masquerade | house of the dragon

the leech

28 DAYS BEFORE THE DISASTER

"What I want is a simple thing. I want it to be discreet, and impossible to be found. And definitely not a poison.", he grimaced. "That can be found pretty easily."

"What you want is expensive."

"I have enough gold to cover it up. Just make sure the job is done."

The elderly man pushed himself to the shadows even more and turned his back to the other man, opened a few boxes and then let out a chuckle. "I never thought that I would be using these one day."

When he turned he was holding a flower. It had a green and hollow stem with purple strings on its lower half.

"I said no poison."

"But you must see m'lord if it's not poison that it must be magic and magic always comes with a price."

"I can pay for it."

"It will not be you who pays it.", the elderly man said with a shaky tone. "It will be who you hold deer."

There was no one he hold deer.

"As I said.", he pressed the words and took a step towards to the old man. "No poison."

The elderly man looked at him with pity but turned nevertheless and took a very old and dusty box from the end and looked unsure at first. When he opened it he murmured 'Gods be good' and then took a tweezer and held the thing in the box with it and showed it to the man.

"This doesn't seem like magic."

"But it is the darkest of magics.", the elderly man whispered. "It came from Qohor and is highly deadly."

"This little thing?", he asked with a secret smile, he knew what it was too well. The man was holding a very little worm-like purple thing that had blue spots on it. "How does it work?"

"Put this to the chambers of the person who you wish to kill and make sure there is no one else but that person. The worm will find its way."

"And it will do what?", he was starting to get fascinated by it.

"It will be tangled with the person's hair and the moment the person falls asleep, it will enter from their ear and reach their brain. It will cause a coma, but the person will be awake every second with immense pain but can't even open their eyes."

"So while everyone thinks she is peacefully sleeping-"

"She will lay there awake and wait for the pain to end."

"How much?"

"I cannot accept gold m'lord, I don't want its curse to be fell upon me too."

"Good.", the younger one said and after he got the box and pulled his knife and cut the elderly man's throat.

*

26 DAYS BEFORE THE DISASTER

"Nothing you had done before worked, maybe we need to summon someone who knows what he is doing.", Aegon spoke for the first time.

He had healed from his little poisoning adventure. Daeron -thanks to his luck, found out Daemon's plan and stopped it but framing Daemon and pitting him against Rhaenyra was a better plan and Aegon was used to pain. He knew he wasn't going to die but it definitely felt like it. And the moment he felt better they heard about Helaena's sudden illness.

She went to bed that night and didn't wake up ever since.

"My prince,", the Maester gritted his teeth. "I am perfectly capable of my own and doing my best job."