The wind over Crab Bay was salty, mingling the cold damp of the Narrow Sea with the fishy smell of Crackclaw Point's mudflats. It struck the face like a dusting of fine salt frost.
In the first month of 111 AC, the chill of winter had yet to leave Westeros. The seasons had been fairly distinct these past few years, with neither long summers nor long winters visiting often.
The swells on the Narrow Sea today were heavier than the autumn waves when they had first departed King's Landing. Blue-black water churned with white foam, battering the sides of the fleet again and again. Spray splashed onto the decks, where the freezing wind soon turned it into a thin sheet of ice.
Aegon sprawled lazily on Sunfyre's back, his chin resting between the golden dragon's warm scales, idly swinging his two little legs.
Sunfyre was long past being the hatchling he had been three years ago. In less than half a year, another monstrous growth spurt had brought his body to the length of two warhorses standing nose to tail. To exaggerate a little, his spread wings could almost shade half the flagship's deck. His golden scales gleamed like molten gold in the thin winter sunlight, but at the moment, the long sea voyage had drained him as thoroughly as it had his rider. His head rested on his forelegs, his golden eyes half closed, and a low, disgruntled rumble rose from his throat. Only the occasional sweep of his tail tip across the deck sent sailors who tried to approach scrambling backward.
"Stop complaining." Aegon reached out and tugged at the soft scales along the golden dragon's neck, murmuring in High Valyrian that only the two of them understood. "Rhaenyra and Syrax have been flying up there for almost an hour, while we're stuck on this ship. If anyone gets to complain, it should be me."
Sunfyre lifted his eyelids, the rumbling in his throat growing louder. He seemed to be agreeing with Aegon, or perhaps protesting the rule Rhaenyra had laid down: throughout the journey from the Riverlands to Crab Bay, unless they were over open land, she absolutely forbade Aegon from riding Sunfyre away from the fleet alone.
Aegon rolled over and continued lounging on Sunfyre's warm back, gazing up at the gray sky.
Four months had passed since the farce at Storm's End.
Over those four months, they had followed the inland roads of the Stormlands into the Reach, traveling from Highgarden's Rose Garden to Oldtown's Starry Sept, then from the vineyards of the Arbor to Fair Isle off the Sunset Coast of the Westerlands. Entering the Westerlands, they sailed through the bustling splendor of Lannisport and ventured into the gilded grandeur of Casterly Rock. Finally, they passed through the mountain pass at the Golden Tooth into the Riverlands, bringing their tour across half of Westeros to an end on the banks of the Red Fork at Riverrun.
Of course, there had also been one "Rhaenyra matchmaking gathering" after another, supposedly held to "choose a husband" but in truth nothing more than farces.
The Duke of House Tyrell in the Reach had offered up the most exquisite roses in all Westeros. Highgarden's young nobles lined up to lavish attention on Rhaenyra, displaying everything from poetry and song to jousting and horsemanship. They would gladly have piled every flower in the Reach before her, yet all they received was the princess's polite but distant nod.
Aegon still remembered when Duke Mathos Tyrell's bastards-the "Wild Roses"-presented Rhaenyra with a sonnet at the feast, supposedly of their own composition. She had lowered her head and whispered in his ear, "Their recitation doesn't sound half as pleasant as Syrax's or Sunfyre's roar."
Aegon had thought that avoiding the sea route would mean they would not pass his mother Alicent's family home. But after Tyland consulted Duke Mathos's eldest son, Garlan Tyrell, Garlan strongly suggested that the princess sail onward to the Westerlands from the Arbor, the ancestral home of his mother, Lady Redwyne.
And so House Hightower of Oldtown staged the grandest possible welcome. Whether it was meant for Rhaenyra or for Aegon, who carried the blood of their kings of the Hightower, was anyone's guess.
His own grandfather, Otto Hightower, the dismissed Hand, stood with his great-uncle, Earl Hobert Hightower, at the doors of the Starry Sept to greet them personally. Their gazes held a complicated mixture of calculation and expectation when they looked at him, yet when they turned toward Rhaenyra, their hostility remained difficult to conceal.
That feast ultimately ended on a sour note. Rhaenyra did not even stay in Oldtown for three full days before taking the party away in haste, never giving Otto so much as a chance to speak to Aegon alone.
Still, Earl Hobert Hightower's eldest son, Lyonel Hightower, and Aegon's older aunt Bethany Hightower, who remained unmarried, had certainly left a strong impression on him.
Lyonel treated Aegon exceedingly well. As far as Aegon was concerned, even Garwin, his mother's own brother, seemed less devoted than this cousin of hers. The first thing Lyonel did every morning was seek Aegon out. Of course, Garwin, who stayed beside Aegon day and night, could never be allowed to hear that. Otherwise, he would surely call Aegon an ungrateful little wretch.
After all, who guarded Aegon day and night? Garwin did.
Who packed and carried Aegon's luggage whenever they went out? Garwin did.
Who always reminded Aegon to write to his worried mother far away in King's Landing? Garwin again.
