[ASOIAF SI] The Gilded Stag: A Ruthless Joffrey Uplift | Chapter 12: MARWYN (Public) (Patreon)

Date: Late 295 AC

Location: The Crown Prince's Solar, Maegor's Holdfast, King's Landing


The Red Keep smelled of lies and lavender. It was a cloying scent, heavy enough to choke a man, used to mask the reek of the sewage that flowed beneath the city and the rot that festered in the hearts of the men who ruled it.

Marwyn shifted the wad of sourleaf in his cheek and spat a stream of blood-red juice into the dry rushes. A passing page boy stared at him with wide, fearful eyes.

Marwyn bared his stained teeth in a grin that was more snarl than smile. He knew what the boy saw: a bull of a man in robes that had seen too many roads, with a nose broken so often it spread across his face like a squashed plum. He was an Archmaester of the Citadel, a man of the chain, yet he looked more like a dockside thug than a scholar.

"Archmaester," the guard at the heavy oak door grunted, eyeing the black iron rod thrust through Marwyn's belt. "The Prince expects you."

"Does he now?" Marwyn's voice was a rumble of gravel in a churn. "Best not keep the lion cub waiting."

He pushed the door open. The solar within was stiflingly hot, the hearth roaring despite the mild warmth of the autumn afternoon.

Two figures sat by a table cluttered with maps and dusty tomes. One was a stunted thing, a gargoyle carved of flesh—Tyrion Lannister. The other was the boy.

Prince Joffrey Baratheon rose. He was tall for twelve, broad in the shoulder, with the golden hair of the Rock and eyes like polished emeralds. But it was not the pretty face that caught Marwyn's attention. It was the stillness. Most boys of twelve were creatures of quicksilver, twitching and shifting like nervous colts. Joffrey stood with the rooted patience of a monolith.

"Archmaester Marwyn," the Prince said. His voice was smooth. "You made good time from Oldtown."

"The wind favors those who don't fear it, Your Grace," Marwyn said, stomping into the room. The heavy chain about his neck clinked—gold, silver, bronze, lead, steel, and the dark, ripple-patterned link of Valyrian steel. He nodded to the dwarf. "Imp."

"Mage," Tyrion replied, swirling a cup of wine. His mismatched eyes—one green, one black—danced with amusement. "My nephew tells me you believe dragons can be sung back into the world. I told him he'd have better luck singing a rock to sleep."

Marwyn pulled out a chair, the wood groaning under his weight. He reached into his robe, pulled out a fresh leaf, and stuffed it into his cheek. "Rocks sleep deep enough, Lord Tyrion. It's waking them that's the trick. As for dragons… men killed them. Men can bring them back. Though the grey sheep would have you believe they just faded away like mist."

"The grey sheep?" Tyrion cocked his head.

"The Conclave," Joffrey interjected, his eyes fixed on Marwyn. "The Archmaester calls his peers sheep because they herd knowledge into pens and slaughter whatever frightens them."

Marwyn grunted, impressed. "You've been reading my letters, boy? Or did you guess?"

"I read Unnatural History," Joffrey said, tapping a thick, leather-bound book on the table. Septon Barth's work. A book the Citadel had tried to burn for a hundred years. "Barth claims the dragons were not beasts, but magic made flesh. Bound to the blood of the Forty Families. If the magic wanes, the dragons die. If the dragons die…"

"…the winters grow longer," Marwyn finished, leaning forward. His elbows rested on the table, massive and scarred. "Magic is a sword without a hilt, my lords. There is no safe way to grasp it. Your Citadel masters want a world without swords. They want logic. Order. Summer that never ends. They poisoned the last dragons, stunted them until they were no bigger than cats."

Tyrion scoffed. "A conspiracy of maesters? Grand Maester Pycelle can barely conspire to find his own chamber pot."

"Pycelle is a tool," Marwyn said, spitting into the hearth. "A useful idiot. The Conclave operates in shadows deeper than he can fathom. They hate magic, Imp. They fear it. Because magic is power they cannot measure, ration, or control."

Tyrion looked from the Mage to the Prince, his curiosity warring with his survival instinct. "If half of what you say is true, Archmaester, you are a dangerous man to know."

"Knowledge is danger," Joffrey said suddenly. "Uncle, leave us."

Tyrion blinked. "I was just getting interested. We haven't even discussed the glass candles."

"Leave us," Joffrey repeated. It was not a request. There was steel in the tone, the same cold certainty Marwyn had seen in sellsword captains and khals in the east.

