"When fire rises, walls may stand for a time, but it is the people within them who are tested. Stone does not weep. Stone does not burn. Men do."
— Jin Mu-Won
The road bent southward, drawing Jin and Ashara closer to the Crownlands, where whispers turned to shouts and fear hardened into fact. The Rebellion was no longer rumor — it was war. Banners had been raised. Armies marched. Smoke rose from the horizon, a smear of black against pale skies.
King's Landing loomed at last.
It rose from the land like a scar, its walls high but weathered, its towers jutting upward like broken spears. The city was vast, sprawling along the Blackwater Rush, the stench of too many lives pressed too close heavy upon the air. To Jin, who had seen the mountain temples of Murim, the city was strange and crude — yet alive, pulsing with energy both desperate and cruel.
At the gates, soldiers inspected travelers with suspicion sharpened by fear. Jin passed with Ashara, saying little, though he felt the eyes of the guards linger upon him. Foreign. Strange. Dangerous.
Inside, the streets twisted like veins. Merchants hawked wares, beggars pleaded, and knights rode past without glancing down. But beneath the noise, Jin felt tension coil. The city was a hearth piled high with kindling, and the first spark had already been struck.
---
Elia Martell
Jin first saw her not in a hall of power, but in the gardens of the Red Keep, where whispers of violence did not reach as quickly. She sat upon a stone bench, her hands folded, her dark eyes shadowed with sorrow. Elia Martell of Dorne — frail in body, but carrying herself with quiet dignity.
Ashara's voice softened as she greeted her. "Elia."
The princess looked up, and for a moment her face broke into a weary smile. "Ashara. You came."
Ashara inclined her head toward Jin. "And brought a shield with me."
Elia's gaze shifted, studying him. "Not a knight?" she asked, her voice soft.
"No," Jin said simply.
"And yet Ashara calls you a shield." Her lips curved faintly, though her eyes held sadness. "Perhaps that is what we need more than swords."
---
The Court
The Red Keep was a place of fire and shadows. King Aerys was whispered of but seldom seen, his paranoia spreading like rot. Courtiers moved with the nervousness of men walking upon brittle glass. The smell of smoke clung even here, as if the city itself anticipated burning.
Jin moved through it quietly, watching, listening. He saw knights argue in the yards, servants scurry in fear, lords whispering of rebellions and betrayals. To him, it was Murim again — the clash of sects, the hunger for power, the blindness to the innocents caught between.
And in the center of it, women like Elia, bound by duty.
---
A Promise
One evening, in the quiet of the garden, Elia spoke softly to Jin as Ashara looked on.
"They call me fragile," she said. "A flower too delicate for storms. And yet I am expected to stand in the midst of them."
Jin regarded her, his expression calm. "A flower may bend in the wind, but that does not make it weak. Sometimes it is the stone that shatters, not the stem."
Elia studied him, something flickering in her eyes. For the first time, she smiled without sadness.
Ashara watched them both, and though her lips curved in faint amusement, her thoughts turned heavier. She had seen her brother Arthur bend his life around vows. She had seen honor break men. And yet this foreigner — this man with calm eyes and strange words — spoke as if burden and strength were one.
And for reasons she could not yet name, she believed him.
---
The walls of fire were rising. The Rebellion had already spread across the realm, but in King's Landing, the heart of the storm waited. Jin Mu-Won had not come seeking crowns or wars, but already the lives of Elia and Ashara were weaving around his own.
And when the flames rose higher, he would be there — not as a knight, not as a lord, but as the shield he had always sworn to be.