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Song of The Blessed
Chapter 04 – A Time of Change
~ Jon Arryn POV ~
The air in King’s Landing had changed. It was a truth Jon Arryn tasted with every breath. A year had passed since Prince Draedon’s return, a year that had scoured the capital with the ruthless efficiency of a winter storm.
Walking the cobbled streets from the Great Sept of Baelor back toward the Red Keep, Jon felt the difference in his very bones. The city was clean. Not merely swept, but scrubbed, the layers of grime and human misery that had caked its alleys for centuries stripped away. The familiar stench of piss and offal was gone, replaced by the sharp, clean scent of lye and the brine of the Blackwater.
It was unnatural, this cleanliness.
He paused by a fountain in the Street of the Sisters, watching the play of sunlight on the water. A pair of guards stood at attention on the far side, their presence a stark and constant reminder of the new order. They were not Gold Cloaks. The Gold Cloaks, that shambling fraternity of bullies, drunks, and thieves, were a memory. These were the City Guard.
Clad in gleaming black plate, marked with bronze that mirrored the Baratheon sigil, they were a terrifying spectacle. Their helms were forged in the grim visage of a snarling lion, their faces hidden behind cold, impassive steel. They moved with a synchronized, disciplined gait that spoke of endless, brutal drilling. Their loyalty, as the Prince had declared in a chillingly public ceremony, was not to the City of King’s Landing, nor to the King, but to the Crown Prince himself.
Jon had watched as the old commander, Janos Slynt, had been stripped of his office, not for corruption, but for incompetence. He’d been flogged in the square and exiled to the Wall, his replacement a stern Stormlander knight whose devotion to Draedon was absolute.
The Prince had not merely replaced the head; he had ripped out the spine and forged a new one. Jon had seen it himself. A pickpocket, brazen or foolish enough to test the new regime, had been caught lifting a merchant’s purse. There was no trial. The man had a finger severed on the spot by a City Guard's shortsword, a stark reminder for him to find an honest livelihood before he loses his hand next. The crowd had gasped, but they had not protested. They had only watched, their eyes wide with a fear that ensured compliance.
Yet, compassion was also prevalent in the Prince's regime. An orphan child, no older than 6, had been caught stealing a loaf of bread in the market and was about to be brutally dealt with by the store owner. However, before the man could lift his hands against the child the guards had intervened, taking the child away from the public and to an orphange looked after by the Crown personally, promising him that hunger would not be something he would feel again.
This was Draedon’s peace. A peace born not just out of swift and brutal consequence, but also respect and adoration. Crime had plummeted. The streets were safer than they had ever been. The people went about their business with a new sense of security, their laughter less strained. They were safe, and they were prospering. And they had only one person to praise for it all.
They had been forgotten pawns in Robert's reign. And while Robert still remained atop the Iron Throne, even a child could see who had started to run the Seven Kingdoms.
His path took him toward the Red Keep, its formidable silhouette cutting into the blue sky. The Small Council were among the first to feel the Prince’s chill. Renly, with his easy smiles and casual ambitions, was gone, sent back to Storm’s End to govern as a proper lord. In his place sat Ser Garlan Tyrell. A good man, a capable man, but his presence was a clear and calculated move, a golden rose planted in the council chambers to bind Highgarden to the crown. It was a shrewd move, one Jon himself might have advised, but the speed and precision with which Draedon had executed it was unnerving.
The council meetings were no longer the meandering, wine-soaked affairs they had once been. They were tense, efficient. Draedon sat at his father’s right hand, silent for the most part, but his presence dominated the room. His gaze would sweep over them, and even Littlefinger’s smirks seemed brittle, Varys’s smiles more strained. He spoke rarely, but when he did, it was with a terrifying clarity that cut through obfuscation and pleasantries. He had an unnatural grasp of law, of history, of logistics. He seemed to possess a knowledge that no man of twenty years should have.
Jon Arryn, Hand of the King, Lord of the Eyrie, and Defender of the Vale, felt like a relic. He had orchestrated Robert’s Rebellion to save the Seven Kingdoms from a tyrant. He had spent years holding the realm together with careful alliances and patient compromise. He had done it, he told himself, for the good of the people, to protect them from the madness of kings.
