A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

here.”
    â€œAnd what did you do, princess?” asked Spotted Sylva.
    I sat beside the well and pretended that some robber knight had brought me here to have his way with me,
she thought,
a tall hard man with black eyes and a widow’s peak.
The memory made her uneasy. “I dreamed,” she said, “and when the sun went down I sat cross-legged at my uncle’s feet and begged him for a story.”
    â€œPrince Oberyn was full of stories.” Garin had been with them as well that day; he was Arianne’s milk brother, and they had been inseparable since before they learned to walk. “He told about Prince Garin, I remember, the one that I was named for.”
    â€œGarin the Great,” offered Drey, “the wonder of the Rhoyne.”
    â€œThat’s the one. He made Valyria tremble.”
    â€œThey trembled,” said Ser Gerold, “then they killed him. If I led a quarter of a million men to death, would they call me Gerold the Great?” He snorted. “I shall remain Darkstar, I think. At least it is mine own.” He unsheathed his longsword, sat upon the lip of the dry well, and began to hone the blade with an oilstone.
    Arianne watched him warily.
He is highborn enough to make a worthy consort,
she thought.
Father would question my good sense, but our children would be as beautiful as dragonlords.
If there was a handsomer man in Dorne, she did not know him. Ser Gerold Dayne had an aquiline nose, high cheekbones, a strong jaw. He kept his face clean-shaven, but his thick hair fell to his collar like a silver glacier, divided by a streak of midnight black.
He has a cruel mouth, though, and a crueler tongue.
His eyes seemed black as he sat outlined against the dying sun, sharpening his steel, but she had looked at them from a closer vantage and she knew that they were purple.
Dark purple. Dark and angry.
    He must have felt her gaze upon him, for he looked up from his sword, met her eyes, and smiled. Arianne felt heat rushing to her face.
I should never have brought him. If he gives me such a look when Arys is here, we will have blood on the sand.
Whose, she could not say. By tradition the Kingsguard were the finest knights in all the Seven Kingdoms . . . but Darkstar was Darkstar.
    The Dornish nights grow cold out upon the sands. Garin gathered wood for them, bleached white branches from trees that had withered up and died a hundred years ago. Drey built a fire, whistling as he struck sparks off his flint.
    Once the kindling caught, they sat around the flames and passed a skin of summerwine from hand to hand . . . all but Darkstar, who preferred to drink unsweetened lemonwater. Garin was in a lively mood and entertained them with the latest tales from the Planky Town at the mouth of the Greenblood, where the orphans of the river came to trade with the carracks, cogs, and galleys from across the narrow sea. If the sailors could be believed, the east was seething with wonders and terrors: a slave revolt in Astapor, dragons in Qarth, grey plague in Yi Ti. A new corsair king had risen in the Basilisk Isles and raided Tall Trees Town, and in Qohor followers of the red priests had rioted and tried to burn down the Black Goat. “And the Golden Company broke its contract with Myr, just as the Myrmen were about to go to war with Lys.”
    â€œThe Lyseni bought them off,” suggested Sylva.
    â€œClever Lyseni,” Drey said. “Clever, craven Lyseni.”
    Arianne knew better.
If Quentyn has the Golden Company behind him . . .
“Beneath the gold the bitter steel,” was their cry.
You will need bitter steel and more, brother, if you think to set me aside.
Arianne was loved in Dorne, Quentyn little known. No company of sellswords could change that.
    Ser Gerold rose. “I believe I’ll have a piss.”
    â€œWatch where you set your feet,” Drey cautioned. “It has been a while since Prince Oberyn milked the local vipers.”
    â€œI was weaned on venom, Dalt. Any viper takes a bite of me will rue it.” Ser Gerold vanished through a broken arch.
    When he was gone, the others exchanged glances. “Forgive me, princess,” said Garin softly, “but I do not like that man.”
    â€œA pity,” Drey said. “I believe he’s half in love with you.”
    â€œWe need him,” Arianne reminded them. “It may be that we will need his sword, and we will surely need his castle.”
    â€œHigh Hermitage