The Gift Responds

'Is this all?' Alden frowned as he looked over the goods before him.

What he had found was only tea, silk, porcelain, and other valuable items from the far east. They were certainly worth a great deal, but no matter how he looked at them, they did not seem important enough for Littlefinger to come all the way to King's Landing himself, much less to seek out Janos Slynt specifically and arrange extra protection.

'Was he using this shipment as bait to draw the attention of anyone watching, while the smuggled goods he truly values were hidden somewhere else?' Sensing something wrong, Alden let that possibility turn in his mind while carefully listening to every movement around him. If these goods were bait, then a trap surely lay with the bait, and likely a deadly one.

Yet no matter how carefully he listened, he found nothing unusual inside or outside the warehouse. The patrols around the building showed no abnormal movements. The only thing in the whole warehouse that troubled him was the snoring of the drunk guards.

'Looks like I was wrong.' Feeling he had been overly cautious, Alden smiled at himself. Then he looked at the goods again and immediately understood where his judgment had gone astray.

Although the value of this shipment should not have been enough for someone like Littlefinger to risk traveling from the Vale to King's Landing, especially during such a chaotic period, that did not mean the goods were not valuable. In fact, if sold in King's Landing, they should fetch tens of thousands of gold dragons without difficulty.

A Littlefinger who had become master of coin for the Iron Throne more than a decade later might have had the qualifications to use tens of thousands of gold dragons as bait. The Littlefinger who was now merely the tax collector of a port town plainly did not. So this shipment should not be bait. The smuggled goods that had brought him to King's Landing should be hidden among it.

After thinking that through, Alden examined the goods again. This time he did not glance over them casually. He checked every sack and chest in detail.

Before long, he noticed that several chests containing silk were not right. They were the same size as the other chests, but far heavier. Without question, they held more than silk.

Although the chests were locked, such primitive locks were simple to Alden. Back in White Village, he had already considered that he might encounter similar situations, so he had trained again in the lockpicking skills from his previous life, keeping them ready for use.

Prepared as he was, he took out two differently shaped iron slips and inserted them into different parts of the keyhole. By drawing them back and forth, he felt the position of the pins inside the lock. He adjusted the slips bit by bit, and soon the first chest opened.

Alden carefully removed the lock and set it aside. Then he slowly lifted the lid, avoiding unnecessary noise.

When the chest opened smoothly, he looked inside. Bolts of silk were arranged neatly within, as though his judgment had been wrong. No disappointment appeared on his face.

He took out the silk carefully and set it aside. Soon every bolt in the chest had been removed. Then he tapped lightly on the bottom board. Hearing the answer in the wood, he smiled.

His eyes searched along the bottom until he found a hidden catch. He slid his fingers into it and lifted the entire false bottom.

Beneath the bottom board was another compartment, filled with cushioning dry grass. Within the grass lay several bronze, silver, and gold objects made in very old styles.

'Are these the smuggled goods Littlefinger cared about?' Alden felt a trace of doubt. He truly could not judge how valuable these things were. Still, he did not make a reckless conclusion. He knew his experience and vision were insufficient to judge the worth of such objects properly.

With that doubt in mind, he put the false bottom back, returned the silk bolts exactly as they had been, and restored everything to its original state. He did not leave at once. Instead, he opened the other chests whose weight felt wrong, one after another. Only when he opened the fourth chest and saw the objects secretly stored inside did he understand what the smuggled goods truly were.

There were only two items in the fourth chest. One was a cracked dragon egg. The other was an exquisite dagger.

When Alden saw them, his attention did not first fall on the cracked dragon egg with its scale-like shell, but on the dagger. The dagger's unmistakable bone hilt and steel blade let him judge almost immediately that it was a Valyrian steel dagger with a dragonbone hilt. More than that, it was very likely the dagger that would light the fuse of the War of the Five Kings more than ten years later.

'Littlefinger had this dagger so early?' Alden felt puzzled and curious. He wanted to take the dagger from the chest and examine it closely.

But the moment his fingers touched the dragonbone hilt, a distinct burning sensation spread from his fingertips through his body.

At that moment, the mysterious heat was not what concerned Alden most. What mattered was that the energy gauge beneath Peacekeeper, already more than three-quarters filled, began to pulse under the influence of that heat, brightening and dimming as if drawing breath.

The sudden change left Alden uncertain for a moment, but he quickly calmed. He carefully observed what change the heat from the dragonbone dagger caused in the gauge of his gift.

After a detailed check, disappointment came. Apart from making the gauge flash, the heat caused no other reaction. It did not even move the gauge forward by the smallest degree.

Even so, Alden did not believe dragonbone's effect on his gift was so simple. He felt he simply had not discovered the true meaning yet.

With that thought, he placed his hand on the cracked dragon egg. This time no heat appeared. Instead, a coldness like ice and snow passed from the point of contact into his hand.

The cold did not spread through his whole body as the heat had. Nor did it stir his gift in any obvious way. It moved through him like a stream, gathered at his chest, and poured into Glory inside the pouch there. The sleeping cub seemed to sense the chill. It shifted slightly, then continued sleeping.

Alden had been giving Glory some training meant to reduce its wildness, but he did not know whether the training time had been too short or his method was wrong. In short, Glory's wildness had not lessened. It had grown stronger. Aside from showing closeness to him and obeying his orders, it attacked anyone else who came too close.