Now, as he entered the shadow of the great gatehouse, he looked up at the stone walls he had helped secure, a feeling of contentment settled into his being. While Robert had been King, Jon had been the one to help the Realm run. Even as his bones ached and his face developed more wrinkles, he had put his role as the Hand ahead of everything else. He hadn't even been a good husband, nor was he a present father. But as he passed the training yard, looking at the Prince as he smiled and laughed with Garlan Tyrell and the other noble boys his age, looking like a young prince for once instead of the man he had become, Jon Arryn felt like he could finally take a step back.
~ Margaery Tyrell ~
The sun that warmed the perfumed gardens of Highgarden felt different today. It was softer, gentler, its light filtering through a tapestry of green leaves and dappling the marble walkways in shimmering gold. Maybe because her brother was back. And with him, a missive.
Garlan had arrived that morning, bringing alongside him a message sealed with the golden stag of the King, but the wax was laced with black, the mark of the Crown Prince. An invitation. A summons.
“A tourney,” Mace Tyrell boomed, his chest puffing out with pride as he paced the sun-drenched terrace. “In honour of His Grace’s twentieth nameday. The largest tourney in a generation! He requests our presence. He specifically requests Margaery’s presence.” He beamed at his daughter, his expression one of simple, triumphant joy. “This is it! The culmination of all our work. The Rose of Highgarden, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms!”
From her seat with an exasperated expression covering her face, Olenna Tyrell made a small, dismissive sound. “Oh, do put a cork in it, Mace. You sound like a goose who’s just laid a golden egg. It’s an invitation, not a marriage contract. And it’s not from the King; it’s from the Prince. A far more important distinction.”
Her wrinkled fingers, deft as a weaver’s, plucked a thorn from a rose stem. “The boy is consolidating his power. An alliance with the Reach is the most logical step. This tourney is a marketplace, and he’s inviting us to see him, the prized stallion. He wants us to see his strength, to be awed by it, so that we come to the bargaining table already defeated.”
She looked up at her son, "This is not an honor; it is a summons. A beautiful, perfumed summons, but a summons all the same.”
Her sharp, intelligent eyes, so like Margaery’s own, moved to her grandson. “Garlan. You have been in the Capital for six moons. You tell us. Is this prince a man we can manage, or is he his grandfather with a prettier face?”
Garlan Tyrell, solid and dependable, leaned forward, his expression serious. He had returned from the capital today but his letters had already sung the Prince’s praises, but hearing it in person was another matter entirely.
“He is neither, Grandmother,” Garlan said, his voice laced with a deep, resonant respect. “Lord Tywin is a patient predator who moves pieces on a board. The Prince… the Prince is the board, the pieces, and the player. I have never seen a man command a room so completely. He does not shout like his father. He speaks, and lords who have ruled for decades fall silent to listen.”
He paused, glancing at his younger brother, Loras, who was polishing the enamelled hilt of a new tourney sword, his expression one of bored disdain. “He is the finest warrior I have ever seen. You heard about his duel with the Kingslayer, I presume.”
Loras scoffed. “A lucky blow, I’m sure. Ser Jaime might not Arthur Dayne or Ser Barristan, but he is still a seasoned warrior.”
“No,” Garlan said, his voice sharp, cutting through Loras’s arrogance. “It was not luck. I heard it from the mouths of the other Kingsguard themselves. It was a dismantling. And I have been sparring against him myself. The Prince moves with a speed and a strength that… it is beyond human, Loras. He did not just best Ser Jaime; he broke him. He took the man’s legend apart piece by piece in the castle yard and then handed it back to him in tatters. The Kingslayer has not acted cocky in the yard since, instead he has begun taking his training seriously, as if he were a squire again."
