A New World- Chp- 42 (Patreon)

The gates of Winterfell groaned as they closed shut, a sound like a sept's bell that echoed through the courtyard. Catelyn stood upon the battlements, her fingers gripping the cold stone until her knuckles turned as white as the falling flakes.

Below, the great column of Northmen marched away into the gloom. The winter was here; the longest summer she had seen in her life was a memory, and the snow already lay heavy upon the kingsroad.

It would be a sluggish, perilous march to the Wall, a journey that would sap the strength of even the hardiest warrior.

She watched the silhouette of her husband, Ned, his cloak billowing like a dark wing. Beside him rode Robb, their eldest, looking so very much like a Tully with his auburn hair, yet carrying the grim set of a Stark's jaw.

Three riders dressed in black, Benjen and his two black brothers, rode in front of them all. It was he who had brought the news from the wall, which had caused such apprehension in the halls of Winterfell.

Fear, cold and sharp, stabbed at her heart. Ned was no longer the man who had ridden to the Trident.

The capital had left its scars; the backstabbing vipers of King's Landing had bitten deep into his spirit, and the wound in his leg, though healed, had stolen the swift grace of his youth.

He was a man weary of the world, yet he marched to face a Wildling King and shadows in the night. And her son—sweet, brave Robb—was a boy who had never seen the red rush of a battlefield. He might have marched south for his father's sake, but he did not have any battle under his belt.

And she would like it to remain as such for a little longer.

She would have gladly seen him remain a green boy forever if it meant he was safe within these walls. A living son was a greater treasure than a dead hero, though she dared not whisper such a thought to her son or his father.

When the last of the horses vanished into the white veil of the storm, Catelyn turned her gaze toward the centre of the yard. There stood Bran, looking small and solitary.

He was the Stark in Winterfell now, a heavy burden for a boy of his years. Rickon was tucked away with his wet nurse, little more than a toddler who understood nothing of the cold winds blowing through their house.

Behind Bran stood the towering, silent figure of Ser Ludwic. He was a curious addition to their household, one of the few mementoes Ned had brought back from the south alongside that Braavosi dancer, Syrio.

While Ser Trysten was often at her husband's side, Ludwic had been commanded to remain behind. He was always masked, half of his face hidden behind a black mask, and in a surprisingly short time, earned Bran's unwavering fascination.

At first, Catelyn had felt some unease. Southern knights were a rarity in the North, and masked ones even more so. Yet Ned had spoken of the man with a rare, quiet conviction. "I trust him, Cat," he had said, and in these dark times, his trust was something she could not ignore.

Bran had pleaded to learn the knight's southern style of bladework, and her husband had finally relented, provided the wooden tourney sword from the armoury.

Now, she watched them. They practised with wooden tourney swords, the dull thwack-thwack of wood on wood providing the only rhythm in the quiet yard.

But it was not their time in the yard that troubled her most; it was the hours they spent tucked away in the Godswood.

Her son would frequently drag the knight toward the ancient, gnarled heart tree, away from the eyes of the household.

As a daughter of Riverrun, raised under the light of the Seven, Catelyn felt a nausea that had nothing to do with a quickened belly. The Faith taught that there were certain sanctities, specific paths that men and women were meant to walk together to produce trueborn children.

The whispered tales of the south, of buggery and the secret, shameful dalliances between men, were things she associated with the decadence of the capital, not the ancient halls of Winterfell.

The Seven looked with fury upon such perversions; they were acts that led to no lineage, only sin and the staining of one's soul.

She watched Ser Ludwic move, his motions precise and deadly even with a wooden slat. He was a southerner, surely a follower of the Seven, yet she had never seen him cross the threshold of her sept.

Ser Trysten offered prayers to the Mother and the Warrior, but Ludwic remained as inscrutable as the carved face of the Weirwood.

She did not truly believe the knight would dare lay a hand on the son of his liege lord, yet the suspicion, once planted, refused to die. It was a mother's duty to be vigilant, to guard not just the body, but the morality of her children.

Bran was at an impressionable age, his mind as malleable as soft clay.

With Ned and Robb gone, it fell to her to ensure he did not stray into the shadows. It was time, she decided, to speak with her son—to teach him the difference between a knight's duty and the dangerous, sinful paths that a lonely heart might wander.

