38 AC
The Coronation of King Mael I
King Mael, First of His Name. King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men. Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Protector of the Realm was crowned within the newly completed Red Keep on the first day of the new year. The rites were performed by the High Septon, with the Most Devout and the Faith Militant present in force.
The presence of the Faith Militant lent the ceremony a sharp, uneasy edge. Armed brothers lined the walls of the throne room, their mail and blades standing in stark contrast to silks and courtly finery. Courtiers spoke softly, if at all, and even great lords measured their movements carefully beneath the watchful eyes of the Faith’s warriors. It was clear to all that the shape of royal authority was still being tested, its limits not yet fully defined.
At the height of the ceremony, the High Septon required King Mael to kneel before him. The Twice Crowned King did not do so at once. For several long moments he remained standing, the tension in the throne room thick enough to be felt. Only then did King Mael lower himself and take the knee, accepting the blessing. The pause was brief, but it set many nerves on edge and was quietly remarked upon afterward.
Thereafter, several Great Lords of the realm came forward to swear fealty. Lord Baratheon bent the knee, followed by Lord Arryn, Lord Tyrell, and Lord Lannister, each oath spoken before the Iron Throne and received in heavy silence broken only by ritual acclaim.
As the High Septon departed the throne room, another troubling moment followed. He was seen taking Lady Jaenessa by the wrist and speaking to her in a low voice, the words heard only by those standing nearest. Prince Daerion intervened at once, pulling her free, while her nephew Lord Daeron and her brother Lord Valarr stepped in close, closing ranks around her in silent defiance. The Faith Militant did not intervene, but many noted how hands hovered near sword hilts all the same.
Later that day, as King’s Landing turned to celebration, Balerion and his rider took to the skies above the city. The great dragon circled several times around the Sept of Remembrance, his vast shadow passing again and again over stone and gathered faithful alike. Some called it reassurance, others intimidation, but none mistook the meaning of a dragon watching from above.
The coronation was followed by a feast of remarkable generosity. King Mael’s bounty was offered not only within the Red Keep but throughout King’s Landing itself. Courtyards were dressed in color, food and wine flowed freely, mummers, dancers, and musicians filled the streets, and toys were given to children so that even the youngest might remember the day with joy.
Thus did King Mael, Thrice Crowned begin his reign, crowned by the Faith, acclaimed by the Lords, embraced by the people, and shadowed from its first hours by the unspoken truth that Crown, Faith, and dragonfire were still learning how to stand beside one another.
The Crownlands
The Red Keep did not wake that morning so much as shudder into awareness.
King Mael was found dead in his chambers. But not without answer.
The room told its own grim tale long before any man spoke. Furniture lay overturned, tapestries torn from their hooks, and blood, far too much of it, spattered the walls and floor in violent arcs. Two bodies lay near the foot of the bed, their shaved heads marked by deep, savage wounds. One had been run through cleanly. The other bore the unmistakable marks of a blade driven with fury rather than precision.
The King had not died quietly. Mael Targaryen had fought.
Whatever else might be said of him in the years to come, none could deny this. When the Stranger came for him in the dark, he met it standing. He had slain two of his would be killers before the remaining blades found their mark. Even then, the final wounds spoke of struggle of a man refusing to yield until strength, at last, abandoned him.
By the time the Grand Maester arrived, there was nothing left for his art to mend. The King lay where he had fallen, blood pooling beneath him, the candles guttering low as if in mourning.
There was then a wail. Not the sharp cry of pain, but the broken, tearing sound of a soul coming apart.
A serving girl, little more than a child herself, thought to check on the King’s younger children after word spread that their father had been found dead. It was a kindness born of instinct, meant to spare them the truth for a few moments longer, to be certain they still slept unaware.
She never reached their beds.
What she found froze her where she stood, the tray slipping from her hands and shattering against the floor, its contents lost amid blood already cooling. When guards finally reached her, she clutched at her mouth, eyes wide and empty, capable only of sobbing.
Men who had stood firm beneath siege ladders and dragonfire turned away retching. One fell to his knees and prayed aloud. Another wept openly, helm forgotten on the floor.
But there was one tiny body that was not found. The youngest daughter, Princess Alyssane.
And still the night’s work was not done.
