GOT: P Chapter 6.5 (Patreon)

Night glide.

Across the bridge to Maegor's Holdfast. Just for fun. 

"Great, place birds become rugs," I thought, and keep going.

I skim the stone, drop to a slit window, and wriggle into a vent.

Inside is hot breath. Oil. Vinegar. That sour note castles get when people are scared and pretending not to be.

I creep along the narrow run, claws careful on metal. A grille below shows a corridor danced in torchlight. Two servants pass with their faces set to "don't see, don't hear." A white cloak follows, steps exact, hand loose near hilt in that "loose, not lazy" way.

Then him.

Aerys.

He moves like a man who forgot what food is for. Skin stretched, lips split, nails too long and stained. Hair thinned and greasy, clinging to his scalp in strings. Fingers twitch, then scratch, then twitch again. Burned patches on the knuckles, fresh and old.

The smell hits me first, so bad, rot under it. I swallow a sound I don't want to make.

His eyes are wrong. Fever wrong. Bright for the wrong reasons. He laughs once at nothing, loud, then talks to the air like it owes him.

"Fine work," he says, to no one. "They'll know the great fire. All of them. All of them."

Courtiers in dark silk trail him at the edge of courage. They keep their faces smooth and their mouths shut. One nods at every third word as if agreement is their only choice. 

A pyromancer drifts near, green stains on his cuffs. He looks proud of the stains. That tells me everything I need to know about him.

Aerys stops. Sniffs. Smiles in a way that isn't about joy. Rubs his fingers together like he can strike a spark from his own skin. He whispers, "Burn," 

"Fuck," I think, and mean it.

This isn't a Mad king. This isn't a cursed seer. This is heat without aim. A man who never learned the difference between a hearth and a torch and now wants the world to teach him by burning down.

A white cloak murmurs, "Your Grace," just enough to move him along. Aerys startles, then glides forward again, robes whispering, mutter running under his breath that never goes off.

I stay still until the last flicker of torchlight leaves the frame.

Then I back out. Slow. Careful. Every inch a prayer to friction.

The vent spits me to the night, and I take the air like a drowning thing that remembered wings too late.

I don't look back.

Filed truth: not myth. Not madness with a crown that makes sense if you squint. Just a sick, hot engine pointed at people.

I keep unseen and go home.