Epilogue
Part I

Thunder roared like a great raging beast, pacing outside the ancient halls of the Baratheons. Storm's End was named for the thunderstorms that beset it, and few were so fierce as the one that came tonight. Cressen was grateful for the thick stone that stood between him and its fury.

High winds shrieked outside the lonely tower that jutted out over the ocean, and battered their fists against its doors. Flashes of lightning struck jagged lines of light in the cloudy sky. The maester's windows rattled. Cressen flinched at the noise—piercing, high and shrill.

Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta ra-ta-ta—

"Maester?" It was his successor, young Maester Pylos, the man they meant to replace him once he died here. "They are sending for you. It is time."

Cressen rose painfully from his seat and tottered down the stairs of the castle he had served in for most of a lifetime. Pylos offered him an arm as he went. Cressen accepted it. There was a time he would not have, but an old man's pride had its limits. It helped that Pylos was ever-so deferential and polite. Cressen leant heavily on that arm to ease the pain on his creaky old joints from walking.

They heard the great hall of Storm's End before they saw it: the clamour of angry voices arguing. That had not always been the way of the Stormlords. The bannermen of the Stormlands had always been a proud and stubborn lot, fond of their forefathers and their deeds in ages past, quarrelsome and bold. But they had also always been loyal.

Stormlanders tended to be loud, rough men—blunt, yet honest. Men of other kingdoms may smile and scheme at their foes. The Stormlords were not like that. They were prideful to be sure, stubborn, quick to anger, fearsome in their wrath, yet they looked first to the Lord of Storm's End, and once he had spoken, his word was final. The same rough men who had spat curses at each other's mothers and their dubious goat-containing ancestry would sit still at his say, accept the matter as done, and be clanging each other's horns of ale two hours afterwards. The line of Durran still held vast respect in these lands. These halls once had been filled with merriment and good cheer.

But that had been when they had a Baratheon. They had no Baratheon now. Empty sat the seat of the Storm Kings, and that emptiness was festering.

Cressen entered and saw the lords and ladies of the Stormlands assembled, matching the banners of the hosts encamped outside. It was a splendid sight, the hall of Storm's End full for feasting. There were rows and rows of tables, made of old oaks, cut down from the kingswood before it had been called the kingswood, before it had been stolen from the Stormlands (like so much else) by the whim of Targaryen kings. They were of ancient making, beautiful and without seam. They were piled with plates of food for nobles to pick at in the banquet. Servants rushed to and fro, serving the lords, and not only lords but ladies and children. For such a gathering of Stormlords as this was a grand occasion, and there was no risk, for the Stormlands were very far from the fighting. This was a priceless opportunity for mingling, making friendships and alliances that would stand the test of time in the likely-long winter to come. (The white raven had arrived this very morning.) The ladies of the Houses too saw fit to be here. At the sides of the room there were dozens of hearths. Their fires kept the room warm and welcoming even in the worst of winter's chill. At the back of the room there was the high seat, the throne of the old Storm Kings. Cressen's eyes skipped quickly past the empty chair and went to look at other things. Above him there was a high vaulted ceiling, magnificently made in pale grey stone, and at the front, the great doorway he had entered through.

Cressen took his seat at the high table and listened.

"—cannot but answer the call." This was Casper Wylde, Lord of the Rain House, a handsome man of middle years, as near fifty namedays as forty, yet still possessed of strong arms, hard muscles and a warrior's figure. "I share your frustrations, my lords. In the Father's name I do. But this is Robert Baratheon's son who calls upon us. We must not dishonour Joffrey's summons."

"Joffrey's?" snorted Bryce Caron, the Lord of Nightsong, a burly marcher lord and renowned jousting knight. "Lord Tywin's summons, more like. That or his bitch daughter's."

"That daughter is our queen," objected Ser Arthor Estermont. "Show some respect."

"No. That. Bitch." Lord Bryce was not backing down. He spat on the ground. "I'll show her as much respect as she showed King Robert, whining and nagging like a shrew, seducing him with her golden cunt away from his true lords."

