King's Landing had two streets that had always been the busiest in the city. One was the Street of Steel, the other Silk Street.
The Street of Steel sold armor and weapons, along with a few local Westerosi specialties. Silk Street dealt in "eastern goods"—luxuries brought across the Narrow Sea from the Free Cities. Lace and carpets from Myr, Arbor wines from the Arbor that had been rebranded as Lyseni, dyes from Braavos.
War had cut off the Free Cities' trade. Silk Street had grown quiet and empty. Only the Street of Steel still clung to something like its old bustle.
When Jon had briefly held the city, he had turned the main thoroughfares into two-way roads. The change had brought a rare order to the chaos. But that order was gone now.
Three Gold Cloaks came charging down the street like spooked horses, scattering peddlers and upending stalls.
"Gold Cloaks taking a man! Clear the way!"
"Out of the road! Move!"
They shoved people aside with rough hands and rougher voices. Some of them carried rolled parchments with a face drawn on them. They stopped at every stall and every passerby, thrusting the drawing forward.
"Seen this man?"
"He's a traitor to the realm."
"Thousand gold dragons for information."
"By order of the Queen Regent—bring in the traitor Davos Seaworth!"
The Gold Cloaks worked their way down the street until they reached a small stall selling onions and rosemary. The man behind the counter was pushing fifty, bent-backed, dressed in rough brown wool that had seen better days. Two younger men stood behind him—his sons, by the look of them—both of them trying very hard to look like they had never seen a city before.
The lead Gold Cloak shoved the parchment under the old man's nose.
"Seen him? This is Davos Seaworth. Traitor. Queen's orders. Thousand dragons to anyone who gives us a lead."
The stall-keeper kept his eyes down and his voice steady. "No, m'lord. Never seen him."
The Gold Cloak gave the man and his two sons a long, suspicious look. They looked exactly like what they were pretending to be—poor, harmless, beneath notice. After a moment the watchman grunted and moved on to the next stall.
Only when the Gold Cloaks were well down the street did Davos Seaworth let out the breath he had been holding. His two sons, Daven and Steffon, did the same.
"Being Hand of the King is a cursed office these days," muttered the cloth merchant from the stall next door. He kept his hands tucked in his sleeves, the picture of a man who had seen enough of the world to know when to keep his mouth shut. "First Jon Arryn, then Eddard Stark, then that Imp Tyrion. Now it's this Davos fellow. They either turn traitor or they die."
Davos glanced at the man but said nothing. He had learned long ago that the less a man said in King's Landing, the longer he lived.
Jon's warning had reached him just in time. The moment the raven arrived saying Stannis was dead, Davos had known he had to run. He had barely cleared the Red Keep gates before the first Gold Cloaks started shouting his name and waving his face on parchment.
He had found his two youngest sons working in the city, swapped their clothes for rough wool, bought an onion-seller's stall and cart with what coin he had left, and turned the three of them into a family of poor farmers trying to make a living on the edge of the Street of Steel.
"Father," Steffon whispered, voice tight, "where do we go now?"
Davos had no answer.
He still could not quite believe Stannis was gone. Part of him had refused to accept it even when Jon's letter arrived. And little Stannis—his namesake, the boy who had been cupbearer—Davos would not let himself think about what might have happened to him.
But the Gold Cloaks hunting him in the Queen's name had forced him to face the truth.
He had to move.
His first thought had been Shireen. The girl had lost her father and her mother's family had already betrayed the crown. She was alone in the Red Keep and she was in danger. But Davos knew better than anyone what the Iron Throne did to the people who sat on it. He would not put that child on it. He would not let anyone else put her there either.
There was only one place left to go.
He had to reach Jon.
Inside the Red Keep, Shireen Baratheon sat in her chambers with a lead-weighted wooden sword resting across her knees. Her small hands were covered in blisters from swinging the practice blade, but she had not stopped. If her father could not protect her, then she would have to learn to protect herself.
The door to her room opened without warning.
Shireen looked up, startled. Her father and mother were both gone from the city. Anyone coming to see her should have sent word first.
Four Gold Cloaks entered first. Behind them came Varys, bald head gleaming, soft hands folded over his paunch.
"Princess," the Spider said gently, "we must leave the Red Keep at once."
"Leave?" Shireen's voice was small. "Where is my father? Where is my mother?"
