Hello, Drinor here. I'm happy to publish a new Chapter of The Golden Dragon.
If you want to Read 7 More Chapters Right Now. Search 'Patreon.com/Drinor' on Websearch
Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24, and Chapter 25 are already available for Patrons, so go to my Patreon to gain Early Access.
Rhaenys Targaryen
The Tower of the Hand boasted a dining room. The ceilings soared high enough to swallow sound, the windows gaped like open wounds letting in far too much morning light, and the table—gods, that table—stretched long enough to seat a dozen lords in their cups, yet only two places had been set. Rhaenys sat at one end, her silver fork pushing poached eggs about her plate, watching the yolks bleed yellow across white porcelain. At the opposite end, pale as curdled milk and twice as sour, sat Lysa Arryn like some great spider crouched in a web of damask and polished silver.
At least spiders have the courtesy to stay quiet, Rhaenys thought darkly.
"You must eat more, dear," Lysa said, though her own plate sat near-pristine, a single bite of toast gone and nothing else disturbed. Her hands moved constantly, worrying at her napkin, folding and unfolding the linen as if it held secrets. "Growing girls need their strength. My sweetling Robin eats so well, such an appetite on the boy. Of course, he's a boy—boys need more food than girls—everyone knows that—"
Rhaenys made a sound in her throat, something that might have been agreement if one squinted at it sideways, and returned to rearranging her breakfast. The woman had been talking since Rhaenys entered the room ten minutes past—a torrent of words that flowed like a swollen river after spring rains, touching on her son, the weather turning cold, her son, the absent Lord Jon Arryn and his duties, her son, the state of the keep's larders, and had she mentioned her son?
"—and Jon worries so about little Robin whilst he's away, I send him letters, reams of them, telling him there's no need, the boy is perfectly healthy despite what the maesters whisper behind their hands. What do they know, really? Grey old men who smell of parchment and boiled leather. Of course Jon must go when Robert calls, must always go, as if that man's drunken wars and tourneys are more important than his own—"
Lysa stopped as abruptly as a snapped lute string. Her pale blue eyes—watery things, like winter ice over shallow pools—fixed on Rhaenys as though seeing her for the first time that morning.
"You're becoming quite pretty, aren't you? Such beautiful purple eyes. Foreign-looking. Dornish." The word dripped from her tongue like poison from a viper's fang. "Everyone always says how pretty Elia was, though I never saw it myself. Far too sharp-featured, if you ask me. Not soft like proper ladies should be, not gentle—"
Rhaenys's grip on her fork tightened until her knuckles went bone-white. Careful. She breathed through her nose. Don't rise to it. The woman was mad—everyone knew it, though they smiled and curtseyed and pretended otherwise as if madness could be hidden beneath courtesy.
Rhaenys glared at the mad woman, "Sharp features age poorly, they say. Though I suppose when one has features as delicate and undefined as yours, aging must be... imperceptible." she said, and Lysa seemed not to understand what she had just said.
"Your father never thought about his children's needs either, did he?" Lysa continued, her voice shifting, now talking as if she was talking through a strange dream. "Running off to tourneys, stealing and raping Northern girls, starting wars that burned the realm. I would feel so much shame if I were you. So selfish. Men are selfish, all of them—even Jon sometimes, though he's better than most. He gave me my sweetling, after all. After so many failures, so much blood—"
"Lady Lysa," Rhaenys cut in, keeping her voice flat and even as a frozen lake, "I should attend my morning lessons soon. If you'll excuse me—"
"Of course, of course." Lysa fluttered her pale hand in dismissal, but her eyes never left Rhaenys, tracking her like a hawk watches a hare. "You look so much like him, you know. That Targaryen look. Jon says I mustn't say such things, that it's dangerous talk, but I can't help what I see, can I? Those purple eyes. That olive skin. Unnatural, really. Not like proper Westerosi folk with proper Westerosi blood—"
Rhaenys fled before the woman could spin more poison. Behind her, echoing down the corridor, came Lysa's voice in sing-song: "Don't forget to pray to the Seven, dear! Dragons don't listen to prayers anymore!"
