Dragonstone sat like a jagged tooth in the gullet of the Gully, a cold, damp wasteland where the winds never ceased their howling. Behind the fortress, the volcanic silhouette of Dragonmont smoldered against a leaden sky, casting a permanent gloom over the salt-stained walls.
The castle itself was a nightmare of Valyrian masonry. Over a thousand stone gargoyles, hellhounds, and wyverns peered down from the battlements, their frozen, monstrous faces a source of constant irritation to Stannis Baratheon since the day he first arrived. Even after years of residence, the Lord of Dragonstone looked upon them with the same grim disapproval he reserved for the living.
Stannis stood within the Chamber of the Painted Table, atop the Stone Drum tower. He was accompanied only by his most trusted confidant, Ser Davos Seaworth. Between them lay the Great Table—fifty feet of carved wood depicting the Seven Kingdoms as they were in Aegon the Conqueror's day. Its surface, polished by three centuries of lacquer, shimmered with the ghosts of rivers, mountains, and fortresses.
"Davos," Stannis said, his voice like the grinding of stones. "Has a bird come from King's Landing?"
Stannis was a man forged of iron. At thirty-four, his hair had already retreated to a thin fringe of black, leaving his scalp exposed like a polished helm. His face was all hollows and sharp angles, his jaw perpetually clenched as if to keep a scream at bay. He wore a tight leather jerkin over rough wool, a king's brother dressed like a common soldier.
"No, my lord," Davos replied, his voice quiet.
"I knew it. Fifteen years I served Robert. I held Storm's End while he won his crown, and I helped Jon Arryn rule the realm while Robert bled the treasury for wine and whores. Jon should have retired to the Vale years ago, yet he clung to power until the end."
Stannis turned his gaze to the Painted Table, his eyes tracking the Kingsroad. "Robert does not trust his own blood. Now that Jon is cold, he will not even look toward Dragonstone. He goes North. He goes to Ned Stark. His true brother."
"My lord, sulking will not mend the rift," Davos cautioned. "And King's Landing is no place for an honest man. The city reeks of the Lannister lion."
"True enough. But what is Dragonstone? A pile of rock and bird droppings. I never wanted this place. I took it because it was the Targaryen stronghold, and I broke their fleet to do it. And how did Robert thank me? He gave the fertile lands and rich taxes of Storm's End to Renly—a boy who did nothing but grow tall and wear silk."
The old wound bled anew in his voice. Dragonstone was a fortress for dragons; without them, it was a barren husk. Stannis commanded only a handful of petty lords whose rocky islands could barely provide a fishing fleet, let alone an army.
"We have no soldiers, and thus no taxes," Stannis muttered. "I cannot even protect my own shadow."
Davos watched him in silence. Stannis possessed the strength of steel, but he lacked the magnetism that drew men to a cause. The lords of the Stormlands followed Renly's laughter, while the sellswords of the Narrow Sea were already turning their eyes toward the "Hammer King" in Myr.
"Our true enemy is the Lannister gold, my lord," Davos said. "If only you could stand with your brothers—"
"I will not compromise until they acknowledge my place in the succession," Stannis snapped. "Renly is a peacock, and the boy across the water... Gendry... he is Robert's seed, but he is a bastard. The sellswords flock to him because they smell coin and blood. If I bend to a boy who plays at being a Blackfyre, I fracture the realm further."
"Commander Gendry is busy in Myr, preparing for war with the Slaver Cities," Davos noted. "There may yet be time to talk."
"Talk? The boy has the ambition of a dragon. I have only you, Davos. Salladhor Saan, Velaryon, Celtigar... they are the scraps Robert left me. Mercenaries and minor lords who do not love me."
The heavy doors creaked open as Maester Cressen entered. The climb up the Stone Drum was an ordeal for a man of his years, his breathing labored and thin.
"Old man," Stannis said, not looking up. "I knew you would come, invited or not."
"You used to wake me," the Maester whispered.
"You were young then. Now you are old and frail. You need your rest." Stannis's honesty was a blunt instrument, cutting through any hope of comfort.
"Is it not a slight to the King to remain here without leave?" Cressen asked gently. "Have you sent word to explain your absence?"
"Explain? Robert did not explain why he passed me over for Storm's End. He does not explain why he hunts for a Hand in the snows of Winterfell. By right, the ancestral seat of the Baratheons should be mine."
Cressen looked at the man he had helped raise. He saw the middle son, always the one left in the cold. "Robert was unfair," he admitted cautiously, "but Dragonstone needed a strong hand when the Targaryens fell. Renly was but a child."
"He is still a child!" Stannis growled. "A vain, arrogant child who knows nothing of duty."
Davos gently guided the Maester toward the door. "Come, Maester. Let the lord have his solitude."
As they descended into the courtyard, they found the young Princess Shireen and her fool, Patchface. The girl was a shy, somber creature, made more tragic by the grey, stony scales of healed greyscale that covered half her face and neck.
Patchface hopped beside her, his bells jangling. He wore a tin bucket for a helm, adorned with stag antlers. "Under the sea, it is always summer!" he chanted, his voice a high, discordant trill. "The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed. I know, I know, oh, oh, oh!"
Cressen watched them, a profound sadness washing over him. Stannis, my son, he thought, you are not an orphan. There are those who love you, if only you would let them.