Deep inside the bowels of the Red Keep in King's Landing, there lay a chamber decorated with all kinds of dead dragon skulls from the Targaryen era mounted on iron spikes along the walls.
Below the largest skull that belonged to Balerion the Black dread, two shadowy figures were standing close, and suspiciously whispering to each other, when one of them suddenly cried out loud in a voice that almost echoed out of the empty cellar.
"What? What did you say?" Varys asked in a appaled tone.
"The girl... she ran away," The Magister of Pentos repeated in unwilling voice, not able to meet his friend's eyes.
"And how, pray tell, did you manage to accomplish such a mammoth task in such a short time?" The Spider asked as he took deep breaths to calm himself down.
"I do not know," The man replied through gritted teeth as if he had to force the words to come out of his mouth.
"You don't know?" Varys asked in an incredulous voice.
"Yes," Illyrio admitted plainly as his shoulders sagged in defeat, "Either the girl had been cunning from the start and just hid it well from me, or she had the help of someone very good at his job." he said in frustrated voice, "Becuase somehow, that bitch, managed to poison my whole household—including me, my slaves, my guards, and even the cooks in my kitchen, and while we were all knocked out, she took off."
"That's all she had to do?" he asked with a disbelieving snort, "She just had to pour some poison into your food to escape?"
"You don't understand," he said as he looked up with imploring eyes, "Everyone in my household, from the guards, the cook, the servants, to slaves, all have different times when they eat, and their food is also cooked on different fires. So it would have taken more than just 'luck' for someone to be able to do this."
Varys stayed silent for a few moments before nodding his head, as he had to admit that in his haste, the eunuch had forgotten to take all this into account.
"So either she had to have learned the art of poison from the Faceless Men of the house of Black and White since she was a child, or she had the help of someone who could spend enough money to hire someone skilled like that."
"But still, how far could a girl like her run away, even if she had someone's help?" Varys asked with a raised eyebrow, "Don't tell me you didn't find out about her missing until much later?"
"No, I found out immediately,"
"Oh..." Varys looked taken aback at that, as even he, if he were to find himself in his friend's situation, would not immediately think about the girl after waking up.
"Yes, because the very first thing I did after waking up was to check in the treasury,"
Varys simply nodded, as it sounded very much like his greedy friend, "So what did she take? Gold? Jewels?"
"No, no gold or silver was missing from there, instead, the box containing the petrified eggs had vanished, and I knew immediately that only the Targaryen's would fixate on that in a vault full of treasure, and since the boy was still knocked out in my room, with a face redder than an ape, I knew that it must have been that nasty girl,"
"So you must have had the city searched, and the streets locked down, right?" he asked, as he knew how powerful his friend was in Pentos. One could even say that not even a dog would be able to enter or leave the city without his say so, "Or had she already gotten away by then?"
"Oh, no, while she ran quite fast, my men managed to spot her right at the port just as she was about to board a ship and get away, but then..." Here he hesitated for quite a while, as if almost afraid to continue.
"Then what?" Varys pressed with a frown on his face.
Illyrio took a deep breath before he began, "I don't know if you will believe it or not, but every single one of my men who were there, including the city guards, told me the same story, and it remained the same even at the threat of being tortured, so as far as I know, the story should be true..." he emphasised, his eye looking deadly serious.
"What story?" The spider was feeling a little impatient now, as he had rarely seen his friend so uncomfortable before.
"They said that just as they were about to nab the girl and her two accomplices, an angry piercing screech rang in their ears, the likes of which no human could ever produce. It felt as if someone was nailing an arrow into their ears. And everyone in the vicinity of the guards, even some of the onlookers, immediately began bleeding from their eyes and screaming in pain. And then, in a matter of seconds, their eyes rolled up high as they fainted with no collection of anything after. All while the three of them calmly walked away towards their ship with no one able to do anything to them," he finished with an involuntary shudder as if imagining the scene happening right in front of him.
"Are you drunk... or are you just making it up?" Varys finally asked after a few moments, with a doubtful look on his face.
"No I am not, and before you ask, yes I had this verified mutiple times from different sources and everyone who was there gave the same version of events," he repeated while shaking his head with a tired look on his face, as only he knew how many sleepless nights he had gone through, because he couldn't stop his mind from thinking about this, "They are calling it the work of gods..." he said with a scoff but the fear in his eyes was real.
Varys looked stunned for a moment as he finally began to believe his friend and tried to think about this rationally, "Perhaps, not the Gods," he said in a silky whisper, "But magic may have had a hand in this."
"You think?" he asked hopefully, as if he were a desperate man hanging onto straws.
A powerful and greedy man like him feared nothing more than the unknown, and while magic was dangerous, they had at least heard about it before, and knew that while it had power, it was not very strong in this era and had many limitations.
