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Game of Thrones: Rune Bastard
Game of Thrones Wizard Dothraki
Game of Thrones: Knights Life
Game of Thrones Prince of the Rhoyne
Shireen sat hunched on the throne, watching the lords of the Vale bow before her. Their eyes felt cold—like they were watching a play they had already seen too many times.
Whispers moved through the hall like wind through dry grass. Glances flicked and vanished, sharp as ice.
Her body felt wooden. She was exhausted. After fleeing King's Landing they had ridden hard for Gulltown, then climbed into the mountains. Even the litter had left every bone in her body aching. The moment they reached the Eyrie they had shoved her onto this throne.
Every few seconds her eyes darted toward her mother.
Selyse looked half-dazed herself. She still could not believe Stannis had named Shireen his heir with his dying breath.
She had never wanted any of this. The regret sat in her gut like a stone. How had she let herself become a regicide? A husband-killer? The gods would never forgive her—not in a thousand years.
She glanced at Petyr standing a short distance away and, for the first time, understood.
Revenge. Was that all it had ever been for him?
She did not know. And it no longer mattered. There was nowhere left to run. She no longer even knew what victory was supposed to look like. All she could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Watching her daughter grow up safe and whole—that was the only wish she had left.
"Long may she reign!" Petyr cried from the foot of the throne, voice ringing off the stone.
"Long may she reign!"
"Long may she reign!"
"Long may she reign!"
The Vale lords took up the cry. Petyr's mouth curved in a thin, private smile, as though the cheers belonged to him alone.
Selyse felt the wrongness of him like a cold draft, but she had no one else. No allies, no strength. She could only take each day as it came.
At least I am still queen mother, she told herself. At least I can still protect Shireen.
The next words out of Petyr's mouth shattered that hope.
"My lords," he announced, "in his final moments His Grace named me regent until Queen Shireen Baratheon the First comes of age."
"Regent?!"
Selyse's heart lurched. Stannis had said nothing of the kind. The poison he drank had been the Strangler—he never had the chance to speak.
Petyr kept going, smooth as silk. He also held the wardship of young Robert Arryn, he told them, and would soon take Lady Lysa to wife.
Selyse looked at Lysa. The woman gazed at Petyr with soft, worshipful eyes. In that lovesick mind a minor lord from the Fingers who had leaped all the way to regent was every bit as impressive as the bastard Jon.
But one pair of eyes in the hall burned ice-cold with suspicion.
Varys.
Petyr had moved faster than the Spider had expected. By the time Varys reached the Eyrie the girl was already being crowned, Petyr had claimed the boy as his ward, and the wedding to Lysa was all but sealed.
Varys was Master of Whisperers and little else. Out of King's Landing his network was thin. Almost the moment he arrived they had dragged Shireen onto the throne. Every piece of this had been Petyr's own doing.
That was what made Varys's blood run hot. It had been the same when they killed Jon Arryn. The same when they destroyed Ned Stark. Now the man was crowning a child queen and naming himself regent without so much as a by-your-leave.
Petyr Baelish was a powder keg no one could control.
When the ceremony ended Varys approached him, face blank.
"Lord Baelish seems in quite a hurry."
Most of the strong-willed Vale lords had died in the Harrenhal purge, but Petyr could never hold the Vale forever. Shireen was a girl of twelve or thirteen. The Baratheon dynasty had lasted barely more than a decade. Give the lords enough time and their eyes would turn toward Jon—the stronger claim, the stronger army.
If Petyr wanted the Vale to last, he would have to bend the knee to Young Aegon.
Only a Targaryen could stand against a Targaryen.
Petyr's gray-green eyes smiled.
"No need for haste, Lord Varys. Crowning Shireen has its uses. When the time comes she can lay her crown at King Aegon's feet and swear fealty. What better way to show the world the dragon has returned?"
Varys had not considered that angle. A public surrender from Shireen would indeed carry more weight. The Golden Company was already in Pentos; they would sail within days.
