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Starpike castle no longer existed!
Of course, in the most literal and physical sense, that pile of blackened ruins still bore the same name. After all, those charred stones had nowhere else to go, and the world still needed to call them something.
But in spirit, the truth was far harsher. If House Peake, still trembling from the terror they had endured, never returned to rebuild these walls, then Starpike, the castle that had stood beside their bloodline through long centuries of triumphs and trials, would vanish not only in stone and timber, but in name and memory as well.
Having vented the last of its fury, Gaelithox drew its great tongue over a wound that had long since stopped bleeding, then cast a single, scornful glance at the distant cluster of people who cowered and shook where they stood.
With a beat of its vast wings, it turned and flew northward.
It was going to find its master!
The reason was simple enough: Gaelithox had grown bored of 'playing' with Drogon and his two brothers, and it had already explored every corner of the warm Dornish lands. The world was wide, and it had decided it wished to see more of it.
So it left. Yet though its shadow vanished from the skies above Starpike, its legend remained.
The dragonfire that had rained down upon the fields was spoken of among the House Peake's farmers as divine retribution, punishment for a lord who had grown fearful of war. And the news of a dragon striking deep into the Reach spread with alarming speed, carried by countless galloping horses and fluttering ravens to every direction of the compass.
Great lords needed to know of such things at once.
For the threat of a dragon was nothing like the threat of an ordinary army—it was not a part of war as men understood it. As a creature that ruled the very skies, a dragon, if left without a means of being checked, could in theory burn every single enemy it faced into nothing but drifting ash.
It mattered little whether one was a king or a lord; before dragonfire, all were the same.
And that was precisely what the highborn could never bring themselves to accept.
These titles they fought for, these lands they bled over, every inch won through years of struggle, and now someone would loose a dragon to overturn the table entirely? Such a thing would send every other player at the board into a panic.
When faced with such a thing, there were only two paths: destroy the one who had flipped the table, or find a way to bring forth a stake of equal worth to a dragon, so the game might continue.
That was the rule!
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Four hundred li northwest of the charred ruins of Starpike lay the beating heart of the Reach, where stood the castle known throughout the Seven Kingdoms as the most beautiful of them all: Highgarden. And on this day, it welcomed what seemed, at first glance, to be an ordinary morning.
Well-dressed townsfolk, their robes fine and richly embroidered, strolled through the streets, basking in the pleasant coolness of the early air and the gentle warmth of sunlight that brushed their faces with a ticklish touch.
For those fortunate enough to live within Highgarden's walls, food and clothing were rarely matters of concern. The Reach's abundance of natural wealth had elevated the castle's comfort and luxury to a level so high it bordered on the unnatural. Here, ornamental plants grew in such numbers that entire streets bloomed with color and fragrance, an extravagance that only the great lords of the Reach could afford.
In the harsher lands of the North or the sun-scorched Dornish deserts, one might see such flowers only in a lord's private garden, carefully tended for the pleasure of his lady and daughters.
Yet today, even amid Highgarden's riot of blossoms, there was a faint and lingering unease in the air.
As people crossed paths in the busy streets, their conversations often broke for a moment, and eyes would drift, almost unconsciously, toward the southeastern sky. A rumor had already swept through the castle like a silent wind.
Starpike, they whispered, had been burned to bare stone and ash by the dragon of Daenerys Targaryen, the Mad King's daughter.
Lord Peake of Starpike was missing, his fate unknown.
Most in Highgarden doubted the tale, or at least tried to. Yet even so, uncertainty flickered in their hearts.
In this age, rumors could sometimes travel faster than the messages tied to a raven's leg, slipping from mouth to mouth until they reached every ear.
And though the lords above worked tirelessly to choke off the flow of such talk, every man, woman, and child in Highgarden knew the truth that could not be hidden. The fierce warriors of Dorne had already sworn themselves to the black and red dragon banner of the foreign queen who had crossed the sea with fire and vengeance in her heart.
Now, with word spreading that Starpike had been reduced to a scorched ruin, that vague knowledge had turned into a shadow of real fear.
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"Is this your idea?"
Within the Tyrell family's castle, the air was thick with the fragrance of blossoms, every corridor and chamber steeped in scents that made the place feel more like a garden than a fortress. Yet this sweetness did nothing to soften the blunt edge of the words being spoken here, for certain matters were discussed without the slightest pretense of decorum.
