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Year 300 AC
Stone Hedge, The Riverlands
The wind flowed over him, a river of air that his wings drank in great, rhythmic gulps. Below, the Riverlands were a quilt of green and brown, stitched together by the glittering thread of the Red Fork, but the beauty was marred by the scars of petty men. Smoke drifted from burning septs and holdfasts, gray smudges against the afternoon sun.
Aemon banked, the massive muscles of his chest contracting with effortless power. He felt the heat of his own blood, a furnace roaring beneath scales of obsidian and midnight. It was a strange, intoxicating duality—the man's mind charting the course, the beast's instincts painting the world in targets and prey.
They burn the harvest while the winter comes, he thought, the wolf in him recoiling at the waste, while the dragon curled its lip in disdain. They fight for inches of mud while death marches on the Wall.
Stone Hedge appeared below, a squat castle of brown stone huddled behind a wet moat. It was a strong holdfast, built to withstand the raids of Blackwoods and the wrath of kings, but it had never been built to withstand the sky.
He folded his wings and dove.
The air screamed. It was a high, thin shriek that tore at the ears of the men on the battlements. Aemon saw them scatter like ants when a boot descends. He saw the archers fumbling with their bows, their discipline shattered by the primal terror that was now plummeting toward them at the speed of a falling star.
Bells began to clang, a frantic, discordant alarm that came too late.
Arrows rose to meet him. They were pathetic things, buzzing gnats that shattered against the hard, hot armor of his belly. He did not even blink. He flared his wings at the last moment, the sudden resistance snapping the air with a sound like a thunderclap. The backdraft flattened the banners on the towers and sent men tumbling into the mud.
There, on the main keep's battlements. A man in a surcoat of brown and gold, shouting orders that no one could hear over the roar of the wind. Lord Jonos.
Aemon reached out.
It was not a battle. It was a harvest. His talons closed around the stone crenellations and the man standing behind them, the stones crumbled like dry bread. Lord Jonos Bracken screamed, a thin, reedy sound that was swallowed instantly by the rush of air as Aemon beat his wings—once, twice—and surged back into the sky.
The castle fell away. The men below were pointing, shouting, dropping their weapons in abject horror as their lord was plucked from his stronghold as easily as a hawk takes a field mouse.
Aemon felt the man struggling in his grip. He was careful, gentle even, applying only enough pressure to hold, not to crush. The dragon wanted to squeeze. It wanted to feel the snap of bone and the burst of hot blood. It whispered that this man was an enemy, and enemies were meat.
No, Aemon told the fire in his blood. He is a lesson.
He flew a mile east, crossing the river to a high, flat-topped hill that overlooked the burning fields. It was a place of parley, a place where Brackens and Blackwoods had met for centuries to trade insults and hostages.
Aemon flared his wings and landed. The earth shook. The impact drove the breath from the ground, sending a tremor through the soil that would be felt in the villages below. He opened his claw and let Lord Jonos drop.
The Lord of Stone Hedge hit the mud with a wet thud, rolling over twice before scrambling to his knees. He was covered in mud, his fine surcoat ruined, his face the color of curdled milk. He looked up, and Aemon saw the moment the man's soul withered.
To stand before a dragon was to stand before death. Aemon loomed over him, a mountain of black scales, his eyes glowing like molten pits of magma, bore down on the shivering lord.
He did not transform. He needed the monster today.
"THE WAR IS OVER."
The voice did not come from a throat of flesh. It came from the earth, a tectonic rumble that vibrated in the marrow of Jonos Bracken's bones.
Jonos flinched, covering his ears.
"I AM TAKING THE DISPUTED LANDS BACK FOR BLACKWOOD."
"But... but they are mine," Jonos stammered, his hands shaking as he held them up in a futile warding gesture. "We took them back... we bled for them! The Blackwoods... they are the thieves! You cannot simply—"
Aemon lowered his head. The dragon's lip curled, revealing teeth the size of broadswords, stained with the memory of fire.
"SILENCE."
The word hit Jonos like a physical blow. The lord clamped his mouth shut, trembling violently, his protest dying in his throat.
"I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR BORDERS," Aemon rumbled, the words smoking in the cold air. "I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR FEUD. THE DEAD ARE MARCHING, JONOS BRACKEN. WHILE YOU SQUABBLE OVER DIRT, THE LONG NIGHT COMES TO SWALLOW YOU WHOLE."