Moments later, the truth became terrifyingly clear. The King’s death had not been the end of the attack. It had been its beginning.
His chambers were the spark meant to draw guards and servants alike, to turn the Red Keep’s gaze inward while other blades slipped through shadowed halls toward children, princesses, and kin.
Steel rang suddenly from the Western wing sharp, desperate and unmistakable. Two guards had been posted outside the Princess’ chambers. One lay dead where he had fallen, throat opened cleanly. The other yet lived, though his blood painted the stones beneath him dark and slick. He had dragged himself forward on ruined legs, sword still clutched in his fist, refusing to die until the danger had passed. When he saw the White Cloak…he offered his last breath to the Stranger
Two of them. Shaved heads. Blade, much like the one found in the Kings chamber beside them. One had fallen just short of the inner door….his fingers still brushed the handle. A single twist more and he would have been inside the Princess’ rooms.
Ser Harys stood over them, armor dented, blade red to the hilt, breath coming in ragged gasps. He did not boast. He did not speak. He only bowed his head when the Grand Maester arrived.
But the man cut down at the door had not been the first.
He had been the second.
The grim revelation lay beyond. The door to Princess Viserra’s chambers stood open. Inside, the assassin who had come for her was found dead, sprawled across her lifeless form. She, too, had been taken by the Stranger.
Some would later call it a mercy. She had been stabbed…..only stabbed….and no more. That small mercy was owed not to chance, but to Targaryen tenacity: in her final moments she had fought, and her attacker had died by his own blade, driven home in the struggle.
Cold comfort, perhaps.
But in a night defined by horrors without number, even that grim truth was clung to like a prayer.
There was no time to rest. Another alarm followed, this one from the Tower of the Hand. The narrow stair rang with the clash of steel, echoes turning every shout into a dozen more. Four intruders lay dead within the tower’s lower chambers, cut down amid splintered doors and overturned furnishings. Again the marks were unmistakable: shaved skulls, the distinctive blades the Swords favored, the cold discipline of killers who had expected fear and confusion to carry them through.
But higher in the tower…..the gods had looked away.
There had been no Kingsguard set to watch the Prince and his wife.
When the Grand Maester reached them, the sight nearly unmanned him. The Prince yet breathed, but only just, his body opened in a dozen places, his strength spent in the last, desperate moments of resistance. He had fought like a cornered dragon, and in doing so had driven the worst of it from his wife. There beside him the trusted sword Illithyia Darke tried to hold the worst of the wounds. She’d fought to get to them, she’d killed man that had stabbed the Prince in the back.
Too late.
Lady Jaenessa lay broken upon the bed, her injuries spoken of only in murmurs afterward, if at all. Even the most seasoned men would not put words to what had been done. What none could ignore was the mark left behind.
A brand.
The seven-pointed star burned into her flesh, raw and livid. And nearby, half-finished, the unmistakable signs that another had been begun, interrupted only when Daerion, bleeding and near death, had forced his way between steel and skin.
The whispers of what had been done to the small woman had escaped…whispers of rape….too much blood, the brand on her chest only the first….there would have been seven…
By the time dawn crept pale and uncertain over King’s Landing, the truth had settled like ash over the Red Keep.
This had never been about the King alone. This had been a Reckoning.
The attack had been planned, timed, and executed with ruthless intent. While the court reeled from the murder in the King’s chambers and the horrors found beyond them, blades had moved through the Keep with singular purpose, to wipe out the blood of the Dragon and all those who did not stand with the Seven in a single night.
They had come for the children.
They had come for the Princess’ and the Dowager Queen.
They had come for the Hand and his wife.
They had failed…but only just.
The King was dead.
His heirs slain
His brother lingered before the door of the Stranger, breath shallow, life held by a fraying thread.
Above King’s Landing, dragons circled the Red Keep, their shadows sweeping over streets and spires alike. Their cries rolled across the city low, mournful, and terrible songs of grief that set men cowering in doorways and clutching their prayers tighter.
Later still, as the city staggered beneath the weight of the night’s horrors, more news crept through the Red Keep quiet at first, then impossible to ignore.
More death spread into the city proper.
