I strolled into the main hall with my usual unhurried pace, the casual sway of my shoulders contrasting sharply with the rigid atmosphere of the room. The table was set, but there was no warmth in the arrangement. Stannis sat at the head, his face still carved from granite, while his wife, Selyse, sat beside him. She looked like a woman who had never known a day of laughter in her life, her pale features cold as winter frost. She clutched a small girl, barely four years old, who looked at me with wide, uncertain eyes.
Then there was the boy. He sat across from where I would be, slumped in his chair with an expression of profound boredom. He had the kind of black hair that seemed to absorb the light and sky blue eyes that pierced through you. He was my age, but while I had the sharp features of Valyria and the eyes of the North, he was the living image of the Baratheon fury in repose.
I gave a light, almost perfunctory bow. "Lord Stannis, My lady."
Without waiting for an invitation, I slid into the seat beside the boy and began to eat, reaching for a piece of bread with zero ceremony. The table went silent except for the sound of my chewing.
"I must thank you, Lord Stannis, for the room," I said between bites, speaking with my mouth half full. "I like it very much."
Selyse's lips thinned into a line of obvious distaste at my manners, and Stannis's jaw tightened. But the boy beside me finally moved. He turned his head slowly, his blue eyes scanning me from my simple clothes to my messy hair. He didn't look impressed, but he also didn't look bored anymore. He was studying me, the way a predator studies a new kind of prey that doesn't seem to know it's being hunted.
I took a sidelong glance at the boy beside me. He was like a mirror image of what a Baratheon should be all steel and storm clouds but his eyes held a familiar kind of isolation. I knew that look. It was the look of a child who had been raised as a tool rather than a person.
Instead of engaging with his brooding silence, I turned my attention to the little girl. Her mother's grip on her was tight, almost possessive, but the girl's curiosity was clearly winning out over her fear.
I softened my expression, letting the merchant's mask and the prince's armor drop away entirely. "What's your name, little one?" I asked gently, my voice quiet enough to not startle her but warm enough to be inviting.
The little girl blinked, her lips parting slightly. She looked up at her mother, then at her father, seeking permission to speak. Stannis didn't even glance her way; his attention was still fixed on me, his pale eyes analyzing whether this sudden shift in demeanor was another tactic or genuine.
"Shireen," she whispered, her voice so small it was almost swallowed by the vastness of the hall.
I gave her a genuine smile, one that reached my eyes. "Shireen. That's a pretty name. Do you like the castle? I think it's amazing, though I'm still trying to figure out where all the good hiding spots are."
Selyse's face tightened further at my informality, but Shireen's eyes brightened. A tiny, tentative smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. For a moment, the oppressive atmosphere of the hall seemed to lighten, and the boy beside me shifted in his seat, his blue eyes darting between me and his sister.
The boy's voice was rougher than Shireen's, carrying a hint of that Baratheon growl even at nine years old. He didn't smile he seemed to have forgotten how but he turned fully toward me now, his blue eyes studying my Valyrian features with an intensity that was almost confrontational.
"I am Lyonel," he said, his chest puffing out slightly. "Lyonel Baratheon. What's yours?"
I turned to face him properly, resting my chin in my hand. I didn't offer a title or a list of honors. I didn't tell him I was a prince of the blood or the ruler of a growing territory. Those things meant nothing to a boy who lived in a castle that felt like a fortress.
I simply smiled at him, a small, knowing expression that said I see you.
"Vaegon," I replied.
It was a simple exchange, but in the context of that silent table, it felt significant. We were two children of powerful houses, both surrounded by adults who saw us as extensions of their own ambitions or failures. Lyonel was the heir to a legacy of fury and duty; I was the ghost of a prophecy that had no use for me.
Lyonel stared at me for a long moment, then glanced at my simple clothes and then back at my face. "You don't look like a prince," he noted bluntly.
"That's the best part about it," I whispered, leaning in closer so his parents couldn't hear. "Nobody expects anything from someone who doesn't look like a prince. It's the perfect way to steal extra dessert when the guards aren't looking."
