"Whispers, Wolves, and Webs"
Chapter 28 – "Whispers, Wolves, and Webs"
The wind shifted in the alleys of King's Landing. It carried the scent of salt from Blackwater Bay and the whispers of old men in red robes. Within the walls of the Red Keep, deeper and quieter threads moved through the stone—spoken not with words, but with glances, letters, and the clink of coin.
---
In a chamber tucked behind the throne room, lit only by a lantern and the glow of dying fire, Lord Varys dipped his quill into black ink. His fingers, delicate and practiced, moved with care.
The parchment before him bore no sigil, no seal—just lines written in the soft, spiderlike flow of a master whisperer.
> "The wolf from the North grows louder. He speaks truth with no fear, and laughs at shadows. He has disrupted the balance. A warhound dressed in man's skin."
He paused, looking out the window toward the courtyard. Cregan Stark had left a trail wherever he walked—of silence, of stares, of unease.
> "The King laughs, but others do not. Lannister pride is wounded. Baelish bleeds ego, and old alliances waver."
Varys sealed the letter with plain wax and slid it into a false bottom in his desk.
He had not yet uncovered all of Cregan Stark's truths, but he had learned one certainty:
The man was not playing a game. And in King's Landing, that made him dangerous.
---
Elsewhere, in the airy upper halls near the Queen's chambers, Lord Petyr Baelish leaned against the marble, sipping wine slowly.
His smile was absent.
"Wolf-blooded brute," he muttered.
The laughter from the council chamber echoed still in his head. Cregan's blunt accusations had exposed inconsistencies in the coin tallies, the harbor tariffs, and Baelish's petty schemes of minor profit.
Three jokes. Three laughs from the court. And no defense.
"Wit in a wolfskin," he scoffed. "They'll cheer now. But they'll forget what he really is."
He tapped a finger against his goblet. Plans swirled behind his green eyes—slow poisons, soft whispers, planted rumors.
"Not today, Stark. But I'll have your shadow before long."
---
The gates of the Red Keep rattled as a young girl sprinted through them barefoot.
Lyanna Stark—four years old, hair tangled with small flowers, her cheeks smudged with mud—charged past startled guards and a groaning old knight.
Behind her, two boys chased—sons of noble houses too winded to continue.
Lyanna turned and stuck her tongue out. "Told you I was faster!"
Cregan's voice echoed down the corridor. "What did I say about bribing the stable boys to untie the hounds?"
"I said sorry!" she shouted over her shoulder. "But they needed to race too!"
Robb, arriving behind his brother, chuckled. "She has your blood."
"She has teeth sharper than mine."
"She bit a Lannister boy last night," Robb added casually.
Cregan grunted. "Which one?"
"The red-faced one."
"Good. He deserved it."
He scooped Lyanna up with one arm as she squealed.
"No fair!"
"You need a bath. You smell like stable."
"I smell like horse because I am a horse!"
"You're a little direwolf. And you're lucky we're not in the North, or I'd toss you in the snow."
Lyanna giggled as he swung her over his shoulder, earning scandalized glances from the corridor.
"You shouldn't let her run like that," a noblewoman whispered to Robb.
"She's Northern," Robb replied in disdain. "We don't break the spirits of our daughters."
---
Far away, beneath the moonlit sky of Winterfell, Kael stood on the ramparts of Frosthall.
The great black wolf had scars across his snout and shoulders—wounds earned not in play, but in battle.
Behind him, lesser wolves paced in the woods. His pack.
He did not howl.
He watched.
His eyes—grey and sharp—tracked every motion in the keep. The little pups of Cregan's blood ran below, the guards sharpened blades, and the sentries changed their posts.
But Kael missed something else.
He missed the weight of his master's hand.
He missed the smell of fire and steel that clung to Cregan's leathers. The deep voice that hummed as they walked the woods. The rare laugh, low and true.
Still, Kael remained.
He was no longer just a beast. He was a guardian.
A black shadow atop a cold wall.
And in the North, the pack watched the world.
---
Back in the capital, whispers spread in court.
Cregan's speech about the Targaryens still lingered in the minds of those present.
"Dothraki are not a threat," he'd said, voice firm. "They are riders. We are walls, steel, and shields. If they cross, they'll die before reaching the mountains."
Some had nodded. Some had paled.
Robert Baratheon had even stormed out of the meeting. Yet even he had paused at the door, teeth grinding—not in rage alone, but doubt.
"Should we fear the past forever?" Cregan had asked.
And now the court asked themselves the same.
---
Atop one of the towers, Lyanna sat beside her uncle, chewing on a tart stolen from the kitchens.
"Do we get to go back home soon?" she asked.
"Soon. We've more to do here."
"Do I have to wear a dress tomorrow?"
"Only if you want to scare the birds."
She giggled. "Can I wear armor like you someday?"
Cregan ruffled her hair. "If the South keeps acting like this, you might have to."
Below them, the Red Keep glowed with lanterns.
And far beyond it, somewhere across the sea, another kind of fire stirred.
But for now, the wolf kept watch.
And the little cub at his side sharpened her claws with laughter.
---
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