Morgan Martell returned to Sunspear as a hero.
He left the Stepstones a day after King Harald departed for Oldtown on whatever secret quest had drawn him west. Morgan had meant to remain there at first, just as he had told the king he would, to watch the last pirate dens emptied and the captured Dornishmen accounted for properly. But soon after, he realized all the Dornish captives had been found, so he made the decision to sail home and return later after bringing all his freed countrymen back to Dorne.
His arrival filled the shadow city with cheers. Men and women thought lost to pirates stumbled down the gangplanks and into the arms of families who had already mourned them.
By noon, the news had spread all over Sunspear, and Morgan was being celebrated as a hero.
The pirate threat was broken. The Stepstones no longer belonged to raiders, corsairs, and petty kings. Dorne had secured favored status in trade with both the Targaryen Freehold and the Heartlands, and the two great powers now controlling the sea lanes had both agreed that Dornish ships would pass under protection, with no tolls charged.
To Morgan, that was a great victory. No one in Dorne would blame him for not conquering the islands, not when they did not currently have the means to hold them. What Morgan had done was the best possible outcome.
His grandmother only waved one thin hand when he told her.
“Good,” Princess Meria said, already turning her attention back to the carved ivory pieces on the cyvasse board before her. “Make sure the merchants do not waste it.”
Morgan might have been offended by that response if he had not known her so well. His grandmother measured praise like a miser measured water in the desert. A single good from her was nearly a song.
His father gave him more words.
Morgan almost wished he had not.
“You have bound us to both of them,” Nymor said when Morgan finished. “You have taken us out of the game entirely. You lost us the whole Stepstones, boy.”
Morgan held his tongue for half a breath. “I secured us protection, trade privileges, and the return of our people.”
“You secured nothing.”
“King Harald is trustworthy. He and...”
His father looked at him then. “You know him so well after a handful of conversations?”
“I know what he did. I know what he offered when he did not have to offer anything.”
Nymor crossed to the table where Morgan had placed the written agreements. He touched none of them. “The wiser course would have been to let the Freehold and the Heartlands circle each other over the Stepstones while Dorne profited from both. Rival powers spend heavily to keep friends.”
Morgan felt the old heat rise in him, the one his father could summon with a glance. “So I should have left our people in chains while we...”
“Do not dress pride as mercy.”
The words landed cleanly because Nymor knew exactly where to strike.
His father dismissed him afterward, and Morgan left the solar before his temper escaped him.
That night, he sat in his chambers while the sound of celebration still rose from the city below.
Hero, the people had called him.
His father had made the word feel childish by supper.
Morgan drank too much watered wine and slept badly.
Then the world began to shake.
At first, he thought it was a dream born from anger and sour wine. The bed moved beneath him, not with the gentle roll of a ship, but with the hard, grinding motion of stone forced against stone. A cup slid from the table. The bronze lamp beside his bed toppled, spilling oil across the floor.
Morgan was on his feet before the flame could catch.
The second tremor threw him against the wall.
Outside his chamber, someone screamed.
The palace groaned around him.
He dragged on boots and a robe, then threw open the door.
Servants stumbled through the corridor. One was on the ground, hurt after falling. The others were screaming in fear.
“Courtyard,” Morgan ordered. “All of you. Get to the courtyard.”
The tremors continued as Morgan pushed toward the lower halls. He struck his shoulder against one archway, caught himself on a hanging tapestry, and kept moving. Thunder rolled without pause, though the sky he had seen from his balcony had been clear. No storm clouds. Then where had the sound come from? Somewhere in the shadow city, bells rang in panic. Then one bell stopped midway through a stroke.
He reached the eastern courtyard to find his father already there. Nymor stood among guards and household knights, pointing men toward the inner keep.
“Clear the Princess Tower!” he commanded. “Take ten men through the lower gallery and find my mother.”
Morgan started toward him. “Father.”
Nymor turned sharply. “The western wing. Your sister may be trapped there with half our kin. Go.”
The ground shifted again.
A crack ran across the courtyard between them. One of the guards cursed. Nymor did not look away from Morgan.
“Go,” he said.
Morgan obeyed. He ran through corridors that had known generations of Martells and were now breaking apart. A painted sun split down the middle above a doorway. A statue of Nymeria had lost its head. In the outer passage, a stone bench where Morgan and Deria had hidden from tutors as children lay crushed beneath part of the ceiling.
He forced himself onward.
The damage worsened near the western side. Part of the Spear Tower had cracked along its southern face. White stone had fallen into the courtyard below and crushed someone. Morgan could hear the wails.
Every time the shaking seemed to fade, it returned with fresh spite.
Morgan reached the western apartments half expecting to find ruin.
Instead, he found Deria in the small garden court.
“No, here! Into the open! Do you want to be buried alive? Come here, all of you!” she yelled at those Morgan recognized as his teenage cousins.
“Deria.”
She turned.
“Morgan,” she said. “Aunt Mara’s girls are missing.”
