varys the spider

Honeyed Tongue**

**King's Landing, 275 AC**

The young king's laughter echoed through the Red Keep's gardens, bright and unburdened. Aerys Targaryen, barely twenty, spun a blade of summer grass between his fingers as he lounged beneath the heart tree, its leaves whispering secrets he could not yet hear. "Lord Darklyn's wife *paints*?" he asked, violet eyes alight. "Truly?"

"Portraits, Your Grace," said Maester Ormund, his chain clinking like a snake's warning. "Lady Serala of Myr… a woman of *refined tastes*. It is said she captures the soul in her brushstrokes."

Aerys grinned. "A soul-stealer! Should I fear her?"

Barristan Selmy, standing vigil, allowed himself a rare smile. The king's mirth was contagious, a relic of the boy who once raced horses through the meadows of Dragonstone.

"All artists are thieves, in their way," said Tywin Lannister, the Hand's voice a blade sheathed in silk. "But Lord Denys Darklyn petitions for your presence at Duskendale. To bless their new sept."

"A sept?" Aerys wrinkled his nose. "Boring. But if Lady Serala paints… perhaps she'll sketch *me*?"

Maester Ormund's gaze slid to Tywin. "The Conclave of Shadows advises caution, Your Grace. Duskendale's loyalty has… wavered in the past."

"Loyalty!" Aerys tossed the grass aside. "Darklyn bleeds red like the rest of us. I'll go. A king should know his people, yes?"

Barristan's smile faded. The Conclave's name curdled the air—a cabal of archmaesters whispered to dabble in darker arts than healing.

---

**Oldtown, The Citadel's Hidden Sanctum**

The chamber reeked of myrrh and malice. Archmaester Quillion, his face a ruin of pox scars, stirred a goblet of wine as thick as blood. "The seed is planted. Aerys will ride to Duskendale."

"And the Myrish whore?" asked Maester Lorcas, his voice a rasp.

"Her pigments will hide the poison. A slow rot, subtle as doubt. When the king collapses, her *art* will bear the blame."

Quillion smiled. Lady Serala's Myr heritage made her a ripe scapegoat—foreign, fiery, a woman who dared wield influence. The Conclave's true aim? To break the king's fragile mind, to leash the realm through chaos. Knowledge was power, and power demanded sacrifice.

---

**Duskendale, The Dun Fort**

Lady Serala dipped her brush into crushed lapis, her hand trembling. The portrait before her was of Lord Denys, his face a storm of pride and sorrow. *He thinks me a ornament,* she mused, *a exotic bird in a gilded cage.* Myr's mosaics haunted her—vibrant, alive—while Westeros offered only gray stone and grayer glares.

A servant entered, bearing a vial of saffron pigment. "From Lys, my lady. For the king's portrait."

She nodded, unaware the powder within had been cut with nightshade.

---

**The Kingsroad, One Week Later**

Aerys rode at the head of the column, his cloak a riot of crimson. "Barristan! Have you ever sat for a portrait?"

"No, Your Grace," the knight replied. "My face is no subject for art."

"Nonsense! You've the look of a tragic hero. All brooding and scars."

Tywin's mare drew abreast. "Duskendale's gates are old. Narrow. A poor place for a retinue."

"Then we'll squeeze through like sausages!" Aerys laughed.

That night, as the camp slept, Maester Ormund added three drops of amber liquid to the king's wine—a tonic, he claimed, for vigor. Aerys drank deeply, trusting as a lamb.

---

**Myr, The House of Arachne's Weave**

Varys read the letter thrice before burning it. *A king's folly. A maester's plot.* His Myrish spies had plucked whispers from the Citadel's shadows. The Conclave's poison would not kill Aerys—not yet. It would fester, twist, leave him a husk to be puppeteered.

And Lady Serala… a pawn in their game.

He touched the Bregan D'aerthe cameo, still silent. *No matter.* Westeros' chaos was a loom, and he had threads enough to weave.

---

The raven arrived at Castle Black with a Myrish seal, its wax stamped with a spider. Maester Aemon's milky eyes widened as he pried open the package. Inside lay a pair of spectacles, lenses ground to perfection, their arms etched with Valyrian glyphs. *"For the scholar who sees beyond sight,"* the note read. Aemon slid them on, the world sharpening into clarity he had not known in decades. For a moment, he was a boy again, tracing dragon dreams in the pages of lost books.

Then the fire came.

It began in the rookery—a spark kissed by a Myrish glass prism left carelessly near a candle. Flames devoured the dry parchment, then the beams, then the black brother who'd delivered the package. His screams echoed through the yard as the men of the Night's Watch scrambled. Aemon, clutching his spectacles, staggered into the snow. Behind him, the inferno roared… and *something* within the ashes *cracked*.

A dragon, no larger than a hound, unfurled charred wings and hissed at the moon.

---

**Beyond the Wall, the Cave of the Three-Eyed Crow**

Brynden Rivers's dreams had become a labyrinth. Shiera's laughter echoed in the dark, her mismatched eyes dissolving into weirwood sap. *"You left me to rot,"* she whispered. *"You chose duty over love."* The Great Other's voice slithered beneath hers, cold as the grave: *"Come to the tree. Atone."*

Brynden woke, if waking it was, to the taste of iron and rot. The weirwood's roots coiled around him, bleeding faces weeping crimson tears. He reached for Dark Sister, but the blade was gone. Shadows pooled at the tree's base, forming a door. A door that led to warmth. To Shiera.

He stepped through.

The blow came from behind—a sap wrapped in *piwafwi* silk. Brynden crumpled, the last thing he saw a pair of violet eyes framed by silver hair.

---

**Duskendale, The Dungeon of Defiance**

Aerys Targaryen clawed at the walls, his nails ragged and bloody. "*Lannister!*" he screamed. "*Tywin, you scheming cunt!*" The cell stank of piss and despair. Beside him, Brynden Rivers stirred, chains clinking.

"Save your breath, boy," Brynden rasped. "Your Hand isn't coming."

"You—I know you." Aerys's violet eyes narrowed. "The kinslayer. The sorcerer."

Brynden ignored him, his gaze fixed on the book left in their cell. Its cover bore a spider embossed in gold. Inside, pages detailed the Conclave's sins—poisons in wine, whispers in a Myrish artist's ear, a plot to break a king's mind. And then…

*Shiera Seastar. Beloved. Betrayed.*

*Poisoned by the Grey Rats of Oldtown, her death staged as a miscarriage.*

Brynden's roar shook the stones. Aerys recoiled as the old man's chains snapped, his one eye blazing with grief older than the Seven Kingdoms.

---

**Myr, The Spider's Loom**

Varys sipped cocoa laced with coca, his sunglasses reflecting the hearth's glow. Before him, a scrying pool shimmered—a gift from a Qartheen warlock, paid for in cocaine and Valyrian steel.

In the water, he watched:

- The dragon gnawing a rat in the ashes of Castle Black.

- Brynden Rivers tearing out a guard's throat in Duskendale.

- Aerys Targaryen, hollow-eyed, reading the Spider's book by firelight.

"Chaos is a ladder," he murmured, though this ladder was of his own making. The Great Other's whispers had led Brynden to the weirwood, yes—but Varys had paid the warlocks to warp the visions. Let the enemy think it controlled the game.

The true move was here: a dragon reborn, a king unhinged, a sorcerer vengeful. And the maesters, oh, the maesters…

He touched the Bregan D'aerthe cameo, finally warm. *"Report,"* he commanded.

A voice, thin as shadow, hissed back: *"The Citadel burns."*

---