The guards shoved open the heavy bronze doors with a dull crash that instantly drowned out every sound of laughter in the hall.
Cold night air poured through the open bronze doors into the banquet hall, making the candles flicker wildly. Everyone's shadows stretched and twisted across the cold stone walls like snarling ghosts.
All laughter abruptly ceased. The lilting music stopped with it, the bard's fingers freezing on the strings of his lute.
Just like that, the flowing notes of the lutes broke off in midair. Some bards even dropped their picks, which struck the floor with sharp clicks that sounded especially piercing in the deathly silence.
The nobles holding wine cups froze where they stood, smiles still lingering on their faces as their eyes turned as one toward the entrance. Everyone who had arrived early turned their head toward the doors.
Queen Alicent Hightower appeared in the doorway, wearing a magnificent green gown with the tower of House Hightower embroidered in gold thread along its skirts.
She held Helaena in her arms. The little princess wore a pale blue silk dress that day and still clutched a daisy she had not yet had a chance to give her brother Aegon.
Behind her, Lynesse, her distant cousin from a cadet branch of House Hightower and also her personal maid, kept her head bowed. She too wore a dark green dress, and Aemond, whom she carried, wore little clothes of the same color and was wrapped in a matching cloak.
It should have been an utterly ordinary choice of clothing.
Most nobles of the Reach descended from Garth Greenhand, who was also known as Garth of the Green Hair or Garth the Green.
There was therefore nothing objectionable about the queen wearing green, the most familiar color of the Reach