The meeting chamber beneath King's Landing is no throne room. There are no tapestries, no banners, no wine-filled goblets. Only iron and stone, the smell of sweat and oil, and a low-burning brazier that casts flickering shadows on the faces of those seated around the table.
Darian Snow stands at the head, arms crossed, his black tunic damp from the forge. His eyes, molten with quiet fury, scan the gathered lieutenants—men and women from all corners of Westeros. Not nobles. Not knights. Not players in the game. People who were born to lose it. Until now.
At his right, Myla Rivers, fierce and sharp-eyed. Beside her, Tormund Clay, a barrel-chested blacksmith from the Stormlands. Then Kesa, once a healer in Lannisport, now a tactician who studies noble troop movements like maps to salvation.
Darian places a hand on the table, palm flat. Silence falls.
"Lord Eddard Stark is riding for King's Landing. He'll be named Hand of the King by week's end."
Tormund grunts. "The Wolf of the North. Loyal. Honorable. Dangerous."
Myla smirks. "And blind. He'll serve the crown thinking he can fix the rot. He doesn't realize the whole tree's dead."
Kesa leans forward. "Do we act? Strike before the North settles in?"
Darian shakes his head. "No. Ned Stark is not our enemy. Not yet. He still believes in justice. Law. If we strike now, we drive him into the lions' den. He'll think we're madmen."
Myla's brow furrows. "So we wait?"
"No." Darian's voice cuts like tempered steel. "We use him."
He paces the chamber slowly, letting the idea settle. The brazier's flames dance behind him, casting a fiery shadow on the stone wall.
"If Stark sees the corruption—truly sees it—he might act. If he acts, the court will respond. And chaos will bloom. That is when we strike."
Kesa nods, fingers steepled. "We stoke the fire. Whispers. Coin. Leverage."
Tormund chuckles. "Sabotage. I can live with that."
Myla tilts her head. "And what if Stark doesn't act? What if he plays their game?"
Darian stops pacing. His eyes meet hers—hard, resolute.
"Then we expose them. All of them. We steal from the crown, intercept their wagons, humiliate the lords who flog children and call it law. We show the smallfolk who truly bleeds for them, and who feasts on their bones."
There's a murmur of assent, but Darian raises a hand.
"But no butchery. No needless blood. We fight with precision. With purpose. We are not bandits. We are the reckoning the realm forgot."
Kesa unrolls a crude map of the city. "We've been gathering names. Lannister informants. Corrupt guards. Merchants who extort the poor. We can start by crippling their networks."
Tormund slams a fist into his palm. "And the Red Keep?"
Darian looks toward the ceiling, as if he can see the towering castle above them.
"Not yet. We need a spark. Something undeniable. Something the realm can't ignore."
Myla glances at the others. "What about the Targaryen girl across the sea? The Lords are whispering again. War might come."
Darian's lips curl in a grim smile. "Then we won't have to wait long."
He turns to the gathered table, voice low but seething with resolve.
"When chaos comes, the highborn will scramble. That's when we rise—on every road, in every village, from every gutter they pushed us into. We will not wait for their mercy. We will burn down the game."
The lieutenants bow their heads. Not in fealty—but in unity.
Darrow POV -
The water stings at first.
It always does.
The heat bites into my skin like judgment. I lower myself slowly into the iron tub, muscles taut from days of training, nights of forging, and hours of whispered war plans. I exhale sharply as the water laps at my collarbone.
Steam curls around me, ghosting off the surface, blurring the torchlight into dancing fire spirits. The sounds of the Undercity—the hammering, the murmurs, the iron-song of revolution—fade for a moment. Just for a moment.
I sink until only my head remains above the surface.
Silence.
It's louder than the meeting. Louder than the rallying cries of my lieutenants. Louder than the fury that still lives behind my ribs like a caged lion.I close my eyes.
And see the dead.
Not their faces—those fade. It's the aftermath that lingers. A lord strung up by his heels, entrails steaming in the cold dawn. A knight who screamed too long before the blade took his voice. A steward's son whose only sin was wearing the wrong colors. Blood pooled in mud, in snow, in firelight. Some of it by my hand. Much of it by my command.
I wanted this. I still do.
But gods… there are nights I wonder what it means to win.
Will I look back and see myself not as a liberator, but as another tyrant with blood-slick hands and hollow speeches?Will the Sons of Westeros become the very thing we fight?
I reach for the cloth on the basin's edge, scrub at a phantom stain on my arm. It doesn't come off. It never does.
The water has gone red before. I've seen it—after battle, after punishment. Tonight, it's only my mind that stains the bath.
The world won't change with peace talks and parchment. I know that. I've known it since I watched a girl with frostbitten feet beg for bread outside the Red Keep and die choking on rat bones instead.But knowing it doesn't make it easier.
I am killing in my name.Soon, I will kill more. I will teach farmers to become butchers. I will destroy lives so others may live. I will raise kingdoms from the ashes of corpses.Is it justice… or is it just revenge?
My eyes open again. The steam has begun to fade. My breath curls in the air.
I think of my mother. Of the old miner's tales from my dreams—another life, maybe, but no less real. Of fire and chains and the sunless dark. I was born beneath the heel of a boot. Now I'll be the storm that breaks it.
But gods help me…When the screaming starts again, I want to still be able to look into a mirror and remember why I began this.
Not for power.Not for rage.Not even for vengeance.
But for the child in the gutter. For the woman clutching her starving babe. For the men broken before they were ever allowed to dream.
If I become a monster… it will be to slay worse ones.
I stand, the water rippling away from my skin. It's colder now. That's good. I need the cold to remind me I'm still human.Still me.Still Darian Snow.
And there's work to do.