The dead man had no name.
That was our first problem.
Our second was that he had been very good at making sure he stayed that way.
His clothes carried no maker's mark. His purse held three gold dragons, seven silver stags and a handful of coppers. No letters. No seal. No key.
Even the poison hidden in his tooth told us little.
Prepared men carried poison.
Prepared men also tended to work for prepared people.
The only unusual thing was the iron token.
A dragon split down the middle.
I turned it between my fingers.
"Stop."
I looked up.
Tywin sat behind his desk.
"Stop what?"
"Staring at it as though an answer will appear."
"It might."
"It hasn't."
"Yet."
His stare suggested my optimism offended him.
Three days had passed since the poisoning attempt.
Officially, the man who tried to poison me had never existed.
Tommen had been quietly moved from King's Landing with his mother and sisters. Tywin had arranged work for them on Lannister lands.
That surprised me.
Not the protection.
The efficiency.
Father hated loose ends.
Tommen alive somewhere distant was safer than Tommen frightened in King's Landing.
Aerys had been told only that the conspiracy was being investigated.
He hated that answer.
Naturally.
I placed the token on Tywin's table.
"Someone must recognize it."
"Perhaps."
"Blacksmiths."
"There are hundreds in King's Landing."
"Then we don't ask hundreds."
Tywin leaned back.
"Go on."
I had started enjoying those words.
I pointed at the token.
"This isn't currency. It isn't jewelry. Someone made several."
"How do you know?"
"Because making one would be pointless."
"Unless it was personal."
"Then why carry it while committing murder?"
Tywin's eyes shifted to the token.
"If it's meant to identify members, there are more."
"Likely."
"So whoever made them received an order."
"Years ago, perhaps."
"Maybe."
I picked it up.
The edges weren't smooth. One side was slightly thicker.
Not professional minting.
But deliberate.
"We find someone who understands metal."
Tywin was quiet.
Then he called for a guard.
"Bring Ser Harys."
I blinked.
"He's here?"
"He arrived yesterday."
I smiled.
"You didn't tell me."
"I am beginning to notice you expect reports on everything occurring in the realm."
"I'm your heir."
"You are twelve."
"Both can be true."
A pause.
"Unfortunately."
Ser Harys entered ten minutes later.
He looked exactly as miserable in King's Landing as I remembered.
"Smells worse."
"Good to see you too."
"I wasn't speaking to you."
"You looked at me."
"I regret it."
Tywin pushed the token toward him.
Harys picked it up.
"What's this?"
"That," I said, "is what we're hoping you'll tell us."
"I train boys to stab each other. I'm not a blacksmith."
"But you've spent your life around weapons."
"Unfortunately."
He examined the edge.
Scraped it with his thumbnail.
Then tossed it back.
"Cheap iron."
"Anything else?"
"Stamped."
"We noticed."
Harys gave me a look.
"Then why am I here?"
I smiled.
"I missed you."
He looked at Tywin.
"Can I hit him?"
"No."
"Shame."
Then Harys picked the token up again.
"This wasn't made by a proper smith."
That interested me.
"Why?"
"The stamp is too shallow. Edge isn't finished."
"So?"
"So whoever made it wanted many quickly or cheaply."
There.
Resources.
Cost.
Production.
Creylen would have been proud.
"Could we identify the tool?"
Harys frowned.
"The stamp?"
"If we found another token."
"Maybe."
Tywin understood before I finished.
"You want to find one without revealing ours."
"Exactly."
"How?"
I smiled.
"By selling one."
Rhaegar thought the plan was brilliant.
That should have warned me.
"You want to sell a fake token?"
"Not exactly."
We walked through the Red Keep's gardens.
"I want people to believe someone is selling one."
"Why?"
"Because if the symbol matters, someone will care."
"And if no one does?"
"Then we've lost a few days."
Rhaegar considered it.
"Father won't like this."
"Your father isn't going to know."
Rhaegar stopped.
"That sentence has caused us problems before."
I stopped too.
"Good point."
Five years ago, we'd said something similar before leaving the Red Keep.
That had ended with blood in an alley.
"I am not sneaking anywhere."
"Good."
"I'm sending other people."
Rhaegar smiled.
"Your father is changing you."
"That's deeply insulting."
"It's true."
"You're reading prophecy and dressing in black. Your family is changing you too."
He looked down at his clothes.
"I like black."
"Of course you do."
We continued walking.
Rhaegar's expression became serious.
"Do you think the poisoning was because of me?"
"I don't know."
"The man from five years ago—"
"Might have nothing to do with this."
"He wore gray."
"Half the city wears gray."
"He reacted when you mentioned the boys."
"Yes."
"So they're connected."
"Probably."
