Scene 1: The Prince
Location: The Royalist Encampment, along the Kingsroad.
Time: The day of Rhaegar's Return.
The Dragon had returned, and he brought the sun with him.
Or so the singers claimed.
Rhaegar Targaryen rode his black charger through the center of the Royalist camp, and the world seemed to bend around him. He did not wear a helmet. He wanted them to see him. He wanted them to see the face that launched a war, the face that the ghosts of Summerhall had whispered about, the face of the Prince that was Promised.
He wore his armor of black night-enamel, the three-headed dragon wrought in rubies on his breastplate. When the sunlight hit the gems, the crowd gasped. He looked like a god of war, descended from the red comet to bring order to the chaos of men.
"Rhaegar! Rhaegar! Rhaegar!"
The chant rose from forty thousand throats. It was a roar that shook the trees of the Kingswood.
Rhaegar smiled. It was a small, knowing smile. A smile that said, I have forgiven you for doubting.
He looked out over his army. It was magnificent. It was the greatest gathering of chivalry since the Field of Fire. Even without the main strength of the Reach—which Mace Tyrell was foolishly using to starve Robert's brother at Storm's End—the host was massive. The sun-and-spear of Dorne glittered on ten thousand shields. The seahorses of Velaryon, the crabs of Celtigar, the defiant towers of Grafton, the ploughman of Darry.
They were all here. The might of the Iron Throne.
And they were beautiful.
There were no grim faces here. There were no mud-stained tunics. The knights wore velvet doublets over their steel. They drank from silver goblets. The squires laughed as they chased camp followers through the lines.
It was a festival of power.
Rhaegar did not see the filth. He did not look down at the ground, where the mud was churned into a paste of horse dung and spilled wine. He did not notice the smell—a sweet, cloying stench of shallow latrines masked by the heavy perfumes of the courtiers and the incense burning in the portable septs. He did not see the flies buzzing around the eyes of the destriers.
Why would a Dragon look at the dirt? Dragons fly above the world.
He reined in his horse outside the Royal Pavilion—a monstrosity of red silk and black velvet that was larger than most inns.
Ser Barristan Selmy was waiting for him. The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard looked relieved, his white armor gleaming. Beside him stood Prince Lewyn Martell of Dorne and Ser Jonothor Darry.
"My Prince," Barristan said, bowing low. "The Seven be praised. The men were... restless. But your arrival has lit a fire in them."
"Restless?" Rhaegar dismounted with a fluid grace, tossing his reins to a groom who looked ready to weep with joy. "Why should they be restless, Ser Barristan? We have won."
Barristan blinked. "Won, my Prince? The Rebel host is still at large. We have reports that—"
"The Rebel host is a broken dog," Rhaegar interrupted, his voice smooth and melodic, like a song. He walked past the Kingsguard, into the cool shade of the pavilion.
He went straight to the map table. It was a beautiful thing, carved from driftwood. The pieces were made of ivory and onyx.
Rhaegar picked up the black stag piece. He turned it over in his fingers.
"Connington did his work well at Stoney Sept," Rhaegar said, placing the stag on the edge of the board, near the Riverlands. "He may have lost the town, but he shattered their spirit. Robert was wounded. Hiding in a brothel, they say. His army scattered into the woods like rats."
Rhaegar laughed softly.
"Do you fear rats, Ser Barristan?"
"Rats bite, my Prince," Lewyn Martell said. His voice was cold. Sharp. "And rats carry disease."
Rhaegar turned to look at his wife's uncle. Lewyn looked tired. His Dornish spears were camped on the right flank, segregated from the rest of the army.
"You sound angry, Prince Lewyn," Rhaegar said, his violet eyes narrowing slightly.
"I am angry," Lewyn said, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. "You left my niece. You left Elia with your mad father while you played at kidnapper in the Tower of Joy. And now you command me to fight for you?"
The tent went silent. The gathered loyalist lords—Lord Lucerys Velaryon, Lord Mooton, Lord Ryger—held their breath.
Rhaegar didn't flinch. He didn't apologize. He stepped closer to Lewyn, towering over the Dornish prince.
