The salt spray from the waves beneath the ship was cold on Arya's face, but welcome after the stuffy confines of her cabin below decks. The sun was slowly rising on the horizon to her left, turning the clouds above her pink and gold, but neither the beauty of the sunrise nor the sea could help calm her restlessness. She desperately wanted to reach the capitol, but she was apprehensive of what would happen once she got there. Had it really only been a moon's turn since she had learned?
When Arya had heard the news, she was shocked into speechlessness. Sansa, her elder sister, was alive and in King's Landing. The message the raven had sent was signed by the Queen herself, Daenerys Targaryen, and asked that Arya join her sister in King's Landing to discuss matters of state with the small council. With the leave of the Sealord of Braavos, Arya had boarded the first ship she found on its way to Westeros.
Moonsinger was a sturdy Braavosi trading galley with a painted purple hull and dyed purple sails that was bound for Gulltown, Maidenpool, King's Landing, Sunspear, the Redwyne Straits, and Oldtown before making its way back through the Free Cities. Arya hoped that once they reached Gulltown, she would learn more of the Targaryen queen that had retaken the Iron Throne less than a year ago with the aid of her three dragons, Unsullied forces, and, most strangely, Tyrion Lannister.
They had left Gulltown a fortnight ago and there she had asked several merchants at the docks of news regarding the new queen.
"Made the Imp her Hand, I heard. Keeps him around her day and night to advise and whatnot. He's the one that brought four of the kingdoms over to her side." One fat Tyroshi merchant with a forked green beard told her.
"Three of the kingdoms are still in open rebellion. The Stormlands will never go over so long as Stannis is still after the throne and Highgarden still won't recognize her as the queen. Last I heard, Casterly Rock and the Lannisters were going over terms. If the Imp has his way, all the gold under the Rock will be in the royal vaults before the year's over, mark me." A trader out of Oldtown replied when she asked him how the kingdoms were fairing.
In Maidenpool it had been more of the same. The Queen had assembled the most powerful and intelligent people in the Seven Kingdoms to her, including the infirm but wise Doran Martell; the young lord of Riverrun, Edmure Tully; Petyr Baelish, Regent of the Eerie; Brynden Tully, known as the Blackfish; the grossly fat, but surprisingly shrewd Wyman Manderly; and even, it was whispered, the heir of Robert Baratheon.
The last name had given her pause. How could Daenerys have Robert Baratheon's heir when he never fathered any trueborn children? It had been common knowledge for years that none of Cersei's children had been his. Arya had pondered this for a week since the departure from Maidenpool and she still didn't have any answer, but with King's Landing only a day's journey ahead, she doubted if she'd have time to figure it out.