A Feast for Dragons

boots,
removed his cloak, tossed it to her. “The Grand Maester is expecting me,” he
announced. The girl nodded, solemn and silent, and pointed to the steps.
    Pycelle’s chambers were beneath the rookery, a spacious
suite of rooms cluttered with racks of herbs and salves and potions and shelves
jammed full of books and scrolls. Ser Kevan had always found them uncomfortably
hot. Not tonight. Once past the chamber door, the chill was palpable. Black ash
and dying embers were all that remained of the hearthfire. A few flickering
candles cast pools of dim light here and there.
    The rest was shrouded in shadow … except beneath
the open window, where a spray of ice crystals glittered in the moonlight,
swirling in the wind. On the window seat a raven loitered, pale, huge, its
feathers ruffled. It was the largest raven that Kevan Lannister had ever seen.
Larger than any hunting hawk at Casterly Rock, larger than the largest owl.
Blowing snow danced around it, and the moon painted it silver.
    Not silver. White. The bird is white
.
    The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as
their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one
purpose only: to herald a change of seasons.
    “Winter,” said Ser Kevan. The word made a white mist in the
air. He turned away from the window.
    Then something slammed him in the chest between the ribs,
hard as a giant’s fist. It drove the breath from him and sent him lurching
backwards. The white raven took to the air, its pale wings slapping him about
the head. Ser Kevan half-sat and half-fell onto the window seat.
What … who …
A quarrel was sunk almost to the fletching in his chest.
No. No, that
was how my brother died
. Blood was seeping out around the shaft.
“Pycelle,” he muttered, confused. “Help me … I …”
    Then he saw. Grand Maester Pycelle was seated at his table,
his head pillowed on the great leather-bound tome before him.
Sleeping
,
Kevan thought … until he blinked and saw the deep red gash in the old
man’s spotted skull and the blood pooled beneath his head, staining the pages
of his book. All around his candle were bits of bone and brain, islands in a
lake of melted wax.
    He wanted guards
, Ser Kevan thought.
I
should have sent him guards
. Could Cersei have been right all along?
Was this his nephew’s work? “Tyrion?” he called. “Where …?”
    “Far away,” a half-familiar voice replied.
    He stood in a pool of shadow by a bookcase, plump,
pale-faced, round-shouldered, clutching a crossbow in soft powdered hands. Silk
slippers swaddled his feet.
    “Varys?”
    The eunuch set the crossbow down. “Ser Kevan. Forgive me if
you can. I bear you no ill will. This was not done from malice. It was for the
realm. For the children.”
    I have children. I have a wife. Oh, Dorna
.
Pain washed over him. He closed his eyes, opened them again. “There
are … there are hundreds of Lannister guardsmen in this castle.”
    “But none in this room, thankfully. This pains me, my lord.
You do not deserve to die alone on such a cold dark night. There are many like
you, good men in service to bad causes … but you were threatening to
undo all the queen’s good work, to reconcile Highgarden and Casterly Rock, bind
the Faith to your little king, unite the Seven Kingdoms under Tommen’s rule.
So …”
    A gust of wind blew up. Ser Kevan shivered violently.
    “Are you cold, my lord?” asked Varys. “Do forgive me. The
Grand Maester befouled himself in dying, and the stink was so abominable that I
thought I might choke.”
    Ser Kevan tried to rise, but the strength had left him. He
could not feel his legs.
    “I thought the crossbow fitting. You shared so much with
Lord Tywin, why not that? Your niece will think the Tyrells had you murdered,
mayhaps with the connivance of the Imp. The Tyrells will suspect her. Someone
somewhere will find a way to blame the Dornishmen. Doubt, division, and
mistrust will eat the very ground beneath your boy king, whilst Aegon raises
his banner above Storm’s End and the lords of the realm gather round him.”
    “Aegon?” For a moment he did not understand. Then he
remembered. A babe swaddled in a crimson cloak, the cloth stained with his
blood and brains. “Dead. He’s dead.”
    “No.” The eunuch’s voice seemed deeper. “He is here. Aegon
has been shaped for rule since before he could walk. He has been trained in
arms, as befits a knight to be, but that was not the end of his