Year 110 A.C.
POV: Denovan
The king had just crossed the gates of the fortress and dismounted his horse when, in a precise and silent swoop, my raven descended from the sky. Huginn landed firmly directly on Viserys's left shoulder. Through the bird's beak, my voice echoed clear, measured, and somber in the monarch's ear:
"Hello, Viserys. It's been a long time."
Before the king could show any reaction, the royal guards acted on pure instinct, approaching with wide strides.
"Your Grace, look out!" shouted one of the white cloaks, drawing his sword and pointing the sharp blade in Huginn's direction.
Viserys, despite the obvious initial awkwardness, maintained his composure and dismissed the men with a quick gesture and firm words:
"Be at ease... He is an ally."
Then, the king quickened his pace through the stone corridors, muttering in irritation to the raven on his shoulder:
"Hardly appropriate to arrive at this moment, Denovan. We can talk later..."
"Actually, I believe now is the exact moment," I replied calmly through the bird. "I just want to offer my help with your wife's delivery. If you notice the maesters starting to suggest drastic measures, I guarantee that having me around will be your best precaution."
"And what exactly could you do to help her?" asked Viserys, without stopping his hurried walk through the Red Keep.
"The answer is simple, Viserys: my runes. I firmly believe I can save her with them. Huginn will stay close. If you change your mind, just call him, and I will come running to the castle."
Viserys simply did not reply. His silence was heavy, mixed with the obvious urgency to reach the royal chambers.
"Just remember what we talked about some time ago regarding what I said about cutting your wife's womb open by force. Things seem to be heading exactly toward that outcome... And, if I may offer some advice, if you are really going to give in to the maesters' insistence, at least call me. I can ensure she sleeps deeply through magic, instead of going through that horror screaming in pain. I don't wish such an end on anyone."
The instant I finished speaking, Huginn leapt from the king's shoulder, flapping his wings upward and hovering over the Kingsguard's retinue. Viserys's expression grew even worse after my words, but he continued on his way without formally authorizing my presence. Unfortunately, as long as he didn't call me of his own free will, there was little I could do without causing a commotion that might be useless.
I closed my eyes in Huginn's mind and pulled my consciousness back to my own body. I left the raven on high alert: any drastic change in the queen's room should be reported to me immediately.
The festive and noisy atmosphere of the tourney contrasted sharply with the suffocating tension I had just witnessed in the Red Keep. I stretched my arms, feeling the weight of the metal, while the old blacksmith finished tying the last leather straps.
"What's with that face, bastard? Looks like you just saw someone dying right in front of you," muttered Lanny, tapping on my chest plate.
I let out a long sigh.
"Nothing, old man. I just got lost in my own thoughts... Have they announced how the dynamic will work now?"
"You haven't heard absolutely anything the herald shouted, have you, Denovan? At this rate, I can see I'm going to lose my coins because of you."
"Calm down, old man, and just tell me what you heard."
"You can start heading to the arena now. Prince Daemon will choose the first challenger of the round, and after that, the other matchups will be drawn until only the jousting finalists remain."
"Then wish me luck, Lanny," I said, standing up quickly.
I walked toward the heavy riding horse I had taken the day before from a southern knight who refused to pay the ransom for his arms. It was a beautiful animal, much stronger and more imposing than the rustic nag I had used in the opening.
"If you lose, you're going to have to pay me back every coin I spent betting on you!" shouted the blacksmith at my back.
"Only in your dreams, old man!" I replied, amused, without looking back.
Lanny didn't say anything else and, as we had agreed, headed straight for the stands to watch the spectacle. A few moments later, the remaining knights began to be formally announced by the master of ceremonies to the audience's applause:
"Ser Criston Cole, of the Stormlands!"
"Ser Daemon Targaryen, the Rogue Prince and rider of Caraxes!"
The herald announced more names of the southern nobility that I didn't even bother to memorize and, finally, pointed in my direction:
"And the mystery knight, the Knight of Winter! Ladies and gentlemen, it seems the giant wasn't satisfied with merely dominating the melee and now seeks ultimate glory in the jousts!"
I pulled my horse side by side with a knight from House Hightower, waiting for the start.
"Let the jousts begin! Prince Daemon, do the honors and choose your opponent to open the day!" echoed the herald.
Daemon, displaying his usual provocative smile, rode slowly down the line of competitors. He stopped right in front of me, staring at my closed helm for a few seconds in a clear, silent challenge. However, he abruptly turned his reins and pointed his lance straight at the Hightower knight beside me. A purely political choice; I was sure that would make Otto Hightower's liver burn with fury up in the royal box.
I followed the protocol of the other competitors and took my horse out of the lists, positioning myself in a strategic corner to analyze the combat from the front row. Just as I remembered from the tales, the knight of Oldtown was no match for the aggressiveness of the Prince of Westeros, falling heavily to the ground before the third lance could even break.