"I did what the song required, Lewyn," Rhaegar said. "The dragon must have three heads. Elia could not give me a third. It was not a choice. It was destiny."
"Destiny," Lewyn spat. "Is that what you call it? I call it madness. Ten thousand Dornishmen are here, Rhaegar. But know this: we fight because your father holds Elia hostage. Not because we love you."
Rhaegar sighed, a sound of supreme, condescending patience.
"It does not matter why you fight, Prince Lewyn. Only that you fight. And you will fight well. Dorne has always been... passionate."
Rhaegar turned his back on the Martell prince, dismissing him as one dismisses a servant. He looked back at the map.
"Where is the Lion?" Rhaegar asked.
"Lord Tywin sits at the Golden Tooth," Barristan reported. "He has thirty thousand men."
"Excellent," Rhaegar purred. He picked up the red lion piece and placed it firmly behind the Riverlands.
"Tywin is cautious," Rhaegar explained to the room, as if he were teaching a class to slow children. "He waits for the winning side. And now that I am here, he sees the winner. He will march East. He will take the Rebels in the rear while we crush them from the front."
"We have had no raven from Casterly Rock confirming this," Jonothor Darry cautioned.
"I do not need a raven," Rhaegar said, smiling at his own brilliance. "I know Tywin. He was my father's Hand for twenty years. He wants his daughter to be Queen. He will come to me. It is the only logical move."
Rhaegar swept his hand across the map.
"Robert has... what? Twenty thousand? Maybe thirty, if he managed to drag the Riverlords out of their beds? A ragtag mob of farmers and hedge knights. Broken. Leaderless. Drunk."
"Reports suggest the North has joined them," Lord Mooton ventured. "And the Vale."
"Savages and mountain goats," Rhaegar scoffed. "And the Riverlords are notoriously fractious. They are likely arguing over who leads the van while their men die of the flux."
He chuckled at the thought.
"I know Robert Baratheon," Rhaegar said, his voice dripping with disdain. "He is a brute. A man of appetites. He thinks with his hammer and his codpiece. He cannot organize a tourney, let alone a war. He will charge at us, drunk and roaring, and we will break him on the wheel of our discipline."
"We have the numbers, my Prince," Lord Velaryon added, eager to please. "And the fleet blockades the Gullet. He has nowhere to run."
Rhaegar walked out of the tent, gesturing for the lords to follow him.
He stood on a small rise, overlooking the camp.
It was a riot of color. Pavilion tents blocked the walkways. Horses were tethered everywhere. Men were gambling, drinking, singing. The latrines were overflowing, but the wind was blowing south, so the smell was merely faint in the royal sector.
Rhaegar saw a group of Gold Cloaks kicking a peasant who had brought a cart of turnips too close to a knight's tent. He saw women in silken dresses—camp followers of the highest price—being passed between squires.
He saw the riverbank, crowded with men washing their clothes in the same water their horses drank.
To Rhaegar, this wasn't chaos. It was life. It was the vibrant, messy, glorious reality of the realm he was born to rule.
"Look at them," Rhaegar whispered. "Forty thousand men. The greatest host in living memory."
He turned to Barristan.
"Robert thinks he can steal a kingdom with a hammer? He thinks he can defy the blood of the dragon because I stole his betrothed?"
Rhaegar laughed. It was a clear, bell-like sound that drifted over the camp.
"He doesn't understand. Lyanna was never his. She was the Ice. I am the Fire. It was written in the stars before Robert was even born."
He looked north, toward the Trident.
"Let him come. Let him bring his broken army, his drunken lords, and his savage wolves. I will meet him at the ford."
"And then?" Jonothor Darry asked.
"And then," Rhaegar said, his eyes gleaming with the absolute, terrifying certainty of a fanatic, "I will kill him. I will crush his rebellion. I will call a Great Council and set my father aside. And I will bring the Summer that never ends."
He didn't see the flies buzzing around the head of a dead horse in the ditch below. He didn't smell the dysentery that was already blooming in the levies' guts. He didn't know that Tywin Lannister wasn't moving. He didn't know that Robert Baratheon was sober, healthy, and waiting with a machine made of men.