A bolder man would have challenged him to a wrestle for that, and would have won more respect from the Stormlords for it, even if he had lost swiftly. But weedy Ser Arthor took one look at Lord Bryce's bulging muscles and shrank back. "N-nonetheless," he said weakly, "she is our queen, my lord. You should speak her more gently."

"Pray cease licking the Lannister's boots, Ser Arthor," sighed urbane Ser Guyard Morrigen, a second-born son and a knight of Crow's Nest, as was told by the two crows quartered on his handsome green velvet doublet. "I know it's all you Estermonts are good for, but you might want to learn a new trick eventually. You know, just for variety's sake. Who knows? You might find you enjoy it."

The gathered knights and lords of the Stormlands laughed at the jest.

Cressen held back a sigh. This, as so much else with the queen, had been ill-done. Ser Eldon Estermont, the master of ships, was not popular among his fellow Stormlanders. He was the only Stormlander who held a high position at court, while all others were locked out in the cold, denied honours and positions and closeness to the king that should have been their due, for they had fought and bled to raise their liegelord to kingship. That bitterness ran deep.

Queen Cersei would have done better to send Ser Eldon himself to argue her case—for he was respected for his victory over Viserys Targaryen's fleet, despite that resentment—or at least one of his sons, Ser Aemon and Ser Lomas, both of whom were respected warriors. But they both had been kept in King's Landing, where the queen insisted she had need of them; for she trusted none but Estermonts to lead the royal fleet. So many others had failed the realm badly in the long Greyjoy war. Instead, the only Estermont here was Ser Arthor, a cousin, lesser in lineage and in strength.

Ser Arthor purpled. "I will not be insulted!" He rose to his feet.

"You won't be?" said Ser Guyard lazily; and he too stood up.

The Stormlords quietened, eager with anticipation. A ripple of hushes swept through the hall. The two men stared at each other across the tables. Guyard Morrigen was as quick with his tongue as he was quick with his sword; and he was fearsomely quick with a sword. The younger brother to the Lord of Crow's Nest had won half a dozen tourneys. He was renowned as one of the most skilled sword arms in the chivalry of the south of Westeros.

Arthor Estermont seemed to remember who, exactly, he was facing. His face went pale. "I shall not disturb the peace of Storm's End's hall for a foul-mouthed cur," he stammered out, and sat down.

The Stormlords laughed at him. Even his neighbours seemed to edge their seats away.

Ser Guyard remained standing a few moments longer, with a careless smile, as if to push the point: 'He flinched from confronting me. I am the victor here'. Then, with an air of languid confidence, he took his seat. His neighbours clapped him on the back and raised their drinking horns with him.

"That said," said Guyard, "mayhaps we indeed should march for Joffrey." At the shouts of a few, he loudly added: "Not for her! Not for the Lannister bitch, not for Lord Tywin, and most certainly not for his cowardly child of a brother."

Guyard spat at the unspoken name. Cheers rang out across the hall of Storm's End at that utter contempt for Tommen, the pathetic little boy who claimed to be Lord of Storm's End, and yet was too afraid to even visit his own bannermen. These men would not have hurt him. They would have murdered anyone who dared try to hurt him. The Stormlords had loved Robert Baratheon. They had bled for Robert Baratheon. They would have died for the son of Robert Baratheon, and died happily. Yet never, never, not even once had little Tommen dared to visit the Stormlands—as if he either did not like them or did not trust them.

From the son of the man whom thousands of Stormlanders had died for, that insult cut deep.

"…but for Joffrey and Joffrey alone," finished Guyard. "We of the Stormlands serve the son of Robert Baratheon, and no-one else."

There were cheers for that. "Joffrey!", "King Joffrey!", "Joffrey king!" But not as many as the queen would have hoped there be.

