The stone corridors of Harrenhal echoed with quiet tension the morning after Edward Grafton's meeting with Lord Tywin Lannister. The two had met in a private chamber overlooking the tourney grounds. Their conversation had been brief—formal words exchanged like blades in their sheaths.
Tywin had asked questions about the Vale, about the strength of House Arryn, and about the ambitions of second sons. Edward had answered with measured honesty, offering no false humility and seeking no reward. When they parted, there had been no offers of titles, no gold passed between them—only a glance shared between two men who saw the game from different angles, but respected each other's sharpness.
Now, with the echo of that meeting still settling behind his eyes, Edward turned his attention to a different sort of battlefield.
The morning after his conversation with Tywin Lannister, Edward Grafton walked alone through the lower yards of Harrenhal. He had received no title, no coin, no immediate reward. But he hadn't expected one. What he had gained was more valuable: a shared glance, a recognition, a silent understanding between two calculating men.
Now, Edward turned his attention to something else—something Tywin would not have noticed, nor Rhaegar, nor even the master-at-arms.
He was looking for blades in the dark.
The final days of the great tourney saw knights clash in the sun-drenched fields, lords cheer from the pavilions, and songs swell through the halls. But away from the central lists, in the shadowed yards where squires practiced and hedge knights waited for a chance to prove themselves, Edward found what he sought.
He stood at the edge of a training yard just after dawn, arms crossed, watching three men fight in a circle of dust. No banners flew over their tents. No heralds called their names. Yet they fought with precision, brutality, and hunger.
The first was a Reachman named Garlan Flowers, a bastard of minor nobility, whose sword moved with fluid grace—less brute strength, more dancing steel. The second, a dark-skinned youth from the Summer Isles, wielded a pair of curved blades with a predator's rhythm. The third, a squat, quiet man from the Stormlands, bore a maul as tall as his shoulder and fought like a siege tower, relentless and unyielding.
None had won a single match in the official tourney.
But that was not for lack of skill.
They had been overlooked, discarded by the nobility, offered no chance to shine. And yet here they were, still training. Still fighting.
Edward stepped into the ring without a word.
Garlan turned, brow furrowed. "You're Grafton. The one who fought Selmy."
Edward nodded.
"You want something?"
"Yes."
He drew a wooden blade from the rack beside the training post and pointed it at Garlan.
"Show me what you can do when someone actually sees you."
The duel began without fanfare. Garlan was fast, darting forward with a thrust aimed at Edward's side. But Edward met it, blade to blade, and stepped into the bastard's rhythm. They moved in circles, exchanging strikes, parries, feints. For the first time in days, Edward had to shift his footing, had to respond.
Garlan was good. Trained, fluid, adaptable.
But Edward was better.
He disarmed the man after two minutes with a twist and a sweep, leaving Garlan on one knee, breathless.
Then the Summer Islander stepped forward.
His name, he said, was Koja.
He came in a blur of twin blades, the wooden edges a whirl of speed and sharpness. Edward switched to a staff for balance, blocking low and high in rapid succession. Koja pushed him harder than Garlan had, forcing Edward to change his stance multiple times.
But again, Edward adapted. He didn't overpower—he adjusted, analyzed, redirected.
When the fight ended, Edward nodded once. "Fast. Deadly. But predictable."
Last came the Stormlander. He didn't speak. He simply lifted the maul and advanced.
Edward dropped the staff and took up a sword again. They clashed like giants. The ground shook beneath each strike. Edward let the man drive him back, testing his endurance. Then, with one deft sidestep, he used the man's momentum to drop him flat.
The crowd of squires and hedge knights who had gathered around the yard were silent.
Edward stood over them and spoke for the first time at length.
"All of you were denied a place at the feast. Not because you lack skill. But because no one with a name saw fit to offer you a chair."
He looked at the three before him.
"I'm offering you more than a chair. I'm offering a path. Follow me—not as knights, not as bannermen. But as shadows the world will regret overlooking."
Garlan looked uncertain. Koja, curious. The Stormlander simply nodded.
That night, they met again in a disused tower at the edge of the keep. Edward gave each of them silver, new steel, and his word.
"You will fight in no lords' name. You will carry no sigil but what you earn. But you will have purpose. And when the world falls into fire, you will not be caught in the flames—you will guide them."
In the silence that followed, they swore no oaths. No ceremony.
Only understanding.
But Edward did not stop at three.
Over the next several days, he wandered the lesser fields, the makeshift yards behind the main pavilions, the muddy corners where the official heralds rarely ventured. He watched quietly. He listened to laughter and bitterness, to bruised egos and shattered wooden shields.
He found a northman named Brandt with shoulders like a bear and fists like stones, who fought with axes and drank like a drowned man. A Tyroshi exile who wielded chains like serpents. A mute woman from the Westerlands who fought in silence, her blade as sharp as the expression in her eyes. A pair of Essosi twins who moved in perfect unison with daggers, dancing through their foes like mist.
He spoke little. Only offered what mattered:
"You're better than they say. Come with me."
Some refused. Most did not.
Within five days, he had gathered thirty—some broken, some brutal, many invisible to the great houses. All talented. All dangerous. All overlooked.
In a disused tower near the outer curtain wall, Edward met with them under torchlight.
He stood before the gathered blades—not in armor, not in noble colors, but in simple black, his hands bare.
"This realm rewards names," he said. "But I reward ability."
"You will serve no lord. Not even me. You serve survival. You serve advantage. You serve opportunity."
He looked each of them in the eye.
"When the time comes, you will strike. Not for glory. But for precision."
They said nothing. But they stayed.
And Edward smiled. For he had forged something more lasting than alliances.
He had built a storm beneath the surface of the realm.
The hawk had found his blades.
Not knights.
Weapons.
And like him, they would wait—for the right moment.
For fire and for blood.