THE FOURTH TALE OF SEPTA POPPINE

A Stormy Evening: Before the Story

It was a stormy autumn evening, and three days from the twins' seventh name day.
Flashes of lightning lit up the completely clouded night sky for instants to fade away as quickly as they had appeared. Strings of silvery rain quickly struck the windowpanes, as waves the size of pines lashed against the rock that gave the Lannister fortress its name.
Yet inside it was warm and cozy, especially in the Great Hall after supper. Now that all the retainers were gone, Lord Tywin's three children and their strange new septa remained in the room, clustered around the fireplace where bright flames flickered like swiftly flown banners. Every now and then, a thunder-crash or the lashing of a wave reached their ears, and then a frightened Cersei would fling herself into her twin brother's open arms, as Jaime soothed her by stroking her golden hair. Tyrion was reading like he usually was, this time poring over a history of Westeros that covered the few years before Aegon's Landing, his straw-blond head buried in his little hands.
Suddenly, a cupbearer entered the Hall with four tankards of warm and spiced mulled wine on a platter, and these cups were received by the septa and all three siblings, who were snuggled up each of them in a warm cover of scarlet velvet, thickly embroidered with gold thread. Jaime and Cersei put their cups to their lips and then placed them on the table once more as they winced, while Tyrion sipped his wine as he read about the golden days of Ironborn raids.
The Lannister twins were watching the flames flicker in the hearth of the Great Hall. Every now and then, a spark would dart towards them, and then, suddenly, such a spark struck Jaime between the eyes. The young heir winced and reeled, and dashed the back of his head against the table, knocking down one of the tankards on the floor and spilling the Dornish red wine onto a corner of the cloak he was covered up with.
"Seven Gods!", he said to himself. "What a mishap!"
The other three were worried about Jaime's state of health, as he blushed as red as he could and clutched the sore nape of his neck. Cersei was now the one stroking it, gently caressing his soft golden hair and the lump the size of a plum that had now formed beneath.
"Let it be, Cersei! It actually hurts!", her twin brother said as he winced. And thus, she took her little hands off the nape of his neck as Septa Poppine came closer and Tyrion shut his history book.
"Now come closer, Jaime, and turn around", the septa beckoned, as the Lannister heir did as he was told. And then, all three children could hear what she had to say:
"Seven Gods! A lump like a plum! That can't be soothed by ordinary means!"
"If that's the case, we should go ask Maester Creylen", Tyrion quickly remarked.
"Of course this calls for a maester", was Septa Poppine's reply. "But not now. It's still too early. We should leave this pain for a while, and wait until evening turns to night. You three know that waiting is tiresome, and that your hearts are still heavy with worry".
"Does this call for a story?", Cersei inquired in response.
"Of course! When Septa Poppine tells a story, nothing else matters! This will surely get the pain off my head", Jaime replied, as Tyrion chortled and the septa cleared her throat.
"Well, dear children, since it's raining and pouring and flashing out there, what do you say? Such a dark and stormy evening is always a great moment for storytelling!"
"Surely", all three of the Lannister siblings replied.
"Tonight it's so scary!", Cersei shuddered as Jaime soothed her by embracing his twin sister.
"No, it won't be scary at all while there's a story being told. No matter if all this thunderstorm outside turns Casterly Rock into Storm's End", he said as he patted her golden hair.
"Well, this story happens to come from the Stormlands!", the septa cheerfully replied. "And I promise that all three of you will have their share of liking it, for there's love, there are battles, and there are riddles to be solved. And a dashing warrior, and a princess of unusual cleverness..."
Now five eyes green as mint and one black as coal were firmly open and fixed upon the young septa, whose unruly wisp of auburn hair fell out of her veil as usual. The Lannisters, the twins and the imp, clapped their hands and looked, entranced, at their governess.
Then, all four formed a half-circle on chairs around the fireplace, with Tyrion to the right side of Septa Poppine, Jaime and Cersei on either side, listening with attention. The flames flickered quickly and their glow filled the Great Hall of Casterly Rock, empty save for the presence of the septa and the little ones.
The young septa cleared her throat, and, by the warm light of the fire and the sudden flashes of lightning, she began to tell the children a tale...


