Chapter Text
As the sun set over Ashford Meadow, it cast long, blood-red shadows across the ruined field. The grass was torn and blackened with mud; broken lances lay scattered across the ground like the bleached bones of some enormous beast. The air smelt of sweat and earth, with a faint but unmistakable metallic smell of blood. Scents no wind could fully absolve. Ravens wheeled overhead, their harsh cries echoing like mocking laughter. They had been drawn by the promise of carrion from that day's grim spectacle. The once grand tourney had begun with the sound of trumpets, bright silks, and proud knights riding with painted shields. But ended with splintered wood, broken helmets, and wounded men being carried off. Even the victorious men rode from the battlefield with blank expressions on their faces, as if the taste of victory had turned to ash in their mouths.
Dunk – Ser Duncan the Tall, as he kept reminding himself, though the title still felt like a borrowed cloak too fine for his broad shoulders – felt as though every bone in his body had been ground into flour. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat, one of his eyes was swollen shut, the skin around it a dark, angry purple.
He stared into the water, watching his reflection wavering. The Trial of Seven was over – the first in a century, they said – and it had ended not in glory, but in a hollow victory that sat like bad meat in his gut. Prince Baelor, heir to the Iron Throne, the man who should have been king, had stepped into the mud and blood for him, for a hedge knight with no name and a shield that was newly painted, a nobody from Flea Bottom. Baelor, with his olive skin from his Dornish mother and smile that put lords and commoners alike at ease, had donned simple plate armor and a plain helmet to fight as one of Dunk's seven. And for what? To prove a hedge knight's word against a prince's spite?
The camp buzzed around him with hushed voices and frantic movement, like a hive stirred by calamity. The lords and ladies who had come for sport were now whispering about omens and curses. Servants scurried between tents, carrying pails of water or bundles of red-stained linen. The orange canopy of the viewing stand still fluttered listlessly on the eastern side of the lists, but the laughter and cheers had gone, replaced by the low dirge of maesters and the occasional wail of a woman in mourning. Broken shields lay scattered about. Dunk's own was leaning against a nearby tree. It was chipped, but still intact. A small mercy.
After the trial, when Baelor unfastened his helm, the wound was there – a terrible, indented ruin where Maekar's mace had crushed through metal and bone. But he hadn’t died. Instead, a strange, silvery-grey pallor had overtaken him, and he had slumped into the arms of the Kingsguard, his breath coming in shallow, rattling gasps.
Inside the castle, the air was thick with the scents of vinegar and boiling wine, mingled with something darker: the heavy, cloying smell of old blood and the sharp bite of incense. Maester Yormwell, a hunched man bearing a heavy chain adorned with silver and gold links, worked alongside three others from nearby keeps. Their robes were stained and their faces were drawn.
Beyond the walls, unknown to the knights and lords in Ashford, a different kind of work was being done. Hundreds of leagues to the south, in the Red Keep of King's Landing, Lord Brynden Rivers sat in a dimly lit room, the faint light from a single brazier casting eerie shadows on his pale, gaunt face. They called him Bloodraven – the King's Hand, a sorcerer by some, a man who traded secrets in shadows. His skin was milky white, his long hair resembling freshly fallen snow, and his remaining eye burned red like a weirwood leaf. The other eye socket was empty, a scar from his duel with Bittersteel at the Redgrass Field, where his arrows – guided by sorcery, according to some – had killed Daemon Blackfyre and his sons.
The room was sparse, befitting a man who required little beyond his webs of spies and spells. Before him, a pool of dark wine in a silver basin reflected not the ceiling, but a distant, cloudy and ominous sky. Now, with news of the trial spreading quickly, he acted. His pale hands moved in intricate patterns, tracing sigils in the air that glowed faintly before fading. His lips murmured words in an ancient Valyrian tongue, words of binding and sacrifice. Although he couldn’t be at Ashford in person, his reach was long: a tether of blood and magic that could pull a soul back from the Stranger's grasp.
