Harwin's Adam's apple bobbed again.
This time, he swallowed harder than ever before, as though trying to force down something lodged in his throat and make sure it never came back up.
But it was too big. It stuck halfway down, unable to move either way, choking him until his eyes reddened and the veins on his forehead bulged one by one.
"I..." His voice squeezed out from deep in his throat, as rough as wood scraped with sandpaper. "At first, I was on patrol... when I ran into the princess."
Lyonel's head rang louder than it had at any point before.
He sat on the edge of the bed, one hand still resting on his knee. The other slowly rose to touch his bald head, gleaming in the morning light.
He pressed his palm against it, spread his fingers, and rubbed slowly and firmly, as though touching not his own forehead but a sheet of thin ice about to shatter.
First he ran into the princess, and in Flea Bottom, no less...
His eldest son, a squad captain in the City Watch, had stumbled straight into the heir to the Iron Throne, the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Princess Rhaenyra of House Targaryen, in a dark alley in Flea Bottom.
Lyonel closed his eyes. He did not want to see Harwin's pale, terrified face, the strip of brightening sky outside the window, or this room sliced into fragments by the morning light. He only wanted to close his eyes and return to the peaceful night before all this news had shattered it.
But Harwin had not finished.
"Then... the prince came over." Harwin's voice sank lower still, as though seeping out of a crack in the floor. Father and son unconsciously passed over Aegon, who seemed less important