The Princess of the Evening Isle: A Tale of the Stormlands

There is a sapphire in the middle of Shipbreaker Bay, a lovely isle with fresh azure waters within and salty azure waters without. Rainbows form where the springs and streams fall from the heights onto lower ground, and these many sources of freshwater, like the lakes that are perfectly clear liquid looking-glasses in the meadows and heathlands, are the tears that the Maiden herself once wept for Ser Galladon, a dashing mortal knight from the once barren island of Tarth and the only lover she ever knew, or so Stormlanders still believe in our days. Still, it's a pleasant explanation that the heartfelt sweet tears of a sorrowful goddess give life to the flowering meadows and heathlands, and to the hardy warriors and fair maidens who dwell upon those shores.
Though Tarth is nowadays ruled from Storm's End, it was once a free kingdom, independent from the mainland. And it is in these days, or rather the last days of freedom for Tarth, that our tale takes place.
It was long before the Conquest, in fact, two hundred years had to pass before smallfolk and lords alike would see the flight of dragons and stand in awe before the sight.
In those days, the Stormlands were as rough as they still are today, the same old woods harbouring the same old shadows in the dark and the same old keeps, sturdy fortresses with walls of granite, lining the coastline of the mainland and the largest islands. The only differences from our days were that Tarth was a free kingdom, as I have said before, and that the dark-haired warriors who ruled from Storm's End were not lords of House Baratheon, but kings of House Durrandon, their crest still being the black stag that still is king of the Stormland forests and their words still being "Ours is the Fury".
In those days, the Riverlands had been conquered by the hosts of the Stormlands, and the realm prospered at its northern borders, while war usually raged in their southern ancestral lands.
Though Tarth was independent, its royal house was bound to the fortress across the strait by ties of blood, for royal weddings and tradition had raised an invisible bridge between Storm's End and Evenfall. Both keeps rose defiantly at opposite sides of the Straits of Tarth, each on a tall cliff battered by the waves and the rains, Storm's End on the mainland facing eastward and Evenfall Hall on the island facing westward, as they still do in our days. Thus, when the weather was fair, the royals of either castle could see the other rising above the tides.
Those were days when peace was rare, the dark Dornish storming into the Stormland mainland from the south, the fair Reachers from the west, but worst of all (worse than the might of Dorne and the Reach combined) the hard Ironborn, soon to be masters of the Riverlands, from the cold, harsh North. But these last warriors, the most redoubtable of them all, had not ventured further on south yet.
The Storm Kings were nearly always to be found on the battlefield, while their queens and children remained secure within the walls of the fortress that love had raised to conquer the wrath of the old gods. And some of the Kings of Tarth would leave their beloved ones as well to fight for glory, honour, and renown under the banners of the Durrandon hosts.
Thus, it came as no surprise than the ruler of the Sapphire Isle at the start of our story, the young and dashing King Goodwin Tarth, had carved himself a name with the blade of his longsword. Crowned and orphaned at the early age of fifteen, he had already assisted his kinsman Erich VI of Storm's End in driving back the Dornish beyond the Marches in two victorious campaigns, and also in forcing the Reachers to retreat back to their orchards. Thus, both young rulers were bound with a tie stronger than blood, their blades having drunk the blood of the foe at Stonebridge, at Wyl, and in the passes of the Marches. And thus, it came as no surprise that, during a rare summer truce, when both were in the prime of their lives, neither one having reached his twentieth year, Erich invited Goodwin across the strait for a wedding at Storm's End, as he wedded a lovely daughter of House Penrose and made the fire-haired Ravella his queen. Erich himself was dashing, standing six feet tall, coal-headed and blue-eyed.
However, the King of Tarth remained unmarried in spite of being nearly thirty years old. It was not because he was bereft of suitors, for his shoulders were broad, his face fair in spite of the crossed scars on his brow, his eyes as bright and blue as Shipbreaker Bay in mid-summer, his soft hair fairer than gold, indeed, his cropped soft locks and fine beard were gilt like the sun itself. He was tall and well-made, as dashing as could be, and the moons and suns of his crest glittered even though they were drenched in blood. And, no matter whether on the field of battle or within the Great Hall, he was always lively and cheerful, unafraid of storms and of enemies, bold with the Dornish host and with the court ladies at his friend's wedding feast, when he quaffed a tankard of the blood-red wine they had won as spoils of war after the other, as he drank to victory, to peace, and to the newlyweds among the flower of the Stormlands' nobility. 
The reason why he had taken no spouse was war itself, indeed, he felt most at ease on horseback thrusting his flashing steel through the enemy ranks, be the foe the dark Dornishman or the fair son of the Reach. He usually told his brother in arms, the Storm King, that he was married to war. But that would soon change.
Three thirds of the year later, another raven came flying over the Straits. And this one came back on board the royal flagship of House Tarth, for Goodwin the Merry found it obvious that he should attend the celebrations of the naming of a newborn crown prince at Storm's End. By the Evenstar King's side sailed his most faithful bannerman, the regent of his youth and the keeper of his secrets. Ser Axell was in his forties, quick and slender, and always cautious. And, though he had had countless lady suitors, he remained unwed, saying that he was married to the realm. If it weren't for him, Goodwin Tarth would have met an early grave, given the young ruler's temperament and tendency to look before he leapt.
Once more, dear friends and brothers in arms embraced at the gates of Storm's End, and soon the newcomers were escorted into the sept of the fortress, where warm incense was given the rainbow colours of the sunlight that filtered in through the stainglass windows. There, every banner and every sigil in the Stormlands could be seen, like at the wedding moon-turns before, and the newborn child which the proud Queen Ravella held in her arms towards the septon was anointed with the seven oils, as the lovely name of Renly was bestowed upon the rosy infant, black-haired like his father and eyes still shut.
Soon, the Storm King was cradling and tickling his only son, and showing his heir to the flower of Stormlands nobility, as proudly and contentedly as could be. Renly I Durrandon, the First of his Name. At least that was what they would call him if he came of age.
During the feast, Goodwin and Ser Axell sat opposite a beautiful sixteen-year-old maiden, dressed in silk as orange as the sunset and with hair like spun copper, and an equally beautiful yet more mature lady in her thirties, wearing the widow's black, with hair the same colour. The eyes of both were the colour of honey, and their faces were soft and fair. Both of them appeared to be mother and daughter, and, when they introduced themselves, they were revealed to be so. Lady Caron of Nightsong, whose lord husband had been pierced by a poisoned Dornish spear while fighting in the Marches, had been invited to attend the naming feast with both her children, twenty-year-old Courtnay and sixteen-year-old Cassana, whose first foray at court the naming feast was. The heir of Nightsong, a lean and long-haired young man, was sitting next to scarred and one-eyed King Andrew Estermont III right across the table, casting piercing glares at his mother and sister every now and then, as he rarely drank, and rather asked for stories about the war that had taken his father away. Stories in which the Dornishmen were hot-blooded and devious, heartless girl-rapers whose deaths alone atoned for their crimes. And sometimes, Lord Courtnay would thrust his head into his hands and whisper to himself: "That Cassana!"
For the King of Tarth had soon found out that this maiden was as great company at the table as he was himself, though her manners were considered awkward even for a Stormlands maiden, and her mother quietly chided her every now and then.
For whatever she felt she showed at once, laughing and talking aloud in a merry tone when she was happy, and she would have cried and lamented if she were sad. Everyone in the Great Hall of Storm's End now knew that Cassana Caron wore her heart upon her left sleeve, and that made the Evenstar pleased with her, even though his advisor and her mother would try to stop their conversation. So Goodwin learned that she could play the high harp and compose love songs, while Cassana learned that he had fought gallantly on many a battlefield, fleeing from captivity in the Reach after his only defeat and slaying a dozen Dornishmen with a single flicker of his sword. And this conversation, laced with flagons of strong Dornish wine and set to the throbbing of their passionate young hearts, soon became more and more intimate, neither one caring for every one else at the tables. And thus, as the candied fruit of the Reach had been finished at the table, the King of Tarth and the Caron maiden both reached out under the table, their hands touched each other, and both of them, at first startled, felt their minds overtaken by thoughts of the other. Suddenly, Ser Axell and the widowed mother announced that they would soon take their leave, and the young lovers were startled as blue eyes and honey eyes were firmly fixed upon each other. As the sound of dancing filled their ears and their minds, the beautiful maiden came out on the ramparts with her lover.
"How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
"I hope my wedding dress will be ready in time for our next ball," she answered; "I have made Mother order silk from Lys, and spiceflowers to be embroidered on it; but I doubt you'll be my bridegroom."
At the guests' wing of Storm's End, the Tarths and the Carons slept in bedchambers opposite each other, each at a side of the corridor. That short and warm night, not disturbed by summer storms, both Goodwin and Cassana stayed awake, thinking of that evening. And of the one they had recently met and shared their short lives with. 
"She loves me for the dangers I have passed, and I love her for she has pitied them", the Evenstar king told his trusted right hand in a slightly slurred voice, as he drew the bed-curtains embroidered in silver thread.
Lady Caron's daughter stayed awake, tossing and turning, annoying her brother, who found it hard to sleep, and she whispered in her widowed mother's ears the name of the one she loved. It was obvious that the maiden was slightly intoxicated, but also that her feelings of love were true and passionate.
That evening, both the young people got up while Ser Axell and Lord Courtnay slept steadily, unaware of what was happening in the corridor. As King Goodwin Tarth and Cassana Caron opened their doors at the same time and saw each other in the corridor, they called each other's names, and then the maiden rushed towards her beloved and, her heart pounding like a hammer on an anvil, imprinted her blazing lips on his, pricking herself on his upper lip and watching him blush at the stolen kiss. In response, as his heart skipped a beat, the Evenstar laid his strong arms around her slender waist, wrapped up in a golden silk nightgown. For a few seconds, time stopped for both lovers. And then, Ser Axell and Lady Caron woke up and crossed the threshold, to find both young people kissing in the middle the corridor. Which fazed neither one of them.
That morning, as they broke their fast, these two sat opposite his ward and her daughter at the table, looking at them as lovably as Goodwin and Cassana eyed each other. He was as pleased with her as she was with him, or so thought the wise regent and the sensible widowed mother, as they told each other in conversation. These two youngsters were meant for each other, indeed. And making the Caron maiden a Queen of Tarth could never have been a wrong decision. Thus, soon the Lady of Nightsong told the lovers:
"Why should you two not marry? Your Grace, you love her with all your heart, seeing her as fair and pure as the Maiden! And you, Cassana, don't you see he is as dashing as the Warrior? Both of you are young, and bold, and clever, and blessed with a good bloodline and good fortune. Moreover, you are pleased with each other!"
Neither King Goodwin nor young Lady Cassana could have ever felt happier, and he saw in her honey eyes the same hopeful sparkles that she had seen in his sky-blue eyes. Yet the morning sky was cloudy, gray and heavy as lead, and Lord Caron was picking up, from the edge of the table, every word and every glance that his mother and younger sister gave. Needless to say Lord Courtnay was clenching his fists and whispering piercing words, casting a lightning glare at his loved ones, for, though he had felt completely in the shade of his sister ever since Cassana was born and would otherwise have been relieved if she had married to live somewhere else, he could not bear the single thought that she married into royalty, and, what's worse, to an experienced war hero, so unlike the weaker Lord of Nightsong himself untried in battle. There was also a rumour at court, especially among the lesser lords, that the Evenstar would someday lead an army and a fleet to usurp the throne, and Storm's End would finally fall, into a traitor's hands no less.
When the breakfast had come to an end, every invited noble in the Stormlands returned home taking leave of their generous hosts, and then the Evenstar, followed by his faithful Axell, led his bride (of whose betrothal he had boasted, before a tankard of mead, to the Storm King and his Queen, and to every other one at the table, cupbearers included) to the docks and onto the flagship of Tarth, the Maiden's Heart. Goodwin Tarth was galloping, on his nutbrown stallion, with his beloved sweetheart clinging to his sides, his trusted regent and her loving mother, also sitting in the same way on a white mare, following closely by.
Yet no sooner had they reached the docks when they realized that a detachment of armed men in orange were pursuing them. As soon as the bride and groom and their elders reached the flagship that flew a familiar banner of suns on pink and moons on blue, the lovely Cassana and her mother boarded the ship in haste. The detachment now was as near as it could, and its leader, a lean and pale and red-haired young man with a tinge of rage in his amber eyes, drew steel as he approached the Evenstar, as the challenger said these words out loud:
"Cassana! How dare you marry some stranger you barely know? What if he is some foreign pirate, and not the King of Tarth as he claims?"
"I am the King of Tarth, Goodwin II, the Second of his Name", the blond warrior replied as he drew the steel of his sun-hilted sword. "Why dare you come for me as if I were a pirate or a highwayman, at the head of your freeriders?" There were sparks in his ice-blue eyes, and there was passion in the voice he raised.
The maiden and her mother hid behind the mast, Lady Caron seizing her daughter's sleeves for Cassana not to leap into the fray and try to make peace between the swordsmen. The noblewoman shut her eyes not to see her soon-to-be son-in-law slaughter her heir, as she shed tears of despair and shuddered in her daughter's arms. As for Cassana, she was as pale as the full moon.
Suddenly, the Lord of Nightsong grew strangely pale, sheathing his sword and bending the knee before a single drop of blood was shed, yet defiantly staring at his mother and sister, until he coldly told them:
"Anyway, I shall, for once, not let my sister down. She is now a bride, or isn't she? Cassana, you can marry the one you love, no matter who he is. But there is a warning: you will have your mother's blessing, yet not my own. Once you two have reached your new home on Tarth, neither of you, neither mother nor daughter, shall return to the Kingdom of the Stormlands. If you do, my freeriders shall seize you and take you prisoner, to suffer forever in the dungeons of Nightsong, where five Dornishmen have already met their fates."
Though both mother and daughter were startled by these harsh words, their effect subsided as long as they had landed on the Sapphire Isle, at whose court they would now reside, hopefully, until the Stranger came for them at the bitter end. Once the Maiden's Heart reached the docks of Evenfall Hall, the dashing warrior king led his honest bride towards the Hall as the wise regent led the still pensive lady in black. The fishermen's wives and their children in the village below the Hall welcomed their liege lord and his bride with many a ringing cheer and a rain of summer wildflowers on the street.
The next day, the sept bells of Evenfall Hall pealed as merrily as they could, for a Queen had come to Tarth for the first time since decades. The smallfolk who had welcomed her were invited to her wedding, and so were their old friends King Erich and Queen Ravella Durrandon of the Stormlands. As the newlywed Goodwin and Cassana kissed before the eyes of the Seven Gods, both her mother and the regent of his youth burst into tears, drying them up in haste.
The feast at the end of the wedding knew no equal, and the sweet mead of Tarth honey was served together with the blood-red wines of the Arbour and of Dorne, which flowed endlessly to the health of the royal newlyweds. That night, after having feasted on applecakes and washed them down with Dornish red, the King and Queen of the Sapphire Isle shut the blue and silver-embroidered curtains of their canopy bed. They only needed to die to be happier than they were, being young, good-looking, powerful, and in times of peace, aside from happily married and close to their loved ones. And, as lightning turned night to short day in the night sky, the undressed newlyweds caressed each other, and soon their hearts were full of elation, his face completely hidden in her copper-red hair.
Within a few moon-turns, it came to light for Queen Cassana and everyone around her that she was with child. Lady Caron, now risen to the rank of Queen Mother, encouraged her favourite daughter and told her how to behave: to stay sober, to play soothing music, not to make any rash movements. The whole island kingdom was full of expectations for the unborn child, which they expected would be a male heir. Names were even discussed at court: Galladon, for the knight whom the Maiden loved, if it were a boy indeed. Elysenne, the name of the Queen Mother herself, if misfortune declared that it should be a girl-child.
And a girl, a princess of Tarth, came one misty morning to the world, though she was red as blood and silent as death, her little heart not even giving a single throb. Her mother was full of sorrow as could be, but the Queen Mother soothed her daughter with the words that she had lost children herself, siblings to Cassana, and not even royalty was free from this sorrow. Every village and holdfast on Tarth was in mourning for three moons, and then, a raven came from Storm's End with the news that the Dornish had been seen in the Marches once more. And thus, Goodwin soon had his breastplate put on and his sword scabbard on his belt, as he got on the flagship entrusting the realm to his faithful Axell and kissing his teary-eyed queen farewell.
In no time, Cassana realised she was alone and waiting for her spouse to return from the war front as she also realised that her waistline had begun to increase for the second time. For every day, she prayed to the Warrior for her spouse to return home to Evenfall Hall, and to the Mother for her child to be born alive. A raven had been already sent to the Marches with these great tidings, and she would watch for the black messengers as they came and went, and she would look wistfully westward in the evening, as Storm's End looked dark and lighted by warm flames from within, and either pale lightning or fire-like sunset covered the fortress of the Storm Kings. When it was raining, she would wipe the pane of her bedchamber window to enjoy the view, as the waves lashed against the cliffs on both sides, and she would play her harp amidst the splash and the thunder-crash.
And thus went another year of waiting, of impatience and insecurity, of hopeful prayers entwined with primal fears that only love songs and the advice of a kind mother could soothe.
Soon, though the clouds covered the day sky, tidings came on dark wings, though those were good words. King Goodwin Tarth, healthy as always, had recovered from a fatal wound in the right side of his chest, and the Dornish had retreated back to their wasteland.
And three days later, even though she was with child and it was raining, Queen Cassana Tarth waved to welcome the flagship back into the harbour, her new sapphire-blue dress drenched and heavy on her frame. And soon, her cheerful spouse embraced her and ran her fingers through her dripping red hair. A second kiss followed, as the fatigues of war and the concerns of waiting were exchanged in the conversation within both spouses.
The next week, another girl-child saw the rare light of a summer day on Tarth, and, though she was a girl, the event was celebrated throughout the Sapphire Isle. That day in the evening, the rainbow of warm sunset light in the sept of Evenfall was shed over a little head full of soft coppery wisps, which a septon stroked with the seven oils, as the name Elysenne was bestowed upon the newborn.
Yet, three days after this cheerful feast, the whole isle of Tarth was in mourning once more, as a girl-infant was laid to rest in the crypts of the Hall by her sister's side. A fever had nipped the short life of the princess in the bud, and her mother could be heard sobbing once more, consoled by those she loved that she would, sooner or later, have at least a child that would live to come of age.
And soon it was clear that the love of a spouse, mother, and advisor, coupled with the faith that Queen Cassana Tarth still retained, had shut the wounds that the second tragedy had rashly opened.
Yet peace was as rare in the Stormlands in those days as fair weather. Within two moons, she was kissing her liege lord farewell for the second time, to face the dark Dornish in the southern lands of the mainland kingdom. Once more Ser Axell was given the regency, and Cassana would play her harp and embroider her flowers once more to ease her concern, as she prayed in the sept every day, wishing for her king to return to her side, and for her unborn third child, a boy or a girl, to live more time than those whose lives had been as short as those of wildflowers.
The windowpane was wiped every evening, as the rain whipped the glass and lightning flashed, and she would sing a song about love surviving through the storm of war.
Once, a carrier raven brought the least tidings she'd like to hear. Dark wings, dark words. A poisoned Dornish spear had pierced, this time, his left side, where the heart is, and she wept for her fate, losing the one she loved, and maybe the child she carried, leaving her new home and her life to be, sooner or later, lost to a usurper. Yet no word came for weeks of King Goodwin Tarth having lost his life on his sickbed, without her near to ease his pains, dying in a less legendary way than on the battlefield.
Thus passed four moons, and soon she was shedding tears of joy and playing the high harp for the first time in what seemed to be an eternity: Soon, though the clouds covered the day sky, tidings came on dark wings, though those were good words. King Goodwin Tarth, healthy as always, had recovered from the fatal wound in the left side of his chest, and the Dornish had retreated back to their wasteland. And soon, this time as an unusually warm and golden sunlight gilded the landscape of both Tarth and Storm's End, a royal couple embraced on the docks of Evenfall Hall, drying up sparkling tears and running their fingers through each other's hair, as they shared a passionate kiss.
That night, Cassana's lovely frame was once more racked with pain, as her mother and her spouse looked anxiously on, the maester and Ser Axell soothing her.
It was an unusually calm night, with a sky speckled with countless little bright stars and a silvery full moon, and calm, smooth seas in Shipbreaker Bay. And then, the eerie silence that reigned at Evenfall was suddenly broken by a sound reminiscent of a loud roar or a thunderclap.
Then, Queen Cassana lay in bed with her eyes shut, as the midwife was handing a strange-looking little form over to the maester of the Hall. Goodwin II was as startled as they were, and soon the unconscious lady was awake once more, to reel and wince at what she saw in her spouse's arms, after the maester had given the child to its father. This could never have been a human child, for it was hairy as a bear cub, with skin purple as a violet and pointed ears, and even roared instead of crying. Its downy, wispy hair was as fair as silver, and its eyes, the bluish-gray colour of steel, were already wide open, not shut like those of newborn children like Prince Renly or this infant's two short-lived sisters.
And the maester was soon arguing with the King of Tarth, who at first thought himself proud of having sired a male heir, and laughed as loudly and cheerfully as he could:
"At last a lad! A lad for House Tarth, a lad for us, a lad for the Sapphire Isle!"
"At first I thought this was a boy-child, but now I can see, by looking clearer, than this is a girl-child", the maester replied.
"Then... This shall be a clever lass, for she has fooled us all! What do you say, Elysenne?", Goodwin Tarth asked his daughter as he stroked her hair back and patted her little forehead.
Then, everyone's fear turned to cheer, and even the puzzled Queen of Tarth laughed as she clutched one of her bed-posts. The third time had truly been the charm. Surely, when this child came of age, she would be someone great, as everything that midnight appeared to be a sign of the Gods.
The next day, the strange-looking princess was given the name of Elysenne in the light of the Seven, within the walls of the sept of Evenfall. And she looked curiously at everything around her, from the bright colours of the stainglass windows to the septon's crystal star pendant, with which she played as she was anointed, to the good-looking crowned couple on the thrones before the septon, to the older bannerman and the older lady in black, to every other face, noble or common, within the sept, and to the proud faces of the Seven Gods who seemed to look at her from their niches.
It was a cloudy day with a slight drizzle, yet no serious storms broke out. The royal parents had invited all of their friends from the Stormlands mainland to the naming and the feast that came after, and every sigil made the sept and the Great Hall bright as rainbows. Even the Durrandons themselves, Erich VI and his dear Ravella, took part in the revels, not before being surprised by this strange child with open eyes that already looked at everything around them. Renly was there too, a playful and cheerful little lad with hair like coal and eyes like summer seas, the loveliest one you would ever have seen, yet heir to a throne after all, and he was a little scared of this fairy-like baby lass whose naming he had seen. That night, he shared a bedchamber with Elysenne before returning home to Storm's End the next day. It rained all night, and the child prince could only think of all the emotions that had overwhelmed him on this first visit to Tarth and first stay at Evenfall. Something told him that, someday, he would return to the Sapphire Isle.
The next day as they broke their fast before parting ways, the Storm King, the Evenstar, and their more-than-friends discussed the theme of their children. The names of Renly Durrandon and Elysenne of Tarth were the most repeated ones, and it was agreed by the proud parents of both royal children that they would soon, someday, either in the sept of Storm's End or that of Evenfall Hall, Renly and Elysenne, as soon as they had come of age, would tie the knot and rule as King and Queen together. This was a brilliant, radiant dream, that everyone hoped would come true. And thus, before all of the guests sailed away, tankards of Arbour Red were raised to both children, and even Renly and Elysenne were allowed to take a sip of wine. The newborn princess spat her sip out in disgust, while the heir to the Stormlands throne drank more than one, in fact, he quaffed half the tankard before it was taken away.
And thus, three years went by, as Princess Elysenne of Tarth lived and grew, her cheeks turning as rosy as the sunset sky and her hair as fair as the sun. And her voice as merry and ringing as that of a skylark. Her ears were still slightly pointed, though, and her eyes were still steel-blue. She was a restless and eager child, always running to and fro, skipping, sauntering, doing flips on her mattress, or riding on her father's back when he had spare time to play with her. Then, Goodwin would become as cheerful as a child again, getting on all fours as his little lass, keeping a rope around his neck as reins and shouting: "Pony! Pony!", skipped on his back. Her mother, always sitting still and playing the high harp or composing songs, was definitely more tiresome. The good maester who tended to her fevers was a kind person, and so was the clever Ser Axell... but, sadly, little Elysenne's grandmother, her namesake, spent weeks, that soon turned to moons, in her bedchamber, until the day she fell deeply asleep and ceased to breathe.