Aemon Targaryen was an old man, older than most can even comprehend. He had seen brothers of the Night's Watch grow from shivering, green boys into grey-bearded veterans, only to see them die and be replaced by a fresh crop of youths, as everlasting and indifferent as the snows of winter.

Time had become a blurred tapestry for him, yet the memory of his lineage remained sharp and strong.

His father had been a king, his brother had been a king, and then his nephew, and his grandnephew. He had survived all their reigns, outliving them all like a stubborn mountain peak while storms reshaped the valleys beneath.

Now, a third Baratheon sat upon the Iron Throne. Aemon had even lived through the entirety of the Usurper's reign.

A long line of kings had come and gone, and news of two new kings had recently reached his ears through the frantic rustle of raven wings: one fell to treachery, and another now rules.

Two brothers, sons of the Usurper, sitting on a chair that had once belonged to the dragons.

It would be a lie to say he held no ill will for Robert Baratheon. The man had allowed the cruel slaughter of Aemon's grandnephew, and then the man's son and his child. A child, small and blameless, was butchered to ensure there were no claimants to the throne.

When that news had reached the Wall years ago, Aemon had been incensed—a quiet, cold anger that scorched more than any flame. He had been tempted, for one brief, mad moment, to cast aside his vows and ride for the capital.

But what would he have done?

He was a man of books and healing, not a master of the blade. Even if he could wield a sword, his ancient bones would have betrayed him.

He could do nothing but berate a king, and such words would lead to nothing but his own quiet end.

His oath to the Watch had been his anchor. He had stayed, swallowing his agony and pain, choosing to remain a blind sentinel at the world's edge. Currently, he could not say his choice was wrong.

The whispers coming from beyond the Wall were far more worrying than any political squabble in the south. An army, allegedly a hundred thousand strong, was marching through the frost, led by Mance Rayder, the proclaimed King-beyond-the-Wall.

Giants, mammoths, and the desperate, wild things of the deep woods were all descending upon the Wall's shadow.

Riders had been sent to inform the Warden of the North, the Usurper's closest friend, Ned Stark. Aemon did not hate Stark. While he loathed the man Robert had become, he recognised that Stark was a victim of the misfortune that had swallowed the capital.

Stark's father and brother had been slain by Aemon's own kin; the man had been forced into rebellion to save his own life. Stark was a dutiful lord, much like his brother Benjen was a dedicated ranger.

News that the Warden was riding north with an army to defend the realm brought Aemon a sense of grim relief. In the face of the encroaching dark, the blood of the dragon and the blood of the wolf found themselves on the same side of the gate once more.

The shimmering heat of Slaver's Bay rose from the water in riding waves, distorting the horizon and making the faraway spires of Astapor look like jagged teeth rising from the sea. Aegon gripped the wooden railing of the ship until his knuckles turned as pale as the Valyrian hair.

He was irritated, a persistent, prickly sensation that itched his skin like nothing else.

Daenerys was proving herself to be a shadow, more of a ghost formed of smoke. Every time he felt he was closing the distance, every time the whispers of her location became clearer to him, she slipped through his fingers, leaving only tales and wonder behind.

As their ship drifted toward the pier of Astapor, the sight that met his eyes was not the tidy, threatening efficiency of the legendary Red City, but a metropolis drowning in its own blood and upheaval.

Astapor had long considered itself the true successor to the Old Empire of the Ghis. They had adopted the Harpy as their own, imitating the ancient empire's architecture and carrying their proclivity for human slavery to an extreme.

Where the Old Empire had boasted its legendary lockstep legions, Astapor had cultivated the Unsullied, warriors forged from the broken bodies of boys, devoid of fear, pain, or desire.

Yet, for all their talk of tradition and the "Old Blood," the city now looked like a shattered toy.

The Red City looked as if a violent storm had raged through its brick-lined streets. From the deck of the ship, Aegon could see the piles of red left outside the great walls, but it wasn't refuse or spoiled grain. It was a mountain of bodies, slathered in blood and left to rot under the unrelenting Essosi sun.

Most were fat, dark-complexioned men in fine silks, their bodies unaccustomed to the violence that had clearly claimed them. These were the masters, the old lines of Slavers, now reduced to carrion for the gulls.