After a few more quick clashes between the nobles, the herald finally bellowed my call. My opponent was a knight from the Riverlands whose name I barely paid attention to. The man positioned himself at the opposite end of the track. His roan horse exuded presence and vigor, but I knew very well that a pretty mount alone wouldn't be enough to stop me.
The trumpets echoed. I spurred my horse, and it shot like a black arrow down the lists. I tucked the lance firmly under my arm. Up until that moment, I hadn't met a single southerner who could withstand the impact of my blows without completely losing their balance, and that guy certainly wasn't going to change the rule.
When our horses were about to cross paths in the center, I leaned my torso slightly forward, extending my reach to the maximum. I drove the tip of my lance exactly into the center of the knight's chest. The impact was dry, brutal, and deadly accurate. The man was ripped from the saddle, spinning in the air before landing on his side in the packed dirt, completely unconscious.
I turned my horse's reins and dismounted immediately to check the opponent's condition, wanting to make sure I hadn't overdone it. I carefully removed his helm and pressed two fingers against his neck. His heart was still beating strong and steady. Judging by the uneven movement of his chest, he had merely passed out from the violence of the blow and the subsequent fall to the ground. Nothing serious.
Within seconds, the squires and maester's apprentices rushed to the track with a stretcher to take him away. Seeing that the situation was under control, I mounted again and returned to the reserved area, waiting for the next matchup to be decided.
The second day of jousting advanced rapidly to what amounted to the semifinals. Since I won my bracket easily, the next clash would determine the grand finalist of the tourney. And, given the draw of the participants, the confrontation was inevitable:
"For the grand semifinal: Ser Criston Cole against our giant, the Knight of Winter!"
Our horses entered the arena neighing loudly, infected by the energy of the stands, which seemed to enter a true collective frenzy as the event approached its climax. Ser Criston Cole stopped at the other end of the lists and offered me a respectful nod. I responded with an identical reciprocal gesture.
At the judge's signal, we charged at maximum speed toward each other. Facing the man who, in this timeline, might never come to be nicknamed "The Kingmaker" didn't evoke the slightest hesitation in me. What was the worst he could do? Kill my horse? At most. Falling from the saddle was never a real fear for me.
The ground shook beneath my animal's hooves. When the distance shortened drastically, I lowered my lance and aimed surgically at the weak point I had planned: his left shoulder. It was a simple and direct strike. I highly doubted he would be able to react in time to dodge.
Criston even tried to lean his body to the opposite side, but trying doesn't mean succeeding against my enhanced reflexes. My lance collided with his metal and shattered into dozens of wooden splinters. The impact was violent, but to my surprise, the man did not fall from his horse. By pure survival reflex, he hooked his left arm into the saddle's straps, holding on with impressive tenacity to avoid hitting the ground.
The audience went crazy in the stands at the display of resilience. Criston was leaning so far off the side of the horse that I actually wondered if his spine had stayed in one piece. I gave him some time to turn around and realign himself in the saddle for the second tilt.
My eyes wandered quickly over the crowd while I waited for the signal. I managed to spot my men laughing loudly in the front row, holding mugs of ale in their hands. I couldn't locate old Lanny in the crowd, as Ser Criston had already recovered.
I spurred the horse and set off for the final charge. This time, I decided to put a little more pressure into the blow. I was genuinely excited; after all, it was the first time in the south that someone had managed to stay mounted after taking a direct hit from me. The second charge was much more intense. The animal snorted loudly under my command as I aimed the new lance at the same target.
Ser Criston kept his body perfectly still until we were a few meters away. But, a fraction of a second before we met, he pulled off a brilliant maneuver: he threw his entire body weight to the side, trying both to dodge my trajectory and to reposition the tip of his own lance toward the center of my chest.
My runic reflexes acted faster. I moved my arm with millimeter precision, making my lance track his dodge in mid-air. Even as he tried to evade, the iron caught him flush, ripping him definitively from the saddle. In that same millisecond, Criston's lance hit my chest, shattering forcefully against my reinforced breastplate.
My body leaned slightly back from the kick of the impact, but my legs locked firmly in the stirrups. I didn't budge. I held back the horse's momentum, turned the animal around, and approached the warrior laid out in the dust.
"Ser... Are you alive?" I asked, looking down.
"Thanks to... to the good gods..." Criston replied, visibly winded, drawing breath with extreme difficulty. "You... aside from your absurd strength, are too fast. What damn material are you made of, anyway?"
"Just strength, Ser. Hitting hard and in the right place is all I know how to do. You fought very well... We will meet again, Ser Criston," I replied, pulling the reins and leaving the track.
Now, only the grand finale against Daemon Targaryen remained. The prince's previous match had already taken place, and the organizers were just waiting for my rest period to end to begin the definitive duel.
After long, tedious minutes of waiting in the tent, I returned to the center of the arena. Daemon was already waiting for me mounted on his warhorse, sporting a half-lidded stare of pure arrogance.
