proudly at Aerys, who was two years his junior yet read far above his age. “I was eleven. Worry not, I’ll read it with him so he may ask his questions.”
“And you have to be careful with the pages,” insisted Aerys. “The copies here, they’re the last surviving ones.”
“I’m quite certain some maesters and septons are hard at work reproducing it. I’ve heard as much from the Grand Maester. But yes, brother, we’ll be careful.”
“Baelooooor,” said Maekar, dancing around him in impatience.
“Oh, go on, then,” Baelor laughed. “Put in the loan with the good septon behind the desk. Do it politely. Bid him a good afternoon and tell him you’re with me.”
And Maekar was off, quick as an arrow.
“You feed him too many sweets.” Aerys’ tone was rather chiding.
Baelor could only shrug. “He loves them.”
“No, I meant you baby him too much.”
“Well, he is a baby.”
And someone had to, though Baelor left this unspoken.
Behind stray locks of his honey hair, Aerys’ almond-shaped eyes blinked judgmentally. “No prince stays a baby too long in court,” he said coolly, sounding quite like their lady mother.
“Then it would be better, wouldn’t it,” said Baelor with a reassuring smile, “if it was with me that he learned of Mushroom’s accounts?”
*
His grandfather, King Aegon, Fourth of His Name, died a handful of moons before Baelor’s fourteenth name day.
It was the best gift the old man could have given Baelor.
But like every gift that flowed from King Aegon, it was spitefully tainted. Soured in some way or other. For instance, the king had chosen not to comment on Baelor’s insolence two years past, yet a few moons after that particular name day feast, when Daemon bested Baelor and won a squire’s tourney, the king himself knighted Princess Daena’s son and bestowed the Conqueror’s sword on him, finally acknowledging the lad as his bastard.
And now, this.
For his final service at court, Lord Jon Hightower, Hand of the King and the Lord of Oldtown, assisted Baelor’s father with a number of important matters.
The grand funeral.
The preparations for the coronation.
And the completion of the legitimisation of all of Aegon IV’s bastards in accordance with the late king’s final will.
Then, less than a moon’s turn before the coronation, Lord Hightower released Maekar from his service.
“You have been a fine and most able page, my prince,” he said, smiling beneath his grey-streaked auburn beard and whiskers. “It has been an honour. Now, I believe it likely that your lord father, once he is crowned, would bid you serve Lord Commander Darry. How would you like that?”
Baelor’s baby brother was thrilled. He was not shy to tell Lord Hightower so. Baelor was squire to the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard; of course Maekar would love to serve the great knight alongside his brother.
“And you will meet new boys,” Lord Hightower went on. “New squires and pages. New knights.”
They were in a courtyard terrace overlooking the Red Keep’s eastern gardens. At those words, Baelor turned away from the glimpse of the glittering sea in the distance. A chill had gone through him. It was as if Mother had burrowed her hand past the thick black waves of hair that fell to Baelor’s nape, her grip at the back of his neck strong, her cold rings nipping at his skin.
Arms clasped behind his back, Lord Hightower placidly blinked back at him.
Baelor matched the older man, court mask for court mask. He kept his breathing steady and his hands relaxed and openly displayed on the cool marble balustrade.
There was a long pause.
It was Maekar, the gods bless him, who broke the silence. “My lord,” he prompted, “what do you mean?”
Lord Hightower inclined his leonine auburn head at Maekar. But his vivid green eyes were fixed on Baelor as he spoke.
“Your lord father, in his infinite wisdom, has extended an invitation of goodwill to the Lady Regent of Stone Hedge. The Lady Barba. She is the elder sister of the present Lord Bracken and the late Lady Bethany. And mother to the late king’s natural son, Aegor. The lad hasn’t been back to court since he was a babe in swaddling clothes, what, twelve years ago now, is it? My goodness. How swiftly time flows. I’m told his horsemanship is superb even for his age. You will meet him soon, Prince Maekar. Pages your age from Stone Hedge as well. Squires and knights, too. House Bracken, you see, has been invited to your lord father’s coronation.” The Lord of Oldtown smiled again. “I would wager they’re making their way down the kingsroad as we speak.”
*
The day Baelor’s lord father received House Bracken, all of the households of the Red Keep had been assembled in the Throne Room in the strict order of precedence and bore witness to Daeron the Good’s reunion with his bastardborn half-brother and reconciliation with the boy’s lady mother.