But such magic came at a price. The old tales were true: a life for a life. The gods – or the shadows that Bloodraven served through his thousand eyes – exacted their toll. As the spell wove its threads around Baelor's fading essence, pulling it back like a fish on a hook, the price was paid. In the royal apartments King Daeron II Targaryen stirred in his sleep. His heart, steady for years through ruling with justice and mercy, suddenly faltered, ceasing its beat as if stopped by an unseen hand.
The news arrived at Ashford three days later. King Daeron II, the Good, was dead. He had passed in his sleep, his heart simply ceasing to beat at the very moment Prince Baelor’s rattling breath had steadied into the deep, rhythmic sleep of a man who would live. The maesters called it a tragic coincidence, a tragic irony of the Seven, but those who gazed at the pale moon hanging like a dead eye in the sky knew better. The father had paid for the son.
Prince Maekar sat alone in his tent brooding. The weight of a brother's near-death and a father's sudden passing had carved deep lines into his square, iron-hard face, which was already marked by pox scars on his cheeks. The spiked mace that had nearly killed Baelor leaned against the tent pole. Despite the squires' scrubbing, its head still seemed flecked with dried blood.
Maekar stared into a goblet of dark Dornish red, swirling it absently. He had always been overshadowed by his brothers. His victories were attributed to others. And now this: a blow intended for an enemy during a trial, which had landed on his own kin. The realm would whisper of kinslaying and ambition gone unchecked. He regrated it, but regret changed nothing. The throne would pass to Baelor, or rather to what remained of him.
On the fourth day, he called for Dunk. The tournament was over; the lists were closed without fanfare and the festive banners were replaced by black ones for mourning. Squires dismantled the pavilions and the wagons rumbled away, laden with armor and silks.
"My brother lives. The maesters say he is in a sleep from which he may not wake for moons, or years. But his heart beats. They tell me it is a miracle." He let out a short, bitter bark of a laugh. "The gods love a jape. My father is dead, my brother is a ghost in a shell, and I am the one who struck the blow."
Dunk shifted uncomfortably, his one good eye meeting Maekar's gaze. "It was a trial, m'lord. The gods were meant to judge. You fought for your sons, as any father would."
"The gods did judge," Maekar snapped. "They judged that a hedge knight's foot was worth a king's life and a prince's mind." He paced away, his boots thumping on the carpeted ground, stopping by a small table where a map of the Seven Kingdoms lay unrolled, pins marking Ashford and nearby keeps. "I have made my decisions. The realm can’t afford more of Aerion’s madness. Not now, with the throne passing to a man who can’t yet speak his own name."
"I have sent Aerion away," Maekar announced abruptly. "Not to Lys, as I first intended. The Free Cities would be a playground for a monster like him, with their silks, spices and sellswords to feed his plots. No, he is going north. To the Wall."
Dunk's eyebrows rose in surprise. A prince of the blood taking the black? That was a fate reserved for thieves, rapists, and broken men, not a dragon's kin. Maekar saw the look and snorted. "A few years in the Night's Watch will teach him the weight of a sword and the cold reality of the world. If the Black Brothers can’t break his pride, the frost will."
"The Night's Watch, m'lord?" Dunk echoed, stunned. "He... he won't like the cold."
"He won't have to," Maekar said grimly. "He will learn sense, or he will die trying. Better there than poisoning the court with his fire dreams."
The prince turned back to Dunk, his gaze softening only a fraction. "My youngest son seems to have grown fond of you, ser. It is time he was a squire, but he tells me he will serve no knight but you. He is an unruly boy, as you will have noticed. Will you have him?"
Dunk's mouth opened and closed like a fish that had been pulled out of the water. Him? "Me? Egg... Aegon, I mean... m'lord, I am only a hedge knight. I have no lands, no gold, nothing but my horses and my word."
"That can be changed," said Maekar, his voice regaining its heavy iron-like composure. "There is a place for you at Summerhall. Lands in the Dornish Marches, a keep if you wish it. Swear your sword to me, and Aegon can squire for you properly. My master-at-arms will finish your training – you fight like a bull in a rage, all strength and no finesse. You still have much to learn."
