~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
Margaery stood very still, her thoughts scattered.
The clay jars seemed to press down on her with the weight of a thousand stones. She could barely breathe.
Canned food.
Grain.
The Long Night.
The words cycled through her mind, over and over, until they collapsed into a single one that made her blood run cold.
Power.
This was real power.
Not a king's title. Not the Lannister gold mines. Not Highgarden's knights, however invincible they seemed in peacetime.
Real power was the ability to open a tin of food, calm and unhurried, while everyone else was on their knees screaming from hunger and cold. Real power was having something soldiers would die for.
Winter Is Coming. The Long Night approaches.
House Stark had spoken those words for eight thousand years.
And in eight thousand years, what had anyone actually done about it? Besides building a wall of ice?
Nothing. They had done nothing.
Yet this man in front of her , this King-Beyond-the-Wall the southern nobles sneered at as a savage , had already found the only path through the disaster that was coming for the entire world. He hadn't just found it. He had closed his fist around it and held on.
Margaery understood what that meant better than anyone alive.
From this moment forward, the fate of every kingdom on the Continent of Westeros would be decided by this man.
Whoever he chose to let live would live.
Whoever he chose to let die would freeze and starve and stiffen in the cold.
When the Long Night fell, when all of Westeros drowned in hunger and darkness, this man and this barren, frozen land beneath his feet would hold enough food to feed an entire continent.
And what did that mean?
It meant he wouldn't even need the dragon.
He could sit on his icy throne and watch the southern nobles tear each other apart fighting over the last breadcrumbs. Then he could simply open his granaries, and a hundred thousand starving soldiers would crawl forward to kiss his boots for a single piece of black bread. And then those same soldiers would turn their blades on the lords they used to serve.
That was the real miracle.
That was the most unstoppable force in the world.
Margaery thought of Highgarden. The fertile fields of the Reach, green and golden. Her foolish, shortsighted father. Her family, still pleased with themselves over a marriage alliance that now seemed laughable.
They had no idea.
They were still dreaming their comfortable dreams, still convinced that controlling the southern granaries meant they couldn't lose this game.
Ridiculous.
So utterly ridiculous.
When the Long Night came. When the sun stopped rising for years. When the earth froze solid and nothing grew.
How long would Highgarden's granaries last?
One year? Two?
And then? Then they would be like animals trapped in winter, savaging each other over the last scraps. While Lynn's army ate food stored for years , still fresh, still nourishing , and marched south without breaking a sweat.
"Lady Tyrell."
Lynn's voice pulled her back from the abyss.
"What are you thinking about?"
"I..." Her voice caught. "I was thinking about what will happen to Highgarden."
It was the first time she had shown him something real. Genuine fragility, not a performance of it. She hadn't been this shaken, hadn't felt this kind of raw grief and dread, even during what had passed between them.
Lynn looked at her. A faint smile touched his face.
"The Long Night is coming. You should go home and start preparing."
Go home.
How was she supposed to go home? Was she supposed to walk through Highgarden's gates and tell her father and grandmother that everything they thought was an advantage was a joke? Was she supposed to tell them that the fate of House Tyrell was already sitting in this man's palm?
"My lord."
Margaery stepped forward. Her beautiful brown eyes were full of something she had never let him see clearly before.
Pleading.
"I beg you. Help Highgarden."
"Help House Tyrell."
"Oh?"
Lynn raised an eyebrow.
"And why would I help Highgarden?" He paused. "I haven't forgotten their betrayal. And I'm not the fool I used to be , I don't move unless I see something real in it for me."
The color drained from Margaery's face.
"I will pay any price."
"Any price?"
He sounded almost amused. He walked toward her, stopped close, and looked down at her.
"You've already paid."
"I've already had your body."
"And your loyalty — that belongs to me now. It already did."
The words hit like a fist. Whatever defense she had managed to rebuild inside herself came apart. Her legs felt unreliable. She swayed slightly.
