The rain had not stopped for three days. It turned Duskendale’s walls slick and black, its streets into rivers of filth and fear. Outside, Lord Tywin’s host waited, silent, patient, ready to burn the town to ash. Inside, the king rotted in chains.

Barsena Selmy took on a mission to rescue the king without assaulting the walls.

Armor traded for rags, her white cloak hidden, her golden hair dulled beneath grime, she had slipped through the gates as no knight should—unseen, unheralded, alone. A Kingsguard was meant to stand beside their king in gleaming steel. Not crawl through darkness like a cutpurse.

But honor, she knew, was not always clean.

A guard lay slumped behind her in the corridor, throat opened before he could cry out. Barsena wiped the blade once, quietly, then pressed on. The dungeon air was thick, rot, damp, and something fouler.

She found the cell.

The king of the Seven Kingdoms sat hunched in chains, thin, eyes wild and sunken. He looked less a ruler than a ghost left to starve.

Barsena stepped forward, key in hand, voice low and steady as ever:

“Your Grace… I have come to bring you home.”