Vanea’s entourage, joined by Lord Braxter’s entourage, had traveled south from Ashford taking the Highgarden-Perrygate route. Alyx saw Highgarden then, a majestic place.

  When they reached Perrygate days later, the town was mourning the loss of Humfrey Beesbury. A ceremony was held near Perry’s hold, which Alyx joined briefly.

  Then the group met together in a beautiful grove just outside Perry’s Hold.

  “We are to separate here,” Daleria said.

  “When will we be seeing each other again, do you think?” Verona asked with a tinge of

  Daleria regarded her. “In a few months, I believe.”

  “I’ll see you strong, then.” Elissa raised a fist.

  “I see the dark torrents in your mind, daughter of the stone.” Daleria’s voice was steady, certain. “I shall pray for you to see that in this world, there is only one.”

  Elissa just looked away, not keen on continuing the conversation.

  “My Lady…” Robin stepped up, eyes yearning. “I will sleep with you on my mind every night.”

  “That sounds dirty.” Verona teased with a smile.

  “Do not make it worse.” Daleria sighed, touching Verona’s shoulder with a fist.

  “I—I meant no disrespect!” A flush rose to Robin’s cheeks.

  “Silence, you man.” Daleria frowned for a moment.

  “We just know.” Verona shrugged.

  “What? You know wrong!”

  “Peace, both of you.” Daleria snapped her fingers to draw their eyes. She focused on Robin, then. "I will rely only on Alyx’s word regarding your conduct. Be true to her. Be loyal to me.”

  Robin nodded with determined eyes. “I will.”

  He lowered himself to one knee and put down the heavy basket he was carrying on his back. Reaching inside, he pulled out a nicely wrapped item. He unfolded it to reveal a stack of white clovers tied together.

  “I… I meant to give this to you.” He offered the flowers, his nervous gaze shifting toward distant lands as if looking for a dragon to fight.

  Verona grinned brightly. Elissa groaned, rolling her eyes as if witnessing a mummer’s farce.

  Daleria took the flower at last. She stopped for a beat when their fingers brushed and Robin flinched just so slightly. Her expression softened just a little for that moment.

  “Flowers fade,” she said quietly, a small smile touching her lips. “But intention stays. I will keep this.”

  She tucked the clovers into her belt.

  Robin exhaled as if he had been holding his breath since Ashford.

  Daleria turned to Alyx.

  “You will go east,” she said. “Toward Oldtown, and toward fate.”

  “And you will go south,” Alyx replied, “toward Beachcastle. An ambitious Lord’s seat.”

  “Yes.” Daleria’s gaze sharpened with a smile. “Toward bargains that burn if mishandled.”

  Alyx smiled faintly. “You sound eager.”

  “I am.” Daleria paused, then added, “And wary. Which is as it should be.”

  They embraced, tight and long.

  “Be true. Be smart,” Daleria whispered into Alyx’s ear. “You are the Children of Rhoyne, the song of water. Know what you are meant for: greatness of life.”

  “Do not sow too much pride in me.” Alyx chuckled as they parted.

  “I speak of truth.” Daleria returned her cheer with a bright smile.

  They all started exchanging hugs then. Verona’s hug to Alyx was wet with tears and the longest. Daleria embraced Robin briefly but intently, as if a lady approving a knight. Verona and Elissa joked with each other in their farewell. And Elissa couldn’t yet save herself from Daleria’s lectures as they bid each other goodbyes.

  As they descended from the grove back to the road, Braxter rode up to meet them atop his horse, riding after all. His arm was bound across his chest, but his posture was as proud as ever.

  "Lady Alyx," he said, inclining his head. "We shall meet again, I trust. Be wary of Oldtown. As beautiful as it is, I find it a place most fearsome beneath the beacon of The High Tower.”

  Alyx nodded. “I will, My Lord. I will look for you when the time comes, then."

  He smiled, a warm expression that reached his dark eyes. "Aye. I would expect nothing less.”

  The Reach stretched around them in every direction: rolling hills of gold and green, dotted with apiaries and cider presses. The air was heavy with sweetness.

  Alyx felt it was a land caught in the eternal embrace of the Mother.