At one small table sat an elderly woman dressed in a robe of deep green, her face partly veiled with fine silk. Across from her was a eunuch whose very presence carried an almost tangible stench, a sour, clinging odor that seemed to seep from his skin.
"Yes," the eunuch replied smoothly. "This is my idea. Of course, you may also think of it as Prince Aegon's idea… it makes no difference."
He covered his mouth with delicate fingers as he let out a soft laugh, the gesture strikingly feminine, enough to send a shiver down the spine of anyone unaccustomed to it. But Lady Olenna Tyrell, the famed "Queen of Thorns," did not so much as twitch an eyelid.
Since the moment Gaelithox had reduced Starpike to ash, this man, once the spymaster of King's Landing, who should by all rights have been ground to pieces in that bloody mill, had somehow managed to appear in Highgarden. With a touch of his own brand of craft, Varys had made his way into the very heart of the Tyrell stronghold.
He had not bothered to present himself before the current Lord of Highgarden, Mace Tyrell. The whole of the Seven Kingdoms knew the man's reputation as the "Puffed Fish" and knew it was deserved. Speaking with him would have been nothing but a waste of time. The lord was good for little more than draping himself in embroidered roses and basking in the image of grandeur.
When Varys was finally received by Lady Olenna, he had wasted no time with pleasantries. He had spoken plainly, without softening the edges of his message. The dragon was no longer under control, and it had already begun to bare its fangs at the proud name of Tyrell.
A mad she‑dragon, that was how Varys described Daenerys. But he claimed he could offer them another, a true dragon, male, cold‑minded and wise.
Lady Olenna, the famed Queen of Thorns, had answered that she would need time to think it over. After all, her son, her grandson, and her granddaughter were all standing now at Renly Baratheon's side. And the name Baratheon, as everyone knew, was one that could never truly coexist with the name Targaryen.
Neither she nor Varys seemed inclined to point out the obvious, that at least in theory, they were enemies already.
Yet to nobles, or to those who knew how to speak as equals with them, such things hardly mattered. In their world there were no eternal friends, nor were there eternal enemies. There was only one constant, unchanging truth: eternal interests.
"I would like to ask you something, Varys," she said, her tone as calm as if she were discussing the weather. "Even if House Tyrell were to return beneath the red dragon banner, there are still many troublesome matters and troublesome people in this land that would need to be dealt with. You, and that little king of yours, and that governor over in Pentos, will have to put something on the table for me to see. Otherwise, this is a game with stakes far too high for us to wager on without caution."
Her long, lacquered nails tapped once against the side of an ornate glass goblet, producing a clear, ringing note that echoed softly in the perfumed air. Within the glass, the deep red wine quivered, sending ripples across its surface, ripples that mirrored the unsettled stirrings of her own thoughts.
As the matriarch guiding House Tyrell and, by extension, the whole of the Reach, she was keenly aware of the deep rift her grandson and granddaughter had opened between Houses Tyrell and Baratheon when they acted without their father's leave. That wound was far too deep for a girl like Margaery Tyrell, still virgin, to heal with a smile or a marriage vow.
And although their scheme had forced Renly into a position where reconciliation with Stannis was no longer possible, the aftermath had been clumsily handled. That girl, Shireen, still lived… at least, no word had reached her that the child had met her end.
That, Olenna thought, was a variable.
And at her age, with all the scars and lessons of a long life, there was nothing she disliked more than a variable.
Hearing her words, Varys's plump chin dipped slightly, a sign he understood her meaning. He knew that if he failed to offer her something concrete here and now, there would be no second meeting, no further chance to win her over.
It was only because the rift between Renly and House Tyrell had already grown beyond repair that he had managed to secure this audience at all. Were it otherwise, the Queen of Thorns would never have granted him even the courtesy of a seat in her garden.
"Renly…" Varys said at last, his voice as smooth as silk. "All I can say is that we will see to it. It will be done cleanly, without delay, and in such a way that your precious granddaughter will be free to wed another fine husband without the slightest stain on her name."
"And Stannis?" Olenna asked, her gaze as sharp as the thorn she was named for. "Once Renly is gone, the nobles of the Stormlands will almost certainly unite behind him, and his claim to the throne will be strengthened by their loyalty."