Varys did not answer the question. "The Queen Regent will be waiting for us in the Vale."
"The Vale?" Shireen's brow furrowed. "We are not going back to Dragonstone?"
"No, Princess. We must go now."
"What about Ser Davos?" she asked. Davos had come to see her almost every evening since her father marched out. She had come to rely on that quiet, steady presence.
"Ser Davos has other duties," Varys said smoothly. "He will join us in the Vale later. For now we must take ship."
Shireen looked into those pale purple eyes and felt a cold knot form in her stomach. Something was wrong. But she was a child, and she had no power to refuse. Varys's tone was polite, but the urgency behind it was unmistakable. It felt as though King's Landing itself was about to fall.
And in a way, it already had.
Once Petyr and Varys had moved the army to the Vale, the Crownlands would lie wide open. There was no hope of holding King's Landing. Better to strip the Red Keep of everything valuable and let Young Aegon take it back later.
Shireen nodded obediently and began to gather her few belongings. Varys left two Gold Cloaks behind to watch her while he went to make the final arrangements.
Minutes later a runner found him with news that made the Spider's face go white.
"Petyr, you fool!"
The man had lost half the army. Half. The only thing that kept Varys from screaming was the knowledge that the Vale itself was still safe. The Bloody Gate had never fallen to any army without dragons. Once they were inside the mountains, Jon could not touch them.
Shireen was hurried into a closed carriage and taken through the city to the docks. From there a fast ship carried her and Varys out of Blackwater Bay and north toward Gulltown.
For the first time in three hundred years, King's Landing had no king, no Hand, no queen, and no one in authority.
Power hated a vacuum.
The first to notice were the guards and servants inside the Red Keep itself. Grand Maester Pycelle's chambers had caught fire. By the time the blaze was put out, all that remained was a charred, twisted body no bigger than a child's.
No one knew who to report it to.
The guards and servants stood in the smoking corridor like headless chickens until an assistant maester arrived with a raven scroll. He read it once, then read it again, face going pale.
Petyr Baelish of the Fingers and Queen Regent Selyse Baratheon had murdered the king. The only legitimate ruler left in the Seven Kingdoms was Jon Targaryen, son of Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.
The news spread through the Red Keep like wildfire.
Stannis was dead. Jon was far away in the Riverlands. The Red Keep, King's Landing, and the entire Crownlands were suddenly masterless.
Within an hour the looting began.
Guards and servants tore down tapestries and carried off carpets. They emptied the royal wardrobes and fought over swords and armor. Even the scullions in the kitchens came to blows over pots and pans.
By nightfall the smallfolk of King's Landing had noticed the Red Keep's gates standing open and unguarded. They poured inside like ants.
They took everything. Garden statuary, flowerpots, paving stones. Women dragged mattresses from the royal bedchambers and laughed as they tested the feel of a king's sheets. Men swaggered through the Tower of the Hand pretending to be the Hand of the King.
A mummer troupe wandered the halls looking for props.
At last a crowd reached the throne room.
The Iron Throne sat on its high dais, black and jagged and terrible.
A bold young blacksmith pushed forward, a long knife in one hand. He climbed the steps slowly, the sound of his boots ringing against the steel.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
He lowered himself onto the throne.
The swords bit deep.
He screamed as the blades punched through his thighs and back. Blood ran down the iron in thin red streams. The crowd watched in horrified fascination as he tried to rise and only impaled himself further.
Still they came.
One after another, men and women climbed the dais to sit the throne that had killed kings. Some lasted only seconds before the blades took them. Others managed to pose for a few heartbeats before the pain drove them off in shrieks.
Blood pooled at the foot of the Iron Throne and ran in rivulets across the stone floor.
By morning a new order had taken root in the city.
A whore stood on the steps of the Great Sept and declared that her bastard son was Robert Baratheon's true heir and therefore the rightful king.
Someone else produced a silver-haired child from the Flea Bottom brothels and proclaimed him the last Targaryen.
Learned men who still had their wits whispered of the Moon of the Three Kings during the Dance of the Dragons—when Rhaenyra and Aegon II were both dead and King's Landing had torn itself apart in blood and madness.
Now it was happening again.
Blood. Greed. Madness.
In the city that had once ruled the Seven Kingdoms, the end of an age played out in screams and laughter beneath the shadow of the Iron Throne.