At Lo Quen's position, the Tattered Prince of the Windblown Company and his mercenaries—men long accustomed to death and slaughter—stood in stunned, deathly silence.
They were far enough from the fortress to escape the blast wave, yet the sheer destruction before them and the blood-curdling screams echoing across the battlefield chilled even the hardest of killers to the bone.
"The gods... above..."
One of the Windblown mercenaries gagged, his face as pale as chalk.
"Wh-what was that? Dragonfire?" another stammered, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
"No... worse than dragonfire..."
An older sellsword muttered the words, his eyes filled with naked terror.
Even the Tattered Prince's expression was frozen in wordless dread. He had always prided himself on his worldly experience, having crawled and clawed through the shadows of Essos for half a lifetime. Yet never—never—had he witnessed such horror.
He turned his gaze toward the distant figure of the young king standing upon the lookout platform. For the first time, he felt a deep, unmistakable awe—and a chill that seemed to seep into his very bones.
This Easterner wielded a power that could burn cities to ash and annihilate entire armies.
To make an enemy of such a man... was to seek death itself.
The catapults did not fall silent.
After the first devastating strike, Qyburn and the old pyromancer calmly coordinated the next barrage, judging the flames' spread and the fortress's weak points. More wildfire jars were loaded and launched—each one arcing through the smoke-filled air toward the fortress's vital supports, its storage depots, and the last pockets of resistance.
Every impact brought with it another collapse, another wave of death.
The Highland Fortress—the steel bastion upon which the Myr had placed their last hope—had become nothing more than a blazing tomb bathed in sickly green light.
The once-unyielding stone walls glowed red with heat, cracking and falling apart. Towers tilted, crumbled, and vanished into the inferno.
Columns of thick black smoke and ghostly green firestorms rose into the heavens, blotting out the sun.
The fire burned for an entire day and night.
By the following dusk, as the dying rays of the sun struggled to pierce the dense smoke, the mighty Highland Fortress that had once dominated the Central Highlands was reduced to a vast field of charred ruin—still smoldering, still whispering with heat.
The acrid stench of burnt flesh carried for miles.
Twisted shards of metal, glassy stones melted and hardened again, and layers of ash blanketing the ground painted the outline of a man-made hell. Among the ruins, one could still glimpse blackened, contorted corpses curled in on themselves—no longer human, only shadows of what they had been.
Lo Quen immediately ordered his Dragon Soul Guards and soldiers to enter the ruins and begin the search.
The Windblown mercenaries followed, stepping into the still-hot wreckage behind his army. Even the bravest among them turned pale as they entered, choking back the urge to vomit.
...
King's Landing, brothel.
The air was thick with a cloying perfume—sweet to the point of nausea—mingled with the sour tang of aged wine and sweat. The heavy scent hung stagnant in the richly adorned room. Velvet curtains shut out most of the noise from the streets, leaving only the dim, flickering glow of candlelight to cast suggestive shadows across the walls.
Gaudy murals depicted the gods' debauched revels, and in the corner, an oversized bed lay in disarray, its tangled silk sheets a silent testament to the room's trade.
Eddard Stark glanced around, his every bone seeming to creak with discomfort in the face of such decadence. He had just escaped the torment of the Small Council meeting, and it had nearly broken him.
The kingdom's coffers had long since been emptied by Robert's reckless extravagance, leaving behind debts soaring into the millions of golden dragons. The sheer weight of those numbers pressed on him like a stone, stealing his breath.
And yet, despite the ruin, Robert still insisted on hosting a grand tournament in honor of his new Hand.
But what unsettled Eddard most was not the king's folly—it was the fact that Petyr Baelish had brought him to this den of filth. And here, against all expectation, he found his wife, Catelyn Stark—who should have been hundreds of leagues away, guarding Winterfell.
Catelyn rested against him, her body pressed close to his chest. They had been apart for only a month, yet the longing between them was heavy and deep. Her face was thinner, her eyes shadowed with fatigue from long travel and the remnants of fear.
She leaned close and whispered in his ear,
"Ned, I told Petyr everything we suspect about Jon Arryn's death. He promised to help you uncover the truth—he has many sources here."
The moment she spoke, Eddard felt something inside him crack.
Bran's stabbing had already weighed on his soul, but this—this quiet confession chilled him to the marrow.
