Chapter 23 — The Scapegoat
Five minutes later, Varys opened another drawer and took out a small stack of pale yellow parchment, along with a quill and an ink bottle.
He began to write—silent, focused—filling three whole pages before finally stopping.
When the ink dried, he carefully rolled the parchments together, slipped them into his sleeve, closed the window, and left the room.
Drogon waited until Varys was out of sight and watched him walk into the other building in the courtyard—the one whose window faced directly into the sun.
Too exposed. Drogon didn't dare move closer.
Varys stayed inside only briefly before coming out again.
He scanned the courtyard cautiously, locked the gate, and departed.
Only once Varys had walked far enough did Drogon return to the courtyard.
He broke the window of the sorcerer's room, pulled open the drawer containing parchment and ink, and spread a sheet across the table.
If he was going to communicate with Varys, this was the only way.
A dragon without a human voice needed ink to speak.
Fortunately, dragon inheritance did more than grant him magic — it let him understand multiple languages and read every written form.
Writing, however, was another matter; that he had to learn on the spot.
His small claws were dexterous — years of gutting prey for food had ensured that — and he paused, recalling the letters of the Common Tongue.
The script was alphabet-based, similar to English, not too complex.
The parchment was soft and springy, like writing on damp paper.
Two sheets were ruined before he managed a third — shaky, uneven, but legible.
The message was finished.
He was about to return the parchment to the drawer when a thought struck him — Shireen.
The sweet girl with the mismatched face and gentle smile.
He took another sheet and wrote two short lines for her as well.
He left a few parchments behind just in case anyone needed them later, but the quill and ink box went into his backpack — never knew when ink would be needed again.
Drogon closed the damaged window and flew off to catch up with Varys.
It didn't take long.
He soon spotted the leisurely pace of the bald spymaster again in the distance.
This time Drogon followed him north to a shabby little courtyard pressed against the inner city wall.
Varys unlocked that gate as well.
Drogon checked for danger — no guards, no watchers — and while Varys stepped inside, he swooped down and placed his letter neatly on the stone table in the courtyard.
Then he retreated, perching high on a roadside tree where dense leaves hid him from view.
He didn't have to wait long.
Barely a quarter of an hour later, two ravens launched from the house's window — carrying the messages Varys had written earlier.
A moment later, Varys himself stepped outside, holding three scrolls in hand.
The wax seals had been broken and smeared — he'd clearly read them.
Head lowered, he walked slowly, reading the last scroll as he moved toward another doorway.
Then — movement stopped.
From the corner of his eye, Varys noticed something on the stone table.
"…Hmm?"
He frowned — not with irritation, but with suspicion — and scanned the courtyard first.
From high in the tree, Drogon ducked his small head behind clusters of leaves, unmoving.
Finding nothing out of place, Varys approached and picked up the parchment.
He began to read.
The deeper he went, the more his breath shortened.
By the final line, a cold sheen of sweat covered his bald forehead.
Ever since Varys created his "little birds," letting his network stretch across four whole continents, he had not felt panic like this — a panic that left him feeling stripped naked and exposed, as though every secret had been laid bare before prying eyes.
Clutching the thin parchment, he glanced around the courtyard again.
The ironclad confidence he once had — control over information, control over continents — suddenly cracked.
Even his trust in his own little birds faltered for the first time.
And beneath it all, something far more unsettling lurked:
Fear of the messenger.
Because some of what was written in the letter were things he had never told a soul.
Some were secrets he had only considered in the privacy of his own mind — ideas not yet acted upon — and yet, there they were, laid out on the parchment as though copied straight from the inner walls of his heart.
Yes, it was no secret that Daenerys Targaryen possessed three dragons.
Varys himself had reported that to the newly crowned King Joffrey.
He had even mentioned it to Tyrion Lannister.
But the information he provided was vague, incomplete, and old — just enough for them to dismiss Daenerys as a distant curiosity, not a threat.
No mention of their true size.
No details on their appearance or strength.
According to every history book, dragons needed three to five years after hatching before they even began to grow into their power.
And even then, they needed to be tamed and bonded to a rider before they could be used in war.
So naturally, the Iron Throne felt no urgency.
A Targaryen girl thousands of leagues away, with three fledgling dragons?
They had better things to fear.
But the letter said more — much more.
It stated outright that Varys had deliberately hidden the real dragon intelligence.
That he planned to abandon the Iron Throne and choose another monarch.
That his chosen candidate was Daenerys Targaryen.
Varys' pupils trembled.
He had voiced some of these thoughts only once — to Eddard Stark, deep in the blackness of the dungeons.
Honesty shared only because Ned Stark was stubborn, noble, and dying — and because he would never betray the truth.
He died before he ever had the chance.
And still, the letter went even further.
It claimed Varys intended to help Tyrion Lannister escape King's Landing, so he could later serve Daenerys.
An idea Varys himself had not yet decided on — merely a faint possibility for the future.
Because despite everything, he had not fully given up on King's Landing.
Daenerys, for now, remained only his "prospective queen."
So how — how — could anyone know all this?
The shock slowly gave way to anger.
There was only one person who might understand his mind this deeply —
Petyr Baelish. Littlefinger.
That rat, that master manipulator, whose whispers could unmake kingdoms and whose schemes made Varys' subtle games look almost innocent.
Only he would dare peel Varys' mind apart like this.
Only he had the capacity — and the malice — to weaponize it.
It suddenly seemed obvious.
Baelish must have learned that Varys intended to sabotage his plan to smuggle Sansa out of King's Landing — so he left this letter as a threat.
A warning.
A leash.
Varys' lips trembled with contained fury.
He had never claimed to be a good man.
He had done dark things — especially in Pentos, after the day he was… mutilated.
Memories he himself found shameful to recall.
But the lack of virtue did not stop him from respecting the good and despising the wicked.
Otherwise, he would never have tried to persuade Ned Stark to publicly confess and save his life.
He would never have bared his secret dream — that he did not serve kings, but common folk.
And the man he despised most — even more than Cersei — was Petyr Baelish.
Once the anger settled, calculation returned.
If Joffrey or Cersei received this letter, they would not hesitate to execute him.
And with recent intelligence failures staining his record, they would seize any excuse to believe the worst.
If that happened, Varys would have only one path left — to flee to Daenerys.
And whether he could escape safely would be another matter entirely.
No — Littlefinger would not reveal his hand so early.
This letter was not merely a threat.
It was bait.
The first step of a larger design in which Varys was meant to play a role.
Even Varys felt a headache.
Does this mean I must abandon King's Landing?
Not yet.
Daenerys had freed the Unsullied and seized Astapor — but her intentions were still unproven.
Was it liberation out of compassion, or simply a tactic to build an army of elite soldiers?
And what would she do next — in Yunkai, the city of 200,000 bed-slaves, a place where freeing the enslaved offered no military advantage at all?
He needed more time.
More information.
And first, he had to learn what Littlefinger wanted from him.
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