The tales filtering out from the docks were even more shocking than the visible carnage. Jon had returned from a scouting trip just hours ago, his face a mask of solemnity, his eyes vibrating with a mix of hidden irritation and nervousness.

The news he had brought was a masterstroke of political and military strategy that left Aegon feeling a strange, conflicting set of emotions: jealousy, irritation, and a fierce pride in his kin.

The Valyrians and the Ghiscari had never shared an ample bond; their history was written in the blood of five great wars. It seemed Daenerys had unilaterally waged a sixth one on its successor.

"So, she bought them," He whispered in the salty air. "Every single one of them, right?"

His aunt had engaged in a transaction that was ridiculous to hear of, A dragon against unsullied; instead, she had turned the very product sold to her against their master.

By the time the Good Masters realised their error, the Unsullied, loyal to her alone, had already begun the extermination. Now, most of those masters were discarded corpses outside the walls, and the city was a vacuum of power.

Some masters, ones who had survived, were in hiding.

Aegon knew the political landscape of Slaver's Bay well enough to know this wouldn't end with one city. The region was a triarchy of avarice: Meereen, Yunkai, and Astapor.

An attack on one was a strike at the jugular of the other two.

While they competed internally for the title of Oldest or Richest, they were unified by the whip.

His aunt had endangered their very livelihood, their religion of skin and bone. The slavers worshipped the slavery as much as the Harpy.

Yet she hadn't stayed to hold the ruins. Tales suggested she had left a council of three, a healer, a scholar, and a priest, to rule the city while she took her ten thousand Unsullied, her Dothraki screamers, and her three growing dragons and marched straight for Meereen.

"What do you desire, Your Grace?" the captain of the ship asked, breaking Aegon's reverie. His eyes were weary but sharp. "Should we turn about and sail for Meereen? If we catch her on the march, we might reach her before the siege begins."

He didn't answer immediately. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jon's brow furrow into a deep, disapproving frown.

"I don't think that would be an intelligent strategy, Your Grace," His Hand said. His voice was calm, the rehearsed tone of a mentor, but the underlying annoyance was clear to anyone who knew the man.

Aegon glanced at his Hand, a slight smirk playing on his lips. He knew how to handle Connington; the man lived for the structure of authority. "And why is that, Lord Hand?"

Jon straightened at the title, his chest puffing out slightly. "Your aunt, Your Grace... she seems a bit confrontational. I cautioned you before, back in the riverlands of the Rhoyne, that we did not know the nature of the girl. I didn't have proof then, but this?" He gestured vaguely toward the burning city. "This is the work of a muddled mind."

"And you have proof of her instability now?" He asked, his tone sceptical.

His Hand nodded emphatically. "She should have allied with the Good Masters, Your Grace. That would have given her a foothold in the bay, an established infrastructure. She could have negotiated the use of the Unsullied, perhaps offered a marriage pact or a trade agreement. She has no allies here now, only enemies who will stop at nothing to..."

Aegon's annoyance finally boiled over, though he kept his movements slow and deliberate. "What do you truly know of the Valyrian Freehold, Lord Hand?" he asked abruptly, cutting off his tirade.

Jon halted, his mouth half-open, a flicker of confusion crossing his face. "I—not as much as a Maester, perhaps, but your father, Prince Rhaegar, he spoke of it often..."

"He spoke of it, I know," He said, walking to the edge of the deck and staring at the red bricks of Astapor. "But what you seem to forget is that the Valyrians and the Ghiscari were bitterer nemeses than even the Martells and the Lannisters are now. Five wars they fought, Lord Hand. Five times the Harpy tried to claw the wings off the Dragon."

He turned back, his eyes flashing with an impulsive passion. "And in the end, my ancestors didn't negotiate. They didn't seek a marriage pact with the masters of Ghis. They annihilated them. They sowed their fields with salt and burned their memory from the earth with dragonfire."

"No matter how much the New Ghis screams about restoration. The slaver cities are the true successors of Ghis, yes. And in destroying them, my aunt did exactly what my ancestors would have done." He continued.

"It shows she is brash," Jon countered, stepping closer to his King, his voice dropping to a low, urgent whisper. "A ruler must be cautious, a strategist. She has started a fire she cannot put out."