Rhaegar frowned.
"Probably?"
"Evidence first."
"You sound like a maester."
"I'd rather sound like a maester than hang the wrong person."
That silenced him.
Aerys was doing enough of that already.
We spread the rumor through three different places.
Not taverns.
Too obvious.
Moneylenders.
Pawnshops.
A dealer in stolen goods.
Places where unusual objects became coin without questions.
The story was simple.
A dockworker had found a strange iron token on a dead man near the river.
He wanted to sell it.
We never showed the real token.
Instead, a Lannister smith produced three crude copies.
Then we waited.
Not passively.
That was the difference.
While the rumor moved, I followed the money.
The dead man's three gold dragons bothered me.
Gold was common among nobles.
Less common among hired killers.
Where had he changed or received it?
Coins couldn't speak.
People could.
King's Landing had money changers.
So I visited them.
With guards.
I had learned something.
The first remembered nothing.
The second lied.
I knew because he claimed he remembered every gold dragon that passed through his shop.
Impossible.
The third was useful.
An old woman named Mara ran a cramped exchange near the Street of Flour.
She examined one of the dead man's coins.
"New."
"I can see that."
"Then why ask me?"
I liked her immediately.
"Can you tell where it came from?"
"The mint."
Rhaegar, beside me beneath a plain cloak, coughed to hide a laugh.
I glared at him.
Mara smiled.
"You're Lord Tywin's boy."
"Apparently."
"And that's—"
"No."
She looked at Rhaegar's silver-gold hair.
Rhaegar pulled his hood lower.
Mara's smile widened.
Wonderful disguise.
I put another coin on the table.
"For useful answers."
She took it.
"Gold dragons move too much. Can't trace one."
"What about three?"
"Still no."
"Large exchanges recently?"
"How large?"
"Enough to pay several men."
She leaned back.
"Everyone in this city pays several men."
Fair.
I changed the question.
"Anyone exchanging foreign coin for Westerosi gold?"
That made her pause.
Interesting.
"Why?"
"Because someone trying to hide where money came from might exchange it first."
Rhaegar looked at me.
Mara tapped the table.
"Volantene coins. Some Braavosi."
"When?"
"Last moon."
"Who?"
"Didn't give a name."
"Appearance?"
"Young."
My interest dropped.
The dead man was forty.
Then Mara continued.
"Red hair. Nice cloak. Soft hands."
A messenger.
"How much?"
"Near two hundred dragons."
Rhaegar stopped smiling.
That was not hired-thug money.
"Where did he go?"
Mara shrugged.
"I exchange money. I don't follow customers."
I gave her another coin.
"Today you do."
We found the red-haired man before sunset.
Or rather, Tywin's people did.
His name was Olyvar.
A clerk.
He worked for a shipping factor near the harbor.
No noble house.
No obvious political connection.
When questioned, he admitted exchanging the foreign coins.
He also had a perfectly reasonable explanation.
His employer traded with the Free Cities.
The money belonged to the company.
Ledgers confirmed it.
Dead end.
I hated dead ends.
Rhaegar was less disappointed.
"You were wrong."
"Thank you."
"I thought you enjoyed being corrected."
"I enjoy correcting other people."
"Ah."
We were returning toward the Red Keep when a rider caught us.
"My lord."
One of Tywin's men.
He handed me a folded message.
Four words.
Someone bought the token.
The buyer was a woman.
That surprised everyone except Tywin.
"Why?" I asked.
"Women also possess money."
"I know that."
"Your face suggested otherwise."
Rhaegar enjoyed that far too much.
We stood over a map in the Tower of the Hand.
The woman had purchased one of our fake tokens from a pawnshop.
She'd paid five silver stags.
Far more than worthless iron was worth.
Then she'd left.
Our men followed.
"Where?" I asked.
Tywin pointed.
Near the Dragonpit.
Not inside.
A narrow cluster of houses below the hill.
"Who is she?"
"Calls herself Beth."
"Occupation?"
"Seamstress."
"Family?"
"Widow. One son."
"Connections?"
"Unknown."
I studied the map.
"Did she know the token was fake?"
"No indication."
"Then she'll take it to someone."
"Perhaps."
"How many men watching?"
"Four."
"Make it two."
Tywin looked at me.
"Why?"
"Four strangers hanging around the same street are noticeable."
"They are not amateurs."
"No. But whoever we're dealing with made a man kill himself rather than answer questions."
Tywin considered that.
Then nodded to a guard.
"Two."
Small victory.
I felt absurdly pleased.
Beth didn't leave her house that night.
Or the next morning.
At midday, a boy did.
Eight years old.
Maybe nine.
Her son.
He carried nothing obvious.
One of our men followed him.
The boy crossed half the city.
