The one-eared black tom arched his back and hissed, yellow eyes bright as coins in torchlight.
Quiet as a shadow, Arya told herself, easing one foot before the other. Light as a feather.
The cat did not run at once. He watched her, wary and hateful both, tail twitching. He knew her now, all the cats did. Her hands still bore the marks of them, thin red lines, scabbed and healing, crossed by newer scratches. Syrio had not cared for her complaints.
"So slow?" he had said when she showed him her bleeding fingers. "Be quicker, girl. Your enemies will give you more than scratches."
He had cleaned them with Myrish fire. It burned worse than the claws. Arya had bitten her lip and tasted blood before she would scream.
The Red Keep had more cats than courtiers, she thought. She had chased them across courtyards, through kitchens and cellars, along parapets where the wind tugged at her hair. One by one she had carried them back to Syrio Forel, squirming and furious.
All but this mean black one.
The real king of this castle, a gold cloak had named him. Older than sin and twice as mean. Stole a roast quail from Lord Tywin's fingers once. The king laughed till he burst.
Arya meant to catch him today
He had led her a merry chase, around the Tower of the Hand twice, across the stables, down crooked steps and up others, along Traitor's Walk where the river smelled foul below, through a postern gate and past a well and into places she had never seen before. Now the walls pressed tight about her and the air was still. No windows, only stone. When she came three paces from him the cat hissed and sprang. But Arya was quicker.
Her hands snapped shut around warm fur. The cat writhed, claws scraping her leather jerkin, tail lashing. Laughing, she hugged him tight and spun once in triumph. "Got you," she whispered, breathless. She kissed him between the eyes and jerked back before the claws found her face. The tomcat spat in outrage.
"What's he doing to that cat?" came a voice behind her. Arya got startled and loosed him. The tomcat vanished in a black blur.
At the far end of the narrow way stood Princess Myrcella and Prince Tommen. A septa loomed over them, broad as a cart horse, with two Lannister guards behind her in crimson cloaks and lion badges bright on their chests.
"What were you doing to that cat, boy?" Myrcella asked again, frowning in a way that tried very hard to be stern.
"I was catching him," she answered abruptly.
She looked Arya up and down. "He's a ragged little boy, isn't he? Look at his clothes."
Tommen giggled. "A ragged, dirty, smelly boy."
Arya scowled. She wore breeches and a jerkin for running, true enough, and her hair was tangled from the chase, but she was no boy. They don't recognize me, Arya realized. They don't even know I'm a girl.
At once she dropped her gaze and sank to one knee, as she had seen squires do for knights. If they guessed, she would never hear the end of it. Septa Mordane would faint dead away, and Sansa would look at her the way she did when Arya tracked mud across clean floors.
The old fat septa lumbered closer, breathing heavily. "Boy, how did you come here? You have no business in this part of the castle."
"One cannot keep this sort out," said one of the crimson-cloaked guards. "Like rats in a granary."
Myrcella studied her curiously. "Why would you want such a horrid old cat anyway? He scratched Joffrey once."
"He couldn't scratch me," Arya said before she could stop herself.
Tommen laughed, then clapped a hand over his mouth when the septa glared.
Myrcella did not laugh, but her lips twitched. "You're a strange one."
"Who do you belong to, boy?" the septa demanded.
Arya swallowed but said nothing. She wished for someone to arrive to save her. The people she trusted, Arthur, or Wylla, even Margaery, but she had seen little of any of them of late. Since the day Arthur slew the Mountain, everyone in the castle seemed to be in constant motion.
The septa said again angrily, "Answer me. What's wrong with you, are you stupid?"
Her throat felt tight. Calm as still water, Arya told herself, the words silent on her lips.
A guard stepped forward, hand outstretched to seize her collar. Arya moved. Quick as a snake, she slipped sideways, his fingers grazing her sleeve as she spun past him. By the time he turned she was already running.
The septa shrieked. Tommen yelped as Arya darted between his legs and he toppled backward with an "Oof." She vaulted over him without breaking stride, ducked the second guard's grasp, and flew down the alley. Boots pounded behind her.
She dropped and rolled as a red cloak rushed past, stumbling. Arya sprang up again and leapt for a window. Her fingers caught the sill; she hauled herself through and landed in front of a startled scrubwoman who gaped at her as though she were a ghost.
Arya did not stop to explain. She brushed straw from her jerkin and ran on, through a door, down a long dim hall, around a turning stair, across a yard, over a low wall and through a narrow opening into darkness.
At last, she halted, breath ragged, the sounds of pursuit fading behind her. She crouched in the black against damp stone and listened. Only her heart answered, thudding loud in her ears, and somewhere water dripped slow and steady.