"Brash?" Aegon laughed, a dry, harsh sound. "My aunt is shrewd and kind, Jon. She didn't like slavery, so she didn't play their games. She bought the factory, and then she burned the foremen. It's the most Targaryen thing I've ever heard."

"It's all still speculation, my King," His hand said, stepping back as he realised he had overstepped. "Until we meet her, we can only guess at her nature. She might be a liberator, or she might be a butcher. We cannot risk the Golden Company on a guess."

He looked back at the city. The sun was beginning its descent, casting long, bloody shadows across the water. The red bricks of Astapor seemed to glow with an inner light, as if the city itself were a giant ember.

"Oh, we will meet her, Lord Hand. We will. But I think our staying here for a time would benefit us more than chasing her tail into a siege."

"How?" asked Ser Harry Strickland, the Captain-General of the Golden Company, who had been listening silently from his position near the helm. His gold-fretted armour caught the dying light.

Aegon smiled, a real smile. "The other slaver cities will not take this kindly. Yunkai, New Ghis, Volantis... they will see the fall of Astapor as a threat to the very foundations of their world. They will rise in rebellion. They will swarm toward Astapor like wasps to a ruined nest to reclaim what they've lost and punish the 'Council' she left behind."

"And your aunt will be busy conquering Meereen and trying to hold it," Connington said, an understanding glint finally appearing in his eyes.

He nodded. "Exactly. If we sail to Meereen now, we arrive as beggars or subordinates, asking for a seat at her table while she is surrounded by her own victors. But if we stay here... if we defend Astapor against the inevitable counter-attack... we become her saviours. We secure her rear. We prove our worth not with words and tales, but with blood and steel."

He looked at the Golden Company soldiers standing on the decks of the nearby ships. They were the finest sellswords in the world, and they were bored. They needed a fight to sharpen their edges.

"She has a greater force than me," Aegon admitted, his voice quiet. "Ten thousand Unsullied is a force that could crack the gates of King's Landing. I cannot compete with that. Not yet. So, let us put an anchor. We will see for ourselves if her designated council is capable of holding this red hell together."

"And if they aren't?" Ser Harry asked with a grin that showed his gold tooth.

He looked at the palace domes of Astapor. "Then we shall be the ones ruling the Red City in her absence. We shall hold the gate for the Queen. And when she returns, she will find her nephew sitting on a throne of Ghiscari skulls, waiting to give her the army she needs to go home."

"Drop anchor!" Jon Connington bellowed, his voice echoing across the water.

As the heavy iron chains rattled and the ships came to a halt in the bloody waters of the bay, Aegon felt a sense of satisfaction.

The stone walls of the King's private chamber felt uncomfortably cold as Jon watched Haridon work.

The King was seated cross-legged upon the floor. In his large, calloused hands, he held a familiar circlet of cobalt-hued copper and a long, slender needle, green as polished jade.

To anyone unfamiliar, they would have seemed like nothing more than the discarded toys of a bored ruler, but he knew better. These were not trinkets; they were of importance to Harry. He knew how to create a miracle out of them.

The King had finally gotten time to rebuild his locator. The loss of Sansa hung over his shoulders like a cloak of iron, a weight that he could feel in his own bones.

From the outside, the realm saw a King who was unmoved by personal tragedy. Heheld court with a face of stone, passed severe and efficient judgments, and navigated the viper-filled pits of King's Landing with a predator's grace.

People whispered that perhaps the King did not care for his Northern bride, that she was just a political piece, valuable surely, but not intimately.

But he saw the truth. He saw the way the King's mind was always miles away, wandering the lonely roads and dark forests where Sansa might be hidden. He saw how his charge's face had forgotten the shape of a smile, and how his green eyes, once vibrant and wily, were now distant and dim.

Harry had been consumed by the duties of a crown that he had inherited, but tonight, the King had returned to his magical repertoire.

He was returning to a proven method; this locator had found his siblings when the world thought them lost. The hope was a fragile thing, but it was all they had.

Jon observed in silence as the King used the tool carved from weirwood to etch runes onto the blue metal. The tips of the tool glowed a dull, pulsing red as he worked with a focused vigour that caused the air in the room feel grave.

