Only after King Robert and his brothers had ridden far ahead did the Gold Cloaks finally ease their grip on the crowd. The king's splendid procession entered the Great Sept of Baelor, while Tobho and his apprentices were carried away with the departing tide of smallfolk, leaving the white marble behind.
"Stannis, what are you thinking about?" Renly urged his horse forward, calling out to his second brother, who looked distracted, his thinning hair catching the light.
Renly had always been flippant by nature. He had never been close to his rigid, stubborn elder brother. Stannis was too inflexible, and far from handsome.
"Nothing," Stannis said curtly, waving it off.
Yet when his gaze fell on Renly's face, unease stirred again. Just moments earlier, he had glimpsed a tall boy in the crowd, only for the figure to vanish in an instant. That build, that bearing… uncannily like Robert in his youth. Like Renly, too.
Even Edric Storm, fostered at Storm's End, the boy who had once humiliated Stannis's reputation, did not resemble Robert so closely as that stranger had.
"I've never surpassed Robert at anything," Stannis muttered with a bitter smile. "Power. Looks. Charm. Even the number of children he's sired."
Perhaps I imagined it, he told himself.
Still, the question gnawed at him.
Why are Robert's three so-called legitimate children all golden-haired, bearing none of the Baratheon look, while every bastard wears black hair and blue eyes?
Stannis suppressed the thought and urged his horse onward. He knew that in the Eyrie, in the Vale, there was also one of Robert's bastard daughters. Perhaps Lord Jon Arryn might have answers.
Robert's careless distribution of power had planted the seeds of chaos long ago.
Renly, with no great deeds to his name, had been granted Storm's End, and had grown close to House Tyrell. Stannis, by contrast, was left with bleak, wind-scoured Dragonstone. A place of duty, yes, but poor, joyless, and unforgiving.
Resentment bred suspicion.
Stannis had always felt slighted, never favored like the queen's kin, never indulged like his youngest brother.
"Come along, boys," Tobho said meanwhile, guiding the apprentices back the way they had come. "And don't get too close to the king's Gold Cloaks. They're not known for gentle tempers."
"Those knights were magnificent," one apprentice sighed wistfully. "I even saw Ser Barristan. Looks like the 'Lion', Ser Jaime, didn't come this time."
The steel river of the royal procession was long gone, but the awe lingered.
"The Lion?" another boy snickered. "You forgetting that Ser Jaime has another nickname?"
"Enough," Tobho snapped sharply, clamping a hand over the boy's mouth. "Watch that tongue. I don't want trouble."
King's Landing had too many powerful ears. A man who wanted to live long had to mind his words. Lannister red cloaks were everywhere, after all, House Lannister had spent two generations rooting itself deep in the city.
"Pack away your knightly dreams," Tobho continued coldly. "To become a proper knight costs at least a hundred gold dragons, and that's being generous. A master-at-arms, armor, a horse, a knighthood ceremony. Do any of you have that coin?"
The words struck home.
For the sons of smiths and smallfolk, blacksmithing, hard and thankless as it was, still meant a full belly.
Gendry looked at his companions, the disappointment plain on their faces.
Knighthood was a dream.
The forge was reality.
Among the apprentices, Tobho saw only one boy who truly had the makings of something more.
Gendry, tall, broad-shouldered, handsome. A shame his identity was such a dangerous knot. His deep blue eyes held a trace of envy, but far more calm than any boy his age should possess.
The king no longer resembles his youth, Tobho thought. More like a wild boar now. It's good the boy hasn't noticed how much he resembles Renly.
As for Gendry, he felt no blind reverence for kings or knights. What he envied was their freedom, a life without constantly looking over one's shoulder.
King's Landing was a cauldron. To survive here, one needed an exit.
"Any village smith can hammer out a suit of armor," Tobho said, warming to his favorite lecture. "So why are my prices higher? Because what I forge is art. My craft is the finest in King's Landing.
"You must learn more than iron. Learn how to speak to lords. Learn letters, languages, numbers, and even drawing. Then you become a smith worth paying dearly for."
Gendry nodded.
Tobho understood branding as well as steel. The iron might be the same, but nobles paid for stories, prestige, and flattery.
Still, Gendry knew Tobho was holding back.
His true mastery lay in two forbidden techniques:
one was infusing color directly into refined steel, far beyond mere paint or enamel.
The other was the reforging of Valyrian steel, less forging than rebirth.
Such knowledge was guarded jealously in Qohor. Theft of those secrets cost a man his hands.
I'll never reach that level here, Gendry judged calmly. Even ten years wouldn't be enough.
Yet he admired Tobho's way of teaching. A true master armorer. Beyond endless hammering, the apprentices were taught mathematics, languages, and drawing. Without an eye for beauty, no one could ever become first-rate.
Gendry absorbed everything greedily. Literacy alone was a shield in this world. A skilled apprentice would never starve.
True, it was nothing like the education of great lords' sons, languages, literature, history, music, swordplay, riding, archery.
But that day would come.
When the fish enters the sea.
"Clang!"
Gendry plunged a finished sword into the quenching trough. Steam hissed sharply.
The day's work was done.
The blade lay straight and handsome, not a masterpiece, but far beyond the work of a village smith.
"Ha…" Gendry untied his leather apron, revealing arms knotted with muscle. Day after day, tomorrow's steel would be better.
The workshop felt like a dragon's throat, heat pressing in from all sides. One of life's great hardships indeed.
He brushed a hand through his coal-black hair,
And a panel appeared before his eyes.
[Name: Gendry]
[Bloodlines]
Storm's Blood (Active – 30% Awakened)
Blood of the True Dragon (Inactive)
Blood of the First Men (Inactive)
Blood of the Rhoyne (Inactive)
Blood of the Green Hand (Inactive)
[Talent]
Born of the Stag: Baratheon descendants are tall, strong, fertile, and tend to sire black-haired, blue-eyed offspring.
[Skills]
Smithing: Mastery
Drawing: Mastery
Mathematics: Mastery
Gendry stared at the list.
It was almost a full stack of blessings.
If escape from King's Landing was his goal, if he wanted a place to stand, then perhaps it was no longer impossible.
He knew many of these bloodlines traced back through tangled marriages of the great houses, including unions with House Targaryen, most notably through Princess Rhaelle, daughter of King Aegon V the Unlikely, and further threads interwoven with ancient First Men and southern lineages.
Such bloodlines often carried echoes of old magic.
Blood of the True Dragon might command flame and dragons.
Blood of the Rhoyne hinted at the water magic of the Rhoynar river-witches.
For now, only Storm's Blood glowed faintly. The rest lay dormant, frozen in ash-gray silence.
Still,
Gendry no longer felt lost.
With this final trump card in hand, he knew one thing for certain:
He still had the power to change his fate.