“The king is dead!”
The words echoed through the narrow streets and squares of King’s Landing, filled with terror and confusion.
They became the beginning of the end.
After the allied forces of Tywin Lannister entered King’s Landing, the city fell silent for a moment.
It held its breath, like before a storm.
While rows of marching soldiers flowed into the city through the main gates like a full river, the residents, on the other hand, hid in their homes.
No merchant, Kingsguard, city watchman, common laborer, or beggar knew what awaited them.
But when the wildfire of rumors avalanched down from the Red Keep, it seemed even the lowest drunkard lying in a stupor somewhere in the slums already knew: trouble was coming.
“The king is dead…” The voices repeated again and again, like a grim song that could not stop.
But Jaime, the man without honor, knew this better than anyone.
His hand had ended the Mad King’s life.
When the first of his father’s soldiers reached the highest towers of the Red Keep, Jaime Lannister stood among the rubble of the past and silently tightened his grip on his sword hilt.
The cold gleam of steel in his hand seemed like a reflection of the icy emptiness spreading through his chest.
He walked through the throne room, stepping across marble floors generously drenched in the blood of Aerys’s faithful servants, pyromancers, and guards, stopping before the view of the city that had never been burned to ash.
But even its current fate was hardly more dignified.
King’s Landing was left without its ruler.
The shadow of chaos quickly enveloped its streets.
Fires flickered in windows, and behind them, streets erupted in the flames of looting and violence.
The army, clad in gleaming armor, moved through the city streets like an avalanche: unstoppable, merciless.
Tywin Lannister waited patiently until the throne lay defenseless.
And when the king’s last breath dissolved into the cold air, the Golden Lion brought terror and death to those who dared to mortally insult the patient and vengeful beast.
The Red Keep fell first.
The crimson guards tore down priceless tapestries from the walls without mercy.
Gold flowed from chests, cabinets, and hidden corners like a river drawn by the greedy hands of soldiers.
The halls where the fates of seven kingdoms had once been decided became scenes of barbaric plunder.
Wine spilled across floors, mixing with the blood of those who dared to resist.
Servants, knights, courtiers; many of them had already met their deaths.
But countless others still supported Aerys, and all of them had to face their deserved punishment.
The streets of the city, usually filled with merchants and townsfolk, now resembled a battlefield.
Soldiers in golden armor broke into houses, turning everything out down to the last copper pot.
The wealthy and landowners who had considered themselves untouchable under the king’s rule knelt before their robbers, begging for mercy.
But for the lion that had tasted blood, there was neither pity nor mercy.
Every house, every shop, everything was now the soldiers’ “lawful” spoils.
On Blackwater Bay, the flagstaffs of dozens of ships rustled, laden with plundered goods.
Statues, gold, jewels from the royal treasury; everything that could be carried was sent to the distant lands of Casterly Rock.
Wood groaned under the weight of riches flowing from the plundered city.
When the sun began to set beyond the horizon, painting the city in blood-red light, only the ashes of former greatness remained on its streets.
King’s Landing was no longer “royal.” It became a trophy, a piece of loot that belonged to the Lannisters.
But as everyone knew, lions always remember that the hunt never lasts forever.
So Tywin easily let the stag into the plundered castle.
He already had an offer the other could not refuse.
And the country, torn by war for some time now, desperately longed for peace.
Dragonstone, once the majestic fortress of the Targaryens, was now filled with fear and despair.
Robert Baratheon’s forces had already captured King’s Landing, and rumors of the Mad King Aerys’s death spread through the castle.
The dragon banners, which had proudly flown in the wind for decades, became symbols of doom.
Viserys, young and frightened, had never before felt the weight of responsibility on his shoulders.
He stood at the window in his chambers and watched the people scurrying in different directions with disbelief.
He was only nine years old, but he already understood that their home had fallen, and now survival depended solely on him.
His sister, the newborn Daenerys, had been born only days ago, and their mother had died in childbirth.
Now the baby was his only family.
The servants who remained loyal to House Targaryen hastily gathered the few remaining valuables: gold, precious stones, everything they could carry.
The old knight Willem Darry, a veteran of the palace guard, organized their escape.
Despite the doubts, fears, and uncertainty gnawing at him, his face remained firm and his voice confident as he told Viserys it was time to leave.
Outside the castle, bad weather raged.
Not yet a storm, but something close to it.
Rain fell.
Lightning split the night sky, illuminating Dragonstone with flashes, as if the dragons that once ruled the skies had returned to the world for a moment.
Under cover of night and the storm, a ship prepared for escape waited in the secret harbor, hidden from the eyes of the invaders.
