Chapter 15: The Serpent's Sermon

Chapter 15: The Serpent's Sermon

The alliance between Kaelen and Littlefinger operated with the beautiful, silent lethality of a well-oiled garrote. Littlefinger, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the court's greed, identified the pressure points. Kaelen, with his growing network and utter lack of moral restraint, applied the pressure. Their target was no longer a person, but a concept: the unimpeachable reputation of the Red Priestess, Myra of Myr. To isolate the woman, they first had to poison the well of her authority.

Littlefinger provided the name: Narbo Terys, a portly and preening Pentoshi spice merchant whose sudden, uncanny success in the shipping trade had been the talk of the Merchant's Guild. Narbo, Littlefinger explained, was Myra's primary financial instrument. He was the vessel through which she transformed divine prophecy into worldly coin. He was the weak link in her holy chain.

Kaelen understood that this operation required a different kind of finesse. To simply kill Narbo would accomplish nothing. He needed the man's knowledge, his ledgers, and most importantly, his terrified, pliable testimony. This was not a hunt for essence; it was a hunt for evidence.

The first phase was a silent infiltration. Kaelen did not risk sending Rennifer or his clumsy City Watch. This task required a level of skill only he now possessed. On a night thick with the fog that often rolled in from the Blackwater, he became a ghost. Clad in the dark, silent leathers of the assassin he'd harvested, he moved across the rooftops of the Street of Silk. He scaled the wall of Narbo Terys's opulent manse, its garish decorations a testament to new and poorly spent wealth, and slipped through a balcony window into the merchant's private study.

The room was a shrine to mammon. Kaelen's magically enhanced senses drank in the details: the scent of cloves and saffron, the glint of gold leaf on the furniture, the heavy silence of a place where numbers ruled. He moved to a large, iron-banded chest and, with the delicate touch of a master craftsman, disabled the intricate locking mechanism without a single click. Inside, beneath velvet bags of coin and jewels, he found them: Narbo's private ledgers.

He didn't steal them. He studied them. For over an hour, in the heart of his enemy's sanctum, Kaelen sat and absorbed the information. His mind, now equipped with the acumen of a master logistician, devoured the columns of figures. He saw the pattern instantly. Specific shipments, divinely "blessed" with success, corresponded with large, discreet payments made to a charitable fund for the "Faith of R'hllor in Westeros"—a fund whose sole administrator was the Lady Myra. The evidence was damning. Using a small kit he had brought, he made meticulous copies of the most incriminating pages, then replaced the ledgers exactly as he had found them. He exited as he had come, a phantom in the night.

The second phase required a more brutal touch. Two nights later, a squad of City Watch, led by a grim-faced Captain Rennifer, battered down the door of Narbo Terys's manse. The official charge was smuggling—a charge Kaelen knew to be true from his own observations. The terrified Pentoshi was dragged from his bed, his protests of his friendship with powerful lords falling on deaf ears. He was not taken to the city dungeons. He was taken to a private, sound-proofed room in a discreet property owned by Kaelen near the city wall.

The interrogation was a masterpiece of psychological warfare. Kaelen entered the room alone, his face calm, his demeanor almost pleasant. He did not bring instruments of torture. He brought a chair, a cup of wine for himself, and the copies of the ledger pages.

"Narbo Terys," Kaelen began, his voice quiet. "You are in a great deal of trouble. Smuggling, tax evasion, conspiracy… I could have you rotting in a black cell for the rest of your short life. Or I could have you found in an alley tomorrow morning, another victim of the city's violent nature. No one would question it."

He slid the copied ledger pages onto the table. "However, your true crime is not against the Crown. It is against a far more dangerous power. You have been conducting business with the Red Priestess, Myra of Myr."

Narbo's face, already pale, turned the color of tallow. "She is a holy woman! A friend of Lord Stannis!"

"She is a charlatan who uses visions to play the market, and you are her accomplice," Kaelen stated flatly. "And I have the proof. Proof of every transaction, every 'donation,' every prophecy for profit."

He let the merchant stew in his own terror, could almost taste the man's despair. "I am offering you a third option, Narbo. A choice your partners in this venture will not have. You will tell Lord Stannis everything. You will confess your part in this scheme, this heresy. In exchange for your complete and honest cooperation, I will ensure that your crimes against the Crown are forgiven. You will be quietly exiled back to Pentos with enough of your fortune to live out your days in comfort. If you refuse… well, the gutters of Flea Bottom are always hungry."

Faced with the utter ruin of his position and the cold, undeniable promise of death in Kaelen's eyes, Narbo Terys broke completely. He wept, he babbled, he confessed everything.

The final phase was the sermon itself. Kaelen requested a private audience with Stannis Baratheon, framing the matter as one of grave importance that touched upon the honor of the royal house. Stannis, ever dutiful and suspicious, granted the meeting in his spartan solar in the Red Keep, a room as grim and unforgiving as the man himself. Myra was not present.

"My Lord Stannis," Kaelen began, his voice imbued with the gravitas of the statesman he had consumed. "I come to you not merely as the Master of Laws, but as a loyal servant to your brother and a staunch defender of your family's honor. An honor which, I fear, is being tarnished by one within your own household."

Kaelen laid out his case with the precision of a master prosecutor. He spoke of the sacred trust between a lord and his council, the danger of foreign influence, the insidious poison of corruption masquerading as faith. He presented the evidence—the ledgers, the timelines, the flow of gold—weaving a narrative that was impossible to refute. He was careful never to attack the Lord of Light himself, only the woman who was perverting his gifts for profit.