So he wasn't going to help the Tyrells.
"You've proven your worth," Lynn said, before she could follow the thought any further. "I've said it before. You became my woman , I'll see to it you hold a high position for the rest of your life. Comfortable. Safe. No one will touch you."
He let that sit for a moment.
"But that's your value. Not House Tyrell's. Right now, you only speak for yourself."
Margaery's lips moved. Nothing came out.
Her body as currency, and it wasn't even enough. Before this man, it meant almost nothing.
Then Lynn smiled.
"However..."
He shifted.
"Given how hard you worked last night , I can give you a chance."
Her head snapped up. Something flickered to life in her eyes.
"What I've shown you here is the crude version. The basic principle." He gestured at the wooden barrels still fermenting nearby. "There are better methods. More efficient ones. With enough blacksmiths producing enough iron cans, my output could increase tenfold. Possibly a hundredfold."
Margaery's breathing quickened.
She knew exactly what he was doing. He was showing her another mountain of gold. One larger and more tempting than anything he'd revealed before.
"If you want to cooperate," Lynn said, "here's what that looks like."
He laid it out plainly.
House Tyrell would send grain, iron, and craftsmen to the North. A steady, continuous flow. In exchange, he would produce canned food for Highgarden.
"As for my fee..."
He held up one finger and let it hang between them.
"Half."
Half.
Margaery's pupils shrank.
This wasn't cooperation.
This was extortion. Naked, shameless extortion. Pay him half your grain so the other half could be preserved. It was the most outrageous terms she had ever heard of in her life.
"The price," she said carefully, forcing the words out, "is too high. Highgarden couldn't bear it."
"High?"
Lynn laughed. There was no warmth in it , just a thin edge of mockery he didn't bother hiding.
"What I'm selling is survival." He let that land before continuing. "So tell me , how much grain is a life worth? When your people are dying in the snow. When your soldiers are starving badly enough to raise weapons against you. Will you still think the price is too high then?"
The blood left Margaery's face entirely.
She had nothing to say to that.
Because he was right. In the face of survival, there was no price too steep.
"I..." She heard the tremor in her own voice. "I'm not the one who can make this decision."
"Good." Lynn nodded. "Then go back. Tell your grandmother — the one who actually decides things — that this is her only chance. I don't have endless patience, and my workshop has limited capacity. Miss this window, and it closes. Other houses will find my craft just as interesting."
He turned away, done looking at her.
"One more thing."
He added it almost as an afterthought.
"I negotiate with decision-makers only. If you can't make the call, send your grandmother or someone who can." A brief pause. "But the next time someone comes , the price may not be half."
He walked out of the workshop without looking back, leaving Margaery alone among the barrels and the strange smell of fermenting life.
The wind cut through. It swept snow off the ground and flung it against her face, sharp and merciless.
She didn't feel it.
Her insides were already burning, scorched through by a fear that had no interest in competing with the cold.
She had to go back.
Now. Immediately.
She had to tell her grandmother everything. Every last word of it, exactly as it happened.
---
Three days later.
On the docks of White Harbor, Margaery Tyrell boarded the gilded sailing ship beneath the golden rose banner. Her movements were stiff, graceless , nothing like her usual self.
She did not look back.
She couldn't bring herself to.
She was afraid of what she'd see: that figure standing at the highest point of Dragonstone Fort, watching her go, those cold eyes full of quiet amusement at her sorry state.
The sails caught wind and filled. The ship eased away from the dock, moving south, toward warmth, toward the homeland that felt both completely familiar and utterly foreign to her now.
On the deck, Margaery pulled her fur cloak tighter and fixed her gaze on the open sea.
Blue. Endless. Cold.
➤ Next: Varys Begins to Exert His Influence
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
[FULL STORY ACCESS]
📖 Read ahead up to [Chapter 470]
✨ Support the author: https://p a t r e o n（.）com/DarkGolds