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CHAPTER THIRTEEN secrets
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interlude.
"YOU THINK THEY MIGHT learn to love each other?"
The Red Woman stood near the door, her hands clasped together, hidden beneath the colour of her robes. The air was stale, and incense spread like mist through the room, smelling of flowers so sweet they might be rotting. "To care about anyone at all means inevitably to suffer," she said calmly. "The girl will realise that soon enough. After all, what is compassion?"
Lord Larys Strong smiled viciously, like a hunter might tease its prey. It would have been unsettling, but the woman in red had met many men like him, and would meet many more in the future: spiders and mockingbirds preaching chaos. "Did you see that in the flames?" asked the Clubfoot, mocking.
"The Lord of Light shows me what I need to see," the Red Lady replied. "You do not need to believe in order to see that to feel what another does is to exhaust yourself with double the pain." She looked to the window, watched as dawn set upon King's Landing. "No, this will be violent, destructive, like cutting the heart from the chest and giving it to another."
Lord Larys settled his hands on his cane, prying, "So what is this? The plan within the plan?"
"Even those who don't worship the Lord can serve his cause," said the lady. "You've sent the girl down a path, now you must make sure she walks it until the very end."
"Are you trying to influence me?" questioned Lord Larys.
"Are you implying that would work?" countered the Red Woman.
That seemed to amuse the Master of Whispers, he grinned, and the edge of it was like a knife. He turned his back, let his fingers dance over the flowers in the vase. One bud was missing, as if it had been ripped away. "And the boy?" he wondered.
"His loyalties are certain. He will fight and bleed as is foreseen."
Lord Larys stopped, pondered his options. Like a cockroach, the woman thought, a cockroach bathed in shadows. "To do this is to plunge the realm into war, sibling against sibling."
