Arthur took his leave of the council chamber after the King's departure. The laughter behind him faded as the door shut, replaced by the colder quiet of stone corridors and guttering torches.
He found Alyn and Ser Tristan waiting near the inner yard. Their cloaks were still damp from the rain, dark patches spreading across the wool.
"They are laid to rest?" Arthur asked.
"Aye, my lord," Alyn answered. "The silent sisters have taken Jory, Wyl and Heward."
Tristan lowered his head. "They will be prepared before the sun rises."
"My uncle shall take them home when he sails north," Arthur said softly. "See it done, Tristan."
"Aye, I will my lord," Tristan obeyed.
Arthur's thoughts lingered a moment the castle seemed larger tonight, its halls hollow. "You will remain with Alyn," he added. "Keep our men posted along with the Hand's. The girls must be safe."
"They will be," Alyn replied determinedly, "You can rest assured ser,"
"Have they been told anything yet?" Arthur asked.
"Nothing, my lord," Alyn replied quietly. "They still sleep thinking their father is well."
"Lord Stark will be fine," Arthur said calmly, "Send word when they rise, I would gently break the news to them."
"It will be done," Tristan said and bowed.
With that settled, Arthur chose to remain within the Red Keep for the night. Robert had long ago granted him chambers whenever duty kept him in the capital, an honor the king gave only to men he counted near family.
A guardsman led him through Maegor's Holdfast, across drawbridges and inner gates, until they reached the apartments set aside for him, tapestries on the walls, carved cedar screens, a hearth already lit against the cold.
Generosity had always come easier to King Robert than prudence, Arthur thought.
He dismissed the servants after ordering hot water. Alone at last, he removed his blood-stained tunic. The cloth was stiff where Jory's blood had dried upon it. For a moment he held it in his hands before setting it aside.
Steam filled the chamber as he stepped into the bath. Heat eased the ache from his limbs, yet did little for the weight behind his eyes. Outside, rain battered the narrow windows without pause. The castle slept uneasily, and the night had deepened to the hour of the wolf, a black creature of the night that lay just before dawn.
Arthur closed his eyes, listening to the storm and the distant murmur of the sea beyond the city walls, knowing rest would not come easily. He sank deeper into the quiet of his chamber, letting the steam curl around him like a slow, insistent tide, that allowed himself to reach for the unknown.
His breathing slowed. The world thinned.
The Grandmaester's tower rose not far from Maegor's Holdfast, its black stones catching the wet gleam of the rain-slicked roofs. It started with a flicker of thought, then turned into a pull at the edges of his mind, as he sought the shape of a raven. One of the free ones circling near the rookery.
Arthur forced his will into it.
The entry was never clean. The creature resisted with a fierce fluttering panic that battered against him. He endured it, pressing gently yet firmly until the struggle dulled into wary acceptance. The sensation was neither wholly his nor the raven's. A cold thrill ran through him, and the unfamiliarity of it made his chest tighten.
He still could not claim it with the ease he had imagined. Perhaps because he had trained it too little, or because a deeper fear clutched him. Ravens were clever beasts. They fought intrusion harder than hounds or horses, yet once bent they were… inviting. Too inviting.
And he remembered why as the world opened beneath him.
The keep spread wide below, towers and walls and torchfires blurred through alien sight, edges sharp in ways human eyes could not grasp. Colors bled strangely, yet distance became nothing. He saw guards along the battlements, servants crossing yards, braziers smoking in the rain.
Magnificent, and wrong.
Cold drops struck his wings, the bird's wings, he reminded himself. It was too easy to forget. A man who lingered too long in another life and he might forget which life was his.
And yet he lingered, hovering there in the bird's mind. It was a strange freedom, a strange clarity, the power he toyed with could demand more than he was willing to give. But for Marie, for the girl whose name haunted his every quiet moment, he would risk the fear, the danger, even death itself.
He beat the air and left the tower behind.
Across the Red Keep he flew and out over the sleeping city. Alleys gleamed wet, lanterns guttered in the storm. A raven's sight was keen; if Marie walked the streets, he would find her. If not… the kennel hounds would serve come morning.
