Storm's End was a place of grim preparation these days; the howling wind and waves crashing against the immense walls of the Kingdom's strongest keep seemed to match the black moods within. All the same, Lord Steffon, still new to his title, sat at the head of a table of his own advisors, impassive and stonefaced as he listened. He wore a yellow and black doublet in his house's colors, studded here and there with black steel. Not one for frippery and finery, Steffon impressed all the same with breadth of shoulder and his stature. Blue-eyed, fierce looking, he was lean and dark, a Baratheon, though he had little of the combative temperament of his two forebears, his uncle Borros and his grandfather, Boremund.

Maester Alyn, conspicuously absent arrived through the doors and immediately delivered the news to the ear of his Lord in a breathy voice, as he'd limped through the halls of the keep as fast as he could to bring the news, [i]dark wings, dark tidings.[/i]

"Aegon II is dead, my Lord, and Aegon the Younger has been crowned Aegon III." Old and stooped, he wheezed as he whispered.

"Any word of how our dead liege died?"

"I am afraid that the raven I was sent was the official word from the Red Keep."

"Aegon was nowhere near death." And foul play had happened in the Castle before. Daemon Targaryen, for example, had sent Blood and Cheese to butcher the boy, Jaehaerys. 

"I agree, my Lord, it is very suspicious." Alyn wasn't merely the Maester, but Boremund's own master of shadows, though it was hard to find good sources of information in King's Landing anymore. It had been invaded time and time again during the Dance, and the information was suspect. Particularly, after the deaths of princes, within the Red Keep itself.

The others were watching the conversation, and that is when Steffon cleared his throat and spoke, that rolling basso of a voice turning heads raptly, "We have received news from King's Landing that our liege, Aegon the Second of His Name, has passed on. By what circumstances this has come to pass, we do not know. Now the lad Aegon, Third of His Name, son of Rhaenyra, sits upon the throne." And, it was said, the boy had been kept in a black cell, slated to die, after Aegon had murdered his sister. More aptly, he'd fed her to the dragon and made the boy watch. What sort of liege a traumatized boy would make was an easy enough question to answer -- an easily manipulated one.

"There is another raven, my lord," Alyn pointed out with a dry cough," And this other one bears the seal of House Hightower, the Queen Dowager..." 

"Burn it. Unread." Steffon commanded, with a bit of anger behind the words, "Would that Criston Cole said those very words when she proposed this folly to begin with, and would that Borros said said it when Aemond made it clear he intended to do murder practically under our roof. Burn that missive, do not read it. The realm has had enough of her poison for several lifetimes."

"As you wish, my Lord," Alyn bowed, even as he moved to the fireplace and condemned the parchment to the flames.

He gave his advisers a moment to compose themselves and then let them have their say.

A variety of options were presented, but Steffon closed his eyes for a moment and massaged his temples before speaking, and when he did, it was a crack in the Lord's Mask. 

"It seems we are quickly running out of Targaryens, when we started this war with a wealth of them. I see no sense in continuing Borros' war when we were forced into it by a lapse in judgment, to the eternal regret of this house."

"Does that mean, my Lord," inquired Martyn Storm, "That we should cease our preparations to raise the host that Aegon requested of us before he died?" A good man, Martyn, but more of a tactical fighter than a strategic thinker. He was no lord.

"No, we have many ravens to send to the other lords here. We need to pickle the vegetables, salt the meat, cask the water and prepare for the vengeance of the Blacks while hoping it doesn't come. Alyn," he turned to his Maester, "I want those instructions sent to our vassal lords, and I wish a raven sent to King's Landing, acknowledging the ascension of Aegon to the throne," he added with a wisp of a smile, ironic acknowledgement, "As he is, after all, the eldest male heir and that's what the Greens fought for, isn't it? Seven forbid a woman lead us, and between Allicent Hightower and Princess Jaehaera, we find ourselves strangely cockless in terms of leadership."