  They made for Honeyholt, just near Honeywine, with only a river between them called Sweetwhisper.

  After a brief stop at the City of Beesbury, they took off again. The dusk was thickening as the road bent gently westward. They passed Sweetbridge and now they were at the Honeywine bank of the Sweetwhisper to the west. The end of the road was nearer than an hour into Sweetfork, where The Silver Lantern was located.

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  Here, the Reach lived up to its name. The land flourished with abundant fertility. There were orchards of apple and pear trees planted in precision. The endless fields of vineyards, fruits, and all kinds of agriculture stretched as far as the eye can see to the east, splattered across Honeywine in a lush abundance of color.

  The air was different here. It was thick, humid, and smelled of money; a cloying mixture of wildflower honey, wet earth, and the distant salt tang of the sea.

  "By the Seven," Robin breathed, looking around from the back of the wagon. "Is there a war anywhere in the world? You wouldn't know it looking at this."

  “It smells like a bakery everywhere,” Elissa grunted laughing.

  "War requires hunger," Vanea darted her face out from her carriage window. "The Honeywine has never known hunger. That is why we rule the markets.”

  The Sweetfork Town revealed itself slowly where Sweetwhisper and Honeywine created a confluence. Honeywine braided itself into Sweetwhisper, calm and slow.

  Boats laden with grain and casks drifted lazily downstream, guided by polemen who looked better fed than most knights Alyx had seen in the Marches. The banks were lined not with mud, but with stone levees and weeping willows that dipped their branches into the current as if tasting the wealth of the water.

  "Look," Vanea said, pointing a gloved finger southward. "The beacon of the world."

  Alyx followed the line of the river.

  There, rising above the horizon like a man-made mountain, was the silhouette of Oldtown. Even at this distance, an hour or two’s ride away, the massive walls of the city were visible as a white band against the darkening sky. But it was what stood atop Battle Island that stole the breath.

  The High Tower.

  It pierced the clouds, a needle of pale stone. At its summit, the great beacon fire was bright, a burning orange star that outshone the moon. It cast a long, shimmering road of light down the length of the Honeywine.

  "It watches us," Alyx murmured. The scale of it was impossible.

  "It watches everything," Vanea corrected.

  The carriage rattled over a bridge of white limestone, the hooves of the horses echoing sharply. They entered Sweetfork.

  It was less a town and more a manicured extension of the city’s wealth. There were no thatched roofs here; every building was slate and timber, whitewashed and clean. Lanterns of wrought iron hung from every corner, casting a warm, golden glow on cobblestones that had been swept free of horse dung. The air smelled of beeswax, roasting capon, and the faint, sweet scent of grapes.

  "This place..." Robin whispered, staring out the back of the wagon at a merchant’s townhouse that boasted stained glass windows. "Do commoners live here?”

  "Servants of the High Tower, scions of merchant princes, and those who grease the wheels of the Citadel," Vanea answered. "There are some others, but here in Sweetfork, poverty is impolite. We keep it downstream.”

  The carriage turned off the main thoroughfare, heading toward a rise that overlooked the river confluence.

  "Welcome," Vanea said, a note of pride entering her voice, "to The Silver Lantern.”

  It was not what Alyx expected.

  She had imagined something gaudy—silks draped over balconies, red lanterns, the sound of bawdy laughter spilling into the street. She had expected a brothel.

  What stood before her was like a palace.

  It was a sprawling estate built in the traditional Westerosi style, reminiscent of the great manses of the Gardeners of old. Built of warm, honey-colored stone and dark oak timber, it featured high peaked roofs and formidable oaken doors. Ivy climbed the walls in disciplined green veins, and the grounds were enclosed not by a fence, but by a limestone wall topped with iron spikes that looked almost more decorative than defensive.

  The carriage passed through the iron gates, crunching onto a gravel driveway lined with statues of maidens pouring water from jugs.

  "This is a tavern?" Elissa scoffed. "It looks like a lord’s seat.”

  “It is a house of wealth, spearwoman. And yes, a seat of power.” Vanea replied as the carriage halted. "Just not one granted by a king.”