"What made you break the agreement with my brother to come participate in southern competitions? Run out of gold in the North, wildling?" he provoked, his voice dripping with disdain.
"I came looking for something more valuable, Prince. The life of your future nephew and, who knows, a few dragons," I replied dryly, not bothering to explain the true context of my words.
Even from behind the visor of his ornate helm, I could notice the exact moment Daemon furrowed his brows, confused by my statement.
We aligned our horses on opposite sides. The King's trumpets sounded with unprecedented force.
I needed to end this quickly and definitively. Almost two hours had passed since the contests began, and Aemma's labor continued to drag on in the keep. Through Huginn's eyes, I saw that Viserys hadn't made any drastic decisions yet, and the baby seemed to be in the correct position, but the queen was already showing clear signs of extreme exhaustion due to the natural complications of childbirth. I needed to be completely free in case the worst-case scenario unfolded in the coming hours. Aemma's survival was my main piece to destabilize the future Dance of the Dragons.
The horses charged, reaching top speed down the dirt corridor. I intended to apply a practical lesson I had refined in the bout against Criston Cole. When an experienced knight sees a lance coming straight for his right shoulder, his body's natural tendency is to tense the muscles on that specific side to absorb the impact. If you alter the weapon's trajectory at the last second, hitting the opposite side, the chances of unhorsing your opponent increase drastically. Pulling off that change of direction in the middle of a cavalry charge is quite a feat for an ordinary man.
But for someone with my strength and agility, it required only a bit of focus and precision.
At the exact moment we met, when Daemon was already bracing for the impact on his right side, I changed my lance's trajectory with the speed of a striking snake. The wooden tip violently collided with the Rogue Prince's left shoulder. Daemon was thrown from the saddle before he could even touch his lance to my armor; my vastly superior reach and the low-angle shift completely bypassed his defense.
The king's brother slammed into the ground. He pushed himself up on the arm that hadn't taken the direct hit, looking at me with eyes wide in pure confusion and disbelief.
"Alright, Prince?" I asked, remaining steady in the saddle.
"Why... you savage bastard... how did you manage to move that wood so fast?" he raged, his voice trembling, a mix of pain and pure wounded pride.
I flashed a smile from behind the metal helm.
"Luck."
The stands exploded in a deafening roar. The nobility's box buzzed with discussion, and the master of ceremonies ran to the center of the field, completely euphoric over the unexpected outcome:
"Ser Knight of Winter is the grand champion! My lord, whom will your grace choose to crown as your Queen of Love and Beauty?"
Daemon got up with obvious difficulty, groaning in pain as he was supported by his squires. I slowly guided my horse to the base of the royal tribune.
To the obvious disappointment of the highborn ladies in the common stands, I kept my eyes fixed solely on the royal women holding the flower crowns: Laena Velaryon, Rhaenyra Targaryen, and Alicent Hightower.
I tipped the point of my lance toward Lady Laena Velaryon. Her curly silver hair, her pale skin, her beautiful blue eyes, and the haughtiness of her posture made her an undeniable choice.
But not just because of that; House Velaryon's support would be very useful in the coming weeks, I needed Corlys's help for the ships, and crowning his daughter was another gesture of goodwill.
And well, Alicent is beautiful, but she's Otto's daughter, and I refuse to stroke that bastard's ego. And as for Rhaenyra, as beautiful as she is, I believe she wouldn't bring me any advantage.
The young woman slid the crown of laurels and flowers down the length of my lance.
The young Velaryon beamed a radiant smile and said loudly enough for the tribune to hear:
"Does the champion knight not intend to reveal his true identity? This lady confesses she is extremely curious."
With a half-smile on my face, I brought my hands to the sides of my helmet, removing the rustic plate helm and leaving my face exposed under the morning sun.
"Only because a beautiful lady asked me with such courtesy," I replied, holding her gaze.
An evident flash of approval and surprise crossed Laena's features.
"And what might your true name be, Ser?" she asked, leaning slightly over the parapet.
"That is something you will have to investigate on your own, Lady Velaryon," I replied in an amused tone.
I put the horned metal helm back on, turned the horse's reins, and rode toward the backstage area, leaving the court murmuring theories. I had barely crossed the curtains of the preparation tent when old Lanny sprang from the shadows, his eyes shining brighter than gold.
"Boy, you've made me a veritable fortune today! By the Seven, I profited more this morning than in three whole months working at the smithy!"
"I'm happy for you, old man," I replied, dismounting in a hurry, feeling the sweat running down my neck. "Now, please, help me get these metal plates off my body."
The blacksmith, noticing the change in my tone of voice, put the celebrations aside and began swiftly undoing the leather buckles. I could barely stand the sluggishness of that noble armor; it felt like it completely restricted my movements, and in case Viserys called me, I wanted to be ready to help, if necessary.