Rhaegar saw only the story he had written for himself.
"Prepare the feast," Rhaegar commanded, turning back to his pavilion. "Tonight we drink to the Dragon. Tomorrow, we hunt the Stag."
[End of Scene 1]
Chapter 23: The Hollow Dragon
Scene 2: The Song
Location: The Royalist Encampment, The Crownlands Levies Sector.
Time: Late Evening.
The smell of roast pork drifted across the camp like a ghost.
Pate, a spearman from Rosby, sat on a rotting log, holding his wooden bowl. He sniffed the air, his stomach giving a violent, hollow lurch.
"Smell that?" Pate whispered to the boy next to him. "That's crackling. Honey glaze."
The boy, a terrified lad named Wat who had never held a spear before yesterday, sniffed too. "Is it for us?"
Pate laughed, a dry, hacking sound. He looked down at his own bowl.
Inside was a grey, lukewarm broth. There was a single chunk of turnip floating in it, looking like a drowned eye. No meat. No bread. The supply wagons from the Reach were supposedly "delayed" by the mud on the Kingsroad, or so the quartermasters claimed.
Pate knew better. He had seen the quartermasters selling sacks of grain to the camp followers an hour ago. He had seen the knights of the Reach loading wagons of venison into their private pavilions.
"That pork ain't for us, lad," Pate said, spitting into the dirt. "That's for the highborns. They need their strength to ride horses. We just need enough strength to die standing up."
Pate lifted the bowl to his lips and drank the sludge. It tasted of dirt and old onions.
Around them, thousands of men were doing the same. The Royalist army was massive—forty thousand strong—but it was heavy. It was slow. And it was hungry.
The logistics were a mess. Rhaegar had ordered a forced march to reach the Trident before Robert, but the baggage train had fallen behind. The lords, with their private stores, ate well. The levies, dependent on the King's coin, ate whatever they could scrounge.
"I heard the Rebel King feeds his men salted beef," Wat whispered, looking around to make sure no Gold Cloaks were listening. "I heard they eat three times a day."
"Shut your mouth," Pate hissed. "You want to lose your tongue? The Dragon is here. You talk about the Stag, and the Kingsguard will mount your head on a spike."
Suddenly, a hush fell over the camp.
It wasn't the silence of discipline. It was the silence of confusion.
The flap of the Royal Pavilion opened. The golden light of a hundred beeswax candles spilled out into the muddy night, illuminating the starving men like a stage spotlight.
Rhaegar Targaryen stepped out.
He had removed his black armor. He was dressed in a tunic of black velvet slashed with red satin. His silver hair fell loose around his shoulders. He looked unearthly. Beautiful.
He didn't carry a sword. He didn't carry a sack of bread to distribute to the men.
He carried a high harp, made of silver and weirwood, with strings of moon-pale gut.
The Prince walked toward the center of the levy lines, where a large bonfire had been built. His Kingsguard—Ser Barristan and Ser Jonothor—flanked him, their white cloaks spotless, their hands resting on their sword hilts.
The lords followed him out, holding goblets of wine, picking their teeth. They looked bored, or amused.
Rhaegar stopped by the fire. He looked at the men. He looked at Pate, at Wat, at the thousands of dirty, hungry faces staring back at him.
But he didn't see them.
Pate saw the Prince's eyes. They were violet, deep and misty. They looked right through Pate, looking at some distant horizon, some prophecy written in the smoke.
"My brothers," Rhaegar said. His voice was soft, yet it carried over the crackle of the fire. It was a melodic, trained voice. "The night is dark, and the road has been long."
The men stared. They waited for him to say, The wagons are here. They waited for him to say, Here is your pay.
"But the dawn comes," Rhaegar continued, smiling sadly. "We march to save the realm from darkness. We march to restore the harmony of the song."
He sat on a velvet stool that a squire rushed to place behind him. He settled the harp on his knee.
"Tonight, I will not command you. Tonight, I will sing for you."
Pate felt his jaw drop. Sing?