Tyrion looked at his nephew, seeing something that made him pause. He drained his cup, hopped from the chair, and bowed mockingly. "As you command, Your Grace. Try not to summon any demons while I'm gone. The maids gets terribly upset about the sulfur smell."

The dwarf waddled out, the heavy door closing with a thud.

Silence stretched. The fire crackled.

"You took a risk, summoning me," Marwyn said, his voice dropping to a low rumble. "If the Conclave knew why I was really here…"

"They think you are here to tutor me in High Valyrian and history," Joffrey said. He walked to a heavy iron chest at the foot of his bed. "Let them think it. Let them think I am just another vanity-struck princeling obsessed with old stories."

He unlocked the chest. The click of the mechanism was loud in the quiet room.

"You have the look of a man who has seen the impossible, Marwyn," Joffrey said, his back turned. "You traveled the East. You studied in Asshai. You know that the world is not as empty as the maesters claim."

"I know that shadows stretch," Marwyn said. "And I know that when the glass candles burn, things are moving in the dark."

"Then look," Joffrey said.

He turned. In his hands, he held a stone.

No, not a stone. It was scaled, black as midnight, with veins of deep, throbbing scarlet running through it like rivers of lava. The heat coming off it rippled the air, distorting the light of the hearth.

Marwyn sat up straight, the sourleaf forgotten in his cheek. He had seen fossils. He had seen petrified remains in the markets of Qarth. But this… this thing sang. He could feel it in his teeth, a low, thrumming vibration that made the Valyrian steel ring on his finger turn ice-cold.

"Dragon," Marwyn breathed. "And alive."

"It was cold when I found it on Dragonstone," Joffrey said, placing the egg on the table between them. "Dead stone. But I bled on it. And it drank."

Marwyn reached out, his calloused hand hovering over the scales. The heat was intense, like holding one's hand over a forge. "Blood and fire," he muttered. "The equation is simple, yet the sheep forgot it. You woke it."

"Not fully," Joffrey said. "It sleeps. But it dreams."

"You intend to hatch it," Marwyn stated, not asking. "To bring fire back to a world of sheep."

"I do."

"Then you know the cost," Marwyn said, his voice grave. "Only death pays for life. That is the immutable law. You cannot cheat the blood price."

"I know," Joffrey said. "But the price is not the only key. The timing must be perfect. The magic of this world is like a tide, Marwyn. It ebbs and flows. To hatch a dragon in the ebb is to birth a monster or a corpse. We must wait for the flood."

Marwyn raised a thick eyebrow. "And when does this flood come, boy? The stars do not give up their secrets easily."

"They do if you know where to look," Joffrey said, walking to the window and looking out at the darkening sky. "The Bleeding Star."

Marwyn froze. He had read the ancient texts. The prophecy of the Red Messenger. "A comet?"

"Red as blood, hot as dragonfire," Joffrey said, his voice distant. "It comes from the depths of the void to herald the return of magic. When the red star bleeds across the sky... that is the moment. The barrier between the worlds will be thin. The fire will take."

Marwyn chewed on his sourleaf, his mind racing. A comet. It was precise. It was astronomical. It was something the Maesters would dismiss as a ball of gas, but the Alchemists would fear as a harbinger of doom.

"And when will this star arrive?" Marwyn asked.

"Two years. Perhaps three," Joffrey said, turning back to him. "It is already on its way. I have seen it."

"In a dream?" Marwyn asked skeptically.

"In a calculation," Joffrey lied smoothly. "Based on the movements of the wanderers and the old charts in Dragonstone's library. It will appear. And when it does, the egg must be ready."

He leaned over the table, his green eyes locking onto Marwyn's.

"Until then, it stays hidden. And you stay here. I need you to prepare the ritual. I need you to shield this room from the prying eyes of the glass candles in Oldtown. Can you do that, Mage?"

Marwyn let out a short, bark-like laugh. He spat the spent sourleaf into the fire, watching it sizzle.

"I pledged no vows to your father, boy," Marwyn grumbled, standing up. "And I wipe my arse with the vows I made to the Citadel."

He reached out and placed his massive hand on the dragon egg. The heat seared his palm, a delightful, terrible pain.

"But this..." Marwyn grinned, a display of red-stained teeth that made him look like a ghoul. "This is a vow worth keeping. We wait for the Bleeding Star, my Prince. And when it comes, we will burn the sheep in their beds."