Yet always another thought gnawed beneath it, the red-eyed phantom, did not leave him unwatched for long.
The wind rose over the river, shoving at him in sudden gusts. He dipped lower, skimming above chimney smoke and dripping eaves, peering into yards and market squares drowned in mud. A pair of drunkards staggered beneath him, arguing over a wineskin. A cloaked woman hurried along the Street of Flour, but her step was wrong, her build heavier. Not her.
He circled Flea Bottom twice, slower the second time. No trace. Arthur angled back toward the Red Keep, frustration coiling in his chest, when the sky erupted around him.
Black shapes poured from the dark, a murder of crows screaming, wings beating in a frenzy. They struck from every side, pecking, clawing, driving him sideways through the rain. The raven shrieked in terror, and Arthur felt it as his own. He flinched, twisting the raven's body instinctively to dodge.
Arthur gritted his teeth against the pain, Not you, he thought, not now. He had been found too quickly. It shouldn't be this easy for the crow to find him. He loosed his hold, reaching for his own flesh, trying to tear free, but the body would not release him.. Panic stirred, sharp and unfamiliar. Too long, he thought. I stayed too long.
He fled in ragged flight, driven by instinct more than sense, and plunged toward the Red Keep's godswood where the branches grew thick and wet with rain. He forced the raven into the leaves and clung there, panting through the bird's narrow lungs.
The crows gathered.
They lined the branches above and below, dark against the pale weirwood trunk, eyes glimmering in the wet gloom. Their voices came not from beak alone but from every corner of his mind.
"Scared little merman," one croaked.
"Why do you hide, boy?"
"Come out and meet your doom."
The leaves trembled as more landed.
"You knew this would happen if you came back."
"Remember who your God is, boy."
Then another voice, colder than the rain:
"leggja dreyra gef mér húð þína"
Arthur strained against the prison of feather and bone, searching for the road back to flesh, and found none. Fear pressed in, tight and suffocating. He had grown careless. Now he must break the snare or never wake again.
There remained a path. After his last battle with the crow he had carved the runes into his own skin. A hidden armor of rune, of awakening. Pain would call him home where will could not.
Far away, in the chamber of stone and steam, his body lay slack within the bath. Arthur forced his will across that dark distance, straining toward flesh that felt heavy and distant as a dream. His lips parted without waking, breath stirring the air as the words were dragged from him.
"støkkva kynda eld"
The sigils answered from within. The carved lines flared alive beneath his skin in a cold blue fire. Even within the bird he felt it, a tearing, searing agony that shattered the hold of feather and bone and drowned the crow's whispers.
"ARGHHH!" Arthur screamed out and surged upright in the bath, water hissing as it met the heat of his burning flesh. Steam rose thick around him while the runes crawled across chest and arms before slowly fading back beneath his skin. His breath rasped. His heart hammered like a smith's mallet.
Too reckless, he thought, too stupid.
Arthur gripped the tub's edge until his knuckles whitened, forcing the tremor from his hands while the last echoes of wings and voices faded from his mind. When at last the glow died, weariness settled into his bones like winter frost. He climbed from the bath, dried himself with slow movements, and drew on a loose shirt before stepping into the outer chamber of his apartments.
The castle was quiet, too quiet. His mind, still sharpened, felt it at once. Someone waited beyond the door.
Arthur's hand went to Nightfall. The blade whispered free of its scabbard as he crossed the distance in a heartbeat and burst through, sword rising toward the first hooded figure, a man stumbling back with a desperate cry as he tried to flee.
Then a second voice cut through the corridor. "Wait, Arthur!"
He turned at once toward the all too familiar sound. "Marie?!"
"Yes, it's me," Marie pushed back her hood, rain-damp hair clinging to her brow. "Please, stop before you kill the man who saved my life."
The other figure slowly lifted his own cowl. Pale cheeks gleamed in the firelight. "Not a man, dear, only a spider," Varys said, his breath still uneven. "For a while there, I almost thought I was seeing the Stranger."