  Grooms in silver-and-green doublets rushed forward to take the horses. They moved with silent efficiency, bowing low to Vanea.

  Alyx stepped down, smoothing her shimmering blue tunic.

  "Come," Vanea beckoned, her violet dress trailing after her as she led the way.

  They walked, passing the great entrance of the building and stepping inside.

  If the outside was a lord’s manor, the inside was a sanctuary. The Great Hall was vast, with a vaulted ceiling where chandeliers of wrought iron held hundreds of candles.

  There was no raucous shouting. Instead, the air was filled with the gentle, complex plucking of a high harp. Men in velvets and silks sat in plush armchairs arranged in intimate clusters, speaking in low tones over goblets of gold. Beautiful, elegant women dressed not in vulgarly left open silk but in the structured, modest, yet devastatingly expensive gowns of the Reach sat with them. They looked less like whores and more like highborn ladies holding court.

  "The smallfolk call it the paradise on earth," Vanea said, chuckling as she added, “which they cannot reach with its cost.”

  She stopped and removed her gloves as a servant appeared with a silver tray to take them. "The High Septon calls it a den of sin. The nobles call it a luxurious brothel. And the Maesters call it a curiosity.” She laughed with an elegant hand over her mouth.

  She turned to Alyx, her lilac eyes gleaming in the candlelight.

  "I call it the exchange. Here, a man does not pay for a body. He pays for the illusion that he is a king. He pays for conversation that does not bore him, for wine that does not vinegar in his gut, and for secrets worth gold dragons.”

  Alyx looked around. To her left, a fat merchant was laughing softly at something a woman in emerald green whispered in his ear. To her right, an old man in a black robe, perhaps a Maester hiding his chain under the robe, was playing cyvasse with a girl who looked no older than sixteen, yet moved her dragon piece with the confidence of a general.

  "This place feels like it belongs in the Free Cities. I wouldn’t expect this in Westeros. Certainly not in the Reach." Alyx admitted.

  "It is Reach, however," Vanea said. "We do not do the pillow houses of the Free Cities here. We like our sins to feel like virtues."

  “That is because Westeros pretends it does not want what it craves most,” Vanea replied smoothly. She gestured for them to follow and began walking across the hall. “The Free Cities are honest about luxury. We dress it in virtue and pray our sins feel like it. Here, however, we simply learned to thrive with our wealth, however discreet it might be.”

  They moved through the hall like guests who belonged there, servants parting before them without a word. Alyx noticed the men’s gaze on her. Of course she did. But the glances this time were subtle, however curious. The attention was certainly managed better in this place than it was demanded.

  They passed beneath an archway of carved oak and entered a quieter wing. The music softened behind them, replaced by the gentle sound of flowing water. Here, the walls were adorned not with tapestries of battles or hunts, but with maps: beautifully illuminated charts of rivers, coastlines, and trade roads.

  Vanea stopped before a pair of tall doors inlaid with silver leaf.

  “My home,” she said simply.

  Inside was a solar large enough to shame some lordly keeps. Tall windows overlooked the confluence of Sweetwhisper and Honeywine, moonlight already beginning to shimmer across the water. A long table of dark walnut dominated the center of the room, its surface polished to a mirror sheen. Upon it lay ledgers, wax tablets, rolls of parchment bound with silk cords, and several scales of exquisite make.

  Robin let out a low whistle. “This looks more like a counting house than a pleasure den.”

  “Pleasure is temporary. Coin, however,” Vanea walked and ran a finger over the table’s surface, tracing along some of the rich items. “Coin is power.”

  She took her seat at the head of the table, removing a ring from her finger and placing it atop a ledger.

  “Sit,” Vanea said, nodding to Alyx. “You too, spearwoman. Lad, you bring wine. The jug is by the balcony door.”

  Robin hurried to obey, lifting the gem emblazoned crsytal jug with both hands. He poured carefully into golden goblets etched with vines and bees. Alyx smelled the dark and fragrant wine, it was heavy with the scent of summer berries.

  “Now,” she said, folding her hands atop the ledger. “Let us speak matters of future."

  Honewyine stands more similar to the river that was described as Sweetwhisper here.