"We stand for King Robert's son, aye," said Lady Bellanora Staedmon, and men fell quiet to hear her. Lady Bellonara was respected. Sister to one of the Stormlands' greatest lords, daughter to one, granddaughter to another and wife to another, she had borne three healthy daughters and three healthy sons, and in Robert's Rebellion she had held her keep in defiance of the Reachmen in spite of siege. "To what end? Suppose, gentle sers, my lords and ladies, that we win. The Stark rebels are put to rout. The little boy Robb is captured, or he is slain and the cripple second son gets Winterfell. Joffrey's seat is made secure." She leant forward. "Then Lord Tywin is Hand, Cersei is Queen Regent… and the Lannisters keep acting exactly as they did before. All the same hoarding of honours and powers and positions. All the same arrogance. Nothing changes."

"The Lannisters would have to respect us if we did the bleeding for Joffrey's cause," said Ser Harrold Hasty. Even he did not sound certain of his words.

"Would they?" Lady Bellonara's blue eyes met his coldly. Such was the force of her stare that, though he was almost her same age, Ser Harrold shrank into his seat like a child being scolded by his mother. "Pray tell me, ser, where have you been for these past six-and-ten years?"

The blow struck like a lance. The Hasty knight looked down at his pease and steak, and did not speak again.

So Lady Alys Penrose did instead, in defence of her nephew. "You speak well of why we should not stand for Joffrey, my lady of Staedmon," she said. Grey-haired matriarch met grey-haired matriarch. Both were too well-bred to glare frostily. "Do you think it fitting for the Stormlords to do nothing, to cower, while the men of the West and Reach reap all the glory and rewards?"

"Of course not."

"Then," said Lady Alys in a voice of daggers, "pray tell who do you think we should stand for?"

Lady Bellonara spoke flatly. "Someone else. Anyone else."

Cressen held in a gasp. Many had lamented the state of affairs in the court of King Joffrey. Some had even said they should not march. This was the first time someone had dared to say out loud that they—the armies of the Stormlords who were camped here at Storm's End, on their way to King's Landing where Joffrey (or his Lannister regent) had ordered them to march—should fight against the king.

"You cannot say that, my lady," said Ser Arys Oakheart near the head of the table. The white-cloaked knight stood up. "Joffrey is our lawful ruler."

If the old woman were afraid, she did not show it. She was Baratheon-blooded, this one. Bellonara's mother, Lady Jocasta, had been a Baratheon of Storm's End before she wedded into House Penrose. Her hair did not tell it, for it had all turned grey; but her eyes did, as did her towering stature. He was a knight of the Kingsguard, a swordsman of renown, clad in full plate armour, she an old lady in a silk gown. And yet her cool blue eyes gazed across at the white knight's—across, not up, for even as a woman of over seventy namedays, she was as tall as him—without fear and without flinching.

"Joffrey is a puppet in the hands of Lord Tywin Lannister," Bellonara said, precisely pronouncing every word. "He might be naturally the most admirable boy in the world. I wouldn't know. I haven't met him. But he is being raised by villains, oathbreakers and honourless backstabbers, and so he will likely grow up in their image. Most boys and girls do."

Poor Ser Arys spluttered. Cressen doubted the white knight's training among the high-and-mighty in King's Landing and the Reach had accustomed him to women insulting the queen openly. But this was the Stormlands, and people were blunter here.

"You—you cannot speak thus of the king. That is treason." Shocked and furious at himself for being shocked, furious at himself for stuttering, defensive of his pride as most young men were, Ser Arys found some resolve. "You are a traitor."

He stepped towards Lady Bellonara.

Shiiiiiiiiing.

About two-hundred knights of the Stormlands stood up at once. Swords left their scabbards.

"Sit down, boy," rumbled Silveraxe Fell, the biggest man in the hall, a towering slab of a lord who looked like he could smash boulders with his bare fists.

"Or we make you," finished Bryce Caron darkly.

"I—" said Ser Arys. He looked around as if he thought the world had gone mad, as if expecting someone to agree with him. Nobody did. "I—I am the king's man, sworn to the king. She denied the king in front of me. She can't do that."

"She just did," said Silveraxe.

"Then I must arrest her."

"Try it," snarled Benfrey Staedmon, the lady's grandson. He pointed naked steel at the Kingsguard knight.