Jonos stared up at him, his eyes wide and glassy, mouth working soundlessly as he tried to comprehend a horror that made the Blackwoods seem insignificant.
He let a gout of smoke wash over the man, hot and choking.
"I WILL ANNOUNCE A TRUCE," Aemon continued, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl that shook the trees on the hillside. "YOU WILL RETURN THE LANDS. YOU WILL PAY REPARATIONS IN GRAIN TO RAVENTREE HALL. AND YOU WILL BEND THE KNEE."
"And if I refuse?" Jonos whispered, a spark of his old, stubborn pride trying to ignite in the ashes of his terror. "If I appeal to the Iron Throne? To the Lannisters?"
Aemon laughed. It was a terrifying sound, a chuffing of smoke and fire that sounded like a rockslide.
"THERE ARE NO LANNISTERS COMING TO SAVE YOU. THERE IS ONLY ME."
He extended his neck, his red eyes locking onto Jonos's pale gray ones.
"IF HOUSE BRACKEN BREAKS THE KING'S PEACE AGAIN," Aemon promised, and the weight of the vow seemed to darken the sky, "I WILL ATTAINT YOUR ENTIRE HOUSE. I WILL STRIP THE BRACKEN NAME FROM HISTORY. I WILL BURN STONE HEDGE UNTIL THE STONES MELT AND RUN LIKE WAX, AND I WILL GRANT EVERY ACRE YOU OWN TO TYTOS BLACKWOOD."
Jonos froze. The threat was not death. Death was common. This was erasure. It was the end of his legacy, the end of his name, the ultimate victory for his hated rivals. To be wiped from the world and have the Blackwoods feast on the carcass of his house—it was a horror beyond burning.
"You... you would give it all to Tytos?" Jonos choked out.
"EVERY. INCH."
Tears mingled with the mud on Jonos Bracken's face. He slumped, the fight draining out of him like water from a cracked pot. He bowed his head, pressing his forehead into the muck.
"I submit," he wept. "I submit. Take me back. Please. Just... don't give it to him. Don't give it to Blackwood."
Aemon watched him for a long moment. The dragon wanted to burn him anyway, to purge the weakness from the world. But the King knew that a living, broken lord was more useful than a pile of ash.
He yields, the wolf thought. It is done.
Aemon snatched him up and launched himself into the air, his wings driving them upward with a force that left Jonos's stomach on the hill.
The flight back to Stone Hedge took moments. The castle was in chaos. Men were running in the courtyard, shouting, pointing at the sky. Aemon did not circle. He did not posture. He fell from the sky like a judgment.
He hovered over the main gatehouse, the wind from his wings kicking up dust and grit, blinding the guards on the wall. He swung his hand forward and released his grip.
Jonos Bracken fell six feet, landing hard on the stone walkway. He crumpled, groaning, clutching his knee. His garrison stared at him—their lord, their commander, dropped from the sky like refuse.
Aemon beat his wings, holding his position in the air, a dark shadow eclipsing the sun. He waited.
Jonos dragged himself to his feet using the crenellations for support. He looked up at the dragon, then down at his men. He looked like a man who had seen the other side of the grave.
"Stand down!" Jonos screamed, his voice cracking. "Lower your weapons! Damn you all, lower them!"
The guards hesitated, then threw their spears and bows to the ground. The clatter of steel on stone was the only sound in the yard.
"We surrender!" Jonos shouted, turning his face up to the beast hovering above him. "The disputed lands revert to House Blackwood! We accept the King's Peace! We yield!"
Aemon dipped his head in a single, solemn nod. It was acknowledged.
He did not land to accept their oaths. He did not demand hostages or gold or a feast in his honor. He had no time for the mummer's farce of southern courtesies. The sun was dipping lower in the west, and there was work to be done at Riverrun.
With a roar that shook the dust from the mortar of Stone Hedge, Aemon wheeled in the air and turned west.
The wind rushed over him, cooling the fires in his belly. The wolf felt a grim satisfaction. One feud ended, he thought. A thousand more to go.
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Riverrun, The Riverlands
The air tasted of rain and woodsmoke, a scent that the dragon found intoxicating and the man found mournful. Aemon drifted as his great black wings locked in place, casting a shadow that raced across the fields of the Riverlands like a cloud of ink.
There, the wolf whispered in his mind.
