Chapter 14 – The Art of Shadows
Rain had fallen through the night, soft and persistent, leaving the city glistening under the morning light. King's Landing smelled of wet stone, ash, and secrets — a scent Aden Holt had begun to recognize as the perfume of power.
He sat in his small chamber overlooking the lower terraces of the city, parchment spread before him, quill poised but still. The note burned into his memory — The Game notices those who play too well. Whoever had written it knew precisely what kind of blade the words carried. It wasn't a threat. It was an acknowledgment.
And acknowledgments, Aden knew, were invitations to war.
Baelish had tasked him with unraveling the envoy's motives, but Aden no longer investigated for Baelish. He investigated through him. The difference was fine as a strand of silk — and just as easy to strangle with.
He began by revisiting what he already knew:
Varyn Myrel — envoy, debtor, collector of secrets.
Maester Rendal — reformer in name, Crown loyalist in truth.
Lord Thorne — weakened by scandal, clinging to dignity.
Baelish's circle — loyal only to advantage.
Each name was a pressure point. Each man a lever waiting to be pulled.
That afternoon, Aden paid a visit to the records hall beneath the Tower of Coin — a vault of dust and silence where ledgers older than kings gathered in solemn obedience. The clerk on duty, a bent man named Lomas, barely glanced up as Aden entered.
"I need the shipping manifests from the Myrish quarter," Aden said smoothly. "Lord Baelish requires them for review."
Lomas blinked. "That's restricted trade correspondence, Master Holt. The Maester's office—"
Aden slid a small pouch of coins across the table. It landed with a satisfying thud. "Then let's not involve the Maester's office."
Lomas hesitated, then exhaled and rose, vanishing into the stacks.
Aden waited. His reflection in the brass inkpot stared back at him — calm, unreadable, almost foreign. When Lomas returned with a stack of faded scrolls, Aden began his quiet excavation.
The manifests painted a story Baelish would savor: Myrish ships had arrived weeks earlier than declared, bearing "textiles" valued far below market price. Hidden within those shipments were coded invoices — payments issued not to merchants, but to scribes and messengers inside the Crown's offices.
Bribes. Information purchases. And a network that reached higher than any trader had a right to climb.
As the candle burned low, Aden found what he sought: a symbol scrawled beside one entry — a silver coin marked with a sword's edge. The sigil of the Iron Bank.
He smiled faintly. "So you're buying silence," he murmured. "But whose?"
---
The answer began to form that evening, when he attended a supper at the estate of Lord Harys Mullendore — one of Baelish's rivals from the previous meeting. The man was wealthy, bored, and far too eager to gossip once wine loosened his tongue.
"The Myrish envoy?" Mullendore scoffed between sips. "A charming fraud. You think Baelish trusts him? Please. The man deals in debts so tangled even the gods couldn't cut them."
Aden tilted his cup, voice mild. "And yet he's meeting with your ships' captains, I hear. Late at night. Unofficially."
Mullendore froze. "That's a lie."
Aden smiled — the polite, meaningless kind that traders use before they draw blood. "Then I must have misheard. My apologies."
He watched the panic flicker behind the lord's eyes. The seed was planted. Suspicion, once sown, grew faster than any truth.
By the time Aden returned to his chambers, he had sent two more letters through intermediaries — one to Thorne, warning of "a plot to frame him through Myrish trade," and another to Rendal, hinting that Baelish had begun an internal audit of the Treasury.
Both were lies. Both would serve him.
---
Two days later, the city began to shift.
Lord Thorne stopped speaking to Rendal. Rendal quietly questioned Baelish's ledgers. Mullendore petitioned the Crown for oversight into trade contracts. And Baelish — watching it all from the Tower window — only smiled.
"Curious," he said to Aden as they reviewed accounts that evening. "Men who swore loyalty suddenly tear at each other's throats. One might think you enjoy watching the world tilt, Master Holt."
Aden kept his expression neutral. "The Game rewards movement, my lord. Stillness invites death."
Baelish laughed softly. "Spoken like a man learning too quickly."
He poured wine into two cups and handed one to Aden. "Just remember — cleverness burns brightest before it turns to ash."
They drank. The silence that followed felt heavier than the rain outside.
When Aden returned to his quarters that night, he found the candle on his desk already lit — though he hadn't left it that way. On the table lay a folded note sealed with gray wax.
He broke it open.
"You've made your move. They've made theirs. Now watch who bleeds first."
No name. No mark. But the handwriting was unmistakable — the same woman who had warned him before.
Aden leaned back, staring at the flame. Somewhere in the city, his lies had come alive. Somewhere, the Game had noticed him again.
And this time, it wasn't merely watching.
It was waiting.
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