Fortunately, Garwin knew nothing about it, or he would surely have given this nephew of his a talking-to.
As for Aunt Bethany? Aegon really was not being shallow; he had only seen her a handful of times. Whenever Bethany appeared, she was either emerging from the study with tousled hair and a book in her arms, passing in front of him, or gazing at Sunfyre beside him with a silly, dreamy smile.
But what could he do when his aunt was beautiful as a flower, with creamy skin, lustrous hair, and endless charm?
She seemed lazy on the surface, even a little foolish. Her younger cousin Alicent had already borne three children, while she was still unmarried. Yet the air of mystery about her and her fascination with mysterious things drew Aegon in deeply.
Yes, it absolutely had nothing to do with his aunt being pretty...
Of all the farces along the journey, however, the one that still made Aegon laugh whenever he thought of it had to be the Lannister Brothers' Joust at Casterly Rock in the Westerlands.
His gaze crossed the deck and settled on the Oak Chair by the cabin door.
Tyland Lannister sat there in a dark gray wool coat, without House Lannister's golden lion embroidered on it, only a slender line of gold thread at the cuffs. He held a thick copy of Westerosi Tax and Trade Law published by the Citadel, his back perfectly straight. The winter wind lifted the corners of the pages, but he did not so much as raise his eyes, as though all the wind and waves of the Narrow Sea mattered less than the ink on those pages.
Four months ago, Aegon would never have believed this was the same Ser Tyland who had flushed to the tips of his ears and stumbled over his words after a single glance from Rhaenyra at a Small Council meeting.
The matchmaking gathering at Casterly Rock had been the liveliest farce of the entire tour. Jason Lannister, heir to Casterly Rock, was still the same lion of the Westerlands he had been during the hunt in the Kingswood that year: ostentatious, arrogant, and utterly convinced of his own importance. To exaggerate a little, he practically wanted to heap all the gold in Casterly Rock before Rhaenyra, loudly proclaiming his courtship as though a betrothal to the kingdom's heir were already his for the taking.
Yet what no one had expected was that the first person in all the Westerlands to step forward and challenge him would be his own younger twin brother, Tyland.
Aegon still remembered that "arms race" in Casterly Rock's banquet hall.
Jason declared that he would present the princess with a three-masted sailing ship with a solid-gold prow, and Tyland promptly produced a map he had drawn of a new trade route from Lannisport to Braavos, promising to open up the lifeblood of trade across the Narrow Sea for her.
Jason defeated seven knights of the Westerlands in succession in the lists, and Tyland spent two hours at the evening feast debating fiscal law with Casterly Rock's maester, leaving the old scholar speechless.
Jason went down on one knee before all the nobles of the Westerlands and offered Rhaenyra a precious Valyrian steel dagger from across the sea. Tyland sent a long letter straight to King Viserys, detailing every advantage he could offer the kingdom's heir and his extensive knowledge of everything from the Westerlands' gold mines to Lannisport's fleet. Every word revealed his stubborn determination to outdo his brother.
The nobles of the entire Westerlands were dumbstruck. The young lords who had initially been eager to try their luck were all eclipsed by the Lannister Twins' contest. They could only retreat into corners and watch the brothers battle furiously for the princess's favor.
But from beginning to end, Rhaenyra felt nothing but irritation.
She loathed Jason's arrogance and smarmy manner, just as she loathed the courtiers who constantly hovered around her in the Red Keep at King's Landing. Nor could she muster the slightest affection for Tyland, whose face was identical to Jason's. In private, she complained to Aegon, "They're like the two sides of a gold coin. One side says arrogance, the other obsession. Both are nothing but the scheming bred into every Lannister's bones."
And so the matchmaking gathering at Casterly Rock came to a hasty end, just like the farce at Storm's End.
After Rhaenyra firmly rejected him, Jason Lannister returned to his own lands in humiliated fury. Tyland Lannister, however, seemed to have been jolted fully awake by the failure.
The day before they left Casterly Rock, he shaved off the beard he had worn for years. Without it concealing his face-the very image of Jason's-he looked rather less gentle than usual, his features taking on a sharper edge.
From then on, he seemed like a different man. He never again showed the slightest shyness before Rhaenyra, nor did he say another word about a betrothal.
He threw all his energy into organizing the journey. From planning routes and coordinating supplies to negotiating with the lords along the way and arranging the fleet's passage, he handled everything flawlessly, even more thoroughly than Grand Maester Runetell.
Whenever they reached a lord's castle, he immersed himself in his host's study, asking questions and learning about governance and taxation. Even at the evening feasts, he no longer watched Rhaenyra. Instead, he sat in a corner observing the older lords' words and behavior, like a sponge greedily soaking up anything that could help him grow.
You've really become obsessed. Sprawled on Sunfyre's back, Aegon pursed his lips in Tyland's direction and silently grumbled, If you'd been like this from the start, you wouldn't have had to wait until you were thrown into a dungeon, horribly disfigured, and left impotent in the original story before finally turning over a new leaf and becoming a great Hand.
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