For the first time, the brooding mask on Lyonel's face cracked. His eyebrows shot up, and a spark of genuine interest flickered in those sky blue eyes. He didn't laugh, but his mouth twisted into something that was almost a smirk.
The rest of the meal passed in a strange duality. Stannis and Selyse remained like twin statues of salt and iron at the head of the table, their silence heavy enough to crush a lesser man. They ate with mechanical precision, their eyes occasionally darting toward me with obvious disapproval at my lack of proper courtly decorum.
But at the other end of the table, the world was different.
"So you really grew those potatoes yourself?" Lyonel asked, his voice hushed but eager. He was poking at his own breakfast with obvious disdain, clearly more interested in my stories than his own meal. "Did you have to fight the dirt to make them grow?" This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
"Not quite fighting, but I did have to wrestle with some very stubborn rocks," I whispered back, leaning closer. "And you have to talk to them sometimes. Not real talking, mind you, but you have to understand what they need. Water here, sun there."
Shireen giggled, a sound so foreign to this hall that it made Selyse stiffen. "Do the potatoes talk back?" she asked, her eyes wide with wonder.
"Only when they're grumpy," I teased, giving her a wink. "When they're happy, they just sit there and wait for you to make them into something delicious."
Lyonel leaned in even further, his blue eyes bright. "Could you teach me how to do that? Not the talking part, but the making things grow part? My septa says I have 'green thumbs,' but I think she just means I'm good at getting dirt under my nails."
"It takes patience, Lion boy," I said, using the nickname without thinking. "More patience than it takes to sit through one of your father's speeches."
That got him. Lyonel let out a muffled snort that he quickly covered with a cough when Stannis's head snapped up. But the damage was done; the boy's shoulders relaxed, and for the first time in what looked like years, he seemed to actually be enjoying himself.
"You're very strange, Vaegon," Shireen said softly, smiling at me before turning back to her mother. "But I like you."
"I'll take that as a compliment," I said, taking another bite of bread. The tension in my own chest had eased. I had come here to negotiate grain, but I had found something I hadn't expected: a moment of genuine connection.
I set my utensils down with careful deliberation, the clatter of silver against stone echoing through the silent hall. I could feel the weight of their judgment Stannis's cold disapproval and Selyse's obvious disdain but I didn't flinch. I had learned long ago that performing for people who refuse to see you is a waste of breath.
"I must ask for your forgiveness for my manners," I said, my voice calm and level as I addressed them directly. "I never was taught those things. My education was... unconventional."
It was a diplomatic way of telling them I had been raised in a kennel rather than a court. Stannis's eyes narrowed, but he didn't speak. He simply watched me with that unblinking, assessing stare, as if trying to decide if I was a boy who needed guidance or a wolf in sheep's clothing.
"Well," I said, rising from my chair with a casual grace, "I will visit the castle then. See what the real Storm's End looks like."
I expected a reprimand, or perhaps a curt nod of dismissal from the Lord of the House. Instead, I heard the scrape of a chair.
Lyonel stood up before his father could utter a word. The boy didn't wait for permission a rare act of defiance in a house built on absolute obedience. He didn't even glance at Stannis as he stepped around the table, his blue eyes fixed on me with a spark of something that looked suspiciously like camaraderie.
"I will show you," Lyonel said, his voice carrying a note of pride. "I know all the passages that aren't guarded by the old men."
He started walking beside me before I could even respond, his stride purposeful. Behind us, I could feel the heavy silence of the parents the unspoken disapproval of a father who had lost control of his heir, and a mother who had lost her grip on her son. But as we passed through the great doors and into the corridors, I didn't care.
"All the passages, huh?" I asked Lyonel as we walked, lowering my voice. "Does that include the one that leads to the kitchens? Because if we're going to explore, I think we're going to need some proper provisions."
***
The Great Hall had returned to its usual, tomb like stillness after Vaegon and Lyonel departed. The fire crackled, the only sound in the cavernous space until the steward re-entered, his face pale and his hands unsteady.
"My lord," the steward began, his voice tight. "I managed to learn a few things about Prince Vaegon."
Stannis didn't look up from his maps. "Speak plainly."
