Baelor Hightower rushed up the towering Hightower and hurriedly pushed open the door to the top floor where Lord Leyton Hightower lived.
The room was a wreck. Books and ancient scrolls lay scattered across the floor, and glass candles, twisted like long swords, burned with dazzling light. Moraya Hightower paid Baelor no attention at all.
"Why have you come?" Leyton Hightower asked, looking at his son.
The windows of the Hightower stood open, and the howling wind shook the room, yet the flames of the glass candles remained steady. Through the windows, one could see the vast lands ruled by House Hightower, though now they were deathly still.
Moraya ignored the father and son's argument, focusing entirely on the pale white flame of the candle. Perhaps there truly was something in that fire.
"Am I not allowed to disturb you, Father?" Baelor Hightower said. "Gunthor is dead, the docks are gone, and Oldtown is finished."
"Oldtown will not be finished, child. The Hightower still stands. As for the Hightowers, that is another matter."
"What about the Smith King's reinforcements?" Leyton asked Baelor, then gestured for his son to sit on a folding chair.
"They are on the way."
"On the way? Heh. Distant water cannot put out a nearby fire." Leyton shook his head. "All this time, Oldtown has watched fires burn from across the river, stepping into the affairs of Westeros only with caution. But now that there is no avoiding it, I finally understand how unpleasant it is when war comes to your own door. Now the Iron Throne can simply sit back and watch victory or defeat unfold."
"How have you dealt with Oldtown?"
"Garth is managing the Sellswords and new recruits. I am responsible for the shipyards and ships, and Tyrell of the Oldtown garrison is assisting me."
"And the women and children?"
"As for the womenfolk, I have already sent Lady Rhea, the women and children of House Hightower, and the noblewomen and children of Oldtown out of the city."
"Have all the people of Oldtown gone?"
"That is difficult." Baelor shook his head. "Some stubborn old men from the Citadel and some old septons from the Starry Sept have sworn to live or die with Oldtown. Most of the common people cannot bear to leave either."
"Apart from Oldtown, they have nowhere to go." Leyton smiled bleakly. "Neither do I."
"Why have you come to see me?" Leyton looked at his eldest son. Baelor was handsome, elegant, and imposing, but that did not necessarily mean he could fight a war, especially in such a bloody age. "Do you want my advice?"
"Father, Lord of the Hightower, Voice of Oldtown, Protector of the Citadel, the glory of Hightower is about to fall into the dirt." Baelor glared at Leyton in anger.
"Gunthor is dead. The docks have burned. Do you truly think you can summon an army from the Abyss? The people of Oldtown are already calling you Mad Leyton, and me useless Baelor."
"Perhaps I truly can summon a giant beast," Leyton said noncommittally.
"You know what will happen if the Ironborn break into Oldtown, Father. It will be just like the Shield Islands. Iron bastards and Kraken will kill the men, violate the women, then sell the women and children. Crow's Eye is even madder than Balon. His first step is Oldtown, and after that it will be Highgarden and the Iron Throne."
"I do not want a mad Lord. I want you to be thirty again, Father. I want that handsome, vigorous Lord Leyton who never tired of governing."
Baelor's handsome, courteous mask fell away, leaving only fear and anger.
"I am old, child. You have done well. You are not useless. I gave you Oldtown's administration, Oldtown's finances, Oldtown's military affairs, and you kept everything in order." Leyton looked at his son. "But I will no longer support your resistance."
Baelor's eyes widened. "Why?"
"We have thirty to forty thousand men, and Oldtown is a great city of hundreds of thousands. As long as we hold out, the Iron Throne and Highgarden reinforcements will arrive, and everything will be fine. We hold firm and wait for the Iron Throne's support." Baelor's voice softened a little as he repeated himself.
"How many soldiers?" Leyton asked his son.
"Thirty thousand, plus those who volunteered to defend the city. I can barely call it forty thousand."
