The Threefold Gate closed behind the procession with a sound like distant thunder.
The noise of the crowd died away instantly, replaced by the cool stone silence of the Old Palace. The narrow corridors opened into a broad hall lit by torches and shafts of fading sunlight through arched windows of colored glass.
Rhaegar offered his arm to Elia Martell as protocol required. She took it with a light, careful touch, as though afraid to impose.
"Thank you, my Prince," she said softly.
"The pleasure is mine, Lady Elia," Rhaegar replied. He kept his pace unhurried, mindful of her slight limp.
She was kind. There was no pretension in her. She smiled at the servants as she passed, and she remembered the names of the guards on the doors.
A good woman, Rhaegar thought. But fragile as glass.
He walked her up the long stone staircase of the Tower of the Sun. The colored glass threw lozenges of red and gold across the pale marble, making the whole ascent look like the inside of a flame.
At the top, the Throne Hall opened before them.
Two identical thrones occupied the dais, side by side. One bore the golden spear of House Martell. The other bore the blazing sun of the Rhoynar. Ruling Princess and consort, side by side—equal in form if not always in fact.
The hall was magnificent, far grander than the exterior of Sunspear suggested. The vaulted ceiling was painted with the history of the Rhoynar migration: ten thousand ships, a mother river, the burning of the fleet.
They burned their ships and called it victory, Rhaegar thought. And now their children are still crying for the river.
The lords and ladies arranged themselves in clusters. Prince Aerys drifted toward the Ruling Princess, his silver hair gleaming in the torchlight. He was in a good mood—Rhaegar could tell by the expansiveness of his gestures.
"My dearest Princess," Aerys declared, "I have been thinking of Dorne. This land is magnificent, but it suffers from thirst. What if we were to cut a canal through the Red Mountains? Bring the northern rains south? Turn the desert into farms and orchards?"
The Ruling Princess smiled with the practiced patience of a woman who had survived many ambitious visitors. "Your Grace is most visionary."
"Gold will flow from the Stepstones," Aerys continued, warming to his theme. "The Blood Stone Customs. We shall make Dorne bloom like the Reach!"
Tywin Lannister, standing two steps behind, said nothing. But the set of his jaw expressed volumes.
When the sun touched the horizon, the torches blazed to life and the feast began.
Seven courses, as tradition demanded.
The soup was lemon egg, rich and sour. Then came peppers stuffed with cheese and caramelized onion, followed by lamprey pie, honeyed capon, and mountain beef from the Red Mountains' high valleys.
And then came the snake stew.
Seven serpents, simmered with dragon peppers, blood oranges, and a measured drop of venom. The smell alone made Rhaegar's eyes water.
He ate it without flinching. The [Water Blood] trait, he discovered, gave him a mild resistance to certain toxins. The burning was real, but it faded faster than it should have. Around him, lords and knights coughed and reached for wine.
Oberyn Martell ate three bowls without blinking.
"To the Iron Throne's glorious victory!" Prince Aerys announced, raising his cup. "I commanded, my son executed, and our soldiers bled. The Stepstones are ours!"
"For the realm," Rhaegar added, raising his own cup with a neutral smile.
When the dessert came—blood orange sorbets and candied bloodstone confections in the shape of the islands themselves—the hall relaxed into the easy warmth of the well-fed.
Rhaegar was standing near a window, looking out at the stars, when Oberyn approached him. The Red Viper was holding two slim volumes under his arm.
"For you," he said, handing them over. "Reading material."
Rhaegar looked at the covers.
Born a True Dragon — a biography of Daeron I by a loyal courtier.
Conquest and Ruin — a Dornish account of the same king, written by a scholar who had survived the rebellion that killed him.
"Same man," Oberyn said. "Two faces. To some, the Young Dragon was the greatest warrior of his age. To others, he was a child who played at empire and broke on the sand."
"And to you?" Rhaegar asked.
"To me," Oberyn said, his black eyes steady, "he was a man who was too hard. Steel bent too far snaps. Even a dragon can be shattered."
Rhaegar took the books. The message was unmistakable: do not repeat his mistakes.
"I will read them carefully," Rhaegar said. "Thank you, Prince Oberyn."
Oberyn's expression softened. He glanced at Elia, who was talking to Mellario of Norvos across the hall.
"There is one more thing," he said quietly. "A request. Not a political one."
"Ask."
"People say you are lucky. That you bring fortune with you, like a good omen." Oberyn paused. "My sister is not well. She has never been well. Her womb is... weak. The Maesters cannot help her. If you have any luck to spare, I ask you to give some to her."
The vulnerability in the Viper's voice was startling. Rhaegar looked at him—at the fierce, proud man who challenged Westerosi princes to duels and ate snake stew for sport—and saw, underneath all of it, a brother who was frightened.
"She will be all right," Rhaegar said. He meant it.
"I hope you are right, Prince," Doran Martell said, appearing at Rhaegar's shoulder. He had heard. His heavy face was tinged with a grief that never quite left it.
"I have a request for you as well, Prince Doran," Rhaegar said.
"Oh?" Doran raised an eyebrow.
"Your guard," Rhaegar said, nodding toward Areo Hotah, who stood at his post near the dais like an ancient monolith. "I would like to face him. A friendly bout, after the feast."
Doran went very still.
He looked at Rhaegar, then at Hotah, then back at Rhaegar. Behind his careful eyes, old memories shifted.
A war hammer kills a true dragon.
It was an old saying, born from the day Maekar had broken his own nephew Aemon's skull—prince and prince, blood and blood. The hammer did not know the word mercy. It did not care about lineage or prophecy.
The longaxe was not a hammer. But it operated on the same principle: raw, crushing force, designed to end arguments permanently.
If Hotah hurt Rhaegar, there would be political consequences beyond calculating.
If Rhaegar defeated Hotah, his most loyal guardian would be humiliated before the court.
"Prince Rhaegar," Doran said carefully, "Hotah is not a tournament knight. He does not spar for sport."
"I am not asking for sport," Rhaegar replied. "I am asking for instruction."
Doran looked at him for a long moment.
Then he sighed.
"I will ask him," Doran said. "I cannot command him in this matter. It must be his choice."
Rhaegar nodded, then crossed the hall toward the massive guardsman.
Hotah watched him approach without expression.
"Ser Hotah," Rhaegar said, stopping within arm's reach of the axe. Up close, the man was even larger. He smelled of oil and iron.
"I am no knight," Hotah said. His voice was deep and accented, the words deliberate and measured. "In Norvos, we have no knights."
"Then I will simply call you Hotah," Rhaegar said. "I have a request."
"Speak it," Hotah said.
"Teach me what the axe knows," Rhaegar said simply. "Tomorrow morning. Before the day's ceremonies begin."
Hotah studied him for a long moment, the way a man studies a river before he fords it.
"The longaxe does not teach," Hotah said. "It only speaks. And it speaks in one language."
"Then I will listen," Rhaegar said.
A pause.
"Dawn," Hotah said finally. "At the training yard."
He turned back to his post, the conversation apparently concluded.
Rhaegar walked back through the feasting hall, the two books tucked under his arm.
A war hammer kills a true dragon, he thought.
Let us see if a longaxe can find a dragon's scales.