The towers of Harrenhal loomed like broken fingers grasping at the pale sky, burned, blackened, and cursed by dragonfire long ago. Yet even in ruin, they stood as a monument to power. And now, beneath those shattered spires, power had gathered again.
From across the realm they came.
The banners of a hundred houses rippled in the spring breeze: lions, stags, suns, roses, krakens, falcons, and dragons. Lords and knights, ladies and squires, merchants and singers. The greatest tourney in living memory had drawn them all to the Riverlands.
The North arrived late, their long journey made slower by snowmelt and muddy roads. The direwolf of House Stark flew beside the trout of Tully and the crowned stag of Baratheon. Their retinue was smaller than many of the great southern lords, but it moved with quiet discipline.
Brandon Stark rode at their head, his eyes hard, his bearing lordly. His siblings followed: Lyanna, wild and free-spirited even beneath her embroidered cloak, and Benjen, young but watchful. They carried the cold weight of the North with them, a presence many in the South both respected and misunderstood.
Around them, the air was filled with songs and laughter, the clatter of armor, the voices of merchants hawking their wares. Great pavilions were raised, some garish in their colors, others austere. Every house sought to outshine the next beneath the eyes of King and court.
The Starks said little as they were led to their assigned place along the green fields near the Tully encampment.
By nightfall, the great feast began beneath silken pavilions. Long tables groaned under roasted boar, honeyed fowl, and southern wines. The Mad King sat at the high dais, cloaked in black and crimson, his pale eyes glittering with something sharp and unsettling. His laughter rose too loud. His silences lasted too long.
The high lords filled the seats of honor: Hoster Tully, Jon Arryn, Steffon Baratheon, Lord Tywin Lannister, and others who shaped the realm's politics. Conversations hummed beneath the music, some loud and jovial, others low and dangerous.
Brandon Stark spoke little but listened closely. His gaze often drifted toward the highborn families maneuvering around one another like dancers circling a blade. Benjen watched as well, youth and unease warring in his expression. He had no love for these southern games.
Further down the table, Lyanna sat beneath the flickering glow of lantern light.
Robert Baratheon leaned toward her, mug of wine in hand, his voice carrying above the hum of conversation.
"The North breeds such fierce beauty," Robert said with a broad grin. "It's little wonder half the court stares at you, my lady."
His tone was light, boisterous, the voice of a man who expected his charm to carry weight, as it always had.
Lyanna's smile was thin, almost forced.
"Perhaps they stare because they know a wolf is no pet," she replied, her voice coated in irritation.
Robert laughed, as if her words were playful rather than pointed. He shifted closer.
"When you're my lady, you'll never need worry for the South or the North. I'll protect you from any harm that shall come upon you. A hundred rooms filled with music and laughter. Our children will,"
Her eyes snapped to him sharply.
"You speak as though my hand is already yours, my lord."
Robert blinked, momentarily thrown, but recovered quickly with another grin.
"It will be. Our fathers have already spoken of it. It's only a matter of time before,"
"Before my will is asked?" she interrupted, voice low. "Before my voice is heard?"
Her words stung sharper than the wine. Several seated nearby grew quiet, stealing glances toward the pair.
Robert's smile faltered slightly, but he pressed on, as though determined to win her still.
"I'd give you anything, Lyanna. Anything. I would make you happy, I swear it."
Lyanna's face softened, but only briefly, a glimmer of pity perhaps, or irritation, before her cool mask returned.
"You cannot give what you do not understand."
She turned slightly, letting the conversation die. Before abruptly getting up and leaving, benjen trailing behind in an effort to comfort hsi sister. Robert remained for a moment, wine in hand, his broad shoulders stiffening as pride warred with confusion.
The Southern game continued all around them, but a quiet chill had crept between wolf and stag.
The sun was high and hot for spring, beating down upon the open fields beneath Harrenhal's broken towers. Where once the fires of Balerion blackened stone, now knights gathered like crows to battle for glory.
The horn sounded once, a long low call, and the grand melee began.
Unlike the order of the joust, the melee was a storm. Dozens of knights advanced across the packed earth, steel flashing, banners snapping, voices rising in war cries and oaths. Dirt and dust clouded the field as armored figures clashed like waves upon a rocky shore.
From the stands, the lords and ladies watched with wine-filled cups and polite smiles. Yet beneath the feasting pavilions, the great and powerful measured more than just swordplay, they studied futures.
Brandon Stark moved like a wolf among the herd.
Unlike many, he wielded a massive greatsword, blunted for sport, but still heavy enough to break bone and bruise through plate. Few Northerners carried such weight into the melee, but Brandon wielded it as though it were an extension of his will. His strength was clean, efficient, not wild like the southerners who often fought with flair. His swings forced his foes to give ground or fall.