A smudge of dust rose from the road below, kicked up by the tramping of boots and the rolling of wheels. A column of men, perhaps two hundred strong, marching west with the arrogance of those who believe they own the land they walk upon. At the center of the formation lumbered a great wheelhouse, painted in the blue and gray of House Frey, though the mud of the road had done its best to humble the colors.
The dragon's lip curled, exposing teeth that were long, curved daggers of black glass. He felt a surge of predatory joy, a tightening in his chest that demanded fire.
No fire, the man commanded. Not yet. Fear is the weapon today.
He banked, the massive muscles of his chest shifting as he altered his angle of attack. The wind roared in his ears, a deafening song of speed. He folded his wings tight against his body and let gravity take him.
He fell like a stone dropped from the moon.
The sound of his descent was a tearing shriek, the air itself protesting the violence of his passage. Below, the column disintegrated. Horses reared and screamed, throwing their riders into the ditches. Pikemen scrambled over one another in a desperate bid for the treeline. The discipline of House Frey, never particularly ironclad, shattered instantly under the threat of death from above.
Aemon flared his wings at the last possible second. The air beneath flattening the grass and knocking the wheelhouse horses to their knees and he landed on the road with an impact that shook the earth.
Dust billowed around him, a choking gray cloud. The door of the wheelhouse burst open. A man stumbled out, his face pale as milk, his doublet of fine wool stained with wine where his shaking hand had spilled it. Emmon Frey. The Lord of Riverrun, by the grace of the Lannisters and the blood of the Red Wedding.
He looked up, and his eyes went wide, filled with a terror so pure it smelled like piss.
"I... I am the Lord of Riverrun!" Emmon squeaked, his voice cracking. He held up a hand as if to ward off a blow. "I have rights! I have... I have..."
Aemon did not speak. The dragon did not parley with mice.
He lunged.
It was a movement of terrifying speed for a creature so large. His hand snapped forward like a whip. Emmon screamed and tried to scramble back into the wheelhouse, but he was too slow. Aemon's talon, large enough to crush a horse's skull, closed around the lord.
Emmon shrieked as he was lifted from the ground. Aemon did not linger. He beat his wings, the downwash sending the wheelhouse toppling onto its side with a crash of splintering wood. In three beats, he was airborne. In ten, the road was a thin line below them.
The flight to Riverrun was short, but for Emmon Frey, it must have been an eternity. The man screamed the entire way, a high, thin wailing that was snatched away by the wind. Aemon felt the vibrations of the man's terror through his claws. He felt the frantic beating of Emmon's heart against his palm.
Look down, Lord Emmon, Aemon thought, the cold wind rushing past his scales. Look at the lands you stole. Look at them for the last time.
The Red Fork wound beneath them, leading them inexorably to the castle that stood at the confluence of the waters. Riverrun.
It was a strong castle, triangular and defiant, its sandstone walls rising from the water like the prow of a great ship. Aemon had heard stories of it from Catelyn Stark's memories, spoken through the whispered tales of Winterfell. It was a place of honor, of family, duty, and honor.
Now it flew the twin towers of House Frey.
Aemon roared.
The sound was a physical blow, a blast of noise that shook the leaves from the trees and sent ripples racing across the surface of the Tumblestone. The castle, which had withstood sieges and floods for a thousand years, suddenly looked small. Fragile. A child's toy made of sand, waiting for the tide.
He could not land inside. The courtyard was too small; his wingspan would shatter the towers.
He aimed for the spit of land outside the main gate, the wet, muddy triangle where the rivers met. The sluice gates rattled in their frames, and the water in the moat sloshed violently over the banks as he landed.
He extended his neck.
It was a long, sinuous movement. He stretched out over the water of the moat, over the drawbridge that was hastily being raised, and over the sandstone curtain wall. His head, massive and horned, rose above the battlements.
He stared down at the defenders.
They were frozen. Archers stood with arrows nocked but undrawn, their mouths hanging open. Men-at-arms clutched their spears with white-knuckled grips, staring into the abyss of his red eye. They could feel the heat radiating from him, a dry, oven-like warmth.
Aemon opened his claw.
Emmon Frey fell, landing in a heap on the stone walkway of the battlements. He did not try to stand. He curled into a ball, sobbing, his fine clothes ruined, his dignity left somewhere in the sky above the Red Fork.
"Mercy," he wept into the stones. "Mother have mercy."
A door to the inner keep opened. A woman stepped out.
