Eagle of the Valley of Ice and Fire

The mist of the Mead River is thicker, and the water vapor overflows the river, climbs up the street corners, floods the cracked bluestone floors, covers the broken sewer pipes with heavy velvet coats, and hangs low on the Greyjoy family flags flying in the wind everywhere in the houses.

The sea monsters living in the ocean are showing off their power in the streets of Oldtown. Just a few days ago, the figures of the Ironborn could be seen almost everywhere.

But it seems that the Ironborn have evaporated from the world at this moment. People can't see the Ironborn patrolling the streets without scruples on the streets today.

Surprisingly, the residents of Oldtown have not been robbed by the Ironborn. Although the shops have been closed and the doors of the houses have been closed, they have indeed not been harmed.

The civilians habitually observe the Ironborn robbers who often walk and patrol the streets through the window lattices, but at this time, there are only a few Oldtown residents walking on the streets.

Some bold merchants also opened the curtains of their shops, holding a few silver deer in their mouths, and wandering around the mercenaries' chain mail with their hands. Others thought they were pickpockets and thieves.

But people who have lived here for a long time knew that the price had not been negotiated yet. When the mercenaries saw the iron race entering the city, if they did not think of leaving the city in time, they must have thought of raising the hiring fee.

The throat-choking and pungent beacon smoke rose from afar, and the residents of the old town who lived here could recognize the direction of the beacon smoke at a glance.

That was the direction of the towers of the maesters in the academy.

Laresa took the longbow from the closet and skillfully removed the leather sheath that wrapped the bow body, revealing a longbow as black as night.

People familiar with bow and arrow making can recognize at a glance that this is not an ordinary longbow, but made of rare dragon bones, with a small weight but great potential energy when the string is stretched.

He put the dragon-bone bow on his back, reached into the closet, dug out a box, and took out a slightly smaller recurve bow. The craftsmanship of the Dornish was fully reflected on it. The material was made of bent animal horns and the common olive wood in Dorne. The golden-red spear-piercing sun emblem was shining brightly after being taken out of the box for a moment.

"Crack!" The glass shattered with a sound. Laresa held her breath, strung the recurve bow, put three arrows on it, and moved cautiously, lowering her body to the door.

The sound of broken glass like a bell was everywhere, but no screams were heard. Could it be that the maesters were so scared that their throats were blocked?

Laresa moved close to the door, huddled in the dark corner behind the door, and stared at the nearby window.

Through the glittering windows, soldiers were still resisting on the walls of the inner city of the Maester Towers. The flags of the Hightower family were still in the majority, but the heavy armor of the Old Town garrison seemed unable to withstand the flexible machetes of the Ironborn Marauders and the flying axes that attacked from the dark from time to time. The flags were falling one by one, like grass and trees trampled by the knights.

The black spots of the arrows were visible to the naked eye, and even a bunch of arrows fell on the shed under the house here, making crackling sounds.

Lareza did not hesitate, and did not continue to stare out of the window. She glanced at the approaching dusk and rushed out of the door alone. Her hands and feet were nimble and silent. His obsidian skin made him like a black cat under the night, and no one could spy on his whereabouts.

The spiral staircase turned the Maester Tower upside down, and pots and pans discarded wantonly could be seen everywhere, and the air was filled with the smell of urine from the old maester.

Laresa thought as she walked, thinking that it was a wise choice for Hightower to build the family castle and the towers of the maesters together. This made the army that invaded Oldtown unwilling to further offend the inner city due to concerns about tradition and maesters. Originally, the Ironmen stopped after occupying the port and the streets of Oldtown. He thought that the Ironmen also understood the reason, but he didn't expect that only a few days later, the army would be lined up under it, and axes and arrows would fly continuously.

The arrogant Oldtown garrison suffered a setback in the outer city, and from time to time on the towering walls of the inner city, they would look up at the sky and keep an eye on the changes in the clouds.

"Roar! ~" The dragon's roar only shocked the civilians on the ground in the distance, but the dragon flame never fell.

Laresa lifted the movable wooden board at her feet and looked at the corridor deep into the tower. The long corridor was dripping with water. Few bachelors entered here. Although the doctors knew this place, they thought it was dirty and wet and rarely passed by. Only apprentices who continued to do labor work often wandered here.

Assistant bachelors, bachelor apprentices who did odd jobs, some cooks, and craftsmen who renovated the library in the city garden gathered here at the moment.

