The storm of war had reached its crescendo.
Along the banks of the Trident, two great hosts met—each a titan of ambition, rage, and ancient right. On one side stood Robert Baratheon, the fury of storms in his heart, the promise of rebellion boiling in his veins. Opposing him, Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, clad in black armor adorned with rubies, the weight of a crumbling dynasty etched into his every movement. The armies that stood behind them represented nearly all of Westeros, split down the marrow of loyalty.
The Riverlands were stained with churned mud and blood as the first volleys of arrows blackened the skies. The sound of battle was not music, but thunder—hooves on earth, steel on steel, the screams of the dying swallowed by the roar of war.
Rhaegar's army had the advantage early. His cavalry maneuvered with surgical precision. His commanders, seasoned knights of the Kingsguard and hardened field lords, pressed Robert's flanks, forcing the Stormlord to adapt under pressure. The banners of Targaryen, Velaryon, and Tyrell moved like waves against the rebel coalition. Robert's forces, though valiant, began to bend under the pressure.
Yet Robert himself fought like a god of war. His warhammer broke shields and crushed helms. Every blow was a thunderclap; every swing sowed panic in Rhaegar's front lines. It was said that wherever Robert rode, the sky wept.
And yet, victory still seemed to favor the dragon.
Then came the lions.
The Lannisters of Casterly Rock, who had held their armies in the west in silence, declared for the rebels. In a tide of gold and crimson, they crashed into the field, sacrificing tens of thousands in a brutal charge meant to shatter the Targaryen right flank. Lord Tywin Lannister, cold and resolute, had chosen his moment with precision. The betrayal was total, devastating.
The dragon began to falter.
As Tyrell knights were driven from their saddles, and the Targaryen center began to crumble, Rhaegar himself rode forward. He sought out Robert in the chaos, determined to finish the rebellion in a blaze of glory or fall with the dignity of a dying age.
They met at the river's edge, the waters red with the blood of thousands.
Robert's warhammer and Rhaegar's sword clashed, the storm and the dragon locked in a duel worthy of legends. Each blow seemed to halt time itself. Rhaegar moved like the wind, elegant and deadly, while Robert struck with the force of fury itself. But in the end, it was the storm that broke the sky. Robert's hammer found its mark. The rubies shattered. And Rhaegar Targaryen, the last great hope of House Targaryen, fell.
The dragon died at the Trident.
Far away from the slaughter, in the Vale of Arryn, Lord Edward Grafton watched the flames of history devour a generation. He remained in Gulltown, his presence deliberately absent from the battlefield.
Edward's power had grown steadily and quietly. With the de facto rule over the Three Sisters and his naval superiority in the Bite, he had cemented control over eastern maritime trade. But his ambitions did not rest solely in ports and fleets. He had begun to act with a precision that only someone with the gift of foresight could wield.
As the storm clouds gathered around King's Landing, Edward set another plan into motion—one designed not to win battles, but to preserve legacies.
Elia Martell, the Princess of Dorne and Rhaegar's wife, had long been trapped within the Red Keep, her children vulnerable, her influence diminished. Edward knew that the sack of King's Landing would soon follow the Trident, and he predicted it would not be clean.
Through secret channels, Edward contacted loyalists still embedded within the capital—minor servants, traders, a few hidden Dornish spies who owed him favors. Messages were sent encoded, carried across the Narrow Sea and through merchant routes. At great personal expense, he arranged for Elia to be quietly extracted.
The route was treacherous. The Gold Cloaks could not be trusted, and Varys was a dangerous variable. But Edward's reach was deep. In the dead of night, as chaos threatened to overtake the capital, Elia and her young daughter Rhaenys were spirited away through a network of tunnels beneath the city.
Simultaneously, with greater fanfare and more obvious intent, Queen Rhaella Targaryen fled King's Landing with her remaining children—Daenerys and Viserys—aboard ships bound for Dragonstone. Edward's ships. Though his banners remained Grafton, and his allegiance unspoken, he had offered sanctuary not out of mercy, but of strategy. The blood of the dragon was too potent to discard, and the promise of future influence too valuable to ignore.
Elia was not sent to Dragonstone. She was taken further south, to Dorne, under the protection of Oberyn Martell—Edward's private ally. In a conversation whispered behind locked doors in Gulltown's harbor keep, Edward had once promised Oberyn: "If the worst comes to pass, I will not let your sister burn."
He had kept that promise.
With King's Landing preparing for its fall, Edward turned his attention back to his naval empire. His shipping routes now carried not only goods but people, information, and occasionally power itself. The academy for naval command in Gulltown had begun to produce capable captains and explorers, some of whom were already securing routes into Essos. Edward had purchased holdings in Braavos, Myr, and Lys, spreading his wealth and securing anonymity in his expansions.
By the time the banners of House Lannister marched on King's Landing, Edward controlled most of the east coast from the Three Sisters down to the southern ports of Crackclaw Point. With the Riverlands in chaos and the Stormlands exhausted, Gulltown had become the most stable and secure city in Westeros.
He received word of Rhaegar's death the next morning.
No celebration marked the event in Gulltown. Edward called no banners, gave no speeches. But in his study, he lit a single candle beneath a map of Westeros and moved three carved pieces representing ships toward Dragonstone.
"The king is dead," he whispered to no one.
And then, more softly: "Long live the king."