A knight of House Sarsfield charged with sword and shield, but Brandon swept aside the blow with brute force, driving his greatsword down across the man's helm. The knight toppled, stunned into the dirt.
Close behind, Eddard Stark fought with simpler precision. His sword and shield worked in concert, not graceful, but disciplined, economical. Ned parried a blow from a knight of House Oakheart, caught the man off balance, and drove him to his knees with a shield bash.
For a brief moment, the brothers fought back-to-back as three knights circled them, hesitant to close. Brandon grinned over his shoulder.
"Stay close, little brother."
"As always," Ned answered.
They turned as one to meet the charge.
Not far from the Stark brothers, Robert Baratheon made himself known.
The Lord of Storm's End swung his blunted warhammer with brutal joy, his great booming laughter carrying even over the clangor of battle. Knights approached, and Robert smashed them aside one after another, his raw strength breaking shields and staggering even the most heavily armored.
A knight of House Redwyne charged. Robert sidestepped and hammered his breastplate with a dull crunch that drove the man gasping to the ground.
"Is there no man in this field who can give me a proper fight?" Robert bellowed, grinning wildly beneath his helm.
He waded deeper into the fray.
At the edge of the melee, Ser Barristan Selmy, Barristan the Bold, moved with cold efficiency.
The King's Champion did not fight for spectacle. His sword struck with surgical precision, knocking opponents aside rather than battering them. One knight fell to a clean strike to the helm, another was disarmed with a swift riposte.
Unlike Robert's storm, Barristan was calm water. And yet, none could ignore the danger in his presence.
He remained closer to the edge of the Melee, within sight of the king's pavilion, should Aerys call. Selmy's duty was always more than sport.
As the sun climbed higher, the field grew thinner.
Men limped from the field, others were carried off, some left groaning in the dirt. Dozens reduced to a handful.
The last few standing now circled each other cautiously. Brandon Stark, his greatsword streaked with dirt and sweat, caught Robert's eye. The two friends exchanged nods, one of mutual respect, but also a silent challenge.
Ned stood nearby, bruised but still firm.
Barristan lingered just beyond them, his sword still steady, face unreadable behind his open helm.
A handful of southern knights remained: Ser Gwayne Corbray of the Vale, Lord Harlan Grandison of the Westerlands, and Ser Jon Connington of Griffin's Roost, each determined to remain standing.
For a moment, there was calm, a breath drawn before the storm's final blast.
It was Grandison who charged first, heavy axe rising high toward Brandon. The Stark heir met him head-on, greatsword swinging wide in a brutal arc that knocked the axe aside and struck Grandison's chest with a crack that sent him sprawling.
Robert intercepted two knights from the Vale, his warhammer pounding one into the dirt and driving back the other with a brutal shoulder slam.
Jon Connington advanced toward Barristan, sword raised, but the Bold was faster, stepping aside and striking with a swift blow to the shoulder that sent Connington spinning.
Now only a few remained.
Brandon and Robert closed together, greatsword meeting warhammer in a ringing clash that shook the air. Robert laughed as they fought, a booming joy only matched by Brandon's fierce grin.
The two hammered at each other, strength meeting strength. But after several heavy blows, Brandon stumbled for half a breath, enough for Robert's warhammer to catch him in the ribs and knock him sprawling to the dirt, breathless.
Before Robert could turn, Eddard was already upon him, swift, low, almost unseen. Ned struck at Robert's leg with the flat of his blade, forcing the stag to stumble back.
Robert regained his footing with a grin.
"You're a wolf, alright," he laughed, breathless.
But Ned's strike gave Barristan his opening. The King's Champion swept between them, his sword flashing, striking Robert's shoulder with a clean, disarming blow that sent the warhammer tumbling.
Robert staggered, grinning even in defeat.
Finally, only Barristan and Ned stood.
The young Stark circled cautiously, knowing full well the skill of the older knight. Barristan allowed the boy several careful passes, deflecting each blow with masterful precision.
At last, with a quick pivot and a twist of the wrist, Barristan disarmed Ned as well.
The melee was done.
The crowd roared, rising in applause.
Barristan the Bold was named victor, though many whispered with respect of Robert's raw power, Brandon's fury, and Ned Stark's quiet skill.
From the king's pavilion, Aerys clapped politely, though his eyes never warmed. His gaze lingered instead on his son, Prince Rhaegar, who had declined the melee entirely, watching as though the affairs of men bored him.
In the stands, Lyanna Stark sat still and distant, her face unreadable.
The great lords had played their games today, some whispered.
But the truest battles still waited beyond the field.
Night had fallen over Harrenhal, and the great hall beneath its ruined towers pulsed with warmth, flickering firelight, and the low hum of voices that never quite trusted themselves.
