The morning rays matured, although the light was not strong enough to cut through cold winds. Varys was surrounded with tents; his ears open to the distant din of sword on steel. It had been going for hours now. They must be close to the end. He felt frigid arms tighten upon themselves, even though outer tents faced harsher winds than he. Gods, thought he. It must be hell at the Wall.
Beside him was Missandei. Varys yet processed the news she had just told her. “You’re certain?” he said, an ear still on the battle, the screeching dragon, the charging hooves.
“Yes,” she said, gleefully. “At first, I believed the upset stomach was because of the travels. It is not so. Her breasts heave. Her belly swells slightly. We are indeed blessed.”
“Indeed.” The succession was safe, and so were his worries. Hand to the Queen was an office that flattered his gifts. Tyrion’s murder had given him the badge of golden fingers, but he knew it was to be brief, until the war was over. Tyrion was an Imp, but a lion of House Lannister – Varys had no titles, no sworn swords, only whispers.
Daenerys, he supposed, had thoughts of naming Jon Snow her Hand once the war was over, but the pregnancy would mean he may be named her husband. Either way, Varys would not have to sit the ugly iron chair.
The hooves increased now. They came in their direction.
“The war is won,” Varys said to Missandei. “That must be Qhono and the other bloodriders with the news.”
Silently they waited. The voices increased slowly, then rapidly. It came to a crescendo… and then decreased again, as if the riders had left. New noise replaced it. The noise of chaos in nearby tents.
“What is going on?” Missandei asked. An Unsullied lieutenant, one of three-thousand guarding them, entered their tents. “There is a problem, Lord Hand,” he said shortly. “A horde of Dothraki flee from the Rosby Road. Should this one march to the battlefield with the rest of the men?”
The confusion he felt turned to fright. “At once,” he said. “And take us with you.”
Swiftly they rode through the Rosby Road, leaving tents erected. The Dothraki do not flee from battle, not unless they find their khaleesi weak. Was the war effort in trouble? Did something happen to the dragon? Had Cersei used wildfire? He hoped they would not be too late.
When they reached, the war was over.
Varys had seen many battlefields. He had already covered his face with black cloth, constricting his nose from breathing the bodies, leaving spare space for eyes. They trotted past where the Iron Gate once stood. Smoke covered their eyes, but not enough to hide the ruins of Flea Bottom and the Red Keep. Varys struggled to steer his horse through a path not strewn with charred corpses or sticky blood. He heard Missandei vomit beside. Poor girl, he thought. I should have warned her.
Ellaria Sand’s Dornishmen were the only army on the battlefield. “We broke through the Mud Gate,” she said grimly. “We hardly lost a hundred men. All the Windblown did was hide, stall and beg for time, as Littlefinger said they would. The Second Sons were no match for us, not after their commander died.”
It took Varys more time than necessary to comprehend what she had said. “The Second Sons?”
Ellaria took them back to the threshold of the ruined Iron Gate, where he found him. Varys would not have recognized Daario Naharis if he hadn’t taken a closer look. His chest had cracked, and from it escaped cool smoke. The inside of his mouth was blacker than the walls of Harrenhal. Varys looked at the fallen Second Sons, another realization dawning on him like a dull thud. Dragon’s Bay will be in riots, and Daenerys’ empire dust. The shattered ruins of a horn lay beside and Varys, at once, recognized the legendary object.
“Where is Drogon?” he asked Ellaria Sand, suddenly gripped with fear. “And where is Queen Daenerys?”
Ellaria, who already seemed solemn for someone who had won the battle, mutely rode away. Varys and Missandei followed her. I hope she leads us to the Iron Throne, where Daenerys sits with Cersei’s head on a spike, Varys pleaded with himself. He had planned too much for this perfect picture to go horribly wrong.
As the first smatterings of cold rain struck King’s Landing, Ellaria Sand abruptly halted near a pit. Varys glanced inside it.
She had lost her legs, and only had one arm intact. The braids she wore as she won more victories had been burned. The dragon seemed to be cradling the queen, but even in death, they did not look at peace. Varys thought it apt. Peace was a luxury Westeros had lost.
“I’m sorry,” Ellaria was saying. “Cersei Lannister will die for this. We still outnumber her.” To which Varys sullenly replied, “We do, but once we make her pay, who sits the Iron Throne?”
He heard a cry of wail from afar, and realized Missandei was not with either of them. Varys went over to her. The rains had increased, and rivers of blood had made the path slippery.
He maintained his balance as he reached her. “Missandei,” he said, but he stopped when he saw Grey Worm’s corpse in her desperate arms.
The rains wept. Varys imagined they did just as hard in Meereen.
*
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