"She uses your name as a shield and her god as a pretext to enrich herself," Kaelen concluded, his voice resonating with cold, righteous anger. "She makes a mockery of the very duty and honor that you, my lord, hold so dear."

He had aimed his argument like a spear, directly at the heart of Stannis's rigid, unbending worldview.

At the end of his presentation, he had the trembling Narbo Terys brought in. The merchant, coached and terrified, delivered his confession flawlessly, detailing every meeting, every prophecy, every payment.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Stannis did not move. He sat as still as a stone effigy on a tomb, his face a granite mask. But Kaelen could feel the fury radiating from him, a cold, pressurized rage far more terrifying than Robert's explosive temper. His jaw muscles worked, a sign of the immense pressure building within him. A priestess he had trusted, whose counsel he had valued, had used him. The betrayal was absolute, the stain on his honor unbearable.

When it was over, Stannis spoke, his voice low and dead. "Leave me. Send the woman to me."

Kaelen knew he had succeeded.

The confrontation between Stannis and Myra must have been a chilling affair. Kaelen did not witness it, but he heard the aftermath. Myra was seen leaving Stannis's solar, her face ashen, her burning eyes extinguished, replaced by the hollow look of a believer whose god has fallen silent. Stannis had not ordered her execution. He had done something far crueler to a woman like her: he had judged her, found her unworthy, and cast her out. She was banished from his service, banished from the Red Keep, and ordered to be on the first ship back to Myr at dawn. Her protection was gone. Her spirit was broken. She was finally vulnerable.

The hunt was on.

Kaelen found her in the pre-dawn fog of the docks, a lone figure in dark red robes, waiting near the gangplank of a shabby merchant cog. The bustling energy of the port had not yet begun; it was a place of quiet, lapping water and the ghosts of sleeping ships.

"Lady Myra," he said, his voice emerging from the mist.

She spun around, a gasp escaping her lips. She was no longer the formidable, confident priestess. She was just a woman, alone and afraid.

"You," she whispered, her voice trembling. "This was your work."

"Justice is my work," Kaelen replied, stepping into the dim light of a dockside lantern. "Your god offered you visions, and you used them to haggle over the price of saffron. It seems the Lord of Light is a poor judge of character."

"He is a god! You are… nothing!" she hissed, but there was no conviction in her voice. Her faith, the bedrock of her power, was fractured. She raised her hands, chanting a desperate prayer, trying to summon the fire. A small, pathetic flicker of flame danced in her palm, sputtering and weak.

"Your fire is dying, priestess," Kaelen mocked, walking towards her with a slow, deliberate pace. "It seems your lord has abandoned you in your hour of need. Or perhaps," he leaned in close, his voice a venomous whisper, "he was never there at all. Perhaps the power was yours all along, and you were simply too small, too weak-witted, to realize it."

This was the final, fatal blow to her spirit. The seed of doubt he planted blossomed into utter despair in her eyes. It was in that moment of spiritual collapse that he struck.

His hand darted out, not with a dagger, but with a touch. He grabbed her by the throat, his will, cold and absolute, surging into her. The absorption began, and he savored the unique, exquisite taste of this harvest.

It was a torrent of heat and light, but it was structured, disciplined. He felt her knowledge of the fire, her control over it, but this time he also felt the power source behind it: the vast, oceanic reservoir of faith. He did not become a believer, but he stole the divine connection. He siphoned the very conduit that linked her to her god. He felt the knowledge of her rituals, the meaning of the visions in the flames, the language of prophecy. He was not just taking her skill; he was taking her divinity.

Her body convulsed, the light in her eyes fading completely, replaced by a profound, empty darkness. He let her fall to the cobblestones, a hollowed-out husk. He picked up her limp form and, with a single, powerful heave, tossed her into the dark, cold waters of the Blackwater Bay. She would be just another soul lost in the uncaring city.

Kaelen returned to his chambers as the sun began to rise, feeling the new power settle within him. He was incandescent. He walked to his hearth and stared into the cold, grey embers. He extended a hand, focusing the stolen faith, the divine spark, within him.

The embers began to glow. A single, small flame flickered to life, then another. Soon, the entire hearth was ablaze with a roaring, dancing fire that burned with an intensity no normal wood could produce. He stared into the heart of the inferno, and for the first time, he saw what Myra had seen.

The visions were chaotic, a maelstrom of unfiltered probability. He saw a lion with a golden mane fall from a high cliff. He saw a great, grey kraken pulling a silver dragon into the depths of a stormy sea. He saw the stag he had served, Robert, being gored by a black boar in a forest of green. Fleeting, confusing, powerful. He now possessed his own oracle.

His obsession, already profound, now became absolute. He had tasted the magic of Ice and Blood, of chaotic Fire, and now of disciplined Faith. He knew there were other flavors, other powers to be consumed. The trail of the bastard of Winterfell, the child of Ice and Fire, called to him with a new, desperate urgency.

But as he plotted his eventual journey north, a report from Captain Rennifer came. A trading galley, newly arrived from Qarth, was causing a stir at the docks. Its captain, a man with lips stained blue, spoke of the wonders of his city, of the Pureborn, the Thirteen, and the ancient and terrible power of the warlocks in their House of the Undying.

The Warlocks of Qarth. Masters of shadow and illusion. Another primary target from his research.

Kaelen stood before the fire, its prophetic light dancing on his face. The world was a feast of unseen quarry. To the cold North, to hunt the child of prophecy? Or to the burning East, to hunt the masters of shadow? For the first time, he had a choice of which path to godhood to walk. And the thought of it filled him with a hunger that threatened to consume the world itself.