The corridor beyond was blessedly silent, cold stone and shadows and peace. Rhaenys pressed her back against the wall, breathing deep, trying to cool the rage that churned in her belly like wildfire, white-hot and hungry. Her hands were shaking.
She closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then twenty.
You look so much like him.
Yes. Yes, she did. She had her father's eyes, her father's face. She was Rhaenys Targaryen, daughter of the crown prince, granddaughter of kings, and that woman—that mad, twittering woman—spoke of her father like he was a common criminal rather than a man who'd been murdered by a usurper.
"My lady?" A voice, concerned but careful. Ser Willis Fell, the youngest of her four guards, stepped into view. "Are you well?"
Rhaenys straightened and tried to look like a proper Princess in front of the guard. "I'm fine, Ser Willis. Lady Lysa was simply... being herself."
The knight's scarred face showed understanding. He'd been guarding her for three years now, paid by Jon Arryn to ensure Robert Baratheon's "mercy" didn't mysteriously evaporate some dark night. He knew what Lysa was like.
"Lord Arryn left instructions that you were to be kept safe and comfortable in his absence," Ser Willis said carefully. "If Lady Lysa is making you uncomfortable—"
"There's nothing to be done about it." Rhaenys started walking, her four guards falling into formation around her—Ser Willis and Ser Donnel Swann flanking her, with Jacks and Terrence trailing behind. "She's the Lady of the Eyrie and this is her husband's tower. I'm simply a... guest."
Prisoner, her mind reminded her, but she didn't say it aloud. Jon Arryn had been kind to her, had saved her life, had given her as much freedom as he dared. It wasn't his fault that his wife was half-mad, or that the Red Keep itself was a cage red with the blood of innocents, or that every day she woke to the knowledge that Robert Baratheon could change his mind about her continued existence at any moment.
They walked through the Keep's corridors in silence. Rhaenys noted everything—the servants who stepped aside quickly, averting their eyes; the courtiers who whispered behind their hands; the guards who stared with open curiosity at the Targaryen girl and her escort.
"...dragon spawn walks around like she owns the place..."
"...should've been dealt with years ago, sent across the sea with the others..."
"...Arryn's pet dragon, she has grown quite beautiful..."
"...Maybe that's why Lord Arryn is keeping her around..."
Rhaenys kept her face impassive, her stride steady. She'd learned years ago that reacting only gave them satisfaction. Better to glide past like they didn't exist, like their words couldn't touch her.
They were passing through a busy corridor near the training yards when a boy—perhaps thirteen, with the Rosby colors on his doublet—stepped directly into her path.
"Move aside, Targaryen," he said loudly, drawing attention from the other courtiers. "Some of us have actual business in these halls."
Ser Donnel moved to intervene, but Rhaenys held up a hand. She looked at the boy—really looked at him, noting his expensive clothes, his soft hands, the way he glanced toward his friends for approval.
"Of course, my lord," she said with perfect courtesy, stepping aside. "I wouldn't dream of impeding such important business as... what exactly? Gossiping with your equally useless companions? Practicing your scowl in the mirror?"
The boy flushed red. "You insolent—my father says you're only alive because Arryn has a soft spot for lost causes—"
"Your father is correct," Rhaenys interrupted, her voice dropping to something cold and sharp. "Lord Arryn does have a soft spot for lost causes. It's the only reason he tolerates your family's presence at court, given your house's distinguished history of backing losing sides in every major conflict for the past century."
Ser Willis made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh. The boy's face went from red to purple.
"You—you're just a—"
"I'm just a girl whose father was crown prince, whose grandfather was king, whose family ruled these Seven Kingdoms for three hundred years." Rhaenys's voice grew with authority. "What's your family known for, my lord? Besides cowardice and poor judgment?"