The room fell silent. Margaery felt a tremor, a deep, internal shiver that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with a dark, thrilling fascination. She had heard the stories, the whispers that had travelled from the capital like wildfire. The prince who had outmaneuvered Littlefinger, the prince who had reformed the City Watch, the prince who had defeated the legendary Jaime Lannister. Each story was a thread in a forbidden tapestry she wove in the secret chambers of her heart, a tapestry depicting a man of impossible power.
“He has the loyalty of the City Guard, the respect of the Small Council, and the awe of the court,” Garlan continued. “He has increased trade revenues by a third, brought down the crown's debt from millions to a few hundred thousand, and his justice is swift and absolute. He is building a new foundation for the realm, and he is asking us to be the cornerstone.”
“Or a stepping stone,” Olenna countered, her gaze sharp. “He appointed you as his Master of Laws, he invites us to court. What does he want in return?”
“He wants the Reach,” Margaery said, her voice quiet but clear. All eyes turned to her. She felt a blush rise to her cheeks but held her grandmother’s gaze. “He has the West, the Stormlands, and the Crownlands. The North is isolated, the Vale is quiet, and Dorne is Dorne. The Riverlands are fractured. The Reach is the key to the south. He doesn’t want an alliance. He wants fealty. Absolute fealty.”
Mace looked scandalized. “We are Tyrells! We bend the knee only to the King!”
“And who do you think speaks with the King’s voice?” Olenna murmured, her eyes now fixed on Margaery with a new, calculating light. “The girl has the right of it. This prince does not want partners. He wants vassals. The question is, is the vassalage of such a man worth more than the freedom we currently enjoy?”
Garlan nodded slowly, speaking with admiration that bordered on reverence, “Grandmother, to serve him is not to be a vassal. It is to be part of something greater. He has a vision for the Seven Kingdoms, a vision of strength and order I believe in. This invitation… it is an opportunity to rise with him.”
Margaery sat in silence, her hands folded in her lap, the very picture of a dutiful, attentive daughter. But beneath the carefully composed exterior, a slow, deep heat was coiling in her belly. Garlan’s words were meant as a warning, a chilling portrait of a man who was more force than flesh. But to her, they were not a warning. They were a song.
A man who could unmake the Kingslayer. A prince who commanded the absolute loyalty of hardened men. A mind that moved with the cold, brilliant precision of a master artisan. The stories were a forbidden tapestry she unspooled in the privacy of her mind. They spoke of a power that was absolute, a will that was indomitable. They spoke of dominance. And even though Olenna Tyrell wanted Margaery to control her husband, she knew a man like Draedon could not be controlled.
“He is the future,” Olenna said, her sharp gaze flicking to Margaery. “For good or bad. We will attend this tourney. And you, my dear,” she said, her voice softening slightly, “will be the most beautiful flower in a garden of weeds. You will smile, you will charm, and you will see if the Prince is a man you can manage.”
Margaery inclined her head, the perfect image of obedience. “Yes, Grandmother.”
Manage him. The thought was absurd. You did not manage a storm. You did not manage a forest fire. You did not manage the lion wearing a stag's skin that was said to be the finest king the realm would see, even before he bore the crown. You yielded to it. You prayed it would not consume you utterly.
The discussion continued, a swirl of politics and pragmatism, but Margaery’s mind had already drifted. She stared at the royal seal on the scroll, the crowned stag of the Baratheons. But in her mind, it was intertwined with the golden lion of the Lannisters. The Lion-Stag. A creature of myth and power. The stories Garlan told were not just of a shrewd politician or a skilled warrior. They were of a force of nature. A man who bent the world to his will not through petition, but by sheer, indomitable presence. And in the perfumed quiet of Highgarden, surrounded by soft silks and courtly manners, Margaery Tyrell found herself consumed by a deeply sinful, utterly thrilling thought.
She did not want to be his ally. She wanted to be his passion.
Later that night, the heavy scent of moonbloom and night jasmine drifted through the open doors of her balcony, a perfumed shroud that did little to cool the fever in her blood. The talk of the tourney, of Prince Draedon, had planted a seed in her mind, and in the darkness of her solitude, it had begun to sprout into something wild and overgrown.
