“Hurry, Criston.
I am on next.”
Criston Cole did exactly that.
He worked through the last buckles on Lucas Dondarrion’s armor with efficiency, tightened the straps, and handed the knight his helmet.
Outside, the noise of the crowd rose and fell like waves with every crack of a lance.
Lucas Dondarrion was the brother of the current Lord of Blackhaven and had ridden three tourneys before this one.
None of them had been anything like this.
The tournament honoring King Jaehaerys’s fiftieth year of reign was the grandest in memory, drawing knights and lords from every corner of the realm.
The namedays of his grandsons and the birth of his great-granddaughter had given the Crown three reasons to celebrate at once, and they had done so with much enthusiasm, even if Prince Baelon’s uncertain condition cast a shadow over the festivities.
Criston had heard the whispers in the camp at night.
That the celebration had been made grander than planned on purpose.
That the King wanted people to have something to look at other than the shadow hanging over the succession.
Either way, half the nobility of Westeros was now within a mile of the city walls.
The food stalls had been running since dawn.
Criston had barely slept.
He and Lucas had come to King’s Landing for exactly this.
To make names for themselves.
Lucas more than Criston, though Criston had his own reasons.
He had spent two weeks pestering the man into letting him enter the squires’ melee until Lucas had finally agreed, mostly to stop being asked.
Criston’s father had also managed to acquire a suit of armor.
It barely fit.
Criston was already built far broader than most men his age, and the chest piece sat tight in a way that would have been a problem if he intended to lose.
He did not intend to lose.
Lucas put on his helmet.
A moment later the herald’s voice rang out across the field.
“Ser Lucas Dondarrion and Ser Ryam Redwyne, come forth!”
Criston followed Lucas out of the tent, the fabric falling shut behind him.
Bright sunlight hit his face and he blinked, nearly forgetting to hand Lucas his shield as the knight pulled himself up onto his horse.
Lucas grabbed it with more force than necessary.
Criston quickly passed up the lance as well, then stepped back out of the way.
For the first time he had a moment to actually look around.
The stands were packed from end to end.
Dragon banners hung limp in the still air.
Then his eyes found the other end of the lists.
He stopped, finally comprehending against whom Lucas was jousting.
He had heard of the man.
Everyone had.
Ser Ryam Redwyne.
Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
The finest knight in the realm, or so they said.
He sat atop his horse in white armor that caught the sunlight cleanly, utterly still.
Criston had seen knights before.
He had grown up around them.
This was something different.
He could not look away.
It fascinated him.
Criston did not notice the gaze that had been fixed on him since he stepped out of the tent.
His eyes were on Ser Ryam only.
The trumpet sounded.
It began.
Maekar reached the royal lodge with Ser Clement at his back.
The guards at the entrance bowed and pulled the curtain aside without a word.
“So you and Daemon will participate tomorrow as well?”Maekar asked.
Ser Clement nodded.
When they stepped through, every head turned.
His dragon had remained a rumour outside the Red Keep, something his grandfather had worked hard to maintain, carefully and deliberately, although rumours were bound to spread eventually.
Jaehaerys and Alysanne sat in the foremost row, both looking at him.
His grandfather with mostly concern.
His grandmother with a small smile.
To Jaehaerys’s right sat Septon Barth.
The Hand of the King.
The old man looked up at Maekar and smiled warmly.
Maekar held his gaze for a moment.
He did not smile.
Instead he looked at that smile and saw everything behind it.
Barth had sat at Jaehaerys’s side for decades and he was very good at what he did.
“Hypocrite,” he murmured as he descended.
Beside Barth sat Viserys, who had already turned his attention back to Otto Hightower seated in the row behind.
Aemma sat next to her husband, quiet and composed.
In the second row, Corlys and Rhaenys both acknowledged him as he passed.
He chose the empty seat beside Gael, who sat on Alysanne’s other side.
The two of them seemed to be drawing something from each other’s company.
He had barely seen Gael since returning to the Red Keep, since the days of his father being transported home, still unresponsive.
Perhaps that was where she had been as well.
“How have you been, aunt?” he asked, studying her.
She wore a red and black dress, the colors of their house.
Her silver hair fell long past her shoulders.
By any measure she was striking, nineteen years old and still not married.
For a moment she only looked at him.
Then a bright smile broke across her face, sudden and genuine.
“Thank you for asking, little nephew.”
A small laugh.
Although I must correct myself.”
She leaned slightly closer, dropping her voice.
“Little is rather unfitting.
The rider of the mighty Cannibal.”
Maekar found her refreshing.
There was no performance to her, no careful courtesy or layered meaning.
He returned her laugh.
“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen it inside the Dragonpit.”
Maekar nodded on the surface.
But beneath, he wondered.
Gael had never claimed a dragon.
What business did she have wandering the dragonpit?
“He remains on Dragonstone.
Grandfather does not wish the realm to hear of him yet.”
Then the herald’s voice cut across the field.
“Ser Lucas Dondarrion and Ser Ryam Redwyne, come forth!”
Maekar turned toward the lists.
Whoever this Lucas was, Ser Ryam would make short work of him.
He was certain of it.
But then his eyes moved and stopped.
There was a boy standing beside the Dondarrion knight.
A squire.
Dark haired, broad for his age, holding a lance with ease.
Something about him drew Maekar’s attention.
Then it clicked.
Balerion had shown him this face.
Older than the boy standing there now, but unmistakably the same.
“It’s him,” Maekar said quietly, leaning forward.
He did not notice Lucas Dondarrion get unhorsed in the second charge.
He barely heard the crowd.
Then the boy looked up.
Their eyes met across the distance.