“Your arm,” Morgan said, seeing how she was holding it.
“I am fine. Find our cousins, brother.”
Morgan nodded, called the nearest guards to him, and sent them through the adjoining passage for the missing girls. Another tremor struck before they could move.
Thankfully, the guards returned with the missing girls, and Morgan stayed there with them as the tremors increased again and again. They remained there the whole night, and when the first gray hint of dawn touched the east, the shaking had stopped.
Morgan moved through the palace once more, and as he did, he saw the devastation wrought upon it and the losses they had all suffered.
The eastern courtyard was quiet. As Morgan entered, he saw that the Princess Tower had collapsed.
What remained of it jutted from the broken side of the palace like a snapped bone.
His grandmother’s body lay on a cloak near the base of the steps, and his father knelt beside her.
Morgan stopped a few paces away.
She should have died peacefully, surrounded by her family. Not like this. Not buried under her own castle.
No one spoke.
Morgan looked from his father to the ruined tower, then beyond it to the broken city waking beneath a sky that, only hours before, had seemed to be breaking apart.
The gods had cursed Dorne.
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Baldric attacked in the evening, two hours before sunset, when the light had begun to turn red over the fields near Storm’s End.
Ormund should have known.
His scouts had stopped reporting before noon. At the time, he had blamed the weather. He had wanted to believe Baldric was still farther south, waiting to strike just as Ormund was.
Argella had taken the north from him. Bronzegate had been seized by her. His only path forward now was to take Storm’s End, even as he found himself surrounded by enemies.
Baldric’s banners appeared from behind the low hills as Ormund’s vanguard crossed the open ground. For a moment, Ormund thought some great host had risen from the earth itself. Horns sounded, men shouted, and the first charge came down upon them.
Ormund met the ambush head-on because there was no other choice. His men formed as best they could. The first clash nearly split his army in two. Baldric had hidden his strength well, and worse, he had chosen his ground with care. Muddy hollows broke the charge of Ormund’s horsemen. A low ridge gave Baldric’s archers a clean view of the field. Each mistake revealed itself only after men had already died for it.
The battle dragged from evening into dusk.
The sun sank. Rain came with the dark, first as a thin mist, then as cold sheets that turned blood into black streams on the ground.
By nightfall, Ormund thought he had Baldric beaten.
His center had held. His right had driven Baldric’s men down from the ridge. The rain was in the enemy’s face now. He was close to victory. Yes, he could taste it.
Then Boremund died.
Ormund saw it. His son had ridden too far forward, eager and furious. Baldric met him near a broken cart, their horses colliding flank to flank. Ormund shouted for his son.
Baldric’s blade rose and he saw his son fall.
“KINSLAYER!” Ormund yelled as he charged.
Men scattered from his path. A knight tried to catch his reins and lost three fingers for the courtesy. Ormund struck one of Baldric’s guards from the saddle, smashed another across the face with his shield, and rode straight for the man who had killed his son.
Baldric turned in time.
They met with enough force to nearly unseat them both.
Ormund’s first swing glanced from Baldric’s helm. The second caught his shoulder and bit through mail, but Baldric answered with a thrust that slid beneath Ormund’s shield and cut along his ribs. Rain struck his eyes.
For several minutes, the battle shrank to the space between their horses.
Baldric nearly had him twice. Once, his sword struck Ormund’s helm hard enough to fill his skull with bells. Another time, he hooked Ormund’s shield aside and drove his sword toward Ormund’s throat.
Ormund was losing. He knew it. He was fading, and if Baldric killed him here, it was over.
Then, from the east, came new horns.
For a moment, Ormund thought Baldric had more hidden men.
But no. It was Swann. He had sallied forth from Storm’s End and attacked Baldric.
Ormund did not waste the gift.
He drove Baldric from his saddle himself.
They fell together into the mud. Baldric reached for a knife. Ormund struck his hand aside and pinned him with one knee across his chest.
“You killed my son.”
Baldric spat blood into his face. “The boy should not have been playing at war, then.”
Ormund would have torn out his throat with his teeth if one of his knights had not reached them first.
The blade came down.
Baldric’s head rolled into the mud.
The battle ended soon after.
Lord Swann knelt before Ormund in the rain and swore loyalty to him. The man’s timing was almost insulting in its perfection. He had arrived late enough for Ormund to pay dearly, but early enough to claim he had saved him.
Ormund accepted his oath.
He had no choice.
Most of his army was gone. Boremund lay dead. His heir had lost an eye. His youngest son, gods be thanked, had survived without any injuries.
Swann led Ormund into Storm’s End.
It should have been a triumph. The walls of his ancestors rose around him, dark and immense, the great drum tower standing against the sea.
He had won.
At great cost, but he had won.
Only Argella remained, and the army the sorcerer king had lent her.
Then the gods, not content with the ruin men had made, laid their hands upon the world.
