Meanwhile, deep within the Red Keep of King's Landing, a different kind of heavy, stifling atmosphere filled the Small Council Chamber.
This hall, the symbol of supreme authority in the Seven Kingdoms, was nothing like the gaudy splendor of Tyrosh. Its grandeur was stern and weighty, steeped in the dust of history and the chill of power.
Beneath their feet spread vast Myrish carpets, rich in color and intricate in pattern. Soft and silent underfoot, they swallowed every stray sound.
In one corner stood a towering wooden screen from the Summer Isles, carved with exotic birds and beasts so lifelike their feathers and scales seemed to shimmer with warmth in the candlelight.
The walls were draped with priceless tapestries from Norvos, Qohor, and Lys, depicting the War of Conquest, the legends of the gods, or elaborate geometric patterns—silent witnesses in the dim hall.
Most striking of all were the twin Valyrian stone sphinxes flanking the heavy oak doors.
Carved from marble black as night, their forms were fluid yet powerful. Only their eyes broke the smooth lines: two great garnets, blood-red and gleaming coldly in the flickering candlelight.
At the head of the long table, the seat that symbolized the Iron Throne's true master sat empty.
In place of the king—a drunken wastrel lost to brothels and the hunt—sat the aged Hand of the King, Jon Arryn, Great Lord of the Eyrie.
Years had carved deep lines into his face, and fatigue all but seeped from his slightly stooped back.
Forcing himself awake, he worked through the mountain of scrolls piled on the table, each one a reminder of the kingdom's crushing debts.
Around the long table sat the five core members of the Small Council.
Jon Arryn lifted his bloodshot eyes to the man seated across from him.
A short, plain-featured man, but with a sharp, lively gaze.
His gray-green eyes always seemed to carry the shadow of a smile. A small, neatly trimmed beard framed his chin, and streaks of silver ran through his dark hair, oddly deepening the mature charm of his handsome face.
"Petyr," Jon Arryn's voice was heavy with weariness, his brow furrowed. "Has the envoy from the Iron Bank been sent away?"
Littlefinger, Petyr Baelish, reacted at once. He nodded, wearing his usual inscrutable smile. "Yes, my lord. Their ship left Blackwater Bay at first light."
"Gods above..."
Before the words had left his mouth, a clear, lightly mocking voice cut in. It came from a strikingly handsome young man seated to Arryn's left.
His long black hair brushed his shoulders. He wore a dark green velvet doublet, perfectly tailored and embroidered with twelve golden Baratheon stags.
It was Renly Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End and Master of Laws.
Lounging lazily in his chair, he drawled, "Here we are, great lords of the realm, members of the Small Council—yet we must bow and smile to those Braavosi stinking of coin. At times I truly think we've become beggars on the street corners of King's Landing, fretting all day about tomorrow's bread and the king's banquet expenses..."
His tone was half in jest, half sharp with scorn.
Beside him sat a man with a face dark and stern as cast iron. At Renly's words, his features hardened further, a frost settling over them. "Renly... perhaps you should keep such jests for the times when His Grace himself attends the council."
This was Renly's elder brother, Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and Master of Ships.
Renly did not bristle. Instead, he flashed a wider smile, his white teeth gleaming. "My good brother, you and His Grace are both my brothers, and near enough in age. I thought you must have exchanged countless opinions on such troubles in private by now?"
Stannis's pale lips twitched, as if ready to snap back.
But Jon Arryn's weary, pleading gaze fell on him, joined by the eyes of the others at the table. Stannis swallowed the words rising in his throat, giving only a sharp snort through his nose. His gaze cut like a blade across Renly's fine velvet doublet.
Jon Arryn watched the king's two brothers, so different in temper, fall into another silent clash. He sighed inwardly.
Clearing his throat, he drew their focus back to the council's true matter.
"My lords..."
His voice rang heavy in the vast, ornate chamber. "His Grace may have no time for the crown's finances, but as members of the Small Council, we must face reality. As of today..."
He paused, sweeping the table with his tired eyes. "The Crown's total debt has reached five million golden dragons."