He reached into his tunic, fingering the small, leather-bound book the King had given him moons ago. It spoke of runes, yes, but those were the blocky, ancient symbols of the First Men, the marks left on stones and barrows.

What Haridon was carving was something more refined, sharper at edges and more elegant, with borders that seemed to cut into the air itself.

His own journey into the magics had been frustratingly sedentary. He still dreamt of the wolf, white fur and the metallic tang of blood on his tongue, and of ravens. But the visions never cleared.

They remained an unclear, swirling fog that left him panting for air in the middle of the night. He had been tempted to ask the King for guidance, but he saw the lines of exhaustion on Harry's face and held his tongue.

His own curiosity could wait; the search for the queen can not, and should not.

"I need your blood, Jon," the King said suddenly. Haridon stood up, the jade needle clutched between his fingers. He had begun a low, rhythmic humming that seemed to calm him down enough for his shoulder to drop.

"Is it necessary, Your Grace?" He asked, not out of fear, but out of curiosity.

The King nodded, his eyes unfocused as if he were looking at something invisible. "It is blood magic, my friend. Blood calls to blood. It's quite strong and a sure way to go ahead. This is how I found my siblings, through the blood of my brother."

"And not your own?" Jon asked, walking slowly toward him. Fortunately, he was dressed simply in a black tunic and a vest of boiled brown leather, his bastard sword hanging heavy at his hip.

The King shook his head, a grim shadow of a smirk touching his lips. "It was not for lack of strength, Jon. I simply thought my vicious brother should serve some purpose in death. He did nothing of value while he drew breath; the least he could do was bleed for his family once his heart stopped beating."

The King reached out and grasped Jon's hand. With a swift, practised motion, he pricked the tip of his finger with the green needle.

A single, dark red bead of blood welled up, pooling upon the needle. Jon didn't flinch; he had shed enough blood on the training grounds of Winterfell to be indifferent to a prick.

He stepped back, sucking on his thumb, as the King returned to his construct.

For five minutes, he worked in a trance, fusing the blood-slicked needle into the centre of the blue circlet.

When he finally rose, he looked as though he had run a league. He placed the device on the heavy oak table beside them and stood back, his chest heaving.

"Let us see where my wife is hidden," the King whispered, his voice cracking with a rare, bare hope. He hovered his hand over the circlet, chanting a single word in a language that sounded like grinding stones.

The locator began to whirr. The sound grew from a soft hum to a violent, metallic shriek.

The jade needle started revolving with such speed that it became a green blur, making the circlet dance and shake against the table. The wood beneath it began to rattle so violently that Jon feared the table would split apart.

Suddenly, the needle snapped to a halt. It pointed due south, trembling with such force that it looked as if it would tear itself free from the metal housing. But before Jon could speak, the needle whirled again.

It pointed east.

Then south.

Then east again.

It flickered between the two directions with frantic indecision, never once veering north toward the home he had left behind, strange.

The King frowned, his eyes narrowed. "South and East? It should not be... unless she is moving, or unless she is in two places at once." He leaned in closer, his eyes slit in confusion.

The needle suddenly began to glow with a sickly, incandescent light.

Haridon's eyes widened, and he lunged toward Jon. "Down!" he roared.

He slammed into Jon's chest, pushing him backwards with the strength of a falling tree. They hit the stone floor just as a sound like a crossbow bolt firing rang through the chamber.

Jon looked up in time to see the locator fly into the air, sparks showering the room as it collided with the vaulted ceiling. It tumbled back down, landing a few feet away, twisted into a mangled hourglass shape.

The jade needle had shattered into a thousand green shards.

But the world didn't return to normal. As Jon lay on the floor, the grey stones of the King's chamber began to bleed.

Red flooded his vision—not the red of blood, but the red of autumn leaves. He tried to move, but his limbs felt like they were made of stone.

Green vines, thick as a man's arm and pulsing with a pale, sickly light, began to sprout from the cracks in the floor, twisting around him like snakes.

"Finally," a hoarse, rattling voice echoed in his skull. It didn't come from the room; it came from inside him.

Jon looked around, but the King was gone. There was only a forest of bone-white trees with weeping red faces.

He found himself staring into a pair of eyes that were the colour of fresh blood.

