King's Landing, the Red Keep.
In a dim room, a single candle burned upon a bronze candlestick.
The light sliced the secret chamber in two: one half flickering a dim yellow, the other submerged in absolute darkness.
The air was stagnant, a peculiar mixture of parchment, sealing wax, and the ancient musty scent of the underground.
Varys sat at the table, his quill hovering above the surface of the paper.
The candlelight cast shifting shadows across his smooth, hairless face. He stared at the blank sheet of stationery for a long time before setting pen to paper.
"I tried to warn them."
"But they heard only the drumbeat of their own ambitions."
The nib moved steadily.
"Robert Baratheon... this former warrior king now retains interest in only three things: wine enough to drown reason, the bloody thrill of the hunt, and plump, enticing whores."
"And occasionally, a tourney to let him relive his old dreams."
"I carefully fed his fears. News from across the Narrow Sea... about dragons, about silver hair, about conquered city-states—I mixed these into drunken chatter and pillow talk, delivering them to his ear."
"It almost succeeded."
"There were moments, when the wine hit him or during a surly hangover, when an instinctive vigilance would flicker in his eyes. He was close to turning his gaze toward those gathering dark clouds in the East."
The handwriting paused.
"But Jon Arryn died, and died mysteriously."
Robert's fury and suspicion were instantly pulled back to the Red Keep, directed toward those Lannister kin he both loathed and relied upon.
I tried to guide this fury, combining it with the threat from the East, even daring to use it to provoke conflict between the iron throne and that young man rising in Essos who repeatedly thwarts my plans... unfortunately, the plan stalled.
The King's attention was entirely consumed by the vipers within."
The nib moved again at an even pace.
"Finally, he went north to Winterfell and brought back Eddard Stark, the Warden of the North renowned for honor and stubbornness."
"With the new Hand in office, the court seemed to enter a brief and fragile stability."
"I kindled a sliver of hope. Perhaps this pair of sovereign and subject—a King who still possessed a reputation for prowess, and a Hand who held duty as his heaven—could first stabilize the interior before turning their gaze toward the true, imminent threat?"
The candle flame suddenly jumped, a spark popping from the wick.
"And the result? Robert returned to King's Landing and enthusiastically announced a grand tourney to celebrate the new Hand's appointment."
"To those overseas rumors that sounded like bardic tales, he merely waved a hand with a wine-scented belch: 'Wait until the tourney is over, let Stark worry about those things!' And then..."
The nib stopped heavily on the paper, leaving a thick blot of ink like congealed blood.
"The King died. Slain by the tusks of a wild boar."
The room was deathly silent.
Only the slight crackle of the burning wick remained.
"Absurd. Sudden. All the previous careful guidance, the groundwork, the schemes to drive tigers against wolves—all turned to bubbles."
The handwriting regained its steadiness, but every stroke betrayed a cold powerlessness.
"A wild boar. The man who was once the Seven Kingdoms' most valiant warrior, the man who killed Rhaegar Targaryen and ended a dynasty, died at the hands of a beast."
"And the 'hammer' in my plan, intended to be swung against the true dragon, simply... shattered."
He stopped writing and looked up into the depths of the darkness where the candlelight could not reach.
Eddard Stark's angular face, always set in a frown, seemed to manifest in the shadows.
Integrity. Honor.
Stubborn as the frozen soil and bedrock of the North.
Varys had once held a sliver of desperate hope: that because of this almost inhuman stubbornness, this new Hand might face his duties squarely, pierce the mists of King's Landing, and see the storm taking shape across the Narrow Sea.
But reality had dealt him a slap in the face.
Not long ago, he had met Eddard Stark in secret late at night, even rarely shedding a part of his disguise to give him a direct and stern warning.
"'My Lord, I beg you to hear me."
"The Lannisters are vipers coiled at your side; you must be vigilant. But what is hatching across the Narrow Sea is a true dragon."
"It has three heads, sharp claws, and scales. It has already swallowed three Free Cities as springboards. It is coming back—for Rhaegar, for Elia, for every Targaryen who died in the War of the Usurper!"
Eddard was silent for a moment, then looked up. The wavering in his grey eyes lasted only an instant.
The hard ice of the North covered them once more.
"Even if all this is true, Lord Varys."
His voice was low, carrying his habitual persistence: "My primary duty is to protect King Robert's children and to uncover the true cause of Jon Arryn's death."
He handed the papers back with a crisp movement.
"Stannis Baratheon is the rightful heir. I must support him."
Eddard looked at Varys with an integrity that made the Spider feel powerless.
"As for that child calling himself Aegon... once the kingdom is stable and order is restored, I will deal with it in due course."
"My Lord..." Varys had wanted to say more.
"I know what you mean."
Eddard cut him off, turning to walk toward the door.
"But the viper before me is more lethal than the dragon far away. Settle the near threat before dealing with the distant one. This is common sense, and it is my duty."
The sound of his footsteps faded outside the door.
Varys stood where he was, the papers in his hand appearing thin and powerless in the torchlight.
He watched the direction in which Eddard had disappeared, feeling for the first time clearly that something was spinning out of control.
This Northern wolf could not see the storm forming at sea. He lowered his head to clear the thorns beneath his feet, unaware that the sky above was already thick with dark clouds and thunder was gathering behind them.
The candle flame suddenly jumped, a spark popping, pulling Varys back to reality.
He paused for a moment, then set pen to paper again.
"Then, Eddard Stark acted, in the way he deemed honorable."
"The result... failure, arrest, and then at the Great Sept of Baelor, at Joffrey's command, his head fell."
The pen stopped. It did not move for a long time.
"My last hope of using legitimacy to oppose the foreign enemy has also been utterly... shattered, along with Eddard Stark's head, which bore an expression of confusion and defiance even in death."
Varys slowly set down the quill, as if it weighed a thousand pounds.
He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes.
The candlelight cast deep shadows across his smooth face.
A bone-deep weariness—a fatigue toward human shortsightedness and the absurdity of fate—swept over him.
"I gave them the truth, the warnings, the choices..." he whispered to himself, his voice barely audible in the silence.
"One chose the wine cup and the boar; the other chose honor and the scaffold."
"Now, within the Seven Kingdoms, who is left to stop those lions from tearing the realm to pieces? After the lions, roses, krakens, and the remnants of the wolves have mauled each other to exhaustion and the blood has flowed like rivers..."
He opened his eyes, his gaze falling upon the flickering candle flame.
The fire danced in his pupils, as if reflecting a massive Fleet gathering on the distant sea under the black banner of the red dragon, and above the Fleet, that looming, faint golden shadow of terror.
"With what will they oppose that true dragon, soon to cross the sea, carrying blood feuds and raging flames?"
Silence permeated the room, heavy as the night.
After a long while, Varys sat up straight again. All traces of weariness and emotional turbulence had vanished from his face, replaced by his usual empty, gentle mask.
Only deep within his eyes was there a sliver of cold resolve, now that the dust had settled.
He picked up the paper covered in writing and held it to the candle flame.
Tongues of fire licked the edges of the paper, which quickly curled and blackened, turning into flakes of ash that drifted down, only to be scattered by the breeze seeping through the window cracks.
All words, all schemes, were now useless.
He watched the last corner of the paper turn to blue smoke in the fire, and then, he gently blew out the candle.
The room fell into absolute darkness.
Only his calm, rippleless voice sounded in the dark, carrying a cold calculation for the impending hour:
"Now... I can only go and have a talk with that Lannister Queen Mother."
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