The road crests the last hill, and there it is: the Red Keep clawing at the sky, its towers jagged against a hazy afternoon sun. The city sprawls below like a wound that hasn't cleaned properly, dark and crawling. The Mud Gate squats at the bottom of the hill, a dark mouth swallowing carts and peasants and the occasional knight in a gleam of steel.

The smallfolk stream past you, heads down, burdened with sacks and children and the wary silence of people who've learned not to look too long at anything. A fishwife hawks eels from a barrow, her voice cracked as old leather. Somewhere down in the warrens, a dog is barking—persistent, desperate, as if it knows something's coming.

Behind you, the Kingsroad stretches empty back to wherever you came from. It's still not too late to turn around. The Riverlands would be safer. The Reach, even. Somewhere with fewer crowns and more grain.

But you've come this far. You've heard the names—Joffrey, Cersei, the Imp, the Stark girl. And there are things worth knowing, things that might write themselves in blood if someone doesn't learn them first.

A guard at the gate eyes you up and down, hand resting on the haft of a spear. His armor is dented, his face bored.