"Curiosity is a double-edged sword, both beautiful, and deadly. There's no telling which side you'll get."
A night of innocent exploration turns lethal as Sorcha's sister is captured by human sailors. In her search, Sorcha rescues one of the humans...
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A rat scurried past Gendry's foot. He didn't flinch, there was no point. After days in the bowels of Dragonstone, locked behind bars, he'd learned that nothing could discourage the wretched creatures. Water dripped from the ceiling, forming pungent pools of murky liquid on the cold stone floor. Down in the dungeons, it reeked of stale piss and body odor, and because of this, the guard took up his post at the farthest end of the hallway. Gendry, however, did not have that luxury.
He sat against the frigid stone wall, arms wrapped around himself in a futile attempt to preserve body warmth. The pale skin of his chest was marred by reddish-purple bruises and nail marks from Melisandre and his earlier activities. He cleared his throat and it echoed throughout the darkness. It was raw and scratchy from screaming. The sensation of leeches being placed on every inch of his body would haunt him for years to come, but that wasn't where his mind wandered in the silence.
Gendry was the last remaining bastard of King Robert Baratheon. His blood was the blood of Kings. He, a lowly blacksmith's apprentice from Flea Bottom, was a king's bastard. This didn't mean much in the eyes of society. There were countless bastards of lords and kings and so on, but Melisandre had taken a particular interest in him. She'd come to the brotherhood searching for him by name, then stolen his blood for who knows what purpose. No matter how many times he mulled the events over in his mind, he couldn't seem to put the pieces together.
Footsteps echoed down the hall, each one sharper than the last. Gendry didn't bother to look up, instead, he studied the trail of blotchy markings across his skin and prayed that they would simply disappear, and this would all have been some horrible nightmare. He imagined he was back with the night's watch, traveling safely with Arya and Hot Pie and even Lommy.
