The great hall of Harrenhal lay heavy with the scent of oak smoke and damp stone, for autumn rains had battered the castle all week. Tapestries stirred faintly in the draft that whispered through the vaults. Knights, stewards, and sworn swords lined the chamber in uneven rows, armed and armored, waiting for their lord to speak.
Baelon rose from his seat at the high table with deliberate calm, letting the moment stretch until every murmur faded into watchful silence. His gaze swept the hall, pausing upon men who stiffened under the weight of it. Then, with a voice measured and ringing clear, he declared:
"Oh yes, Ser Illis's loyalty is beyond question. Let it be known that, from this day forth, Ser Illis shall formally hold the office of Wailer of Harrenhal."
The words landed like a stone cast into still water. A shift rippled through the gathered men, some blinking, some tightening their jaws, a few exchanging quick, poisonous glances.
Baelon was not finished.
"And more," he said, lifting a hand for quiet. "Harrenhal's purse-strings shall rest in his keeping. While I lead our host to war, Ser Illis will govern the castle in my stead."
He stepped down from the dais and clapped Illis firmly on the arm, his gesture bold, almost flamboyant, the sort of easy familiarity that only he could wield without seeming false.
"Congratulations," Baelon added, loud enough for all to hear. "At last you shed the word acting."
The knighthood around them watched, their eyes hard as iron studs.
To an outsider it might have looked like merriment, or the warmth of long companionship, but Illis knew better, and so did every man in the room. The lord's easy manner did nothing to soften the cold undercurrent threading the hall.
Illis dropped to one knee.
"…My lord. Thank you."
His voice scraped low, and though he bowed his head in gratitude, the tightness in his jaw betrayed the bitterness beneath. He had risen far in a single breath, one of Harrenhal's eight chief knights now, second only to Baelon himself, and entrusted with the castle's coffers besides... but the honor weighed heavy as a millstone.
Illis did not need to lift his eyes to feel the host of new enemies he had earned. He had informed Baelon of several men's petty schemes, small matters, petty squabbles, nothing that would have changed the fate of a realm, yet enough to brand him a betrayer in their minds. Men forgave lords who punished them; they seldom forgave the ones who had carried their names to the lord's ear.
Baelon might shield him for now. But once the army marched, once Baelon rode out and left Harrenhal to its own simmering grudges…
Illis would not last a day outside the gate. Some quarrel, loosed from the shadow of a turret or the bend of a stair, would plant itself between his ribs.
Baelon saw the tension shift in the hall, felt it, even, yet his expression never wavered.
"All of you," he said, dismissing them with a wave, "go and prepare. We march before long."
The men bowed, saluted, muttered, and filed out. The hall thinned until only the draft remained, tugging at the torches in their sconces. Baelon lingered a moment longer, feeling the echo of the men's resentment fade into the stone.
Only then did he turn, his gaze sliding through the tall, arched windows toward the outer ward.
Tyraxes lay outside the walls, half-curled, half-sprawled, a long coil of living flame and muscle. The dragon's scales shimmered in the gray light, dark, maroon-tinged plates catching the torchlight, and between them, that faint, reddish glow that had not been there before.
Baelon felt it more than he saw it. The bond between them, deep, thrummed with restless energy.
You will shine in the war to come, he thought, and though he did not speak it aloud, he knew Tyraxes heard him.
Your fire burns blood-red now, he sent through their link. Tell me, have you felt anything… unusual?
Tyraxes lifted his great wedge-shaped head and blew a long huff of warm air across the courtyard. Nothing more.
Baelon exhaled.
"Hm. Stranger still." He tapped a finger against his arm. "I ought to study the Gods Eye properly."
For the dragonfire's shift, deep crimson, wine-dark, could only be tied to that lake.
Baelon stepped out into the courtyard, boots crunching upon gravel. Tyraxes's wings shifted against the ground, stirring dust and straw.