All of them were there. Mother’s household. Princess Daenerys Targaryen’s household. Princess Daena Targaryen’s household. Lady Melissa Blackwood’s household. The household of Lady Shiera of the Blackwater which, since the passing of the little lass’ mother the Lady Serenei of Lys, had been managed by Septa Rhaena, herself a daughter of Aegon III and sister to the Princess Daena. The households of the incoming Small Council.
Baelor was not worried. Not really. Chin up, back straight, smiling. It was a pleasant day.
He kissed the Lady Barba’s knuckles, addressing her as “my lady regent.” He earnestly told her how pleased he was to meet her. And in that moment, he was, truly. The Regent of Stone Hedge was a tall woman whose beauty could only be described as startling, it almost felt like a slap. A smooth face, perfectly oval like an egg. So achingly symmetrical of feature. Dark snapping eyes. Dark arching brows. Glowing skin, a pale brown, sort of golden beige. A strong nose. A knowing smile: like as not, she knew very well the effect she had on people and savoured this knowledge. Her upper lip was a shade plumper than her full lower lip. She was a full woman all over. All over. Even the luxuriant thickness of her black hair was apparent despite being bundled into a jewelled hairnet.
She was nine-and-twenty, only a year and half younger than Baelor’s lord father.
Her voice was smoke over crushed velvet. “My boy,” she said, gesturing, “Aegor.”
Aegor Rivers was his lady mother’s faithful copy made man. He had her height and her devastatingly good looks. He had her colouring, save for one thing.
The lad’s eyes were courteously lowered in front of Baelor’s lord father, but he was not shy about sweeping the rest of the court.
His gaze met Baelor’s, and held.
Bruised violets.
Baelor saw the flick down, up, down again, the noting of his height and breadth and stance. The lingering on the colour of his hair, then a longer pause on Baelor’s own eye colour. The matter-of-fact lack of shyness about having been caught staring. And then that bruised violet gaze moved on, dagger scraping against stone.
Baelor blinked. He was then able to study the rest of the crowd.
He wasn’t the only one bestirred by Aegor Rivers.
From across the Throne Room, Daemon was also considering the lad, open excitement across his face. He leaned towards his mother the Princess Daena. As the two whispered, their silver hairs almost touching, Daemon’s pale ivory fingers began to stoke the inside of his mother’s light caramel wrist. He played with her three-headed dragon pendant. He fiddled with the ends of her long mane of dense tight curls. Mother’s and son’s matching deep purple eyes desultorily wandered about the Throne Room, but every now and then gravitated back to each other as they spoke. Baelor did not doubt that Daemon was already wheedling for a new squire close to his age, coaxing the princess to pull rank and poach Aegor Rivers from whichever knight it was he’d been serving.
And beside Baelor, Maekar was suspiciously still. He was not restlessly vibrating or fidgeting with the ermine collar of his velvet doublet. He was quiet.
Baelor glanced down.
His baby brother’s violet eyes were fixed on Aegor Rivers. Wide as saucers. Awestruck.
*
One chilly morning, less than two weeks to the coronation, Baelor and his brothers came upon their bastard uncle Daemon in the gallery leading to the king’s solar.
He was not alone. Aegor Rivers, walking beside him, had stopped speaking in his usual low tone as soon as Baelor and his brothers rounded the corner. Whatever it was he had been saying was making Daemon let out boyish peals of laughter.
A rather new sound.
Daemon had his mother’s crooked, playful smile. “Well met, nephews. Have you come for your morning greetings? My brother and I have just been.” He gestured to Aegor Rivers, who looked pleased at the title.
“Yes,” said Baelor, pleasantly. “My brothers and I are not like to break the tradition now. What drink did my lord father send for this time?”
“Milk. Sweetened with honey.”
“Ah, excellent. Cow’s milk, I pray.”
“It is, thank the gods,” chuckled Daemon. “Although Aegor here is not partial to honey himself, are you, brother?”
“It’s not that I don’t like honey,” he corrected Daemon whose smile widened even more, for some reason. “I’m just used to drinking plain milk. His Grace was most kind to offer.”
“Do you like cow’s milk or goat’s milk?” Maekar chimed in.
Aegor Rivers’ dark brows arched. “Milk is milk.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I do love milk. My lady mother raised me on the best milk at Stone Hedge. The rest are all the same to me.”
“How about almond milk?” Maekar was keen to keep the conversation with Aegor Rivers going. “Would you drink almond milk?”
