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In the House of Black and White, Tommen Baratheon wore black and cleaned the floor with a rag.
He had once been a prince who slept on soft featherbeds and complained when sweets were taken from him. Now his hands were raw from water and lye. If he missed a corner, the Waif struck him with a switch.
Arya had secretly taught him what she could.
The former prince worked carefully around the statues. He wiped the Stranger with particular care, then the Weeping Woman. On that statue's cheeks hung tears clear as water.
Tommen knew better than to touch them.
The tears of the Weeping Woman were colorless, odorless, and deadly.
Arya returned from the Antaryon Palace near dusk, dressed as a maid and carrying the weariness of a long day in another face.
"The new Sealord has been chosen," she told Tommen when they were alone. "Not Tormo Fregar. An ordinary citizen. Miho Toth."
Tommen looked up from the floor. "An ordinary citizen can become Sealord?"
"In Braavos, if enough important men agree that he should."
"Can I leave when I finish this work?"
Arya glanced toward the dark corridors. "Jaqen will not let you leave until he has a reason. I did the same work. When you are useful enough, he will move you to the next task."
That night, Arya made her report.
Jaqen H'ghar listened without expression while she described the Antaryon Palace, its servant routes, the guards, the guest rooms, and the arrangements for the handover ceremony in three days.
"A girl can complete the task," Arya said.
"A girl requires a face."
"A guard's face."
"Then a girl must bring a guard's life."
Arya had already chosen one. The man abused his position and preyed on girls who could not refuse him. It was easier to tell herself that made the killing cleaner.
Jaqen gave her a small wooden tube.
"The tears of the Weeping Woman."
Tommen saw it later and whispered, "What is that for?"
"Murder," Arya said.
Three days later, she returned with a blood-soaked bundle round enough to be a head.
The handover ceremony filled the Antaryon Palace with witnesses.
The old Sealord, Ferrego, had been too ill to appear in the Sealord's Palace, so the ceremony had been moved to his ancestral home. He lay in a special reclining chair, pale and thin, while Miho Toth stood before him with solemn eyes.
Keyholders, officials, and wealthy families watched as Ferrego raised a palm-sized golden Titan. The little statue represented the power of the Sealord and the freedom of Braavos.
When Ferrego placed it in Miho's hands, cheers rose through the hall.
The banquet that followed was crowded enough for servants to vanish in plain sight.
Bessaro, one of the palace guards, remained uneasy. He had been ordered to search for Tommen, and the task had gone nowhere. Too many places in Braavos were forbidden to ordinary men. Too many doors stayed closed.
He returned to a guest room to rest.
A maid named Kate brought warm milk.
Bessaro smiled when he saw her. He had made a wager with the girl that the new Sealord would be Miho. Now he expected her to pay what she owed.
"Drink first," she said. "You look tired."
Bessaro drank.
The poison took hold quickly. His limbs weakened. His tongue thickened.
Arya stepped behind him and drew a cord as thick as a little finger around his throat. She pulled until his body stopped jerking.
She would have killed him sooner if the task had allowed it.
Instead, she took what she needed.
The face changed her in ways no ordinary disguise ever could. Bone, voice, height, and weight all shifted under the magic of the Faceless Men. Arya had once seen Jaqen wear the Waif's face. No paint or mask could do what these faces did.
Now she was a sturdy male guard.
She left the room and told Bessaro's servants he was calling for them.
Their cries rose behind her a moment later.
"Assassin!"
Arya used the noise to move toward the back routes.
Near one corridor, two men carried an unconscious Miho Toth between them.
"The Faceless Men's assassination has drawn everyone away," one whispered. "Send Miho to the great Sealord."
"Bessaro still failed to find Tommen."
Arya froze.
They knew about Tommen.
She followed them through a secret door.
The chamber below was not a temple to any god Arya knew.
Ferrego, the former Sealord, lay alive upon a raised stone platform, both sacrifice and priest. The two men who had carried Miho were killed as soon as their burden was laid down. Their blood ran into channels cut into the floor.
Quarro carried Miho to a dark pool and threw him in.
Ferrego began to chant in a language Arya did not know.
The blood rose.
It formed a sphere around Miho's body, thick and red-black. Blood from the dead men flowed into it. Ferrego coughed, spitting black-red blood from his own mouth. That too joined the working.
Then the blood forced itself into Miho through his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
Miho's eyes opened.
They were red.
Quarro bowed deeply. "Congratulations on your rebirth, great Sealord."
The man in Miho's body looked down at his hands, disappointed.
"Not rebirth. A delay. This body is poor, and the working is flawed."
His voice was Ferrego's.
"I need true king's blood. Tommen's would have been best."
Quarro lowered his head.
Ferrego's red eyes narrowed. "The Three-Eyed Crow used Stark blood as support and still became neither man nor god. I will not repeat that failure if I can avoid it."
In the shadows beyond the secret door, Arya did not breathe.
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