Everyone on Tarth wept, in mourning, though a child who is too young to see why her parents are always crying and her grandmother is hidden away forever, having fallen into a sleep too deep. Later on, when she would become older, she would get to know death, and it would by no means be an experience of little importance.
Soon, all the servants had grown accustomed to the constant skipping of their princess, and, even though they scolded her, she would pay no heed and keep a smile on her face. Peace had lasted for three years, that soon turned to four. Yet clouds dark as iron loomed in the distance.
And thus, we should turn our gaze up north, towards the Riverlands, then ruled from Storm's End, on whose shores a race of ruthless men and women, with an iron faith and iron hearts blacker and harder than their heavy breastplates, had recently sailed, and then their longships entered into the land through the Blue Fork. And, when they had landed, woe to those who crossed the path of the Ironborn! Now, in happy hamlets and villages, they were leaving bloodshed and ruin in their wake. Every cot, farm, and holdfast that crossed the path of the raiders was turned to a blazing ruin, peasant women were widowed, their daughters bereft of their maidenhead, and their children left fatherless, and then all of them were taken prisoner, to toil for a harsh life as the ironmen's thralls. This they called paying the iron price, and they knew of none other. They rifled the knights they had slain and took the spoils as iron price, as well.
And, when reports of this fiery raid soon reached the keep of the Storm King, Erich VI rallied his banners and called all the lords under his command, from his old father-in-law King Andrew Estermont to young Courtnay Caron. Across the Straits, Goodwin of Tarth was also told by carrier raven of this new enemy host, which had never been heard of before.
Having already been at the gates of the lands beyond death before, the King of the Sapphire Isle was doubtful of whether, after this war, he would return home to Evenfall alive once more. So far, he had an only child, a little lass, but nevertheless a child. What if the crown were claimed by a usurper, if the bloodline were extinguished? And thus, gathering all of his bannermen and relatives at the Great Hall, he informed them of the decision he had reached: that little Elysenne was meant, in case her crowned father did not return from the wars, to inherit the throne of Tarth.
"Are we turned Dornish? And to ourselves do that?", most of the bannermen inquired, their surprised eyes expressing their rejection of a custom they had heard of as being practised in enemy lands. Then Ser Axell, the only one who disagreed, calmly spoke. And the wise noble explained that the future of the realm was at stake, and this young child was the sole hope of House Tarth to live on.
What's more, King Goodwin had entrusted the care of the child princess, along with that of the realm, to Axell, who would be regent and a father to royalty for the second time in his life. And the faithful bannerman swore a solemn oath that he would rear Elysenne like a prince, in lore, history, and the use of weapons, and care for her as if the crown princess were the daughter he never had sired.
Within a week, His Grace rode throughout the Sapphire Isle, with his trusted sword by his side and his only child before him on his nutbrown destrier, bestowing blessings upon nobles and smallfolk, recruiting young men who kissed their families farewell, and presenting little Elysenne to his subjects. Riding through linden woods and villages of cots, past azure lakes and rainbow waterfalls at which father and daughter quenched their thirst, she watched everything around her, every little cloud, every little squirrel, every little twig, and the eyes of every person, as eagerly and curiously as always, having never left the keep before. And, within the space of these three days, as storm clouds loomed heavy and gray over Tarth without releasing a drop of rain, the princess got to ride a real pony for the first time, and she became first acquainted with her lands and their people, with her kingdom and her father's duties.
On the fourth day, having already returned home to Evenfall the evening before, the flagship was ready to sail, the dire iron-coloured clouds still covered the sun of Shipbreaker Bay, and a dashing warrior king, with his slightly less than fifty bold young men, was ready to set sail for Storm's End, and then, ride once more into battle by the side of his good brother in arms.
The lovely Queen Cassana wept like never before, dark clouds obscuring her heart as well, and her spouse's strong hands dried up her heartfelt tears, as he reassured her that he would someday return. Yet the clouds on her heart would never scatter. For a last time, Goodwin took his daughter in his strong warrior's arms and stroked her sun-coloured hair. And he told her the same words that her mother had been soothed with. Then he handed her over into Ser Axell's arms, as Her Grace looked on with a slight jealous frown, drying up her tears.
As the Maiden's Heart sailed away and approached Storm's End, mother and daughter stood still on the docks, watching the flagship sail across the strait. That day in the afternoon, there was a fierce thunderstorm with flashes of lightning and waves as tall as redwoods, and the flagship was soon out of sight. Cassana stood by the window, watching the storm unfurl and praying to the Seven to let her husband and his men live, constantly drying up her tears. Yet, at dusk, her worst fears were chased away by a hopeful letter brought from the direction of the setting sun: the fastest raven at Storm's End had brought a letter with her dear Goodwin's handwriting, stating that he was safe and sound, and that having been spared the rage of the tides must have been a good omen of fortune in battle. Now he was in the guest-room of the fortress beyond the Straits, in the company of his good friend and said good friend's wife and their now more grown child, remembering how he first met and wooed his beloved. And he also said that he always had thought of her, ever since they had been married, on the eve of every battle. The next day, while the Storm Queen would be left as regent with her son Renly once again, the whole host would leave Storm's End, to face the foe in more northern lands. And she would still be in his heart.
The Queen of Tarth clasped this letter to her breasts and read it aloud to her daughter, and little Elysenne was now pleased with her father's good fortune as well.
And thus, two years of war more sped by, as quickly as they could. Every now and then, ravens would alight on Evenfall Hall, bringing tidings of great victories and cheers to the hearts of both mother and daughter, who, both of them, wrote letters that homing ravens brought to the lands of war. Yet Cassana still frequented the sept and prayed to the Warrior, every day at sunrise and at sunset, for her husband to return from the battlefield to her side. And one day he would return. Though the god would have misunderstood her ambiguous request.
Summer was quickly turning into autumn, the leaves in the woods changing from their usual green to every warm colour, from the crimson of blood to the dark purple of twilight. And storms became more frequent as these two long years of war went on. And then, as iron-coloured and cold clouds covered the day sky now for the rest of the season, came Elysenne's sixth name day. Yet the revels, the celebrations of such a cheerful and relevant day, were muted by the sorrow of what had happened the day before on the war front.
Dark wings, dark words. Cassana read the letter and, reeling and pale, she burst into tears. The one who had written it was Erich Durrandon, describing the fate of his beloved brother in arms.
There had been an engagement at the Blue Fork, an autumn mist enshrouding the green riverbank where both hosts had clashed. The second to last time the writer had seen the King of Tarth, Goodwin had disappeared into the fog, his trusty sword in his right hand, urging his nutbrown destrier into the fray.
With the ringing of steel and the raising of voices, no one cared for the Evenstar until the setting sun gilded the waters of the Blue Fork and the lands where both Ironborn and Stormlands slain lay, some wounded and in pain, others bereft of life. Then, in the eerie calm after the battle, a detachment assigned to round up the wounded had found Goodwin bereft of life, lying with his pale face down in a pool of blood, his cheerful blue eyes shut as if he were asleep, his chest and back stabbed with many red wounds. The Evenstar was solely dressed in a ragged and bloodstained shirt: the ironmen who had rifled him had paid the iron price in weapons and armour, in fine clothes and modest jewelry.
There were whispers among the lords and the bannermen that, in the fog and the chaos of battle, his brother-in-law, the less inured Courtnay Caron, who had also been found among the slain, had, after overthrowing him on horseback, thrust his steel into the Evenstar's vitals, as revenge for taking his mother and sister away.
Now the silent sisters, shrouded in gray, were emptying the dashing form, still good-looking even in violent death, to fill it with salts and herbs before His Grace returned to Evenfall within a week. Upon opening and emptying his riddled chest, they had found lungs filled with clotted blood and a pierced heart the unusual size of a child's head. And they had also resolved to preserve this great heart in a flask of Braavosi glass, filled with the same preserving herbs, following the orders of Erich VI, who lamented, at the end of the letter, the loss of such a clever and daring commander, who had no equal at least within the Stormlands.
That battle had been won, but the victorious host had had to pay a high price.
In response, Queen Cassana dressed herself in the widow's black silks, cut her lovely reddish cascades of locks short like a lad's, and sent to the war front a sorrowful and desperate poem, written by herself, confessing the story of her love and the feelings that she cherished ever since she first had met her spouse. And she prayed, or rather begged, to keep both the heart and the form at Evenfall. A heart that had throbbed so passionately for her should always remain by her side.
Her eyes of liquid gold would, from that day on, always be glittering and reddish with tears, and the usual shy smile on her now cold lips had obviously disappeared. And, beneath silk black as midnight and skin pale as the full moon, her now broken heart was painfully bleeding.
Ser Axell himself, who was rearing his little ward in the lore and history of the Stormlands as he had done since the regency was bestowed upon him, also burst into tears upon reading the fatal letter, though feelings rarely held sway over him. He would spend that whole night awake, something that he did as rarely as he wept. That evening, as Evenfall was draped in mourning black, he crossed the gates of the Hall with a wondering Elysenne and told her before riding throughout the Sapphire Isle:
"Elysenne... Your Highness, I mean, Your Grace... your father will never return from the wars."
She thrust her little head on his waist and dried up her tears on his black doublet, as he stroked her golden hair and soothed her with a few words of comfort. Both of them were already dressed in the colour of midnight. The princess, still too young to be queen as six, fell either unconscious or asleep on horseback before the regent, and remained like that, with shut eyes and a few teardrops on her cheeks, as he gave the sorrowful tidings to every subject throughout the villages of Tarth.
Seven days later, against a leaden sky and through gray autumn mists, a flagship with black sails cruised over from Storm's End to Evenfall Hall. The widowed queen of the Sapphire Isle had seen the sails appear out of the fog and hastened, holding her daughter by the hand and in the company of Lord Axell (now uplifted to that rank due to his regency), to welcome their fallen liege lord back home.
The silent sisters must have preserved him well, for his face, though strangely pale, was still as dashing as when he was alive, and he seemed asleep, though his chest did not heave at all: shut eyes, parted lips, and dressed in one of his brothers'-in-arms' armour and weaponry.
As soon as she had seen his form and received the glass keepsake with her loved one's heart, Cassana bent over the open steel coffin and kissed his cold lips as passionately as she could. Axell looked away and told his little ward to do the same. To him, the Queen was but a grown-up child, or rather a madwoman. To love so passionately, even beyond death, to spend nights awake playing the harp and sobbing... what if Elysenne ever became that eerie?
The late King Goodwin would spend three days and three nights of wake in the Hall, to be earthed, his heart still on his chest, beneath the lindenwood carving of the Warrior that, boldly wielding an old-fashioned sword, appeared in the sept of Evenfall. However, his beloved spouse, whose heart had not ceased to bleed yet, had got other plans, which the Regent saw as childish outrages. And thus, the heart of the former and the mind of the latter would declare war on each other, their once peaceful relationship turned to a harsh, bitter feud.
That night, after mourning dirges were sung and the bannermen were gathered to honour their old liege lord and their new liege lady, a desperate Cassana stole into her daughter's bedchamber and brought Elysenne into the sept of the Hall, where she embraced and kissed the form of her beloved spouse, and then encouraged her daughter to kiss the parted lips, which were cold as ice. The princess thought at first that her father was fast asleep, yet soon she discovered the hard and unkind truth, for her mother coaxed her to lay her head on the middle of his strong chest, where Queen Cassana had laid her head before. Not even a flutter could be heard in there.
She kept her daughter in the sept, whose doors were firmly shut, and where draped black curtains covered the stainglass windows, not letting any light or colour enter this place of mourning. And she would sob and weep and sing of her darling Goodwin, of his sparkling blue eyes, his bold and strong embrace, his manly baritone, and, most importantly, the last kiss they had exchanged on the docks before Evenfall, ere he sailed forth to meet the ruthless foe in the lands beyond Storm's End. Oh, how gently he had dried up her tears... how soothing were his last words to her!
And she repeated those last words over and over, drying up her tears with a black silk handkerchief, always sobbing and hiding her lovely face in the soft silk, now saying those words in prose, now singing them to her daughter, who held up the large flask containing the heart in her little hands, wondering what that strange red thing inside the glass could be.
Little Elysenne sat there entranced before the Queen, soon overcome by her mother's sorrows, not willing to play or skip, but rather wondering, curiously as always, how Cassana's usually calm and soft demeanor had changed to a face of pain and despair. One thing was for sure: her mother had changed, for reasons that the princess did not know.
Not long after daybreak, the Regent sent men to open the sept door, where they found a mother and daughter in each other's arms. Then, Lord Axell entered the sept himself, to behold the eerie sight: his liege's form, from the waist upwards, outside its steel coffin, with stains of lip-blush on his cheeks and lips, and his head slightly turned in the direction of his sleeping queen.
At the sound of his stern voice, both Cassana, whose arms pressed the heart keepsake to her chest, and Elysenne awoke, and the Regent asked what ever they were doing. The Queen Dowager sighed and told that she wanted to stay in the sept and keep her daughter near, but Axell replied that the princess was due to have her lessons in the lore of the Stormlands, in handling the bow, the crossbow, and the short sword. Then Cassana replied, her voice choked in tears, that a young child who had lost her father to the wars should rather stay with her mother than with a stranger. The clever Regent understood that his opponent was also referring, in a veiled manner, to the Stranger... and thus, fearing that his ward should die, he let Elysenne stay in the sept with her deceased father, her widowed mother, and the eyes of the Seven Gods fixed firmly upon these star-crossed members of House Tarth.
The whole day, Elysenne of Tarth was with her mother and the Gods inside the black-clad sept, watching a few thin rays of sunlight steal through the dark curtains, while Cassana sang dirges and elegies to Goodwin's heart, always in her soft hands, a heart which would nevermore be ablaze with passion, and she prayed to the Stranger to quench the flames within her own chest as well, letting her join the one she loved in whichever of the seven heavens or hells it may be. And the child listened attentively, picking up every mention of love or hearts she could hear (after all, her mother seemed now to talk a lot about those things), and thinking that, if love and hearts were the reason for such pain, they must be dreadful and never come to a good end.
Sometimes, Cassana would run her fingers through her daughter's golden hair and look into her sparkling blue eyes, and often she would embrace Elysenne and mournfully sigh: "Oh, my child, how like your father you are!" That day was more dreary and tiresome than any day before, and her mother's caresses and embraces now appeared stifling to the crown princess. She could not break free.
Crown Princess Elysenne now had it forbidden both to learn and play, and she could not even utter a whisper. Yet she would shut her eyes and listen in the dark... to her widowed mother's songs and to her sorrows, to the call of gulls and curlews, to the pitter-patter of the rain on the windowpanes. That was the only pastime available within those dark, dire days, in which, shut within an eerie sept in mourning, she learned about the pain that a broken heart could bring to a person in love.
That night, as lightning flashed outside the walls of Evenfall, Cassana of Tarth asked for her daughter's help to take the warrior king's form out of its resting-place. After both mother and daughter had fulfilled this task, the red-haired dowager cast off the breastplate and the doublet, and every other garment that covered the manly body, and then she undressed herself, without the aid of servants, her heavy black gown cast aside over the bright steel. And then, the little crown princess saw, in the light of flashing lightning, a scene that would haunt every dream of hers until the end of her life. 
There was her mother, embracing her father, caressing those cold limbs and kissing those parted lips, running her fingers through the golden hair on his head and that on his chest, tickling the seam that ran along his breastbone, where the cut made to remove his precious heart had been sewn shut... and, thrusting herself on the pale and lifeless form time after time, as she shed tears and cried... but were those tears of despair or tears of joy? It was not clear, but what was clear was that her mother was playing with her deceased father, both naked, he senseless and she excited, no heart inside his chest but a stitched wound instead, before the fourteen watchful eyes of the Gods.
The royal child's hands were still holding the heart that should have been behind those stitches, and clutching it tightly. For, upon beholding the wound sewn shut on his chest, she noticed it was about the size of what was held within the glass casket. And that was why he did not react to a loved one's strange and passionate caresses, nor to her blazing kisses.
During that whole night, Elysenne of Tarth did not sleep at all. The scenes which she saw in the light of lightning filled her heart and her mind with surprises hitherto unasked for.
In the end, before falling asleep, they tried to dress the King's form as quickly as they could and brought it back into its place. However, neither women nor girl-children are usually skilled at putting armours on, and thus, the breastplate was a little loose at the left shoulder.
The next morn, when the Regent entered the sept and saw the Queen half-naked, and his liege lord not as well dressed as before, he shuddered upon thinking of the possibility that she may have desecrated the sept with a lust more forbidden than any other. Axell looked sternly at the crown princess, whose little golden head glittered in the sun of the morrow and whose blue eyes sparkled, but she was too afraid of what the wise bannerman would say. Then, the Regent cast a piercing glare at Cassana, who turned her blood-shot eyes away and hastened to dress herself.
That day was as dreary and tiresome as the day before, and her mother's caresses and embraces still appeared stifling to the crown princess. She could not break free that day either, and thus, she stayed half-asleep, until dusk, her bright blue eyes still firmly shut, lulled into sleep by Queen Cassana's songs and sighs of sorrow.
That night, the scene from the one before took place in the same fashion. And Elysenne still looked on, clutching the heart to her own chest, noticing that the Evenstar had not awakened yet, and realising that he never would awaken. And she still wondered why her mother was treating him that way, still trying to wake him up in vain.
The next day was the one when Goodwin of Tarth should receive his last resting-place at the feet of the Warrior. The Regent thought of the Evenstar's widow and her fatherless child, and what may become of them, of a child who did neither learn nor play, reared by a mother whose broken heart still bled in selfish, painful sorrow. How would Cassana react when she learned that she would nevermore kiss her Goodwin's lips or press his heart to her bosom?
She obviously burst, not merely into tears, but also into fiery rage, lunging at the Regent's men as they, following Axell's cold orders, ripped the heart encased in glass from her grasp and removed the stone at the feet of the god of war. The heart was then quickly placed in the late ruler's hard hands, on top of his stalwart chest, where it once had been. She had only got time to stroke that glass for an instant and kiss His Grace's parted lips before the steel lid quickly shut that gallant face, the one she had so often seen smile, away. And then, heavy-hearted and full of tears, the desperate queen tried to leap into the chasm now revealed by the lifted floor-stone, on top of the form that was being lowered into cold sacred ground.
Yet, ere she had reached the brink of the abyss, strong hands grasped her skirt and reined her in. And then, enraged and desperate, Cassana lunged at the Regent, tearing at his black doublet, pulling his auburn locks and sharp beard, clutching his throat in her lithe hands. He coldly laid his own hard hands on the Queen's chest as the freeriders and the soldiers muttered to each other:
"She is mad! Doubtless is she mad!"
And Elysenne looked curiously on, as her mother was no longer herself, her blood-shot eyes and harsh insults, the things she called the Regent, proved that she had become someone different: someone who could even hurt Elysenne herself. Now, the Queen Dowager laid her hands around her daughter's chest and clutched the child to her own ripe breasts, as she begged to Axell in a desperate tone, looking at the carving of the Mother, her red and golden eyes full of more tears than ever before:
"Let me keep Elysenne! She is her father's likeness! And she is my only child! Please, Lord Regent! I have already lost both parents, two children, and my spouse!"
To such a desperate prayer, Lord Axell replied coldly and sternly, in a slightly harsh tone, without seeming stirred to the slightest degree:
"A child, and even more one of which great deeds are expected, needs to learn and to play. Not the respiteless sorrows of a broken heart, even if it is her mother's."
Now the Queen wept more desperately than before, defiantly looking at the Regent, at the stern Lord Axell, calling him a traitor and a usurper. And then, in response, he simply and calmly made a sign, upon which two strong freeriders seized the fragile lady as their liege, the Regent, cleared his throat and quickly gave these orders:
"Lock this madwoman in the Twilight Tower. And ensure she is well fed on hard bread and water. From this day onward, the Crown Princess shall only see the Queen Dowager within her prison twice a year, on the name days of both mother and daughter. The Queen Dowager shall only be let out on parole to enter the bedchamber of the Crown Princess if she ever falls fatally ill."
The guards carried a weeping and kicking Queen Cassana out of the sept, along a hallway, and upstairs into the Twilight Tower. This was a watchtower of Evenfall Hall, overgrown with ivy and slightly detached from the keep, to whose north it was, and connected to said keep by a narrow passageway along the cliff. This watchtower contained a dungeon for the most relevant prisoners, such as hostages during wartime, on its topmost story. The tower's only window faced westward, and the captives were at least appeased by having an impressive view of Shipbreaker Bay, especially at sunset, when the waves and the shores basked in warm-coloured glows. Within this prison, however, Cassana was not as pleased as the Lord Regent expected. Rather, she would turn her gaze towards the lands of her birth and sigh, drying up her tears, as she eyed Storm's End, the place where she had begun to love. 
And, obviously, her thoughts would turn towards her daughter, whom she could not always keep by her side, and whom she often watched through the window, yearning to embrace her, when little Elysenne was outdoors.
Meanwhile, Elysenne had witnessed the whole scene and wondered why her mother had been taken into the tower. And then, Lord Axell stroked her golden hair as he softly and coolly replied to soothe her:
"Your mother is no longer herself. She can hurt you now. From this day on, I will be both father and mother to you, Your Highness. We shall resume the lessons we had left unfinished. And Maester Mathis will teach you everything I will not be able to teach you."
There was a new maester at the Hall, the one before having died of old age about the same time as Lady Caron disappeared. The new tutor, Maester Mathis, was a tall and thin young man whose head was always full of questions. Indeed, maesters in general are wise and sensible, but this one had been passionate and a little eccentric as well. He had got to know many different peoples of nearly every nation and creed under the sun, and thus, he was far more clever and open-minded than any of the older maesters in the Stormlands, and even in his birthplace of the Reach. Besides, Maester Mathis was never tiresome, always with a new trick up his sleeves, and he could speak to a child in an encouraging way. It must have been certainly good luck that the crown princess of Tarth was reared by such a scholar, thought of as outrageous by his older peers. If she learned from the Regent all about the Sapphire Isle and the Stormlands, her maester taught her about direwolves and dragons, Reach roses and weirwoods, the Wall and Highgarden, the Many-Faced One and the Lord of Light... and many other plants and animals, kingdoms and faiths, that she had never seen before but loved to daydream about. Moreover, this singular maester could also easily speak some foreign languages as well, and soon the Crown Princess began to say her first words in Valyrian and in Dothraki. Indeed, open-minded young Elysenne and Maester Mathis were certainly pleased with each other. As much as a friendly teacher and a curious student could be pleased with each other. Yet the greatest lesson she had learned when perusing old lore in the library of Evenfall Hall consisted in the wise words the maester had chosen for his own:
"You may speak any language you please. You may believe in any gods you please, or in no gods at all. Yet I do not care, and I will respect your creed and your opinion, whichever they might be."
In those days when religion still held everyone, from royals to crofters, in awe of the gods (whether the Seven or any others), those words were frowned upon, even at the court of Tarth, where ladies and bannermen would sometimes cast piercing glares at the maester. Yet Lord Axell admired him, in spite of their differences, the Regent always being more doubtful when it came to change and a stronger believer.
It was Lord Axell who also took Elysenne out, in sunshine or storm, with a lindenwood sword or a short bow in her little hands, and sometimes a pony to ride. The crown princess should not be cooped up within walls all the time, he thought. Her body needed to be reared as well as her mind. And, as the Regent saw her trying to make him fall with a wooden sword in the pouring rain, or shooting for each day closer to the heart of the target, he was filled with pride and with content. Soon her fair face was riddled with amber freckles, due to her frequent exposure to the light, and she had regained her usual sunny, cheerful mood. She would doubtlessly become a great ruler, as great as her late father, who had written in well-shed blood the last chapter of his redoubtable life-story, or even greater.
It came as no surprise that Elysenne often called both the men who reared her "father". Moreover, Lord Axell and Maester Mathis were both childless, yet both of them gradually came to see the hopeful and cheerful child as the daughter that they never would sire.