She swept past him before he could respond, her guards following. Behind her, she heard the boy's friends laughing at him, which was somehow more satisfying than any verbal response he might have managed.
"That was dangerous, my lady," Ser Donnel murmured as they turned a corner.
"Living is dangerous for me," Rhaenys replied. "At least this way I get some satisfaction from it."
They continued toward the sept, but near the entrance to the castle gardens, a familiar voice called out: "Lady Rhaenys! A moment, if you would."
Rhaenys stopped, turning to see Septa Annara approaching with her usual expression that she reserved for every girl... disappointment. The woman was old—at least fifty—with a face like sun-dried leather stretched too tight over bones that disapproved of breathing too loudly. Her cheeks had the permanent pinch of someone tasting vinegar for the first time every morning, and the deep creases around her mouth looked carved by decades of muttering about sins no one cared about. Even the Seven couldn't smooth a face that judgment had chiseled into a warning poster for joy.
"Septa," Rhaenys greeted her with a big smile.
"You're late for your lessons," Septa Annara announced, as if Rhaenys had committed some grave sin rather than simply escaped a breakfast with a madwoman.
"I apologize, Septa. I was delayed—"
"I'm not interested in excuses, child." The septa's eyes raked over Rhaenys from head to toe, finding fault in ways both subtle and obvious. "You're not a princess anymore, yet you carry yourself as if you still were. Pride goes before a fall."
Rhaenys bit back her first three responses, settling on: "My apologies, Septa. Where should we be having lessons today?"
"The Sept of Baelor. It's time for prayer instruction." Septa Annara's mouth pursed in a way that suggested she found this entire exercise distasteful. "The Seven may show mercy even to... well. Even to those whose families rejected them."
My family didn't reject the Seven. The Seven rejected my family. Rhaenys didn't say it. No point.
"Of course, Septa. I'm ready to go now."
The walk from the Red Keep to the Sept of Baelor took twenty minutes through crowded streets. King's Landing smelled of shit, and it didn't help that people in the city rarely bathed; everyone here smelled terrible, and Rhaenys had to pinch her nose many times during her walk.
Rhaenys had been here for six years, but she'd never grown used to it. King's Landing wasn't like what the singers loved to sing. It wasn't grand or glorious. It was dirty and cruel and it stank.
They passed through the Street of Steel, where the constant hammering of smiths working metal made her eyes ring.
Clank Clank Clank...Clank...Crack...Crack....Crack...Tear...Tears...Sobbing...CRACK...
Her breath came faster. She forced herself to keep walking, she closed her eyes, her eyes burned still, it was too much...
Thud. CRACK..Thud. A scream. Thud. A Laughter of a Mad Man...
"My lady?" Ser Willis's hand on her shoulder. "Perhaps we should take another route?"
Rhaenys breathed heavily. For a moment, she had forgotten where she had been. "I'm fine. Keep walking."
The Sept of Baelor rose before them, seven crystal towers throwing rainbows across the plaza. It was beautiful, not because she believed in the Seven, but because it represented everything her family had lost. The Targaryens had built the Red Keep, and the Sept of Baelor was built during the reign of Baelor the Blessed; it all belonged to House Targaryen. And now the Faith served Robert while her family rotted in exile or graves.
The sept breathed coolness, a hush thick as incense settling over polished stone. Beyond the high doors the city still murmured and clattered, but in here only the soft echo of slippered feet and whispered prayers dared intrude. Light spilled through panes of sapphire, ruby, and gold, casting broken halos across pale marble like the scattered blessings of watchful gods. Rhaenys let her gaze wander. A small flock of maidens clustered through the hall, a dozen and more, from little things hardly past their ninth nameday to willowy girls near womanhood. Silk and samite draped them in gentle hues: dove-grey, deep violet, the soft pinks and creams favored by noble houses eager to parade their virtue. They knelt stiff-backed beneath statues of divine judgment, heads bowed as if piety alone might shield them from the world waiting beyond the sept's quiet walls.
