Gavin already knew how the war would end.
The Tyrells would never claim victory.
They would sit outside Storm’s End for more than a year, besieging the Baratheon stronghold until Robert Baratheon finally cut down Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident and took the Iron Throne for himself.
By then Aerys Targaryen was already dead, murdered by his own Kingsguard.
The Tyrells had spent the war keeping the new king’s younger brother trapped inside his own castle, forcing him to eat rats to survive.
Now they would have to scramble to make peace with the man they had helped besiege.
The timeline was clear.
The war was nearly over.
Laman came bustling out of the back with a small crock of sheep’s milk.
She pinched Gavin’s cheek again, handed him the crock, then dropped to a squat and pressed a warm, motherly kiss to his face.
Gavin’s ears burned, but he stayed perfectly still and let it happen.
He was supposed to be a child.
Laman gave him coin and extra food every time he came.
She was forty and had never had children of her own.
He understood the impulse, even if it made his skin crawl.
He walked the path home with the crock cradled carefully in both hands, his mind turning over everything he knew.
This world was not some parallel medieval realm.
It was the world of the show he had watched in his last life—Game of Thrones.
He had figured it out three years ago when the servants started whispering about the rebellion.
Robert Baratheon of Storm’s End had joined with Eddard Stark of the North, Hoster Tully of the Riverlands, and Jon Arryn of the Vale to rise against the Iron Throne.
The names had hit him like a hammer.
When his uncle Emond answered the Tyrell call and rode for Highgarden, Gavin had known the war would follow the same path he remembered.
He had been quietly building plans ever since.
A bastard with foreknowledge could go far.
He could attach himself to the right powerful man the way Bronn had attached himself to Tyrion Lannister and clawed his way up from sellsword to landed lord.
Gavin had knowledge and skills this world had never seen.
He could turn that into real wealth—an industry no one else could match.
But what truly excited him was magic.
Magic was real here.
He could already feel it in his blood.
The small flames he could summon were only the beginning.
If he could find a way to study it properly, and if the red comet truly came as he remembered, he might grow strong enough to reach for things far beyond ordinary men.
The thought sent a sharp, hungry thrill through him.
He pushed the plans aside for now and carried the milk inside.
Elisse lay on the narrow bed, coughing hard enough to shake the frame.
When she saw him she forced a tired smile and lifted one hand in greeting.
She struggled upright, voice hoarse.
“Time for our lesson.” She reached under the bed and pulled out a small, battered book bound in worn leather.
The pages were parchment, soft and yellow with age.
For the past year she had been teaching him the strange script and language that was not the Common Tongue of Westeros.
Lately the lessons had grown longer and more serious.
Gavin had guessed it must be something from Essos, since that was where she came from.
He had never asked.
Knowledge was too valuable to risk by prying.
By evening the lesson was finished.
Elisse watched her son with an unreadable expression.
In one year he had learned to read and write High Valyrian fluently.
Her hand drifted to the pendant resting against her chest.
It was a smooth, flat oval of carved bone, cool to the touch and strangely heavy for its size.
A raised hexagonal pattern stood out on the surface—ancient-looking, almost alive in the way it caught the light.
She traced it once with her thumb, and something hardened behind her eyes.
She reached out and gently stroked Gavin’s silver hair.
“Gavin,” she said softly, “have you ever heard of Valyria?” He blinked, surprised by the question, then answered carefully, drawing on everything the castle maester had ever told him and everything he already knew from another life.
“I heard the maester say that before the Doom the Valyrian Freehold was the greatest power in the world.
Forty dragonlord families ruled together.
They had thousands of dragons and conquered most of Essos.
After the Doom only the Targaryens survived among the dragonlords.
Even they had been a minor house among the forty, yet they still managed to conquer Westeros with what was left of their strength.” He studied her silver hair and violet eyes, then his own reflection in the small bronze mirror by the bed.
The same features stared back at him.
“Mother,” he asked quietly, “why do you want to know?” Elisse’s face grew solemn.
“After the Doom,” she said, “more dragonlord families survived than just the Targaryens.
Their dragons died soon after for reasons no one understood.
Then came the Century of Blood.
The Free Cities rose up.
Slave revolts swept through the ruins.
Many of the surviving dragonlords were slaughtered by the very people they once ruled.
Only the Targaryens on Dragonstone were far enough away to escape the worst of it.” Gavin stared at her, eyes wide, heart hammering with a mixture of shock and fierce, private satisfaction.
He had been right.