POV: Darian Snow
The perfume is cloying tonight—honeyed with rose oil and betrayal. Beneath it, there's sweat and heat, the kind only desperation can birth. The brothel is alive with murmurs and movements, velvet curtains swaying as if breathing. Lust is not the only currency traded here. Secrets pass hands with more weight than flesh, and Darian Snow, cloaked and hooded, moves through the hall like a shadow long out of place.
He enters the private lounge without knocking.
Petyr Baelish is already there, seated like a man who owns not just the room, but the world it sits in. He lifts his goblet without looking up. "Do close the curtain. It's terribly drafty when the night creeps in."
Darian doesn't move to obey. He stands near the threshold, gaze scanning the room, clocking everything. A bottle of Arbor Red, two glasses, no weapons visible. But with Baelish, that means nothing. His words are sharper than steel, and twice as deadly.
"I thought you preferred letters and whispers," Darian says. "This seems… direct for a man like you."
Littlefinger finally looks up. "Some messages must be delivered in person. Especially when their sender might soon find himself with a crown of thorns."
Darian lowers his hood, revealing dark curls and sharper eyes. "That sounds like a threat."
Petyr smiles. "Oh, no. Merely a prediction. One does not parade in crimson armor, defeat noble champions, and crown peasant girls in front of a hundred lords without turning a few heads… and sharpening a few blades."
Darian walks to the table, his gloved hand brushing the back of a chair—but he doesn't sit. "I didn't enter the tourney to please lords."
"No," Littlefinger says, voice smooth as oiled silk. "You entered to send a message. And what a message it was. The scythe on your shield… the anonymity… the final act of rebellion, crowning a lowborn girl before a court of lions and peacocks." He chuckles. "Robert laughed, of course. He thought it charming. Cersei wants your head. Tywin wants your name. And I? I want to understand."
Darian meets his gaze. "Do you? Or do you just want to see where the wind is blowing?"
Petyr tips his head in mock concession. "Fair enough. I do enjoy keeping my feet dry. But I also know opportunity when I see it… or when it crashes into a joust and flips the board."
The silence that follows is taut, a thread pulled tight between blade edges.
"Tell me, Lord Baelish," Darian says finally. "What do you think of the realm? Not the one sung by bards or written in treaties. The real one. The realm of starving children and bleeding peasants."
Littlefinger leans back, fingers steepled. "I think the realm is a lie. A story we all tell ourselves so we can sleep at night. The king, the court, the laws… none of it matters without coin and power. And those who have neither? They are the kindling."
Darian's jaw clenches. "That's where you're wrong. They are the fire."
Petyr's smile falters for a heartbeat.
"I've been to the gutters of Flea Bottom," Darian continues. "I've broken bread with starving miners in the Vale. I've watched men die fighting off tax collectors, just so their daughters wouldn't be taken to pay a debt. Your realm is a feast built atop corpses. I'll see it burned to ash before I let it keep bleeding the innocent."
"You sound like a man with a vendetta," Littlefinger observes. "Or perhaps a dreamer with a sword."
"I sound like a man who knows what must be done."
"And what is that, exactly? Slaughter lords? Crown bakers? Replace one tyranny with another?"
Darian finally sits. "You mistake me for a revolutionary." He leans forward, voice low, eyes aflame. "I'm not here to play a better game. I'm here to break the board."
That silences Baelish. Not because he's afraid—but because he's intrigued.
A slow, dangerous grin curls his lips. "Then you'll need allies."
"No," Darian says. "I need silence. Yours, in particular."
Littlefinger narrows his eyes. "And if I decide silence costs more than you can pay?"
Darian's voice is iron. "Then I'll dig your secrets from the dirt and bury you with them."
For the first time, Baelish doesn't smile. The tension hangs thick and still.
But then he chuckles softly, breaking the spell. "You remind me of another young man I once knew. Dead now, of course. They usually are."
"I won't die quietly," Darian says, standing. "And when the storm comes, I hope you're smart enough to be under the right roof."
"And which roof would that be?"
Darian pauses at the curtain. "Mine."
He leaves without another word, disappearing down the hall like a ghost woven from rebellion and ash. Behind him, Petyr Baelish watches the empty space he left behind, expression unreadable. Then he reaches for his goblet and murmurs,
"Gods help us if he's telling the truth."