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Dragonstone – The Sept
One week later.
The sept on the eastern wing of Dragonstone was one of the few rooms built with pale stone. Stained-glass windows depicting the Seven Gods lined the walls, but years of volcanic ash had dulled them to a smoky gray.
Life-size statues of the Seven stood in solemn rows. Old tales claimed they had been carved from the masts of the ships that carried the Targaryen ancestors across the Narrow Sea from Valyria. For centuries those statues had been layered with paint, gold leaf, silver, and jewels—treasures only dragonlords were allowed to gaze upon.
Now a new family prayed here. The Baratheons, once the Targaryens' fiercest allies, had taken the castle and made it their own.
Today, though, the light of the Seven felt cold and dead. The Stranger had come. He was claiming his due, deciding who would rise to the seven heavens and who would fall to the seven hells.
Morning sunlight struggled through the grimy glass, throwing patchy shadows across the flagstones. Instead of brightening the room, it only made the place feel darker.
At the center of the sept lay two bodies on a makeshift stone bier.
On the left rested Lady Selyse Florent Baratheon. She wore her finest deep-red velvet gown—the colors of House Florent. The Silent Sisters had prepared her with care: lead-white powder and rouge on her cheeks, red wax on her lips, hands folded over her chest clutching a crystal seven-pointed star. If not for the complete absence of life, she might have looked like she was merely sleeping.
On the right lay a tiny bundle wrapped in white silk embroidered with the crowned stag of House Baratheon. Only the baby's face showed.
And that face carried features that had never belonged to any Baratheon: dark skin, curly black hair, full lips. The contrast was impossible to ignore.
The Silent Sisters had placed seven white candles around the infant. Their flames flickered in the drafts, threatening to go out at any moment.
Six Silent Sisters circled the biers. They wore plain gray robes and veils that covered everything except their mouths. These women were the Stranger's wives—lifelong companions of the dead, trained to wash corpses and perform the final rites.
They chanted the Prayer of the Seven in low, monotonous voices that echoed through the empty sept:
"The Father grants us justice,
The Mother grants us mercy,
The Warrior grants us courage,
The Maiden grants us purity,
The Smith grants us craft,
The Crone grants us wisdom,
The Stranger leads the dead through darkness to the light…"
Pierce Celtigar stood in the shadows just inside the entrance, dressed in a somber black robe and a deep-purple cloak. His face was calm, almost detached, as if he were watching a play that had nothing to do with him.
Behind him, little Shireen Baratheon clutched the edge of his cloak.
The seven-year-old girl wore an oversized black mourning dress—clearly altered in haste, sleeves and hem rolled several times. The gray scale-like scars on her left cheek had flared again these past few days, but Pierce's medicine kept the greyscale in check.
He was already thinking about the next step: perhaps reshaping her body, or awakening her as a Shifter early. That might finally destroy the Rhoynar curse once and for all.
Right now her blue eyes—exactly like her father's—brimmed with tears. She fought them back, body trembling.
"Lord Pierce," she whispered, voice tiny, "why… why did Mother die? And my little brother… Maester Cressen said it was a fever, but… but Mother was fine just days ago…"
Pierce turned, crouched down so they were eye-level, and gently took her hands. The simple gesture helped her breathe.
"Shireen," he said softly, "sometimes death comes like a shadow in the night. Fever is like that. It doesn't care if you're highborn or lowborn, young or old. When the Stranger decides it's time, no one can refuse him."
He brushed a tear from her cheek. For a girl who had already endured so much rejection, this new loss was crushing. Yet her mind was stronger than most children her age—partly thanks to the cold distance Selyse had always shown her.
"But…" Shireen's lip trembled. "Father says Mother and my brother went to the seven heavens. Is that true? Will they really be happier there?"
Pierce was quiet for a moment. In the sept the Silent Sisters had reached the crescendo of their chant, repeating the ancient Andal words for "Lead the dead through darkness to the light."
"The seven heavens might be real," he said at last, gaze drifting to the painted windows. "But that world is not for the living. It lies on the other side of the line between life and death."
He paused, voice even gentler. "Honestly, I didn't used to believe any of it. I've seen too much death, too many pointless endings. But later… I started to think maybe some of those old stories are true."
The modern man inside Pierce had once been a strict materialist. Crossing worlds and seeing magic with his own eyes had changed that. He still refused to worship any god, but he no longer dismissed the possibility that something greater existed—something he simply didn't understand yet.
"It's like the stars in the sky," he told her. "You can see them, but you can never quite touch them."
Shireen nodded, not fully understanding, but trusting the honesty in his voice. It wasn't the empty comfort adults usually gave children.