Two of Benfrey's brothers and four of his cousins stepped up silently next to him. They did not say a word. They did not need to say a word. The steel in their hands spoke eloquently for them.

"Ser Arys, you are here under guest right," said Lady Shella Peasebury, appealing for reason. "You cannot enforce your will as if this were your hall."

"This is the king's hall," said Ser Arys, red with indignation and mortified pride.

"It is House Baratheon's hall," said Lady Bellonara simply. "Have we come now to such a pass that a granddaughter of a Lord of Storm's End cannot speak her mind in her grandfather's hall without men coming to arrest her for it?"

"Not while I draw breath!" said Jon Rogers.

Ser Arys looked pleadingly towards the carven throne of the old kings of the Stormlands—not at the throne itself, for there was nothing there to see; but at the seat beneath it, where the castellan of Storm's End sat. "Ser Cortnay, you cannot mean to allow this. You could eject her from guest right. You are the castellan."

Ser Cortnay Penrose stared coldly at him. "Did the queen send us a complete lackwit? Or are you truly expecting me to help you arrest my kinswoman, born Bellonara Penrose?"

Ser Arys's mouth opened and closed helplessly. It was clear he had not, in fact, known that.

Cressen felt sorry for him. It was not the boy's fault. He was a knight of the Kingsguard, meant for fighting, which he was probably very good at. It was the queen's folly to have sent a handsome young knight when what she needed was a seasoned diplomat. Yes, the Stormlords had a martial repute and they respected martial men; this much was true. But that did not mean it was wise to negotiate with them without even knowing who was whose kin.

"Now, pretty boy," rumbled Silveraxe, "are you sitting down? Or are you leaving guest right and taking this outside?"

Ser Arys took a look at Silveraxe. He took a look at the several hundred angry Stormlords who looked like they would love to take this outside.

Wisely, it seemed he decided that honour duels against half the knights and lords in the Stormlands was not the best way to win them over to King Joffrey's cause.

He sat down.

A great number of swords were sheathed when Ser Arys sat. Cressen breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad it had ended. The young man would have to be spectacularly foolish to truly try to arrest Lady Bellonara, but rash young men did foolish things ofttimes, especially when wounded pride was at play.

For a time, men and women ate in tense quiet. They supped on wild boar hunted from the rainwood and glazed in honey, served with leek and potato soup and small crunchy pastries, and washed it down with mead and ale.

Yet it did not take long for the talk of kings to return to the table.

"People have spoken. I would hear what they mean by it," said Parmen Musgood, Lord of Havenhall. "If not Joffrey, who?"

"We stand for Robert's son," declared Ser Harbert Mertyns. "That need not mean Joffrey. There are other sons."

"The bastard," breathed Lord Parmen.

"We cannot make a bastard king," said Casper Wylde.

"The son of Robert Baratheon," said Ser Harbert. "A bonny lad who knows the Stormlands like the back of his hand, who knows us well and loves us well. A warrior prince, not a little coward like Tommen. A brave boy who takes after his father."

All eyes turned to the boy sitting with the Mertyns family. He took after his father indeed. Black-of-hair, blue-of-eye, tall of build, taller than most grown men though he was only five-and-ten years old, Alesander Storm looked more like a young King Robert than Joffrey or Tommen ever had.

Seeing the eyes upon him, the boy stood. "It's my honour to meet you, sers, my lords and ladies," he said, "who have always been true to the line of my father."

"The trueborn line," muttered Lord Casper, not quietly. The men of House Mertyns shot him glares.

"The Lannister line," Lord Wensington emphasised, "means bowing to Casterly Rock. Joffrey will be king only of his bedchamber. Lord Tywin will rule us."

"Him and his bitch of a daughter," said his nephew, Ser Mychel Wensington.

"And I don't suppose House Wensington being married into House Mertyns has aught to do with this," said Ser Guyard Morrigen dryly.

The Mertyns and Wensingtons both glared at him. Neither dared to challenge him, just as Ser Arthor had not. The green knight's prowess at bladework cast a long shadow.

"Besides," said Lady Arwyn Grandison, "who would be our allies? Who would fight alongside us to put a bastard on the Iron Throne just because he grew in the Stormlands?"

