Chapter 169

Three years earlier Domeric had been only the heir of the Dreadfort—high-born, yet of no great consequence among the nobility of Westeros. At first he had sought merely to save House Bolton from the fate that awaited it in the original story. Now he was Hand of the King and head of the small council; he held the Lonely Hills and King’s Landing, and commanded the support of lords in both the North and the Crownlands. His station was high and his power great—yet it could still be lost with equal ease.

In the original tale the final victors of the War of the Five Kings had been House Lannister of the West and House Tyrell of the Reach. History, however, had already been altered. Domeric, this butterfly, had inadvertently changed the entire shape of Westeros. Until the war itself was ended, who could say what the final outcome would be? Throughout that long process the question of how to hold what he had already gained—and how to gain still more—remained far from simple.

“Desire is the soul of a man.”