He leaned against the battlement, the sea crashing beneath him, the black stone rough beneath his fingers. Talking gargoyles¹ and prophecies in the sky. I am an old done man, grown giddy as a child again. Had a lifetime’s hard-won wisdom fled him along with his health and strength? He was a maester, trained and chained in the great Citadel² of Oldtown. What had he come to, when superstition³ filled his head as if he were an ignorant fieldhand?  And yet... and yet... the comet burned even by day now, while pale grey steam rose from the hot vents⁴ of Dragonmont behind the castle, and yestermorn a white raven⁵ had brought word from the Citadel itself, word long-expected but no less fearful for all that, word of summer’s end. Omens⁶, all. Too many to deny. What does it all mean? he wanted to cry.  “Maester Cressen, we have visitors.” Pylos spoke⁷ softly, as if loath⁸ to disturb Cressen’s solemn meditations⁹. Had he known what drivel filled his head, he would have shouted. “The princess would see the white raven.” Ever correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. “Her fool is with her.”   The old man turned away from the dawn, keeping a hand on his wyvern to steady himself. “Help me to my chair and show them in.”  Taking his arm, Pylos led him inside. In his youth, Cressen had walked briskly, but he was not far from his eightieth name day now, and his legs were frail¹⁰ and unsteady. Two years past, he had fallen and shattered a

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