"That…" Varys replied, his tone light but assured, "will not happen. Perhaps the Stormlands will stand behind Stannis for a short while, for after all, he is the last crowned stag. But I give you my word, my lady, that a man without an heir is a man who can never command the true, unwavering loyalty of those who serve beneath him."
He let a faint smile curl at the corner of his lips, the kind that hinted at knives behind the curtains. "And if the price is right, they will happily take Stannis Baratheon's head, and place it in our hands."
The Queen of Thorns did not answer at once. She simply sipped her wine, the deep red liquid swirling lazily in her glass. She neither agreed nor disagreed, but her silence was not without weight.
In her heart, a question had been quietly gnawing at her from the moment Varys arrived. If this young Aegon was truly a dragon, then why had he not sought out his own aunt… the mother dragon now coiled in Dorne? First, she had never heard of Daenerys having a husband, and if the Targaryen family prized one thing above all else, it was their bloodline. Second, even if one set aside the dragons entirely, in terms of sheer military strength the reports from Dorne spoke of more than thirty thousand men already stationed in the south. That was hardly inferior to what she herself could muster.
Yet from the sound of Varys's words today, the two dragons were on the verge of tearing at each other before they had even begun? What, she wondered, could they possibly hope to gain from that?
Varys, for his part, had no inkling of the thoughts winding through Olenna's mind. In truth, he carried his own bitter secrets, a whole sea of frustration he could not pour out.
From the very start, Daenerys Targaryen had been meant to be Aegon's bride, carefully chosen by Varys and Magister Illyrio of Pentos. Their plan was simple… control the woman, make use of her womb, and ensure that Aegon's heirs could command dragons of their own. Once the tale was spun and spread, the purity of Aegon's bloodline would be beyond question.
But the trouble was, things had slipped out of their grasp far too quickly. A dragonlord had appeared out of nowhere, and Illyrio, shrewd as he was, had realized the danger at once. He had tried, with all his cunning, to hide the very existence of Daenerys from this interloper, but since he could not truly control all of Pentos, the truth eventually reached the dragonlord's ears.
And then, just as suddenly as he had appeared, the dragonlord vanished. The next tidings they heard were of Astapor's fall, and of the dragon banners once more rising high above the world.
At that time, King's Landing was nothing but a tangled knot of chaos and Varys could barely keep his own head above water. Illyrio, for all his wealth and influence, found himself equally overwhelmed, cornered by the relentless and pressing demands of Prince Oberyn, who showed him no room for retreat.
When, at last, the storm in the capital began to settle and the dust cleared, the two of them were stunned to discover that Daenerys Targaryen was no longer in Essos at all.
And there, behind the black banner marked with the crimson three-headed dragon, another flag now danced proudly in the wind… the sun-and-spear of Sunspear.
It was at this very moment that Tywin Lannister happened to launch his most ruthless and sweeping campaign of political maneuvering, shifting allies and pieces on the board with breathtaking precision. The upheaval gave Varys the sliver of an opening he needed to re-establish contact with his network of eyes and ears in the south.
One careful inquiry after another, and at last the answer came back, clear and undeniable. That massive blue-and-gold dragon was right there in Sunspear.
That, as far as Varys was concerned, left no room for doubt.
Though Daenerys had never spoken the words aloud, both he and Illyrio understood perfectly well: the Queen of Dragons' husband could only be this so-called dragonlord.
And that… was trouble.
Their one and only advantage, the sole card they had to play, was the young Aegon Targaryen they had so carefully polished and presented to the world as a king in waiting. But the boy could not ride a dragon. A counterfeit was still a counterfeit, no matter how fine the gilding.
With a dragonlord standing beside Daenerys Targaryen, their precious young Aegon became entirely unnecessary. Worse still, if she were to send even one dragon to "inspect the goods," their deception would be laid bare in an instant.
So Varys and Illyrio had whispered and schemed, turning over the same idea again and again. If only they could find a way to kill this dragonlord, then perhaps their plans could still be salvaged.
But the problem was as maddening as it was simple: no matter how many agents they sent into Dorne, every report that returned carried the same frustrating truth…
No one even knew who the man was!
And without knowing the man, what talk could there be of assassination?
Would they have their assassins swing at thin air?
Kill the wind itself?
They could do nothing but grit their teeth and watch, utterly powerless.
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[Chapter End's]
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