"A Stark without a protector," the voice hissed. "Better than the one in the south. That weak girl... but you. You are strong. You are the bridge."

The form of a man began to merge from the mist. He was as white as milk, his skin stretched tight over his bones like parchment. His hair was long and thin, the colour of winter frost, and he looked older than anyone he had ever seen, even the Old Nan.

He seemed to be part of the trees, roots growing through his very flesh.

"You will fulfil your destiny, little drag..." the ancient thing whispered, reaching out a skeletal hand.

"Snap out of it, Jon!"

The vision broke. It felt as if a fishing hook had been plugged into his navel and yanked backwards with terrifying force. The red forest vanished, replaced by the flickering torchlight of the King's chamber.

Jon gasped for air, his lungs burning.

Above him, King Haridon was standing with his boots planted firmly on the floor, his bastard sword gripped in both hands.

The King's knee was pressed hard into Jon's chest, pinning him down, and the King's face was twisted in a mixture of anger and worry.

"Are you back? Are you out of it?" He snapped, the tip of his sword red with the blood of the king.

Jon could only nod, his throat too tightened to speak. He felt the King's weight lift as he stood up, though he didn't sheathe his blade.

"What... what happened?" He managed to wheeze out, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over gravel.

"Oh, I think I can answer that, Snow," a mocking, familiar voice drawled from the doorway.

He glanced toward the gate to see Ser Jaime standing at the entrance, his golden armour reflecting the firelight. Beside him stood Ser Barristan and Ser Swann.

All three had their swords drawn.

The Bold knight looked deeply troubled, his white brows knit in confusion, but Jaime's expression was one of pure, venomous delight.

"What happened," Jaime continued, stepping into the room, "is that you decided to follow in your father's footsteps and try to murder a King in his own chambers."

His blood ran hot. He scrambled to his feet, his hand going to his own hilt, the insults of the capital rising to his lips. "Unlike you, I would never—"

"Enough, Ser Jaime!" The King's voice cracked like a whip. He didn't look at the Commander of his Kingsguard; he kept his eyes on the Northern knight. "Lower your steel. All of you. Leave us. I will discuss this with you later."

"But Your Grace," The Kingslayer protested, his eyes flickering to the mangled metal on the floor. "He attacked you. We heard the struggle. He had his sword out—"

"I said leave," Haridon roared, a flicker of green fire seeming to dance in his eyes.

The three knights stiffened. Barristan bowed his head and retreated, pulling a reluctant Jaime and a suspicious Swann with him. The heavy oak doors thudded shut, leaving the two men alone in the wreckage of the ritual.

Harry sighed, the sound long and weary. He looked at the mangled blue circlet and then at Jon. "Rise, Jon. I know you wouldn't do such a thing of your own volition. I saw your eyes."

He rose, his legs shaking. "I apologise, my King. I swear to you, I don't know what happened. I was on the floor, and the next moment, the world was gone."

"Tell me," The King said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "What did you see? When your eyes turned white, and you began hacking at me like a man possessed, you're not yourself, I know that much. Tell me."

He hesitated, the memory of the red forest making his skin crawl. "I saw... red. And roots. White trees with red leaves. Then I saw a man. He was pale as a corpse, and his eyes like blood. He was old, Your Grace. Older than anyone I have ever seen."

Harry's posture shifted instantly. He crossed the room in two strides, grabbing him by the shoulders with a grip that bruised. " Did he look like a serpent? Was his nose a slit? Was he bald?"

"No," He said, confused by the King's frantic tone. "He had hair. He was part of a tree. And he was searching for a Stark. He said I was better than the 'weak Stark girl' in the south."

Haridon let go, his face darkening with a scowl. "A Stark in the south? Sansa is in the south. Or east. The locator was confused because someone was fighting it. Interfering with the magic."

"He said I would fulfil my destiny," He added, the words feeling heavy and ominous.

Harry walked to the window, looking out over the dark expanse of King's Landing. "You snapped out of it because I cut off the flow of magic in the room. My chamber is secured. You weren't just seeing things, Jon. You were being possessed."

"Possessed?" The word sent a jolt of pure dread through Jon's heart. "By who?"

"I don't know, but it was someone dangerous," He replied, turning back to face him.