Quiet as a shadow, Arya reminded herself and thought, Where was she?
The Red Keep was said to be smaller than Winterfell, yet it never felt so. When first they had come to King's Landing she had dreamed of losing herself in it, endless halls and winding steps, doors that led nowhere, courtyards without sun. In those dreams the walls were red and wet as if they bled, and she wandered calling for her father, hearing his voice always far away.
Arya hugged her knees to her chest and shivered. If she waited long enough they would give up the search. She would count and when she reached ten thousand then she would creep out and find the way back.
She reached eighty-seven before she forgot the number.
The darkness was thinning as her eyes started to adjust to it. She began to make out the shapes she saw. At first she thought she saw doorways, arches perhaps, but the shadows stared back at her. Shadows took the shapes of monsters. Their vast hollowed mouth opened beneath their eyes which were empty too. The rows of jagged teeth caught what little grey light there was.
Arya's breath caught. She pressed her lips tight together and shut her eyes. Calm as still water, she told herself, imagining Syrio beside her, light on his feet, wooden sword in hand. Strong as a bear, Syrio's voice spoke, Fierce as a wolverine.
When she opened them again, the shadows remained, but they were only shapes now, while the monsters vanished.
Arya rose slowly and saw that the shadows were skulls of beasts. Great ones, set upon the floor and crowding the chamber wall to wall. She stepped nearer and laid her fingers against one immense jaw. The bone was smooth and cold beneath her touch. She traced a tooth, black as night and sharp as any dagger.
"It's dead," she whispered. "It cannot hurt me."
Yet the hollow sockets seemed to watch her all the same.
Arya moved among them carefully, passing under teeth long as short swords, ducking beneath cavernous jaws. One skull dwarfed the rest, its teeth as tall as her even bigger it seemed. She became afraid but did not slow. She scrambled over its lower jaw and reached the door beyond.
The wood groaned when she pulled it open. The sound seemed loud enough to wake the castle. Arya slipped through and eased it shut behind her. If the skull chamber had been dark, the passage beyond was black as pitch. She could not see her hand before her face.
A water dancer sees with all her senses. Syrio always said.
Arya stretched out her hand and found rough stone. One step, then another, sliding her fingers along the wall. The air smelled damp and old. Somewhere water dripped, slow and patient.
"All roads lead to home," Arya murmured softly, remembering Arthur's advice, "You need only courage to follow it."
Arya gathered up her courage and continued walking. She walked a long while or what felt long, counting steps when she remembered, though she lost the numbers more than once. The silence pressed close around her, broken only by the whisper of her own breath. Cold air brushed her cheek, carrying the faintest murmur of sound ahead, not water this time but voices, distant and low.
Arya held still, listening with all of her senses together.
From somewhere below came the scrape of leather on stone and the low murmur of voices. A faint glow touched the wall beside her, wavering and thin. Arya edged forward and peered down.
Arya stood atop a vast round shaft, twenty feet across, plunging into the dark heart of the hill. Great blocks of stone jutted from the inner wall in a spiral, a winding stair vanishing into blackness. The air rising from it was cold and damp, smelling of earth and secrets.
Far below, a torch burned, small as a candle star. Two shapes climbed toward her, their shadows crawling along the curved walls, long and twisted as giants. Arya crouched low and listened.
"—found one bastard," said the first voice, rough and weary. "The rest will come soon enough. A day or two, a fortnight at most."
"And when he learns the truth?" asked the other, his speech silky and smooth, the words sounded in the fashion of the Free Cities. "What then?"
"The gods alone know." Smoke curled upward from the torch, thin as a serpent. "They tried to kill his son, and bungled it besides. Made a mummer's farce of it. He will not forget. The wolf and the lion will be at each other's throats soon enough."
"Too soon," said the silky-toned man. "We are not yet prepared. Delay them."
"As well ask me to halt the seasons," the first replied, his voice rougher than the other. "I am no wizard."
The other gave a low chuckle. "Some might name you one and they won't be wrong."
The light swelled brighter as they climbed. Arya drew back from the lip of the well and dropped flat upon her belly, pressing herself against the cold stone. Her heart hammered so loudly she feared they must hear it.
Boots scraped. A hand appeared on the rim of the shaft, then a torch, then the men themselves hauled up into the passage. The flame washed the corridor in orange light. Arya lay motionless, scarcely daring to breathe.
"What would you have me do?" asked the man with the torch.
He was thick about the chest, wrapped in a leather half-cape darkened by old rain and older stains. Mail showed beneath, and a dirk and short sword rode at his belt. His boots were heavy, yet he moved with a queer softness, each step careful and measured. The light brushed his face as he turned, round, scarred, and rough with dark stubble beneath a plain steel cap.
