94 AC, King’s Landing.
The damp sea breeze carried the first light of a late-summer morning as it drifted gently through the magnificent city.
The towering Red Keep overlooked its subjects, while the distant roar of dragons echoed faintly from the depths of the Dragonpit.
Sunlight filtered through the carved latticework of the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting diamond-shaped shadows across the parchment before the young man.
The intricate sketch upon it depicted a human body in exquisite detail, bones, blood vessels, and layers upon layers of muscle.
The steel pen in the boy’s hand scratched softly across the page as he completed the final strokes.
Silver hair fell over his violet eyes, accentuating a face that was already delicate, no, almost beautiful, and lending him an even more fragile appearance.
Quentyn Qoherys had already celebrated his thirteenth nameday.
Though his fourteenth was still some time away, it was drawing closer.
As the heir to Harrenhal, he possessed a secret known only to himself.
He was a transmigrator.
Before his death, he had been a university student.
He knew A Song of Ice and Fire inside and out, and was reasonably familiar, though far from an expert, with Fire & Blood.
After being hit by a truck, awakening as a silver-haired, violet-eyed infant, and eventually confirming that he had arrived in Westeros, he had been shocked to discover that this world was…
different from the one he remembered.
“Just who was it?” Quentyn set down his pen and leaned back, sinking into the soft velvet cushion of his chair as he stared up at the gilded Lysene chandelier overhead.
“Someone capable of making such a mess of the timeline had to be another transmigrator.
But why didn’t they leave anything behind…?” Holding up the anatomical drawing that had taken him so long to complete, he fell into thought.
Two hundred years earlier, the Valyrian Freehold, the empire that had ruled half the known world, had perished at the height of its glory.
The Dragonlords who had once soared through the skies upon dragons had all fallen beneath the rain of fire.
The only dragonlord family to survive was House Targaryen.
Before the Doom, House Targaryen had lost a civil war among the forty dragonlord families.
To preserve his bloodline, Lord Aenar Targaryen chose to heed the prophecy of his daughter, Daenys the Dreamer, fleeing with five dragons, his household, and his followers to the frontier outpost of Dragonstone.
There they settled, escaping the destruction of the Doom.
The ancestors of House Qoherys had been Targaryens without dragons.
Realizing that they would never become dragonriders, Quentyn’s forebear established a cadet branch and became sworn retainers of the main Targaryen line.
In the days of the Freehold, dragonless branches and unfavored descendants held no status among the dragonlord families.
Like ordinary Valyrian nobles, they either sought opportunities in the colonies or remained in service to their dragonriding kin, preserving their bloodline through loyal service.
Over the centuries, House Qoherys had not faded away like many other cadet branches.
Instead, by repeatedly marrying into the main family, they endured until they followed Aenar Targaryen to Dragonstone.
After House Velaryon of Driftmark and House Celtigar of Claw Isle swore fealty to the Targaryens, House Qoherys was no longer the preferred choice for marriages with the dragonlords.
Even so, over Dragonstone’s century-long history, the three families had intermarried many times.
Ninety-six years ago, Quentyn’s great-great-grandfather, also named Quentyn, served as the Master-at-Arms of Dragonstone and followed King Aegon I during the Conquest.
The Targaryens subdued all of Westeros except Dorne.
The North, the Vale, the Westerlands, the Reach, the Riverlands, the Stormlands, the Iron Islands…
The fertile lands first cultivated by the First Men with bronze and fire, the kingdoms forged by the Andals with steel, warhorses, and the Faith of the Seven, and the distant lands where the exiled Rhoynar had finally found a home, all fell beneath the shadow of dragons and the rule of the Targaryen dynasty.
To reward Quentyn Qoherys for his achievements, repay the debt of his instruction, and strengthen the Valyrian nobility loyal to the Crown, King Aegon I granted him Harrenhal, the greatest castle in the Seven Kingdoms, whose towers had been melted by the dragonfire of Balerion the Black Dread during the Conquest, along with the surrounding lands beside the Gods Eye.
That was the history Quentyn knew.
Logically, the next step should have been the curse of Harrenhal taking effect, with House Qoherys becoming the castle’s first victims.
Instead, the story veered wildly into the unknown.
In 37 AC, House Qoherys, who should have been wiped out alongside Harren the Black, miraculously survived.
When Quentyn had still been a toddler crawling across the floor, he had quietly questioned his father, Lord Daeron; his mother, Princess Vaella; and his still-living grandmother, Lady Agatha, about the family’s history.
Sure enough, the story had been strange from the very beginning.
He learned that his great-great-grandfather had married twice.
His first wife had been Baenela Targaryen, an aunt of King Aegon I.
Their son was Quentyn’s great-grandfather, Aegon Qoherys.
Unfortunately, Baenela had died before the Conquest.
After being granted Harrenhal, Quentyn’s great-great-grandfather followed King Aegon’s arrangements and married Lady Lysa Tully, daughter of Lord Edmyn Tully of Riverrun.
Together they had a second son, Hoster Qoherys.