Seeing the Spider's expression soften a fraction, Petyr pressed on. Aegon could then name Shireen Lady of Storm's End and marry her to some Stormlands house, binding that region more tightly. He could also offer a second marriage alliance to Dorne. Add the Vale and Young Aegon would inherit everything Stannis once held—and double it.
Of course Petyr had crowned the girl for his own protection as well.
As regent he could demand a higher price when he finally bent the knee. Marriage to Lysa and the wardship of Robert Arryn locked his grip on the Vale even tighter. If Aegon ever decided to kill him, the Vale would shatter into a dozen quarreling houses—no use to anyone fighting for the Iron Throne.
"Lord Varys," Petyr asked lightly, "when can we expect King Aegon and Princess Daenerys to reach Westeros?"
Varys shifted half a step closer, posture easy and confident. He already knew Connington's party had failed. Daenerys had refused the marriage. They had brought back not a single dragon.
But they still had to sail the Golden Company home. Leave it any longer and they would only watch Jon methodically swallow the Seven Kingdoms and sit the Iron Throne.
He could not tell Petyr the truth about Daenerys. The man was too slippery. Better to dangle the promise of dragons and keep him useful a little longer.
"King Aegon has reached Pentos. The Golden Company will join him shortly. Within a month they will sail. They mean to land in the Stormlands."
"The Stormlands? Why not take the Crownlands at once?"
Petyr looked puzzled.
Varys let a flicker of contempt show. Men who lived only for schemes rarely understood real strategy.
"Simple. In peacetime the Crownlands are the heart of the realm—fed by every kingdom, fattened by trade. In wartime the taxes vanish and the land cannot feed its own people. The Vale is a fortress. With the Stormlands we can link south to Dorne, strike north to reclaim the Crownlands later, and threaten the Reach to the west. There is no need to sit the Iron Throne tomorrow."
Petyr put on a face of sudden enlightenment.
In truth he understood the logic perfectly well. He simply preferred to let Varys believe he was the clever one.
To bind Petyr tighter still, Varys dangled another prize: the Free Cities. He spoke of Illyrio and hinted that the eastern powers favored Young Aegon as well.
Petyr's eyes brightened with open greed.
"Then we shall await His Grace's arrival with joy," he said cheerfully.
They set their private distrust aside and went together to Selyse.
The queen mother looked like a stone eaten hollow by salt. Once she learned Varys himself had brought Shireen to the Eyrie, even she understood the two men were in league.
She no longer knew how to fight them. All she could do was stand between them and her daughter like a battered shield.
"Your Grace—forgive me, Queen Mother," Petyr said, voice soft and soothing. "You are safe here. You have seen the Bloody Gate. No army can force it. And we stand inside the Eyrie itself—there is no safer place in the world."
Selyse no longer trusted a single word from his mouth.
"You will not harm my daughter," she said. It was not a question.
Petyr looked at her, then threw back his head and laughed.
The sound made Varys's skin crawl.
"My dear Queen Mother, what dark thoughts you have. I have already sworn myself to Queen Shireen. Why would I ever harm her?"
His smile held a thin edge of scorn. That ugly little girl was useful only for her name—and even then a man would need extra coin to take her to wife.
"Rest easy, Your Grace," Varys added smoothly. "The Baratheon line is dead in the male. No one will trouble you or the child."
They would not butcher a widow and orphan the way Tywin and Robert once had. A Targaryen needed no such butchery to prove his claim.
The promise gave Selyse a thin scrap of peace. Still, living in the Eyrie was no comfort.
The endless wind howled day and night. It left her feeling exposed, rootless. Night after night she dreamed of falling from a great height.
Whether at Brightwater Keep, on Dragonstone, or in King's Landing, she had always fallen asleep to the sound of the sea. Here there was only the wind… and the sounds of Lysa and Petyr at their coupling.
Lysa's cries were so loud and theatrical they barely counted as moans. They were a performance, a victory parade, as if she alone among women still had a man between her legs. The entire castle could hear her.
Within days her voice was raw and ruined, yet she looked happier than she had in years. Whenever she passed Selyse in the corridors she carried her head high, eyes full of triumph, as though she herself were the queen or queen mother.
In those moments Selyse missed Stannis more than she had ever thought possible.