Lord Redwyne had finally arrived in King’s Landing after his long delayed journey. He never reached the gates of the Red Keep. He was found instead in the street, sprawled amid overturned carts and scattered fruit, his blood running between the cobbles as though the city itself had been wounded.
Those who examined the body went pale. The wounds were unmistakable. The same star shaped incisions. They matched beyond any denial those found upon the King…upon his children…upon his brother.
There was no struggle. No sign of robbery. Only death, delivered with purpose.
Whispers followed swiftly on the heels of the report.
Had Lord Redwyne simply been the unluckiest man in the realm caught in the city on the wrong night, crossing paths with blades meant for others?
In the early morning hours, before the sun had begun to lighten the sky, without ceremony or warning it happened
The Faith Militant vanished from King’s Landing.
The armed brothers who had once stood watch in white and silver were simply gone from their posts. No ranks formed. No banners were raised. One hour they stood beneath the Seven pointed star; the next, their barracks lay empty, weapons taken, gates left unguarded.
The High Septon remained, at least at first.
What became clear in the hours that followed was not a coup, nor an act of obedience, but something far more dangerous: the Faith Militant had outgrown him.
Their violence had not been ordered in full, but it had been encouraged. His sermons had named dragonblood a blasphemy. His fixation upon Lady Jaenessa had cast her as the temptress who proved the rot of House Targaryen. To the Faith Militant, this was not metaphor it was doctrine awaiting action.
They did not raise blades against the High Septon. They simply stopped listening.
In their eyes, Lady Jaenessa was not merely guilty she was the source. The woman who had ensnared a holy man, the living proof that Targaryens were abominations whose very existence corrupted the faithful. To purge her was righteousness. To purge her kin was necessity.
When the night ended in blood and failure, when dragons circled the city and the Red Keep yet stood the Faith Militant withdrew. Not in shame. In calculation. They understood what survival required now that their hand had been revealed.
The High Septon fled soon after, abandoned rather than attacked. Without the Militant to shield him, he knew the Crown would hold him accountable for the monster his words had loosed.
The septas remained.
The septons remained.
They tended the wounded and whispered prayers, but they did so under suspicion and watchful eyes, knowing that the Faith had fractured and that the most dangerous part of it now stood outside the city, armed, convinced, and unrepentant.
Princess Alysanne was found in the Queen’s Garden the following day.
She lay amid trampled flowers and scorched grass, the morning dew hissing where it touched blackened stone. Nearby, her nursemaid had been burned where she stood, the body left charred and broken mute testimony to a woman who had tried, and failed, to protect her charge.
And beside her stood Silverwing.
The dragon was still small, scarcely more than a juvenile, her wings not yet broad enough to cast the garden fully in shadow. Even so, she stood between the Princess and the world with fierce resolve, claws sunk into the stone paths, smoke leaking from her nostrils in short, angry breaths. The scorch marks were clumsy, uneven fire loosed in panic rather than mastery but deadly all the same.
Those who approached did so slowly, hands empty, voices low. Silverwing hissed and snapped, tail lashing, refusing to yield until the Princess was gently lifted away. Only then did the dragon allow them closer, never taking her eyes from the retreating child.
A Rite in Ashe
Before dawn on the appointed day, members of Houses Targaryen and Velaryon assembled within the Red Keep and departed by dragon for Dragonstone. The company was attired not in mourning black, but in the traditional Valyrian colors of flame: crimson, gold, and orange, consistent with ancient Dragonlord funerary custom.
The bells of the Sept of Remembrance tolled throughout their departure, marking the deaths of King Mael Targaryen, Princess Viserra Targaryen, and the king’s children. The flight was undertaken in silence, and the dragons reached Dragonstone at first light.
Upon the lower terrace of the island, six biers had been prepared, carved from the living rock. King Mael was laid foremost, wrapped in pale grey silk and bearing a simple circlet of Valyrian steel. Beside him lay Princess Viserra and Princess Rhaena, followed by Princes Aegon, Viserys, and Jaeharys. All were arranged with care according to Valyrian rite.
King Daerion Targaryen presided over the ceremony and spoke briefly, affirming that the dead were committed not to darkness, but to flame and sky. Queen Jaenessa and Lady Vaelora then led the assembled kin in the recitation of ancient Valyrian words traditionally associated with Dragonlord funerary observance, affirming the belief that the dead go onward rather than pass away.