Septa Annara guided her to a place near the rear of the chamber, where lesser daughters knelt. The front was crowded with silk-wrapped favorites of great houses, girls bred for courts and alliances; back here, among the almost-important and nearly-worthy, Rhaenys sank onto a worn cushion beside a freckled slip of a Frey with drooping mouth and the resigned eyes of someone accustomed to disappointment. A fitting companion for the Septa's chosen seating, Rhaenys thought sourly. Let the dragons kneel with sheep.
"Attend," Septa Annara whispered sharply. "The Silent Sister will begin."
A grey-shrouded figure drifted toward the altar, faceless beneath her veil. Rhaenys had always found Silent Sisters unsettling. Tongues taken, voices stolen; some called it holy. To Rhaenys, it was savagery dressed in sanctity. The Sister raised thin hands, and another septa gave her gestures voice, intoning the lesson.
"Today we contemplate the Mother's mercy," the woman said, sweet as honeyed milk gone sour. "Her boundless love, her forgiveness without end..."
Mercy. Love. Forgiveness. Pretty words, polished smooth like river stones, used to cudgel the guilty and comfort the obedient.
Where had the Mother been when her mother screamed? When her father's breast shattered beneath Robert Baratheon's hammer and all the songs died? The gods had offered neither mercy nor justice, only silence and ash. The Seven were lace-draped lies whispered to keep smallfolk kneeling, and nobles sleeping soundly in beds stained with other people's blood.
Rhaenys stared down at her folded hands, rage coiled quiet in her chest like some serpent too tired to strike. If the gods existed, they had turned their faces long ago. Perhaps wisely.
A soft tremor spread through the sept like a breeze racing over tall fields. Girls straightened, breath catching, whispers flickering from lip to lip. Rhaenys lifted her head.
Queen Cersei Baratheon stood in the doorway.
Emerald silk clung to her tall frame, rich enough to shame a garden, yet the gown's splendor only made the woman wearing it look more ghost than queen. Cersei moved strangely like a marionette whose strings had frayed. Beauty still clung to her—the Lannister gold of her hair, the fine carve of cheek and jaw—but she seemed hollow as if the soul was taken out of her body. Dark smudges bruised the skin beneath her eyes despite layers of powder, and her cheeks, once soft as peaches, had thinned to sharpness. Even her famed hair dimmed, as if grief had stolen the shine from every strand.
No retinue, no fluttering handmaidens, only two crimson-cloaked guards shadowing her. Queens did not walk alone. Yet here she was, solitude trailing her like a funeral shroud.
Cersei moved past the kneeling girls without a glance, gliding to the Mother's statue as though drawn to judgment. She sank to her knees, fingers trembling, lips moving in fevered prayer. Not the soft murmur of a pious court lady; this was desperation flayed raw.
"Is the queen ill?" the Frey girl breathed. "She looks dreadful."
"Pray." The septa glared at the Frey girl, whose eyes turned red with tears, and quickly looked away.
Rhaenys did not pray. She watched, as Lord Arryn had taught her. Always watch. The world was sharper when you saw without blinking.
"...bring him back..." Cersei's voice drifted, thin and breaking. "Please... I will do anything..."
The king, then. Robert is off to war. How curious, for the whole Red Keep knew hatred rotted that marriage to its bones. Had grief softened her? Or did she fear the game without the brute she called husband to shield her?
Rhaenys studied her; her eyes would not cry for this woman. How fragile even the high can become, she thought. How thin the silk between crown and ruin.
Good, a voice whispered in her ear. Let her tremble. Let them all tremble. Let Lannister tears water the graves they made.
Yet another voice—Jon Arryn's patient murmur- rose like a sigh in her breast. She remembered the way Visenya the dragon had been written in songs: terrible, yes, but not empty. Pity, unwelcome and faint as winter sun, stirred in her.
