(POV: Steffon Baratheon — Dragonstone, Two Years Later)
The sea smashed endlessly against the cliffs of Dragonstone, white spray rising like ghosts above the black stone. Winds shrieked through narrow towers. Fires guttered low in the halls, staving off the damp only barely. Men called it a cursed place. Hollow. Dead.
But Steffon Baratheon had never found it lifeless.
He stood now in one of the highest chambers, alone, a scroll in hand and ash in the hearth. The chamber smelled of salt and char. The wind clawed at the shutters, and the stone beneath his boots was cold as a crypt. But in his silence, there was warmth—purpose.
Two years. That was all.
Two years since he had left the Red Keep under the guise of study, with only Stannis and silence as company. He had arrived as a prince. He had become something else.
The Order of the Storm had grown far beyond one hundred boys. Now, spread across the Stormlands and parts of the Crownlands, they trained in cells—small, hidden, shaped not by fame but by discipline. Some rode patrols for minor lords, others served as squires or shieldbearers, listening, watching. A few had bled already in border skirmishes or against pirates from the Stepstones. They were no longer simply his guards. They were his future vanguard—knights forged for loyalty, not glory.
His informants had grown alongside them. Bryn Sand, now ten and deadly quiet, commanded a handful of lowborn children in King's Landing—messengers, ears, watchers. She knew when gold changed hands in brothels, which guards were too drunk to count coins, and who had seen strange guests pass beneath the Red Keep at night. Her notes came in short strips, burned after reading. She rarely asked for anything. When she did, Steffon always gave it.
In the two years at Dragonstone, he had learned governance from Stannis, as he had intended—how taxes flowed, how justice was handed out with equal steel, how to enforce obedience with more than a sword. Stannis was not kind. He was not patient. But Steffon had not come for kindness.
And in Dragonstone's hidden places, he had found more than governance.
Beneath the castle, through black tunnels and long-sealed stairwells, he had followed stone paths carved by men long dead—by kings whose names were spoken only in whispers now. He had walked caverns that smelled of sulfur and shadow. And deep in a cavern lit only by veins of quartz and the flickering light of a torch, he had found it.
A dragon egg.
Not cracked. Not fossilized. Whole. As smooth as marble, as warm as embers when touched.
It did not speak. It did not stir.
But it watched him.
He did not tell Stannis. He told no one.
He had hidden it in the oldest vault he could find, sealing it with both iron and blood, etching runes from half-forgotten tongues—some from Halann, some from Valyria. He did not know if it would ever hatch. But he could feel the weight of it in his thoughts now, like a second heart that beat only in his dreams.
(POV: Third Person — King's Gate, King's Landing)
The city smelled the same.
Foul river wind from the Blackwater. The stench of tanneries and sweat and cheap wine drifting up from Flea Bottom. The air clung to the skin, warm despite the fading sun, heavy with noise and filth and breath.
The bells rang for no one. The guards barely looked up. But the gates of King's Landing still opened for Prince Steffon Baratheon, now nearly thirteen, dressed in black and deep crimson, his cloak embroidered with the faint sigil of House Baratheon: the crowned stag standing over the rising storm.
He rode at a measured pace, flanked by six riders of the Order of the Storm—boys no longer, men in all but name. Their armor was plain, their discipline tight. They bore no banners, no trumpets, no proud boasts.
Just silence.
And eyes that watched everything.
Two gold cloaks stood awkwardly beside the gate, confused by the lack of fanfare. One stepped forward to speak, but the look Steffon gave him — polite, patient, calm — made the man hesitate.
By the time he gathered the courage, the riders were already through.
The Red Keep hadn't changed.
Still sprawling, crimson-topped, and quietly rotting beneath the weight of its own legacy. Steffon saw the same chipped pillars, the same banners, the same servants pretending not to see what they feared. But the halls felt smaller now. Slower.
He'd changed. The city hadn't. Not yet.
He passed through the stone corridors without needing a guide. The guards saluted stiffly. Some recognized him, but their greetings caught in their throats.
