Chapter 18: The First Execution - Part 2
Mira found me at dawn, face pale.
"Harren's alive. City healer's quarters. Two Gold Cloaks guarding him round the clock."
I cursed quietly. "What are they saying?"
"That someone attacked their former brother. Some drunk claims he saw demons." She handed me a scrap of parchment. "Here's the location. But Ulf—you can't get to him now. They're watching."
I read the address. Not far. But she was right—a direct attack would draw every Gold Cloak in the city.
"Keep watching. Report if anything changes."
She left.
I sat at my table, thinking.
Direct assault: too risky. Harren was protected, wounded, probably coherent enough to describe his attacker if pressed. The guards would be alert, expecting another attempt.
But wounded men needed water. Food. Medicine.
And I had poison resistance that made me immune to substances that would kill normal men.
Subtle. Make it look natural.
The alchemist's shop smelled like sulfur and desperation.
Dorna looked up from her mortar, recognized me. Her expression soured. "You again. What now?"
"Rat poison. Stronger than last time."
"How much stronger?"
"Enough to drop a full-grown man."
She set down her pestle. "That's not for rats."
"My rats are very large."
"Right." She didn't believe me but didn't care enough to refuse the coin. Pulled a clay bottle from the back shelf. "Concentrated arsenic. A spoonful in water will kill in hours. Painful, but effective." She set it on the counter. "Five silver stags."
Expensive. But worth it.
I paid. She took the coin without comment, handed over the bottle.
"Be careful with that. It'll kill you just as fast as anyone else."
Not me. Not anymore.
"I'll be careful."
The healer's quarters were in a converted townhouse near the Street of Silk. Two floors, multiple rooms for recovering patients. Guards at the front door.
I watched from a nearby tavern, nursing ale I wouldn't drink, studying patterns.
Two guards. Rotating every four hours. During the changeover, they'd talk for five minutes. Shift briefing. Gossip. Standard procedure.
Five minutes when they were both distracted.
I waited for the evening change. Watched the new guards arrive, greet the old ones, start talking.
Slipped out of the tavern. Approached from the side. Used Kami-e to flow around their line of sight, body bending in ways that made me nearly invisible in the gathering dusk.
They kept talking. Didn't notice me slip past.
Inside: narrow hallway. Stairs leading up. Voices from upper rooms.
Harren was on the second floor. I'd paid a street urchin to ask the healer earlier, pretending to be a concerned friend.
I climbed the stairs. Silent. Light weight making my footsteps nonexistent.
The hallway had four doors. I listened at each, using my enhanced hearing.
Third door: labored breathing. Wet, rattling. Broken ribs. Had to be Harren.
I tested the handle. Unlocked. The healer's quarters weren't a prison—just a place for the injured to recover.
I eased it open. Slipped inside. Closed it behind me.
Harren lay on a cot, heavily bandaged around his torso. Unconscious or sleeping. Pale. Sweating. Fever from infection, probably.
A water pitcher sat on the table beside the bed.
Perfect.
I pulled out the arsenic bottle. Poured the entire contents into the pitcher. Swirled it gently. The liquid turned faintly cloudy but otherwise looked normal.
Enough to kill three men. Harren would drink, sicken, die. The fever and infection would mask the poison. Just another casualty of untreated wounds.
I set the bottle down, started to leave—
Harren's eyes opened.
We stared at each other for one frozen heartbeat.
He tried to speak. Failed. Too weak. Mouth working soundlessly.
I could finish it now. Smother him with a pillow. Quick. Certain.
But the guards were right downstairs. Any noise, any struggle, and they'd come running.
Harren's eyes held mine. Recognition dawning. The man from the alley. The demon who'd broken his ribs.
I leaned close. Whispered. "This is mercy. You won't suffer long."
His hand twitched toward the bell rope beside the bed. Too slow. Too weak.
I used Kami-e to flow out of the room, shadows and stillness, before his fingers could reach the rope.
Into the hallway. Down the stairs. The guards were still talking outside, shift change wrapping up.
I slipped past them the same way I'd entered.
Gone before anyone knew I'd been there.
Three days.
I counted every hour.
My informants reported: Harren's fever worsened. He couldn't keep food down. Vomited blood. Convulsions. Delirium.
The healer tried everything. Leeches. Poultices. Prayer.
Nothing worked.
On day seventy-three, Mira brought the news.
"He's dead. Died this morning. They're saying infection from his injuries. Bad luck."
I paid her. Sent her away.
Sat alone in my room.
One head of the beast, dead.
Harren—former Gold Cloak, butcher, would-be child-killer—had died vomiting blood in a healer's bed, probably thinking demons had cursed him.
The Gold Cloaks mourned. Former brothers talking about hard times and harder men. Harren got a pauper's burial, attended by three people who'd known him from the Watch.
No one suspected murder. Just bad luck compounding bad injuries.
Clean. Efficient. Untraceable.
And I felt nothing.
No triumph. No guilt. Just cold, practical relief.
One target eliminated. One remaining.
I'd killed a man. Premeditated. Calculated. Not in combat. Not in self-defense. Murder.
Marcus Cole had killed in war. In the cage. But always with rules, with frameworks that said it was justified.
This was different.
I'd poisoned a wounded man in his sickbed because I knew—knew—he would eventually help murder children.
Future crimes. Future sins. I'd executed him for things he hadn't done yet in this timeline.
But he would have. He took Daemon's gold. He mapped the passages. He planned it.
I pulled out Jaehaera's pebble from my pocket. The one she'd given me. "It won't break," she'd said.
Neither would I.
The Dance would come. Daemon would plot. Otto would scheme. And eventually, in the original timeline, Cheese and Harren—Blood and Cheese—would make Helaena choose which child to kill.
Not anymore.
One head dead. One to go.
I was a killer now. A murderer. The line between fighter and assassin, crossed and left behind.
Fine.
The Dance would birth monsters anyway. Daemon burning the Riverlands. Aemond massacring Sharp Point. All of them turning into killers for a throne that would destroy their family.
I'd just become one first. On my terms. For my reasons.
Not for a throne. For two children who deserved to grow up without trauma. For a woman who saw the future and feared it.
That was worth the stain on my soul.
I put the pebble back in my pocket, stood, and headed for the door.
Tomorrow: continue surveillance on Cheese. Plan the second execution. Make sure the beast died completely before it could ever threaten Helaena's children.
Tonight: train. Get stronger. Harder. More dangerous.
Because crossing one line meant accepting there would be others.
And I'd cross every single one of them if it meant keeping my promise.
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