At the conclusion of the rite, the attending dragons loosed their fire upon the biers. The remains were consumed swiftly and completely. Ash was borne out to sea by the morning wind.
Following the ceremony, most of the party returned by dragon to King’s Landing. Lord Velaryon descended instead to the shore beneath Dragonstone, where he remained for some time in solitary observance. Lady Daena Targaryen likewise remained upon the island after the others had departed.
Thus were King Mael and his kin committed to flame according to Valyrian custom, their passing recorded in the annals of the Crown.
No Procession, All Power
The High Septon returned to King’s Landing without public procession or ceremony. He took up residence within the Sept of Remembrance upon his arrival. His return coincided with the memorial for Lord Rickard Redwyne, and the High Septon personally performed the funerary rites for Lord Rickard.
Princess Vaella Targaryen and Lord Valarr Velaryon were wed upon Dragonstone in the Valyrian fashion. The ceremony was conducted according to ancestral custom, without invocation of the Faith, and witnessed by kin of Houses Targaryen and Velaryon.
In celebration of the union, multiple dragons took to the air from Dragonstone. Their flight ranged widely over Blackwater Bay, and they were sighted as far as King’s Landing and Driftmark before returning. The display was widely remarked upon as a public affirmation of the marriage and of the continuing strength of the blood of the dragon and the sea.
The Iron Islands
Word spread quietly through the isles that one Dalton Volmark of Sandy Bottom had begun to make it known that he believed himself the rightful bearer of the mantle of House Volmark. Dalton was widely identified as a cousin to Helya Volmark and to Mira Greyjoy, née Volmark, a connection he was said to emphasize whenever his claim was spoken of.
Whether Dalton Volmark had secured any true backing among captains, priests, or kin remained unclear. Some dismissed his words as ambition spoken too loudly and too soon, while others noted that such claims, once voiced upon the Iron Islands, rarely vanished without consequence.
For the moment, no banners were raised and no oaths publicly sworn, but the rumor itself was enough to unsettle House Volmark, for among the ironborn, the mere suggestion of a claim was often the first step toward blood. Concerns rise once more that House Volmark may be the cause of rebellion in the Iron Islands. Lessons had not yet been learned.
Volmark’s Quiet Reckoning
In the weeks following unrest in the Crownlands, House Volmark undertook decisive actions within its waters and lands. Men of the Faith originating from the greenlands were seized across Volmark territory. These actions were carried out without open battle and with deliberate coordination. Those who resisted were slain. Those taken alive were put to death by drowning in the shallows, their throats cut in offering to the Drowned God, in accordance with ironborn religious custom.
Women and children encountered during these actions were spared. They were set ashore on the mainland with only the clothes they wore and released. No effort was made to retain them, and no ransoms were sought.
During the same period, Dalton Volmark of Sandy Bottom asserted a claim within House Volmark. He refused submission when confronted. By command of Helya Volmark, and with authority of House Greyjoy invoked to render the judgment lawful by ironborn custom, Dalton Volmark was executed by drowning. The sentence was carried out publicly under the supervision of the Volmark steward, Rorik Pykehand. No further claim was raised thereafter.
No banners were called, and no wider conflict followed these actions.
Shortly after Dalton Volmark’s death, his wife, Marian Volmark, née Botley, departed Volmark lands and returned to her maiden house in Lordsport. No statement was issued regarding her departure. Observers noted her condition upon arrival, though no comment was made by House Botley or House Volmark.
These actions were taken as confirmation that House Volmark had reasserted internal authority through ironborn custom. No formal response was issued by the Crown at the time of this record.
The Riverlands
Harrenhal never truly slept, not since Harren the Black and his kin were baked alive inside.
Even when the halls lay empty and the fires burned low, the castle breathed, stone sighing against stone, towers groaning like old men turning in their beds. The servants said it was only the wind. The servants lied to themselves.
