Every step In took, my claws left deep, jagged gouges in the masonry. I was too big. If I walked out of the main gates like this, the Gold Cloaks wouldn't stay still, rather they'd bring scorpions and a hundred archers.
I was moving through the service corridors near the outer ramparts when a disturbed thud of boots echoed from around the corner, followed by an uneven dragging of boots.
I pressed myself into the shadows of a vaulted alcove to let the man pass without letting him know of my existence.
A man stumbled into the pale moonlight filtering through a high arrow slit. He was wearing the red cloak of a Lannister man-at-arms, his armor loosened and his belt hanging low. He held a half-empty flagon in one hand. Even from ten feet away, I could smell the bitch and the sour stink of a man who had spent his afternoon celebrating.
I recognized the man, a Lannister men Polliver. I'd watched him in the show where he drove a needle sword through a boy's throat. I knew the kind of man he was, the kind who thrived when the world turned ugly.
He stopped a few feet from my hiding spot, swaying on his feet. He looked around the empty corridor while having a dull arrogant smirk on his face. He didn't care where he was. To him, the Red Keep was his playground now that the Northmen were cooling in the dirt. He hummed a tuneless scrap of a song, unbuckled his trousers, and began to piss against the base of a decorative pillar.
The sound of it splashing against the stone was the only noise in the hall.
I moved.
I didn't growl. I didn't warn him. I was three hundred pounds of silent mass, patiently closing on him. I shifted my weight, the stone floor groaning under my paws, and closed the distance before he could even finish.
Polliver started to turn, his hand fumbling for his belt, his eyes widening as a shadow taller than a man fell over him. He didn't even have time to scream.
I opened my jaws, the heat in my throat was a dull roar as I clamped down on his head and shoulders in a single crunch. The sound of his cervical spine snapping and his helmet crumpling like parchment was muffled.
I didn't let him hit the floor as I kept my jaws locked, feeling the hot spray of his dirty blood, while dragging him back into the shadow of a disused storage chamber. I dropped the body among the broken crates. It was a messy, silent end for a man who deserved much worse.
My first kill as a monster, they wouldn't be expecting me to go on an offensive.
As I stood over the heap of red cloth and broken helm, a predator moved by instinct.
[Suppression Ability Unlocked]
[Cost: High Stamina Drain / Constant Internal Fever.]
I needed to get to the Great Sept. Tomorrow was the execution, and I wouldn't be late any longer
I focused on the core of the fire in my chest. Instead of letting it burn outward, I pulled it back. I forced the heat to stay in my marrow, driving the energy into the center of my being.
The pain was different this time. It wasn't the expansion of evolution; it was a crushing, suffocating pain. My bones didn't crack rather they folded. My muscles compressed, the dense fibers weaving tighter and tighter. The steam rising from my coat turned into a thick, choking fog.
I dropped to my knees as my height vanished. The floor felt closer. The heavy weight of an Arcanine receded.
When the fog cleared, I was standing on four paws again, but I wasn't the small pup I had been. I was a large, powerful Growlithe, the size of a mountain dog. My fur was a deep, scorched orange, and the cream mane around my neck was thicker than before I became Arcanine.
Every breath felt like swallowing hot coals. My stamina was ticking down, a slow, steady drain that I could feel in my lungs.
I didn't waste time looking at the body in the corner. I turned and trotted out of the storage room, my paws making a sharp, light clicking sound on the stone.
I bypassed the main barracks and found the low servant's gate near the stables. The guards were distracted, laughing over a dice game and a stolen cask of ale. I slipped through the shadows, an orange blur against the grey stone of the walls, and vanished into the winding, narrow streets of King's Landing.
The city was quiet, but it won't be for long.
And I wove through the Alchemists' Quarter, heading toward the hill where the Great Sept of Baelor stood like a white ghost against the night sky.
I found a crawlspace beneath the marble steps of the Sept's outer plaza. I curled into the dark, my heart pounding against my chest. The suppression was taxing, but it worked. To anyone passing by, I was just a little bigger stray dog seeking shelter from the cold.
Tomorrow, the crowd would fill this plaza, and Ned would walk onto that platform.
I closed my eyes, trying to get adjusted to this new found strength and beast instincts that came along. The time for preparation was over.
The execution was coming.