The queen knelt alone beneath holy glass, a sovereign stripped bare, and whatever gnawed her heart was feasting well.
Even lions bleed, Rhaenys thought. And sometimes the gods watch, silent as stone.
The Silent Sister's hands moved in slow, practiced sweeps, each gesture as measured as a funeral rite. The translating septa murmured on, her voice as soft and ceaseless as wind against tombstones, speaking of mercy and forgiveness and the Mother's love, all sweeter than honey and twice as cloying. The noble girls knelt stiff-spined in their finery, lips set in pious lines while their eyes darted like nervous sparrows toward the queen collapsed at the foot of the altar.
Pain. Loss. Rhaenys sat in silence and let the words wash over her like cold river water. She had tended her grief like a sword-smith working steel. Six years she had kept that blade honed, polished sharp enough to draw blood with a careless thought. Each dawn she counted the ghosts she carried. Each night she whispered their names as though reciting a prayer the gods had already forgotten. A throne. A cradle. A mother's scream. A brother too small to understand fear. All gone, and she had refused to let time make their edges dull.
Yet watching Cersei now, kneeling like a sinner at the edge of judgment, hands trembling and lips moving soundlessly, Rhaenys felt the faint, unwelcome tremor of doubt. There were different wounds in the world.
Fool, she chided herself. Weakness. That is what pity is. These are Lannisters. Golden butchers. Usurpers' kin. They did not weep for your mother when she begged for your life. Do not weep for them.
The lesson dragged on like winter in the North. Candlelight dimmed and wax wept and still the queen did not rise. When at last the Sister lowered her hands and the septa dismissed them, the girls rose with rustling silk and hushed whispers. Rhaenys followed, steps light on marble, but her gaze remained snagged upon the figure still kneeling in fractured light.
Cersei Lannister remained unmoving before the Mother, a queen stripped bare, as if hope itself had turned its back upon her. Her face bowed, her fingers clenched, she seemed carved from sorrow rather than flesh.
What breaks a woman like that? Rhaenys wondered. What grief claws at someone who holds kingdoms in her palm?
She did not know.
Was it the King? Did the Queen hold love for the brute? Was it a secret lover? Rhaenys had heard rumors that the Queen had one, but those rumors were rare to hear; someone was always there to silence such rumors.
Outside, sunlight struck like a slap, bright and loud, the city sprawling below in its usual ruin of noise and filth and hunger. Beyond its red roofs and narrow alleys lay all the Seven Kingdoms, and far beyond them, across the wine-dark sea, exiles bore the dragon name like a guttering torch. Viserys. Daenerys. The last of her blood. Rhaenys knew the Brute King wanted to kill them, but he never received information on them; they were lost to him.
Let them think it. Let them forget the name Rhaenys Targaryen. Let them imagine her dead beneath a collapsing tower, a ghost bound to haunted walls. Ghosts learned patience. Ghosts learned how to wait.
Whispers of rebellion still clung to the Red Keep like damp. The Greyjoys rising. Adrian Lannister stolen away like a lamb in the night. At first she had felt the dark, bright gleam of satisfaction. Let the lion feel loss. Let him learn how the world steals heirs.
But the boy was six. A child, as she once was. And what crime had he ever claimed but his father's name?
Lord Arryn's voice echoed in her mind: Children are not their fathers' sins.
Yet what of her? Was she expected to bear Aerys' madness like a cross across her shoulders? To bow forever because of a fire she never lit?
No easy answers. Westeros had never been generous with those.
"Quiet today, my lady," Ser Willis observed as they climbed the steep path toward the Red Keep.
"I was thinking," she said.
"Of what, if I may?"
"What it means to be Targaryen," she answered. "What my name demands of me. And what I demand of it in return."
He considered her words like a knight turning a new blade in the light. "Lord Arryn would tell you your name owes you nothing, and you owe it nothing in turn. You are yourself, and that is enough."
Rhaenys almost smiled. "He is kind. But kind men do not get to decide the weight a name carries."
