In the year 293 AC, on the vast continent of Westeros, the sprawling capital of the Baratheon Dynasty—King's Landing—bustled with its usual noise, smoke, and scheming. The city was alive as always, loud and chaotic, a nest of secrets wrapped in gold and grime.
Two figures, one tall and one much smaller, slipped out of the crowded main street and entered the Street of Steel. The winding path coiled around the slopes of Visenya's Hill, where fire glowed day and night, fed by the forges of countless blacksmiths. The clang of hammers echoed in the air, sharp and rhythmic. Free knights argued over the price of armor; old ironmongers with gray beards hawked knives and rusted tools from wooden carts. Smoke curled lazily toward the sky.
To most, the noise was grating. To others, it was the sound of coin.
To the hooded man walking in front, it was the sound of opportunity.
"King's Landing is like a spider's web; only a spider knows how to move through it."
The thought warmed him with a sense of triumph.
Across the Narrow Sea, he and his allies held the last surviving children of House Targaryen—a girl with silver hair and a boy who looked just like Aegon reborn. And here, in the very heart of the Baratheon capital, he now held the bastard son of the stag king.
Two hidden princes. Two great secrets.
And secrets were the currency with which the Spider built empires.
The tall boy walking behind him had a youthful face, but his eyes—blue, clear, and startlingly calm—carried a steadiness far beyond his years. Curiosity, confusion, and a quiet resentment simmered beneath them.
The hooded man paid it no mind. He had seen such expressions before.
A boy abandoned by a father he never knew, a mother dead too early, and a life of hardship—such a child naturally became sharper than others his age. But what the Spider could not imagine was that this boy carried an adult soul from another world entirely.
Gendry glanced around as they climbed higher. He spotted Lannister men—knights in crimson cloaks, helmets shaped like sneering lions. The golden house seemed to stretch its claws into every alley and courtyard.
The higher they went, the taller the buildings became. The smithies grew grander, cleaner, wealthier. A famous blacksmith could demand triple the price of others and still have buyers waiting at his door.
Eventually, they reached the top of the hill, where a tall and imposing house stood out above the rest.
Tobho Mott's smithy.
It was larger than any other workshop on the Street of Steel, its height giving it a commanding view over the entire road. Built of sturdy timber and pale plaster, it was crowned with deep blue roof tiles that shimmered faintly in the afternoon sun.
Two enormous doors of ebony and weirwood guarded the entrance, carved into an intricate hunting scene—stags charging through forests, wolves howling at the moon, lions locking jaws with monstrous boars. On each side of the doors stood stone knights clad in red armor, shaped like a griffin and a unicorn, eternally frozen mid-stride.
A sharp-eyed maidservant peeked out, noticed the expensive velvet of the visitor's clothing, and immediately scurried inside.
"My lord! A customer of status!" she called out.
Moments later, Tobho Mott himself appeared—a stout man with powerful arms and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore a black velvet coat embroidered with little silver hammers and a heavy chain around his neck set with a sapphire as large as a pigeon's egg.
"Welcome, my lord," Tobho said, bowing slightly. "If it is armor you seek, you have come to the right place. My work is unmatched in all of King's Landing—no, in all the Seven Kingdoms. Others forge armor; I create art."
He puffed his chest proudly.
"I have served many great lords… even Lord Renly Baratheon himself."
He wasn't merely boasting. Few smiths could claim to have studied in Qohor, where legendary blacksmiths forged Valyrian steel.
But the hooded man shook his head.
"Master Tobho, I am not seeking armor."
His voice was deliberately muffled—deep, smooth, and carrying a hint of a Tyroshi accent. Not his real voice, of course. The Spider never showed his real face to anyone he did not absolutely trust.
"I wish to place this boy under your care as an apprentice."
He set a pouch of gold on the table—thick coins of foreign mint, glittering vividly even in the dim light of the workroom.
Gold was gold, no matter its kingdom.
Tobho's eyes widened slightly. He finally looked at the boy.
Tall for his age. Broad-shouldered. Hair dark as charcoal. Eyes the blue of a clear winter sky.
The resemblance struck him instantly.
He had seen Renly dozens of times. He had seen the king in his younger days. He had seen Lord Stannis, too—stern and brooding.
This boy looked nothing like Stannis.
But like Renly?
Almost eerily so.
But Renly cannot have a bastard this old…
There was only one possible father.
"My lord," Tobho said nervously, "I do not wish to invite trouble."
The hooded man calmly placed a second pouch of gold on the table.
"Do not speak of this boy," he said softly. "He is your apprentice now. Who he was before today does not matter."
Tobho hesitated for only a heartbeat before bowing deeply.
"As you wish, my lord."
Satisfied, the hooded man turned to leave.
Gendry stepped forward and bowed.
"Thank you, my lord," he said politely.
The Spider paused at the door.
"I hope you find this life better than running errands for tavern drunks," he replied, still without turning back.
Then he vanished into the bustling street, swallowed by the crowd.
Gendry's lips curled faintly.
"I know it's you, Spider."
Varys' disguises were indeed top-notch, but not enough to fool a soul who had read the books and watched the series of his own new world.
He was no longer just Gendry, an anonymous bastard scraping by in King's Landing. He was an outsider reborn in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, carrying memories from Blue Star.
At the very least, he told himself, he was lucky to possess the body of a Baratheon.
House Baratheon men were known for their strength—broad shoulders, clean profiles, striking eyes. Robert, the whoring and laughing storm, had once been a titan of a warrior. His brothers were tall, firm-featured, and proud.
Gendry was the same.
Whether in this life or the last, good looks were not something to complain about.
He sighed inwardly.
Being born in a tavern was ignoble, but working as a servant there had given him safety. With House Lannister tightening its grip on the capital, he wanted nothing more than to keep his head down and avoid the fate of Robert's other bastards.
Left unprotected, they died like flies.
But now, his anonymity was gone.
The Spider had found him—and if Varys decided to move a piece on the board, it meant the game was changing.
Tobho Mott cleared his throat.
"Boy, what is your name?"
"Gendry," he answered. "I have no surname."
The blacksmith snorted.
"King's Landing is full of nameless people. What matters is that you work hard. It is good fortune that you ended up here."
He motioned for the boy to follow.
"Come. I will show you where you will be working."
Tobho led him through the workshop, out a back door, and into a narrow courtyard. The smell of hot metal intensified with every step.
When they reached the barn-like forge house, Tobho pushed open the door.
A blast of heat slammed into Gendry like the breath of a fire dragon.
Inside, several forges blazed at full strength. Coals roared, iron hissed, and smoke hung thick in the air, smelling of sulfur and burning wood. Shirtless apprentices pumped enormous bellows while the foreman hammered molten metal into shape with rhythmic clangs.
The entire chamber glowed orange from the heat.
Gendry stared in awe.
It was suffocating.
It was dangerous.
It was exhausting.
Yet it was strangely exciting.
He felt as though he had stepped into the heart of a living beast—hot, powerful, and relentless.
"Being a blacksmith," Tobho began, "is hard work. It breaks the weak. But it is also a craft that commands respect. Master it, and knights and lords will line up at your door."
He paused, studying Gendry's face.
"But…" he muttered under his breath, "your life may not be nearly so simple."
The foreman—a burly man with a chest like a barrel—approached, wiping sweat from his brow.
Tobho gestured toward the boy.
"This is my new apprentice. You will teach him. Do not overload him immediately."
The foreman nodded.
And just like that, Gendry Baratheon—though the world did not know his surname—began his new life as an apprentice in the greatest smithy in King's Landing.
With a hidden past.
A dangerous heritage.
And an adult soul ready to change the fate of Westeros.