As Lord Elden stood in his chambers, he watched the Dornish marches stretching all across the Stormlands to The Reach through the small windows carved out of the red stone of his castle. Beyond this vast landmass lay the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, kingdoms that would soon come to know that their rising King had no claim to the Iron Throne upon which he sat. In his younger days, before Robert Baratheon had usurped the throne, Elden would have been sure that no Lord in all of the Seven Kingdoms would kneel before a bastard king. Of course, being from Dorne, Elden did not truly care for such trivial matters as legitimate or illegitimate children and heirs. He was not foreign to bastard children, having one or two of his own spread throughout Dorne. What irked him was that if the new King was born out of wedlock, he would be of Lannister blood and under Lannister protection, unless some noble Lord stepped up and claimed to be a father of the boy. If Elden had outlived the Targaryen dynasty and the Baratheon reign, he would ensure that the Lannisters would not last long enough to outlive him either.

In the hall where Lord Elden had left his daughter and her news without a word, Eira remain positioned on the cool stone floor, still catching her breath from the intense ride through Baratheon's Stormlands. Her eyes, seemingly expressionless, were fixed on the spot where her father had stood before storming away to his own privacy. She had not known whether the news would please her father, and judging from his reaction she still did not know. Eira sighed heavily before hearing footsteps approaching down the hall. If it was her father’s, he had recovered from the news quickly, for the steps were lighter and brisker. 

”Sister!”, a voice broke the silence of the hall where she sat. As Eira turned around, her older brother seized her by the waist, not all too gently. Although the two legitimate Santon siblings were very alike, both in manner and appearance, Harden rarely showed the same soft affection for his sister that was often seen between brothers and sisters farther north in the Seven Kingdoms. Treating her like the brother he never had, he patted her heavily on the back before retreating to a distance to look at her. Both Eira and Harden greatly resembled their passed mother in appearance, a fiery Roynish woman with jet black hair and olive skin tanned under the rays of the Dornish sun. The only sign that told of their father’s claimed descent from the First Men of Dorne was the blue eyes they had inherited from their father.  ”It took you quite some time to return.”

Once more, Eira sighed heavily before telling the news of King Robert’s death and the alleged heir claiming the Iron Throne to her brother.
”But Eira, my sister, those are great news”, he exclaimed. ”Tell me, how did the old man react?”

Harden could barely hide his excitement at the prospect of a young bastard boy of Lannister descent claiming the throne. He provided the exact reaction as his sister had wished from her father, namely the reaction of someone who directly saw the golden opportunity at hand. If the young boy was indeed illegitimate, no Lord would pledge their swords to protect the King. If that was so, the Seven Kingdoms were at their most fragile state. After Eira told Harden of their father’s reaction, Harden shook his head.

”He knows what we know”, he said. ”If there was ever a moment when the Seven Kingdoms could fall apart, it would be now. Soon he will be back in this very room, and you know what that means.”

The two siblings looked at each other before exchanging devious smiles. Perhaps the time had finally come.