His stomach cramped again, a sharp twist of hunger. I can't eat a song, you silver-haired fool.
Rhaegar's long, elegant fingers stroked the strings. The sound was exquisite. Clear, mournful notes floated into the night air, silencing the grumbling of the men.
The Prince began to sing.
It was a song of high tragedy. "Jenny of Oldstones."
High in the halls of the kings who are gone,
Jenny would dance with her ghosts...
The voice was haunting. It was perfect. It was the voice of an angel who had never known what it was to sleep in a wet ditch.
Rhaegar closed his eyes, lost in the music. He sang of love, of loss, of the tragedy of Summerhall. He sang of sorrows that were noble and grand.
Pate looked around.
The young boy, Wat, was weeping. The music was so beautiful it touched something in the lad's simple heart.
But the older men? The veterans?
They looked at the Prince with dead eyes.
They watched the rings on his fingers glittering in the firelight. Each one of those rings could buy a farm. Each one could feed a village for a year.
They watched the lords standing behind the Prince, swaying to the music, their bellies full of roast pork.
The ones who died had no names... Rhaegar sang, his voice soaring to a high, tragic crescendo.
No, Pate thought bitterly. They had names. They were called Pate and Wat and Gendry. And they didn't die of heartbreak. They died because their lords forgot to feed them.
The disconnect was absolute.
Rhaegar believed he was giving them a gift. He believed that by sharing his art, his soul, he was elevating them. He thought he was binding them to him with the chains of emotion.
He didn't realize that a hungry man has no ear for pitch.
The song ended. The last note hung in the air, vibrating with melancholy perfection.
Rhaegar opened his eyes. They were shimmering with tears. He looked at the men, expecting to see a reflection of his own profound emotion.
And he did. He saw Wat crying. He saw men staring at him in silence.
Rhaegar smiled, a beatific, tragic smile. He stood up.
"Rest now," the Prince whispered. "Sleep with the song in your hearts. Tomorrow, we bleed for the future."
He turned and walked back toward his pavilion, the white cloaks sweeping behind him.
The lords applauded politely. Lord Connington's cousin wiped a tear from his eye. "Magnificent," he murmured. "Truly the Prince that was Promised."
The flap of the pavilion closed, shutting off the light. The smell of the roast pork wafted out one last time before the silk sealed it away.
Pate sat in the dark. The fire was dying down.
"That was... beautiful," Wat sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Pate looked at his empty bowl. He looked at the harp-prince's tent.
"Aye," Pate said, his voice thick with loathing. "It was beautiful."
He stood up and kicked the log.
"But it didn't fill my belly, did it?"
Pate lay down in the mud, pulling his thin cloak tight against the chill. He closed his eyes, but he didn't hear the song. He heard the growl of forty thousand empty stomachs, drowning out the memory of the harp.
The Dragon had sung to them. But the Stag... the Stag had fed his men.
And as sleep finally took him, Pate wondered if a song could stop a warhammer.
[End of Scene 2]
Chapter 23: The Hollow Dragon
Scene 3: The Split
Location: The Royal Pavilion, Private Quarters.
Time: Immediately following the Song.
The applause of the sycophants had died down. The Lords of the Crownlands—Mooton, Sunglass, and the cousins of House Connington—had returned to their own tents to feast on the provisions they hoarded while the common men starved.
Rhaegar Targaryen sat alone in his private sanctum.
It was a space of breathtaking luxury, separated from the main war room by heavy tapestries of red velvet embroidered with black dragons. A silver basin filled with rosewater stood on a stand. A decanter of Arbor Gold sat on a table inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
Rhaegar carefully placed his high harp back into its velvet-lined case. He treated the instrument with more tenderness than he had ever shown a living person.
"Did you feel it, Ser Barristan?" Rhaegar asked softly, not looking up.
Barristan Selmy stood by the entrance, his face an impassive mask of duty. "Feel what, my Prince?"
"The connection," Rhaegar said, clicking the latch of the case shut. "When I sang... the silence. It was profound. They were weeping, Barristan. The men were weeping."
