The screams of the dying had finally faded into a heavy, ringing silence as the eastern sky began to bleed into a pale, sickly gold. The siege of Feastfires had lasted for most of the night, a grueling grind of wood against stone and flesh against steel.
The snow had stopped falling, leaving a thin, brittle layer of white over the charnel house. Layers of dark, jagged clouds, shaped like predatory fish leaping from the depths danced around the rising sun. Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, stepped onto the blood-soaked ramparts. His heavy steel boots crunched through the ice, crushing the frost that had settled over black enameled plate and the charred, unrecognizable husks of men who had been caught in the pitch-fire.
He turned to Ser Hugo Vance, the heir of Atranta who had led the first suicidal charge up the scaling ladders. "Where is Lord Garrison Prester?"
"He died in the breach," Ser Hugo replied, pointing his gauntlet toward a heap of bodies beneath the Running Wolf banner. Garrison Prester lay there, his surcoat riddled with crossbow bolts. "I called out to him three times, offering terms of honorable surrender. He ignored me, swinging that longsword of his until the very end. He left us no choice."
Brynden looked at the old lord, whose grey beard was now matted with frozen gore. "And his son?"
Hugo shrugged, a gesture devoid of warmth. "The corpse next to him, in the blue enameled plate. That was the heir. We cut him down when he tried to rally the rearguard."
The Blackfish went silent. The male line of House Prester was extinct in a single night. This meant the occupation of Feastfires would be a messy affair of administrative headaches and minor rebellions.
"Are there any survivors of the direct line?" Brynden asked.
"Only a daughter, Anna Prester," Hugo said. "The steward claims she escaped by boat to Lannisport before the first ram hit the gate. As you know, Marshal, we have no ships. We could only watch her sail into the mist."
"She won't escape the war," Brynden grunted. "Ten thousand of our men guard the land-gates of Casterly Rock and Lannisport. They are prisoners of the sea now, and the sea is a hungry master."
He looked at the waves crashing against the cliffs below. The sound of the surf was a rhythmic thrum, mingled with the distant, mournful cries of seagulls and the exhausted cheers of the Riverland infantry.
"Ser Hugo, for your valor, the Vance family will garrison this seat for now. I'll leave you five hundred men. But keep your eyes on the horizon."
Hugo hesitated. "Marshal... I'd rather keep my brother Ellery with me. I'll take the Wayfarer's Rest veterans and stay by your side. I've seen enough of this castle."
Brynden nodded. He understood the look in Hugo's eyes, the fear of being isolated in a tomb of his own making.
Suddenly, Brynden's peripheral vision caught a movement on the water. He pulled a finely crafted Myr lens from his cloak and adjusted the brass tubes. His breath hitched.
Leading the way was a long, low war-galley, her hull the color of dried blood. Her black sails were full of the autumn wind, cutting through the waves like a razor. At the bow was a black iron maiden, her mouth deliberately sealed, her mother-of-pearl eyes staring into the void.
The Silence. Euron Greyjoy's flagship.
Behind her, the horizon was a forest of masts. The Invincible Ironborn, the Iron Vengeance, the Grey Ghost... nearly two hundred warships of the Iron Fleet were surging south.
"Go!" Brynden roared to his attendant. "Find the Maester. I need to write to Harrenhal. The Kraken has found the Reach!"
On the Silence, the air in the captain's cabin was thick with the scent of shade-of-the-evening and old blood. A mute servant, his skin like pitch, tremblingly set a flagon of wine on the table and scrambled away before the King could look at him.
Euron Greyjoy was in a foul mood.
Since the moment he had summoned the kraken at Sea Dragon Point to drag Robb Stark into the abyss, his connection to the deep had withered. The Three-Eyed Raven, the bird that had haunted his dreams and whispered the secrets of the gods, had vanished. Euron felt like a man who had been given the keys to the world, only to have the locks changed behind his back.
He knew his brother Aeron was preaching against him, calling him a godless king. He knew Asha had fled Pyke to avoid the "wedding" he had arranged for her with an eighty-eight-year-old cripple. But Euron didn't care for priests or nieces. He needed a victory to drown the whispers of the captains.
He knew the Lannisters were broken. He knew the Redwyne Fleet had been decimated at Crab Island. The Reach, the soft, wealthy belly of Westeros was a naked girl waiting for a blade.
"Let the Wolf and the Lion kill each other in the mud," Euron whispered to his own reflection. "I'll take the roses and the gold."
Goldengrove. The ancestral seat of House Rowan.
A sky-blue porcelain vase, worth a small manor in the North, shattered against the marble floor of the guest solar.
"Why are we not retaking the capital?!" Cersei Lannister shrieked, her chest heaving beneath her scarlet silk gown. "Is my son a King in exile or a guest of the Tyrells?!"
Margaery Tyrell emerged from behind a carved screen, her green gauze dress flowing like a summer stream. Her face was a mask of soft, artificial concern. "Your Grace, the Hand believes the West must be secured first. The lords of the Westerlands will not fight for a throne in King's Landing while their own children are being flayed in the Reach."
"I do not need a girl's lecture on strategy!" Cersei snapped.
The Queen Regent felt the walls of Goldengrove closing in. Every maid was a Tyrell spy. Every guard wore a rose. Her authority was a thin veil, easily torn. Her nightmares were becoming more vivid: Tyrion, a hairy demon monkey, mocking her in the dark while she stood naked in a dungeon.
Tommen, looking pale and clutching a book, looked up at his mother. "Mother, Grandfather is right. We must reclaim our home before we can rule the realm."
"Idiot!" Cersei glared at her son, then at Margaery.
The anger boiled over. Cersei stepped forward, the silk of her gown rustling like a snake.
SLAP.
Margaery's head snapped back. She clutched her reddening cheek, her brown eyes filling with a calculated, shimmering disbelief.
"Bitch!" Cersei hissed.
The room erupted. Sandor Clegane, the Hound, was the first to move. He placed his massive, burned silhouette between the two women. He didn't strike the Queen Regent, but his presence was a wall of cold iron.
"Useless fools!" Cersei screamed at the Kingsguard who were only now reacting.
Tommen jumped from his chair, running to Margaery's side. He looked up at the white-cloaked guards with a face that had suddenly hardened. "Find two handmaidens. Escort the Queen Regent to her chambers. Gently... but she is not to leave."
Cersei froze. She saw the look in her son's eyes, the distance, the distrust. She saw Margaery look up, a tiny, triumphant smirk flickering in her tear-filled eyes.
"It's a trick!" Cersei wailed as the burly Tyrell maids gripped her arms. "She's poisoning you against me!"
As the screaming Queen Regent was hauled away, Margaery offered Tommen a weak, tragic smile. "Thank you, my King."
Only the Hound and Tommen remained.
"Sandor, open the window," Tommen ordered. "It's stifling in here."
The Hound pulled open the north-facing casement. Outside, the Reach was a sea of green, but a sharp, biting wind whistled through the opening.
Tommen sneezed, his small frame shivering. "The cold winds are rising," he whispered, remembering a phrase from the Northern ravens. "Winter is truly here."
[Status: The Lannister-Tyrell alliance enters a Cold War.]
[Westerlands Front: male Prester line extinct; Feastfires occupied.]
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