Fourth-year Summer, the 28th, Sunday. Clear skies. 6:00 a.m.
Daeron woke early and immediately noticed something new on the farm.
On the isolated island in the grassland layout—right where Grandpa's grave had once stood—now sat a neat little Junimo hut.
"Apple, are you inside?"
Daeron knocked on the wooden shell. No answer.
After a quick inspection, the hut looked like an auto-harvester. A small pouch hung by the door.
He opened it. Items could apparently be placed inside.
"Should I toss in some raisins?"
Daeron considered dropping a few of the Junimo's favorite dried grapes, but the 10,000-gold dehydrator recipe made him think twice. He gave up.
Once a farm owner earned 25,000 gold, the abandoned mine would gain special bats.
Two choices appeared:
- Fruit bats that dropped fruit, or
- Mushroom bats whose droppings fertilized all kinds of mushrooms.
The veteran farmer had chosen the fruit-bat cave for free fruit offerings, so the mushroom cave (and its free dehydrator) had never appeared.
"Are the dragon eggs in here?"
Daeron reached inside. Sure enough, two petrified eggs lay nestled in soft straw—one bronze-green, one yellow.
Exactly the two he had chosen.
Daeron's eyes widened. "I hope Shaena doesn't get a scare. When I return to King's Landing I'll just say I took the eggs."
One thing was undeniable: Junimo worked fast.
Truly the farm owner's best partner.
In the days that followed, Daeron stayed in King's Landing, keeping a close eye on the realm's situation.
The fiercest fighting was, without question, in the Riverlands.
Under Lord Tytos Blackwood the Blackwood army fought like demons, hammering the Brackens from start to finish.
House Darry and House Haigh were no slouches either; they carved out a solid loyalist foothold around the Gods Eye.
The Lannisters had sent another five thousand men, bringing their total to ten thousand.
Yet they refused to march. They simply sat outside the Golden Tooth, watching.
"According to the latest reports, Lord Robert has finished mustering the Stormlands host and is already marching on Deerfield."
Maester Aemon adjusted his new spectacles and read the fresh intelligence.
The broken lenses Daeron had fished out of the river had been repaired by Maester Harvy and turned into a perfectly serviceable pair of reading glasses.
"Wonderful things. I like them very much."
Maester Aemon touched the temple arms with a childlike smile of pure happiness.
"I'm glad," Daeron said, sitting across from him. "Lord Tywin has reached Tumblestone. Lord Mace's Reach host is almost at the Rush. The situation is stable."
Maester Aemon shook his head, clearly unimpressed with Tywin.
His private assessment of the man was roughly: A capable minister in peaceful times, a treacherous villain in chaotic ones.
"Tywin is talented and possesses the aura of a hero, but his selfishness is heavier than Otto Hightower's during the Dance. Your father choosing him as Hand was a mistake from the very first day."
Maester Aemon removed the spectacles, wiped lenses that were already spotless, and spoke with quiet clarity.
Perhaps only when the world was blurred could the old man speak his true mind.
Daeron reflected. He understood the warning: Do not marry Cersei.
If he did, Tywin would become Otto Hightower the Second.
"Great-uncle, do you think Rhaegar will actually marry Lyanna?"
Daeron asked the question sideways.
Maester Aemon paused, then gave a wry laugh. "Has Shaena stopped satisfying you?"
The old man was sharp. He instantly saw that Daeron wanted to use Rhaegar as a shield.
"Nothing escapes you." Daeron took the elder's hand with proper respect. "I wish to restore the family's old custom of multiple wives and spread our blood as widely as possible."
In truth he hadn't even decided how many children he wanted—too many were just more debts.
But the tradition could be ignored in practice; it could not be allowed to vanish.
Maester Aemon pondered for a moment. "If that is truly your heart, Rhaegar can indeed take the arrows for you. But the Faith will feel provoked, and many lords will oppose it."
The Faith and House Targaryen had a working relationship.
When "the Conciliator" Jaehaerys I inherited a shattered realm, his first act had been to negotiate with the High Septon and draft the "Special Accord."
Targaryens could keep their practice of brother-sister marriage, but they had to abandon polygamy.
In exchange, the Faith disbanded all its military orders and sent septons across Westeros to preach that Targaryen incest was lawful and blessed by the Seven.
The now-disarmed Faith would fall under royal protection.
On the surface it still looked like divine right of kings.
But Jaehaerys's true genius had been to keep the outward form while cutting the Faith's roots, turning it into a subordinate department of the Crown.
Because the Faith now depended on royal protection, it had stayed obedient for decades—until a certain table-flipping queen restored its armies and the Faith went mad.
"Only the Faith?" Daeron's eyes brightened. He was not afraid of septons.