"They were," Barristan admitted. He did not add that men often weep from exhaustion, hunger, and terror. He was a Kingsguard; his duty was to protect the King and his heir, not to critique their grasp on reality.
"It is the burden of the Crown," Rhaegar mused, pouring himself a cup of wine. "To lift the spirits of the lowborn. To remind them that there is beauty in the world, even amidst the mud. They will fight better tomorrow. They have been touched by the Song."
The tapestry separating the room from the outside world was ripped aside.
It wasn't opened politely. It was yanked with enough force to tear a grommet from the silk.
Prince Lewyn Martell stormed into the room.
The Kingsguard of Dorne looked nothing like the White Bull or the Bold Barristan. He wore his white cloak, yes, but beneath it, he wore the copper-scaled armor of his homeland. His helmet was off. His face, lined by the sun and years of suppressed rage, was dark with fury.
He didn't bow.
"Out," Lewyn snarled at Barristan.
Barristan stepped forward, his hand moving instantly to his hilt. "Prince Lewyn, you address the Crown Prince. Watch your tone."
"I said out," Lewyn barked, his eyes never leaving Rhaegar. "Unless you want to hear what I really think of the 'Dragon's' honor, Ser Barristan. It might tarnish your white cloak to hear it."
Rhaegar waved a hand, a gesture of languid dismissal.
"Leave us, Barristan. My uncle-by-marriage is clearly distressed. The Dornish are a fiery people. It is their nature."
Barristan hesitated, looking between the two men—one calm and delusional, the other shaking with rage. He bowed stiffly and backed out of the room, letting the heavy velvet curtain fall shut.
Rhaegar took a sip of wine. He looked at Lewyn with a calm, almost pitying expression.
"You missed the song, Lewyn. It was 'Jenny of Oldstones'. I felt it was appropriate for the eve of battle."
"I heard the song," Lewyn said, his voice low and dangerous. "I was walking the lines. The Dornish lines."
"And?" Rhaegar asked. "Did the men enjoy it?"
Lewyn walked to the table. He didn't take a cup. He leaned over the mother-of-pearl inlay, invading Rhaegar's personal space. He smelled of horse sweat and dust—the smell of a commander who actually rode with his men.
"I walked past a group of spearmen from the Greenblood," Lewyn said. "They haven't eaten a full meal in three days. The supply wagons from the Crownlands haven't reached our flank because Lord Velaryon's baggage train is blocking the road. My men are boiling boot leather to make broth."
Rhaegar frowned slightly. "Logistics are always difficult in the field. The quartermasters assure me the wagons are coming."
"Lord Velaryon is eating roast swan in his tent!" Lewyn shouted. "And while my men were chewing on leather, you came out. And you sang to them."
"I gave them hope," Rhaegar corrected gently. "I gave them art."
Lewyn stared at him. He looked at the silver harp case. He looked at the ruby-encrusted armor on the stand. He looked at the Prince's manicured hands.
"Hope?" Lewyn whispered. "You think that was hope? Rhaegar, I heard a spearman ask his captain a question after you left. Do you want to know what he asked?"
"I am sure it was something poetic."
"He asked: 'Can we eat the harp?'"
Rhaegar blinked. The vulgarity of the question seemed to offend him. "That is... simplistic."
"It is starvation!" Lewyn roared. "They are hungry, Rhaegar! They don't want a song about a ghost girl! They want bread! They want to know why the Crown Prince is wearing enough rubies to buy a castle while they don't have shoes!"
Rhaegar set his cup down. His expression hardened. The mask of the melancholy bard slipped, revealing the arrogance of the Targaryen blood beneath.
"They are levies, Lewyn. Their lot is to suffer. It has always been so. They suffer so that we may build a world worthy of the Song of Ice and Fire. Their hunger is a temporary inconvenience. The prophecy is eternal."
"Prophecy," Lewyn spat the word like a curse. "Always the prophecy. Is that why you did it? Is that why you took the Stark girl? Was shattering the realm part of your 'song'?"
"It was necessary," Rhaegar said coldly. "The dragon must have three heads. Elia... Elia is delicate. She gave me Rhaenys and Aegon. But the Maesters said another child would kill her. She could not give me the third head."