It was their only salvation: secrecy.
An old, creaky merchant ship they would board as simple fugitives, not as descendants of dragons.
As they left the castle walls, Viserys looked back at the ancient towers where his ancestors had grown up.
There, on the high walls, he could almost feel the presence of the dragons that once dwelled there, could almost hear the echo of their roars.
But all that was in the past.
Now their home was only a legend, and they were the last fragments of that great legacy.
Clenching his fists tightly, he walked through the castle’s dark corridors, led by Ser Darry and his servants.
When they reached the harbor, they barely managed to board before the storm grew even more fierce.
The ship swayed on the waves like a reed in a boiling current.
Daenerys slept quietly, unaware of the chaos surrounding her, unaware that she had been born in the flames of war and ruin.
Viserys, shivering from the cold, stood on the deck and watched Dragonstone, his family’s last stronghold, disappearing into the night.
His lips whispered words full of malice and bitterness: “One day we will return.
And you will all pay for this, all of you!
You should not have woken the dragon…”
But that night, under the roar of thunder and howl of wind, they were just two children fleeing into the unknown.
On the other side of the bay, in one of the Red Keep’s chambers, a newborn cried desperately in the arms of a midwife, only calming when he reached his mother.
“It’s a boy, my lady,” the woman said with regret, bowing just in case.
“I can see that,” the exhausted woman replied with tears in her eyes, gazing at the child’s deep blue eyes, who latched onto her breast desperately, as if sensing that it would soon be taken from him forever.
She gently stroked his dark hair, with its small, almost white streak.
“My lady, you told me yourself,” the woman reminded her.
“Yes, I know…
just a few more minutes.”
The orphanage, established under the patronage of the Church of the Seven in King’s Landing, was a place where divine mercy met harsh reality.
It stood near the sept, a tall white stone building from which quiet prayers and the ringing of bells emanated from all sides.
The walls of the orphanage were modest compared to those of the sept, but well-maintained, adorned with carved symbols of the Seven: the faces of the Father, the Mother, the Maiden, and all the others whose care, it was believed, also extended to these children.
There were too many children for such a small, neglected place.
Orphans left without parents by wars, famine, or disease hid in corners, sat on dirty wooden benches, or played quietly on the floor.
Their faces were thin, their eyes empty, accustomed to hunger and indifference.
Some whispered scraps of songs to themselves, others cried softly, but no one noticed their tears.
The young septa, Unella, who ran the orphanage, walked through the halls, hunched and grim, her face as gaunt as the children’s.
She was stern but fair, though she herself had long stopped believing in justice.
The endless days of war were especially hard on such places.
Instead of toys, the children had simple things: pebbles, rag dolls they made themselves.
Sometimes they played at knights and princesses.
Occasionally, during prayer hours, one could see a child kneeling before a statue of the Mother, silently whispering pleas, dreaming of a better life, of parents they would never see.
Quiet tears were a familiar companion to many prayers, but they were always followed by tightly clenched little fists and the resilience instilled in them by the harsh realities of the orphanage.
In the large hall where the children slept and ate, the long wooden benches were too narrow to sleep on, and the floors, despite the servants’ efforts, were always cool and made of stone.
Every morning began with prayer: to the Mother, who was supposed to protect the orphans, and to the Father, that he might judge their fate with mercy.
The septa and a few septons cared for the children, but weariness was etched on their faces: too many were in need, and too few were able to give.
Inside the orphanage, a dim, quiet atmosphere reigned, pierced by the reverent whisper of prayers.
Light filtering through the tall, narrow windows painted the walls in soft golden hues, creating an illusion of peace.
But that peace was deceptive.
The children who lived here were drawn to the church’s grandeur, yet the weight of a life full of hardship was reflected in their eyes.
They lived under the protection of the Mother and the Father, as the septons said, but they were often hungry, their clothes old and worn, and their future uncertain.
But that morning, the orphans’ lives changed for the better.
After a generous donation, in exchange for some not-too-burdensome obligations, the orphanage received a large sum in silver.
And just one extra mouth, one that would not be able to chew solid food for a long time.
Unella did not think long about the exchange, even though nursing the child caused her some discomfort.
Instead of stale bread and thin broth with boiled vegetables, hearty meat soup and fresh bread appeared on the tables.
When the children received their food, for the first time in a long while, the hall filled with genuine laughter and joy.
This joy was a reflection of a new era that was supposed to begin after the accession of King Robert Baratheon, the First of His Name.
An era of plenty and prosperity.
An era of lasting peace.