Arya thought she knew him, or maybe not, but something in the way he walked tugged at memory, like a word stuck on the edge of her mouth.
"If one Hand can die, why not a second?" said the other man, lowering his voice even more. "You have danced the dance before, my friend."
He was enormous, so fat his velvet robes strained at the seams, yet he moved lightly, almost delicately, weight forward on the balls of his feet as Syrio sometimes stood. Rings crowded every finger, gold and silver, bright with gems that winked in the torchlight, red rubies, blue sapphires, and yellow stones cut like a cat's eye. A forked beard hung from his chin, oiled and scented.
Arya had never seen him before. She was certain of that. He looked like one of those rich merchants from Arthur's stories of the East. The ones who had chests of gold, eunuch slaves and hundreds of wives.
Arthur often jested that they would marry off Jeyne to one of those merchants if she bothered Arya again. Looking at the man, she thought it would've been an apt punishment for Jeyne.
"Before is not now," the scarred man said. "We are in the midst of war, and this Hand is not the other."
Still as stone, she told herself. Quiet as a shadow.
They passed so close she could smell them. They smelled like sweat, leather, and sweetened spice perfumes. The torch flared, but its glare blinded them to the dark beyond its reach. Neither looked her way. Arya was safe as long as she made no sound.
"Perhaps you have the truth of it," said the fat man, pausing to breathe after the climb. He dabbed at his brow with a silken cloth.
"What of the Stepstones and Lys?" the scarred man asked. "Has your new man learned their purpose yet?"
"Nothing of import," the other replied lightly. "The Leviathan plays a dangerous game, but for now, he serves our need."
"I would not hold water to that," said the torchbearer. "I cannot see his true end, and that troubles me so."
The forked beard quivered with soft laughter. "So there are matters in this world that are beyond your knowledge, old friend."
"Many," the man admitted. "Yet few steal sleep as this one does. There is a hidden rot beneath him. Deceit… and darker things besides."
They fell silent. The flame hissed softly. Far below, some drop of water struck stone again and again. The flame bent in a draft from deeper in the passage, and the shadows leapt along the walls like living creatures.
Arya pressed herself flatter to the wall. Leviathan, she thought. It was the great sea monster from Old Nan's tales that roamed the icy shores in the north. They were vast enough to sink ships of men, fight krakens and even frighten a wizard.
After a time, the fat man spoke again, his voice gentler than before. "How is she?"
"Well enough," the other answered shortly. "We will speak of her later. We have little time."
"Very well, but we must have more time," the forked beard insisted. "The princess is with child. The Khal will not stir before his son is born. You know these horselords are, bunch of savages with no sense."
The man with the torch reached into the darkness beside the stair and moved something. Then she heard noises. Stone grated on stone. A deep rumble filled the passage, swelling until Arya's ears rang with it. A slab of rock slid from above and crashed into place. Where the mouth of the well had gaped, there was now only an unbroken wall, red in the wavering light.
Arya bit her lip hard to keep quiet.
"If he does not stir soon, it will be too late," said the stout man. "This was never a game for two players, if ever it was. Stannis Baratheon and Lysa Arryn are beyond my reach, and both gather swords. The Knight of Flowers conspires with Renly. The realm mutters of holy war. And Littlefinger…" He gave a small snort. "The gods alone know what game Littlefinger plays."
The fat man listened, hands folded over his belly.
"Lord Stark troubles me most," the torchbearer went on. "He has the bastard. He has the book. Soon he will have the truth. And now his lady wife has seized Tyrion Lannister, at Littlefinger's urging, I do not doubt. Lord Tywin will call it outrage, and Jaime has a queer fondness for his brother. If the lions march, the Tullys will join as well. Delay, you say. Make haste, I reply. Even the best juggler cannot keep a hundred balls aloft forever."
"But you are more than a juggler, old friend. You are a true sorcerer. Give us a little longer. This holy war will win us the islands of the narrow sea. A little longer, and all will fall into place." The fat one replied confidently.
They moved away, the torchlight bobbing down the hall toward the chamber of skulls.
"What I can do, I shall," the stout man said quietly. "I will require gold… and fifty more birds."
Arya waited until their footsteps softened before she slipped after them, soft on bare feet. Quiet as a shadow, she told herself.
"So many?" The fat man's voice drifted back faintly. "The ones you need are not easily found . . . so young, to know their letters . . . perhaps older . . . not die so easy . . . "
"No. The younger are safer . . . treat them gently . . . "
" . . . .if they kept their tongues . . . "
" . . . the risk . . . "
" . . . the girl . . . "