As Glory's body grew, its teeth became better and better. It could not only bite through the rope that restrained it, but also gnaw through the wooden bars of a cage. To avoid accidents, Alden kept Glory at his side at all times. This time was no exception.

Fortunately, Glory was very obedient. If Alden ordered it not to move, it truly did not move. Even asleep, it made no unusual sound and caused him no trouble.

What Alden had not expected was that bringing Glory with him this time would lead to an unexpected gain.

He did not know what effect absorbing that coldness would have on Glory, or what changes it might produce. But he did know that the cracked dragon egg had transformed as the cold drained away. The clearest change was that the scale pattern on the shell had become dim and lifeless. It now looked somewhat like stone, far less eye-catching than before.

'Could the old rumors about albino shadowcats actually be true?' Alden could not stop the thought. He wondered whether that coldness might be the remnant of a dragon's soul within the egg, and whether Glory absorbing it matched the tales that albino shadowcats devoured souls. The coincidence was difficult to ignore.

Now was not a good time to study whether Glory had changed. Alden put the false bottom back over the chest. He did not take the Valyrian steel dagger with the dragonbone hilt. The dagger was far too conspicuous. Taking it now would cause unnecessary trouble, especially by attracting Littlefinger's attention. The disadvantages would far outweigh any benefit.

As for the dragon egg, although it had changed, the change was not obvious. He did not touch the other Valyrian-era antiques either. He restored everything exactly as it had been, then quietly left the warehouse by the same route. The entire process was silent, and he disturbed no one.

After leaving the warehouse, Alden wanted to examine Glory as quickly as possible and see whether anything was wrong with the cub. He did not linger on the road. Instead, he followed the poor districts along the city wall toward the Lion Gate.

Crossing the tourney grounds would have been shorter, but the area was already packed with people. Refugees and poor folk from the surrounding districts had also gathered there to watch the spectacle. Their own slums were much emptier by comparison. The ground was filthy, but the route saved time.

When Alden reached the exit road of the poor district outside the Lion Gate and prepared to turn toward House Tyrell's camp on Lion Hill, he saw the gate open a narrow crack. Several Lannister soldiers in brown-red iron armor carried someone out from within.

House Lannister dug gold from its own mines. The weapons and equipment it provided its soldiers far surpassed those of other houses.

In other noble houses, including House Tyrell, the lowest-ranking soldiers often prepared their own arms and armor. Only special units, such as Alden's newly formed ten-man cavalry patrol, received armor and weapons specifically prepared by the house.

House Tyrell was somewhat better than most and could provide some clothing. Other houses expected men to prepare not only weapons and armor, but even their own food.

Compared with those noble houses, the money House Lannister poured into its direct forces was enough to leave men speechless. Depending on which branch of the direct household the troops belonged to, House Lannister provided leather, iron, or steel armor. Their weapons included iron-headed spears and sharp iron swords. All of it was paid for and forged by the Lannisters, making their direct troops look far more regular than the armies of other houses.

It was precisely because they possessed such a powerful army that King Robert Baratheon and the Hand, Jon Arryn, had no choice but to choose a marriage alliance with House Lannister despite disliking them greatly.

Now two Lannister soldiers in iron armor were risking violation of the gate restrictions by having the City Watch open the gate, then carrying a person outside. Alden wondered who that person was.

In House Lannister, only guards serving direct family members qualified for iron armor. That meant these two soldiers came from the household guards of Jaime Lannister or Tyrion Lannister. They could not belong to Kevan Lannister, because Lord Tywin's brother was presently holding Casterly Rock and had not come to King's Landing.

Although the torches outside the Lion Gate were not bright, Alden's extraordinary eyesight still made out that the person the two Lannister soldiers carried was a young woman. A naked young woman.

The two men carried her to a refuse heap not far from the Lion Gate, threw her directly onto the garbage, muttered a few words, and turned away.

The young woman in the refuse heap did not move. Even when she hit the trash, her body made no protective response. She looked as if she were already dead.

After the Lannister soldiers left, several people from the nearby slums began gathering around the refuse heap. They seemed interested in the corpse. In Flea Bottom and the poor districts of King's Landing, even a body could be sold for a fair bit of money.

Alden had no interest in why Lannister soldiers would dump a young woman's corpse outside the city, so he did not approach. He was about to leave.

But as he turned, he saw the corpse's hand move. The woman was still alive. Someone from the slums saw it too, but they clearly had no intention of allowing her to go on living. One man picked up a stone from the ground and prepared to smash her head, ending her breath for good.

If the woman had been dead, Alden might not have cared how the body was dealt with. But now she was alive, and the basic morality from his previous life would not allow him to look away.

More importantly, as Peacekeeper's combat experience fully merged into him, he felt his own nature becoming colder and colder, especially toward life. The only way to weaken that side effect was to use the thoughts and character of his former self to dilute the mentality born from the merger. Saving this woman would also help him.

Almost the moment he decided to save her, Alden rushed toward the ill-intentioned men. Before the stone in one man's hand could fall on the woman's head, Alden struck several times, knocking them all to the ground.

He ignored the unconscious poor men. Looking at the wounded woman, whose body was covered in injuries, he hesitated only briefly before lifting her and carrying her toward the Tyrell camp.

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