As a farmer from a small riverside village under House Bracken's domain, Darren never dreamed that he would one day sleep inside a lord's castle.
In the past, even glancing toward the stone walls from the riverbank would earn a scolding from the patrolling guards. The soldiers would claim it was to prevent anyone from getting too familiar with the castle's layout and sneaking in—an understandable concern in these uncertain times—but Darren always felt it was simply the arrogance of those in armor.
Now, having spent a night under the roof of the lord's hall, Darren felt like he'd crossed a boundary reserved only for the gentry. I've lived in a castle, he thought with a sense of awe as he woke, though his sleeping arrangements were nothing grand: a shared space on the floor with dozens of other villagers, rolled-up cloaks and straw mats beneath them.
Still, for a man like Darren, it felt like a milestone. If his wife gave birth to a son, he would die with no regrets.
His life had been typical for a riverlander peasant. As a boy, he ran barefoot through the muddy fields along the Red Fork with other nameless children, never once stepping into a sept, nor holding a practice sword like the sons of knights did. Clothes never quite fit him—too small one month, too large the next. His parents had no coin to keep up with his growing frame.
He was barely old enough to carry a bundle when he began helping in the fields, first picking stray wheat stalks, then turning soil and hauling sacks beside his father. Their smallholding produced just enough for the family table, and during harvests they also worked the lands of their liege lord—land granted to House Bracken generations ago by the Targaryens.
Back then, Darren had often wondered why lords did not till their own soil. Why did they dwell in castles of stone, eat from silver plates, and ride destriers, while his family patched boots with twine?
By the time he was old enough to wield a scythe properly, he understood that this was the order of things. When he finally accepted it, his parents arranged his marriage to a girl from the next village, a wild-haired farmer's daughter who could carry two buckets of water at once and laughed with her head thrown back.
They wed before a septon who traveled with the harvest caravans, with no noble witness and no feast. A few relatives raised beams and lashed together a timber hut, and so their household was founded.
His parents granted him a narrow plot of land by the river, fertile but modest. It fed the two of them, barely. If a child were born, there'd be another mouth to feed, and that would stretch their resources thin. His parents could not gift him more—those who labored their whole lives seldom had land to spare.
By chance, Darren found work in a riverside workshop making furnishings for noble clients. The nobles of King's Landing were always in need of luxury—embroidered curtains, engraved bedframes, carved chairs. His workshop specialized in beds: heavy oaken things inlaid with patterns of roses, falcons, and lions. Darren never saw the finished product; only the half-formed wood, which skilled carvers would later transform into works of art.
He often wondered what sort of person slept on a bed worth more than a year's harvest. Certainly not someone like him. The price of each one could be as high as fifty silver stags, and his wages from weeks of hauling and hammering couldn't afford even the footboard.
Each time they finished a batch, Darren and three strong lads from the village would carry it down to the small dock where a wide-bottomed riverboat waited. It was the largest vessel Darren had ever seen—its hull painted in the green and gold of House Redwyne, or the silver trout of House Tully. Once loaded, it would depart with the tide, bound downstream toward King's Landing.
He'd never seen the capital, but he'd heard tales from a traveling maester who once lodged in their village: of the river route that followed the Red Fork down to the Trident's mouth, then out past the Fingers and along the coast of the Narrow Sea. The ship would sail past Dragonstone's volcanic cliffs, slip through the Blackwater Rush, and dock beneath the shadow of the Red Keep itself.
Thousands of ships arrived there from the Free Cities—Myr, Lys, Pentos, Braavos—and from Westeros's own ports like Lannisport, White Harbor, and Gulltown. Their names lingered in Darren's mind, not as places he wished to visit (he knew better than to dream), but as stories he hoped to pass to his child one day.
If I ever meet them.
The thought brought his mind back to his pregnant wife, and to the axe he'd recently purchased—the one brought back to him by the lord after the bandit raid.
Though battered, it was a gift more valuable than gold to a farmer like him. Not for cutting down enemies, but for chopping wood, building walls, protecting the little he owned.
And that was when Darren remembered—he hadn't seen Lord Arthur since yesterday. Where had he gone?
He had planned to buy the axe for chopping trees—nothing more. Wood was needed for many things, but in Darren's mind, it was for something specific: a child's bed. His child's bed.
