Harrenhal, north of Gods Eye Lake, is a colossal fortress in the Riverlands that dwarfs the Seven Kingdoms in scale.
Riverrun of House Tully, Lords Paramount of the Trident, reaches barely a tenth of Harrenhal's size—not to mention the other Lords of the Three Rivers.
Though Harrenhal's curse is as famous as its vastness, knights and nobles still swarm to this land of blood, honey, and doom like moths to a flame. Nothing can stop their hunger for the mighty stronghold and its fertile fields; poverty is the only sin, and poor Lords fear no curse.
Rhaegar rode the Silver Emperor in the lead, with the black Balerion and the purple Vhagar close behind; the young dragons frolicked joyfully, surveying the broad expanse below.
Silver-gold, black-red, and violet shadows wheeled across the sky along the Kings Road. Wherever he passed, Rhaegar saw only friendly folk who thrilled at the sight of the young Silver Prince astride his leviathan; they would never forget it. The land feeds the people, and the people sustain the realm.
The Riverlands are famed for flat, fertile soil and winding rivers—and for bleeding first whenever war comes to Westeros. They are the perfect battlefield for dragons.
Rhaegar gazed upon rich earth, vast strongholds, broad lakes and tangled waterways. The Riverlands boast natural advantages, yet lack mountain barriers; their greatest fortress, Harrenhal, has changed hands again and again.
On the road below, fearless Ser Barristan, Ser Brynden of House Tully, and Ser Corlys of House Velaryon led two hundred Eagle Guards toward Harrenhal—but dragons are swifter, and Rhaegar could scout the terrain from above.
From its central position, Rhaegar judged that Harrenhal and Gods Eye formed the true heart of Westeros—a wedge named Harrenhal.
More than once he had worried that King's Landing sat too far east, exposed to sea-borne threats. When Aegon founded the city, he chose the site for its closeness to Dragonstone, the Targaryens' cradle; Dragonstone and Driftmark were loyal original holdings, and the island made an ideal lair for dragons.
As a continental pivot, however, Harrenhal struck him as superior: hold it and you could raise armies in the Riverlands—or choke every road.
"The Harrenhal region has seen many great wars," he mused while circling above the castle and lake. House Targaryen alone has fought three major battles here: first The Conqueror burned the castle, second cruel Maegor slew Prince Aemon, and third the Rogue Prince Daemon and his nephew Aemond One-Eye perished together.
The first battle proclaimed the unstoppable rise of the Targaryen Dynasty; the second and third were but bloody civil wars, kinslaying within the same house.
From the sky Rhaegar saw endless green meadows and the boundless blue of Gods Eye, yet nothing matched the sight of the accursed stronghold itself.
He felt its height, its vastness, its grandeur and decay—Westeros' most conspicuous wonder. It was said House Hoare occupied only the lower two-thirds of a few towers; the rest stood empty, crumbling into ruin for want of people.
Harrenhal's thick, sheer walls rise like cliffs. Five mighty towers loom taller than the Red Keep's, their battlements studded with wooden and iron scorpions that looked like insects. Yet every tower bears scars: stone cracked and twisted, melted centuries ago by the Black Dread's Dragonflame.
"Wonders doom the realm," Rhaegar sighed inwardly.
Harren the Black spent forty years seizing stone, timber, gold and workers, felling three-thousand-year-old weirwoods and working tens of thousands of slaves to death, all for this mighty pile he deemed impregnable—until the Targaryen air force arrived. The Hoares became the first in Westeros to taste the blessing of dragons in their faces.
They deserved it, Rhaegar thought; the Hoares' heavy levies and vainglory forced the whole Riverlands to serve their super-castle, provoking wrath from gods and men alike.
Rhaegar had his dragon fly low for a close look at the five towers: Kingsfyr Tower, Terror Tower, Widow Tower, Wraith Tower, and the Tower of Howls. Each was more grotesque than the last, jagged and misshapen, cracked and off-balance. When The Conqueror's Black Dread descended, Dragonflame leapt across stone, burning Harren the Black and all his sons, causing the towers to weep like candles.
As the dragon circled low, Rhaegar sensed its flicker of distaste for shadow-shrouded Harrenhal.
Could the curse and ghosts of Harrenhal be real?
Rhaegar wondered. The castle was built of fear; legend claims Harren the Black mixed infant blood into the mortar. Every lord since has met misfortune, and many call the place accursed, haunted by phantoms.
Yet Rhaegar had no time for a lengthy exploration; his men had arrived, so he landed. He would investigate the curse later.
Among his many tasks in the Riverlands, plumbing Harrenhal's secrets was one.
Outside the walls, Duke Hoster Tully and Lord Walder of House Hoare welcomed Rhaegar with their kin. The two were good-brothers by marriage, though which branch of House Hoare Hoster's wife came from was unclear.
The welcoming crowd glittered like rivers of gold, silver, and steel, perfumes thick in the air—such gatherings always drew ladies and girls.
Banners snapped in the wind: a silver trout leaping on red-and-blue for House Tully of Riverrun; nine black bats on yellow for House Hoare of Harrenhal. Lesser vassals and knights were unimportant. The Hoare sigil felt eerie—House Rosby had also used bats before them.
"Prince, the Riverlands welcome you," said Duke Hoster, a big restless man. His wife, Lady Minisa, was absent—Rhaegar already knew from Brynden she was chronically ill.
"Your presence honors House Hoare, my prince," crowed Lord Walder. The Hoares were now the richest of House Tully's bannermen, their alliance unchallenged—yet they had once been mere knights serving Harrenhal, raised to lordship after helping topple the gold-and-silver-bat Rosbys. Rivermen sneered at the upstarts.
All this pomp was Hoare power on display; Lord Walder dreamed of hosting a tourney to flaunt his wealth.
Rhaegar returned their courtesies; the Riverlands were gracious hosts. After formal bows the Hoare lord presented his brother, wife, and children.
Proudly Walder showed off four grown sons and younger daughters—House Hoare branching wide.
His brother Ser Oswell, a skilled knight unwed and childless, coveted a white cloak. He spoke most warmly to Ser Barristan, sharing the same hunger for Kingsguard glory.
Most awkward were the Tully brothers. Hoster was stubborn, unbending; even a black fish is still a fish, yet he could not stomach Brynden defying him and leaving to serve a "boy."
Rhaegar could not mend that rift; eldest and second sons seldom get along, and he could only smooth it slightly.
Amid Walder's enthusiasm Rhaegar's party entered Harrenhal; for any other castle the numbers would swamp, but Harrenhal swallowed them easily.
Some soldiers paled at sight of the walls—Harrenhal's ghost stories were famous across the Seven Kingdoms.
"What curse? Look at my brother's healthy brood—House Hoare flourishes," Ser Oswell declared, reading their fear. Knights fear nothing, and he dismissed the gossip.
Rhaegar gave Oswell a pitying glance—don't tempt fate; soon enough those children would wither.