Chapter 19: The Second Execution
New moon. No light except distant lantern glow from streets below.
Perfect.
I'd watched Cheese for three nights since Harren's death. Same routine. Every night. Stumble home at midnight, climb to his third-floor room, drink until unconscious.
No guards. No protection. Daemon hadn't contacted him—or if he had, Cheese hadn't changed his patterns.
Amateur. Harren at least had combat instincts. Cheese was just cruel and stupid.
Tonight, I'd fix that.
The tenement was a rotting pile of wood and desperation. Five stories, leaning like a drunk, packed with people too poor to complain about the smell.
I positioned myself on the roof across the street. Waited.
Cheese appeared right on schedule. Weaving through the streets, bottle in hand, singing off-key. He entered the building through the ground floor.
I counted. Five minutes for him to climb the stairs, unlock his door, collapse inside.
Then I moved.
Dropped my weight to ten kilograms. Stepped to the edge of the roof. Kicked the air.
Geppo. The technique still felt unnatural—kicking nothing, somehow gaining height. But it worked. One air-jump carried me across the gap. Second one brought me to Cheese's window.
I landed on the narrow sill, light as a feather. Tested the shutters. Closed but not latched.
Amateur.
I eased them open. Slipped inside.
The room stank. Sweat, wine, piss, rotting food. Cheese lay on a filthy pallet, fully clothed, bottle still clutched in one hand. Snoring. Loud, wet, disgusting.
I stood over him. Studied his face in the darkness.
Ratty features. Weak chin. The kind of man who'd hurt children because he enjoyed the power.
No hesitation.
I shifted my weight. One thousand kilograms. My feet sank slightly into the floorboards. Reached down, placed my hand over his mouth and nose.
His eyes shot open.
He saw me. Recognition and terror mixing in those rat eyes. Tried to scream.
My hand, hardened with Tekkai, didn't budge. His scream died as muffled vibration against my palm.
He struggled. Weak, uncoordinated. Tried to claw at my arm. His nails scraped uselessly against my Tekkai-hardened skin.
Kicked. Thrashed. The pallet creaked. The bottle rolled off, hit the floor with a dull thunk.
I held firm. Watched his eyes bulge. Veins standing out on his forehead.
Thirty seconds. His struggles intensified. Pure panic.
Sixty seconds. The struggles weakened. His hands fell away from my arm.
Ninety seconds. He went still.
I held for another thirty. Making sure.
Then I checked his pulse. Throat first. Nothing. Wrist. Nothing.
Dead.
I straightened, released my weight back to normal. The floorboards creaked with relief.
Stage it.
I positioned him on his back. Poured wine from the fallen bottle over his face, let it soak his shirt. The wine would mask any marks from my hand. Anyone finding him would smell the alcohol, see the position, assume he'd choked on his own vomit.
Checked the room. No signs of struggle. The pallet was already filthy—my footprints wouldn't stand out.
I moved to the window. Closed the shutters from inside, used a thin piece of wire to flip the latch. Locked from within. No sign of entry.
Then I dropped my weight again, stepped onto the sill, and kicked into the air.
Geppo across to the opposite building. Landed on the roof. Looked back.
Cheese's window: dark, shuttered, silent.
By morning, someone would smell the death. Find the body. Call it another drunk's demise.
No one would care. No one would investigate.
I left the roof, moving through King's Landing's night streets like a ghost.
My room. I stripped off my clothes, every piece, and burned them in the small brazier. Couldn't risk anyone finding fibers, bloodstains, anything that connected me to Cheese.
Scrubbed my hands raw. Used harsh soap, coarse cloth. The skin turned red, then pink, then white.
Clean. Physically clean.
But I could still feel it. His struggles. The moment life left his body. The finality of it.
My stomach churned. I forced myself to eat—bread, cheese, water. My body needed fuel regardless of how I felt.
The food wanted to come back up. I swallowed hard, kept it down.
Two men. I've killed two men.
Harren with poison. Cheese with my bare hands.
Both would have murdered children. Both deserved death.
But I'd been their executioner without trial, without proof beyond my foreknowledge.
Stop. Don't think about it. It's done.
I lay down. Closed my eyes. Sleep didn't come for hours.
When it finally did, I dreamed of Jaehaerys laughing and Jaehaera arranging pebbles, and a future where they never had to scream.
Three days passed in training and work. Loading ships for Corlys. Practicing Rokushiki in hidden warehouses. Avoiding the godswood because I didn't know what I'd say to Helaena.
On day seventy-nine, Mira found me.
"Cheese is dead. Found in his room three days back. They're saying he choked on his own vomit. Drunk's death." She shrugged. "Pauper's burial. No one came."
I gave her coin. Sent her away.
Done. Both heads of the beast, dead. Blood and Cheese eliminated before they could ever threaten Helaena's children.
The Dance would still come. But this one horror—this specific nightmare—was prevented.
I should have felt triumph. Relief. Something.
Instead: nothing. Just cold acknowledgment of a task completed.
The godswood. Day eighty. Our scheduled meeting.
I arrived early, sat beneath the weirwood, and stared at my hands. Scrubbed clean but somehow still dirty.
Footsteps. Light. Familiar.
Helaena.
She entered alone—Septa Teora waiting at the entrance, giving us privacy. Sat beside me without speaking.
We stayed like that for a long time. Ten minutes. Maybe twenty.
Then her hand found mine.
"The beast is dead," she whispered.
I went still. "What?"
"The dreams changed. The beast beneath the boards—it's gone now. Rotted completely. No more two heads. Just... nothing." She looked at me with those too-knowing eyes. "You killed it."
Not a question. A statement.
I didn't confirm. Didn't deny.
Her thumb traced patterns on my palm. "You're different now. Harder. Colder. But you're not the beast. You're still you."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because the beast wanted to hurt them. You want to protect them." She leaned her head against my shoulder. "That's the difference."
We sat together as the sun moved across the sky. Not talking. Just being.
And for the first time since I'd suffocated Cheese, the tightness in my chest eased slightly.
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