The number landed like a stone in still water, plunging the hall into suffocating silence.
Everyone knew who had hosted one lavish tournament after another. Who had squandered gold on feasts and revels, bleeding the treasury dry and burying the realm in staggering debt.
Jon Arryn felt the unspoken blame and helplessness saturating the silence. A deep, consuming weariness threatened to overwhelm him.
He forced himself to stay composed, searching for some glimmer of hope. "My lords, in the days ahead, certain unnecessary and overly lavish expenses must be cut back drastically. As for His Grace..."
His voice grew strained. "I will find a way to counsel him..."
"My lord Hand," a voice sweet as honey cut in.
The speaker was a bald man seated beside Jon Arryn.
His face was pale and rounded, his body plump, his silk robes bright and gaudy. Every gesture carried the scent of powder and perfume.
Varys, the Master of Whisperers, laid a soft, damp hand lightly on Arryn's arm. "I fear our king is not accustomed to contradiction. When someone dares advise him 'don't do this,' 'you shouldn't do that,' or 'this must never be allowed'... oh dear, the effect is usually no different than urging him to do it all the faster.
You've seen it yourself—every grand tourney is like a spoon cast of pure gold, scraping yet another piece from our already empty treasury..."
A flicker of discomfort passed over Jon Arryn's face. Without comment, he drew his arm back from Varys's overly familiar touch.
"Varys," he said, changing the subject, "what intelligence have you to report?"
Unruffled, as though prepared for this very moment, Varys smiled sweetly and slipped a rolled parchment from the perfumed sleeve of his robe.
"Well... some curious tidings out of the Sisters," he said slowly, his voice carrying clearly through the hushed hall. "Fishermen claim to have sighted krakens off the Bite..."
"Pfft!"
Renly Baratheon burst out laughing, shattering the heavy air.
"Lord Varys," he said, his handsome face full of mockery, "surely you don't mean the Greyjoys have hacked their way through the Neck's swamps and sailed their longships straight into the Narrow Sea under our noses?"
Varys's dark, knowing eyes turned to Renly, though his saccharine smile did not waver. "The lord misjudges me. I speak not of ironborn waving axes, but of the true creature itself. They say its waves swallowed a whaler from Essos whole."
Renly only shrugged. "A Kraken? Gods above, Varys, I'd sooner believe a Targaryen dragon has risen from the grave. At least beneath this very castle lie no small number of their fossilized bones."
Still smiling, Varys glanced down at the parchment again, his tone unchanging, disquieting. "There is more. From the Stepstones comes news perhaps more worthy of your lordships' concern. A sorcerer from the distant East has, in but three or four months, swept aside entrenched pirate bands, taken several islands, and now stands on the brink of war with Salladhor Saan himself."
Jon Arryn's brow furrowed tighter. The shadow of debt had not yet lifted, and now new threats seemed to loom just beyond their shores.
"An eastern sorcerer?" he asked, his voice low. "From where?"
Varys rolled the syllables on his tongue, sickly sweet. "Yi Ti."
"Yi Ti?!"
The very name seemed to freeze the chamber.
Faces shifted at once. Even Stannis, who had sat in cold silence till now, raised his head.
Yi Ti—a land farther than Qarth, more ancient, more mysterious, a realm of legend said to be paved in gold.
Grand Maester Pycelle, who had seemed half-asleep until then, stirred and spoke in his slow, wheezing voice. "As... as far as I know, Yi Ti lies thousands of leagues away... What business could an Easterner have, coming all this way across the Narrow Sea, to meddle in our quarrels?"
Varys did not answer him directly. Instead, he lowered his eyes again to the parchment, as if checking the details once more. "My lords, I carry tidings still more troubling. It is said this sorcerer commands an army a thousand strong. Each soldier armed in full plate that appears to be forged of Valyrian steel, wielding blades of the same, and fighting with savage ferocity. But most chilling of all..."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "My informants swear again and again, these soldiers are not living men. They are corpses, raised from their graves and bound by some dark and ancient eastern sorcery."
"By the Seven, Varys."
