286 AC, Castamere
Cerion 'POV '
I led my retinue of fifty men toward the skeletal remains of Castamere's keep while Tygett took his hundred into the mines. The sky above had turned grey, as if the heavens themselves mourned this place. A light drizzle began to fall. The rains of Castamere, I thought with dark amusement. How fitting.
Behind me rode my chosen guards. Ser Benedict, my guard captain, sat rigid in his saddle, his hand never straying far from his sword. Lynd, the dual swordsman, had his twin blades strapped across his back in an X-pattern, his sharp eyes scanning the ruined battlements for threats. Orton, the giant, towered over the rest of us, his massive spear resting against his shoulder like a jousting lance. And Ragna, the grizzled ex-mercenary with a face like beaten leather, carried his bearded axe and a perpetual scowl.
"Smells like death and rot," Ragna muttered as we approached the shattered gates. "I've seen cleaner mass graves in Essos."
"Then you'll feel right at home," Lynd replied with that thin smile of his, fingers drumming on his left pommel.
"Enough," Ser Benedict cut in, his tone sharp as steel. "We're entering hostile ground. My lord, your orders?"
I dismounted, my boots crunching on gravel and broken stone. The castle was a corpse, its bones picked clean by time and my father's wrath. The gates hung twisted on their hinges, the curtain walls breached in a dozen places. Tywin Lannister did not simply defeat his enemies—he erased them from history.
"You four, with me," I said, gesturing to Benedict, Lynd, Orton, and Ragna. "The rest of you, secure the courtyard. Search the outer buildings. If you find bandits or anyone else, take them alive. I want answers."
Benedict nodded. "Formation. Orton, take point—that spear gives us reach if the corridors are tight. Lynd, rear guard. Ragna, left flank. I'll take right. Lord Cerion stays center."
We moved through the ruined great hall, torchlight casting dancing shadows on soot-stained walls. The roof had collapsed long ago, leaving moss and weeds where lords once feasted. I could almost hear the echoes of their laughter, frozen in time before the waters came.
"This place gives me the creeps," Orton rumbled, ducking beneath a fallen beam. His spear scraped against stone. "Feels like the walls are watching."
"They are," I replied. "The dead always watch. It's the living you need to worry about."
We climbed a spiral staircase that groaned ominously under our weight. Ragna tested each step with his boot before committing his full weight. "If this collapses," he growled, "I'm dragging you all down with me."
Lynd chuckled from behind. "Comforting."
The lord's solar was on the second floor. Ser Benedict kicked the door open, sword already drawn, but found only wreckage—a split oak desk, charred papers, the ghosts of ambition.
"Spread out," I ordered. "Look for anything that survived. Books, ledgers, maps. Anything that tells us what the Reynes were doing in their final days."
While my men searched, I knelt by the desk, sifting through debris. Most of it was illegible sludge, but then my fingers found something solid—a leather-bound ledger, scorched but intact. I pried it open. Mining logs. Columns of figures, worker counts, yields.
Then I reached the final entries, written in a frantic hand days before my father's army arrived.
Yields are down. The deep vein is bare. Lord Roger demands more, but the earth gives nothing. Maester Allar's proposal is our only hope. The Five-Finger Vein… not gold, but something else. Something potent.
My heart quickened. What was the "Five-Finger Vein"? My mind—both as Cerion Lannister and as the man I was before this life—raced with possibilities. Not gold. Something potent.
"My lord," Ser Benedict called, holding up a rolled parchment with a broken seal. "A letter to Lord Reyne from Lannisport. Mentions a shipment that never arrived."
Before I could respond, a roar echoed from the direction of the mines.
"FOR THE LANNISTER!"
Tygett had engaged.
Orton gripped his spear, knuckles white. "Should we assist?"
I closed the ledger and tucked it into my doublet. "No.Uncle Tygett has his battle. We have ours." I looked at the letter in Benedict's hand, then back at the ruined solar. "The Reynes dug too deep, searching for something more than gold. Let's find out what it was."
Ragna grinned, showing yellowed teeth. "I always did like treasure hunts."
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