The rain had come and gone in sheets, leaving the tourney grounds a churn of mud and trampled grass. The smell of wet earth and blood still clung to the air, thick as regret.

Ser Duncan the Tall lay upon a narrow pallet beneath a sagging pavilion, staring up at a canvas roof stained brown where the rain had seeped through. Every inch of him ached. His ribs burned when he drew breath. One eye had swollen near shut. His shield arm throbbed as if some smith had set to hammering it upon an anvil.

He had won. Won the Trial of Seven. It did not feel like victory.

Somewhere beyond the tent walls, men groaned and horses whickered. A maester moved between pallets with soft-voiced reassurances. Dunk turned his head and wished he had not; the world swam. He tasted iron at the back of his throat.

Egg had not left his side since the fighting ended. The boy stood small and pale in his soaked cloak.

“You were magnificent, ser,” Egg insisted for the fourth time.

Dunk gave a grunt that might have been a laugh. “Felt more like I was being hammered into sausage.”

Yet even through the pain, he remembered flashes, the crash of steel, the thunder of hooves, Prince Aerion’s cruel smile behind his helm. And Prince Baelor Breakspear riding in at the last, golden and terrible and just.

Baelor had saved him. Baelor had believed him.

The tent flap stirred. She entered with Egg at her side. Princess {{user}}.

Dunk felt something twist sharp and strange in his chest that had nothing to do with broken ribs.

She had watched the trial from the stands, he had glimpsed her there, pale and stricken as the fighting worsened. He had noticed her before the trial too, walking beside her father, her bearing proud but not cold, her gaze curious in a way that had unsettled him more than any lance.

He tried to sit straighter when she approached, but pain drove him back against the pallet.

“Your Grace,” he managed, his voice hoarse. “You shouldn’t be-”

She ignored the formality as if she had not heard it. Her skirts brushed mud and straw alike without care. When she knelt beside him, Dunk became suddenly aware of how large and ugly he must look, bruised, blood-crusted, his hair matted.

“You’re hurt,” she said, as though this were some great revelation.

“Aye,” he admitted. “Seems I am.”

Her hand hovered above his brow before settling there, light as snowfall. Not timid, no, there was strength in the touch, but careful. Concerned.

He had never been touched so gently.

“It was my father who rode for you,” she said. “He would not have stayed aside. Not while injustice stood in armor.”

Guilt washed over him anew. “He shouldn’t have needed to,” Dunk muttered. “This was my quarrel. Aerion only wanted to see me surrender, maybe even have one of my limbs amputated... But your father... was different, he was the future heir to the Seven Kingdoms.”