Twice a day, on her own name day and that of her mother, the princess was led out of the keep by the Regent, along the cliff and into the Twilight Tower. There, where the walls were now full of scribbles to count the days gone by, sat Cassana, now gaunt and pale, her feet constrained by iron shackles, and she would pounce on her child to embrace and kiss Elysenne with all her strength. The Crown Princess, now no longer accustomed to her mother's presence, would then turn pale and get scared, feeling stifled by this embrace that seemed to cling to her, to desperately try to absorb her little form. 
On the Queen Mother's first name day in the Tower, her daughter, after a long time coaxing the Lord Regent, gave Cassana her harp, which two freeriders had carried into the dungeon. Now Cassana would have something more amusing to do than just draw lines on the walls and count the days until her child should enter her prison once more.
And those days came every now and then, as the royal child lay in bed, ablaze with fever, tossing and turning, with her mother by her bedside. Then, Cassana would be set free on parole, still clasped in shackles, and sing soothing love songs or pray to the Mother, while drying up her tears into her black handkerchief. The maester would give Elysenne fresh spring water with herbs to quench her thirst, fan her blazing brows with his wide sleeve, and tell her soothing stories in some unknown language... and both he and Lord Axell would eye the weeping "madwoman" without much faith in her songs or in her prayers.
When, at the end of the day, the princess would have regained her usual health, her mother would be carried back to prison as quickly as she had come, shedding tears and looking back in sorrow.
And, every now and then, by day or by night, in rain or shine, a mournful song could be heard from Twilight Tower, a heart-rending dirge about a mother whose only daughter was spirited away, after her husband's death on the battlefield, by a heartless usurper. This song, broken with sobs, would steal into the minds of both servants and courtiers, and even of the high officers themselves, but it never bothered the Regent, and he advised the Crown Princess, who recognised that voice and was drawn to the chant in bed, in the library, and when training in the courtyard. Lord Axell had advised her not to listen, yet Elysenne could not resist the power of the song, that even haunted her in her dreams.
Thus went four or five years of learning and playing, until, one dark and rainy evening close to night, the imprisoned queen could no longer feel at ease within the walls of her prison. She had watched the route foreign ships took towards Storm's End, and also snapped up enough words in Valyrian by her ailing daughter's bedside, when Elysenne tossed feverishly in her bed. And for moon-turns Cassana had, day after day, been removing stones in the narrowest part of the eastern wall, until her delicate hands, which had never carried out such drudgery before, bled and were hardened with toil. Now she has made a hole large enough for her lithe, gaunt frame to get through. And then, though she was weary and reeling, the star-crossed queen crept through the passage she had made, climbed down the tower clinging to the ivy that lined its walls, and then ran with short steps in her clinking shackles, in the pouring rain and the dark of a cloudy night around the tower and past the guards, and quickly, without thinking, she leapt off the cliff into the waters of Shipbreaker Bay, where she knew a Lysene merchant ship would come sailing past the western coast of Tarth towards Storm's End. In the last instant, a flash of lightning turned the night into day and the soldiers beheld a female figure, like a desperate suicide, leaping off the cliff to be swallowed up by the dark waves, before the foreign ship approached and its crew reached out ropes to the drowning wretch, hauling her on board. The lightning flashed for only an instant, the face of the saved, drenched woman still unknown to the guards for the rest of that eventful night.
The next day, when the men tasked with feeding the imprisoned queen came with her tankard of spring water and her stale bread, they found the Twilight Tower empty, a large hole in the eastern wall, and blood-stained stones on the ground. The harp lay there on its own, bereft of the soft hands that once stroked its precious strings.
Queen Cassana of Tarth was gone.
They sorted out which one of them would tell the Regent the frightening news, and the one chosen steeled himself to face Lord Axell, as the middle-aged guard told His Lordship what had recently befallen the prisoner in the old watchtower.
Though the Regent's stern face did not betray anything, it turned strangely pale, and a cold sweat drenched his brow, also making his shirt and doublet stick to his chest. That morning, he sent a raven towards Storm's End, asking if any ships had arrived lately. Then, he went out with Elysenne, after her Valyrian lesson, to ride for a while on horseback and shoot from her gray pony among the cliffs. That day, Axell took her up north, and the princess could not help but wonder why no songs came that day from the old gray tower. She drew near and found servants rebuilding its eastern wall, and she asked them why they were doing it. But no answer came.
That day at noon, the Regent received word that the Storm Queen, who had been left in charge of her realm since her husband was fighting this war for so many years, had let a Lysene merchant crew stop at the marketplace below the walls of her fortress. On board, or so the captain said, there was a gaunt and ragged strawberry-blond madwoman, who spoke rather broken Valyrian, and whom they had left on board. Her ankles had been allegedly shackled, the captain having set her free.
Lord Axell thought of his long-time enemy, who was now doubtlessly bound to start anew as a courtesan, and he felt slightly pleased. That day, the alleged ship was supposed to sail back to Lys, having little to sell and to buy in modest lands nearly bereft of men by the war, nothing but trading a few spices, like cloves and star anise, in exchange for Stormlands amber, and even on Tarth where they had usually alighted during peacetime.
In the afternoon, he steeled himself to tell his ward what had occurred, even though he doubted whether she would reply with tears or with cheers:
"Your mother is gone. She ran off and set sail somewhere far away."
"But why would she?", Elysenne asked curiously.
The Lord Regent felt that the Crown Princess was old enough to tell her the truth. Though he also felt a twinge of guilt, and of regret, tear at his usually cold heart:
"She was not pleased here... Maybe I was too harsh with her... Nevertheless, the loss of your father broke her heart in twain, and took away her reason..."
And thus, he gave the full account of all that had happened since the evening before. Clouds dark and heavy as iron loomed in the distance.
That afternoon, Elysenne gladly covered the distance from Evenfall to Lys, time after time, with her left index finger, as she imagined herself sailing on the highest waves. And, when a guard announced that the merchant ship was in sight, the princess shut her book of maps and sauntered out of the library, to wave at the passing-by Lysene, and at her mother, should Cassana appear. It was now evening, the setting sun shrouded in the dark, ominous clouds of a foreboding twilight, without a gap through which the sky may have been seen.
However, she did not see her mother at all, Cassana being weary and fast asleep below deck. Fretful with disappointment, the little blonde princess returned to her books and her daydreams of adventure.
That night, she could not sleep at all for all the thunder-crash. Dressed only in her night-shift, she sauntered across the keep to follow the sailors with her eyes through a southern hallway window. And then, as soon as she had reached the wished-for window, she beheld, as frightened as she could be, a wave the size of the Twilight Tower swallowing a large ship in the distance.
Then, she reeled and fell backwards with her startled blue eyes shut, and she fell asleep out of bed on the tapestry floor, to be woken up and chided by the stern Lord Regent the next morn, before daybreak. And then, withdrawing herself, staying silent and sorrowful for three days, without taking much pleasure in study or play, she worried both Maester Mathis and Axell with this unusual discontent, until the Regent finally coaxed the words he wished to hear out of her.
"She has certainly drowned!", the Crown Princess burst into tears.
Lord Axell now felt that twinge of guilt even deeper inside his chest. Was Cassana truly a madwoman? Perchance. Who was he to know about love, about real passions? For she had loved not wisely, but too well, and he had tried to lock her heart away.
For the rest of the history of Tarth, the star-crossed Queen Cassana never set foot again on the Sapphire Isle. And, though at first the courtiers thought her shipwrecked, a ray of hope lit up the face of the child princess when she heard, four or five moon-turns later, from Essosi captains that they had seen her mother on foreign shores, as a red-clad priestess of the Lord of Light.
One thing was for sure: she was alive, but she was forever parted from her only child, who would now be reared by two strange men into a crown prince, until she came of age. 
And thus, within the space of the following years, Elysenne of Tarth drank up her maester's and her guardian's store of knowledge eagerly and deeply, sharpening the languages she knew like a sword applied to a good whetstone, learning the lineage and history of every noble household south of Blackwater Rush, from Duskendale to Salt Shore, perusing the movements of the stars in the wide and dark night sky... and even beginning to venture into the world of the arts learning to draw with a thin charcoal stick and the sap of certain flowers (some of which could and can only be found on Tarth), from portraits of her loved ones, including the hazy traces she had of her parents, to flowers and fruits, to Shipbreaker Bay and the village below Evenfall Hall. And she also trained how to rally the people on and off the battlefield, the only times when she was allowed to interact with the servants' children: though she was a little too loud and wanted to impose her own will, at first scaring others away rather than gathering them together, yet as years passed, she mastered a training that could at first seem to be the well-known game of follow the leader, but actually was her serious study of elocution. She also learned to sing and play the harp, which she did in a less pleasant way than her mother, for Elysenne had a deep contralto voice and the rough hands of a soldier. But she was never taught needlework of any kind.
A strange habit she had, and one to which everyone finally consented, was that she never had swallowed strong drink, whether wine, ale, or mead, and never would in her life. For she hated the taste. Elysenne rather quenched her thirst with spring water, sometimes sweetened with honey or flavoured with berries. That made the Regent both worry and wonder.
Though she still was as rambunctious as any lass her age and often gave Lord Axell a shock, by climbing up towers and treetops like a squirrel or a gecko lizard, riding too close to the edge of the cliffs... Then, the Regent would calmly chide her, and she would look at him with cheerful eyes, and he would remember the days when Goodwin of Tarth had troubled him with the same foolhardy decisions. The lass was, after all, a princess of Tarth and her father's daughter. And thus, he stroked her soft locks, as gilt as the sun like those of her fallen sire. 
He growing young body was by no means to be neglected in the shade of her wit and her voice: by the age of twelve, she had already hit the middle of the target; by the age of thirteen, the crown princess wielded steel for the first time in her life; by that of fourteen, she could shoot a rabbit through the heart, with a longbow or crossbow, from a distance of seven paces; at fifteen, she had grown out of her pony and started to ride the speckled mare which was known by the name of Grey Mist; at sixteen, she held a lance in her left hand on horseback for the first time; and also at sixteen she was a maiden fully grown, always disarming her sparring partners, no longer facing the now old Regent in the courtyard, sitting by his right side at council meetings (which she had done since the day her mother disappeared), and constantly worried about the state of the war against the Ironborn, which still kept on raging. Now Elysenne kept her fair hair tightly tied in a single braid that lashed against her back whenever she was riding. Her face was spangled with dark freckles, her cheeks rosy with the warmth of her blood and with physical activity, her shoulders broader than those of any other maiden on Tarth or in the Stormlands, and she was far taller than most of the grown men, towering one head above the silver-haired Lord Regent and two, even three, heads among her maids. There was a shade of golden fuzz, so wispy and fine it could only be seen from near, upon her upper lip. Her breasts were the size of plums, in spite of the size of her chest. And she always dressed like a young man of her condition, in an azure doublet and breeches, fully armoured in tourneys and deer hunts. She was always as healthy as could be, and her injuries healed quickly, since she had never drunk strong drink, and since she would often ride her horses and draw her steel. She discoursed learnedly, and she had an answer for everything: she truly shone with wit.
Strangers at court (usually, the few trading crews from Essos that dared to land and exchange their goods for amber in spite of the war), praising Elysenne's mind, and subjects whose villages she visited, took her for a stripling of a young man, not knowing her. Everyone who knew Elysenne of Tarth knew that she was a likeness of her late father. That she was the Warrior incarnate.
The Ironborn were still razing the Riverlands, and the Stormlanders, though they had fought back time after time for all these years, were losing the upper hand since a decade ago. For Erich VI had taken the loss of his brother-in-arms of Tarth like a sudden stab to the heart, and, losing all hope and joy, he had become much more foolhardy than before, seeking solace both at the vanguard and in the tankard. Defeat followed upon defeat, as strong drink made the Storm King weaker in both body and soul, dethroning reason within him, and he sunk deeper and deeper into despair, not even caring for the fate of his queen and their child. Throughout that autumn, the Stormlanders were gradually being forced to retreat, their liege lord reeling and ailing, struggling between life and death. Erich Durrandon would be remembered as no hero, or so the most realistic among the courtiers said, and it was still unknown whether he would fall upon the battlefield and become the stuff of lore.
Thus did the war fare, and thus read the letters sent by carrier raven to the Regent of Tarth and his dashing ward. Her Grace often looked concerned, and, at a council of the realm, she impatiently asked Ser Axell why their isle and household did not take part in the fighting on the battlefield:
"Where are our bold and true warriors? Are we now turned cravens?"
"Your Grace... I swore to rule these lands until the end of your childhood, which is rather near. And I have always preferred the ease of a court to the hustle of a battlefield."
"And why can't I fight like my father did?", Elysenne impatiently asked.
"You are no man. Hear that they call you princess instead of queen. For such is the Dornish custom which we have accepted against our will. They will ruin your life in camp. It's no place for a princess of the Stormlands or Tarth", Lord Axell replied with his usual stern mien.
"But the Dornish...", she insisted.
"The Nymeros Martells? They have children to spare, both trueborn and not, while you're the only offspring of those who gave you life. Your life is tied to this isle, my Liege. Should you leave, the empty throne would be usurped. Though I have never wished to sit upon it, there are strangers eager to take my precious life. For the good of Tarth, and for the good of House Tarth..." She could see that her guardian was telling the truth.
"I will not die like my father, the Warrior bless his soul!", Elysenne knocked her hands on the oaken table, cracking it. Her eyes flashed.
"You are blood of his blood, and spirit of his spirit. How many times have you been playing with death? Every time I see you dare, I think I see young Goodwin risking his life once more."
"This hell of a war is going nowhere!", the crown princess of Tarth hit the table even harder than before, startling her guardian and her bannermen. "Are we afraid of these new foemen because they're unknown to us? We know the Reachers and the Dornish well, but these so-called Ironborn..."
The Lord Regent sighed and stroked his now silvery beard. The younger bannermen quickly sided with their liege. And soon, it was agreed, at the end of the council, that Tarth should call every able young man to the banners and come to the Stormlands' aid.
Though, within the deepest recess of her heart, Elysenne harboured a thought so bold and daring that the Regent would not merely have called it foolhardy, but even forbidden it. Yet it had taken root and grown firmly, and it would never be shattered by disappointment.
That morning, she told Lord Axell that she would spend some time in the library, dozing over philosophical writings, as usual. However, as soon as she was left alone, she began to change her likeness. The tight braid, gilt like the sun, was quickly severed by her own left hand, the good one, with her own castle-forged sword, Sunset, crafted at Evenfall just for her. The cropped locks were soon concealed by a shining helmet, the modest breasts were clad in steel, and, across her strong shoulders, she flung Sunset on its scabbard. Any Stormlander could have taken her for the spirit of Goodwin the Merry, bearing his appearance as a newly-crowned youth.
In this guise, unknown to all and even to the Regent, who would have taken her for a bannerman, she boarded the flagship with its sail of suns and moons, and found a place around the young men she ruled, but who did not recognise her either. Everyone thought this was some unknown knight from an obscure household.
At dusk that day, the flagship landed on Storm's End. And there, Elysenne would meet Renly for the second time in her life, and the stories of their lives would entwine forever. With the war and in the wake of the trouble it brought to their lives, their betrothal had been completely forgotten. What if chance, or the Maiden, or simply the same war that had parted them... would reunite them?
As the sun set behind the western woodlands, the princess of Tarth hopped onto dry land, and there, she was greeted with all the other bannermen by Queen Ravella herself, her locks of fire now streaked with silver, and her only son and heir. Renly had grown into a young man, tall and lean as a fir trunk, his face fair as the moon and shaped like a heart, framed in raven locks that cascaded, long and flowing, on his broad shoulders. The eyes of the crown prince were two bright blue lakes, and a soft streak of dark peach-fuzz, so wispy it could not be seen from afar, already shaded his upper lip. There was no better-looking or more dashing young man in the Stormlands, and, in fact, every eligible lord's daughter in the lands wished for his hand, since Renly was the likeness of his crowned father as a youth, before Erich VI was crushed by drink, defeat, and despair. In fact, during his childhood, Renly Durrandon had been as well-educated as Elysenne of Tarth across the Straits. If there was no better shot or sword than Elysenne on Tarth, Renly held the same reputation within the Stormlands. He had also been taught Valyrian, riding, jousting, and various artistic disciplines. Only that, with his sweet tenor voice and soft, maiden-like hands, he was a more skilful harp player than the princess of the Sapphire Isle.
Throughout his childhood, he had rarely seen his father. Queen Ravella had given those twenty years of her life to rear her only son, the hope of the whole realm, and, with the aid of the wise maester of Storm's End and of an old one-eyed and one-handed bannerman, she had watched the little boy grow from a soft sapling into a comely and slender redwood, standing tall and firm, waking by his bedside when his health wavered, praising her hopeful and chiding him when it was needed, just like Lord Axell was rearing his ward on Tarth, across the Straits.
Anyway, Renly Durrandon had also been a naughty boy like any other, who climbed up ruined towers and walked along the cliffs, and even tried to stow away on board of ships from Lys or Myr. And then, his mother could not restrain her worries, and she had him locked in a watchtower on his own. For she had no other child, and her spouse may not come home from the wars. Most of the lords had left for the battlefield, like her spouse, and half of them had fallen far from their keeps, leaving their lands to their fatherless eldest sons. Renly being a crown prince and an only child, his mother loved him more than she loved her crown and throne, and now that he had come of age and was old enough to fight, Queen Ravella dreaded that she one day would get to know that her son had fallen on a distant battlefield. Yet, the next day, her only hope would leave for the war front, riding up north, to aid his ailing father in the fray, and perchance he would never return.
Thus were the Storm Queen and her son when they welcomed the host from Tarth. Renly himself took the hand of the blond and freckled young person he thought to be a knight among the others and led her into the royal castle, as he told her its story of love and challenge, of his own ancestor Durran Godsgrief and of Elenei, the daughter of gods. It was, obviously, not a new tale to Elysenne, but hearing it in Storm's End itself gave the story a certain charm. The enraged gods summoning storms to raze the mortal king's keep and claim their daughter. The keep was seen, in her mind's eyes, rising stronger every time it was overrun, razed seven times and raised for other seven. Until Storm's End had reached its current shape, and the Durrandons thereafter inherited the nymph's eyes, blue like the waters of Shipbreaker Bay and the summer skies on rare fair-weather days. When he had ended, the princess complimented her host for the well-told story, and Renly, thinking Elysenne to be a young knight, asked for his name. 
"Goodwin", she replied, thinking of her late father. "They named me after the King of Tarth, that great hero, who died not long before I was born."
"Yes, I still remember Goodwin the Merry from when I was a child... They say his daughter has become a princess of unusual cleverness..."
Elysenne, still "Goodwin" in Renly's eyes, chortled and smiled shyly to herself. "I think I have seen her... Oh, if she were a man, and able to fight in the war!"
"Well, since the Evenstar died, the war has known no end, nor even a decent leader. My father is ill, and he cannot fight on horseback, but must lie down in a bed in our camp. I have grown impatient during these few years, cooped up within these walls, with Mother thinking I am still a boy-child... while other younger lordlings fought in foreign lands for our crown's sake!"
"And I'd be glad to serve such a noble and honest liege."
That evening, during their supper, among the other bannermen and sellsword officers, Elysenne sat down by Renly's side, and everyone agreed that the crown prince and this knight, equally young and handsome, the one who would never taste strong drink, could put a victorious end to the neverending wars. After all, this was the most sterling lad that Tarth had to offer to the cause.
That night, Elysenne stayed awake, alone in a guest-room (the one that once had been her late father's) with her thoughts of the war, and of the fact that she might die of painful wounds or of a quick strike. And of Renly, who had been so good and so cheerful. How easily had he been deceived, like everyone else at Storm's End! And her guardian? How would Lord Axell feel? Would he call her back to Tarth? Would he sternly chide her like he had got used to do? Would the Regent ban her from fighting in any wars? Would Elysenne spend the rest of her life locked in the tiresome Twilight Tower, that once had claimed her mother's reason?
That evening, no servants had undressed her: she had requested to be on her own, completely alone, in the guest-room, and neither Ravella nor her only son had objected to this request, nor asked the reason why.
Had her decision been foolhardy or simply hardy? What if she had decided to stay at Evenfall, no matter now tiresome it might be? What if any knight or sellsword found out her secret, that it was no sword she had got between her legs? Would Renly defend her or turn his back on her?
In such thoughts she spent the whole late summer night, tossing and turning on her bed, until the first ray of sunlight gilded her fair hair and caused her to shut her dazzled eyes for a while.
The next day, as she broke her fast on stuffed mushrooms, laced with sweet wine, and black grouse pie, her blue eyes met those of her liege lord more than once. The Prince of Storm's End had a concerned, serious look: after all, he had to aid his failing ranks on the battlefield. Queen Ravella looked at him with sorrow and with fear bred from love, like the mother of any warrior would look at her offspring ere they departed for foreign battlegrounds.
When breakfast was finished and the whole army gathered at the fortress gates, Elysenne, still "Goodwin", was given a lovely Dornish mare with a coat of sandy gold, once captured as a filly as spoils of war, that had previously been Renly's before he moved on to a proper war-horse.
"Sunshine can surely carry a young knight your size", her liege told her. "Lightning, on the other hand, was bred here at Storm's End, for a Durrandon rider in an antlered helmet and heavy armour. Lightning is more fiery, even a little wild. He was at first not used to me, and even tossed me from his back once, so I broke my right leg. It hurt more than anything else, and both Mother and Maester Claes, worried as only they can be about me, did the best they could to ensure I could run and ride again, as I lay in bed and prayed to the Warrior, time after time, for my leg to heal. I stayed for that whole year in bed, reading and playing music for the days not to be tiresome. On my name-day next year, I could ride this stallion without worrying, though at first I was a little afraid."
Lightning was a fierce-looking black and grey stallion, with a face streaked in white. Renly was getting on this steed as he spoke those words, stroking his steel-clad right leg as he said those words. The look in his eyes seemed to say that Renly didn't want to be thrown off a horse or fall off again.
"And I see the Warrior has heard your prayers!", the one who called herself "Goodwin" said as she was getting on Sunshine's back. Having never suffered such an accident, like the one that had nearly crippled her liege lord, made her feel as if she had felt the pain, and the boredom, and the hope, and the worries of her loved ones, herself.
For a while, Renly got off Lightning to take leave of his mother. Queen Ravella was there, drying up her tears and embracing him as warmly as she could, giving him her best wishes and heartfelt kisses.
"Hope you win and end this war", she said. "And, when you reach our camp, ask for your father. Tell him, by his bedside, that both of us still love him like we did before."
"I will", the crown prince replied, honestly and warmly, as he got on his dark stallion. Lightning neighed and shook his head, the black mane fluttering among the colourful banners, as Sunshine neighed in reply and Renly put on the antlered helmet of his House on his midnight locks, tied up with a buff ribbon at the nape of his neck. Beneath a breastplate of ornate steel, he wore a modest buff doublet. Elysenne was dressed in the same armour her "Goodwin" persona had brought over from Tarth. All around them, on horseback, was the flower of Stormlands nobility: the Connington twins, Jon and Don, come to join their scarred father; Lord Calin Caron, the sixteen-year-old (younger than Renly and Elysenne) only son of the late Courtnay Caron, who had fallen at the Blue Fork; Richard Storm, the dashing green-eyed and slightly dark bastard stepson of King Andrew Estermont III (sired unto Queen Johanna Estermont by some foreign captain, more than probably a Dornishman), representing his aged, crippled stepfather, whose still living trueborn children of the male kind were too young for the rage of war; three identical Fell brothers by the names of Alyn, Ilyn, and Gerald; another Richard, this one Ser Hasty, Renly's mentor in the arts of combat, that one-eyed veteran in his forties with a hook for a left hand, broad-shouldered and now fully recovered from serious injuries tended by Maester Claes at Storm's End; Guyard Pease of Peasebury, fair of hair and features, slender as a reed, born unto a Reach mother from Grassy Vale; and the eldest of the Penroses, red-haired and clever Andrew, who was more than a friend to Lord Pease and would soon become his brother-in-law. Both of these last lords were Renly's age, and about as good-looking. These few brave hopefuls were the flower of Stormlands nobility, the hope of a realm beleaguered for two decades. Together with Renly Durrandon and "Goodwin the True", they would make a gallant band of happy few united by chance and anointed with blood.