She was not young. Her figure was square and heavy, her face broad and lined with the years. But she walked with a stiffness in her spine that spoke of Casterly Rock. Genna Lannister. The real power behind the Lord of Riverrun.
She stopped when she saw the dragon, her composure faltered. Her eyes went wide, reflecting the black scales and the burning red gaze that hovered mere feet from her face.
She swallowed, her throat working, but she did not run. She stepped forward, placing herself between the dragon and the sobbing wreck of her husband.
Aemon admired that. The wolf respected courage.
He spoke.
"HOUSE FREY IS ATTAINTED."
Genna flinched, her hands bunching into fists at her sides.
"RIVERRUN BELONGS TO THE TULLYS AGAIN."
Aemon lowered his head, bringing his snout within arm's reach of the Lioness. The heat was intense now, enough to make sweat bead on her forehead. He saw his own reflection in her eyes—a monster of legend, returned to judge the living.
"YOUR HUSBAND LIVES ONLY BY MY MERCY," Aemon rumbled, the words accompanied by a puff of ash. "SEND HIM TO THE WALL. HE TAKES THE BLACK TODAY, OR HE DIES HERE."
Emmon Frey let out a strangled cry. He scrambled across the stones on his hands and knees, clutching at Genna's skirts like a frightened child.
"Genna! Genna, save me!" he blubbered, burying his face in the fabric of her dress. "Don't let him take me! I am the Lord of Riverrun! You said... Tywin said..."
"Tywin is dead," Genna said. Her voice was steady, though it lacked its usual imperious edge. She looked down at her husband with a mixture of pity and revulsion. "And you are Lord of nothing, Emmon. Look up."
Emmon refused to look up. He only wept harder.
Genna raised her eyes to the dragon. She was a Lannister, and Lannisters did not beg. But she was also a mother, and she was looking into the face of a god who could melt her home into slag with a single breath.
"He is a fool," Genna said, her voice clear and carrying over the sobbing of her husband. "A craven and a fool. But he is my husband. If he goes to the Wall, he will be dead within a moon's turn. The cold will take him, or the men will."
"THAT IS NOT MY CONCERN," Aemon answered. "HE CLAIMED A TITLE BOUGHT WITH TREACHERY. THE NORTH REMEMBERS, LADY GENNA. AND THE DRAGON DOES NOT FORGET."
Genna's eyes widened, her breath catching audibly in her throat. The words struck her—the North remembers—and her head jerked back slightly, as though the dragon had snapped its jaws inches from her face.
"Who—" she began, her voice cracking. "Who are—"
"HE GOES. OR HE BURNS."
Genna closed her eyes for a heartbeat. She took a breath, steadying herself against the heat and the horror. When she opened them again, there was a frantic desperation in her gaze.
"He will go," she said. "He will speak the vows. He will freeze on your Wall and die forgotten." She took a step forward, shielding Emmon with her body. "But I have sons. Ty. Walder. They were not at the Twins. They are innocent of the Red Wedding."
She looked up at the massive red eye, searching for any sign of humanity within the beast.
"I beg you," she whispered, the pride finally cracking. "Spare them. Do not burn my sons for the sins of their father and grandfather."
Aemon regarded her. The dragon wanted to burn them all. It wanted to purge the bloodline, to leave no root or branch of the House that had betrayed the Starks. It whispered that a cub grows into a lion, and a lion always hunts.
But the man remembered. He remembered the innocents who suffered when high lords played their game of thrones. He remembered that justice was not the same as vengeance, even if the two tasted similar in the mouth.
He exhaled, a long, slow breath that washed over the battlements like a desert wind.
"THEY WILL LIVE."
Genna let out a sob of relief, her shoulders sagging.
"BUT THE NAMES FREY AND LANNISTER ARE POISON IN THESE LANDS," Aemon continued, his voice hard as iron. "THEY WILL SURRENDER THEIR TITLES. THEY WILL SURRENDER THEIR CLAIMS. THEY WILL TAKE NEW NAMES. RIVER. HILL. STONE. IF THEY EVER CLAIM THE NAME FREY AGAIN, IF THEY EVER RAISE A BANNER OR DRAW A SWORD AGAINST HOUSE TULLY, THEY FORFEIT THEIR LIVES."
Genna nodded. Tears spilled down her cheeks, cutting tracks through the dust. She placed a hand on Emmon's shaking shoulder, a gesture of finality. She had saved her blood, but she had sold their legacy to buy it.