"The North and the Riverlands," replied Lady Mary Mertyns, entering the debate at last.

When she spoke, men heeded her. She was no consort. She was the ruling Lady of Mistwood, mother to Ser Harbert and matriarch of her House. Alesander Storm had been born of the king's liaison with her youngest daughter, Ravella. And if they succeeded in this, she might become the most powerful woman in the Seven Kingdoms.

"The Tullys and Starks have not yet declared for a king," Lady Mary said. "With Lord Eddard slain, they will surely not declare for Joffrey. They have more armies. We have what they do not: a man who can be king. Declare for Alesander, and we can reforge our old alliance, the same one that brought Robert to the throne."

"A bold plan," Lord Arstan Selmy admitted. "But, my lady, the Starks of Winterfell are proud. Do you truly think they would kneel to a natural-born son?"

"Him or Joffrey?" said Lady Mary. "Who do you think?"

"They might not bow to either," suggested Ser Alliser Trant.

All at once, everyone looked at him like he was a fool. Ser Alliser reddened.

"Really?" drawled Guyard. "They do—what—name Robb Stark their king, and thus make enemies of everyone else in the realm, for no gain whatsoever? …Brilliant idea, ser. You must truly think the Starks are lackwit fools."

Ser Alliser suddenly developed a fascination with his knees. He looked at them very intently.

Triumphant, Lady Mary pressed her advantage: "Alesander is brave like his father, strong like his father, makes friends easily like his father did, and more chivalrous than his father was. He can befriend Eddard Stark's boy as their fathers did. We could even marry their Sansa to him once King's Landing is taken."

She really means it. This was not a manoeuvre to gain some concessions from the crown and then back down, Cressen realised. House Mertyns truly meant to make Alesander Storm king. House Wensington as well. If the Stormlords acceded to it… would they? Cressen had not thought they would support King Robert's bastard over his trueborn son. But doubtless men in Daemon Blackfyre's time had not thought it would happen in their lifetime either.

They are arguing over which of Robert's sons to make king.

Cressen had long known he was an old man, but he did not just feel old as he sat there, seated respectfully in a place of honour at the high table as befitted his long-time service to House Baratheon. He felt dead. Here they were, debating the late King Robert's succession, when he still remembered Robert as a boy, a bright and happy child who was the delight of his father and his House. The boys he had raised: Robert, Renly and… do not think of him. They were both dead now. Steffon too he had raised, their father, from when even he was a child in the arms of Lord Ormund and Princess Rhaelle. They too were dead and gone.

They were part of the past, all of them. Steffon, Cassana, Ormund, Rhaelle and the three boys Cressen had raised—the sons he had loved like his own—had disappeared into the mists of time.

Cressen felt like he was a ghost, stalking the halls of younger men, separated by a veil from the living. Everyone else was thinking of the living, while Cressen could think only of his ghosts.

"The thing remains, the boy's a bastard, my lady," Lord Cafferen said with a sigh. "I'm sorry but that's the plain truth of it. We can't put a bastard on the Iron Throne. I like the Lannisters as little as any of you, I'll swear to that by the Stranger; but a bastard cannot come before a trueborn son."

"Aye," came a chorus of lords and knights and ladies, far and wide, across the table.

"If it is Joffrey, Joffrey will not rule." Ser Harbert Mertyns came to his nephew's defence. "Lord Tywin will rule."

"Him and his bitch daughter," Bryce Caron rumbled.

Arthor Estermont looked up dully from his plate, then looked back again.

"Exactly!" said Lord Bertram Horpe. "Stormlords, Stormladies, knights of the Stormlands—do you want the queen cunt of Casterly Rock to rule you?"

The old man's face was cast with fiery hatred. His only son, Ser Richard Horpe, had meant to join the Kingsguard. He had been good enough—a fierce warrior, proven potent on the field—but Queen Cersei had spoken against him, loudly and fiercely, in open court, and Robert had acceded to his wife's nagging, as he did in many things. Dishonoured and disgraced, Ser Richard had fled across the Narrow Sea, whereupon he had ended up joining… do not think of him. Lord Bertram had never seen his son again, and it had been almost ten years. He blamed the queen for his son's exile. He had never forgiven her and probably never would.