"Forty thousand men. Even the Smith King has never fought such a rich man's war. But tell me, son, how many of them are elites? How many are house soldiers? How many are Sellswords hungry for gold, or sailors? How many are poor men, farmers, fishermen, and small traders driven by fear?"
"That is still a real army of forty thousand."
"A Hightower commander who has never stood on a great battlefield, leading a crowd of children with different motives who have never seen blood. You are taking them to their deaths, Baelor." Leyton's criticism cut straight to the point. "An army in collapse becomes a beast, but the Ironborn are the true beasts."
"I only need you to raise morale. I only need you to stand with me for a few days, until the army from Highgarden arrives," Baelor pleaded.
"It is too late. Leave now. Your tens of thousands are not enough." Leyton shook his head. "The answer that breaks your heart is also the truth. Crow's Eye is no ordinary man."
"You do not believe in me or Garth," Baelor said angrily. "Am I truly weaker than Gendry and Euron?"
"It is not that I do not trust you. If you were still playing the game of thrones with Robert, Tywin, Stannis, and Jon Arryn, then with your abilities, advance or retreat would be simple enough. The others would not dare offend us too badly either.
"But now the tides rise and fall, the age has changed, and the rules of the game have changed with it. Dragons and magic are not things you can resist."
"Think about it. Commanding wind and rain, the roar of Dragons. You are no match for Euron, nor for Gendry," Leyton said, looking at his son.
"Hightower has never been a house of knights. We earn our wealth through caravans and ports, not through greatswords and Fire and Blood. Gold is precious, of course, but now wars are won by steel."
Baelor's mouth fell open. He had received an honest answer, and a heartbreaking one.
"Take this and leave. From now on, you are the Lord of Hightower. No matter how the King punishes you, you must carry on House Hightower." Leyton took a ring from a drawer. It was shaped like the Hightower, a ring that represented the power of House Hightower.
"And what about you?" Baelor asked in confusion.
"I will remain here, summon the Stone Behemoths, and wait for a true king. A victorious king is the true king," Leyton said.
"Hightower may be wealthy, but we have gone too long without war. In the end, the money we earned through trade has lost to Fire and Blood in this mad age."
"The true king has already come, carrying the salt and damp of the sea, carrying the smell of blood," the madwoman cut in. "The crow is a prophet. The crow is a god. The crow has seen the darkness and ruin of this world."
"What?" Baelor's eyes widened as he stared at the madwoman. "You mean to join Euron."
"Mad. You have all gone mad." Baelor felt dizzy. First came the Kraken, then his father and sister kneeling in surrender.
"There is no time to explain it to you. Hurry and take Garth, take our people and wealth, and leave. Take whatever you can.
"Go find Gendry. Repent for my sins, and wait for the end of the war.
"Perhaps I will become a glory, or perhaps I will become the laughingstock of House Hightower, but I have no other choice." Leyton urged Baelor to take the ring and leave at once.
...
The torrential rain surged down in sheets, followed by white and blood-red lightning spreading across the sky like thunderbolts.
The black tide suddenly swelled, aided by the Kraken.
The seawater rose over the city walls, and the waterways surged violently. Countless tentacles reached out from the canals, smashing Oldtown's streets and houses flat.
"Run!"
A strange sound suddenly came through the air from the Citadel upstream.
The enormous sphinxes at the gates of the Citadel slowly began to move, answering some strange call.
They were a pair of towering green sphinx statues, with lion bodies, eagle wings, and serpent tails. One had a man's face, the other a woman's.
A horn sounded from the Citadel, and the sphinxes' eyes seemed to come alive. Runes and points of light spread across the monsters' bodies.
The maesters of the Citadel brought out a green bronze horn, and one old maester after another blew it.
The Sphinxes flew into the air, aimed at the branches of the Kraken, and spewed black flame.
"The Sphinxes. They have come alive." Crow's Eye stood on the deck of the Silence. "Is this all the Citadel has?"