"So you replaced her," Lewyn said, his voice trembling. "You humiliated her before the entire realm at Harrenhal. You left her in King's Landing with your mad father while you ran off to play hero in a tower with a Wolf-bitch."
"I did not abandon her," Rhaegar insisted, sounding annoyed that he had to explain this again. "Elia understands. She knows the stakes. She knows that Aegon is the Prince that was Promised, but he needs his Visenya. Lyanna is the Ice to his Fire."
"Elia is a hostage!" Lewyn slammed his fist onto the table, making the wine decanter jump. "She isn't 'understanding,' Rhaegar. She is terrified! Your father holds her and the children in the Red Keep. He keeps them close not because he loves them, but because he doesn't trust you! And he doesn't trust me!"
Rhaegar looked away. This was a truth he preferred not to examine.
"My father is... unwell," Rhaegar admitted. "He sees traitors in the shadows. But once I defeat Robert... once I return in triumph... I will convene the Great Council. I will set my father aside gently. And Elia will be honored as the Mother of Kings."
"Honored?" Lewyn laughed, a bitter, harsh sound. "You think you can fix this? You think you can sing a song and make the Martells forget that you treated our Princess like a broodmare you were finished with?"
"I am the heir to the Iron Throne," Rhaegar said, standing up. He drew himself up to his full height. "My will is the law. Dorne is sworn to the Throne. You are Kingsguard. You swore an oath."
"I swore an oath to the King," Lewyn said. "And I swore an oath to my House."
Lewyn stepped back. He looked at Rhaegar with eyes that held no love, no respect, and no hope.
"Do not mistake my presence here for loyalty, Rhaegar. I am not here because I believe in your song. I am not here because I think you will be a good King. You are a hollow shell, filled with wind and old paper."
"Careful, Ser Lewyn," Rhaegar warned softly, his hand drifting toward the dagger on his belt.
"I am here for one reason," Lewyn continued, his voice dropping to a hiss. "Because if I leave... if the Dornish spears turn around and march home... your father will burn Elia alive in the Red Keep."
Rhaegar flinched. The image was graphic, brutal, and entirely possible.
"He would not," Rhaegar whispered. "She is his good-daughter. Rhaenys is his grandchild."
"He burned Lord Stark in his armor," Lewyn reminded him. "He strangled Brandon Stark while his father watched. Do not tell me what Aerys Targaryen would not do. He keeps Pyromancers closer than his Kingsguard."
Lewyn adjusted his sword belt. He looked at the harp one last time.
"I will lead the Dornish flank tomorrow. We will fight. We will bleed. We will kill Robert's men."
He looked Rhaegar in the eye.
"But know this, Dragon Prince. When I swing my sword, I am not fighting for you. I am not fighting for your prophecy. I am not fighting for your three heads."
Lewyn turned toward the exit.
"I fight for Elia. And the moment she is safe... the moment the madman loses his grip on her..."
He didn't finish the threat. He didn't have to.
Lewyn Martell ripped the tapestry aside and vanished into the night.
Rhaegar stood alone in the silence. The scent of rosewater and wine suddenly felt cloying.
He looked at the map table. The black stag of Robert Baratheon sat on the Trident.
They don't understand, Rhaegar thought, a flicker of genuine distress crossing his face. Lewyn. Elia. Robert. None of them understand.
It isn't about bread. It isn't about hunger. It isn't about hostages.
He touched the strings of his harp, a faint, ghostly discord.
It is about the end of the world. And I am the only one who can stop it.
"They will thank me," Rhaegar whispered to the empty room, trying to convince himself. "When the Long Night comes... when the Others ride... they will thank me for Lyanna. They will thank me for the song."
Outside, a distant rumble of thunder rolled across the sky.
Or perhaps it wasn't thunder.
Perhaps it was the sound of Robert Baratheon's army—forty-five thousand strong, sober, and angry—waiting for the sun to rise.
Rhaegar blew out the candle.
"Let them eat the harp," he muttered, the arrogance returning as the darkness embraced him. "It is the only thing that will save their souls."
[End of Chapter 23]