"I have been hearing strange whispers from all over the world for while," Varys suddenly began with a far away look in his face, "From sightings of huge tentacles dancing out in the Narrow Sea, to talks of Fire Priestess clamoring about the end of the world and that only the prince that was promised can save them, I have even heard that wildings beyond the wall are behaving strangely as if they are running away from some kind of mythical creature,"
Illyrio was stunned for a few moments from this sudden bombardment of information. "What do you mean by telling me this?"
"If it was just one thing, then we could have ignored it all as just drunk men telling tall tales, but putting all these details together," he said before taking a deep breath, "It becomes hard for one to deny that... magic is indeed going to have a revival sooner or later,"
"I-I don't believe it," he shook his head with a stubborn expression on his face, the fat on his wobbly neck wiggling with every motion, "You are not going to say that dragons are coming back, are you?"
"Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter; what matters is that you lost us the girl in whose blood ran the most magical blood of this world, along with the three key ingredients," he finished with irritation on his face.
"What does it matter, anyway? We still have the boy, don't we?"
"Because the girl was also the only way for us to get the Dothraki, and I do not think the Khal will be as pleased with a boy, no matter his blood."
"There are hundreds of such girls in every corner of Lys, we can just bring another one to impersonate her, it's not like those barbarians would notice," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, "Not even the boy would care about it, as he was still angrily sulking the last I saw him, coming up with all kinds of strange tortures that he would inflict on hiis sister the next time he came across her again," he finished with an amused snort.
Varys' expression did not change at that, as the man had expected something like that from Viserys, after all, an apple rarely falls far from the tree.
"Besides, they were all part of a ruse in the end and the real—"
"Don't speak so callously about these things," Varys interrupted with angry rebuke, "Even walls have ears in this place. If we are to deceive others, then we must deceive ourselves first."
"Fine," replied the Magister obediently as he knew that the man was right; he was just feeling defensive for a moment and spoke more than he should. "I am leaving then,"
"Go." Varys nodded his head, "And don't forget to keep searching for the girl... who knows if we get lucky and catch her again."
"Oh, don't worry, I won't stop the search, but she better hope that she doesn't appear in Pentos again, because things may not be as pleasant for the princess as they were before..." he finished with a nasty smirk on his face before they both disappeared in different directions, leaving the cellar once again empty except for the dragon skulls gleaming under the torch lights.
...
The girl that the two were talking about was at the moment actually still in Essos, walking down a wide street in the city of Lys towards a beautiful mansion alongside the merchant more commonly known as Uncle Sam.
"Are you sure they would not mind me?" Daenerys asked for the third time as she adjusted the crude, tight commoner clothes that she was having some trouble getting used to.
The girl was still sporting the dark coloured hair that had completely changed her persona, turning her from an ethereal princess to a beautiful but approachable girl next door.
But it's been almost a month since she had run away from Illyrio Mopatis' mansion in Pentos, so her true roots were slowly starting to show, and it would soon be time to put that disgusting solution in her pretty hair once again.
After escaping from the port of Pentos, the girl, along with Samwell and Merchant Sam, had departed for Braavos, where she had been assigned a normal-looking house which was quite close to the mansion that acted as the headquarters for the Northern Wolf Company, and then she had been told to stay low for a few weeks, until the search for her calmed down a bit.
And while Daenerys did feel a little lonely and bored from time to time, that was still the most relaxed she had ever felt in her life.
She did not have to worry about food, didn't have to worry about assassins, did not have to pretend to be stoic for her brother, and didn't even have to be stiff and keep a perfect smile befitting of a princess all the time.
So safe to say, this house was a close second in the places she considered to be her home, right after the house with the red door, which actually was not very far from where she was staying.
Most importantly, there were plenty of books in her house to keep her company, many of which were about the history and geography of Westeros, and this was true history, and not one that had been specially curated for her by her brother or their various hosts over the years.
And through these books, Daenerys understood even better on how the real version of events of the Rebellion transpired, and while she still hated the Usurper and the Lannisters very much for all the brutality that they had inflicted on her family, she understood clearly that most of other noble families were either victims or simple opportunists who could see the fall of their dynasty coming and went with the flow.
So most of the heavy burden that she had always subconsiously carried on her shoulder, and that unlenting urge inside her to reclaim her home, and to exact revenge on everyone who had a hand in the destruction of her family, had mellowed down a lot.
After all, most of what befell her family could simply be laid at the feet of her dear father's atrocities, or maybe even the stupidity of her eldest brother.
Anyway, back at that house, she didn't just read all the time; she also had plenty of pleasant conversations with Jon through his rat, Gan, and also Samwell Tarly, who, while a bit shy at first, turned out to be a very knowledgeable boy and was the perfect person for her to learn about Westeros from.
He had plenty of stories to share with her, from the lush farms of the Reach, to his life in his family home with a strict father and loving Mother, and not to mention all the various rumours he had heard from his sister about the various nobles and the dynamic power struggle between them.
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