That was when disaster began.
Before Quentyn’s great-great-grandfather died in a riding accident in 9 AC, his great-grandfather, Aegon Qoherys, had already died under mysterious circumstances.
Upon losing both her husband and father-in-law within days of each other, his great-grandmother Alyssa Velaryon was overcome with terror.
When she discovered she was pregnant, that terror reached its peak.
Ignoring Lady Lysa’s pleas to stay, Alyssa fled back to her homeland of Driftmark, voluntarily renounced her inheritance, and eventually gave birth there to Quentyn’s grandfather, Aenys Qoherys.
Later, Harren the Black’s rebellion broke out as history dictated.
Hoster’s son, the infamous “Wedding Guest,” Gargon, was killed, and that branch of House Qoherys came to an end.
At the time, Quentyn’s grandfather Aenys was serving as a squire to Prince Maegor Targaryen.
After learning of Aenys’s parentage, King Aenys I restored Harrenhal to him.
From that moment onward, the timeline became complete chaos.
In short, from then on, House Qoherys repeatedly found itself on the “right” side of history.
Their loyalty was rewarded to such an extent that Quentyn’s father, Lord Daeron, was permitted to marry a Targaryen princess.
That princess was Quentyn’s mother, Princess Vaella, the younger sister of King Jaehaerys I, the Conciliator, who now sat upon the Iron Throne, and Queen Alysanne, the Good Queen.
At that moment, someone knocked lightly on the wooden door.
“Young Master Quentyn, the young master Galwyn whom you invited has arrived.” A somewhat youthful voice came from outside, followed by another, louder one.
“Robert, you little brat, you’ve grown this tall already?
Guess the old saying’s true, bastards…
ah, bastards always grow up sturdy.
The Seven always take something away, but they’re generous enough to give something back…” The door creaked open.
“Galwyn, I must remind you of two things.
First, his name is Robb, not Robert.
Second, he is your lord’s squire.
Don’t you think it’s rather disrespectful to address your own lord’s squire in such a manner?” Quentyn turned his chair around.
A black-haired boy entered first and took his place beside Quentyn, standing as straight as a spear planted in the walls of the Red Keep.
He looked even younger than Quentyn, with jet-black hair, bronze skin, a lean frame, and slender fingers, the unmistakable build of a gifted archer.
Robb Rivers, the bastard of House Blackwood from Raventree Hall, was one of the very few acquaintances Quentyn had in this era.
Five years earlier, on his way to Oldtown to study, Quentyn had deliberately detoured through Blackwood Vale.
Armed with dreams of knighthood, and, more importantly, a stick of malt candy and a pouch of copper coins, he had recruited the naked little bastard who had been running around the village and brought him into his service.
Quentyn’s gaze shifted to the large man standing dumbstruck nearby.
The fellow looked to be around forty.
His smooth, rounded forehead was completely free of stubble, while a thick, coarse black beard perfectly concealed his double chin.
His luxurious silk coat hung loosely over his bulky frame, making him resemble an overfed walrus.
Galwyn Chambers hailed from House Chambers of Spicetown, a landed knightly house sworn to House Qoherys.
As the representative of the King’s Landing Cloth Merchants’ Guild, he had become one of the city’s wealthiest merchants.
As the second son of his family, Galwyn lacked the martial skill needed to earn a knighthood.
Instead, he had chosen commerce, importing inexpensive wool from the Riverlands to weave and sell in King’s Landing.
He’s gotten fatter.
Comparing the man before him with the Galwyn in his memories, Quentyn couldn’t help becoming more cautious.
Looks like his appetite has grown as well, the boy thought.
“There is more than one noble-born bastard at court,” Quentyn said.
“If you mock one of them to their face, I suspect you know better than I do what the consequences would be.
After all, they aren’t your lord.
They won’t overlook your mistakes.” He nodded toward Robb, signaling the boy to fetch a chair for the merchant before his own expression turned serious.
Galwyn quickly came to his senses and bent over with a broad smile.
“Look at me…” He hurriedly accepted the chair from Robb and clasped the boy’s hand.
“Good heavens!
Please forgive old Galwyn’s loose tongue.
Ah, I should’ve drunk a few more tankards of thick barley ale before coming here.
Then I wouldn’t have embarrassed myself by babbling nonsense in front of Young Master Quentyn.” Robb froze, unsure how to react.
“That’s enough, Galwyn.
Stop bothering my squire.” Quentyn sighed helplessly.
An old fox with an enormous appetite…
That was Quentyn’s sincere assessment of the man.
Sure enough, the moment he spoke, Galwyn withdrew his hand and sat down opposite him.
The reverence vanished from his eyes, replaced by shrewd calculation.
Naturally, it remained perfectly hidden beneath a veneer of loyalty.
“Young Master Quentyn, you know as well as I do that the nobles and commoners of King’s Landing favor Myrish velvet above all else.
And if not Myrish, then at least second-rate Braavosi cloth.
I have no objections to the price you’ve offered…
but I’m afraid my fellow merchants may find it difficult to accept.”