Lord Harroway knew this. He had ruled Harrenhal long enough to learn that the castle did not belong to him. He merely lived there, on sufferance. It began with footsteps. Not guards’ boots, not servants hurrying along their tasks, but slow, measured steps echoing through corridors where no one walked. Lord Harroway heard them first from his solar, late at night, pacing just beyond the door. When he flung it open, torch in hand, the hall lay empty, yet the stone floor was cold and damp, watery footsteps could be seen as if someone had passed through moments before.
His heir, young Ser Alric, laughed at first. Harrenhal was infamous for its noises; Qoherys had spoken of it. But laughter faltered when Alric began to dream. He dreamt of towers melting like wax, of blackened stones weeping dark water, of a shadow seated in his father’s chair, crowned not with gold but with ruin. Each morning he woke with his hands clenched, nails biting blood into his palms.
On the seventh night, the footsteps stopped. That silence was worse. Lord Harroway rose before dawn, uneasy, and went to the Hall of a Hundred Hearths. The fires were dead, yet the room was warm, too warm. The vast space swallowed his torchlight, shadows clinging to the rafters like cobwebs. It remembered the fire of the Black Dread….. He did not see the ceiling crack until it was already falling.
Stone screamed as it came down. The lord had time to look up, to understand, and to realize the castle had chosen him at last. When the dust settled, they found what remained of him crushed beneath ancient rock, his ringed hand protruding as if in mute appeal.
Ser Alric was found at dusk. He had fled upward, chasing some half seen shape into the Widow’s Tower. The guards discovered him sprawled at the foot of the stairs, neck twisted at an impossible angle, eyes wide and staring…….not in pain, but recognition.
No one could say how he fell. There were no loose stones, no broken steps.
Only this high above, at the top of the tower, a single footprint marked the dust. Too small to be a man’s. The castle went quiet after that. No footsteps. No dreams. No warmth in dead halls. Harrenhal had taken its due, and, sated for now, returned to waiting.
The Westerlands
A lavish feast organized by Tybalt Lannister at the Westerlands consulate within the Red Keep ended in sudden tragedy. Intended as a political display of generosity and influence, the event was carefully arranged with an elaborate menu prepared to impress the gathered nobility.
Unbeknownst to most present, Tybalt had secretly arranged for a dish, duck prepared in a wine based sauce, to be poisoned, with the intent that it be served to his brother, Lord Bastien Lannister. The poison had been introduced through imported Essosi substances concealed in the cooking wine, a method designed to evade customary tasting practices.
Before the dish could be served as intended, Lady Vynessa sampled the food and was fatally afflicted by the poison. She staggered into the consulate kitchens as the effects took hold, collapsing shortly thereafter with blood pouring from her eyes, ears, nose and mouth. In the chaos that followed, Tybalt attempted to prevent her from revealing the cause of her condition. A violent struggle ensued, during which Lady Vynessa mortally wounded Tybalt with a kitchen blade before succumbing to the poison herself.
The Vale of Arryn
Lord Aslan Arryn and his wife, Lady Ionna, were slain while traveling home from King’s Landing to the Eyrie, their party attacked shortly after entering the Vale along a high mountain path customarily used by noble escorts. The return journey was undertaken quietly, with a small guard and modest display. None can say why they left King’s Landing in such a hurry and without announcement.
The attack occurred in a narrow defile where the path constricted between stone and forest. Responsibility for the slaughter was later firmly attributed to the Blackears Clan, based on evidence found at the site.
Several members of the escort survived long enough to be discovered days later, grievously wounded but alive. All bore the same mark of defilement, their ears had been cut from them with deliberate care and taken as trophies, a practice long and exclusively associated with the Black Ears.
The noble wheelhouse was torn apart during the assault. Lord Aslan was found dead amid the wreckage, his body stripped of ears as well. Lady Ionna was discovered nearby, likewise slain. None of the children survived the attack. All of their ears were taken as trophies.
The Reach
The Starry Sept in Oldtown was destroyed by dragonfire when three dragons descended upon the city. The assault was swift and decisive, and the Sept and its surrounding structures were consumed entirely, leaving little beyond blackened stone and ash.
The destruction was visible across Oldtown and from the harbor. No definitive accounting of the dead has been recorded.
As of this writing, neither the Crown nor the High Septon have issued a public statement regarding the burning. The absence of comment has been widely noted, as the loss of the Starry Sept carries grave spiritual and political consequence throughout the realm.