The city built many such escape corridors, leading directly to the big library. Usually, there were iron doors sealed, and the keys were in the hands of the doctors, but there was no doctor here at the moment. The iron door was sealed all year round, and even if you exhausted your strength, you couldn't push it at all.

Laresa quickly glanced over, looking for familiar faces.

Morand, whose face was still red after not drinking for a few days, Aman, who had a narrow and pointed nose, tightly grasped the four maester chains hanging around his neck, Rune, who was short and fat with tears in his eyes, and Leo Tyrell, who was wrapped in a green and gold striped satin robe and shivered with cold. At this moment, the luxurious shawl he often wore was gone.

"Where is Pate?" Laresa asked in a low voice while distributing the rations in her pocket to everyone.

"Maybe he ran away on the mercenary ship a long time ago." Leo Tyrell said in annoyance, and he pounded the ground hard. "What's wrong with the Hightower family? They didn't fulfill their duty to defend the land and the people for the king of Highgarden. My father doesn't know where he is either. I..."

As he was speaking, this noble son who looked arrogant and domineering on weekdays suddenly trembled all over and sobbed.

Laresa stretched out her hand, tore off a piece of dry biscuit, and stuffed it into Tyrell's sobbing mouth.

The crying stopped immediately. Before Leo could change his face to a surprised one, Laresa's low voice came:

"This time I give you a cake, next time I give you a blade. If your crying disturbs the cruel and ruthless Ironborn, even if we will become prisoners or lose our heads, I will break your throat first."

Tyrell's face was finally changed, but with more fear. He looked at the silent people around him and nodded quickly.

"Where is Pete?" Laresa asked again.

Morand seemed to be more sober. He waved his hand, "I saw him walking towards the Great Library."

Laresa looked at the closed iron door, "The right way?"

"No," Morand shook his head, "It's the escalator corridor where the doctors walked."

Laresa turned her head and looked at the corridor she had walked through before. A faint light penetrated from the side and above, and she calculated the distance in her mind.

He carried the bow on his back and stepped over quickly, but still without making any sound. He climbed up the ladder with his hands, one in front and one behind, and quietly pushed open the wooden board. He looked around with his eyes, and after checking that there was no one, he quickly stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the inner city wall.

He didn't know what was going on in the outer city, but he knew that Earl Hightower was not in the inner city's castle at the moment, but lived in the towering tower or the port building in the port town.

The soldiers of the Old Town garrison were still fighting desperately against the fierce attack of the Iron Race, and the inner city wall was already crowded into a knot.

Laresa lowered her head. The oak-inlaid iron gate of the inner city was only supported by the brackets. The moat, which had not been repaired for many years, was just a shallow beach. For the Iron Race, who were very good at swimming, it was like walking on the ground. Dozens of corpses of the Old Town garrison were blocked there, and rows of spearmen from the garrison behind kept using the gaps to move their spears in and out. Blood gushed everywhere, and blood holes kept appearing on the Iron Race's body.

Laresa knew the man who led the Oldtown Garrison, Leo Tyrell's father, the commander of the Oldtown Garrison, Morin Tyrell, and the uncle of Mace, the Duke of Highgarden.

He was obviously injured, with a long bloody scar on his back.

Laresa didn't care so much, recognizing that the Ironborn were still entangled with the Oldtown Garrison, and stood up and ran towards the direction of the Great Library.

He deliberately avoided the running and panicking crowd and walked along the wall.     Someone deliberately stopped him, and he threatened to retreat with a dagger.

Laresa tiptoed, climbed over the bookshelves and inkstones that were in the way, grabbed the escalator, jumped up, pushed the revolving wooden frame from the corner, and walked into the escalator corridor where the doctors often walked.

The noise was left behind, as if walking into a silent cave alone, with only the throbbing sound of her own blood vessels and slight breathing.

The structure of the top of the tower wraps countless bookshelves. Even in such a long rainy day, it still remains dry. Countless books and even rare collections are quietly placed somewhere here.

The Great Library, the dome of the Doctor's Tower to the bottom of the tower.

All the banned books and rare books are hidden here, and only the doctor can come in.

The heavy iron door is open at this moment. Laresa holds her breath and escapes into it.

A pool of blood, sticky blood slowly flows on the ground.

In front of a bookshelf, Dr. Wargrave lies on the ground and stops breathing.

Laresa reaches out to take the bow, but the cold touch is close to the skin of the neck.

"No"

The voice is familiar and strange, it is Pate's voice.

