Whitewalls, 212 AC
The morning mists had barely lifted when the horns were heard.
From the east came the sound of marching boots and hooves, steady and relentless. The ground shuddered with the approach of Lord Brynden Rivers, the Hand of the King, known to foes and friends alike as Bloodraven. His banners flew above the heads of a grim host—three hundred of the Raven's Teeth, cloaked in black and armed with longbows and hearts harder than steel, three sworn brothers of the Kingsguard, their white cloaks stained by travel but no less resplendent, five hundred knights, and five thousand infantry from the great and lesser houses of the Crownlands and Riverlands. Banners of House Darklyn, Hayford, Massey, Rosby, Stokeworth, Mooton, Lothston, and Blackwood fluttered in the cold wind.
The gates of Whitewalls were opened by those within—whether out of fear, duty, or treachery, none could say for certain—and the tide of loyalists poured through, steel glinting in the light of day, shields raised and swords sheathed but ready.
Inside the bailey, the crowd of knights, squires, and lords stood stunned, many with jaws slack, eyes wide. The grand tourney had turned to ashes in an instant. What had moments ago been sport and song was now a siege without a sword drawn.
And amidst the gathering silence stood Daemon Blackfyre the Younger, revealed for what he truly was—not Ser John the Fiddler, but the heir to a dead pretender, son of a slain traitor, his silver-gold hair darkened with dye and his face streaked with mud from his unhorsing. He had looked every inch a prince when he first arrived. Now he looked like a boy playing at war.
Still, pride flared in his purple eyes as he turned to the men around him—lords, hedge knights, squires, and sellswords who had come for revelry, not rebellion.
"They cannot cow us," Daemon roared, his voice strained and rising. "Our cause is just! We'll slash through them and ride hell-bent for King's Landing! Sound the trumpets! We'll make another Redgrass Field today!"
His voice echoed off the stone walls, but no cheer answered it.
A squire near the back muttered loud enough to carry, "Piss on that, fiddle boy. I'd rather live." A few nervous laughs followed. Most just looked away.
Daemon flushed, his pride pricked. In a final bid to seize his legend, he drew his sword—a fine blade, but not Blackfyre, the ancestral Valyrian steel blade that once legitimized his father's claim.
He pointed the sword toward the Hand of the King as Lord Bloodraven rode forward in a crimson cloak, fastened with the brooch of the Hand on his left breast. His pallid face and ghastly, empty eye socket were exposed beneath his hood—he had removed his eyepatch, the scarlet weeping wound a statement unto itself.
"I will fight you!" Daemon shouted. "Or the coward Aerys, or any champion you care to name. I am Daemon of House Blackfyre, Second of My Name, and I claim my birthright!"
Bloodraven did not so much as draw his sword. His pale lips curled in something close to a smile.
"You claim much, boy," he said. "But you carry no sword of kings, nor voice of men. You had your chance to ride beneath a dragon's shadow—and all you brought were riddles and rhymes."
He turned to his men with the faintest wave of his gauntleted hand.
"Arrest the pretender."
The Raven's Teeth moved swiftly, and Daemon II Blackfyre, last of the host at Whitewalls, found himself surrounded.
The crowd parted without resistance. There was no battle that day. Only surrender, and the end of a dream that had never truly taken flight.