"It shall be done," she said softly. "Riverrun is yours… Your Grace."
"AND HOSTER BLACKWOOD," Aemon rumbled. "BRING HIM OUT."
Genna's face went white. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
She turned to one of the guards, a grizzled man with a scar bisecting his lip, and nodded sharply.
"Fetch the Blackwood boy."
The guard disappeared into the stairwell. The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Aemon's eyes never left the battlements. He could hear Emmon's breathing, fast and shallow like a rabbit caught in a snare. He could smell the salt of Genna's tears still clinging to the air.
Minutes crawled by. Finally, footsteps echoed from the stairwell.
Hoster Blackwood couldn't have seen more than fifteen namedays. His tunic hung torn at the shoulder, fabric crusted dark where the seam had ripped. Grime smeared his hollow cheeks. His dark hair clung lank and greasy to his skull.
He staggered, caught himself. His eyes swept the courtyard—over the guards, over Genna, over Emmon—and then locked onto the dragon's head looming above them all.
The boy went rigid. His breath hitched audibly. For one heartbeat, terror flickered raw across his face with eyes blown wide, lips parting on an inhale he couldn't seem to finish.
Then his jaw clenched. His shoulders squared. The fear didn't vanish but the boy buried it deep. He planted his feet, lifted his chin, and met the dragon's molten gaze without flinching.
Aemon leaned closer, his nostrils flaring. He scented no fresh wounds, no broken bones. Just exhaustion, filth, and the sour tang of fear buried deep beneath stubborn pride.
"YOU ARE UNHARMED?"
Hoster's jaw worked. He glanced at Genna, then back at the dragon. "I've had worse."
A flicker of something—amusement, perhaps—stirred in Aemon's chest. The boy had spine.
"GOOD."
Aemon pulled his head back slightly, enough to address Genna without the boy between them. "YOU WILL SEND HIM TO RAVENTREE HALL. IN ONE PIECE. WITH AN ESCORT. IF HOSTER BLACKWOOD DOES NOT REACH HIS FATHER SAFELY, EMMON FREY DOES NOT REACH THE WALL SAFELY. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Genna's throat bobbed. She looked at Hoster and something cracked in her expression. Regret, maybe. Or just the final collapse of whatever illusions she'd clung to about her husband's choices.
"Yes, Your Grace," she whispered. "He will reach Raventree Hall safely. You have my word."
"YOUR WORD IS ALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN YOUR HUSBAND AND ASH," Aemon said flatly. "REMEMBER THAT."
Hoster straightened, squaring his shoulders despite the tremor in his legs. He met Aemon's gaze one last time, then bowed.
"Thank you, Your Grace."
Aemon did not reply. He simply watched as the boy was led away, his footsteps echoing down the stairs until they faded into silence.
Aemon held Genna Lannister's gaze for a moment longer, ensuring she understood the weight of the pact. Then, he pulled back.
His neck coiled back like a great serpent retreating into its lair. He withdrew from the battlements, his head moving away from the stone walls. He looked down at the muddy earth, planting his feet.
He spread his wings.
The span was immense, casting a shadow that stretched across the river and into the woods beyond. The membrane caught the wind, snapping taut. With a roar that sent birds scattering from the trees for a mile in every direction, Aemon launched himself.
The downdraft was catastrophic. It slammed into the castle walls, knocking the guards flat on their backs. The water in the moat was blasted outward in a violent spray, drenching the lower walls. The banner of House Frey, limp on its pole, was torn free and sent tumbling into the mud.
Aemon rose, the earth falling away beneath him. He did not look back at the triangular keep, or the weeping lord, or the defeated lioness. Riverrun was secured. The Tullys would return.
He turned his head to the north, toward the Blue Fork.
There was one Frey who would find no mercy. One Frey who had personally driven the knife into the belly of the North. Black Walder.
The mouse is caught, the wolf thought, the wind rushing through his mind. Now for the rat.
The dragon beat its wings, and the world blurred into speed and gray sky.
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Kings Landing, The Crownlands
Cersei Lannister stood over the map table, her fingers tracing the coastline of the Blackwater Bay, though her eyes were fixed on the sweating man in the corner.
"The Rose Road remains closed, Your Grace," Lord Merryweather stammered, his eyes darting to the floor. "Lord Tarly's vanguard holds the crossing at Bitterbridge. The grain barges from the Reach have turned back. The city... the city is starving."