Edwyn stood in the shadow of a towering marble column, his dark Dornish features partially obscured by the shifting light of the Great Sept of Baelor.

His gaze was fixed on the High Sparrow, who paced the floor with a barefooted, humble pace that felt more like a calculated performance than an act of true piety.

The man moved through the sacred halls as if the very stones belonged to him, his fingers steeped together in a gesture of endless prayer, yet his eyes were intelligent, looking over the desperate men and women who trailed in his wake like a flock of starving birds.

Edwyn had just returned from the Red Keep, and in truth, his conversation with King Haridon had been more fruitful than he had dared to hope. He had gone to the palace expecting a cold dismissal or an outright denial of the crown's large debt to the Faith.

Instead, the Baratheon ruler had proved himself to be a man of a different mettle. He was calm, devoid of the alleged frivolous cruelty of his brother or the drunken neglect of his father.

While the King admitted the royal coffers were currently dry, he did not shirk from the obligation. He had acknowledged the debt as a heavy weight upon the throne and promised repayment in time.

Even without a formal Master of Coin, the dwarf Lannister filling that void for the moment, the King seemed disciplined with the funds he did possess.

For a brief moment, he had felt the burden of financial ruin lift from his shoulders. But as he watched the High Sparrow, that relief was replaced by a stiff, prickling dread.

The wayward priest was a mystery, a man who spoke of the Seven with a fervour that made the established septons seem like hollow husks. There was an unsettling current beneath the man's words, a sense of a larger, invisible design that neither Edwyn nor the High Septon could grasp.

The High Septon himself remained bedridden, a prisoner of his own failing flesh. The Maester summoned to the Great Sept had been unhelpful, diagnosing the old priest with a vague malaise.

It could be the flu, a deficiency of the blood, or the simple, slow rot of age.

Whatever the cause, the Father of the Faithful was not improving, and with every day he spent in the dark, the High Sparrow's influence in the city grew like a weed in a garden.

Edwyn sighed, a heavy, weary sound that was swallowed by the high, vaulted ceilings. He feared the upheaval that a sudden death would bring. If the High Septon passed now, the vacuum would be filled not by custom, but by the zealotry currently pacing the marble floor below.

His death would benefit no one, except, possibly, the bird.

Just as he began to turn away to return to his ledgers, a movement at the Great Sept's main entrance caught his eye. A figure stepped through the massive doors, cloaked entirely in heavy black wool.

The hood was pulled low, masking any hint of a face. The stranger was not tall; he would have struggled to reach even Edwyn's modest height.

The figure moved with a strange, purposeful gait, heading directly toward the High Sparrow.

The Sparrow did not look surprised. He offered a single, curt nod, a silent acknowledgement that spoke of a reserved meeting. Without a word, the hooded figure turned back toward the gate, and the Sparrow followed him out into the blinding afternoon sun of King's Landing.

Edwyn didn't hesitate. He rushed down the marble stairs, the hem of his septon's robes snapping at his ankles. He reached the great doors just in time to see the hem of a black cloak disappear around a corner of the plaza.

He hurried after them, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts as he navigated the crowded streets surrounding the Hill of Rhaenys. He rounded the corner in haste, nearly colliding with a Gold Cloak who was patrolling the area.

The city guardsman stopped, eyeing him with a suspicious, lingering glare, his hand resting idly on the hilt of his sword. Edwyn offered a quick, apologetic bow, waiting for the knight to pass.

As soon as the soldier's footsteps faded, he looked down the alleyway.

It was empty.

The narrow passage was a dead end of brick and shadow, with only a few discarded crates and the smell of stale rain to greet him. There was no sign of the High Sparrow, no trace of the black-cloaked stranger.

It was as if the stones themselves had opened up and swallowed them whole.

Despondent and deeply rattled, Edwyn began the slow walk back to the Sept. The unknown was intensifying, and the stakes were rising. The High Sparrow was more than a wandering preacher; he was a man with perilous friends and a silent, hidden agenda.

He made a silent vow to the Crone to keep a closer watch on the man.

If a conspiracy was brewing within the heart of the Faith, he would be the one to drag it into the light, or the Great Sept of Baelor would become nothing more than a cage for a very dangerous bird.