Bought bread.
Stopped to watch two men fighting.
Stole an apple.
Then entered a sept.
That seemed meaningless.
Until he came out without the token.
We searched him discreetly afterward.
Nothing.
"Inside," I said.
Tywin nodded.
The sept wasn't large.
Not the Great Sept.
Just a neighborhood building used by craftsmen and their families.
Searching it openly would warn everyone.
So we didn't.
Rhaegar had an idea.
"I'll pray."
I stared at him.
"You?"
"Princes pray."
"Do you?"
"Occasionally."
"When?"
"Usually when you're holding a sword."
Fair.
We entered with only two guards.
Rhaegar's presence attracted attention immediately.
Bad for secrecy.
Good for distraction.
The septon nearly fell over himself welcoming the Crown Prince.
While Rhaegar endured that, I wandered.
Seven statues.
Candles.
Benches.
Offerings.
Nothing.
I thought about the boy.
Eight years old.
He needed somewhere simple.
Somewhere he could reach.
Somewhere he could be told without needing to read.
I looked at the statues.
Mother.
Father.
Warrior.
Smith.
Maiden.
Crone.
Stranger.
The Stranger stood apart.
Of course.
I walked closer.
Offerings lay around its feet.
Mostly coins.
A piece of bread.
A carved wooden bird.
And beneath a folded scrap of cloth—
iron.
My heartbeat quickened.
I crouched.
Another token.
Not ours.
A dragon.
Split down the middle.
Real.
I didn't touch it.
"Rhaegar."
He heard my tone.
Excused himself from the septon and approached.
His face changed when he saw it.
"That's—"
"Yes."
There was something beneath it.
Paper.
Tiny.
Folded twice.
I used the edge of my sleeve to lift it.
Rhaegar leaned closer.
Three words.
THE BLOOD REMEMBERS.
Rhaegar went very still.
I didn't like that phrase.
Not with him.
Not with prophecy filling his head.
"Don't."
He looked at me.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"I wasn't."
"You had your prophecy face."
"I don't have a prophecy face."
"You absolutely do."
Normally he'd argue.
He didn't.
His eyes remained on the message.
"The blood remembers."
I folded the paper.
"Could mean anything."
"Targaryen blood."
"Could mean family."
"Tycen."
"Could mean revenge."
That caught him.
"Revenge for what?"
Exactly.
I looked around the sept.
Someone had used a child to deliver the token.
Which meant Beth might not even know what it meant.
Layers.
Always layers.
Street boys.
A gray-cloaked intermediary.
A servant.
Another gray-cloaked man.
A seamstress.
Her child.
Nobody important.
Everyone disposable.
Someone had learned the same lesson Tywin taught me.
The best fight was one another man fought for you.
I hated that.
Because it meant whoever was behind this thought like we did.
We didn't arrest Beth.
We didn't arrest the boy.
We didn't even remove the token.
Instead, we replaced the note.
That was my idea.
Tywin hated it.
Which was partly why I enjoyed suggesting it.
"What would you write?" he asked.
We were back in his solar.
Rhaegar stood beside me.
I placed the original message on the table.
THE BLOOD REMEMBERS.
"They think whoever found our fake token is part of their network."
"Yes."
"So we answer."
"With what?"
I had spent the walk back thinking about that.
We knew almost nothing.
So we shouldn't pretend to know much.
A complicated lie created ways to expose itself.
A simple lie invited the other person to fill in the blanks.
I picked up a quill.
Underneath the message, I wrote:
SO DOES THE LION.
Rhaegar stared.
Tywin stared longer.
"Subtle," Rhaegar said.
"Thank you."
"That wasn't praise."
"I accepted it as praise."
Tywin took the parchment.
"What do you expect this to accomplish?"
"Fear."
That word got his attention.
"You taught me people act according to what they want and what they fear."
Tywin said nothing.
"If they think someone in their network is secretly working for House Lannister, they'll have a problem."
Rhaegar understood.
"They won't know who."
"Exactly."
"They'll start looking at each other."
"Maybe."
Tywin finished the thought.
"And frightened men make mistakes."
I smiled.
"Exactly."
For several seconds, Father looked at me differently.
Not like a child.
Not entirely.
Then he folded the message.
"Do it."
We returned the fake token and my message to the hiding place.
Then nothing happened.
One day.
Two.
Three.
On the fourth morning, King's Landing woke to a corpse.
A man hung from the wall of a warehouse near the river.
His throat had been cut first.
On his chest, someone had pinned a piece of parchment.
No words.
Only a lion drawn in red ink.
I stared at the body.
My stomach twisted.
Rhaegar stood beside me.
"This is because of the message."
"Probably."
"Tycen—"
"I know."
