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She laughed as she heeled her horse to a gallop, no longer seeming so tired.
"Keep up, bastard!" she shouted over her shoulder, braid a whip behind her, horse kicking up dust.
The call of 'bastard' if nothing else had you heel Chestnut into flight. Ser Hobb swore after you, Ser Lincoln cheered you on with a whoop, but your attention was on the back of your sister. You'd be damned before you let a stripling brat like her beat you in a horse race.
Before long you were racing even, side-to-side, and you saw Alyssa's flushed grin, bent over the neck of her horse, bright eyes on the road ahead.
A lash of your reins and a short cry urged Chestnut ahead, and now it was her turn to swallow your dust.
"Keep up, true-born," you spat over your shoulder. A weak insult that, but it was hard to be spiteful when your horse was quick beneath you, the road good and flat, with the wind across your sweat coated face. It was hard to do anything but laugh, your sister cackling behind you.
She tried to gain ground but you steered Chestnut across her path, forcing her to slow, keeping your lead.
"No fair!" she called.
"Fairness is for princes and septons, not the bastard born!" you called back.
Your attention ahead on an eastward bend in the road, your father's men-at-arms looking back at you. And then off the road an on a bluff, overlooking the westward flow of the River Mander.
Chestnut huffed underneath you in effort, so you dismounted, patting the geldling on the haunch. The grat vast river flowed slowly before you, its distant bank a hilly rise turning into a shade of overarching trees. Down the river came a poled grain barge, its sailors on the deck, sailing down from still unseen Highgarden.
But coming up the river, fighting its slow moving tide, came noble river boats, sails emblazoned in the heraldry of their Houses.
In the west the Mander emptied into the Sunset Sea, and guarding that bay were the Shield Islands. A green hand on a yellow shield, bordered in green fire on a field of red. A fleet of longships on a grey green field. An oak shield studded with iron on a field of blue and white waves. A white rose on red, surrounded by white walls. Other houses. Three oak leaves on gold. A bull's skull on red.
You knew some and others not at all, Gareth would have been able to name everyone.
Alyssa stopped behind you, breathless. She dismounted, tucking back strands of loose hair behind her ears, cheeks pink and wind blown.