“Maekar.” Baelor placed a hand on his shoulder. “Bid our uncles a good morrow first. You as well, Aerys. And you, sweet Rhaegel.”
Baelor softly patted Rhaegel’s olive cheek, and his brother obediently and shyly told Daemon about the butterfly he’d caught yesterday. Aerys sullenly followed suit. Maekar, though, was only too happy to prolong the conversation.
Aegor Rivers didn’t seem that much interested in the younger boys. His gaze returned to Baelor, then to Daemon, then to Baelor again.
To Baelor’s mouth, specifically.
What was the lad staring at? Baelor itched under his collar, though he kept his court mask firmly in place.
“I’ve mentioned to Daeron that I’ll be jousting at his coronation’s tourney,” Daemon was saying. “Aegor will squire for me.”
Of course. Ever indulged.
“Oh, that’s good. I look forward to seeing that.”
“Will your knight be jousting, then, nephew?”
“I will have to ask him.”
“Well, ask him quick. I’m raring for a good match. Darry’s not one to hold back against a king’s natural sons.” Daemon turned to his half-brother again. “Baelor also happens to be a good lance.”
Aegor Rivers tilted his head. “But which one of you sits a horse better? Jousting is mostly about horsemanship, you know.”
“I so want to see that famed riding of yours, brother,” said Daemon, laughing again. His eyes were purple crescents gleaming at his half-brother as he went on to suggest a ride and even a race today, though Baelor couldn’t see what was so utterly delightful about Aegor Rivers.
“You are kind to say so, Daemon,” Baelor interrupted, trying to regain the reins of the conversation, when Aegor Rivers’ intent gaze flicked down to his mouth again. Seven hells.
And then:
“You must be a good reader to listen to, Prince Baelor,” Aegor Rivers observed in his highborn riverlander inflection. “Yours is the crispest King's Landing accent I’ve ever heard.”
Aerys’ breath stuttered behind him.
Blood rushed to his ears. Boiled.
The muscles of his right arm coiled, jumped, strained.
But Baelor mastered himself.
Without even clenching his fist or hiding it behind the folds of his mantle, he mastered himself. He only raised his chin.
A long pause.
It was Maekar who battered the silence. “What do you mean by that?”
With a small smile, Rivers looked down his nose at Maekar. “It’s exactly as I said.”
Maekar stepped forward, his shoulder now in front of Baelor’s arm. His pale face was scowling, glaring up with no small shock at Rivers. “You can’t fool me. My grandfather said things like that all the time. Your bastard tongue meant something else.”
Aerys gasped. “Maekar!”
Daemon placed a hand on his half-brother’s shoulder and addressed Baelor: “He’s never been to court.”
Baelor ignored him. He ought to ignore those lukewarm, stupid words and Daemon’s poorly-concealed gleam at Rivers, elsewise he would do something he would surely and sorely regret.
So he only fixed Rivers with a courtly stare and decided right then and there that he would be a squire no more. “Of course I speak with this accent,” he told the lad coolly. “I was born and raised here.”
Rivers didn’t apologise. He let Daemon steer him away with an arm across his shoulders.
Maekar didn’t apologise. And Baelor wouldn’t tell him to do so.
Baelor waited until the two bastard uncles rounded the corner, until their footsteps couldn’t be heard anymore, before he gently took Maekar’s hand in his. His baby brother was trembling.
Baelor crouched down and pressed a long, wordless kiss on Maekar’s forehead.
Maekar flung his arms around Baelor’s shoulders.
“I will joust,” Baelor said thickly. “At our lord father’s coronation. I will joust.”
Aerys, holding Rhaegel’s hand, drew closer. “You haven’t earned your spurs yet.”
“I shall enter as a mystery knight. I’ll earn my spurs then. I will.”
Maekar gasped happily, arms tightening around Baelor’s neck even more until they both tumbled to the floor, laughing. Aerys rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. Rhaegel stretched, pushed his dark hair off his eyes, and started to hum a song of his own making about Baelor’s spurs.
“Yes, Baelor, do it!” urged his baby brother. “Beat him! Beat him and be champion. And be knighted by the king!”
“I mean to.”
“And then make me your squire.”
“How did you know I mean to do that, too?”
But his words were drowned out by Maekar’s triumphant yell. It resounded throughout the gallery, rammed against the tapestries and stone floors and sconces, unlodging all the unspoken words from Baelor’s swollen throat. As far as his baby brother was concerned, they had already won.
(1/10)