Chopping trees meant gathering timber, and timber meant he could craft a bed with his own hands—just large enough for a swaddled infant. Darren had long watched the skilled carvers in the workshop work their artistry on oaken boards destined for noble homes. In secret, he had begun to imitate their techniques with leftover scraps, learning the basics of relief carving. Perhaps, just perhaps, he could shape something of beauty for his unborn child—a bed with small curling leaves, or even the ripples of the Red Fork itself carved into its sides.
Darren couldn't change his own fate. A smallfolk farmer born and raised by the river, he had no dreams of gold or glory. But he could give his son a better life. That was enough.
He would see to it that his son learned his letters—at least enough to read more than just his own name. That he wore clothes that weren't patched rags or castoffs. That he grew up knowing more than just the village's muddy lanes and the sounds of the rushing river.
He wanted his son to know things—that the Red Fork flowed into the Trident, that the Trident once turned red with Targaryen blood at the Battle of the Bells. That King's Landing was not just a name spoken in awe, but a city with spires, brothels, and red keeps taller than hills. That there were Free Cities across the Narrow Sea—Pentos, Braavos, even Volantis—where ships never stopped arriving, where languages he couldn't speak were traded in gold and spice.
And if the gods were kind, perhaps his son could go to those places one day. Just once. Just enough to say he'd been.
Because if his son went, it was as if Darren had gone himself.
"Move! Quickly, they're back again!" A shout from the castle wall jolted Darren from his thoughts. A soldier, voice hoarse and urgent, stood waving villagers forward.
Darren stood, gripping the axe he had reclaimed after the bandit raid—brought back by Lord Arthur himself. He joined the other men and followed the guards toward the battlements.
Some of the Blackwood soldiers had ridden off under cover of darkness the night before. Now they were returning, raising dust on the trail that led back to the gate.
"It looks like they've caught someone," one of the guards muttered as he squinted into the distance.
Darren couldn't see anything clearly from his low vantage point. The wall was crowded, and he was stuck behind taller men in leather jerkins and boiled leathers.
"Open the gate, or I'll kill her!" The voice came from beneath the wall—rough, foreign-sounding, not one of theirs.
"They've taken a woman hostage," the soldier reported grimly.
"Your lord ran off with his tail between his legs. Open the bloody gate!" the rough voice barked again.
"Do not open the gate until Lord Arthur returns. That is your order," said a calm voice—measured, firm.
Darren recognized the speaker. It was Amber, the steward. The man wore a grey cloak over his belt of keys, a familiar figure in the village, often seen collecting taxes on behalf of House Bracken. Always polite, but sharp-eyed.
"I don't want to kill anyone," the rough voice below called out again. "But you're not leaving me much choice. If Ser Brynden Blackfish hears we failed, my kin will pay the price. We're smallfolk too—don't make me do this!"
Amber gave no answer, only turned and gestured sharply. "Archers—south and east towers. Ready your bows." Men moved in practiced coordination, slipping away behind the merlons with crossbows and longbows in hand.
Suddenly, the ground beneath the gate trembled—a thud followed by a sharp scream.
"This was your choice," the voice growled. "Don't blame me for what happens next."
A woman cried out again, this time louder—high-pitched, ragged with pain.
Darren froze. Something terrible had just happened.
He was posted to stay behind, but the scream cut through his soul. Compelled by dread, he stepped forward and leaned out from behind a tower post, joining Amber and the soldiers at the wall's edge.
"Susan? What—Susan?!"
His heart stopped.
Tied to a post at the base of the wall was her—his wife, Susan. Her swollen belly told the truth. Seven months pregnant. That gentle river girl. His Susan.
"Let her go! Don't touch her!" Darren shouted, panic flooding his voice.
The man in silvered chainmail—clearly the one commanding this outrage—turned to face him. He wore a boiled leather surcoat with a sigil Darren didn't recognize. In his hand, a riding crop.
He smiled.
The crop came down. Susan screamed.
Darren's soul screamed too. His breath came in short bursts. His hands shook around the axe's handle.
He thought of Lord Arthur—how he had cut down the bandit leader with three strokes of his sword in the village square.
If he were here… these bastards would not dare.
Lord… where are you?