Chapter 34 – The Eyes That Count
The world still tilted when he opened his eyes.
Morning light cut through the shutters, thin and pale, catching on the blood-dark stains beneath the desk. The scent of iron lingered in the air — sharp, metallic, real. His side throbbed with every breath, the stitches tight and clumsy beneath his shirt.
Aden sat slumped in the chair, a half-drained bottle of milk of the poppy on the table beside him. His vision still blurred at the edges, but his mind, traitorous and tireless, had begun to work again.
> Injury stabilized. Recovery probability: 71%.
He ignored the Ledger's whisper. It had been whispering since dawn, as if refusing to let him sleep.
When the knock came, it was soft. Too soft for a soldier.
"Enter," Aden rasped.
The door creaked open. Petyr Baelish stepped in, his expression unreadable — a coin balanced perfectly on its edge. His eyes drifted once over the room — the blood, the bandages, the faint smell of pain — before settling on Aden.
"My, my," Baelish murmured. "You've been busy."
Aden managed a smile. "Not by choice."
"Choice is overrated." Baelish crossed the room and leaned against the desk, fingers tracing a smear of dried blood as if studying an entry in a ledger. "Assassins, was it?"
"Two," Aden said. His voice was quiet, even. "Professionals."
Baelish nodded slowly. "Varys's men, most likely. He has a distaste for uncertainty — and you've been rather… inventive lately."
The words carried neither anger nor concern. Only interest.
"Will he try again?" Aden asked.
"Oh, undoubtedly," Baelish said. "But not immediately. He's cautious. He'll want to understand what you are before deciding whether to kill you or recruit you."
Baelish studied him for a moment longer — then tilted his head. "You're pale. You should rest. You can't scheme properly if you're dead."
Aden almost laughed, but the sound caught in his throat. "And what do you think I am, my lord?"
Baelish smiled faintly, that serpent's smile that meant nothing and everything at once. "I think you're learning the most important lesson in King's Landing — that intellect is only as sharp as the blade it survives."
He turned to leave, then paused at the door.
"Still… surviving an attack meant to kill you does make a man interesting. The kind of man others start to notice."
And with that, he was gone.
---
The room felt colder when the door shut.
Aden sat in silence, staring at the ledger on the table — the one he'd bled across last night. He reached out, brushing a finger over the dried stain. It flaked beneath his touch, black and brittle.
He thought about what Baelish had said.
And then, unbidden —
> Interest detected. External observation probability: 92%.
The Ledger's whisper slid through his skull like a chill breeze.
He froze.
Then came another sound — faint, delicate, almost polite — from the window. A folded parchment had been slipped beneath the shutters. No seal. No mark. Just a line written in perfect, deliberate script.
"Information bleeds too, my dear clerk. I would know who tried to make yours spill."
Aden read it twice, his pulse steady but his chest tight. No signature — but he didn't need one.
Varys never signed his messages.
He burned the note over the candle flame, watching the edges curl and blacken. The ashes fell into the bowl beside him, joining the fragments of old plans and useless truths.
For a long time he just sat there, eyes half-lidded, letting the city's noise return through the walls — distant carts, a woman's laughter, the sea's faint murmur.
He was alive.
But something inside him had changed shape.
The Ledger whispered softly:
> Emotion detected. Function unstable.
He whispered back, voice rough: "Good."
Because for the first time, Aden didn't want to be a machine.
He wanted to feel what the numbers never could — the weight of his fear, his rage, his fragile, defiant will to live.
The candle guttered. His reflection in the waxed bronze mirror flickered — pale, hollow-eyed, but alive.
And somewhere in the Red Keep, two men — one spider, one snake — began to move their pieces toward him.
The Game had noticed Aden Holt.
And it had drawn blood.