Arthur's sword lowered of its own accord as he crossed the chamber in two quick strides and gathered Marie into his arms. "Thank the gods you're alive," he said, voice rougher than he intended. "I thought I had lost you."
Marie stiffened in surprise at first, then clutched at him. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and soon he felt the damp warmth of tears against his bare chest. Her skin was cold as river stone, and she pressed close, seeking heat from him. The smell of rain and the city clung to her cloak.
For a brief moment, the Starks, the king, the dead friends, and the whispering crows all fell away. There was only the crackle of the hearth and the steady rise and fall of her breath. Peace, thin and fragile.
At length they parted. Marie wiped her eyes, cheeks flushed red by both embarrassment and firelight, and moved to the hearth where she held out trembling hands to the flames. The shaking in them told him how long she had been hiding somewhere wet and cold. Steam rose faintly from her cloak.
Arthur noticed then that Varys had not moved far. The eunuch watched him with soft, searching eyes, as though weighing every breath and twitch of his face.
"We must leave, my child," Varys said gently to Marie. "Tell him what you have learned."
Arthur shook his head. "Whatever it is it can wait, you need to go home and rest. I'll escort you there."
"Don't be a fool Arthur," Marie answered, calm though her voice carried its fatigue. "I made enough of a mess already, now, you cannot lose your sight, not over me."
Her words came slowly at first, then quicker as memory returned in order. Marie spoke from Janos Slynt's ledger and finished with how Varys had found her not long ago. When Marie's tale was done the chamber fell quiet but for the rain upon the shutters and the low crackle of the hearth.
Varys regarded Arthur for a long moment, hands folded into his sleeves. The softness left his voice when he spoke. "I know you mistrust me, and you have every reason to, for eunuchs and spiders are to be mistrusted. Yet I am not asking you to trust me, merely work with me. I am loyal to King Robert Baratheon, no matter how unbelievable it may seem, and you alongside Lord Stark are the only other people who are loyal to the King in this city. If you wish to keep him alive and keep the realm stable, work with me, lord Manderly, that is all I ask."
Arthur said nothing. The firelight painted the eunuch in gold and shadow. He listened to the rain, to Marie's quiet breathing, and to his own thoughts. Varys lied, that much was certain. The spider served something, but whether it was the king, the realm, or some design of the seven hells below, he could not say.
Yet the man had saved her. The spider had not found her by fortune or by design. Arthur was certain that Varys had set one of his little birds to follow her steps through the city's dark. No web in King's Landing matched the one he spun beneath silk slippers and soft smiles.
"Very well, we shall work together," Arthur spoke at last. "My people will deliver the armors to you, keep them safe, As soon as Lord Stark wakes we shall remove Janos from his position." He hesitated for a while and then said, "And also you have my gratitude, Varys, for saving Marie's life. I shall repay that debt one day."
Varys's soft laughter returned, "No gratitude or debt needed my lord," he giggled, "I was merely looking after a lost bird, believe it or not I am quite sentimental sometimes. I want all lost birds to return back to their home one day."
Marie's head snapped toward him. "I'm no lost bird."
The eunuch only tittered, amused. "As you say my child, now let us go, dawn comes soon." He turned back to Arthur and dipped his head. "I look forward to working with you my lord. Say your farewell, I'll be waiting."
With that he slipped from the chamber, and vanished behind the door, as though the walls themselves had swallowed him. For a moment only the fire spoke.
Marie watched the door until the echoes died. "Do not trust him," she said at once.
"I wasn't planning on that," Arthur replied. He studied her, the weariness in her eyes, the damp hair clinging to her cheek. "And you won't go on missions like this again."
She did not protest. That troubled him more than defiance would have. Instead she kept her gaze upon the hearth, where embers shifted like dying stars. After a long silence she said, "You'll go to war again."
Arthur drew a slow breath. "I must."
Her voice was soft. "Will you listen to me if I say you mustn't go?"