She rose from her bed, the silk of her nightgown flirting around her ankles. She was a flower, the Rose of Highgarden. Cultivated, perfect, her beauty a tool, her smile a weapon, her virtue a shield. She had been taught to be the gardener, to tend to the ambitions of men, to gently prune and guide them until they grew in the direction she desired.
But Garlan’s words had awakened a different nature within her.
He didn’t just defeat him; he unmade him.
She walked to the ornate mirror that stood in the corner of her chambers. The girl who stared back was lovely, her brown hair falling in soft waves around a face of perfect symmetry, her eyes wide and intelligent. She saw the mask she presented to the world: serene, charming, untouchable. But tonight, she saw the hunger behind the eyes, the flush on her high cheekbones that had nothing to do with maidenly modesty her mother preached to her.
Her mind conjured him. Not the political entity her grandmother spoke of, but the raw force Garlan had described. Tall and broad, a Baratheon in frame, but with a predator’s grace that was all Lannister. She imagined his eyes, the piercing blue her brother had described, cold and analytical, stripping away her courtesies, her silks, her very skin, until he saw the wanting creature beneath.
The stories were a heady wine. They said he had taken four women to his bed the night of his return, satisfying them all until they wept with pleasure and exhaustion. They said he moved through the court not as a prince, but as a conqueror, every glance a claim, every word a command. He was the lion wearing a stag's skin, a fusion of brutal strength and savage cunning. A creature of immense and terrifying appetites.
Her hand trembled as she brought it to the lace at her throat. The thought of such a man, of such appetites, being directed at her… it was a terror and a prayer intertwined. To be the sole focus of that power. To have that indomitable will bent on her possession.
Her fingers traced the curve of her collarbone, down to the swell of her breast. The silk was a frustrating barrier. With a soft sigh of surrender, she untied the ribbon at her neck and let the gown pool at her feet, leaving her naked in the moonlight. The cool night air kissed her skin, raising gooseflesh not from cold, but from the raw, burgeoning ache between her legs.
She returned to her bed, sinking into the plush mattress, the sheets now feeling like a lover’s caress against her bare skin. She closed her eyes, and the fantasy took hold, vivid and overwhelming.
She was in the throne room, not as a queen, but as a spoil of war. He was on the Iron Throne, not his father. Draedon. He looked down at her, and the court, the world, faded away. There was only the weight of his gaze. He would not ask. He would not woo. He would simply take.
Her own hand, a poor substitute, slipped down her flat belly, to the slick heat gathering there. Her breath hitched. A soft moan escaped her lips as her fingers found her clit, already a hard, aching pearl.
She imagined his hand, large and calloused, covering hers. Pushing it aside. Taking control. He would touch her with the same terrifying competence he applied to everything else, a calculated exploration designed for maximum effect. He would know the secrets of her body better than she did herself.
The thought was a jolt of pure, exquisite arousal. To be unmade. To have the careful construction of Margaery Tyrell, the clever, smiling rose, shattered. To be reduced to a creature of pure sensation, writhing and begging under his touch. Her fingers circled, pressed, and a wave of pleasure washed through her, sharp and sweet. But it wasn’t enough. It was her own touch, under her own control. It was pale and weak compared to the fantasy.
She wanted his dominance. She wanted the brute and the power he wielded.
His hand shot out, fingers tangling brutally in her hair, dragging her to her knees. The sudden force stole the air from her lungs, replacing it with a heady mix of fear and arousal. The memory of the explicit example provided fused with her fantasy, its raw power a perfect match for the man she imagined. "Your purpose begins now," he growled, his voice a low timbre that vibrated through her bones as his length sprang free, thick and pulsing.
Her own slickness was a testament to the power of the image in her mind. Her hips arched off the bed, her back bowing as her fingers danced faster, more desperately. She imagined the scent of him, leather and iron and male musk, an intoxicating perfume of power. She imagined the sheer size of him, a weapon meant to conquer, to possess. To fill.
He hauled her onto the sofa, legs locking around him as if by instinct. Her own legs parted wider on the bed, an invitation to the phantom in her mind. She could almost feel the blunt pressure of him at her entrance, the brutal stretching, the pain that would be inseparable from the pleasure. He would be merciless. He would fuck her not to please her, but to brand her, to show her whom she belonged to now.
