Loyalty. Men had argued over the meaning of that word for as long as Westeros had known the scratch of quill on parchment and the gleam of steel in sunlight.
From the Dawn Age, twelve thousand years lost to fog and nightmare, loyalty had been worth less than a dying torch. In those savage days, when the Children of the Forest whispered curses through the roots of weirwoods and shadows hunted men across nameless hills, treachery had been the law of life. Only after the First Men carved their runes into the land, and later when the Seven Kingdoms rose from the ashes of endless war, did the idea of fidelity begin to hold weight.
But Baelon knew better.
At six years old, the boy who bore the blood of Old Valyria already understood truths grown men spent a lifetime refusing to see.
Chivalry binds nothing, he thought. Only coin keeps a man's oath from blowing away like ash.
Men must eat. Men must live. And when purses emptied, honor fled quicker than ravens before a storm.
So Baelon chose coin as the mortar with which he would build his rule. Gold was the surest chain ever forged, stronger than vows sworn before the Seven, stronger even than fear. A gold dragon glimmered more seductively than any knightly oath; the clink of a well-filled purse was sweeter than a wife's kiss.
He stood now in the shadow of Harrenhal's broken towers, a thin mist rising from the God's Eye behind him, when Cantrell spoke at his side.
"Does that man Harreth need to be…" Cantrell dragged a thumb slowly across his throat, the motion deliberate, testing. "…kept around?"
Baelon did not look away from the ruin stretching before him. "No," he said, voice as cool as riverwater. "He still has value."
Cantrell blinked, uncertain if he had misheard. The boy's tone held neither mercy nor compassion.
"Erik may have spoken true," Baelon continued, turning to him at last, "or he may have told me only half. We will know only when we see the truth with our own eyes."
Cantrell shifted uneasily. "Harreth is nothing, my prince. A worm. A scrap. A man like that-"
"A worm," Baelon cut in softly, "has its uses." He lowered his voice, as though confiding a secret to the stone itself. "Dragons have fire. Worms have bait. A worm may be crushed… or tied to a hook to catch something far greater."
"We will squeeze every last drop of usefulness from him," Baelon said.
Cantrell swallowed, realizing only then that the faint tremor in his hands was not from the cold. Seven save us, he thought. He is only six.
"Yes, my prince," he murmured.
Baelon lifted his chin toward the keep. "Come. We tour Harrenhal. First– the King's Pyre Tower. My quarters now." His small boots clicked against the stone as he advanced. "Then the Wailing Tower. I would see what supplies and arms these Strongs truly keep hidden."
Cantrell hurried after him.
*
Harreth Strong did not look back.
Stripped of his rank, his armor, and what little honor he had once held, he gathered the pitiful remnants of his life into a small sack and left the castle through its lesser gate. Every possession he had owned, his sword, his warhorse, even the dented breastplate he had once polished with pride, belonged now to the boy he had foolishly crossed: Lord Baelon of Harrenhal.
A ruined man walked where a sworn knight had stood.
He limped north along the muddy road, leaning on a branch he had torn from a roadside oak. His few loyal comrades had spared what coin they could, ten or twelve silver stags, pressed into his palm with hurried pity. Once, Harreth would not have stooped to pick up such meager silver from the tavern floor.
Now, it was all that lay between survival and starvation.
The gods alone knew how long he limped beneath the broad sky before the rumble of wheels and the crack of reins reached him. A Dantell trade caravan slowed as it approached, one of the drivers recognized him, lifted an eyebrow, and jerked a thumb toward the wagons.
Harreth climbed aboard with a grunt, settling among bales of spun wool and casks of dried fruit. They carried him as far as Harroway's Town, where he dropped down stiff-legged from the cart and scanned the market streets.
He found his target in a modest hall off the square.
"Young Lord Yobert," Harreth said, forcing a smile that set pain throbbing behind his ribs. He bowed, though the motion nearly toppled him. "As you can see, I have fulfilled your request. The wound" -he tapped the dark bruise swelling beneath his cloak-"proves the trouble I caused Prince Baelon."
Yobert Royce leaned back in his chair, dark leather creaking. A true son of the Vale, he bore the hard, cold eyes of Runestone men, eyes that measured worth in iron, not charm.
"Bold of you," Yobert said with a low chuckle. He reached for a wine cup and drank as though amused by a child's trick. "To provoke a dragon-blooded prince? Admirable. Suicidal, but admirable none the less."
He tossed Harrith a small iron key. It jingled across the table and landed before the disgraced knight.
"And as agreed," Yobert added, flinging a bulging pouch onto the wood beside it, "the house is yours. Two hundred coppers, so you don't starve before you repay our favor. Consider it," he smirked, "a gift."
To House Royce, Harreth had served his purpose. A spent piece. A discarded pawn. Yet a pawn on the far edge of the board could, at the right moment, become something surprising.
Harreth bowed again. His pride had already bled out somewhere on the road from Harrenhal.
*
Whispers spread like wildfire.
Across the Crownlands, through the alleys of King's Landing and along the tavern benches of Rosby and Duskendale, smallfolk whispered of Prince Baelon's banishment.
The holy white hart that had walked beside him, blessed sign of the gods, or so the septons claimed, had won him the hearts of common folk. And now that same boy was gone, sent to the Riverlands, to cursed Harrenhal of all places.
Some swore it was a punishment. Others claimed it was a test. Others still murmured prayers that the boy would survive the castle of ashes and ghosts.
Far across the Narrow Sea, on the war-scarred isles of the Stepstones, Prince Daemon Targaryen returned to his tent beneath the fading sun.
His armor was dented and bloodied, his cheek split open from the day's skirmish, but his steps were firm. Caraxes roared somewhere beyond the ridge, the Blood Wyrm's cry shaking loose pebbles from the rocks.
A royal courier awaited him, sweat-soaked and nervous.
Daemon tore open the first scroll.
Alicent was safely delivered of a daughter. The second scroll announced King Viserys's intention to hold a grand tourney for the babe's first nameday. The third revealed an invitation for Daemon and Corlys Velaryon to attend.
Daemon grunted, neither pleased nor displeased.
But when he read the final message, the world narrowed to a violent point.
His son- his Baelon, had been driven from the Red Keep.
"What?" Daemon's voice cut the air like a drawn blade.
His helm slipped from his hand and crashed to the ground, denting the earth. The courier flinched.
"My prince," the man said quickly, hands raised, "His Grace commands that you remain calm. Prince Baelon's status is unchanged. Harrenhal is a reward, for saving Princess Rhaenyra, for-"
Daemon moved before the man could finish.
With a snarl, he seized the courier by the collar and struck him across the face. Once. Twice. Again- until blood streaked Daemon's knuckles and dripped onto the packed dirt.
Men outside the tent heard nothing; they were accustomed to violence from their prince.
At last Daemon released the courier, letting him drop gasping to the floor.
"Tell my brother…" Daemon growled, chest rising and falling like a bellows, "I will come."
He stepped forward, grabbing the man's chin and forcing him to meet his eyes.
"King's Landing is my home," Daemon hissed. "And it is my son's home."
His grip tightened, then loosened as abruptly as it had come.
"Harrenhal," he spat, wiping blood from his gauntlet, "is not enough."
The courier fled, stumbling over the tent ropes.
Daemon watched him go, jaw clenched, fury simmering like molten stone beneath his skin. Caraxes roared again, sensing his rider's rage, and Daemon's lips twisted into a thin, humorless smile.
"Soon," he murmured. "Very soon."
-----
A/N: What comes next forces Baelon to make choices he can't walk back from.
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