Maester Aemon nodded. "The Seven are a tool for pacifying the smallfolk. The Faith uses the false love of the gods to give desperate peasants a comforting illusion and keeps them chained."
"The same faith does not work nearly as well on the great lords."
"Rest assured, I will treat the smallfolk better," Daeron said, gently shaking the old man's hand. He recognized the echo of his great-grandfather Aegon V's ideals.
Life for Westerosi smallfolk was harsh. Average lifespan hovered between thirty-five and forty; disease and accidents claimed most early.
That was why the Faith of the Seven spread so widely—peasants had no other spiritual pillar.
Imagine being born a commoner. The Reach or Riverlands were tolerable. Dorne or the North? Nightmare start.
If your lord was kind, you might keep enough grain to survive winter after a year's labor.
If he was greedy, layered taxes stripped you bare.
A cold, a snakebite, a broken leg while chopping wood—any of those usually meant death.
By the time you reached sixteen, your parents and siblings were often already gone.
In such a world there was no love, no anchor.
You either drifted through life until exhaustion killed you, or you turned to the Seven for one scrap of peace.
Maester Aemon's eyes reddened. His voice cracked. "Egg was a good boy. He spent his whole life fighting to improve the smallfolk's lot, but without dragons he could do nothing."
Daeron stayed silent, unsure how to comfort him.
"Child, remember—your great-grandfather was driven to his death."
Maester Aemon's gaze suddenly sharpened. He gripped Daeron's hand tightly. "He wanted dragons too badly, so he grasped at straws and caused the Tragedy at Summerhall."
"When you sit the Iron Throne and begin to reshape the relations between Crown, nobility, and smallfolk, show no mercy. Those lords have sucked blood from House Targaryen and the people for far too long."
"Great-uncle…?"
Daeron was genuinely startled. The gentle old man he knew had just revealed himself to be a far purer radical than Daeron himself.
"Do not be afraid, child."
Maester Aemon's expression softened again. "If you had no dragons I would never speak these words. But you have dragons. House Targaryen is once more the family of dragonlords. We have the strength."
Daeron stared for a moment, then broke into a bright smile.
Indeed. A Targaryen without a touch of madness could hardly claim pure dragon blood.
This was how a Targaryen should be.
Tumblestone.
Tywin's army occupied the town but immediately began squeezing supplies from House Foote.
Lord Foote, ever cautious, asked, "My lord, Tumblestone is happy to support your campaign against the rebels, but how much grain does your host require?"
"I have five thousand men—eighteen hundred pikemen and two thousand reserves."
Tywin's arithmetic was flawless. "To guarantee the army's needs, you will provide three hundred thousand pounds of rye, one hundred thousand pounds of barley, fifty thousand pounds each of wheat and black beans."
Lord Foote's face turned green at the astronomical sum.
Even if each soldier ate two pounds a day, nine thousand men needed only eighteen thousand pounds daily—fifty-four thousand pounds a month.
Tywin opened his mouth and demanded an entire month's rations.
And besides the cheapest rye, barley and wheat were expensive. Black beans were cooking ingredients, not army food.
The man clearly intended to treat House Foote as a cash cow.
"My lord, I cannot possibly provide that."
Lord Foote did the math and refused outright.
Tywin's face remained blank. "How much can you provide?"
"At most one hundred thousand pounds of rye, five thousand each of barley and wheat, and one thousand of black beans."
Lord Foote gritted his teeth, ready to bargain.
The army was already inside his walls. He dared not offer nothing.
Unexpectedly, Tywin accepted at once. "Very well. That will do."
Lord Foote had just begun to exhale in relief.
Tywin continued smoothly, "However, when soldiers enter a town, discipline can slip. You will keep your people in line and not act rashly."
The words were a naked threat.
Lord Foote could only swallow his anger, return home, and order his family to stay indoors.
"Ungrateful wretch," Tywin snorted, then summoned a Lannister officer and whispered instructions.
He had targeted House Foote deliberately.
When his army first reached Tumblestone, Lord Foote had hesitated to open the gates upon seeing Targaryen and Lannister banners—suspicious behavior that bordered on treason.
He had only himself to blame.
Southern Kingswood.
A long column of Stormlands troops snaked forward beneath the crowned stag of House Baratheon, marching on Deerfield.
Robert rode at the very front on a massive three-yard-tall giant elk, armor gleaming, face handsome and commanding.
That lone majestic figure was enough to earn the love of every Stormlands lord.
"My lord, Deerfield lies just ahead."
Ralph Buckler rode beside him on an ordinary warhorse that barely reached the elk's belly.
He was Lord of Coppergate and had answered the Baratheon call with enthusiasm.
Robert raised his warhammer, displaying inhuman strength, and roared, "My lords! We take Deerfield, smash Lord Cafferen's skull, and march south into the Reach!"