Daemon Targaryen moved through the filth like it didn’t touch him, wearing his shroud like a second skin. Like the gutters weren’t full of piss and broken teeth. Like the stink of rot and unwashed men didn’t cling to his boots with every step.

He liked it here because it didn’t lie about the kind of place it was. Whores barked at him from under splintered awnings, their eyes dull, their mouths wet. A drunkard staggered past and muttered something about gods and rats. None of them had anything to say worth hearing.

He stepped over a collapsed man in the alley, his hand still curled around an empty wineskin, the back of his head painted across the stones. No one had bothered to rob him and that told Daemon everything.

The tavern came into view just beyond the mouth of the crooked lane—“The Drunken Sow,” or maybe it was “The Laughing Goat” last time he passed through. They changed names when the owners died, which was often. The sign was half-rotted now, swinging on one hinge like it had survived a storm.

Daemon pushed through the door without looking back.

The stink inside was thicker than the street—spilled ale, unwashed bodies, and that particular smell of too much sex in too small a room. Tables were full. Music droned low from a corner, played by a half-dead bard and a string that wouldn't stay in tune.

He lowered his hood. Letting them see him, let them feel it. That sudden shift in the air, the sharp prickle of someone important entering a room where no one should be. But they should be used to him by now.