"No-one of us loves the queen, my lord," said Lady Eleanor Swann, a pretty widow of six-and-forty with soft brown locks and quiet dignity. "The matter is: she was the king's wife. Joffrey, the king's son. That is no small matter to be set aside."

"Yet this, also, is no small matter," said Arstan Selmy, "that we have lacked a lord for six-and-ten years, ever since Lord Stannis was taken from us. We need a Lord of Storm's End."

"And we had one," growled Lord Bertram, "a damn good one, who proved his loyalty in the siege, and overseas has proven his valour and strength. And Robert took him away from us."

"Lord Stannis is gone, my lord," sighed Lady Bellonara. "Gone to the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai if rumours be true. No-one returns from there. It is a pity. We would be in a better place if my cousins had not had their falling-out. But we must live in the world that is, not the world we wish to have."

Meanwhile, Lady Eleanor gave Lord Arstan a startled look. "I thought you favoured Joffrey, not the bastard."

The Lord of Harvest Hall sighed. "I favour the legitimacy of the succession. I also favour us having a lord—our lord, not Jon Arryn ruling us from King's Landing, giving us a few glances in between ruling the Eyrie and being Hand for the whole realm. It is… regrettable that I do not see how we can have both."

"On that we agree," said Lady Eleanor softly. "No disrespect intended to you, Ser Cortnay."

"None received," said Ser Cortnay Penrose. "I… I am castellan of this castle, and I do not pretend to be more."

Cressen had grown tired of the lords and ladies exchanging the same old words of their indecision between Alesander and Joffrey. Besides, he was growing tired, for the hour was late. His eyes drifted around the room. He looked past the empty throne, nothing to see there, and his eyes drifted down the tables. With some amusement he spotted a little girl, perhaps four or five namedays old, fidgeting restlessly in her dress. She kept tugging at the sleeve of a man sat next to her, Ser Addam Staedmon, who Cressen guessed must be her father. They shared the same House colours on their garments, and the same dark hair.

"Look! Look, Daddy! Look! Look!" she kept saying.

Poor Ser Addam, who was trying to have a conversation with his neighbours, looked down at her. "What is it, sweetling?"

"Look over there!"

Ser Addam looked where she was pointing. His face moved back and forth. "At what?"

"The big chair!"

He glanced at it, then away, back at his daughter. "Yes, it's a very pretty chair, Leona. It's called a throne, and it's the seat of kings. Or… it was, until the dragons came." Ser Addam put a finger under her chin, knelt down and smiled at her. It was a lovely gesture. "Maybe in your lifetime it will be again, hmmm?"

She looked bewildered. "Can't you see it?"

Ser Addam said, "See what, darling?"

Ohhhhh, this brought back memories. Cressen remembered Renly running to his brothers, bursting with excitement, seeing something only he could see. They thought he was imagining ghosts or some other thing out of story. But no, it had turned out, he meant a butterfly. No-one else had thought it worthy of note, but the sight had amazed the young child.

Tears stung at the old maester's eyes.

"Could not the Iron Throne be persuaded to give us an adult lord?" asked Casper Wylde, despairing. "At least a regent?"

"Lord Tywin will never disinherit his grandson," Lady Bellonara said crisply. "And if we get a regent for Tommen, it will be a Lannister."

"A Lannister ruling Storm's End?" Lord Casper looked horrified. "That would be…"

"…Grasping?" Bellonara cut him off. "An overreach? Intolerably ambitious and crude? Yes. In other words, exactly the sort of deed that would be done by Lord Tywin Lannister."

The sad part was, thought Cressen, nobody could really disagree with that.

"Then if we are not to be Lannister-ruled, we must rise for Alesander," declared Mary Mertyns.

"A bastard is not a king."

"He might be a better one than Joffrey!"

And little Leona said: "The chair!"