The storm worsened. Rain struck the walls in sheets. Thunder moved without pause across the sky, so constant that it began to hurt men’s ears. Then the ground shifted beneath Storm’s End.
Ormund had believed no earthly power could trouble those walls.
He was wrong.
The castle shook.
The air filled with sounds no storm should make.
The loudest sound came near dawn. It struck so hard that Ormund lost his hearing for hours. The earth shook once more, and part of Storm’s End’s outer works cracked and fell away.
For a moment, Ormund wondered if the world was ending.
Then it did not.
Day came.
The shaking stopped.
Now, three days later, Ormund stood upon the damaged wall and watched another storm roll in from the east.
The sky had darkened early. Clouds gathered in thick layers above the sea. Wind tugged at his cloak and carried the smell of rain, salt, and dust from the broken wall. Below, men labored to shore up sections of wall that had not needed repair since the Age of Heroes.
From the corner of his eye, Ormund saw Lord Swann approach.
He had not forgotten who the man was. Swann had helped poison King Argellic’s mind against Ormund’s father. Swann’s counsel, caution, loyal concern, and many whispered doubts had helped drive the king’s own brother, Ormund’s father, away. Ormund should have killed the man, but he could not. Fate had cursed him with Swann.
“Your Grace,” Swann said.
Ormund kept his eyes on the clouds. “Speak.”
“The scouts have returned. Argella’s host will reach us within a day.”
Ormund nodded.
Swann stepped beside him, careful to leave a respectful distance. “Then we should prepare for siege.”
“No.”
Swann glanced toward the cracked outer walls. “Storm’s End can still hold against any army, even in its diminished state.”
Ormund turned to him. “It was Argella who caused what happened that night.”
“My lord, I would not assume she commands such power.”
“No. She does not.” Ormund looked east again, toward the darkening sky. “Her sorcerer does.”
“The Dragonborn lends her men,” Ormund said. “He lent her his powers as well.”
“We must face her head-on. Connington and the others who followed Baldric are gathered near the edge of the Rainwood,” Ormund continued. “I sent riders. They know what Argella will do to them if she wins. I am confident they will join us when the time comes.”
“Your Grace...”
“I have made my decision, my lord.”
Swann studied him. “You mean to meet Argella outside the walls and have Connington strike her flank.”
“Yes. I mean to end this once and for all.”
Rain began to fall.
Ormund did not move.
“The Seven did not preserve me through all this so I could cower in Storm’s End while Argella delivers my kingdom to her master.”
“As you say, Your Grace.”
Thunder rolled overhead.
Ormund looked toward the sky.
Beneath the thunder, he heard something else.
A low sound, distant at first.
Almost a roar.
“What is that?” Ormund asked.
Swann frowned at him through the rain.
“I heard something.”
Swann listened for a moment, then shook his head. “I hear nothing. Come inside, Your Grace. The rain is getting worse.”
Ormund did not move.
The sound came again.
A roar.
This time, Swann heard it too. He stiffened and turned toward the sky.
Ormund had heard that sound before. During the night when the world shook, it had come again and again through the thunder.
He looked up, dread growing in him. For one moment, he wondered if the earth was about to shake once more.
Then he saw the shape in the sky.
A dragon.
Swann screamed.
Ormund said nothing. He only stared as it came lower through the storm. At first, it was just a dark shape against the clouds. Then lightning flashed, and he saw it clearly.
There was someone on its back.
A rider.
His first thought was Targaryen. The dragonlords were across the sea, warring in Essos. Perhaps one of them had come here for some reason.
Then the beast drew nearer, and Ormund saw it properly.
It had four legs.
He frowned in confusion. No dragon he had ever heard described had four legs. The tales from old Valyria all spoke of two-legged beasts with wings.
Thunder rolled overhead. Rain came down harder. Lightning flashed again, bright enough to hurt his eyes.
The dragon vanished.
Ormund blinked water from his face.
“Where?”
Swann screamed again, and Ormund felt something watching him from behind.
He turned.
The dragon was there, and shivers crawled up Ormund’s spine. His legs trembled.
It stood perched atop Storm’s End itself, its claws sunk into the stone, its eyes glowing. One moment it had been in the sky. The next it was on the castle.
How?
Lightning struck nearby.
When Ormund’s sight cleared, a man stood before him.
He was large, broad across the shoulders, wearing armor that looked as if it had been carved from a great block of steel. In his hands was a massive two-sided battleaxe. Rain ran down the gleaming metal and dripped from the edge of the weapon.
Ormund knew exactly who this was.
The heretic king.
The sorcerer king.
The Dragonborn.
Ormund took a step back. His legs trembled.
The Dragonborn looked at him as if he were nothing.
“Kneel, Ormund. Kneel before your king.”
His voice was deep, and it shook the ground beneath Ormund’s feet.
Ormund looked at the dragon above them. He looked at Swann, who had fallen unconscious. He looked back at the man before him.
Then Ormund knelt.
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Harald using Slow Time to aura farm.