ONE
SERREN could not remember the king.
Last night, as she sat inside her grandmother's solar, reading with her brother Renly as they did every night after supper, their grandmother kindly informed them that the king and his court were coming to Storm's End. By the following morning, everybody else had known, and the castle was bustling with excitement over the prospect of hosting the royal family again.
The last time Serren had seen the king had been eight years ago, when she had just turned five years old and lost her first tooth, too young to know what it meant to be the king's betrothed and too young to care. Then, the king seemed like any other grown up in her eyes, so Serren had been less interested in her betrothed and more so in his younger brother the prince.
"I have heard Prince Viserys is very handsome," her cousin Jeyne was saying as they gathered inside Serren's solar for morning tea, chattering and giggling about the king and the prince and the other young lords at court. "But they say he is not half so handsome as the king, who is more beautiful than words can say."
Serren thought of her brother Stannis's wedding to Lady Cersei Lannister all those years ago, when the king and all his great lords had come to Storm's End, their banners filling the horizon as far as the eye could see: the golden rose of House Tyrell, the direwolf of Stark, the Martell sun, the lion of Lannister, Lord Arryn's blue falcon and Lord Tully's leaping trout, and high above them all, the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen.
At seven years old, Prince Viserys had been two years older than Serren and already the prettiest boy in all the Seven Kingdoms. When the celebrations ended, Serren had been so sad to say goodbye to her new friend. Afterwards, remembering what Prince Viserys had told her about not having many friends back in court because there were not very many children there, Serren had started writing letters to him as well. He was a good letter-mate.
The only letters Serren used to send to court were letters for her mother and father, who was the Hand of the King, and her brothers Robert and Stannis, and sometimes she wrote to the king as well, because her grandmother said she had to. Those letters were always polite, and writing them made Serren feel older than she was, like a proper lady.
Letters from Prince Viserys were always so long and vivid, so living and full of life. They were a stark contrast to the king's, whose words were preserved and polite, gentle but distant. The king seldom spoke about himself in their correspondence. If Serren really thought about it, their letters were always only ever about herself. She knew Prince Viserys's favourite colour and song and food, just as the king knew hers, but she did not know anything about the king.
Serren could not even remember what he looked like. If she tried very hard, she thought she could remember his voice. Everyone always said that the king had the loveliest voice.
"That Dornish girl is so lucky," sighed Alys Penrose, the castellan's daughter. "She gets to marry our only prince. Do they not have their own princes in Dorne?"
"Arianne Martell has been betrothed to Prince Viserys near as long as our Serren has been betrothed to the king," Jeyne pointed out. "And the only princes in Dorne are Prince Doran and the Red Viper, and Prince Doran's sons, and they are all Princess Arianne's close relations."