These were the warriors that led the bold host that, banners fluttering, galloped and marched away from Storm's End throughout three quarters of a moon-turn, first along the rocky coast of the Stormlands and across the Wendwater, then across the Blackwater Rush, then past the Gods' Eye and across the Red Fork, until they reached the vast Stormlands encampment at Fairmarket. Before entering it, they had been garrisoned in hamlets and holdfasts, or encamped in the wild, feasting on yearling fawn in the Kingswood and in the Whispering Wood, and on rabbits when they lit a fire and lay down on the fields of the Riverlands, drinking mead and dark ale diluted with the water they could find. Except for "Goodwin", who still turned down strong drink.
Thus did three quarters of a moon-turn pass, until, in the end, the last day at twilight, Renly and his brave men beheld, by the shores of the Blue Fork, the encampment of their ranks: a vast, redoubtable enclosure, shielded by a thick redwood palisade, from whose three wooden watchtowers the black stag pranced on a yellow field. At the gates of this enclosure, which was surrounded by a six foot deep trench, guards in the colours of various Stormlands houses, great and small, asked the reinforcements for the password.
"Elenei", Renly said with a smile. No Ironborn knew that name or its significance. Getting off his dark stallion, he took off the antlered helmet, letting the long raven locks that had escaped the ribbon on the nape of his neck fall upon his shoulders. The guards bent the knee before their prince, who soon would be their liege lord, and the redwood gate was thrown as a drawbridge over the trench. Thus crossed Renly Durrandon, with Goodwin the True by his side, and followed by his host and bannermen, and entered the settlement that would soon be known as Fairmarket. A few wooden huts among the colourful tents were meant for the homeless women and children of the lands, and the lower floor of the watchtowers was meant for the wounded and ailing Stormlands warriors. The older bannermen came up to Renly on bended knee, calling him "my Liege":
"My Liege, you should see your father", Lords Penrose and Connington told him, dropping their rune-ornated helmets on the floor.
"What?", the young Durrandon had turned strangely pale, and a shiver ran down his spine. The memories of his crowned father were rather few and hazy.
"His Grace is breathing his last", Lord Penrose explained. "Not even my brother Maester Jasper, our field healer, can save his precious life."
Renly Durrandon hastened running towards the southern watchtower, restraining his tears and handing Lightning's reins over to Elysenne. The pretend knight led the stallion and her own Sunshine into the encampment's modest wooden equerry, and sat down with the other bannermen to discuss their respective stories as they waited for Renly to return. Andrew Penrose, Guyard Pease, Richard Storm: these three became quickly pleased with Elysenne, believing that she was "Goodwin", and she was equally pleased with them as friends. They asked her about Tarth, of which isle they had heard wonders, and she replied as cheerfully as she could. Though Storm at first disagreed, preferring the other free kingdom on the Stormlands coast, Estermont being his birthplace.
And what was Renly doing in the meantime? He had been led back down the street of the encampment and into the southern watchtower, lit by the warm light of a few modest lanterns, where the air on the ground floor reeked sweetly of the Stranger's presence. 
There lay the once great Erich VI on his back on a modest camp bed, his girth surpassing now that of a keg, and his weary face, the once bright eyes now shut and shadowed, was strangely buff or yellow, and blazing with fever. The flowing raven locks and beard that framed those features gave the colours of House Durrandon another, eerier, meaning. The Storm King was deeply unconscious, feverish, breathing shallowly and restlessly as warm air, that reeked and felt sweet at once, stole through his parted lips. 
The last time Renly had taken leave of his father, Erich, then healthy and cheerful and in the prime of life, had taken the child's small body up in his strong arms and tossed little Renly up and onto his shoulders. For a long time, he thought that it would be the last time they saw each other. Now he was sure that it had been not. But his childhood hero, his absent father, the fiercest warrior in the Stormlands, lay dying. Not on the battlefield, but in a bed, tended to by a maester who had given up hope not long ago. Not of wounds, but of some unknown illness, that could even bring the strongest, bravest, most powerful warriors to an end most unworthy of their rank.
"I am Crown Prince Renly. I have not tarried an instant to my father's side, and now I find him like this. Why is he losing his life?"
The short, middle-aged, kindly maester looked at the newcomer with both respect and concern:
"Drinker's fever", Maester Jasper explained. "It has ruined many a person's life. There is no cure, for 'tis too late. His Grace should have stopped that foolish sin of his. Yet he had developed a thirst that could only be quenched with strong drink. And strong drink, Your Highness, makes anyone weak. Even the strongest warriors and the greatest rulers."
"I will never die of drinker's fever", Renly said to himself. "I will swear it on my coronation. I will rather die on a battlefield or of wounds received thereon." Then, he walked up to Erich's bedside and held the dying ruler's right hand, which was ablaze with fever and reeked sweetly. And he whispered in the dying ruler's right ear, softly and kindly, the words he had promised to say:
"Here I am, your boy, Renly. I still love you, and so does Ravella, and everyone in the Stormlands. I hope I can fulfil everything you left unfinished. So you and all of the Storm Kings that came before us will be proud of me. And I hope they are proud of you. This is our last greeting." Then, Renly noticed that no warm breathing air stole from the dying Erich's parted lips and played with his own loose locks. The Stranger had finally come.
Though Renly had been raised in the arts of war, a few crystal teardrops seared his cheeks and fell on the motionless chest of the overweight form. Thoughts of an inglorious death, of his own future, of the legacy that he had inherited (the Stormlands and this never-ending war) filled his stirred mind at unison. Then, he heard the rustling of skirts, of women entering the sick-room. The silent sisters, in the light of the lanterns, seemed spirits sent by the Stranger himself. Drying up his tears, Renly raised his head and turned towards them. That night, they would embalm Erich VI, who would be carried back to Storm's End the next day, after his only son, the heir to the throne, would be given the crown of antlers in the harsh encampment sept.
That night, after leaving his father's sickroom to enter the Durrandon pavilion, Renly still felt his heart bleed upon the loss of the one he had been separated from as a child. Elysenne was standing guard at the pavilion entrance. She would sleep there as well, yet she insisted that she should sleep with her breastplate on and in a separate bed. For that night, however, she was on guard duty.
Renly told his faithful "Goodwin" of how troubled he felt, of how he would go to bed a prince and be crowned a king the next day. Renly I, the First of his Name. Of how his father had died, and how Renly himself wished the Stranger to take him. Of sweet wine and strong ale, and of the fact that he should get drunk only once in a while.
The knight from Tarth ran strong fingers through Renly's black hair to reassure him and wish him good night. Once inside the pavilion, she undressed him, taking off the suit of armour before he went to bed, leaving her liege lord in a buff doublet and black breeches. She deftly untied all the steel sheaths that covered Renly's vital points, promising that she would dress him the next morning at dawn. Finally, Elysenne kissed her liege on the cheek as he lay in bed, smiling and wishing him good night, before standing guard at the pavilion entrance. Yet that night, Renly stayed wide awake with his thoughts: thoughts of "Goodwin", who had been so kind and understood his plight, encouraging him and filling him with hope. Thoughts of the coronation, and of whether the cup or some other flaw would prove his undoing. Thoughts of stepping out of his father's shadow and fulfilling everything that Erich had left undone.
When the fanfare call finally awoke him, and after the one he called "Goodwin" had dressed him in steel once more, Renly broke his fast in the company of his closest vassal lords, on apples roasted over a campfire and water, as some of his lords made wry remarks on his lack of field experience. This enraged the soon-to-be-crowned youth to such a degree that he squeezed a roasted apple in his clenched fist, as he muttered a prayer for self-control. During that frugal encampment breakfast, he also learned that his father and predecessor, Erich VI, now known as Erich the Unworthy, had been embalmed by the silent sisters and Lord Connington was going to lead the funeral train back to the crypts of Storm's End, after the coronation. As the silent sisters had seen, His Grace's heart was thrice as large as any other grown person's, and his scarred liver was darker than usual and full of lumps. Renly shuddered at the thought of what drinker's fever had wrought within. Elysenne lay her hand on her liege lord's shoulder and watched him turn pale, receiving for a reply:
"I just... I have just seen the light, Goodwin. There is poison in strong drink, even if it ain't laced. It pleases me that your lips never even touch strong drink. The Stranger will never come for you in such a painful manner. Neither will he come for me in that way."
"It pleases me to find that you have chosen me for a lieutenant, my Liege. And it will be an honour to attend your coronation."
The coronation! Renly the next Storm King, the ruler of this host and its lands! Was the young man ready for such a change in his life? It would be after breakfast, but first, Renly Durrandon had to send a homing raven to his mother, back in Storm's End. It would ease the pains of both to explain how Erich had died, and how his only son had felt at the prospect of losing him in such a way unworthy of an undefeated warrior. The quill danced quickly on the letter, as he dripped ink on his yellow doublet sleeves and wrote how a great ruler of lands and leader of hosts, who had put the Dornish, the Reachers, and the Ironborn to rout in many a well-contested fight, had been not merely defeated, but utterly crushed by strong drink. That liquid usurper was the enemy closest to Erich VI, and the one who treacherously brought him down, stealing his health and drowning his reason. Of how Renly himself would not follow in his father's footsteps. Of the upcoming coronation, of the state of the neverending war, and lastly a soothing message to calm Ravella's anxious spirits, which her widowhood would render seven times seven times more anxious, that Renly was well and he would return alive to Storm's End.
Within a short lapse of time, the letter had been sealed and a homing raven, just released, was flying southeastward to break the fatal news. The modest encampment sept had been decked with wildflowers, and it was full of bannermen, sellsword officers, lords, and knights, as well as a few common soldiers who could not bear to listen to the coronation from outside. Elysenne, still "Goodwin" to Renly, took him by the hand and let him into the sept, a croft-like wooden cot with coarse charcoal drawings of the Seven Gods on the dark, mossy walls. The Stormlands crown, of gilt oakwood branches resembling antlers that entwined, was resting in the hands of the camp septon, waiting to be placed on a younger head decked with locks as black as midnight. 
There was no incense, neither any stained glass at the coronation, within the encampment sept. The septon spoke of Renly as the hope of the Stormlands, young and little experienced, yet now destined to wear the crown of antlers and inherit a land at war, to lead his people to victory. Those words did not make him doubt about his worth. And then, a crown prince knelt down and a king rose up among the loud cheers of the leaders of his host and the clank of steel from raised swords. Renly I of House Durrandon, the First of his Name, looked at every one of his followers with twinkles in his blue eyes and a sincere smile of confidence. In the middle of those cheers of elation, a young sellsword lieutenant reeled into the harsh sept, with blood on his lips, his face strangely pale:
"The Ironborn... they storm our outposts!" His voice was faint, and a rose-red foam bubbled from his lips, before he was carried off to the encampment maester. Renly quickly drew steel and left the sept, followed by his true "Goodwin", and commands were given that a detachment, under His Grace's own leadership, should ride to the aid of the wavering outposts.
"My Liege...", Elysenne said with concern, "You shouldn't ride into such an engagement."
"The Warrior is on my side", he replied, with twinkles in his sky-blue eyes. "And both my sword and armour are of true steel."
"Then, I will ride into battle by your side", she replied, smiling in earnest and laying her steel-clad hand on his right shoulder. Renly looked at her and, for a reason he could not comprehend, he suddenly felt all warm and more confident.
And thus, riding Lightning and Sunshine, they led their host of brave Stormlanders towards the beleaguered outposts. This was Renly's and Elysenne's first engagement in their lives, and thus, both their hearts throbbed and their minds were filled with excitement.
When twilight finally fell upon a lea watered with blood, the most experienced stormlords were surprised at "Goodwin." For the new Storm King remained master of the field. The victory had been complete. The fair knight from Tarth had had the happiness of saving the life of his liege lord and of preventing His Grace from being made prisoner of war. And the losses on their side were inconsiderable. Their liege lord himself had merely sustained a wound in the left shoulder, and 'twas not that deep, at least according to the maester, who had bound and stitched this wound as skilfully as he could.
"Think of that, Goodwin," Renly said at his tankard during the celebrations, back in camp. "I had got lost in the mist and wound up stuck in this muddy trench among ironmen, who were loading their bows and shouldering their axes, as they eyed me with fierce expressions. The Warrior knows what they would have done to me. Then I suddenly heard your voice and called your name as far as I could. In less time than it took for me to say my shielding prayer from the Book of the Warrior, you were there, slashing and stabbing those about a dozen savages, without feeling any regrets, seeming to enjoy the massacre with that smile and that look in your eyes. It was as if the Warrior himself had come to my aid." He drank a sip of Reach wine and then raised his tankard to the sky, to the health of both the god and the mortal who had saved his precious life. The other stormlords, high officers, and brave knights who were feasting at the table passionately clanked their tankards together.
"It was only for honour and duty, my Liege," Elysenne said, putting her tankard to her lips. "'Twas for this reason that I left Tarth in the first place." She drank merely a sip of wine, just like her liege lord had done, excusing herself by saying she was not that thirsty, when, in fact, it was only because of her contempt of strong drink. 
"Well, in fact, I left Storm's End for a similar reason. I felt that I could no longer sit back and watch these wars unfold. After all, I am a Durrandon," His Grace replied before swallowing another sip, then continued: "In fact, pretty soon I see myself back on Storm's End, hosting a great feast in honour of peace, missing those whom the war had claimed and reveling with those whom the war spared."
"Do you, Your Grace, wish to know what I hope for?", Elysenne looked at him and shook her short gilt hair. "I see the enemy pursued with such vigour that he abandons his camps, loses all the captives taken in this war, and loses as well more than three fourths of the army. I see those dark men with krakens on their armour and ocean breeze for perfume sailing back to those islands of theirs."
"They won't," old Lord Penrose replied. "Throughout my fighting in this endless war, man and boy, I have learned to know that they will never allow peace to be made, not even a truce. They even stab themselves upon being taken prisoner by us, seeing defeat as a fate worse than death. These ironmen, these Ironborn, are born and raised warriors. And not like us Stormlanders, but without any respect for the weak or for the love of others. And without any grace in the face of defeat."
These words made Elysenne feel uncomfortable. So the ironmen would rather die than seek peace or accept defeat? Thus, could the Stormlands host alone, after years, decades confronting such enemies on the field of battle, ever overcome them? Here lay a question and a challenge to the princess of Tarth. She would be thinking of how to expel the Ironborn from the Riverlands for a long time.
During the same victory feast, the other veteran stormlords, except for Penrose, thought that their liege lord was no proper Durrandon because of the way he sipped his wine, more common in a maiden of sixteen than in a newly-crowned Storm King after his first engagement. And the end of it was that, due to both his thirst after battle and the veterans' comments, Renly forgot the words he had spoken on occasion of his father's death to his good "Goodwin," and, without paying heed to Elysenne's better advice, he drained his tankard as fast as he could, and the contents of another tankard soon followed down his throat. After the third one, since his young body, though tall and strong, was not used to such amounts of such drinks, his reason slipped away, and thus, he quickly sauntered on the table, to reel and fall from that height onto the grassy ground. Elysenne rushed forth to His Grace's aid, finding him unscathed, though flushed bright with Arbour Red and unable to stand up. Reaching an outstretched arm to Renly Durrandon, she raised her liege lord up on his feet and led his reeling steps into the pavilion, where she undressed him ere he fell flat on his camp bed, stroking his raven hair and wishing him good night. There he lay intoxicated, which made him appear a little funnier, but also more vulnerable. She gave him a good-night kiss on the blazing right cheek and whispered "good night" into his right ear. He simply tossed slightly on his bed, as the lady knight, the princess in armour, walked to the entrance of the pavilion and stood there on guard, still always sober, her left hand clutching the hilt of Sunset should she draw steel.
She looked up into the moonless starry night sky that hung above the silent camp. A shooting star fell, leaving a trace of silver light on the black firmament. It was then thought on the Stormlands and the nearby islands that, for every star that fell, a soul left its mortal body to replace it in the sky as a new star. Was this one the star of one of her parents, or of one of the soldiers who had fallen on her first battle, maybe one of no Stormlander? Had the Ironborn got any souls, since, in spite of their differences, they were people, just like the Stormlanders, and the Dornish, and the Reachers... Those differences were, after all, but skin deep. The Stormlands host alone could not put the ironmen to rout, she thought. The Reach might gladly give the Stormlanders provisions, arms, and men. And so would Dorne. The idea lit up her thoughts like a flash of lightning, as another star fell down, forming another trail of silver fire in its wake.
"Yet the Dornish and the Reachers are our old enemies..." Thus, would an alliance against a common opponent ever succeed? The war had been draining the Stormlands of life-blood and of life-lust since before she was born, for about twenty years, and even shaped the lives of the generation she belonged to. No other conflict she had ever read or heard of had lasted for such a long time, and peace, if not signed, had to be imposed by force. "The war must be at an end as soon as possible, even if we have to struggle together with our enemies of yore, united against a common foe."
In her mind's eye, the idea grew, during that late summer night, into a decision. And she would not let go of it, come seven hells or highwater.
The next day in the mid-morning, a pale Renly awoke feeling quite light-headed and ill at ease. He should have definitely been stronger and not drunk in that excessive amount, as he told "Goodwin," who was dressing the Storm King in steel plate once more. And then and there, the knight who was no knight told His Grace about the decision made during that evening. 
At first reluctant, Renly Durrandon was finally won over by his faithful saviour's reasoning, and he was pleased with such an unlikely, strange idea. This war had lasted for long enough. Now the challenge lay in convincing the other leaders of the Stormlands armies, during the war council of that day, to send ravens to Highgarden and to Sunspear. How would Lord Penrose, Lord Connington, the one-eyed and one-handed Ser Hasty... the veterans of wars past react? Those who had hitherto faced the Dornish and the Reachers as enemies to be slain? Would they accept the decision if their liege lord gave it as a command? Renly smiled to himself, with that familiar blue twinkle in his eyes, and hoped that the scarred warlords understood the meaning of the alliance.
The leaders' breakfast in their pavilion that morn, at which everyone quaffed heartily and helped themselves to roasted apples and game pie, was spent without much conversation, yet, after they had broken their fast, the disorderly feasting gave way to solemn discussion, for the lords of the Stormlands host held the first war council in Renly Durrandon's short life and even shorter reign.
Though the elder warlords were at first reluctant to accept allies from Dorne and from the Reach, their liege lord spoke as convincingly as he could about the idea of tying such bonds. For Lord Connington and the other veterans were so used to this war that they wished it could never end, and thus, for a while, Renly thought his cause was lost. Yet firstly "Goodwin", and then all the other younger leaders of the host, who had grown weary of the campaign and missed their loved ones, championed the Storm King's host until they overpowered their reluctant elders. The pavilion shook for a while with the rage and the excitement of warlords, until, in the end, the lordling from Tarth and his liege were left on their own. And then, sentences were discussed and letters were written, to encourage their allies to come to their aid. The Princess of Dorne was unusually learned and clever, trained for the crown as she had been, and also wealthy and confident. She would surely accept the offer of her old enemies. So would the King of the Reach, in spite of the fact that he had spent all of his wars at court, at Highgarden, while his lords gave their lives on the field of battle. Thus, both the letters expressed, as they needed, the goodwill of the Stormlands and a plea for allegiance against a common enemy, as well as the dread that the Ironborn could storm more southern lands. A moment later on, homing ravens were set free, heading southwards, towards the courts of those whom the host of the Stormlands would have for unlikely allies.
Replies soon came from both Highgarden and Sunspear, stating, respectively, that the Reach and Dorne would indeed come to the aid of the faltering host, House Gardener with five thousand good men, House Nymeros Martell with five thousand good warriors, both men and women. This was soon announced at the next war council, to much rejoicing and acclaim. Still, it would take more than a moon-turn for the ranks of the allies to make it to the Stormlands intrenchments at the Blue Fork.
By then, the camp had not been moved throughout the course of that year, and it could as well have been taken for a paltry holdfast or a little village shielded from the foe by a sturdy palisade, if there weren't armed sentinels marching around the tall fence. That was the impression that struck both the Reachers and the Dornish when they arrived at Fairmarket half a year later, as waiting for them had sometimes proven exciting, when another engagement with the ironborn was announced and then, they returned in triumph, though bringing sometimes their slain and singing dirges for them in the sept as well, for a few leaders of the land lost their lives during this half-year. Old Lord Penrose had been overthrown on horseback and quickly died thereof, much to Renly's sorrow (though they had been at odds, they had never been enemies), and soon returned to Parchments in a coarse casket, after being prepared by the silent sisters. 
Now Andrew Penrose, the heir of Parchments, had succeeded his lord father. And the brother-in-law of young Lord Penrose, the dashing Guyard Pease, grew even closer to him, worried that the one he loved more than a brother should ever lose his life on the contested field of battle. Thus, during the rare times of rest, they were seen frequently in conversation with each other, about the course of the war and how hard it was for young people not to rush into the fray. For that was their concern.
During these truces, the high officers and the stormlords did the best they could not to despair after long years of war and precious friendships lost forever. Then, the Stormlands army took its much needed rest upon the battlefield. They carved seven lindenwood gods for the encampment sept, and those whose brides or wives and offspring had not followed them into the army carved toys for the children they had left and bracelets for their ladies. And they read letters written by their loved ones, tidings of what had gone on in their absence, and quickly wrote replies sent by the same homing ravens, with the promise to return victorious the sooner the better, and also letters of consolation, with warm words of encouragement, for those who had lost a husband, a brother, a father, a son, a ward, a lover, or a bridegroom. For the loss of their brave companions, the army was much grieved, but 'tis the commom misfortune of war, and they had no time now amidst the bustle of many preparations to spend in useless regrets. 
Some of the stormlords adopted bastards and orphans left by the ironmen in the overrun villages of the Riverlands, intending to keep them as servants when peace had returned.
Every now and then, "Goodwin" received a letter from Tarth, from Evenfall Hall, from a worried Lord Regent who chided her for leaving her kingdom, every part of their dear land. That such a bold and fiery young person was most likely to die a hero's death, being still a childless maiden, leaving her realm and throne at the mercy of usurpers. That Elysenne was too foolhardy, and such a flaw, inherited through generations of House Tarth, was fatal during wartime. And that men were wicked during wartime, and could steal away her most precious treasure, forever and ever. Lord Axell entreated her to return to the Sapphire Isle the sooner the better, for, according to him, it was best for the princess and for all her subjects. 
No reply to these letters came to Evenfall Hall, and faithful "Goodwin", after having quickly skimmed them, tore the parchments and threw them into the crackling campfire. The Storm King wondered why his most faithful warlord would burn those letters from home, and said warlord always told Renly the best lie that had ever been told in the encampment, one that all the stormlords soon had fallen for: that "Goodwin" was constrained into a marriage of convenience, decided by his widowed mother and by that of the bride, whom he merely saw as a sister or a childhood friend. Even a name was given for the non-existing bride, "Cassana."
Such had become the extent of the ruse by which Elysenne of Tarth had pretended to be what she had not been born to be. And still no one in the Stormlands camp, from King Renly to the adopted orphans of the Riverlands smallfolk, knew what that steel breastplate actually concealed.
It was at the end of that year that the unlikely allies arrived. First came a host as full of bright colours for armours, doublets, and banners as a triple rainbow, each household signified by a different flower and colour. Freeriders wearing on their breastplates a green hand on a lilywhite field escorted a massive ornate wheelhouse, decked with roses and sunflowers, as banners with the Green Hand of House Gardener fluttered all around the wheelhouse. When the sentinels gave the news that the Reach host had finally arrived to the stormlords gathered in the pavilion, Renly Durrandon commanded that the gates of the palisade be opened to welcome their once enemies and nowadays allies. There, before the pavilion, from the wheelhouse descended a portly man in his forties, dressed in a green velvet doublet with sleeves of greener silk, but with a sword in a scabbard ornate with silver lilies, and wearing the crown of iron thorns that the Reach royalty wore into battle (they wore crowns of flowers during peacetime). By his left side, he led a young woman, or rather a beautiful maiden not yet aged twenty, with auburn locks on which she wore a crown of golden thorns, and large sparkling amber eyes. Her slender frame was also dressed in green silk and velvet brocade, thickly embroidered with both gold and silver thread, with a collar and cuffs of the finest white lace.
Reaching out his left hand as the one in the crown of thorns bent the knee, the Storm King listened to his ally's pledge of loyalty. Garth VIII could perchance be as great a leader in war as he was rumoured to be a ruler in peace, and it was a compassionate gesture to bring his daughter, as fair as the Maiden, as a token of the hope of the Reach, to these lands torn by war, even though he'd better keep her in the sept and have it constantly watched over by faithful knights to protect the princess from the drunken soldiery and some of the stormlords.
The ruler of the Reach laughed so loudly that it hurt, then explained to his younger ally:
"My 'daughter'? That's actually my wife, Queen Desmera, a born Tyrell. She loves me so much that she would gladly follow me to war, even through the seven hells. It would by no means bother you to keep a wheelhouse within your middling wooden walls?"
Of course, Renly Durrandon had no objection to the Reach royals' wheelhouse being next to his own pavilion. And, though the Queen of the Reach was beautiful, graceful, and clever, his heart was not stirred the least by her voice, like a sparkling rill, or by the look in her golden eyes. Besides, she was already married, and had left three children behind at her own court, as she had said.