The sun hunched low as they reached the Tower of the Hand. Her chambers were modest, but from her window the city stretched wide and raw, and beyond it the world waited, vast and hungry.
She pressed her palms to the cool stone and made her vow.
I will not be forgotten. I will not be made small. I will grow, as the seed grows in darkness. And when the season comes, I will reclaim my Throne with fire and blood.
I am Rhaenys Targaryen, she thought, as the sky bled red and gold beyond her window. And one day, the realm will remember that dragons do not die so easily.
Adrian Lannister
The man carrying him smelled of salt and iron. His arms were hard as the stone walls of Casterly Rock, and they held Adrian like a sack of grain being moved from one store to another.
Adrian kept very still. Father had taught him about dignity—how a Lannister carried himself even when afraid. But Sandor had taught him something more useful: when you're weak and trapped, sometimes the best weapon is stillness. Let them think you're broken. Let them forget you're watching.
The fish bone pressed against his hip beneath the torn fabric of his breeches. His secret.
The corridor they moved through was carved from black stone that seemed to drink the torchlight rather than reflect it. Adrian had seen stone like this in a book once—volcanic rock, from the fires that built islands out of the sea. The Iron Islands. He was in the Iron Islands.
So far from home.
The man carrying him stopped. Adrian could see the floor now if he let his head loll—black stone worn smooth by centuries of feet. There were scratches in it, marks that might have been letters once, or just the scraping of swords.
"Greyjoy." A new voice, deeper than the man who carried him. "I wasn't expecting you back so soon."
"Plans change, Drumm." That was Euron's voice, smooth as oil on water. Adrian kept his eyes half-closed, his body limp. "I need a favor."
"Another one?" The deep voice—Drumm, he'd said Drumm—sounded tired. "Your favors tend to be expensive."
Drumm. Adrian's mind turned the name over like a puzzle piece looking for where it fit. He'd heard that name before. Where? In a lesson? In one of Father's meetings? He was sure he had read about House Drumm, but why did the name stick...he must have read about them more than once, but why? The memory slipped away like a fish through his fingers.
"This one is simple," Euron said. "Just keep the boy somewhere safe. A chamber, not a cell. Feed him. Keep him alive."
"What boy?" Drumm stepped closer. Adrian could see boots now, good leather, not the rough stuff the common reavers wore. "That thing you're carrying?"
The arms holding Adrian shifted slightly. Adrian let his head roll forward, let his silver-gold hair—no, his black hair now, crusted with dried mud that made his scalp itch—fall across his face.
Euron had made sure to put so much mud on his hair that Adrian had feared he would drown in it.
"He's important to me," Euron said, and something in his voice made Adrian's stomach twist. "Very important."
"Who is he?" Drumm's boots moved closer still. "Looks like a street rat you pulled from the gutters of Lordsport."
"He's mine," Euron replied. "That's all you need to know."
There was a long silence. Adrian counted his breaths the way Maester Creylen had taught him when he was nervous. One. Two. Three. Four. Keep breathing. Keep still.
"Balon won't like this," Drumm said finally. "Having some unknown boy in Pyke during a war. Questions will be asked."
"My brother doesn't need to know." Euron's voice went soft like a pillow pressing against a face. "Remember, Drumm. You owe me."
What favor? Adrian wanted to ask. What did this man owe Euron? But he kept his mouth shut, his breathing even.
"That was different," Drumm protested. "That was—"
"That was exactly the sort of thing that would interest your lord father," Euron interrupted. "And your sisters. And the priests of the Drowned God. Shall I continue?"
Another long silence.
"Fine," Drumm said, and now he just sounded defeated. "I'll keep him. But if Balon finds out—"
"Balon is busy losing a war," Euron said, and Adrian heard the smile in his voice. "By the time he has leisure to ask questions, they won't matter anymore. I'll speak with him when the war ends. Until then, the boy stays hidden."