Renly's laugh rang out once more. "Your sweet little birds must have flown astray this time, crashed headlong into the Doom of Valyria, and come back choked on volcanic ash to fill your ears with such nonsense."
From across the table, Petyr Baelish smirked, his tone sly as he interjected, "Or perhaps they strayed beyond the Wall and lost their wits to the old forest's bogeymen?"
Varys lifted his perfumed hands in a gesture of mild injury. "Ah, my lords, how cruel you are to wrong me so. When have I ever misled the Small Council with false tidings?"
His expression sobered. "These reports come from a knight in exile, a man in dire straits. He claims the sorcerer has taken his beloved wife hostage. To save her life, he has bent the knee and served the sorcerer, though his heart remains true to the safety of the Seven Kingdoms.
It was he, while carrying out a mission for the sorcerer, who risked all to slip this message out—tidings that may well decide the fate of the realm."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, 'heart set on the Seven Kingdoms'..." Renly shook his head, disbelief written across his handsome face. "What a shining, noble, heart-stirring excuse! Let's see, who might this poor, 'exiled knight' forced to serve a sorcerer be? Aha!"
His eyes suddenly lit with realization, sharp and clear as they fixed on Varys. "Could it be that fellow from the North last year? The one who dared to traffic slaves, was sentenced to death by the upright Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, and then fled in panic?"
The sickly sweet smile on Varys's face didn't falter. If anything, it seemed as though he had been waiting for this very question. "The Great Lord truly lives up to his station as Keeper of the Realm's Laws. You guessed correctly."
He admitted openly: "My source is none other than the former Lord of Bear Island, Ser Jorah Mormont."
Great Lord Jon Arryn felt a headache rising. Cutting off the argument before it could flare again, he asked the most pressing question—the very one Grand Maester Pycelle had raised earlier.
"Varys, did Ser Jorah say what this Easterner's true intentions are?"
This was the real danger the Small Council had to guard against.
Worry deepened on Varys's face. He nodded heavily, his voice grave. "That, my Lord Hand, is precisely the intelligence Ser Jorah risked his life to deliver."
He swept his gaze across the chamber, speaking each word with deliberate weight. "That Eastern sorcerer seeks to emulate the 'Ninepenny Kings.' His ambition is to use the Stepstones as a foothold, gather his strength, then invade and conquer the continent of Westeros beneath our feet."
Great Lord Arryn's face went ashen.
Five million gold dragons in debt already pressed upon him like a mountain. Now a powerful Eastern force had appeared in the Narrow Sea, right at their doorstep—and their goal was to conquer the Seven Kingdoms?
It was misfortune upon misfortune, disaster upon disaster.
Grand Maester Pycelle spoke again, his voice trembling as he clutched at a thread of hope. "My lord, perhaps... perhaps your source is mistaken? Or forced into delivering false information?"
Varys instantly returned to his look of absolute certainty. "Grand Maester, I cannot believe Ser Jorah would dare deceive the Small Council in so grave a matter. He is, after all, a knight personally anointed with holy oil and raised to his station by our King Robert himself."
Stannis, who had been silent until now, broke the tense quiet with a cold laugh. "A knight? A traitor who sold slaves for coin and trampled the laws of the Seven Kingdoms in broad daylight? Such a man speaks of honor?"
The swirl of arguments, doubts, mockery, and the chilling talk of invasion left Jon Arryn drained, his thoughts tangled into knots.
He pressed his throbbing temples and made his decision.
"Enough!"
The Hand's voice rang with a commanding authority that brooked no dissent, silencing the chamber.
"This matter is of the utmost importance. I shall report it to His Majesty the King when the time is right."
He turned to Varys, his command sharp and clear. "Varys, use every channel at your disposal to monitor the Stepstones. Pay close attention to the struggle between that Eastern sorcerer and Salladhor Saan. I want the results at once. Until then..."
His weary gaze swept across the council. "Further discussion is suspended. This meeting is adjourned."
Varys bowed slightly, that sickly sweet smile once more curling across his lips. "As you command, my Lord Hand."