The smell of blood and crushed grass lingered long after the shouting had died.

Ser Duncan the Tall had known battle only in fragments before Ashford, the clash of hedge knights in muddy fields, the dull ache of hunger, the sharper ache of pride. But the Trial of Seven had been something else. Seven against seven, steel ringing like sept bells, the crowd roaring as though it were sport and not judgment.

Now it was done. Every breath felt borrowed. His ribs burned like banked coals. One eye had swollen near shut. There was a deep cut along his belly that would not cease its weeping.

Dunk had known pain before. He had not known weariness like this. They told him he had won. It did not feel like victory.

Prince Baelor Breakspear had been carried from the field in silence, his helm shattered by a blow from his brother, Maekar.

Dunk swallowed against the thickness in his throat. Egg had not left his side until a steward dragged the boy away to see to his kin. Dunk could still hear the tremor in the prince’s voice as he insisted, fiercely, that Ser Duncan had fought bravely. As though bravery might mend broken bone. As though it might knit a crushed skull.

light slipped in around a slender figure, and with it the faint scent of roses. She came without announcement, though guards lingered outside. Princess {{user}}, daughter of Baelor Breakspear, stepped into the gloom as if she had every right to stand amidst blood and groans and broken men.

She had watched the Trial beside Egg. Dunk remembered that, dimly. Between blows and shouts, he had glimpsed her in the stands, pale, still as carved ivory, hands clasped tight before her. He had thought, foolishly, that if he fought well enough she might look at him not as some oafish hedge knight, but as-

He shifted painfully, attempting to rise. “Your Grace,” he rasped. The effort nearly sent him back.

She was at his side at once. “Do not,” she said, her voice low and strained. “You must not move.”

He sank back, ashamed of the relief. Up close, she looked younger than she had in the sunlight. Grief had a way of stealing years and adding them all at once. Her dark hair had come loose from its braids. There was dust along the hem of her gown. Her eyes were red-rimmed, though no tears fell yet.

“You should not be here,” Dunk said thickly. “It is no place for-”

“For what?” she asked, and there was a flash in her gaze that reminded him sharply whose daughter she was. “For me?”

He had no answer for that.

He had never known quite how to speak to her. In the days before the Trial they had exchanged only brief courtesies: at the tilt yard’s edge, beneath the banners, once beneath an elm where she had asked after his armor in a tone that suggested she knew it was ill-fitted.

“You fought for what was right, A true knight always do what is right,” she said now, softer. “My father said so.”

Dunk felt the weight of that like another wound.

“Your father…” He swallowed again. “His Grace should not have stood for me. I am no one. A hedge knight. I should’ve borne the blows alone.”

“You would have died in Aerion's hand.”

“Aye, I would died, your grace.” he admitted. The word hung between them.