Maekar smiled.
Criston was not expecting it.
He glanced toward the royal box for a moment.
The King was there, and the Queen, and others whose faces he did not know well enough to name quickly.
And a silver haired boy looking directly at him.
Not at Lucas.
Not at Ser Ryam.
At him?
The age was about right, though the boy looked closer to ten than to six, which was the number he had heard.
That had to be Maekar Targaryen.
He was sure of it.
The Prince was smiling.
“Sword!”
Lucas’s voice snapped him back.
The knight was already stamping toward him, helmet still on, irritation in his voice.
Criston grabbed the sword and the fresh shield and held them out.
Lucas ripped them from his hands without a word and turned back toward Ser Ryam.
They clashed several times, Lucas throwing himself forward with everything he had.
But Ser Ryam seemed easy about it.
He turned aside each strike with small movement, deflecting where he had to and dodging where he didn’t, as if he had already seen each attack before it came.
Then he struck.
A hit to the shoulder first, clean and measured.
Lucas adjusted, came back, and Ser Ryam caught the next blow on his shield, rotated smoothly, and brought his sword down across the foot and then up across the helm in a single fluid motion.
Lucas stood for a moment.
Then he went down.
The crowd erupted into cheers as Ser Ryam raised his hand.
Goosebumps crawled over Criston’s skin.
He had never seen anything like it.
Not the strength, not the speed.
The control.
That was what he wanted.
Not just to win, but to move like that.
It was the only dream he had ever had that felt worth having.
As the son of Lord Dondarrion’s steward he would either inherit his father’s position or carve out something for himself.
The latter was harder by a lot.
By the time Criston got back to the tent Lucas was already inside, sitting on the edge of his cot with his helmet off and his mood even worse than his bleeding shoulder.
He did not say anything when Criston entered.
He just looked at him, and then swung.
The back of his hand slapped Criston across the cheek.
He straightened without a word and stood there, jaw tight, waiting for it to be over.
“Useless,” Lucas said.
“The lance was late.
The shield was late.
Everything was late.”
Criston said nothing.
Another strike caught him across the shin.
He did not move, even as his lip began to bleed.
When the silence had stretched long enough to suggest it was over, Criston finally spoke.
“When will you knight me?”
Lucas looked at him.
Then he laughed.
“Knight you?” He shook his head and reached for the wine at his side.
“You will be lucky if I keep you on past the month.”
“What are you looking at?!” Lucas barked, raising his hand once more.
This time, Criston caught it by the wrist.
Lucas stared at him, eyes wide.
“You will pay for that!” he shouted.
But Criston simply let go and walked out of the tent.
He had no direction in mind.
He just walked.
Through the camp first, past the other tents and the cookfires.
The barns later and then through the city gates and into King’s Landing, where the streets were still filled with people who had come for the tournament.
He walked until the noise thinned and the alleys grew quieter.
Then he stopped, leaned against a wall, and looked up at the sky.
For a moment he just breathed.
He was scared.
Not for himself but for his father, who would carry the consequences of what he had just done.
The man had given him everything and asked for very little in return.
He clenched his fists, standing there for a long time.
Then something passed by.
A tall figure had just passed the mouth of the alley, hooded, moving with purpose.
Beside him walked a small boy with silver hair just visible beneath his own hood.
Criston recognised the boy from the royal lodge.
“The Prince,” he blurted out.
His heart quickened.
Perhaps fate had not abandoned him just yet.
He pushed off the wall and followed.
Maekar pinched his nose.
Flea Bottom really was the worst of King’s Landing.
The smell alone was enough to make a case for burning the whole district down and starting over, though he supposed that was a problem for another day.
They reached their destination.
The brothel had no sign above the door.
A pair of torches flanked the entrance, throwing orange light across the stones.
Maekar had spent considerable effort convincing Ser Clement to bring him here, and even more convincing him it was not for the obvious reason.
“My Prince.” Ser Clement’s voice dropped low.
He tilted his head almost imperceptibly.
Maekar had already noticed.
“Why are you following us?” he asked into the dark.
Silence.
Then a figure stepped out of the shadows.
The same young man Maekar had watched at the lists that afternoon.
“My Prince.” He lowered his head, though his eyes stayed on the sword Ser Clement had half drawn.
Maekar gestured for him to stand down.
He would not have this one hurt.
“Your name.”
“Criston Cole, my Prince.”
Maekar studied him.
The boy’s lip was split.
There were bruises along his cheek.
Fresh ones.
“You are hurt.”
“Nothing serious,” Criston answered quickly.
“Then what do you want from me?”
Criston hesitated, surprised by the directness.
“You have been following me for some time,” Maekar said.
“So you must want something.
What is it?”
Something moved within the boy’s eyes.
He swallowed once, and then seemed to make a decision.
“May I enter your service, my Prince?”
Ser Clement stepped forward.
Maekar raised a hand and stepped forward as well.
“Why should I?”
Criston looked towards the ground for a moment, before raising his head.
“I have nothing, my Prince.”
His voice was quiet.
“No name.
No future.
No one willing to give me what I have rightfully earned.”
“All I can offer is me.”
“Just me.”
“And that is enough,” Maekar said, smiling lightly.
“I welcome you into my service, Criston Cole.”
Criston stood very still for a moment.
No one had ever done that before.
Given him something without making him pay for it first.
His father was the only person who had ever come close.
He looked up once more.
The sky above Flea Bottom was full of stars, more than one would expect from a place like that.
He finally saw them clearly.
They reflected in his brown pupils.
He wondered, not for the first time, whether there was one up there with his name on it.
Perhaps one day he would find out.
Thanks for the support, everyone