Ser Addam looked like he wanted to put his head into his hands, but manfully he refrained and humoured his daughter. "I just told you I see the throne."

"The chair, but not the chair!"

Ser Addam sighed. "Very well, Leona. Tell me then: What do you see?"

"A shadow on the throne."

A chill ran down Cressen's spine.

It was said by some that the Targaryens had prophetic dreams. The Baratheons were of the blood of the Targaryens, even before Princess Rhaelle married into their line, if tales of Orys Baratheon's parentage were true—and nearly everyone believed they were. Could this be some form of prophecy?

Ser Addam took the girl too literally. He looked at the throne, then back, then stated the obvious: "There is not a shadow on the throne."

The girl stamped her foot. "Yes there is."

All of a sudden the room felt like it was pressing down on him. A weight upon his head. Cressen groaned. He was trying to listen to two conversations at once:

"If Joffrey would be king in name, Tywin Lannister would be king in truth. He is no blood of Robert Baratheon. To honour Joffrey is not to honour Robert. Alesander fights like Robert, hunts like Robert, makes friends like Robert. He is Robert's son, just like his father."

"And is that such a good thing?" This, a lady's voice, quietly. "Robert the Fat was a good knight, my lord, but a poor king. He signally failed to beat down the ironmen. Tywin Lannister is greedy and cruel, aye, and hoards honours and positions to himself and his kin beyond all reason… but mayhaps a man like Tywin Lannister is what we need, to get the ironmen broken. Being like Robert is being like a failure."

"That was no fault of King Robert's!" This, an older man, one who had likely fought beside the late king in Robert's Rebellion. Cressen could not see him, for he had closed his eyes. His head was spinning. "It was Robert's misfortune he faced Euron Greyjoy, the greatest captain of fleets in a thousand years. We need only wait a while and old age will take him as it takes all men, and then there will be a reckoning."

"Robert the Fat spent three fleets trying and failing to beat the ironmen. Three! More than a decade of those exorbitant taxes of his, our blood and treasure. And you think he did not fail?"

"Sweetling, I can see it there. I don't know what you are saying."

"Yes you do. You do," she said with girlish petulance. "You just don't believe me."

"It isn't there, Leona."

"It is. It is!"

Other lords from around were looking at the pair. Her father clutched her hand anxiously. "Darling, you're making a scene. Remember what I told you about not bringing dishonour to our House? Just as I must be strong and resolute, you must be ladylike and dignified. Our whole family is depending—"

"I know," said the girl, "I remember, Daddy, but it's there! It's real! Look! Can't you see it?"

"Sweetling, it's not—"

The girl shrieked at the top of her voice. "THERE IS A SHADOW ON THE THRONE!"

The hall fell silent.

Everyone in the great hall of Storm's End looked, all at once, at the high seat. And there was a shadow. The throne was empty; but the shadow that it cast was not just the shadow of a chair. It was the shadow of a chair and a man.

And then the throne was not empty at all.

A man was seated upon the throne of the Storm Kings. Guardsmen flanked him—fully armoured men in plate, a dozen on each side, grim helmed warriors like faceless sentinels around the throne, all in black without sign or sigil. Each and every one of them carried a huge, blood-red kiteshield, gleaming like gold, streaked with a dancing pattern that reminded Cressen queerly of fire.

The man on the throne was gigantically tall. Even sitting, he towered over other men. He was clad from head to toe in plate armour of black iron. How had they missed him? It made no sense that anyone had missed him.

A sword rested at his hip, its blade hidden by a scabbard, unseen. Its hilt was wrought of some strange substance Cressen could not identify. It was black, but not the black of ebony wood, nor the black of basalt rock, nor even the shimmering black of obsidian. This was black like nothing he had ever seen made by mortal hands. Black like a shard of darkness stolen from the midnight sky.

A thousand eyes fell on the shadow on the throne; and it spoke, in a deep, harsh, powerful voice that most of the men in the hall recognised instantly.

"There is only one true king. All must kneel to me," said Stannis Baratheon. "Welcome to my home, Stormlords. And welcome to my coronation."