"And fed? Alive?" Drumm asked. "You said feed him."
"Of course. He's no use to me dead." Euron moved closer, and Adrian smelled that strange sweetness that always clung to him, like flowers rotting in the sun. "But keep him locked away. No visitors. No one else knows he's here."
"What about my men? They'll see him."
"Pick ones you trust. Tell them..." Euron paused. "Tell them he's a hostage from the mainland. Some merchant's son. Worth gold if kept healthy."
"Is he?"
"In a manner of speaking." Euron's hand touched Adrian's head, and it took everything Adrian had not to flinch away. The fingers dug into his muddy hair, tilting his face up. "Pretty little thing, isn't he? Those eyes..."
Adrian kept his eyes half-closed, but he couldn't help seeing Euron's face too close to his own. That smile. Those pale eyes.
"Green as spring grass," Euron murmured. "Just like his—" He stopped. "Well. No matter."
The hand released him, and Adrian let his head fall back down.
"Take him," Euron commanded.
New arms took Adrian from the first man. These were thinner, bonier. The man who held him now smelled different—less like rot, more like fish and leather. Adrian risked opening his eyes a bit more.
The new man wore roughspun brown, and his face had scars across one cheek. A guard, Adrian thought. One of Drumm's men.
"Chamber three," Drumm was saying. "The one with the barred window. And get him clean water. Food. The boy looks half-starved."
"Aye, my lord."
They were moving again, away from Euron's voice. Adrian counted the turns—left, right, straight, up stairs (his stomach lurched with each step). The guard carrying him breathed heavily, and Adrian thought he must not be very heavy at all. He was small for six. Too small. Father had worried about that.
Father.
Was Father looking for him? Of course, he was. Father was Tywin Lannister. He would burn the Iron Islands to ash to get his heir back. Any day now. Any day.
Adrian just had to survive until then.
The guard carried him up another flight of stairs, down a corridor that smelled like damp stone and seawater. Then, through a doorway into a room that was dark except for a thin line of light from a window high on the wall.
The arms released him. Adrian fell onto something soft—a bed, or at least a mattress. Better than the ship's floor. Better than the cell.
"I'll bring food," the guard said. "Don't try anything stupid, boy."
The door closed. A bar scraped across it from outside.
Adrian lay very still in the darkness, letting his eyes adjust. The room was small—smaller than his chambers at Casterly Rock, but bigger than the ship's cell. There was the bed, a chamber pot in the corner, and that window too high to reach.
He sat up slowly, testing his body. Everything hurt, but nothing felt broken. His hands moved to his waistband where the fish bone waited, sharp and secret.
Drumm. The name still tickled at his memory. Where had he heard it?
Then he heard a sound, he looked up and saw the drops of water falling from the sky, his face felt the cold in each drop. Rain. Adrian's eyes widened; he realised now that it was said that House Drumm had a Valyrian Steel Sword. Red Rain.
But Adrian ignored that information; it's not like the sword could help him in any way; he was too small to use a Valyrian Steel Sword. No, he had his bone and his heart.
"I am Adrian Lannister," he whispered to the empty room, his voice so quiet that even he found it difficult to hear himself. "Son of Tywin Lannister. I am six years old. I live at Casterly Rock. My brother Tyrion is the smartest person I know. Sandor taught me to fight. Joy is my best friend."
The fish bone's point pressed against his palm through the fabric.
"A Lannister always pays his debts," he said, louder now. "A Lannister is no coward."
The grey rectangle of sky didn't answer.
But Adrian kept talking anyway, because if he stopped talking, he might start crying, and Lannisters didn't cry.
Not where anyone could see them.
He needed to escape. Soon. Before whatever Euron was planning came to pass.
The fish bone waited beneath his clothes, sharp as a promise.
All he needed was the right moment.
Adrian closed his bright green eyes and began to plan.
If you want to Read 7 More Chapters Right Now. Search 'Patreon.com/Drinor' on Websearch