The day after the Reach army had joined their forces, the Dornish were seen riding from the far south. There was fire like the sunshine of their lands in their dark eyes, and they rode their light sand-steeds, wielding light spears and double-curved bows, their light armour, coats of scales, concealed beneath brightly-coloured thin, soft silks. Blazing suns were engraved on their round shields and embroidered on their golden banners. Though some of them were sturdy, fair of hair and blue or green of eyes, their skin pink-red and sometimes freckled in the sun, most of the Dornish were slender, raven-haired, and golden-skinned or copper-skinned, some of them even dark as old lindenwood. Riding a fire-red sand steed with a golden mane and tail, the Princess of Dorne herself led her host from the vanguard, her eldest daughter Eliana and closest stepsister Larra leading each one of the army's wings, the former to the left and the latter to the right.
The Dornish were a little band compared to the hosts of the Stormlands and of the Reach, yet quick to act and swift on the parched wastelands of their homeland, as well as frequently lacing their blades to send powerful poisons into enemy blood. Though both Stormlanders and Reachers had felt the rage of Dorne, as merciless as the sun in those lands, the ironmen never had.
At the gates of the palisade, the brave Storm King, with his faithful "Goodwin," the royal pair of the Reach, and the other warlords of both that land and the Stormlands, welcomed the most unlikely of their allies. Landing with a quick leap off her fiery steed, the Nymeros Martell princess looked at her old enemies with a wistful smile. She was tall and slender, in her late twenties, of marvellous and foreign beauty to Stormlands eyes. Her raven hair was gathered in a long ponytail wrapped in ribbons, and, over her airy wide-sleeved tunic of fire-red and orange satin, lined with baroque pearls like her wide silken belt, the scales of which her light armour was made shone with inlaid suns of the purest gold, the one above her heart completely inlaid with rubies like drops of freshly-shed blood, pierced with a spear of topazes. The larger scales on her shoulders made them appear far broader than they were, and a short crescent-shaped blade hung by her right side in an ornate, equally beautifully inlaid scabbard. The younger Dornishwomen to the left and to the right of her, the former equally dark of features and the latter with eyes the colour of steel and locks between golden and coppery, soon leapt off their steeds with the same lithe grace their liege lady had displayed.
"Unbowed...", the fair-haired one said as she stepped forth.
"Unbent...", the youngest one replied as she stepped forth.
"Unbroken!" The third one, who seemed to be the leader, and doubtlessly was the Ruling Princess of Dorne, replied. The look in her eyes was the most defiant, and she appeared to be the most capable female ever to lead warriors into battle, as well as being dressed in the most lovely way a warlord could ever wear. Yet the young heart of Renly Durrandon remained unstruck: those black eyes pierced like poisoned blades and dazzled like the summer sun of her lands. And thus, he saw in her the warrior and the leader, but not a tinge of the lover.
Led by her old enemies at the head of her little army and more numerous retinue, Myria Nymeros Martell shifted her sight to the left and right of the encampment of these strange allies. This was swampy, marshy land with frequent rains and a cool climate: rarely had the Dornish and their steeds encountered conditions like these. She had fired a piercing, wistful glance at the dashing ruler of the Stormlands as she bit her lower lip, thinking of Renly half-naked in her arms, of what lay beneath the steel breastplate. Yet his more innocent sapphire eyes were cold and innocent, and he shifted his eyes towards his closest knight and Reach allies. Would the Storm King ever love her? At least not as long as he was sober. Perchance some of the wine and brandy she had brought from Dorne may turn his thoughts away from war one night... Still, soon the strong drinks and the soft silks were unpacked by the retinue as her brightly-coloured and embroidered pavilion rose next to the Gardeners' wheelhouse and Renly Durrandon's pavilion, both of which appeared middling in comparison.
That evening, Elysenne was in charge of the guard, staying awake and sober, quenching her thirst with cold water, ensuring that no soldiers or knights from once enemy nations got involved in any drunken quarrels. She had led Princess Myria's red stallion with the golden red mane, Unbroken, into the encampment stables, though the steed was rather unruly and would rather gallop on his own. "Most likely to have run wild and astray at some point in a lifetime," "Goodwin" thought. "Now I understand how my Liege once felt with Lightning." She had tied Unbroken up among the other Dornish stallions, both those that had never experienced captivity and the mounts won by Reachers and Stormlanders as spoils of war. The saddle-cloth was of the finest golden-orange silk, with suns and spears, as well as the words of House Nymeros Martell, finely embroidered on it in gold thread: a rarity. And the princess herself? That was how a real princess should look like: fearless, bold, beautiful, always unafraid to display her wealth or her hidden strengths. And thus, for the first time since she had left Storm's End, Elysenne of Tarth felt deeply insecure. Her own kingdom was far pettier than Dorne, her own body more like that of an awkward young man. Yet there was something in her that Myria Martell lacked: the look in her eyes. The Dornishwoman's were not only dark as midnight, but also piercing and unquiet, as if something forbidden and fiery were lurking within her. Those looks made Elysenne feel restless, ill-at-ease, as a little voice rang in her mind telling her not to come too close.
And Desmera Gardener? She was completely different, a proper Reachwoman bred for court instead of war. A queen, a wife, and a mother in spite of still being in the springtime of youth. She was still scented of fresh flowers and fruit, and her amber eyes were sweet as linden honey, like her smile or her graceful demeanour. Approaching her with a kiss on the hand and a low bow, "Goodwin" had gallantly welcomed her, yet she had only seen the Queen of the Reach as distinguished royalty and as a good friend. Besides, she was already married and had found happiness with her husband, giving life to their lovely children... What ever had made the demure, court-born, court-bred Reachwoman leave those children she missed so dearly in the care of retainers and accompany her husband to a camp of war, the last place where she ever would feel at ease? She was pleased with him, and she trusted in his power and strength.
Both Dornishwomen and Reach ladies were exceptionally beautiful. And wealthy, and powerful as well. What had Elysenne got to display? Her strong, lithe body... her unusual cleverness... More valuable than gold or silk? She thought of her whole life, and of everyone who had crossed her path, and a new blue light, pure and bright, sparkled in her pensive eyes as she spent the whole night awake on duty and in thought, keeping the peace and stopping a few fights, especially between Dornish and Reach veterans. The stars gradually disappeared, as the light of the dawn gilded the palisade. That day, there would be yet another war council, but this one would be different from any other. The Storm King, the King of the Reach, and the Princess of Dorne would preside this council together. And "Goodwin" would stand by Renly's side, watching the discussion unfurl. Would the three allied rulers understand each other, and would the Tarth warrior's idea of an alliance ever succeed?
The war council that took place the next morning was the last one, and the most memorable one, in the whole great war. Picture yourselves Renly Durrandon, Garth Gardener (the eighth of his name), and Myria Nymeros Martell at the same camp table, talking about their old enmity and their new strange friendship, about their weaknesses and the strengths of their hosts. Sometimes arguing, for both the Storm King and the Princess of Dorne shared the same fiery and passionate temper, and the third ally, from the Reach, was often forced to make peace between them, and the faithful "Goodwin" as well.
Many decisions were discussed and weighed both for and against. The most relevant: whether the combined armies should risk it all facing the ironmen in open battle. Though the older commanders, including Garth VIII of the Reach, Lord Connington, and Renly's one-eyed and one-handed master-at-arms, were more careful and against the idea, they had against their cause two young impatient rulers, the whole leadership of the Dornish host, and the brave hopefuls who had followed the Storm King to war. Such an opposition was enough for those who ruled against the idea of open battle to give in. And soon, the heart of every leader was throbbing with excitement as they left the palisade a little behind them. It was then that their leaders saw the fierce ironmen, and that everything would be risked at this one game.
The armies were now in sight of one another, the Dornish and the Reachers arranged well and carefully among the Stormlanders. Like so many colourful flowers fluttered the banners of the hosts, the centre led by the ruler of the Reach on a white steed caparisoned in green, the banner of the green hand; the left wing by the ruler of Dorne on her stallion the colour of fire, the banner of the sun and spear; the right wing by bold young Durrandon himself on his black and grey destrier, with his most faithful knight riding that golden mare by his side, and the younger stormlords flocked around his black and golden banner.
As soon as they saw the Ironborn in their coarser, heavier breastplates, the leaders of the allied armies halted for enough time to say their prayers to the Warrior and sing an encouraging song to banish despair away. The enemy host was unruly and disordered, and, though their breastplates were hard and they were used to the rage of war, they could be cut to one man, especially with the Dornishmen and Dornishwomen, whom they had never seen before, for quicker-to-act opponents.
When the sun set over the battered Riverlands at the end of that fateful, much-contested day, flocks of crows gathered over that glen to gorge on the lifeless forms of the fallen and mortally wounded ironmen. Those who had been left dying and screaming in pain, begging for death rather than defeat in life, had also their wish granted, mostly by having their throats slit by Stormlands steel. Yet the allied host itself had been cut down to two thirds, counting both the slain and the grievously wounded among the losses. The war had come to an end, but there was a price to be paid. The red-haired stepsister of the Princess of Dorne was ablaze with fever and would soon die, and the fair young Lord Guyard Pease, pale and supple as a lily, had writhed with a rose-red foam surging from his lips ere he was still. Three maesters, one from each of the southron lands, had tended to these illustrious wounded, but now their time had finally come. And, by the dying lordling, whose blue-green eyes were shut and whose breathing turned more and more shallow until it stopped, a taller and manlier lover, the red-haired young Lord Penrose, wept with a broken heart and an endless stream of tears until the silent sisters appeared that night. Among those she had led, there was also sorrow, grief beyond comparison, for the fire-haired Larra Sand, now crowned a war heroine by the shedding of her own blood. And thus, the silent sisters spent the whole night embalming this bold Dornishwoman and the fair Lord Pease, as well as the other slain, and those who had died of wounds, born to a high rank. And the maesters tended to those whose wounds had been slight, such as Garth of the Reach, stabbed in the right thigh, or Elysenne of Tarth herself, wounded in the right arm. Renly would spend the whole night among the wounded, sometimes assisting Maester Jasper in changing the bandage on the right forearm of his faithful "Goodwin," who now had to wear it in a sling. And the maester had also served dreamwine to quench the wounded warrior's thirst and ease that searing pain, like he had done unto all the others who had shared his fate.
The war was at an end, and peace had been signed, or rather forced. Yet no one knew that a maiden was the one who had done what many men had failed to do. Now it was time for revels and for flower-decked halls, for celebrating the final victory after those nearly twenty years of endless clash and bloodshed.
And thus, while some of the Stormlands soldiers stayed behind to guard the intrenched settlement, the allied hosts prepared to return, each person to their own lands, the next day at dawn. It was a lively and colourful sight unlike any other. And Elysenne still rode Sunshine by the side of Renly and Lightning, at the head of the returning armies, while the Dornish royals and the Reach wheelhouse were well-shielded by their bannermen and freeriders. However, during two of their halts, the return was changed and deferred by events which made the feelings of the brave leaders of the host clearer than spring water in crystal glasses.
The first of these two events occurred at the border of the Riverlands and the Reach, when the allied hosts had encamped on the shores of the Blackwater. Throughout the journey so far, the ruler of Dorne had always thought of her dashing Stormlands counterpart, no matter that, every evening and every night, Renly shied away if she ever gave him a slight hint, without any words (a whistle or a wink would always do), and always preferred to sleep on his own, with faithful "Goodwin" by his side. Though she might as well have given up and accepted her defeat for once and for all, Myria Nymeros Martell was as headstrong in love as she was headstrong in war. The thoughts of the raven-haired and slender one riding ahead of her had banished every sorrow that the Dornish princess had felt for her best friend and stepsister, and thinking of lively and dashing Renly was enough to make her forget about Larra for a while. Then, those daydreams turned into fixed thoughts of marrying, or at least bedding, the ruler of the Stormlands. No matter if his own character and upbringing were not that free in the ways of love, she had to keep him at any cost, at least for a night. And it was then and there, in that camp by the Blackwater, that Myria finally decided not to delay her fantasies anymore.
Many thoughts were exchanged that evening among the leaders of the armies: worries for Garth Gardener, the eighth of his name, who had begun to suffer from painful cramps, like seizures, and had come down with a fever (his crowned wife thought, full of hope and disagreeing with a more pessimistic Maester Jasper, that the bright-eyed ruler of the Reach, now no longer his usual cheerful self, would make it to Highgarden alive), entwined with anecdotes of the war, mentions of loved ones waiting in their homes, and what every one intended to do after the revels of victory and peace. In the company of an aide-de-camp who also served as her cupbearer, Princess Myria left for a while for her pavilion, saying that she had brought a cask of strong Dornish red, far more precious and better to drink than the blood of the ironborn. And, once they had entered their pavilion and poured the wine into fine ornate cups, inlaid with topaz and ruby suns, the largest of the cups was laced with the crystal-clear foreign brandy that she had brought to war, a draught carried mostly for Larra (who just loved to drink it), but now meant for another, less inured throat.
Then, as they returned to the warmth of the campfire and the conversation in the Stormlands pavilion, the cups were handed over, the largest one to the dashing Storm King himself, who little did know of what he had been served at that time in the evening. It was then that he proposed a toast, as he raised the laced cup, to the three allied kingdoms which had put such a ruthless foe to rout, as every other person at the table raised their cups at unison in response. Then, Renly put the cup to his lips and drank deeply, wondering at the intense taste of this new Dornish wine, stronger than any drink he had swallowed before, even searing his throat as it went down. Upon draining the cup, he thanked his allies from Dorne for letting him quaff such a rare draught, as loudly as he could, his blood-shot blue eyes glittering full of sparkles and his rosy cheeks glowing brightly as embers. Then, suddenly, he reeled and fell upon the tall grass on the ground, as Myria Martell helped him to get up and offered herself to show young Durrandon into his pavilion. Renly, bereft of reason like never before, answered by nodding in approval to a request he barely understood, staggering as he leaned on her shoulders.
To no one but to Elysenne, who remained the only sober one at the table, did it seem suspicious. And still she stood guard at the entrance to her liege lord's pavilion, even if she saw, in the firelight, that, lying on the camp bed inside, the Storm King and the Dornish princess were asleep in one another's arms, both of them undressed and disarmed, his face quite hidden in her raven hair.
For a while, she felt a little twinge in the depths of her heart, bringing her left hand to her breastplate as she watched the sleeping royal pair. It was clear to her that Renly was not aware at all of what he was doing, since he had always shied away from Myria, and that last drink had taken a hold of him like none other before. And then, Elysenne of Tarth understood that her liege lord had been deprived of reason on purpose, since, if his head and heart had been clear, he would have never found himself in such a scene.
For all that night, "Goodwin" stood there silent, motionless, watching them embrace and caress each other, until, as the first rays of the sun banished the stars from the night sky, a rumpled and hastily-dressed Myria Nymeros Martell rushed back into her own pavilion. It was then that she entered and sat next to Renly, still asleep but alone, pale, in a cold sweat. In that state, the young ruler seemed more vulnerable than ever before, his unconscious, slender form breathing still through parted lips, yet now she could see him closer than ever before: the locks of coal hair on his clever brow and on his strong shoulders, the shade of dark fuzz on his upper lip, his stalwart chest and sides, his firm thighs: no longer the Warrior in full armour at the dawn of battle, but now as powerless as he was handsome, and as vulnerable as he was a born Durrandon. She had never seen Renly in such a state before, knowing that his health rarely wavered and that he had only been forced to lay in bed once in a short lifetime. Thus, she sat by his side the whole morning, until she saw his eyelids flutter and two sapphire orbs, that were at first frightened by the light of day, opened to the world once more.
The first word on his pale lips was the name Elysenne had chosen when she went to war:
"Good... Goodwin... My head is throbbing with pain, and I am thirsty and weary..." The trusted guard poured and brought a tankard of mead, which Renly Durrandon hastily drained ere he donned his buff doublet and girt his ancestral sword by his side.
"Thank you, Goodwin. Always there for me! Like at Fairmarket on our first day, remember?" Elysenne replied with a coy smile. She would always be a man in her liege lord's eyes, her true self concealed beneath a breastplate of steel, her ancestral weapon replacing what was not between her legs. Would she tell him about what had happened during the night? Better not. In his drunken state, he had gathered no memories of what had happened after he had drained the Dornish cup. And, knowing Renly, perchance he would take the fact that he had been used, against his will, as a serious offence, and even declare a new war on these strange allies, breaking the bonds and the peace which they had finally achieved together.
For that whole day, Renly was still weak and weary, too weary to ride Lightning, and he spent that day's journey through the Reach in the Gardeners' wheelhouse, as the golden-haired "Goodwin," looking through the windows from horseback (riding Sunshine) every now and then, still watched a liege lord whose health had never wavered before, and who would recover the very next day. Yet the older and more inured, still twitching King of the Reach, now had more painful cramps and a higher fever, and his Queen had now begun to lose hope, for Garth's brow was now ablaze, his heart pounding like a war drum, his lips dyed deep purple and writhed into a sickening grin, as if curled up by force, which disagreed with the pain that seemed to rack his hitherto strong frame, once sturdy as an oak and fresh as a rose, now warped as if by some unknown force.
On the next day, Garth Gardener was still ablaze with fever, and still grinning against his will, but now his jaws were firmly shut as well, and he could neither speak nor eat nor drink at all, as his breathing was now shallow and erratic. And he writhed even more than before, like a trampled snake on the floor. His crowned wife, Desmera, was now pale and spent the whole day by her husband's side. At twilight, when the allied hosts spent the night at Stonebridge (where the fair blue Mander meets the Roseroad, the fortress we now know as Bitterbridge), she had the sickroom of the castle prepared for Garth and for her, calling the resident maester, the Caswells' old healer aged seventy, as well as Maester Edmund, the younger one at the service of the Crown of the Reach, to tend to their wounded liege lord. They tied him down to his sickbed to stop him from writhing, and tried to make their liege drink milk of the poppy and dreamwine, but could not open his mouth at all, then gave the anxious and restless Queen the fatal news: it was lockjaw, which her spouse had caught during the war since he had received that stab wound (from that ironborn battle-axe blade). Desmera inquired whether there was a cure for lockjaw, and then, the older master shook his head, and the younger one looked down, neither one uttering a single word. She did not need any spoken reply to understand it, and, her golden eyes full of tears, she sank down in despair by her husband's bedside, sending Maester Edmund to her bannermen and to her allies in camp for a while with the tragic news of what had been revealed, and for how long the armies would remain encamped at Stonebridge. Soon, Renly and "Goodwin" were given guest-rooms by old Lady Caswell, though she denied that right to the Princess of Dorne and her daughter (who would sleep in their pavilions during that sojourn): for both her husband and her eldest son had been slain by the Dornish in another war. (Her other boy, the heir, was the youngest, aged but seven: the rest of her children were girls). And three or four silent sisters were summoned into the sickroom of Stonebridge, where, by midnight, the Queen of the Reach had fallen asleep by the sickbed of her dear Garth, her auburn locks flowing all over the mattress, lulled into sleep by his shallow and painful breathing, until, in the end, she was so fast asleep that she did not get to say farewell when he finally was still, no longer writhing in pain and fever or finding it hard to breathe.
The next day, upon awakening and finding her spouse cold and hard as ice, and strangely pale as well, Desmera swooned ere she could leave the sickroom and break her fast with their hosts, and the other Stormlands and Reach leaders, in the Great Hall. Awakened by one of the lady's daughters with a little rosewater, she wept and kept silence at the table, before the honey cakes and fruitcakes, and peach preserves, that were served before them. Every now and then, the young queen dried up her tears with a lace-lined handkerchief. No harsh words were spoken to her, for everyone at Stonebridge was already aware, and knew already, that Garth Gardener, the Eighth of his Name, a great ruler in peace and a great leader in war, as good to his bannermen as to his family and retainers, had died of lockjaw within their sickroom.
A teardrop trickled from Renly's left eye, and Elysenne tried hard to restrain her own tears: both of them thought of the deaths of their respective fathers, and now of the Reach being left to a young woman as regent. She had loved her spouse dearly and passionately, and now she was widowed and brokenhearted. Lady Caswell herself was speaking to a forlorn Desmera as wisely and warmly as she could, reassuring and soothing the poor Queen of the Reach, from an older widow of war to a younger one. Encouragement, the Reach being still the same fruitful and blessed land, strength to live for her children and show them the way. Drying up the tears she had left, though still bleeding and feeling sore inside, Desmera, as she made those promises with a lighter heart, embraced the children of her hostess.
And then, the knight from Tarth thought of her own mother, the brokenhearted Cassana, whose pain and sorrows for the same reason had shaped the childhood of her only daughter. At least, the Queen of the Reach would be Regent of her lands and keep her children near her throbbing heart, to let it heal and warm after such a painful blow of fate.
That day, the castle of Stonebridge was draped in black, and so was the Gardener wheelhouse, in stark contrast to the greenery and colourful fruit that ripened in the orchards around these sights. Sept bells pealed far and wide in the summer air in that part of the Reach, and the septon of Stonebridge himself gave a remarkable service, as the silent sisters prepared the royal form, whose backbone was broken, by filling that stalwart frame, once emptied of vitals, with the loveliest scented herbs, ere His Grace was placed in an ornate wooden casket, filled with golden Highgarden roses and decorated with the same motifs, and his brows were decked with the crown of thorns, his already stitched chest already clad in mint-green velvet, embroidered with silver thread, and brightly shining steel. Thus would Garth VIII return to his court, bereft of life, yet welcomed as the great ruler he had been to the whole vast kingdom where he had been born.
The silent sisters beckoned Desmera to come closer, and then offered her to join their ranks without saying any words (for the Wives of the Stranger are sworn to silence), yet she shook her head and declined, remembering the promises she had made to her vassal lady: to live for the good of her realm and of her children, as mother and as Queen Regent.
She had already sent messengers to Highgarden with the sorrowful tidings, instructing them to sound the tune of a king's death on the sept bells, to drape the palace in black, to tell the little prince and princesses as softly and as carefully as could be told that their father would return from war not alive, but that their mother would always be there for them.
And she had already summoned servants to bring her mourning gown, which she had packed in her trunk right before she left Highgarden for the storms of war, from the wheelhouse into her room at Stonebridge.
That evening, homing ravens were sent to Storm's End and to the Water Gardens as well, the other rulers reassuring their loved ones and their retainers that they would, sooner than was expected, return home from the now ended wars. And a third letter was sent to Evenfall Hall, a message of forgiveness for having done what could be wrong: Elysenne's first letter to Tarth since she had left Storm's End two years before.
The next day, Desmera Tyrell (for she had chosen to change back to her maiden name, now that she had lost her spouse) appeared at the breakfast table as a little more cheerful and less wavering young lady, a true member of royalty (though born a steward's daughter, and not a queen until the marriage which had come to such a bitter end). She was dressed in the widow's black, a lace veil as dark as midnight covering her chestnut locks, which were now tied up in twin braids knotted into buns at her temples. The contrast between her lilywhite skin and the darkness of her dress could not enhance her beauty more, even more than the lovely green velvet brocade of her married days. No gold thread was now on her gown to match her honey eyes, yet this made them also shine as brightly as sunshine and topazes. And, though the look in those golden orbs was still slightly mournful, her lips shyly curled upwards: she appeared now to be healed of her sorrows, though they still weighed her deep within.
That day, the three armies and their leaders parted ways. A widowed queen entered a wheelhouse draped in black as the form of her late king was brought into her presence by servants in an ornate case. Both Renly Durrandon and Myria Martell embraced her and then, as she entered, followed with their eyes the carriage escorted by all those gallant Reachers, the entourage that followed the course of the wide blue artery of the Reach into its beautiful palace, Highgarden, now turned into a seat of both sorrow and hope.
Then, after a sorrowful leave-taking of the royal pair of the Reach, the combined armies of the Stormlands and Dorne followed the course of the Blue Byrn until their ways parted at Grassy Vale. There, galloping on her fire-red stallion at the head of her army, the Princess of Dorne took her leave of the Storm King, the one she had loved for a while, blowing him a kiss and winking her left eye ere the whole surge of swift riders set off for their own sun-kissed lands. But the Stormlands host, led by the tall and slender Renly on fiery Lightning, with the freckled and fair "Goodwin" riding Sunshine by his side, crossed the passes of the Marches and rode along the coast of the Rainwood, until the familiar silhouette of a fortress raised by love against the wrath of gods rose on a cape above dire seas, against leaden skies.
And then, both Renly Durrandon and the one he trusted above all others looked at one another, his sapphire eyes fixed on her sapphire orbs and vice versa, and the same thoughts shot through their excited minds:
"We are coming home."
Throughout that day, Storm's End seemed closer and closer for each moment, and, the nearer the fortress they were, the less they were mistaken about where they were, and the louder and faster both their young hearts throbbed.
The victorious army reached Storm's End at twilight, as a lightning flash lit the ominous evening sky and right before a sudden downpour of the short and sudden kind so common in the region. Queen Ravella herself, who had helped the guards to open the gates, rushed forth to embrace her only son, who had returned a crowned head and a scarred warrior, safe and sound and full of hope. Her excitement knew no limits and no measure. Now she was the Queen Mother, aged more than fifty, veiled and clad in the widow's black, her fire-red locks streaked with silver lines. Tears ran down her cheeks as she called her boy's name and clasped his broad shoulders, crying for joy into his steel-clad chest. Little did she care that Renly was now a young man, and the new Storm King as well. The sept bells pealed as loudly as they could, to outsing the waves and the thunder-crash, and a feast had been arranged in the Great Hall for the leaders of the Stormlands host.
That evening, and the whole night that came thereafter until dawn, was meant to be a time of revels, and the feats of daring-do from these twenty long years were sung by minstrels at the feast table. As the night advanced and the storm raged out of doors, healths went round and songs were exchanged between everyone at the table, and soon the ivy garlands that decked the walls had been torn off, as the table looked more and more like a battlefield at the end of the fray. The young ruler himself sang "The Dornishman's Wife" (which he had heard more than once from Reach bannermen by the campfire) after draining his first cup, to much acclaim of the whole company, from his own mother and his faithful bodyguard to the minstrels and cupbearers themselves:

"The Dornishman's wife was as fair as the sun

and her kisses were warmer than spring.

The Dornishman's blade was made of black steel

and its kiss was a terrible thing.

The Dornishman's wife would sing as she bathed

in a voice that was sweet as a peach,

but the Dornishman's blade had a song of its own

and a bite sharp and cold as a leech!

As he lay on the ground, with darkness around,

the taste of his blood on his tongue,

his brothers knelt round him and prayed him a prayer,

but he smiled and he laughed and he sung!

Brothers, oh brothers, my days here are done,

the Dornishman's taken my life!

But what does it matter, for all men must die

and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!

Yes, what does it matter, for all men must die

and I've tasted the Dornishman's wife!"

Then, as reply to such a redoubtable performance, came a song of the fray in which Goodwin the True, the fair knight of Tarth, saved his liege lord from the iron-hearted foemen who were about to cut his young life at Renly Durrandon's first engagement:

"In the thick of the fray, to the Warrior he'd pray,

his precious life threatened, his blood cold as ice,

as these foemen with hearts cold and hard as their steel

closed in to pay the iron price.

Then, one of them fell after the other, and thus,

a fair and tall knight came to view,

and King Renly thought that the god of war had come,

that his wish had, for fortune, come true!"

Elysenne, sitting to the left of her liege, thought of the song as she listened: the male self she had come up with was now a war hero, the stuff of lore and legend, like her late father himself, or like Durran Godsgrief and his beloved Elenei. But what about her true self? Would Elysenne of Tarth ever reach the renown of any warrior? There was conversation at the table about a princess of unusual cleverness, who had studied much and not been trained in the usual ways of young women of rank, and she had ruled as well as any prince could have done, yet she had disappeared into thin air two years ago, leaving an elderly regent to rule her kingdom on his own.
Upon listening to those comments, Elysenne grew pale as the moon and a cold sweat crowned her brow, as a surge of discomfort was sent through her whole frame. When Renly inquired why she had become so stirred by the news, he offered "Goodwin" a draught of Arbour red, mixed with water until it looked pink in the cup, and said, soothing the faithful warrior, that a drink could cheer the now worried "Goodwin" up. This was a night of revels, of loud songs and healths quickly going round, and the Storm King himself, lively and cheerful as he usually was, had now got two cups under his belt already, and a bevy of sparkles in his bright blue eyes. Coal-headed and broad-shouldered, tall and slender as he was, a true born Durrandon, he was now the leader and the soul of the revels. Around midnight, springing on the table, Renly pulled the arm of his brother-in-arms and pulled Elysenne, who now had tasted her first strong drink, and found it sweet for once, up to the feast table with him, then raising his cup to the war hero who had always been there for him, on and off the battlefield, whenever the ruler of the Stormlands was putting his own life, limbs, or health at stake. Moreover, "Goodwin the True," all alone, put an end to the war which no older man, no veteran rife with scars, ever could win. Renly's speech ended with a rousing cheer from the flower of the Stormlands ranks, every cup and tankard drained at one fell swoop, and the sept bells pealing four times, for, as reason had fled Storm's End for the night and everyone in the Great Hall was in their best spirits, time had surged like the waters of a spring. Now the feast table, in disarray, seemed a battlefield at the end of the fray.
In the end, the sun was rising and gilding the Sapphire Isle beyond the Straits with its brightest, warmest rays. This was another of those unusually clear mornings for the Stormlands, and Renly was still ill-at-ease from the lack of sleep and the quaffing of the revels, and he stayed half-asleep in his own soft feather-bed for his first time in two years for the whole morning, a faithful, tall and golden-haired bodyguard watching for his precious life, but this time at Storm's End, the third time he had slept in a soft bed inside a keep since they had left the Riverlands. The whole war seemed now to be a dream which both of them had awakened from, an adventure story grown too real in their hearts, and now the one she had served was to sit on his throne at Storm's End, and it would soon be her own turn to return home, and part ways...
That morning, at the breakfast table, she was told that a raven had come from Evenfall, and thus, when she returned to her liege lord's bedchamber, she had unfurled the letter and read it thoroughly. Written with a trembling hand and a heavy heart, it contained a guardian's feelings for his ward: words of love and of anxiety at once, of longing and of serious concern, and a prayer for forgiveness had his wishes ever been too harsh and misunderstood.
Again, having buried her head in her hands, she thought of Lord Axell and of what she had heard during the victory feast, and her thoughts wandered back to the Hall she could see across sapphire waves from the bedchamber window. To the ones she had left behind to follow her own heart, regardless of what her loved ones would think. Of the one who had been a father to her, a teacher, and the one who showed her the way. Lord Axell would surely feel guilty, regretful, and spend nights awake worried about his missing ward, who had gone off to war against his wishes, without saying farewell or giving an explanation. And he would have surely thought, more than once, that the princess he had come to love like the child he had never had, was lying dead on a battlefield or struggling for life on a sickbed, wounded beyond the maester's skill.
Thus, she had to part from Renly and from Storm's End, returning home to her own land and kin, no matter how much she regretted it, and no matter if her guardian chided her. Sending a reply written with all her heart as soon as she had finished reading the letter, she turned to the Storm King, who was now feeling far better, and told him that she had to leave for Tarth that very day.
Renly understood that her loved ones were as worried as those of any other young warrior ever to fight worlds away from home: his own mother, the now unusually happy Queen Ravella, and his old nanny, and Maester Claes, had welcomed the young ruler with tears of joy and warm, heartfelt feelings the evening before, ere the victory revels took place. There would surely be at least a person on the Sapphire Isle who had been waiting for ages for the return of beloved "Goodwin."
Ere they parted ways, Elysenne had asked Renly, who was still resting in bed, whom such a powerful and dashing young ruler intended to choose for a queen. In response, he chortled and smiled, and said, as honestly as only he could, the qualities that he valued in a bride:
"I would only marry the maiden who is most like you, Ser Goodwin. Strong, hardy, true, unafraid, unlike all of these court ladies who are taught to please their husbands against their will and never say no come what may. They are merely decorations who rarely are worth what they look like, but you are different from all of them: a brave fighter, an honest fellow, never afraid of death or defeat, never worried about your looks, always wearing your heart upon your sleeve. Were you a maiden, I would make you my queen and my wife."
And Elysenne sighed and thought of what His Grace had told her, and she would dwell upon these words for a long time during her return to her own kingdom. The idea of marriage was still a trifle to her, and the fact that her liege lord was so pleased with her made her blush her freckles off for a while once again.
That day, against a cloudy afternoon sky, tall and slender young Durrandon, in the company of his loved ones, took his leave of the golden-haired one who was returning across the Straits. The Queen Mother thanked the one from Tarth for saving the life of her only son and the hopes of House Durrandon, and for putting an end to ages of war. And everyone wished each other the best of times, while drying up their tears.
As she sailed across the curly blue billows towards the isle she called home, she turned her eyes now to the keep where she had been born, now to the one where her adventures had begun. The birthplace of her own true self and that of "Ser Goodwin the True." The scar on her right forearm would resurface as soon as she was undressed of steel, clad in her soft sapphire doublet: it would be the most important memory from those two dangerous years of war.
As she trod ground once more on the land of her birth, as she climbed up the slope back to Evenfall Hall, feeling like a stranger in spite of being at home, she turned her eyes towards the strait and Storm's End on the other side. There, Renly I Durrandon had begun to rule in times of peace, without a faithful Goodwin by his side, but surely encouraged by the fact that "he" was still alive.
Lost in these thoughts of hope, she crossed the guarded entrance to her keep birthplace, which she had left a girl and returned to a young woman. The Twilight Tower now lay half in ruins, the thorny blackberry and sweetbriar bushes along the path to Evenfall had grown thicker and more tangled, and Elysenne herself had grown taller than before, her gilt hair, once cropped short when she left, now curling about her face and cascading on her back, her skin marked with more freckles and scars, her limbs stronger and more developed, unlike her breasts, still small and flat as blueberries beneath shielding steel.
As she walked through the keep, Elysenne looked around every hall with wonder and the feeling that she had been there before. That she was at home and the adventure was at an end. But what would she do after the war, to make her life feel less tiresome?
Lord Axell came towards her in the Great Hall, slightly staggering, leaning on an oakenwood cane with a sun-and-moon pommel. Now having lived for over seventy years, there was not a dark strand among the few frost-like, white and brittle wisps on the Regent's head, and his still well-trimmed beard was also silvery as the moon. His face was crossed with more deep lines of concern and experience, and the look in his steel-grey eyes was that of one who has, after losing a loved one, finally been brought together with that lost one. As he looked into her sapphire orbs, he clasped her waist and dried up a few crystal teardrops of joy. No words were at first spoken by guardian or ward: they looked into one another's eyes and thought of how much they loved each other. Then, at the supper table, when they had finished the pie, Lord Axell and Princess Elysenne asked for each other's forgiveness. She told him how she at first had burned his letters and not cared to answer, and he told her how often he had prayed to the Warrior, twice a day at dawn and dusk, to see her alive once more. And they forgave one another, admitting that both of them had been foolish and headstrong, and that they should share the blame to make it fairer and lighter.
And thus, both of them got ready to start anew and begin a new stage in the lives they shared.
Four days after the return of the prodigal daughter, ringings of joy echoed from the sept of Evenfall and across the straits to every castle on the Stormlands shore, for it was the eighteenth name-day of Elysenne. Her liege lord and most of her comrades in arms were invited to the revels, and healths went round once more, that evening, to the princess of the Sapphire Isle, in whose honour the feast was being held. At first, Renly and his bannermen saw something of Goodwin in her tall frame, her broad shoulders, her golden hair, now tied up in a tight braid once more, those freckled cheeks... but, Elysenne being clad in a long-sleeved doublet to keep out the chill of the autumn night, no one from the Stormlands mainland saw the scar on her right forearm. However, the Storm King carried out a pleasant conversation with her, both of them spoke well and in a lively way to one another, and, the more Renly heard her talk about warfare and about art, learned as she was, in that deep voice, and heard her familiar laughter, and looked into those true sapphire eyes, the more he was reminded of what he had said upon that leave-taking at Storm's End.
"Were you a maiden, I would make you my queen and my wife." And he had never met anyone so like Ser Goodwin than the Princess of Tarth. Yet still he was as fond of his freedom as Elysenne herself, and as any young person for that matter. Any person in that stage of life fears marriage would be a chain and a clipping of wings, and feels that he or she is too young to tie the knot. Of that both young royals spoke as well, chortling and remarking that they liked each other, though merely as good friends, in conversation.
And, when the tall and dark-haired Storm King mentioned the dashing knight, so similar to the young Evenstar, and also to the Warrior himself, who had saved his life on the field of battle more than once, Elysenne laughed and answered that every child on Tarth knew that Ser Goodwin the True was a hero and a legend of the latest war. And then, that she knew him well herself, and had granted him more lands as reward for such feats of daring-do. Thus sped that night of revels, and the end of it was that His Grace, a little in his cups and light-hearted, walked with Elysenne around the starlit courtyard, with no one else in sight, and gave her a kiss upon the left cheek.
That was the greatest gift she received for her eighteenth name-day: her new longsword and crossbow, and the books of Stormlands and Dornish lore that she had been given, as well as the sky-blue gown lined with satin ribbons and Myrish lace she had received, seemed but mere trifles. Even more trifling were, to Elysenne, the grand frill-collared lilywhite gown, embroidered with silver thread and whose shoulders were decked with puffy lace lilies, and the ring of white gold that she had received in an ornate casket inlaid with amber and pearl flowers. And thus, during that evening, the Princess of Tarth could not help to wonder why this time, along with books and weapons (the things she loved), she had received such uncomfortable dresses and jewelry, more suited for one of the court ladies Renly had so coldly spoken of. Perchance because she had reached the age of eighteen and was now old enough to sit on the throne, which the Lord Regent had guarded for her during so many long years...
As she showed His Grace the way to the guest-room, she spoke to him of the dresses and the ring, too frilly for her taste, and, as they wished one another good night, Renly told her that she needn't wear such dresses if they made her feel ill at ease, in fact, that he liked her without frills of any kind, true to herself and self-confident just like Ser Goodwin.
The next morning, at the pier, all of the distinguished guests set sail for their own lands, as the fair princess of Tarth and the old Lord Regent took their leave of them. Renly and Elysenne would have doubtlessly embraced one another if her guardian had not been there, and thus, a chaste handshake and a promise to see each other was all they could take leave of each other with.
Now come of age and unsure of what to do next besides judge her subjects' rights and see to their welfare, Elysenne of Tarth returned into Evenfall Hall, nevertheless, as the light-hearted and lively one she had always been. Yet that carefree mood would be shattered by the words she would exchange with her guardian at the table of the Great Hall that evening.
"Elysenne, my dear, you have been riding along the shore for the whole day, since the Stormlanders left! Why haven't you at least thought of trying your wedding gown? If it does not fit, our seamstress might find it hard to change it to your unlikely size."
Thus said Lord Axell, wisely and calmly, as his young ward, left speechless as if she had been wounded in the fray, grew pale as the moon and shuddered in a cold sweat.
That white dress with lilies of Myrish lace and curly frills was... Yes, she was awake and she was sober. And there was no mistake that it could only be a dress for a bride. Though Elysenne still thought herself young and doubtful, proud of her maiden's freedom. And she would break ere she bent, so headstrong was she, a true child of House Tarth. There was no way a madman in his seventies could make her waver. No matter if he, before the baked apples, tried to bend her will another time:
"Your mother was two years younger than you when she married," the Regent said, as sternly and as warmly as he could. "And her mother was in the prime of life that day. Now, a few years have passed since my seventieth name-day, and you, my girl, are aged eighteen since yesterday, yet still shying away from your duty to the realm. Elysenne... You are the only one left of your kind, the heir to Tarth, and the throne would be empty and ripe for the taking... Why so foolhardy when leaving this kingdom and your old guardian to fight in a war that never was yours, yet so frightened of your true duty to the realm? Should you keep on with this fear of marriage, the sun and moon of Tarth will no longer shine..."
Elysenne still turned a deaf ear and tried to think of other things, like the fights she had taken part in during the war, or the other life she had led as "Ser Goodwin," rather than of the wise advice she was being given, as she greedily finished her roasted apples and sauntered off into her bedchamber, violently shutting the door. There lay both her gowns on her modest canopy-less bed, and her breastplate hung on the wall for a mirror. As the Lord Regent's words throbbed in her ears, she quickly donned the frilly and lilywhite bridal gown, looking at her reflection in the steel as she turned around. Though the dress was made of the softest silk, its puffy lily-shaped sleeves looked ridiculous to her, and the frills lined with lace at her neck itched, making her feel ill at ease. To add insult to injury, the gown reached exactly to her knees, which made her hairy lower legs come to view. Thus, the freckles of the young female face on the breastplate were nowhere to be seen on a face as brightly pink as a sweetbriar rose.
There was also a pair of matching silk gloves with frills, and a pair of white slippers, thickly embroidered with silver thread like the gown and inlaid with pearl suns. And then there was the ring, of white gold as well. Everything lovely to a court lady from any kingdom, but not to Elysenne.
The maidservant who was the seamstress of Evenfall would surely widen those gloves and those slippers, and lengthen that frilly embroidered skirt as well. But why would she ever have to marry in a dress of white silk? If she had more of a say, like the young women of Dorne, she would rather tie the knot in armour, or at least in a doublet and breeches, or most probably not tie the knot at all.
After all, what was marriage for? For being second to her husband and enduring whatever happened to her since then. What if she were less fortunate than her own parents and married some fellow who drank hard or beat her, or did both of those terrible things? It would certainly be less painful to remain unwedded. And what if she was as fortunate as her own parents, or as the royal pair of the Reach, and found herself a husband who loved her, and they were pleased with one another and never troubled the least, with lovely children and warm hearts, until the call of war and enemy steel cut through the knot so happily tied, leaving her widowed and brokenhearted, most surely bereft of hope?
There could only come sorrow after a wedding, she had learned. From the Durrandons, from the Gardeners, and from her own parents themselves. Those two old stories, painful as they were, made her feel ill at ease and convinced that she would never find a spouse.
As she hastily summoned a maid and flung the wedding attire she had taken off at her with instructions for the seamstress (coldly, harshly, in a tone very unlike her usual cheerfulness), the princess of Tarth was led by her feelings, by the troubles in her heart and the memories that haunted her, unable to turn her thoughts away from marriage no matter how hard she tried. And she spent the whole night awake in thought, with her sorrows and her worries, her heart throbbing like a drum on the battlefield, as if she had a fever, her fears striking her troubled mind like steel clashing on steel.
The next day and for many days after that, she would ride on her own along the cliffs of Evenfall, or lock herself in the library, her head buried in her hands, reading old histories and philosophical writings, and writing war poetry. Sometimes her steps took her up to the Twilight Tower, whose walls she would climb, and there she would stand in sunshine or rain, even if lightning flashed around her, and return home drenched and weather-beaten. If ever the Regent knocked on the door of the library or on that of her heart, she would shield herself with a rebuke colder and harder than any breastplate, and a piercing glare sharper than any blade. She would rather be alone with her worries and either brood or laugh in irony, claiming that no shackles, even if they were of gold, would ever be put on her to bind her. Such was the change that had frozen the heart of Princess Elysenne, and it would take her own feelings of love to warm it and soften it, returning her to her usual sunny mood.
For a moon-turn she had been so cold and harsh, aloof like never before, and everyone at Evenfall Hall, from the old lord who had raised her to the washerwoman and the guards, was sure that the war she had fought in was the reason for such a change of heart. For she would rarely speak or smile, or even be honest, ever since she had received her bridal gown. And the Lord Regent had at length, after countless times trying in vain, given up all hope of trying to reason with his ward and make her understand what things had to be like for the realm and dynasty.
Never had he despaired before, but now, he felt that he had failed completely in his duty to his good friend and liege lord, letting Goodwin's daughter always do as she pleased, which had surely made her too proud and too headstrong, an unruly spirit that would rather break than bend, believing in none other than herself, and, against his well-intentioned wishes, leaving her kingdom and duties, to fight in a war that had left her spirit as scarred as her body. Lord Axell now saw himself as an oathbreaker, who had broken the most important among promises in his life, and as a traitor to the realm and the royal household of Tarth. Now he had turned more quiet and brooding than ever, shut within himself as well, as his shattered heart throbbed more violently for each day, trying to breach his breastbone and give the Stranger a call of mercy for a life that was no longer worth living.
And the end of it was that, one evening, as the old lord and the young princess got up from the supper table, right as he was going to follow her upstairs and to his own bedchamber, the Regent suddenly felt a stabbing pain in the middle of his chest, as if a non-existent dagger had plunged into his back and entered his wildly throbbing heart. Reeling and wincing, and breathing as shallowly as if his lungs were on fire, as he clutched the left side of his chest and turned strangely pale, his plight quickly drew the attention of all those who were leaving the Great Hall. A frightened Elysenne dashed forth, calling his name, and clasped him in her arms, as the seventy-year-old lord fell unconscious, strangely pale and cold as ice, and shut his eyes in her embrace. Then, Elysenne recalled how harsh she had been to the one she owed her life. Had her cold and piercing ways been too much for his now weak, faint heart? She had surely killed him, the one she had once loved and respected, the one who always had thought of her and of her welfare, even when he had forbidden her to go to war! Tears surged down her blazing cheeks, as she thrust her head on the Regent's cold chest and heard no heartbeat louder than a faint, weak flutter. Not even a sigh stole through his parted lips.
"Axell! Axell! Please, don't die so early! Forgive me for having been so cold, but I had been thinking only of myself, and not of what my words and thoughts would do to you!"
Within a moment, the silver-haired lord was lying in his bed, dressed in his nightgown and breathing steadily once more, the worried princess standing with Maester Mathis by the bedside, listening carefully to what the healer, who had bled the Regent's left wrist and bandaged it, had to say:
"Will he... live?" There were tears in Elysenne's eyes, and her own heart felt as heavy as her head was restless.
"He will, but only if he does not get cross or feel heavy-hearted. I have seen and heard of this before. Of how some people, mostly elderly and wealthy ones, had their hearts racked with pain, because of the thoughts and the feelings that had troubled them. And, though some of them still live, there have been also those who died as quickly and suddenly as a strike of lightning."
The tall princess shuddered in fear and sighed in relief, all at once. She could have killed her beloved guardian, but at least he had lived through the heartache, and the Stranger had been kind to both of them. It was as if the gods had warned her with such a twist of fate for staying that cold and that harsh. And, as she wept by Axell's bedside and watched him sleep peacefully, drying up her surging tears as she asked for his forgiveness once more, feeling guilty and foolish yet with a twinge of hope, her heart was warmed and softened by the trial of her love, and she now knew what she had to do not to lose another one she had always loved, the one who had always been there even after her parents were gone, the one who had always cared for her. She would reach an agreement with the Lord Regent, both of them giving their own views on the issue of marriage, and surely be reconciled with one another.
The next day, as she watched her advisor awaken with tears in his grey eyes and a plea for forgiveness on his lips, she clasped Axell in her strong arms, and they forgave one another once more, now pleased with one another and proud of each other once again. And, when the aged lord heard her chant that it was time for her to get married, he could neither believe his ears nor restrain his joy, not even when Elysenne said that she had decided in favour of a wedding because she did not want or wish to lose such a wise and loving caregiver by filling his aged heart with dark thoughts and painful feelings.
"Yet I have never wanted you to marry the first man you see," he warmly said, and her sapphire orbs lit up with unexpected joy. So the Regent had intended to wed her off carefully, after all! Thus, the princess inquired what kind of husband her advisor wanted for her, and she received the following reply:
"He must be from the Stormlands, wealthy, and of noble birth." But that was not enough for Elysenne of Tarth, who told him that she wanted to have a say too, and that there were more things to be sought in a spouse worthy of her, aside from his wealth and descent:
"From the Stormlands, wealthy, and of noble birth. Yes, I agree to these three conditions. But I don't want an ordinary warrior of those who only can look good in armour, smile when adressed to, and never say no to any of my whims, rarely wearing their hearts upon their sleeves. That would be so tiresome! A husband worthy of me is more than that. He must be young, of an age between eighteen and thirty, and dashing or at least handsome, for me never to grow weary of him. And not only his appearance has to be pleasant, for he has to be brave and clever, bold and learned, unafraid of the enemy and intelligent, able both to speak eloquently and to wield a sword. In times of war, he should be able to lead his men to victory at the head of armies, and, in times of peace, to encourage and display skill in the arts, finding beauty in his own creations and in those of others. Thus, he will be able both to entertain us when our spirits are down and defend us when we are in need. And he must know what to say when he is spoken to, for one who could only look grand would be tiresome!"
Lord Axell listened to Elysenne's fiery description of a spouse worthy of her, attentively, thinking of everything that she had in mind. There were only a few young men who could match the description, and his ward deserved by no means an ordinary husband. Indeed, she deserved a spouse worthy of royalty, the Goodwin to her Cassana, or the Cassana to her Goodwin. Yet the old Regent thought of how much all of these conditions made the number of suitors dwindle to three or four, and he turned to her to ask what she thought:
"Your Highness, would you not despair in finding what you seek?"
"Not at all!" Elysenne replied with a smile. "I have already decided not to give up that easily in front of the conditions I have in mind, and I am determined to choose, no matter in which circumstances, a spouse worthy of me!"
Axell looked at her, listening to her hopeful and passionate reply, thinking of how self-confident she was and how sure and determined to find the right husband. Surely, with such an iron will that had even taken her to risk her life in battle, why should she not be able to find her equal? The princess leaned on his side and whispered in his right ear the whole plan she had thought of during the night, the tests through which she hoped to find the one among all the others.
Then she assembled her entire court together in the godswood and told them of her intentions, to much rejoicing and acclaim.
Shutting herself in the library with ink, primroses, and tassel hyacinths, and her breastplate for a mirror, she spent the whole next day, from dawn until way after dusk, with her head buried in her hands, working on as many portraits of herself as she knew great houses in the Stormlands: Durrandon, Caron, Dondarrion, Selmy, Connington, Hasty, Penrose... plus one, a portrait that she had intended to keep herself for the test she had in mind. She drew her face the way it was, without changing a detail or missing one of her countless freckles, and, when the ink on all her portraits had dried up, coloured her tightly braided hair golden with the sap of the primrose, and her brightly shining eyes blue with the jelly inside the flowers of the tassel hyacinth, on every picture, now as true to her face as the mirror image on polished steel which she had taken for a lead to draw the pictures. Each of the portraits filled the upper half of a scroll, and now, on the empty lower half of each scroll except only one (the one she had intended to keep for herself), she wrote the following proclamation in her own handwriting:
"A contest has now begun at Evenfall Hall.
Every good-looking young man of rank aged between eighteen and twenty-eight years, and belonging to one of the great houses to whom these proclamations have been sent, is free to present himself at the royal castle on the Sapphire Isle of Tarth, where his strength, his nerve, his wit, and his heart will be put to the test by none other than the princess of said kingdom. Should all of the trials reveal him as the one most endowed with good qualities and virtues, she will give her heart and hand, as reward for gathering, in both body and spirit, the most qualities worth of praise.
Upon that we rely and open the contest,
Elysenne of Tarth."
In the meantime, her old guardian had, following Elysenne's advice, sent homing ravens with requests, which Elysenne had written in advance, to both the Water Gardens and Highgarden. She had not told him what the rulers of the Reach and Dorne had to do with her scheme, keeping it a secret, but she had told Axell to give her the little parcels that they would receive for replies the next day. When the parcels were already in Elysenne's hands, she sent the ravens with the proclamations across the Straits of Tarth, to all of her prospective suitors, and then sauntered down to the forge of Evenfall to receive something that she had ordered the smith to make right before she had made all of those self-portraits and written the letters to the Reach and Dorne. Leaving the forge with something precious hidden in her clenched fist, and carrying the only picture of herself that she had kept in her left hand, she entered her bedchamber and did a quick trick with both her hands ere she sauntered into bed and fell fast asleep, dreaming of all the young men who had fought by her side during the war. Soon, all of them would stand by the ivy-grown walls of the Hall, and then before her throne, and her heart would get to know which one of them was meant to share both their lives.
Now let us follow the flight of the black-winged messengers towards the mainland, where they alighted on the ramparts and the windowsills of Nightsong, of Parchments, of Harvest Hall and Griffin's Roost, and even of Storm's End itself.
And somehow, perchance for the bride was as lovely as she was clever, or for some kind of charm must have been written onto the scrolls and drawn on the portraits, young men of rank and of mettle were struck bereft of reason, their hearts pounding and ablaze, their minds clouded as if by Dornish wine, and the name of Elysenne lingered on their lips as they, as if struck by lightning, could do think of nothing than accepting the perilous challenge. Calin Caron and Jon Connington, Steffon Penrose (the younger brother of Andrew) and Richard Selmy, even Renly Durrandon the Storm King himself, decided to try their luck at such a dangerous game. Saying prayers to the Warrior and to the Maiden, and taking their leave of their loved ones, four of them set sail for the Sapphire Isle, determined to win the elusive princess. These four were young stormlords, and their liege lord stayed behind, lingering and tarrying at Storm's End. But what could have made Renly more careful than his equally young and bold former brothers in arms?
He had, indeed, recognized the handwriting in which the letter had been written as that of the Evenstar and that of faithful Goodwin (which made him wonder why the handwriting of both was as similar as their appearance), and the cheerful, friendly face of Elysenne as well: hair as gilt as light and sapphire eyes like summer lakes. And his young heart skipped a beat for an instant, as if a surge of lightning was sent through him, as he read the proclamation. He was dashing and lively, brave and clever, strong and honest, and royalty as well. And what was he feeling as he read the challenge, that lingered on his heart and mind, searing him as if he had a fever, and would never leave? Why was the handwriting of the princess bride exactly like the one of his trusted bodyguard? Could it be as he thought? Renly steeled himself, but in vain. That afternoon, in the fortress sept, he tried to pray to the Warrior, but the prayers that left his parted lips were addressed to the Maiden.
The Storm King would spend nights awake thinking of his beloved across Shipbreaker Bay, looking at the keep of Evenfall across the straits from his bedchamber window, watching ships with the crests of his bannermen on their sails as they crossed the foam-capped waves and moored before the Hall, then sailed back to the mainland at twilight, one by one. And thinking of Elysenne, yet still doubting whether she would see more in him than a brother or a good friend, whether she could see what was searing his chest and tearing at his heart, with a worried look in those sapphire orbs.
Dare a young fellow in love, even if he was crowned and sat on a throne, ever confide in his mother to tell her what she felt? Renly thought of that as well. Tarth was a lovely kingdom indeed, but Ravella Durrandon had other thoughts in mind: a more powerful and wealthier bride, whose marriage would also secure the alliance that had put an end to the war, and quench the flames of the feud between the Stormlands and another realm for good. The reigning Princess of Dorne was still young and still single, and she was a great leader both at court and on the battlefield. The Queen Regent of the Reach was now left a young widow, in the care of a kingdom and three children on her own. Both Myria Nymeros Martell and Desmera Tyrell were rulers of vast lands, born and raised at wealthier and more refined courts, that made both Storm's End and Evenfall Hall look bleak in comparison. Their hands came with wine and wealth, bannermen and offers of peace. Thus did the Storm Queen speak to her only son, but Renly merely pretended to listen.
For four days, he had scarcely eaten or drunk or slept his fill, and both swordfighting and riding along the cape were no longer able to quench the fire in his young heart, this strange sickness that seared him from within and made him stay awake for ages, his raven hair rumpled and his azure eyes bloodshot, looking at the ships sailing to and from Evenfall as he, with his head buried in his soft hands, sang the old song he had so often heard in the Great Hall during so many revels:

"There once were two royal children,
who lived each one in a keep.