She had told their secrets—secrets tied to the highest powers of the realm—to this man before him? The man with the narrow smile and shifting eyes?
This was no relief.
It was a catastrophe.
Eddard turned sharply toward her, his gray-blue eyes boring into hers—full of disbelief, reproach, and a deep, gnawing worry.
He wanted to cry out, to demand of his Lady:
My dear Catelyn, what were you thinking? Do you know what you've done?!
Littlefinger watched his near-speechless shock with quiet amusement. Reclining lazily on the opposite couch, he twirled a silver goblet of crimson wine between his fingers, that familiar thin smile playing on his lips.
"My dear Lord Eddard," he said smoothly, "your Lady has indeed placed great trust in me. She has not only shared your mutual concerns regarding Lord Jon's death but also revealed the contents of those two rather... 'interesting' letters you received."
At that, Eddard's face went pale.
Those letters—Stannis's and Lysa's accusations about Jon Arryn's murder—held secrets that could shake the Seven Kingdoms and drown them in blood.
How could she have been so reckless, entrusting such things to this man—this schemer who had built his standing in King's Landing through deceit and betrayal?
If Eddard was reeling in silence, Petyr Baelish, when he had first heard Catelyn speak of Renly's plan to depose Cersei and crown a Tyrell maiden as queen, had been struck by his own wave of astonishment. The value of that revelation far exceeded his expectations.
And when he realized that Eddard now suspected Renly of murdering Jon Arryn, Petyr could barely contain his laughter.
For Littlefinger knew exactly how Jon Arryn had died.
It was his masterpiece—brought about through Lysa Arryn's trembling hands.
He had planned it all: using her letter accusing Cersei and the conveniently "lost" Valyrian steel dagger to ignite a war between Stark and Lannister, those eternal enemies, and watch them tear each other apart.
But now, Catelyn's mention of Renly's conspiracy had opened new doors in his mind.
This unexpected gift of information made him hunger to rewrite his game entirely.
Stark. Lannister. Tyrell. Renly.
Four powers, circling each other in suspicion and hate.
A perfect storm—a feast of chaos, bestowed by the gods themselves.
He could move through it all with practiced ease—pulling strings, stoking the fire, making the blaze burn ever brighter.
On one hand, he continued to swear to Catelyn in earnest, insisting that the dagger used by Bran's would-be killer undoubtedly belonged to Tyrion Lannister, directing the Starks' wrath squarely toward the Westerlands.
On the other, his calculating mind was already racing, plotting how to turn Renly's explosive "Queen Swap" scheme to his advantage—how to pit the Lord of Storm's End against the other powers of the realm.
Littlefinger knew he would need to "pay Renly a visit" very soon.
Facing her husband's stunned and furious gaze, Catelyn seemed strangely detached.
Instead of remorse or unease, she lifted her face, speaking softly in a tone laced with old affection.
"Ned, don't look at Petyr that way. He's as close to me as a brother. He would never harm me. Besides, Petyr knows everything about King's Landing. Only he can help us uncover the truth—and protect our children."
As close as a brother?
He wouldn't harm you?
Eddard stared into his wife's eyes, seeing the blind trust there, and an overwhelming sense of helpless absurdity washed over him.
For over ten years of marriage, he had believed he understood Catelyn's strength and wisdom—qualities that had held the North together.
Yet here, in this sordid brothel in King's Landing, with Petyr Baelish's narrow smile flickering in the candlelight, Eddard felt dizzy with disbelief.
Her naïveté had made her so trusting in the heart of the most dangerous game of power.
He tore his gaze away from Catelyn's face and fixed it on Littlefinger. Petyr Baelish sat leisurely, sipping his wine, the faint curve of his lips unchanged.
A chill ran up Eddard's spine.
This man—this seemingly harmless, smooth-tongued Master of Coin—now seemed utterly unfathomable, cloaked in shadows and deceit.
Whose side was he truly on?
Eddard's fists clenched, his knuckles whitening under the strain.
In this room thick with the sickly sweetness of perfume and wine, he felt a cold, crushing loneliness he had never known before.
Before long, Eddard left Littlefinger's brothel, his face dark and grim. Catelyn and Ser Rodrik were escorted out by Littlefinger himself.
None of them noticed the fleeting shadow that slipped past the windowsill just moments earlier.