Go and see for yourself, Baelon urged.
Not us. He would remain here, their bond stretched taut like a thread of living fire. He was no fool, he would not dive into that endless lake. A man would drown long before he reached whatever secrets lay beneath.
Tyraxes gave a low, throaty growl. The dragon was not afraid of water, but he despised it... the suffocation of cold, the weight of the deep, the silence. He tolerated sleeping upon the Isle of Faces; submerging himself was another matter entirely.
Baelon's mouth curved into a wry smile.
"Two destriers. Both full-grown stallions. Uncut."
Tyraxes's pupils widened. Interest stirred.
The dragon had peculiar tastes for his kind.
Sheep and cattle bored him. But Predators... they fascinated him, wolves, shadowcats, anything that fought back. When such beasts grew scarce, he hunted horses. Stallions only, fierce, unbroken studs that carried the scent of challenge.
Cart-horses and plowmares might as well have been straw in Tyraxes's eyes.
But stallions... true war-stallions, were costly in Westeros. Baelon could not pluck them from the air. and More often than not Tyraxes dined on cattle and lake fish.
The dragon tilted his great head, considering.
"Three," Baelon said sharply. "No more. Refuse, and forget it, my curiosity is not that great."
The words had hardly left his mouth before Tyraxes bounded forward, wings beating once, twice, lifting him above the battlements. He gave a triumphant roar as he soared toward the Gods Eye.
Baelon felt the dragon's excitement surge through the bond like warm tidewater.
"Seven hells," Baelon muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.
Only now did he recognize the ploy, Tyraxes had agreed the moment he offered two. The scaled bastard had wrung a third stallion out of him through sheer cunning. Baelon cursed Syrax, slow-witted Syrax- for allowing Tyraxes to learn such tricks.
He was still muttering when a wave of icy sensation engulfed him, cold, deep, drowning not in water but in the dragon's perception.
He's gone under, Baelon realized.
The feeling lingered... the bone-numbing chill of a body dragged into dark depths, the weight of endless water overhead. Yet Tyraxes swam downward with powerful strokes, far beyond what any man could reach.
Then-
A shape.A curve of bone.A great hollow rib.A pale arch of spine.A skull, half-buried in silt.
Baelon's breath caught.
A skeleton? Whose…?
He shut his eyes, letting the bond deepen until he saw through Tyraxes's sight. The dragon turned, sweeping silt aside with a beat of his wings until the whole of it lay revealed.
A dragon.Long of body.Fine of bone.Graceful where others were heavy.Moon-pale even in death.
Recognition struck Baelon like a blow.
Small beside Balerion… but swift. Could it be… Quicksilver?
Quicksilver, the young silvery-white dragon first ridden by King Aenys I, later by his son Prince Aegon the Uncrowned. Both dragon and rider had fallen above this very lake, torn apart when Balerion met them in Maegor's brutal grasp for the throne.
The histories said Quicksilver had been ripped in half midair, her burning remnants plunging into the Gods Eye. They said nothing remained.
But here she lay.
One wing torn clean in the struggle. The rest of her bones sprawled like a pale sprawl of moonlight across the black silt.
"Oh… little queen of the skies," Baelon whispered into the bond. "You should not have died. Civil war slew you... Targaryens tearing their own blood to shreds."
A young, second-generation dragon, still growing. Had she lived, she might have become a legend to rival Vhagar or Vermithor.
While Baelon mourned, Tyraxes nosed deeper beneath the collapsed ribcage. A faint scent, metallic, old, and unfamiliar, stirred the dragon's instincts. It pricked him like a thorn hidden beneath old flesh, sharp enough to set every nerve alight.
Something lay hidden in the dark beneath Quicksilver's bones.
Something old. Buried and was waiting.
And Tyraxes had found it.
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A/N:The war begins here. If you think you know what comes next, you don't. BUT It's already waiting in the chapters ahead.
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