Dunk thought of Ser Arlan. He had never seen a king’s court, nor walked beneath painted ceilings or eaten from silver plates. For seventy years, he had ridden the roads, sleeping under the stars with his saddle for a pillow and eating salt beef and hard bread until his teeth ached. He died poor, but he died his own man. Arlan of Pennytree, with his gap-toothed grin and eyes like chipped flints that were sharp enough to spot a lie at twenty paces or a good campsite in the gloom. He’d been a hedge knight through and through, with no lands of his own and no lord to serve except the occasional tourney sponsor who’d pay a pittance for a lance broken in their name. Arlan had chased glory from the Dornish Marches to the Neck and back again, tilting at every melee and mystery knight contest that promised a purse or a hot meal. He unhorsed lords and laughed about it over ale, but he never chained himself to one. “A knight's oath is to the realm, boy,” he would say, “not to some fat arse on a velvet seat.” Dunk had believed him back when he was a Flea Bottom urchin, with only his fists and height to keep the wolves at bay. He still believed him, even after burying the old man under a pile of stones by a muddy stream with only a penny tree sapling to mark the spot.
The road was hard. It blistered your feet and emptied your purse. It gave you cold nights, bad ale, and the chance of a blade in the dark. But it was honest. A man rose or fell by his own hand.
"I've had enough of princes for a while, m'lord," Dunk said, the words surprising even him. "I want to be a knight. A real knight. The kind Ser Arlan told me about. I don't think I can find that in a castle."
Maekar's face clouded over, his violet eyes narrowing. "You would turn down a place in my household? To sleep in ditches and beg for your bread?"
"I'd rather sleep under the stars than under a roof I didn't earn," Dunk replied.
The prince stared at him for a long moment and then nodded curtly. "Then you go alone. Aegon will return to Summerhall with me. I will not have my son wandering the Seven Kingdoms like a beggar."
Dunk left the tent with a heavy heart; the weight of the conversation was bearing down on him like an ill-fitting suit of armor. He packed his few belongings: an old wool tunic, a pair of stiff, dirt-covered breeches, a shield bearing an elm and a star, and a few coins. Thunder, his big destrier, nickered softly as Dunk saddled him. Chestnut stamped a hoof impatiently.
He felt a pang of guilt for leaving Egg behind. The boy had been the best squire a man could have wished for, even though he was a prince who had lied about his name. But Maekar was right; the road was no place for a dragon's child.
As he reached the edge of the trees where the meadow gave way to the winding road south, a small figure emerged from behind a wagon. The boy was bald as an egg, his head shining in the fading light. He wore old boots that were too big for him, brown breeches that were patched at the knees, and a travel-stained cloak that smelled of horses and wood smoke. His large, purple eyes sparkled with mischief.
"My father says I am to serve you," Egg said, his voice bright and certain.
Dunk stopped, staring down at him, Thunder's reins loose in his hand. "He... he said that? I just spoke with him not an hour ago. He said you were going to Summerhall with him."
Egg looked him square in the eye. " He changed his mind. Said you were a 'stubborn, giant fool' and that if I wanted to be one too, he wouldn't stop me. Gave me this." He held up a small pouch filled with coins and a signet ring bearing the personal seal of the Targaryen family.
Dunk knew the boy was lying; he was as sure of that as he was of his own name. Maekar would never have given such permission, especially after the way he had looked at Dunk. Egg must have slipped away with his shaved head, defying his father in pursuit of adventure.
"You're a liar, Egg," Dunk said, though there was no heat in his voice, only a weary fondness.
"I'm a squire, ser," Egg corrected him, grinning. "And squires go where their knights go."
Dunk looked back at the meadow one last time. The sun had set, painting the sky with colors of blood and fire like a dragon's breath. Baelor lived, the king was dead, and the world was changing in ways he couldn't begin to understand. But he had a horse, a sword, and a boy who wouldn't take no for an answer.
"Dunk the lunk," he muttered to himself, shaking his head, "thick as a castle wall."
He caught the boy under the arms and heaved him onto Chestnut’s saddle. The gelding sidestepped in protest. Thunder tossed his massive head as Dunk seized the pommel and pulled himself up. "Come on then. Would you like to have a look at Dorne?"
"I hear they have good puppet shows," Egg grinned.
The shadows of the past lengthened behind them as they headed towards the horizon, two unlikely companions in a kingdom stirring from its long dream.