warships. With the Sea Snake a “guest” of Trystane Truefyre in King’s Landing and Ser Addam dead at Tumbleton, command of the Velaryon fleets now rested with Addam’s brother, Alyn, the younger son of Mouse, the shipwright’s daughter, a boy of fifteen…but would he be friend or foe? His brother had died fighting for the queen, but that same queen had made their lord a captive and was herself dead. Ravens were dispatched to Driftmark offering House Velaryon pardon for all its past offenses if Alyn of Hull would present himself on Dragonstone and swear allegiance…but until and unless an answer was received, it would be folly for Aegon II to try to cross the bay by ship and risk capture.
Nor did His Grace wish to sail to King’s Landing. In the days following his half-sister’s death, the king still clung to the hope that Sunfyre might recover enough strength to fly again. Instead the dragon only seemed to weaken further, and soon the wounds in his neck began to stink. Even the smoke he exhaled had a foul smell to it, and toward the end he would no longer eat.
On the ninth day of the twelfth moon of 130 AC, the magnificent golden dragon that had been King Aegon’s glory died in the outer yard of Dragonstone where he had fallen. His Grace wept, and gave orders that his cousin Lady Baela be brought up from the dungeons and put to death. Only when her head was on the block did he repent, when his maester reminded him that the girl’s mother had been a Velaryon, the Sea Snake’s own daughter. Another raven took wing for Driftmark, this time with a threat: unless Alyn of Hull presented himself within a fortnight to do homage to his rightful liege, his cousin the Lady Baela would lose her head.
On the western shores of Blackwater Bay, meanwhile, the Moon of the Three Kings came to a sudden end when an army appeared outside the walls of King’s Landing. For more than half a year the city had lived in fear of Ormund Hightower’s advancing host…but when the assault came, it came not from Oldtown by way of Bitterbridge and Tumbleton, but up the kingsroad from Storm’s End. Borros Baratheon, on hearing of the queen’s death, had left his newly pregnant wife and four daughters to strike north through the kingswood with six hundred knights and four thousand foot.
When the Baratheon vanguard was seen across the Blackwater Rush, the Shepherd commanded his followers to rush the river to keep Lord Borros from coming ashore. But only hundreds now came to listen to this beggar who’d once preached to tens of thousands, and few obeyed. Atop Aegon’s High Hill, the squire now calling himself King Trystane Truefyre stood on the battlements with Larys Strong and Ser Perkin the Flea, gazing at the swelling ranks of stormlanders. “We do not have the strength to oppose such a host, sire,” Lord Larys told the boy, “but perhaps words can succeed where swords must fail. Send me to parley with them.” And so the Clubfoot was dispatched across the river under a flag of truce, accompanied by Grand Maester Orwyle and the Dowager Queen Alicent.
The Lord of Storm’s End received them in a pavilion on the edge of the kingswood, as his men felled trees to build rafts for the river crossing. There Queen Alicent received the glad news that her grandaughter Jaehaera, the only surviving child of her son Aegon and daughter Helaena, had been delivered safely to Storm’s End by Ser Willis Fell of the Kingsguard. The Dowager Queen wept tears of joy.
Betrayals and betrothals followed, until an accord was reached between Lord Borros, Lord Larys, and Queen Alicent, with Grand Maester Orwyle as witness. The Clubfoot promised that Ser Perkin and his gutter knights would join the stormlanders in restoring King Aegon II to the Iron Throne, on the condition that all of them save the pretender Trystane would be pardoned for any and all offenses, including high treason, rebellion, robbery, murder, and rape. Queen Alicent agreed that her son King Aegon would make Lady Cassandra, Lord Borros’s eldest daughter, his new queen. Lady Floris, another of his lordship’s daughters, was to be betrothed to Larys Strong.
The problem posed by the Velaryon fleet was discussed at some length. “We must bring the Sea Snake into this,” Lord Baratheon is reported to have said. “Perhaps the old man would like a new young