He was taller now. His face was sharper — more Stark than Stormlander, someone had once said. But it wasn't his face that unsettled people. It was the stillness. The silence. The weight in his presence that hadn't been there before.
He stopped just before entering the royal solar. Two knights of the Kingsguard flanked the door. Ser Mandon Moore stared ahead without expression. Ser Boros gave a half-bow.
The door opened.
(POV: Cersei — Red Keep, King's Solar)
Cersei Lannister looked up from her wine and froze, just briefly.
He was still her son. Still her firstborn.
But she hadn't expected this.
His movements were measured, his words polite, but there was no boyish awkwardness left in him. He bowed as he should, kissed her hand, greeted her formally. But his green eyes searched the room like a veteran entering hostile ground.
He greeted his sister next. Myrcella clung to her nurse's skirts, shy but smiling. Steffon knelt before her and offered a small carved stag — dark wood polished smooth. She reached for it and he let her take it without a word.
Cersei studied him as he rose again. She tried to find her son in his posture, in his face, in his voice.
She failed.
"You've grown," she said finally.
"So has the realm," he replied.
(POV: Third Person — Red Keep, Solar of the King, Late Morning)
The solar smelled faintly of spiced wine, stale bread, and old sweat—the usual evidence of a king who ruled more from his goblet than his throne. The windows were open to let the sea breeze carry away the worst of it, but it clung to the stone like old regrets.
King Robert Baratheon lounged in his great chair, crown tilted on his brow, one boot resting carelessly on the table edge. He was dressed for comfort, not ceremony—loose tunic, unbelted sword, and a beard that hadn't been trimmed in days. He looked up from the meat bone he was gnawing, eyes narrowing as the door opened.
Prince Steffon entered without ceremony, flanked by Ser Mandon Moore and Ser Arys Oakheart. The former moved like a blade of winter—silent, expressionless. The latter carried the air of a knight from songs: upright, polished, young.
Robert raised an eyebrow, his mouth still full.
"You bring your own guards now, do you?" he asked, spitting bone into a pewter plate. "Afraid your uncle Stannis will jump you on the stairs?"
"They're not for protection, Father," Steffon said calmly, stopping before the table. "They're for presence."
Robert snorted. "Hells, listen to him. 'Presence.' Seven save me. I've raised a bloody maester in armor."
Steffon smiled slightly. He waited for the laughter to die.
"I want your permission," he said. "To begin renovations on the city."
Robert paused, mid-swig from his goblet.
"Renovations?"
"Yes. Roads are choked with sewage. Old buildings are collapsing. Firebreaks barely exist. There are seven different taxmen collecting from the same merchants, and none of them have paid a stone mason in years."
Robert blinked at him, trying to decide if this was a joke.
"Boy," he said, setting the goblet down. "You want to fix… streets?"
"Yes. Streets. Drains. Docks. Market lanes. Warehouses. Guard outposts. I've already drawn up plans with three master builders and sent letters to stonecutters in Tumbleton and Duskendale."
Robert sat back, the usual irritation fading into something else—amusement, yes, but touched by something more thoughtful.
"Gods," he muttered. "I had lords coming in here yesterday asking for titles. And you come asking to clean gutters."
"I'd rather rebuild the crown from the ground up," Steffon said. "Rather than polish what's already rotting."
Robert looked at him hard, chewing the inside of his cheek. He glanced once at Ser Mandon, who stared blankly ahead, then at Ser Arys, who looked every inch the model of noble courtesy.
Finally, Robert grunted.
"Fine. You have leave to waste coin on bricks and piss trenches. If the people complain less and the merchants smile more, I might even thank you."
"I won't waste coin," Steffon said. "I'll invest it."
Robert chuckled and waved a hand.
"Go, go. Build your kingdom, you mad little bastard."
Steffon bowed, turned, and left.
In the corridor outside the solar, with the great door shut behind him, Steffon walked in silence. Mandon followed like a shadow, Arys like a banner.
They were quiet, as always. That was fine.
Let the king laugh.
Let the lords sleep.
By the time they woke, the foundations would already be his.