He fucked her until the sun rose, filling her up with his cream, making her swell up obscenely until his balls were completely empty of his seed. The words from the example were a litany in her mind, a script for her submission. The thought of being filled, stretched, swollen with his seed, was an agony of pleasure. Her own juices flowed freely, soaking her fingers, her thighs, the pristine silk sheets beneath her.
Her hips began to move in a desperate rhythm, chasing a release that was achingly close. She imagined him grunting above her, his control finally cracking, his body shuddering as he poured himself into her. When the sun rose, she cradled her abused snatch, keeping his seed inside her, crying tears of joy. The image was so powerful, so absolute in its depiction of submission and ownership, that it shattered her control.
A cry tore from her throat as her climax seized her, "Draedon!".
The moaning, coupled with a violent, soul-shaking spasm that left her gasping and trembling in the moonlight. Her body arched, every muscle clenched, as waves of incandescent pleasure rolled through her, so intense they bordered on pain.
She collapsed back into the pillows, her body slick with sweat, her breath coming out raggedly. The remnants of the fantasy clung to her, the ghost of his weight, the imagined scent of his seed. She touched her belly, a strange, hollow ache deep inside her.
"Draedon," she claimed, a final time for the night. The words were a whisper in the silent room, a shocking, thrilling confession to the darkness. She had always been a dutiful girl. Clever. Chaste. But the Rose of Highgarden did not dream of being conquered by a brutish prince.
A slow smile touched her lips. Perhaps she was not so dutiful, after all. Perhaps she was simply a rose who had finally found the sun she wished to be scorched by. And with a sense of delicious, terrifying certainty, she knew she would go to this tourney. She would smile, and she would charm. And she would offer the Prince a flower to be devoured.
~ Draedon's POV ~
Deep beneath the Red Keep, in a place forgotten by time and history, the air was cold and still. It tasted of ancient stone and the metallic tang of immense, sleeping wealth. Here, there was no sound but the soft whisper of a single torch and the slow, steady beat of Draedon’s heart.
He stood in the center of the cavern Maegor the Cruel had hidden, a secret treasury that would soon dwarf the vaults of Casterly Rock. The torchlight painted shimmering, liquid paths over a vast, exposed vein of pure gold that ran through the rock like a frozen river. It was power in its most primal form, the means to buy armies, topple houses, to reshape the very foundations of the world. His world.
In his right hand, he held his new weapon. Forged of Valyrian steel, it was a masterpiece of lethal artistry—a bearded axe on one side, a vicious war hammer on the other, all mounted on a shaft of the same rippling, smoky dark metal. It felt alive in his grasp, humming with a latent power that resonated with his own. He was yet to name it, but when he would reveal it during the Tourney, the name Dreadon and the weapon he wielded shall be imprinted in the minds of smallfolk and nobles alike.
But he was not here to admire his wealth or his weapon. He closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of the gold, and turned his focus inward. The physical world melted away, replaced by the vast, star-strewn emptiness of his mindscape. Here, he was not a prince of flesh and blood. He was a nexus, a point of convergence for powers far older than the Seven Kingdoms.
They appeared before him not as men, but as concepts given form, titanic presences that dwarfed his own considerable will.
The threads have been woven as designed, my Champion, a voice spoke, layered and complex, like the rustling of a billion leaves in a timeless forest. Athena, the Weaver of Strategy, the Goddess of Wisdom whose intellect now augmented his own. Your political foundation is secure.
The vaults below overflow, as do the vaults above, resonated a second voice, deep and guttural, a sound that seemed to emanate from the bedrock of the world itself. Hades, Lord of the Underworld, the Giver of Wealth, who had guided him to this cavern. The foundation is laid in gold. A kingdom built on such a bedrock cannot be shaken by mortal hands.