I'd wanted them frightened.
They were.
Someone had died.
Not one of ours.
Not someone I knew.
That didn't matter as much as I wished it did.
Actions.
Consequences.
Creylen had taught me numbers.
Tywin taught me power.
Neither lesson felt clean when a dead man hung in front of me.
Ser Barristan examined the corpse.
"No identification."
I forced myself to think.
Guilt later.
Now information.
"Hands."
Barristan looked at me.
"What?"
"His hands."
We lowered the corpse.
Calluses.
Heavy ones.
Black beneath the nails.
Metalworker.
I looked closer.
A burn scar crossed his thumb.
My heart quickened.
"Harys said the tokens weren't made by a proper smith."
Rhaegar understood.
"A workshop."
"Maybe."
We searched the man's clothing.
Nothing.
Boots.
Nothing.
Belt.
Nothing.
Then I smelled it.
Oil.
Metal.
Charcoal.
I looked toward the streets around us.
Workshops.
Warehouses.
River.
"Don't search the whole city," I said.
Barristan frowned.
"Why?"
"He worked nearby."
"How do you know?"
"I don't."
I pointed at the body.
"But someone killed him and displayed him here quickly. Moving a corpse through King's Landing is risky."
Rhaegar looked around.
"So they used somewhere close."
"Probably."
Barristan nodded.
"How close?"
I thought about it.
A body.
Night.
No cart if they wanted silence.
Two men could carry him.
Maybe three.
"Ten streets."
Barristan called the Gold Cloaks.
I stopped him.
"No."
He looked at me.
"Why?"
Because five years ago Renn had disappeared from a locked dungeon.
Because someone always seemed to know what happened inside the Red Keep.
Because Aerys had spies.
Because whoever this was had survived for years.
"Use Lannister men."
Barristan's expression tightened.
"These are royal streets."
"And someone inside the royal household helped poison me."
Silence.
Rhaegar looked at Barristan.
"Do it."
The prince outranked me.
Useful.
Barristan hesitated.
Then nodded.
We found the workshop before sunset.
Nine streets away.
Abandoned, according to the neighbors.
It wasn't.
The door was locked.
Tywin's men broke it.
Inside were tools.
A furnace.
Iron scraps.
And on a wooden bench—
tokens.
Dozens.
Split dragons.
Rhaegar picked one up.
"Tycen."
I was looking at the wall.
Names had been carved into the wood.
Not many.
Most meant nothing to me.
Then one did.
RENN
My skin went cold.
Five years.
I touched the carving.
Renn.
The sixteen-year-old street boy who had vanished from Aerys's dungeon.
He had been here.
Or someone had written his name.
Below it were numbers.
Payments, perhaps.
Dates.
And another name.
TOMMEN
The servant.
Rhaegar stepped beside me.
"They're connected."
This time, I didn't argue.
Yes.
They were.
Then I saw the newest carving.
At the bottom.
Fresh.
The wood beneath it still pale.
One word.
TYCEN
Rhaegar stopped breathing for a moment.
I stared at my own name.
Not prince.
Not heir.
Not Lannister.
Tycen.
Someone knew exactly who I was.
And they had known for years.
Behind us, one of the Lannister men called out.
"My lord."
We turned.
He had opened a small wooden chest.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
Tywin would want them.
Aerys would want them.
Rhaegar stepped toward the chest.
I grabbed his arm.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Nobody reads them yet."
He stared at me.
"Why?"
I looked around the workshop.
Too easy.
After five years of nothing, we'd found tokens, names and a chest full of letters in one afternoon.
That wasn't luck.
That was a gift.
Or bait.
"Harys taught me something."
Rhaegar waited.
"A good trick becomes a habit."
I looked at the chest.
"And habits get you killed."
I ordered everyone out.
One of the guards protested.
I didn't care.
We cleared the workshop.
Then I sent for someone who knew traps.
An hour later, he found the wire beneath the chest.
Attached to a clay jar hidden under the floorboards.
Oil.
Pitch.
Powder.
Enough to turn the room into fire.
Rhaegar stared at it.
"You knew."
"No."
"But you—"
"I suspected."
"How?"
I looked at my name carved into the wall.
"Because they know I'm looking for them."
For the first time, the game had changed.
I wasn't chasing a trail left five years ago anymore.
Someone was watching me chase it.
Someone knew how I thought.
And somewhere in King's Landing, whoever had ordered my death now knew something about me too.
I wasn't seven anymore.
I wasn't going to stumble blindly into their traps.
But I also wasn't going to wait for history to come find me.
I looked at the chest of letters.
"Get my father."
Rhaegar glanced at me.
"And then?"
I smiled.
"Then we find out who they wanted us to blame."