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A cold draft crept through the crack at the far end of the corridor.
The torch flame swayed, its light jumping across three faces before settling again.
Aven rose to his feet.
He brushed nonexistent dust from his cloak and tucked the wine flask back into the inner pocket, unhurried.
Joffrey drew closer.
His leather boots struck the stone floor in crisp, rhythmic taps.
Aven took a slow breath.
The corridor air was cold as a blade, cutting from his nostrils straight down into his lungs, sharp enough to keep a man wide awake.
Joffrey stopped three paces away.
The torchlight fell squarely on his face.
His lips curved slightly upward, a faint trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and his blue eyes swept over Aven from head to toe.
“Your Grace.” Aven inclined his head, his voice quiet but steady.
“It’s so cold out here.
Why not stay in the banquet hall?”
Joffrey did not answer right away.
He tilted his head.
The curve of his lips widened a fraction, but no true warmth reached his eyes.
“Winterfell is as poor as any backwater village.” His tone was breezy, the way someone sounds when discussing something too trivial to take seriously.
“A banquet?
Hmph.”
Those two sounds pushed out through his nose, deliberate, performative contempt.
Like an actor delivering lines on stage, and enjoying himself far too much for it.
Jon’s brow furrowed.
His fingers tightened around the wine jug resting on his knee.
His lips parted.
Aven didn’t need to look to know what was coming.
Jon Snow was not a man who could hold his tongue, not when someone from outside was sneering at Winterfell.
This castle might not welcome him, but it was still his home.
Aven’s hand slipped out from under his cloak and pressed against Jon’s arm.
Light pressure.
Clear meaning.
Don’t.
He smiled.
The corners of his mouth lifting just enough, his eyes narrowing just enough.
Not too much, not too little.
Not humility.
Not flattery.
Even if he picked a fight with Joffrey here, Robert wouldn’t say a word, and Eddard could shield both him and Jon without breaking a sweat.
But Aven had been turning over a problem, how to get Eddard to bring him along to King’s Landing.
And here, an opportunity had just walked through the door.
“The North can’t compare to King’s Landing’s energy,” Aven said.
“And certainly not the wealth of the Westerlands.”
Carefully measured.
He didn’t contradict Joffrey.
Didn’t say Winterfell isn’t poor.
Didn’t say the North has its own merits.
Joffrey stepped forward twice, closing the distance from three paces to one.
He was half a head shorter than Aven, but his posture made him seem taller: neck tilted back, chin raised, eyes angled down in that particular way that said I am looking down at you.
“Aven Karstark?” He drew the name out slowly, tasting each syllable.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Eddard Stark thinks quite highly of you.” Joffrey’s gaze roamed across Aven’s face.
“Enough to let a bumpkin from Karhold stand in the welcoming party for the King.”
Aven didn’t get angry.
He didn’t even feel offended.
He knew Joffrey too well.
When Joffrey took an interest in something, or someone, there were only two outcomes.
He possessed it, or he destroyed it.
This was a spoiled child.
From birth until now, no one had ever told him no.
Or if anyone had, the Queen had quietly seen to them.
Spoiled fools were the easiest to handle.
You didn’t contradict them.
You just rowed with their current, and they’d carry themselves exactly where you wanted them to go.
“Your Grace,” Aven said, his tone carrying just the right weight of modesty and sincerity, “perhaps there is something about me that Lord Eddard finds worth his time.”
Joffrey’s pupils dilated slightly.
He leaned forward a fraction, his chin dropping just a little from its perch.
“Oh?” he said.
“I heard you personally sat in judgment over your own uncle.”
A pause.
“How did you manage that?”
Aven considered.
Not for long.
What did Joffrey want to hear?
That answer wasn’t hard.
Joffrey Baratheon had no interest in justice or law.
What he wanted was a story.
A vivid one.
A thrilling one.
“Your Grace.” Aven began slowly, the way a man sounds when reaching back into old memory, or the way someone sounds telling a child a story before bed.
“Do you know how strong my uncle was?”
He spread both hands wide, indicating an enormous span.
“Nearly 3 meters tall.
Weight — 400 jin.
When he stood up, he looked like a giant.”
Beside him, Jon shot Aven a sideways look.
The meaning was unmistakable.
What are you talking about?
Alv was lean, with nothing remotely giant-like about him.
Aven didn’t look at him.
His eyes stayed fixed on Joffrey, as if Joffrey were the only person in the corridor worth seeing.
Joffrey’s eyes brightened.
The corner of his mouth curled up into something between curiosity and excitement.
He didn’t ask “Really?” He didn’t question how the North could possibly produce a 3-meter man.
He believed it.
Not because Aven made it sound convincing, but because he wanted to believe.
He wanted to believe that giants existed in this world, and that a boy only a few years older than himself could kill one.
“Against an opponent like that,” Aven said, dropping his voice, the way you speak when sharing something private, “you have to take away his support first.”
Joffrey leaned forward another fraction.
“My father Rickard and my brother Harrion left Karhold that day.
And I knew — my moment had come.”
He paused.
The torch shuddered in a gust of wind, throwing a rippling shadow across his face.
“First, I found a reason to reassign every soldier under my uncle’s command.” He paused again.
Longer this time.
“Then I put something in his food.”
“What kind of something?” Joffrey’s voice climbed higher, a barely-contained urgency breaking through.
“Something that could put even a lion to sleep.”
Joffrey’s eyes were practically glowing now.
His lips parted.
His breathing had picked up.
He could barely wait for what came next.
“After that, it was simple, Your Grace.” Aven’s tone dropped the tension all at once, like a bowstring releasing, one clean thrum.
“When my uncle woke up,”
He raised his right hand, fingers pressed together, and drew a slow horizontal line beside his neck.
Not fast.
Deliberately slow.
And because it was slow, it landed harder.
Every person watching had all the time they needed to imagine the sword, the arc, the exact moment head parted from body.
“— my sword was already at his throat.”
Joffrey laughed.
Not a polite laugh.
Not the kind you produce at a banquet.
This came from somewhere in his throat, genuine, unguarded, and edged with something morbid.
His lips pulled back, showing a neat row of white teeth.
His eyes squeezed into two slits.
The laughter bounced off the stone walls and came back again, mixing with the snap and crackle of the burning torch.
If you listened to it long enough, it started to feel wrong.
“Ohhhh,” He stretched the word out, savoring it like a good bite of something rich.
“Cunning Aven.
You have a brain.”
The admiration when he said it was real.
Not because Aven had killed a traitor.
Because Aven had used a method Joffrey considered clever.
Joffrey Baratheon had no interest in strength, no interest in justice, no interest in loyalty.
What he admired was the particular kind of cunning Aven had just laid out for him.
Aven smiled back.
“That’s not even the best part, Your Grace.”
Joffrey’s eyebrow lifted.
“You know,” Aven said, his tone going easy, like he was catching up with an old friend, “I actually killed him, and I never faced punishment for it.”
“Why?” Joffrey’s voice snapped out like a blade clearing its sheath.
➤ Next: Joffrey’s Friendship — Words Unspoken
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