These lovers could not be together,

for the waters were way too deep."

A worried Ravella had, out of love, made Maester Claes check up her boy twice every day, at dawn and dusk, but it all was in vain, since the mysteries of love and passion will always be a riddle to the skill of maesters, no matter how learned they are. She let her only son, her heir, her hope, brood when she realized that encouraging him to eat and sleep was useless. And then, the next day, the bannermen who had tried their luck at Elysenne's games came to the Storm King on his throne at Storm's End.
Renly was pale and thin, weary like never before, when he heard the young vassals' tales of shattered hopes and painful disappointment, one after the other. Of course they had been confident when they set sail towards Tarth, their minds fixed on the valuable prize. And, when they landed on the western coast of the Sapphire Isle and made their way uphill towards the fortress where their dream lay, they had to pass between two rows of bannermen in Tarth livery, with golden suns and silver moons on their quartered doublets, wearing dazzling breastplates and helmets, wielding sharp and painful swords, and, each time a suitor passed, each one of the bannermen standing guards drew steel and struck, one by one by one by one up to six armed Tarthmen, three on each side of the narrow and thorny path, tall and hardy and fierce. Passing through this redoubtable gauntlet and disarming each and every one of these warriors meant no hardship to all of the suitors, who had already proved themselves bold and strong on the field of battle itself. But when they entered the keep and stepped into the throne room, in the presence of the throne where Princess Elysenne sat, her aged guardian and high officers and courtiers and servants arranged around her, there was a table before the assembled court, and on the table there were three small caskets, a golden one inlaid with ruby suns, a silver one inlaid with gemstone flowers, and one of steel, harsh and cold and without any ornament, yet so polished that everything in the throne room was reflected on its surface.
There she was, with her golden hair as bright as the candles and wistful twinkles in her eyes, dressed in a modest sky-blue frock more similar to a short-sleeved doublet than anything else, and she told each and every one of the suitors who stepped, one by one, into the throne room... that she would give her hand to the one who guessed which one of the caskets contained the picture she had painted of herself. There would be only one chance for each suitor, and those who failed would be sent away, without being given a second chance. Both Connington and Penrose had chosen the silver casket, yet it contained another portrait, that of an auburn and golden-eyed Reachwoman in a mourning gown and veil. Both Selmy and Caron had chosen the one of gold with ruby suns, to stand agape in front of a portrait of a raven-haired and black-eyed, bronze-skinned Dornishwoman. And thus, in all four of their tales, it seemed that the princess of Tarth needn't have any more proof of their worth, and knew what to expect of them, and sent each and every one of them away.
Apart from these differences in the detail of the choice of casket, and a little when it came to telling of their fights against the armed Tarthmen, the stories that all four of the broken suitors told were essentially the same. And all of them ended with feelings of regret and of disappointment, of not being able to turn back time to be given another try.
The ambitious Storm Queen saw in these tales reason enough to try to stop her young hopeful from leaving on that self-same, surely fruitless quest. If all the other suitors had failed, why even bother to try? Yet Renly shook his coal-haired head and told his beloved mother that he was, himself, of a different kind. Now that he knew what the challenge was like, winning the wished-for prize would be as easy as breathing. And thus, on that very day, he surprised the whole court by helping himself to more meat pie and apples than he had usually had for supper, washed down with a tankard of dark ale. For he needed to be strong and clear-headed to try his luck, and should he lose like all the others before, to face defeat with dignity. And, after sauntering upstairs to his bedchamber and snuggling himself up in the covers, he told himself about what he had done on the battlefield to fall asleep, and his dreams were of standing next to Elysenne in a sept, both of them clad in armour and crowned with antlers, yet receiving the septon's blessing.
The next seven days were spent by the young ruler in gathering strength and training for the moment of truth. Never in his twenty-two years of short life had anyone seen him being so hard to himself or so determined, not even before he had left for the war front, repeating to himself that he had to win or to win, and there was no other choice. And every morn at dawn and every eve at twilight, his head buried in his hands, he looked at the face of his light-haired beloved on the proclamation scroll, and at her birthplace across the waters from the window of his bedchamber, and these sights, instead of weakening him like they had done before, now filled his muscles with strength and his chest with courage, and cleared his darkened mind as if with swords of light.
As Queen Ravella watched her only son leave matters of the realm to her on the throne and rather spent each day training, claiming that he was going to war against an enemy more redoubtable than the hard-hearted ironborn, she understood that maybe the bride from Tarth, even though her kingdom was small and humble, was worth the pain of losing her, considering how hard Renly was on himself and how much he spoke of her, and of attaining another kind of victory. That a marriage to the Reach or Dorne should rather be seen as a second chance, and that her boy was worth that she gave him a try.
When these seven days of hard training had come to an end, young Durrandon had, on the seventh morning, summoned his Penrose-born squire to dress him in full armour, the antlered helmet ready to deck his head in the fray, the hard breastplate shielding the seat of life from enemy strokes, the ancestral longsword resting inside his scabbard, leaning against his strong left thigh. That morning, as he broke his fast in the Great Hall, he turned to his dear mother, and to the whole court of the Stormlands, and told them as confidently as he could that, on that very day, he was going to an unlikely war, and that he would return alive and victorious, as sure as that Storm's End would never fall. This he said without wavering for an instant, to much rejoicing and acclaim.
When he got on board the carrack that would bring him to the realm of the one he loved, Renly Durrandon was kissed and blessed by the one who had given him life. The Storm Queen, drying up a few tears, wished him the best luck he could ever have, and said that she would pray to both the Warrior and the Maiden for success throughout the day of truth. Though the skies above were leaden, both winds and tides were kind to the carrack bound for the Sapphire Isle, as the tall and slender young ruler kept his azure eyes always fixed on the strong castle that crowned the tallest cliff.
As soon as the ship was moored on the pier, Renly boldly sauntered onto land and stepped jauntily, confidently, up the village street and up the path lined with blackberry and sweetbriar, and there stood three armed warriors in Tarth livery on each side of the pathway, the two last ones keeping the gate of Evenfall Hall. And then, he put his antlered helmet on, as his scabbard hung empty from his belt, and the steel of his drawn blade flashed like lightning. Swiftly and coolly, he easily disarmed the first one of the armed men, then the second one, then the third, and so until the fifth and sixth, who, after dropping their swords and bending the knee before their conqueror, opened the gates and let him in. In response, Renly nodded and smiled at the guards, thanking them for having thrilled him with such a great show, like he had fought in none other, not even against the ironmen. And thus, the guards took a liking to this tall and slender stranger with long black hair and an antlered helmet, and they had never liked any of their former opponents, who had stepped into the keep without looking back at them or addressing them.
Once he had entered the walls of Evenfall, taking off his antlered helmet and keeping it under his left arm, Renly Durrandon walked through familiar halls floored with tapestries and blazing with light, his blue eyes shining like the brightest of stars. Thoughts of the challenge of wits darted through his mind, yet a surge of self-confidence and hope cast all of his doubts aside. And his longsword, in its scabbard, clanged loudly against the armour on his left thigh, but even this did not trouble him.
That sword did clang to be sure, but he went merrily up to the princess, who was sitting on a throne of lindenwood rife with carvings of suns and moons, with her golden hair as bright as the candles; all the ladies-in-waiting, with their maids and their maids' maids, and all the gentlemen courtiers and the high officers, led by the Lord Regent himself, with their serving-men and their serving-men's serving-men were ranged around her in order of rank.
And there, before the assembled court, stood a modest oakwood table on which the three little caskets were arranged in a straight line, from the most precious to the least from left to right: the golden casket inlaid with ruby suns, the silver casket inlaid with gemstone flowers, and the steel casket without any decoration, yet polished to the point of shining like a mirror.
There stood another suitor, in thought, looking at the caskets and now up to the princess on her lindenwood throne. She was wearing a crown of amber suns and silver moons on her braided golden hair, and her gown was a simple sky blue one, the colour of her sparkling eyes, without any sleeves, which made her developed yet slender arms come to view. And, as the Storm King listened to her inspiring explanation of the engagement challenge, he noticed a long and pale scar on her right forearm: a scar like the one left by a wound he had once seen and tended to, from a slash of an ironborn axe.
And then, suddenly, a single thought dashed through His Grace's mind, like a flash of lightning, and made his eyes open wider, though he still would stand tall and not falter that easily. The faithful knight who had risked life and limb for his sake, and the equally clever and cheerful princess bride he had come to win, were one and the same person! Only now, thanks to that scar from an old wound of war, had he realized that faithful "Goodwin" was bright Elysenne!
"Were you a maiden, I would make you my queen and my wife," he had told the one he thought was a young bannerman. And now that the truth had come to light, he was sure that he had not taken any chances in risking everything he had left behind for her sake and that of Tarth, like she had given everything she had for his sake and that of the Stormlands.
Thus, clearing his throat and looking into her sapphire orbs, not at all afraid or doubtful, in a lively, lovely, graceful way, he spoke the following words:
"It is true that gold and silver are of great price, and so are brightly-coloured stones. Yet their worth, at the moment of truth, is but trifling. Wars are fought for gold and silver and gems, like for faith or for lands, yet they have always been fought with true steel. Will a blade of gold ever wound the foe, or a silver breastplate shield a precious heart? Never, for both gold and silver are soft and fragile, and break easily, being of far less worth than they seem to be. On the other hand, steel may be cold and hard, and rarely given a great price, yet always trusty in the fray, both to strike and to shield. Likewise, all the wine in Dorne, and all the wealth of the Reach, cannot be compared to the harsh and rocky, yet hardy shores of this isle, a sapphire in the rough. Therefore, I choose the steel casket, for, though steel appears less precious at first sight, at least, unlike gold and silver, it is true. And being true is to me a quality far more precious, and more rare, than being wealthy or powerful. Likewise, as wealth and power fade away, wit remains all life long, and I am sure you know it."
He had been lively and confident, quite solemn and not at all afraid, truly wearing his heart upon his sleeve.
And thus, with a strange look in her eyes, the princess of Tarth stepped from her throne and opened the harsh steel casket. And what lay within? The portrait which Elysenne had painted of herself, with the same golden hair, and azure orbs, and countless freckles. And she smiled sincerely as she handed it over to her suitor, wistfully asking Renly if he dared to know what the other two caskets contained. He smiled and nodded, with twinkles in his eyes, as the other two caskets were opened: the golden one contained a portrait of Myria of Dorne, with fire in her black eyes and dressed up in her armour of scales, holding up a dagger in her right hand; and the silver one held a picture of Desmera of the Reach, veiled and dressed in mourning black, her amber eyes turned upwards as if she were saying a prayer.
For a moment, Renly Durrandon, glad that his choice was the good one (the one Goodwin himself would have made), thought that in the end he had won the battle, and that the unlikely war had come to a good end, yet the cupbearer who had left the throne room for a while now returned, carrying twin rock crystal cups inlaid with amber suns, which were left on the table, one of them before the Storm King, the other one before Elysenne, who, clearing her throat and looking at her suitor, addressed him once more. Both cups were filled to the brim with amber-coloured mead, and Renly, being thirsty from both the mêlée and the speech of challenges past, quickly reached out his hand towards the cup closest to him, yet he was suddenly stopped by the golden-haired princess, loudly and clearly:
"Are you sure you will drain this cup? It might be the one laced with poison!"
Renly steeled his hand and stood still to listen at the premise of the last challenge:
"There are two cups on this table, each one meant for one of us and filled with a draught of our finest mead. Now one of these is laced with the tears of Lys, a liquid transparent and tasteless as water, which leaves no trace, yet dissolves the entrails of the one who has consumed it. Hence, the unlucky drinker is completely unaware until it is too late. Your mission now is to choose one of these cups and drain it to the dregs, while I empty the other one. And may the best of us win."
At first, these words puzzled young Durrandon. Two draughts, one of them laced with a fatal poison. Should Renly drink it, he would die, and someone who had been so sincerely pleased with him would never wish for his demise. Should Elysenne herself drink it, the bloodline of House Tarth would come to an end, and both Storm's End and Evenfall would be in mourning. Besides, such a lively and confident, and extremely clever young person, would never, if in such a sunny mood, decide to end her short life. Then, suddenly, the dashing ruler of the Stormlands thought of the scar on the forearm of the blue-eyed princess, and of the truth about Ser Goodwin, and he understood what lay behind the whole challenge.
Confidently, he picked one of the cups, saying out loud that he had already chosen as he winked with his right eye. Elysenne picked the other cup and winked with her left eye, as Renly raised the one he had chosen and proposed a cheerful toast to the golden-haired challenger:
"Here's to you!"
And she clinked her cup against his as she proposed the same toast to him in the same lively tone:
"And here's to you!"
Then, both of them put the cups to their lips and quaffed heartily, until not a single drop of mead was left. For a moment, the courtiers expected one of the contestants to scream in pain that said contestant's entrails were on fire, but neither Renly nor Elysenne did even wince. In fact, both of them remained cool and tranquil, looking into one another's sapphire orbs, standing upright and smiling. The courtiers and the high officers and the servants were all aghast, pale and trembling, wondering what ever could have gone wrong.
And then, suddenly, both their liege lady and her suitor turned towards the whole court and explained the truth about the whole poison test:
"It was all a ruse," the Storm King coolly said. "None of the cups was laced, to begin with."
"He is right. This final test was a ruse all along, and he could see through it as proof of his wit and reason," the princess told her whole court, as everyone sighed in relief. "Renly Durrandon, the hope and the hero of the Stormlands. Lively and confident, lovely and graceful, solemn and not afraid at all, brave as the Warrior, true as steel, and bright as the stars."
"Elysenne of Tarth," the young ruler of the Stormlands said, with his right hand upon the middle of his chest. "I have not come to woo you for the sake of your beauty or your power, and both of us are close to one another enough to understand it, but to hear your wise conversation, to ease your loneliness and soothe you when you are troubled, and to ride by your side, to one another's aid, should the storm of war trouble our lands once more."
And he was as pleased with her as she was with him. Indeed. He found her charming, and she found him after her taste.
The next day, the sept bells of Evenfall Hall were pealing merrily for the first time in eighteen long years, and ships from all over the Stormlands coast were moored on the docks at the foot of the tall cliff. The suitors who had lost their chance to win the bride were invited to the wedding, and homing ravens were sent to every household of rank in the lands, so that every noble in the Stormlands was present in all their splendour. Queen Mother Ravella sat next to Andrew Penrose and his young wife on one of the pews in the front row, as Lord Axell led his ward down the aisle and into the presence of the Seven Gods. She was wearing her frilly silk bridal gown, though a breastplate of polished steel was shining on her chest, and her favourite sword was hanging from her belt, by her side, and she wore her helmet instead of a flower or ivy crown, her golden hair as bright as the candles in a looser braid on her back. The bridegroom, tall and slender, with hair black as midnight and skin fair as moonlight, his blue eyes sparkling as cheerfully as hers, embraced her between the altars of the Father and the Mother, as the Maiden and the Warrior looked on from behind, with their lindenwood eyes, at their mortal likenesses embracing and receiving the septon's blessing. And then, as she ran his fingers through his raven locks and he shut his azure eyes, they shared a passionate kiss on one another's lips, as both their hearts skipped a beat and they realized that they were meant to be one.
After twilight and at the end of the feast, as the sound of dancing filled their ears and their minds, the beautiful maiden came out on the ramparts with her lover.
"How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
"I hope no more hardships come in between us," she answered. "Now shut your eyes and trust me!"
So he closed his dreamy eyes, the colour of summer lakes, and received one more kiss on the parted lips, as his bride, now his spouse, clasped his slender waist.
The revels after the wedding lasted for seven days on both sides of the Straits, and from that day on, it was agreed that the island of Tarth and its ruling household would become part of the Stormlands, never to be a free kingdom again, yet always shielded and guarded by the might of those who owned the fury.
From that day on, Renly Durrandon and Elysenne of Tarth were as happily married as a royal pair could be, living for a while in Storm's End, then at Evenfall, and changing their dwelling-place every now and then. Should you ever at twilight have climbed up to their bedchamber window in any of their keeps, you would have found them asleep in one another's arms, his face quite hidden in her golden hair, and a head of dark hair, quite black, which was doubtlessly his, whose hidden face was clean shaven and soft.
Their reign was a rare time of nearly constant peace, of those so cherished by the Stormlanders of those days, and the first children born unto their passionate, never-quenched love were twin boys, born the same day yet each one with a different hair colour: Alyn, golden-haired like his mother, who inherited Elysenne's crest of suns and moons and became the first Lord of Tarth; and Argilac, with locks dark as midnight, the Crown Prince, who would wear the crown of antlers after his father's death in a skirmish against some Dornish raiders, and be the next Storm King and one of the last, decades before Orys Baratheon changed the surname of those who ruled the Stormlands.


A Stormy Evening: After the Story

Evening had already segued into midnight, and the storm had given way to calm, when Septa Poppine ended a story that, though it had been long and winding, she had breathed as much life into as she could, hoping that her listeners would not find it tiresome and leave her, to go to bed or fall asleep at her feet. Three little Lannisters were curled up by the dying fire, their eyelids heavy though their minds were clear and their eyes, five green as mint and one black as coal, were still open. The lump on the nape of Jaime's neck had dwindled to such a size that it could barely be seen, and his little golden head was no longer sore. Cersei was now by his side, slightly rubbing her emerald orbs, and the imp had lain down on the carpeted floor to listen to the end of the story, with his history book for a pillow. Now all three had to go to bed at last, and, as the septa showed them the way, both the Lannister twins tugged each one at one of her blue sleeves. They had walked out of the Great Hall and up a winding staircase, and now they were walking along the corridor that led to the Lannisters' bedchambers. The septa was carrying the third sibling in her arms, and Tyrion said it was the closest he had been so far to riding a real dragon.
"This has been the greatest story so far!" Jaime was as excited as only he could be. "I was cheering on Renly and Elysenne to get one another right from the start. They got to fight in a real war and were always there for one another! Yet there is something in the end that puzzles me."
"What?" the young septa curiously inquired, as she tilted her head towards the little heir.
"The drinks in the last test... Was there no poison? Was it all a lie, a trick, as the princess had said?"
"It was a trick," Septa Poppine replied with a smile.
"Then..." Now it was Cersei's turn to ask. "If she lied to everyone at court, why would she ever do that?"
"As a test." The septa stroked and ruffled her ward's golden hair. "To see whether her suitor or any one of her nobles and servants would fall for the trick, to see how clever they were."
Cersei stood there without saying anything, in wonder, until she finally broke her own silence. "How I wish I were Elysenne of Tarth! Then, I would get to wear armour and a sword, and choose someone I liked for my husband, and fight for his sake and save his life whenever he was in trouble..."
Thus, Septa Poppine looked deep into the little girl's mint-green eyes and asked her if she was fond of any boy in particular. Not saying anything, Cersei blushed and hid her face in a fold of the septa's skirt.
"Rhaegar Targaryen," Jaime suddenly said. "She always says his name and sighs when she daydreams."
Now Cersei hid even the golden crown of her head into the fold of blue cloth, as the imp suddenly replied, in the septa's arms, with wistful twinkles in his eyes:
"Oberyn Martell. The Dornish prince, eh, Seisei? And you, Septa, don't listen to what this airhead has said."
Jaime got up and leapt towards the septa, to try to tickle his little brother, while muttering:
"Airhead? I'll give you airhead, you odd-eyed goblin of the caves!"
A touch from Septa Poppine's left index finger between his eyes, and he stood there feeling his anger drift away, feeling all warm and calm inside for a reason he could not understand.
"Well, I found the story a great one as well, even though it lacked dragons. The riddles at the end were the best part of it all. Learned and clever as they were, both the leading characters were more interesting than none other one before," Tyrion said, both his eyes already half shut and his little arms clasped around the young septa's neck.
"Well, it happens to be my favourite story as well!" Septa Poppine had now reached the twins' bedchamber, and these two had now entered their canopy bed, ready to receive a good-night kiss. "I have always loved Elysenne of Tarth, and it pleases me to hear that there are others who prefer her above every other fairytale character, like I do myself! And, changing subject, Cersei..." The Lannister twins had already sauntered into bed, leaving a narrow gap in the bed-curtains, and the septa whispered gently, softly, on the side on which the girl was falling asleep. "Cersei... do you like Rhaegar or Oberyn?"
A sweet and sleepy voice came to her through the gap in the scarlet velvet curtains, thickly embroidered with gold thread. And the septa listened with attention at what the little golden-haired girl was saying:
"Rhaegar... I like Prince Rhaegar...  he looks so good... he's so gentle and so clever... and so nice... It would be great if I were his true 'Ser Goodwin...'"
Then, gently parting the bed-curtains for a while, he kissed her, and then her twin brother, on the forehead, wishing both of them good night. Now all that was left to do was leaving the little imp, who was falling asleep in her arms, in his own bedchamber, but, ere she took her leave of the twins for the night, the young septa smiled as she kindly said the words with which she usually ended each story.
"Well, I'm overjoyed that all of us liked today's story, my children!", Septa Poppine said. "Hope that tomorrow's story, though it may be different, will be equally interesting!"