The melee was done. The bruises hidden beneath silk and velvet; the blades traded for goblets. The lords of Westeros feasted, but not even Arbor gold could drown out the subtle tension curling beneath the banners.
At the head sat the king.
Aerys II, draped in black and red, glittering with gold thread and dragonfire embroidery. His pale violet eyes shifted constantly, sharp and wild, tracking the hall like a hawk searching for vipers. His long, thin fingers drummed nervously upon the arms of his chair. His voice murmured often, but rarely to those beside him.
"They gather, they whisper," Aerys muttered, voice thin as paper. "Plots beneath banners. Smiles hiding blades. I know them. I see them."
Lord Tywin Lannister sat nearby, silent as carved stone. The King glanced toward him, distrustful and cold.
"Even you, my old friend," Aerys whispered once, voice like silk on broken glass. "How long did you serve me while feeding your own pride? I bet you think you're the king, don't you!?"
Tywin offered no reply. His golden eyes stared forward, unreadable.
But Aerys's gaze wandered onward.
"And my son..." the king murmured more quietly, bitterly. "Always the realm's darling. The perfect prince. His songs hide ambition. His books mask his hunger. He thinks the realm will turn to him when they turn from me."
His words were soft, but those closest, the lords at his dais, heard enough to grow still.
Prince Rhaegar sat composed across from his father, quiet, seemingly distant. His features were carved from pale marble, elegant, remote, inscrutable.
Yet when his violet eyes swept the hall, they paused, fleetingly, but unmistakably, upon one place.
Upon Lyanna Stark.
She sat with her family, speaking softly with Brandon and Benjen, her face calm. She did not seem to notice the prince's gaze, but his wife did.
Princess Elia of Dorne, ever watchful despite her quiet voice, followed her husband's eyes with a flash of pain behind her dark lashes. She said nothing, but the weight of her silence was heavy.
Robert Baratheon filled his cups with laughter and wine, bellowing with good-natured pride as he retold the blows exchanged in the melee.
"Gods! That was a good blood pumping scrap! My prize of the day, not a winner's purse but at least a wolf's pelt in a way!!" Robert roared, slapping Eddard's back as he voiced his victory over Brandon. "But he's Stark through and through, and where one wolf falls, another takes the kill, isn't that right Ned!."
Eddard gave him a polite nod but said little. His eyes strayed often toward Lyanna as well, though his concern was different. Quiet and observant, he looked often to see how well his brother in name got along with his sister by blood.
Brandon Stark sat rigid beside his sister, his pride still smoldering from Robert's earlier victory. Yet his unease seemed to rest on more than bruises. His fingers curled tightly around his goblet, jaw tight as southern lords spoke too freely of the North, of marriages, of alliances to come. He accepted his fate even with reluctance but his sister. He could almost feel her denial at the very notion.
"The wolf-maid may yet tame the Stormlord," one older knight of the Reach chuckled too loudly nearby. "A northern flower for the southern stag."
Brandon's knuckles whitened. Robert only laughed, but his eyes gleamed possessively when they flicked to Lyanna.
Across the feast.
The King's voice murmured again, though none dared interrupt him.
"Traitors in silk," Aerys whispered, his fingers scratching the wooden armrest with a frantic desperation like claws against his foes. "Tywin waits for me to fall. My son dreams of my throne. And still they smile. Still they bow. They must, they must always bow before the dragon."
At times his eyes narrowed toward the Martells as well, though his face flickered with unease whenever Elia's dark gaze met his.
"Even Dorne thinks to claim power beneath my house. Whores every last one of them. Only by spreading their legs can they claim to have dragon blood."
At the musicians pause, Aerys laughed suddenly, sharp and high screeching. The hall grew momentarily quieter, though none dared show their discomfort.
The music resumed, a little faster this time.
The Coming Day
Servants whispered through the hall that the archery contest would begin on the morrow, a quieter event after the spectacle of the melee.
"Few care for bows in the South," murmured some.
"A hunter's sport, not a knight's."
A small pool of names was already known: Lord Jon Swann of Stonehelm; a man from the Dornish Marches; one or two Westerlanders; and a scattering of hedge knights who hoped for coin rather than honor.
One man jested loudly.
"Perhaps the wolf girl should show them how northern women hunt!"
The laughter was thin. Lyanna smiled only faintly for appearance, but her eyes were sharp.
Robert chuckled heartily, wrapping an arm loosely over the back of her chair causing her to recoil away.
"My Lyanna shoots better than most of these lords."
Her face stiffened slightly at my Lyanna, then as the other night, huffed and left followed again by her loyal brother benjen all while Brandon sighed and shook his head. Eddard for his part just looked abashed and tried to pat on Robert's shoulder while saying his peace.
"Robert, sometimes it's best to be quiet instead of speaking your mind every single time."