Arya didn't hesitate. She snatched Lion's Tooth from the muck and hurled it with all her strength into the rushing currents of the Trident. "Run, Mycah! Run!" she screamed. Seeing the blood soaking Joffrey's silk sleeve and the raw terror in his eyes, she whistled sharply. Nymeria released her hold, and together, girl and wolf vanished into the dense thicket.
A horrific silence fell over the clearing, punctured only by Joffrey's ragged sobbing.
Sansa stood rooted to the spot, her face ashen. She turned to Alaric, her eyes wide with the realization of the nightmare ahead. This was no longer a childhood squabble; it was an act of treason against the Crown.
Alaric remained unnervingly calm, his gaze fixed on the weeping Prince. A flicker of light shimmered in his mind's eye: [MP Points Harvested: High Conflict Detected]. He knew that while the wolf had bitten the boy, the political fallout would bite the Starks far deeper.
"Your Grace!" Sansa finally found her voice. She rushed forward with a mask of frantic concern that expertly veiled her loathing. "Are you hurt? Please, let me help!"
Joffrey shoved her away with his uninjured arm, his face twisted in a mask of tears and humiliation. "Don't touch me! You saw it! I'll have her killed! I'll have them all executed!"
The heavy thud of Lannister boots soon echoed through the brush, preceded by the frantic shouting of Ser Boros Blount. As the red-cloaked guards burst into the clearing, they found the Crown Prince huddled in the mud, clutching a mangled arm, while Sansa Stark stood trembling over him.
"Prince Joffrey!" Ser Boros cried, his face paling as he drew his sword, looking wildly for an enemy to strike.
Alaric moved before the guards could orient themselves. He didn't reach for his steel; instead, he dropped to one knee beside the boy, his expression a masterpiece of feigned horror.
"Your Grace! Stay still, the wound must be bound!" Alaric commanded, his voice thick with a calculated, urgent panic.
He moved with practiced speed, tearing a strip of fine linen from his undershirt. As he reached for the mangled arm, Joffrey shrieked, lashing out blindly. "Get away from me, you Northern beast!"
Alaric caught the Prince's good hand, gripping it firmly under the guise of steadying him. "I am here, my Prince! You're safe. Ser Boros! Secure the perimeter! The wolf is still in the woods!"
The Lannister guards, eager for a target they could actually fight, scrambled toward the treeline. Their distraction bought Alaric the second he needed. As he leaned over Joffrey to wrap the makeshift bandage, his face came inches from the Prince's. The "worried" expression remained for the guards, but his eyes—cold, predatory, and humming with a faint, unnatural light—locked onto Joffrey's.
...
King Robert sat in a borrowed chair that groaned under his weight. Beside him, Cersei stood as a pillar of cold fury, her emerald eyes fixed on Ned Stark with predatory focus.
Alaric stood a pace behind Sansa, his posture the image of a dutiful protector. Within his mind, the Monarch's System pulsed with a steady, clinical thrum.
[Current Objective: Navigate the Ruby Ford Inquiry]
[Condition: High-Stakes Social Manipulation]
[MP Reward: +450 (Conflict/Fear/Deceit)]
"The girl must be punished, Ned!" Cersei's voice was a razor-sharp whisper. "Your daughter's animal savaged the Prince. Look at him!"
Joffrey sat swathed in silks, his arm cradled in a thick sling. He played the martyr with nauseating precision, though for a fleeting second, his eyes shifted from feigned agony to a gloating, ugly triumph as he looked at Sansa.
"It wasn't like that!" Arya shouted, her voice cracking. She stood in the center of the room, mud-stained and small, yet entirely defiant. "He was hurting Mycah! He drew blood first!"
"Silence!" Robert roared, slamming a fist onto the table so hard his wine slopped over the rim. He turned his gaze to Sansa. "Sansa, girl. You were there. Tell us what happened. The truth, now."
The room went deathly quiet. Every eye turned toward her. Alaric felt the girl's slight frame tremble. This was the trap Cersei had set—the moment Sansa would be forced to choose between her family and her future crown.
Alaric leaned in, the movement so subtle it seemed a mere adjustment of his stance. As his fingers brushed the back of Sansa's hand.
Sansa stepped forward, her face a mask of pale marble. "I..." her voice wavered, then steadied. "Everything happened so fast. It was a blur of shadows and noise. I saw the Prince and my sister talking, and then... then there was a dog, and screaming. I was so frightened, Your Grace. I closed my eyes and prayed."
A collective breath was released. It was a masterpiece of "courtly nothing." She hadn't lied for Arya, but she hadn't confirmed Joffrey's story either.
Cersei's eyes narrowed. "You saw nothing? Your own sister is accused of a crime against the Crown, and you saw nothing?"
"The girl is terrified, Cersei," Robert grumbled, clearly wanting the affair to end. "She didn't see. Leave it be."
"I saw!" Joffrey piped up, his voice oily. "I saw Thorne! He encouraged the wolf! He held me down while the beast bit me!"
The shift was instantaneous. Lannister guards shifted their weight toward their hilts; Ned Stark's hand moved toward the pommel of his sword.
Alaric didn't blink. He stepped forward with a fluid grace that made the knights around him look clumsy. He dropped to one knee before the King, his head bowed just enough to show respect without hiding the sharp clarity of his features.
"Your Grace," Alaric said, his voice resonating with calm authority. "The Prince is understandably shaken. In the chaos, his memory has played a cruel trick on him. When I arrived, I drove the wolf off. I bound his wound with my own linen while Ser Boros and his men searched the brush."
"He's lying!" Joffrey shrieked.
Alaric felt a sharp, hollow drain on his MP reserves as he commanded the System to weave a thread of suggestion. He locked his gaze onto Ser Boros Blount, forcing the directive into the knight's sluggish mind until the man's own memories began to soften and bend like warm wax.
It's easy with a man like Blount, Alaric thought, his pulse thrumming behind his eyes. A mind fueled by wine and fear has no walls.
He glanced toward Cersei, whose green eyes remained sharp as a cat's. He knew the cost of a mental nudge was not fixed; it scaled with the "Weight" of the target's soul. To touch the mind of a fucker like Cersei—or a man as stubborn as Ned Stark—would likely cost a minimum of 1,000 MP, a sum that would leave him empty and vulnerable. Their standing in the world acted as a natural fortification, one that he wasn't yet strong enough to breach without bankrupting his future.
"Enough!" Robert barked, his voice echoing off the timbered walls. "Blount! You were there, man! When you arrived, what did you see?"
Boros fumbled, his face reddening as he felt a strange, fog-like pressure at the back of his skull. He blinked, a sudden certainty overriding his own murky memory of the chaos. He looked at Alaric, then at the King, the "truth" locking into place under the weight of Alaric's mental nudge.
"The... the ward was with the Prince, Your Grace," Boros stammered, his confusion masked by a sudden nod of conviction.
"He was tending the wound. Just as he said. He was the only one who seemed to have his wits about him."
Robert threw his hands up. "There. A Northern ward saves my son's arm while my own Kingsguard wanders in the weeds. If there was a conspiracy, Thorne wouldn't have been the one playing surgeon."