The whelp of the Lion has been humbled, his pride broken. The wolves and falcons watch you with fear. The stags and roses look to you with awe, snarled a third presence, this one hot and sharp with the scent of spilled blood and the thrill of the hunt. Ares, the War God, avatar of conflict and strength, was pleased. Your martial supremacy is undisputed. They fear your hammer.
And soon, the Rose of Highgarden will come to you, her heart a fertile field already tilled by the stories of your dominance. The rest shall follow, their mortal minds unable to comprehend the sheer charisma of my champion, purred a fourth voice, sweet as honeyed wine and sharp as its bitter dregs. Aphrodite, the Goddess of Beauty, Love and Desire, whose understanding of mortal hearts gave him the keys to their loyalties. The reason why he was able to become who he became.
Your vision is clear, your path illuminated, sang the final voice, bright and pure as the rising sun. Apollo, the God of Archery, Healing, Prophecy and Knowledge, whose sight allowed Draedon to see the consequences of his actions before he even took them. The future you seek is attainable.
Draedon stood before them, an agent before his board of directors. This was the source of his unnatural knowledge, his impossible strength. A pact. Not a prayer, not a supplication, but a contract. He provided them with a foothold in a world that had forgotten them, a conduit for their influence, and in return, they gave him the tools to dominate it.
“The board is set,” Draedon projected, his own thoughts sharp and clear in the mental space. “Garlan Tyrell sits on the council, binding the Reach to my future. The City Guard holds the capital in a fist of iron. My treasury is limitless, independent of my father or grandfather. My physical and political power is secure. The nobility bends, either out of fear or calculated self-interest.”
He had spent the last year meticulously executing their shared plan. Every political maneuver, every economic reform, every brutal display of force had been a deliberate step toward absolute control. He had built a flawless machine of power, and he was its undisputed master.
And yet, one piece remained on the board that he did not control. An insidious, pervasive power that held the hearts and souls of the people in its grip.
There is an obstacle, Athena observed, her mental voice devoid of emotion, a statement of pure strategic fact. A power structure that does not answer to our influence, a thread that is not of our weaving.
“The Faith,” Draedon stated. It was not a question. “The High Septon and his Most Devout. The countless septons in every village and holdfast. The very idea of the Seven.”
He had felt it as he walked the city. For all his reforms, for all the respect he inspired, the people still flocked to their septs. They lit candles to the Maiden for their daughters, prayed to the Warrior for courage, and confessed to the Father for judgment. Their loyalty was divided. Their souls belonged to gods who demanded piety, humility, and obedience to a moral law that was not his own.
It was a chain around the soul of Westeros, and he could not see the hands that held it. The Seven were silent. They gave no sign, offered no proof, demanded everything, and gave nothing in return but promises of an afterlife. It was a brilliant, self-perpetuating system of control, and it was the single greatest threat to his own. A king could rule a man’s body, a treasury could rule his ambition, but faith… faith ruled his spirit. And a spirit ruled by another was a spirit that could one day be turned against him.
A thought, cold and brilliant, began to form in his mind. It was an idea of such breathtaking arrogance that it would have shattered a lesser man. But for him, standing at the nexus of divine powers, it was simply the next logical step.
He did not need to destroy the faith. He needed to replace it.
He opened his eyes, the mindscape fading, leaving him once more in the cold, gold-lit cavern. The weight of his weapon in his hand felt reassuring, an affirmation of his purpose. His gaze was fixed on the darkness beyond the torchlight, but he was seeing the future. He saw new septs, new gods, a new world order built not just on steel and gold, but on a new, undeniable divinity.
He turned his thoughts back to the presences that still lingered at the edge of his consciousness, a silent, expectant pantheon. He posed to them a question, a final, chilling declaration of his ultimate ambition.
“Why,” he asked the darkness, his voice echoing softly off the endless gold, “should the people of Westeros worship seven silent gods who have never answered a single prayer…”
He gave a slow, predatory smirk, the reflection of the torchlight glinting in blue eyes.
“…when I can give them gods who will?”
Author's Notes
Chapter 4 is up now. Really enjoying writing this. Stay tuned for more. Do leave a like and your thoughts down in the comments below.
See you soon.