The steward took a shuddering breath and laid it all bare. He told Stannis about the indifference of Lyanna Stark, the replacement of Vaegon after Visenya's birth, the relocation in the servant's quarters, the isolation, the begging for lessons and self thaught, and the systematic erasure of a child from his own family's memory. He described the training accident with Aegon and the aftermath not a lesson, not a scolding, but a sentence.
"The King... he ordered the boy locked away, my lord. In a servant's room. For days." The steward swallowed hard, his voice cracking. "Without food. Without water. And he forbade any servant or guard from bringing him anything to survive. The boy was left to die in the dark, and not a soul in that palace dared to speak against it." You are reading on g.com, the official source.
The silence that followed was different from any other silence in Storm's End. It wasn't cold; it was electrified.
Selyse's face decomposed, her usual haughty disdain melting into a look of genuine horror. She pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes widening as she looked at the empty chair where Vaegon had sat and laughed about windows. For a woman who believed in strict order and divine right, the idea of a royal child being treated like vermin was an obscenity.
But Stannis... Stannis reacted like a storm breaking over the cliffs.
He slammed his fist onto the table with such force that the inkwell overturned, black liquid spreading across his maps like a bloodstain. He stood abruptly, his chair screeching against the stone floor.
"He locked him up?!" Stannis bellowed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling like thunder. "Without food or water?! His own son!"
The fury in his eyes was no longer directed at Vaegon; it was directed at the memory of Rhaegar Targaryen.
Stannis Baratheon had faced a year of starvation during the siege, eating rats and boiled leather to survive. He knew exactly what that kind of hunger felt like. To hear that a child a prince, no less had been subjected to that same torment as a punishment was an insult to every principle of justice and duty Stannis held sacred.
"And he forbade anyone from sending him something to survive?!" Stannis roared, his face flushing crimson with rage. "That is not kingship! That is cowardice! That is the act of a madman playing at being a god!"
Selyse's voice cut through the air like a blade, sharp and incredulous. Her usual cold composure had shattered completely, replaced by the raw indignation of a mother who couldn't fathom the cruelty she was hearing.
"What about Lyanna Stark?!" she demanded, her thin fingers gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white. "She is his mother! Didn't she intervene?! Didn't she fight for her own child?!"
The steward looked at her, his expression grim. He shook his head slowly, the movement heavy with the weight of the truth he was about to deliver.
"It seemed that after the birth of Princess Visenya, she never came back to Prince Vaegon," he said quietly. "The servants spoke of it in whispers. Once the girl was born and the King turned his attention to the mother and daughter, Lyanna simply... stopped visiting. She stopped asking. She stopped acknowledging his existence altogether."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Selyse sank back into her chair, her face draining of color. She looked at Shireen, her own daughter, and pulled the child closer as if the mere act of holding her tighter could somehow protect her from the evil she had just heard described.
Stannis stood motionless, his chest heaving with barely contained fury. His fists were clenched at his sides, the tendons in his neck standing out like cables. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and dangerous, each word dripping with a contempt so profound it could have curdled wine.
"Rhaegar Targaryen is no king," he said, his voice like grinding stone. "He is a coward who hides behind prophecy while his children starve in the dark. And Lyanna Stark... she is no mother. She is a woman who abandoned her own blood to chase the favor of a man who sees her as nothing more than a vessel."
He turned away from the table, staring into the fire. "And yet they call me harsh. They call me unyielding. They say I lack warmth."
He let out a bitter, mirthless laugh. "At least when I look at my daughter, I see her. At least when my son disobeys me, I don't lock him in a room to die."
Selyse looked up at her husband, tears glistening in her eyes. "That boy..." she whispered. "He sat at our table and laughed about windows. Windows, Stannis. He was delighted by a window because he never had one."
Stannis closed his eyes, his jaw working furiously. When he opened them again, the rage had settled into something colder and more dangerous: resolve.
"Change the orders," he said to the steward, his voice brooking no argument. "Prince Vaegon is no longer a guest. He is to be treated with the full respect owed to a prince of the blood. And if any man in this castle treats him with anything less than absolute dignity, they will answer to me."