"It's not the same Marie," Arthur said, anger stirring though he kept his voice low. "It's my duty, I must do it for my kingdom."
Marie rose from the hearth, drawing her cloak closer about her shoulders. The fire had chased the chill from her skin but not from her bones.
"Varys is waiting beside a hidden doorway inside the chamber," she said softly. "Chataya once said that Maegor's holdfast was the only place where there were no hidden tunnels beneath it, as King Maegor didn't want any rats inside his halls. Yet somehow the rats still found a way."
Arthur glanced toward the walls, thick red stone veined with age and shadow. "Only the blood of the dragon will know the Keep's secrets," he murmured, recalling the tale of how Maegor slew the craftsmen once the last brick was laid, so none might betray its mysteries. "It seems they failed."
Marie's lips curved faintly. "Mayhaps the rats have some dragonblood too."
Arthur allowed himself a small smile. "Fire-breathing rats, imagine that."
"The poor cats would suffer their wrath first," she mused.
Arthur allowed himself a brief, rueful chuckle, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the quiet of the chamber. The sound felt strange after the night's weight. He knew well enough what Marie was doing, masking the pain of parting with small levity, a fragile distraction against the weight of the world pressing upon them.
Had her mission gone as planned, they might never have crossed paths at all. The thought made him feel shame Arthur could scarcely name, for he was grateful to fate's misstep as he could see her again, though the same road might have led her to a grave.
Arthur watched her, a careful distance maintained, the firelight catching the edges of her hair and shoulders. It was a measure of caution, of prudence, so that he might do what duty demanded. And here he was, he thought bitterly, measuring the moment like a selfish boy, clinging to warmth he had no right to claim. Love was a folly for singers and princes, yet still it lingered, stubborn as tide against rocks.
For a brief, almost dangerous moment, Arthur thought to ask her to stay, to grant him her favor for the coming war, but he silenced it before it could take root, and instead spoke in a low, measured tone, careful not to let the worry in his voice betray him.
"Marie," he said, fighting against his heart, "you should go home. Chataya needs you."
Marie looked back, her lips curved faintly, but the weariness in her eyes betrayed her guilt. "Yes," she murmured, "I have worried her terribly. What a fool I have become lately."
"You're no fool, Marie," Arthur said, the words firm but kind. "It could have happened to anyone. You acted bravely, and that is no shame. Just always remember the people you leave behind."
"Yes, and when for your kingdom, you go to war bravely," Marie then asked quietly. "Then what happens to those who remain behind?"
Arthur's jaw set thinking she hasn't let that go. "If they love me, they will pray for me, and if I die, then they'll mourn me."
Marie hugged her arms to herself and said, "They would not agree with you, Arthur. No one wishes to mourn the people they love."
"A lord who hides from war will not be a lord for long," Arthur replied firmly. "The people who love me will learn to accept that. For war is a part of our life."
Marie smiled and said, "I wonder what a lord's war has ever brought its people except graves, sorrow, and ruin."
Arthur got angry and said, "This is not a petty squabble of lands, Marie, you know it. This war is essential. The Isles will build our realm's defense."
She replied softly. "War has never built anything, Arthur. It only takes."
"The world takes, regardless of whether we fight or not. But we can always choose what it takes, or we can let the gods decide." Arthur answered coldly. "And I refuse to let the gods decide."
She said nothing more to that. The flames shifted between them, and for a time neither spoke. Arthur took in her face once more, committing it to memory, the silvery strands of her hair catching the first light of dawn, the faint bruise of exhaustion on her cheeks, and the quiet strength in her eyes. Even after all she had endured, she carried herself with ethereal grace and beauty.
"Goodbye, Arthur," she said at last, her voice soft but certain. "I wish you good fortune, and I pray that your wars will be over soon."
Arthur sighed and said, "Marie… go get some rest."
Marie nodded faintly, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. "I will, for I know where it is," she said and started walking. Before she crossed the threshold of his chamber, she paused and turned. Arthur met her gaze, catching the glimmer of tears unshed in her eyes. "But you must find yours, Arthur, before it's too late."
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