"Did you kill Dr. Wargrave?" Laresa knows that she has no chance to turn over, so she has to ask, hoping to divert Pate's attention.

Pate just replied lightly: "He was unlucky and just blocked the road."

"Who are you? You are not Pate."

"Nobody."

Faceless! Laresa had a bad feeling and immediately gave up all thoughts of fighting back.

"I won't get in your way." Laresa steadied her breath and said to Pete.

"Yes, someone knows," Pete let go of Laresa, and the cold touch on his neck dissipated immediately, and the physiological premonition of the stranger approaching finally ended, "I know you, not only that, you will help me on my way."

"The Sphinx is the puzzle itself." Pete faced the bookshelf in the depths, and there was a bookshelf that had turned to ashes.

Laresa followed his gaze and looked over. She knew what was in the bookshelf that had turned to ashes, about Valyria, about dragons, about dragon eggs, about Targaryen, about blood magic

Knowledge is sometimes also a sharp weapon and a treasure that everyone in the known world wants to get.

Pete looked at him and took out the dragon egg. The surface of this dragon egg was as dark as night.

"Use their own spear to attack their shield," Pate muttered to himself, "It has been a long time since someone has seen the ashes that spread across the sky and the flames that burned the mountain walls like Hardhome."

"The curse of Hardhome?" Laresa immediately thought of it, "No, you can't, this is a great city, you can't."

"The Valyrian Freehold, in a sense, is also a great city, no, it is a group of great cities." Pate's response was understated. Death was not the source of fear in his eyes, but the beginning of liberation.

Valyria's natural disasters and man-made disasters? Laresa thought.

"The Citadel is a balance," Laresa organized her words, "It is like Asshai, located in the west and the east respectively. If the Faceless One destroys it, it will lose balance and will lose its bottom line, the bottom line of magic, especially the bottom line of blood magic. The blood witches of Valyria, the blood witches who blasphemed death will explore this kind of magic endlessly."

Pate was silent for a long time.

"Who did you hear that from?"

Laresa knew that lying would be full of loopholes, so she told the truth, but not all the facts. He had a secret. He was the Sphinx, so of course he had a secret.

"Dr. Marwin told me. He said that this was the secret told to him by the fish beam wood and the crow. This was the tacit understanding of the gods and the design of the known world."

Pate put down the heavy package on his shoulder, and took out the complex instrument, which was full of boiling liquid.

How did he get the wildfire? Laresa thought.

"Is this the embarrassment of someone's predecessors when they faced life and death?" Pate said, "Really," his expression became painful, and even tears fell, "It's really painful."

He took the dragon egg, put it in the package, and handed it over.

"King's Landing, someone wants you to deliver this to King's Landing. If you can see the king, please meet him and tell him that all mortals have a death (valar morghulis), and give this to him." Pate took a coin from his waist and stuffed it into Laresa's hand.

The sound of the Ironborn fighting was getting closer. Pate looked at the half-open iron gate. "Since someone is here, he still needs to solve a problem. Even if he fails, you, I hope you can keep your promise. Let's go!"

Laresa didn't know what he was going to solve, but she could tell that it was the killer's mission.

He nodded, put on the bag, and left the large library on the dome according to the familiar route in his mind.

Laresa decided not to go back to the secret passage, but chose to leave, leaving from the windowsills and buildings that were not easily discovered.

"Boom!" The human wall of the city gate in the distance collapsed, the Ironborn rushed in like the tentacles of a sea monster, the seawater gushed out of the sewer pipes, and the Old Town garrison was defeated and died. Laresa saw Sir Morin, who was injured in the back, had his head cut off by the Ironborn and hung on the top of the city.

Laresa was anxious about what would happen to the Citadel, but there was nothing she could do at the moment. Hightower had lost everything, and it was possible that he had done it on purpose. He had no choice, nor did his father in Dorne, nor did Prince Doran. This was completely unable to help the Citadel, which had only made empty promises.

The Greyjoy flag rushed in, and Laresa could see that it was not the usual flag of the Greyjoy family, but the exclusive flag of Euron Greyjoy, the flag he had planted on the Serenity.

He touched the dragon egg in the package and felt the protruding edges on its surface. At this moment, Oldtown had all the conditions needed for blood magic, including flesh and blood, dragon flames (even wildfire), sea monsters, glass candles, witches, and hosts like Euron.

Once the ceremony was launched, the tragic situation of Hardhome and the Valyrian Freehold could really be repeated in the Citadel.

It would be fine if Oldtown was destroyed, but the Citadel must not be.