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The Overseer, Waters, carefully and meticulously relayed the news from King's Landing. Although the situation was complex, Clay was able to grasp its essence with clarity.
In truth, the butterfly effect he had unwittingly set into motion had finally rippled down to that foul-smelling southern capital. Because Bran had been spared both the crippling fall and the subsequent assassination attempt, Catelyn Tully never made the journey southward.
Had things proceeded as they once did, White Harbor would, by now, have already received a raven calling for troops to be assembled and readied for war.
According to Overseer Waters, Tyrion Lannister had successfully returned to King's Landing. As ever, he maintained the debauched persona of a playboy noble, frequenting the city's most prominent brothels without a care in the world.
He had not been intercepted by the returning Catelyn Tully in the Riverlands, nor had he been shackled and dragged off to the Eyrie.
Beyond merely delaying open hostilities between two great houses, this twist of fate had brought about an unexpected consequence.
That was, Eddard Stark's investigation in King's Landing had not been hindered in any significant way by external forces.
Originally, Jaime Lannister would have intercepted Eddard right outside the brothel where he had been tracking the king's bastards. That confrontation would leave Eddard with a severely injured leg and cost the lives of many Stark men who had accompanied him to the capital.
It was from that moment onward that Eddard's authority as Hand of the King began to wane. When a Lannister, known as the Kingslayer no less, injured the Hand in broad daylight and escaped without so much as a scratch, the imbalance of power between the Starks and Lannisters in King's Landing began to surface, visible to all.
Put another way, if Eddard Stark had marched into King's Landing with thousands of men instead of merely a few hundred, one can only imagine how differently events might have unfolded in the throne room. At such a decisive moment, whom would the ever-calculating Lord Petyr Baelish have chosen to support?
With thousands of battle-hardened Northerners camped outside the city gates, loyal only to the direwolf banner, even if Eddard Stark had sealed the gates of the Red Keep and executed Cersei, Joffrey, and the rest of the Lannisters in cold blood, there likely would have been no consequences.
He could have claimed the Iron Throne for himself, and not a single noble in the city would have dared to object. Power speaks louder than lineage—the one truth that applies no matter where in the Seven Kingdoms you go.
A century ago, during the infamous Targaryen civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons, it was the Warden of the North, Cregan Stark, who led tens of thousands of troops into King's Landing toward the war's end, unleashing a torrent of bloodshed in the capital.
Clay knew better than most just how much blood was soaked into the phrase "the Hour of the Wolf."
Thus, in the present day, Eddard Stark's contingent of a few hundred untouched men remained a force not to be underestimated in the festering mire that was King's Landing. After all, Robert Baratheon had ruled the city for years, and everyone knew just how useless the Gold Cloaks had become.
If Eddard's investigation continued smoothly, and he followed the trail left behind by the dying Jon Arryn—the very tome Jon had been reading before his death—there was every chance he had already uncovered the truth about the royal children's lineage.
When Overseer Waters finished his report on the situation in King's Landing, he looked to his command, only to find Clay seated silently, leaning back in his chair with a furrowed brow and a grave expression. His eyes, deep in thought, betrayed no immediate reaction..
What Waters had just reported made it abundantly clear to Clay that events in King's Landing had shifted in subtle, unexpected ways, deviating from the path he had once known.
If Eddard Stark, driven by his cursed sense of honor, continued to make missteps in the cesspool that was the capital, then his unsullied and still-loyal men were all the more vital.
With Tywin Lannister having yet to move his armies and Ser Gregor Clegane not yet unleashed upon the Riverlands, what reason would Eddard have to withdraw these forces from King's Landing?
Even if Robert Baratheon were to meet his death at the tusks of a boar just as before, would Cersei still dare confront Eddard Stark with naked steel the way she once did?
Each of these small divergences, barely noticeable on their own, had begun to pile up, forming a mountain of uncertainty. The future of the Seven Kingdoms, once so clear to him, now wavered in a fog of possibilities. For the first time in a long while, Clay felt unsure of what lay ahead.
As for the task at hand, within a month, he was confident he could increase the number of Witcher squads to more than five. That in itself posed no great challenge.
If granted additional time, he wouldn't hesitate to exhaust all the resources the old man had provided him, drawing more magic to upgrade the signs and produce a few potent potions to further arm his elite hunters.
But time was now a luxury he could no longer afford.
Clay no longer counted on the honorable Eddard Stark to quietly remain in King's Landing, wearing the badge of the Hand as though nothing were amiss, after discovering the throne's heir was nothing more than a product of Lannister incest.
Once Robert died, it was inevitable that the Starks and Lannisters would come to blows in King's Landing. But as for how that conflict would end—Clay no longer dared to guess.
All he knew was that he was now racing against the clock. There were some things that simply had to be accelerated.
The red comet had already begun its journey across the sky—a harbinger of destiny, a sign that dragons were stirring once more in the lands of the East. As one with the potential to command such beasts, Clay needed to complete the assimilation of the Dragonlord's bloodline before that fateful moment arrived.
If he managed to hatch a fledgling dragon only in the final stages of the war—barely beyond its shell and no larger than a dog—then truly, it might have been better never to create one at all.
Both Rhaegal the Green and Viserion the White had perished to scorpion bolts. If Clay's dragon was even smaller and weaker than theirs, it would be more of a burden than a weapon—drawing danger to him like moths to a flame.
When you are only marginally stronger than others, they will stop at nothing to drag you down. But when you are overwhelmingly powerful, beyond their comprehension, they will fall to their knees and worship you, groveling at your feet.
After a long silence, Clay finally issued the first order of the meeting.
"Mobilize all White Sea Guard operatives stationed in the Vale and Riverlands. Send them to King's Landing at once. They are to cooperate with the local agents and uncover every possible detail concerning Lord Eddard Stark and the movements of the Stark men stationed in the city."
"Milord…" three voices spoke up simultaneously. They were the overseers responsible for the affected regions. Though none dared question Clay's command outright, it was clear from their tone that they sought to understand his reasoning.
After all, they were Northerners at heart. To be ordered to spy on Lord Eddard Stark, the Warden of the North—whom all of them revered—was something that sat uneasily in their hearts.
Clay understood what they were asking, but he had no intention of offering a true explanation. What was he supposed to say? That the king's heirs were all bastards born of Lannister incest? That the king himself was soon to die?
Saying such things wouldn't count as explanations—they would only invite greater chaos.
"I simply wish to understand why Lord Eddard Stark is investigating the king's bastards," Clay replied calmly, giving them an excuse that was vague and harmless. "Surely, our lord would not act without reason."
This excuse would suffice. For now, the Wolf's Den only knew about the investigation itself—they had no insight into the deeper truth behind it. Clay's answer would keep things quiet, at least for the time being.
As for the other reports delivered by the overseers, Clay hadn't heard anything particularly surprising.
The Vale remained sealed off, as expected, and the White Sea Guard's intelligence-gathering efforts there were extremely limited.
The Westerlands had seen fewer losses recently, as the operatives there had begun keeping a low profile. But that also meant he had lost a crucial eye on that part of the realm.
Still, this wasn't a pressing issue. Once chaos erupted in King's Landing, Tywin Lannister would move his forces, regardless of who emerged victorious. And when those armies began to march, there was little doubt where they would be headed.
Naturally, they would descend upon Riverrun, the ancestral home of House Tully. Clay didn't even bother to guess otherwise.
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[Chapter End's]
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