"So Mother and my brother…" she whispered, "they'll be in a place we can't reach, and they'll be okay?"
Pierce nodded. "I believe they will. No sickness there. No pain. No separation. Your mother will be healthy and happy again. Your brother will grow up safe. They'll watch over you—just in a different way."
At that moment the Silent Sisters reached the final stage of the rite.
Their leader—a tall, gaunt woman—took a rough linen pouch from her robe and poured out four smooth river stones. Each had a simple eye painted on it in colored pigment: eyebrow, eyelid, white, pupil.
She placed the two larger stones over Selyse's closed eyes and the two smaller ones over the baby's.
"This is an old custom," Pierce explained quietly to Shireen. "The stones with eyes guide the soul so it doesn't get lost in the dark on the way to the seven heavens."
Shireen pulled free and walked to the biers. The Silent Sisters stopped chanting but made no move to stop her. She stood on tiptoe, looking first at her mother's painted, lifeless face. She reached out, then stopped just short of touching her. Next she looked at the tiny bundle that had never truly been her brother.
"Mother," she whispered, voice almost inaudible, "little brother… I hope you find the way."
"If only I could talk to you," she added, tears finally spilling over, "then I'd know what the seven heavens are really like."
Pierce stepped up and gently drew her back. The Silent Sisters resumed their chant, longer and more mournful now, signaling the rite was ending.
When the last notes faded, Pierce took Shireen's hand and led her out of the death-filled sept.
Behind them the Silent Sisters began sealing the biers. The bodies would be taken to Storm's End and placed in the family crypt.
Stannis had originally refused. Pierce had convinced him it was necessary for appearances. After all, the crypt at Storm's End held only pure Baratheon blood.
Westerosi nobles took bloodlines deadly seriously. Bastards were given special surnames precisely because they had no right to lie among trueborn lords.
Stannis had swallowed the bitter pill. For the sake of his own future, he had no choice.
In the corridor outside, Shireen suddenly stopped and looked up at Pierce.
"Lord Pierce," she asked, "you said you didn't used to believe those old stories. What made you change your mind?"
Pierce's gaze grew distant. He remembered the night everything changed—the cold touch of the glass candle, the obsidian table of the Rising Tide, the purple glow of the Gem Realm. He remembered how a modern soul had become part of this world of magic and power.
"Because," he said slowly, "I have seen too many things that ordinary logic cannot explain. This world is older and stranger than most people realize. When you stand face-to-face with real magic, with things beyond imagination, you start to understand that the line between life and death may not be as sharp as we think."
Shireen blinked, not fully grasping it, but she heard the sincerity in his voice.
"I'll remember what you said," she promised solemnly. "I'll believe Mother and my brother went to a better place."
Pierce patted her shoulder. "That's the right way to think. Now let's go find your father. He needs you right now, just as much as you need him."
Stannis's love for Shireen had always been quiet and clumsy—he simply didn't know how to show it. That was why the girl had once felt so alone she played only with a half-mad fool.
As they left the sept, a heavy silence lay over every corner of Dragonstone.
Servants hurried through the halls with heads down. Guards stood at attention but avoided eye contact. Maids and stewards spoke in whispers.
Stannis had issued a strict gag order: any discussion of Lady Selyse's cause of death would be punished severely.
But fear alone hadn't kept the rumors from spreading.
Pierce had made sure of that. Under his direction, every servant, guard, and official on Dragonstone received a generous "condolence payment"—officially gratitude for their hard work during the lady's final days, unofficially hush money.
The amount was perfect: enough to buy silence, not enough to raise suspicion.
Even more important was the advice Pierce had given Stannis: "If you execute everyone who knows the truth, you only prove you have something to hide. But if they stay quiet out of loyalty and gratitude, the world will see only a tragic accident."
Stannis had accepted the counsel. The rigid, honor-obsessed prince had made the coldly practical choice.
Deep in the castle, in Sister Moana's chambers, the midwife stood before a small mirror, wiping her cheeks with a damp cloth.
Her face showed an unnatural flush—the kind that comes from long hours of crying. At least, that was what everyone else would think.
Only she knew the redness came from rubbing her skin raw to make her grief look convincing.
She kept repeating the story she had rehearsed:
"The fever came on so suddenly after the birth… I did everything I could, but the Seven had other plans… The lady passed peacefully. The child too…"
Each repetition made her expression more "sincere."
This was the true state of Dragonstone one week after Lady Selyse's death: a castle wrapped in mourning on the surface, but underneath a carefully constructed web of lies, gold, and fear.
And Pierce Celtigar was the architect who had built it all.