Cersei took a sip of her strongwine. It was Dornish, thick and dark, the only good thing to ever come out of that sand-choked hellhole. She let the burn settle in her chest before she deigned to answer.
"Then let them fish," she said, her voice cool amidst the heat. "The bay is full of crabs. Or have the smallfolk forgotten how to cast a net?"
The lordling swallowed hard. "The mobs are gathering in Flea Bottom, Your Grace. They shout for bread. They shout... treasonous things. And the scouts report gold banners joining the green in the Kingswood. Lord Garlan marches north with the Golden Company. We cannot feed the garrison, let alone the city. If the riots turn to rebellion..."
He trailed off, silenced by the look she gave him. It was the look Tywin Lannister had reserved for incompetent servants, a gaze that stripped a man down to his failures.
"Let them eat rats," Cersei said, swirling the wine in her goblet. "There are enough of them in this city. It will toughen them for the siege. Hunger makes men vicious, my lord. I need vicious men, not fat sheep bleating for clover."
"But, Your Grace—"
She waved a hand, dismissing him as one might flick away a fly. "Get out. Your fear stinks up the room. Send Qyburn to me when you leave."
The man bowed so low he nearly toppled over, scrambling backward toward the heavy oak doors. He was weak. They were all so weak. Men who crumbled at the first sign of adversity, who looked at a closed road and saw the end of the world. She was surrounded by cowards and fools.
The door opened before the lord could reach it, and another figure stumbled in.
Cersei's lip curled. Lord Harys Swyft. The Knight of the Corn Chicken.
He looked as though he had aged twenty years in a single moon. His travel clothes were stained with salt and dust, his famous chinless face a mask of grey exhaustion. He did not bow. He fell to his knees, weeping openly, a pathetic heap of velvet and failure.
"Your Grace," he blubbered, his hands shaking as he held out a scroll sealed with the heavy iron key of the Iron Bank. "They wouldn't listen. I tried... I told them of your power, of the gold in the Rock..."
Cersei crossed the room in three long strides and snatched the scroll from his hand. "Stop that noise," she commanded. "Stand up. You are a Lannister by marriage. Act like it."
Swyft did not stand. He only sobbed harder. "They laughed at me, Your Grace. The keyholders... they said the Crown is bankrupt. They said the Lion has no teeth."
Cersei broke the seal with a snap of her thumb. The parchment was heavy, the script precise and unforgiving. She scanned the words, her breath catching in her throat.
To the Regent of the Seven Kingdoms, it began. Not Queen. Regent.
It declared the Crown in default. It cited the destruction of the Great Sept of Baelor as an act of "gross instability" that voided all previous agreements. It demanded the immediate repayment of all principal loans.
And then, the final insult.
The Iron Bank of Braavos extends its credit and support to the new stability in the North, and recognizes the claims of those who uphold the laws of gods and men.
The North. The Bastard of Winterfell.
Cersei crushed the parchment in her fist. The audacity of it. The sheer, unbridled insolence. Braavosi moneylenders dictating terms to the daughter of Tywin Lannister? Backing a savage bastard and his wildlings against the Iron Throne?
"You failed me," she whispered, the sound more terrible than a scream.
"I begged them!" Swyft wailed, clutching at the hem of her gown. "I told them—"
"You begged!" Cersei threw the crumpled scroll into his face. It bounced off his wet cheek and rolled across the Myrish carpet. "A Lannister does not beg! You went there to command them, to remind them where the power lies, and you return to me with tears and excuses!"
She turned to the Kingsguard at the door. "Get him out of my sight. He makes me sick."
"Your Grace, please!" Swyft shrieked as the white cloaks hauled him to his feet. "Where? Where shall I go?"
"To the dungeons," Cersei spat. "Or to the sea. I don't care. Just get him away from me before I give him to Qyburn for his experiments."
Swyft's screams echoed down the corridor long after the doors slammed shut, fading into the stone like the last gasps of a dying animal.
Cersei turned back to the table, her hands trembling with rage. She poured herself another cup of wine, filling it to the brim. Her hand shook so badly a drop of red splashed onto the map, landing squarely on King's Landing like a wound.
Stability in the North. The words mocked her. There was no stability in the North. Only snow and wolves and traitors. They would freeze come winter. They would starve just as surely as the smallfolk in Flea Bottom.
"Bad news comes in threes, Your Grace."
The voice was soft, calm, a balm on her frayed nerves. Qyburn stepped out from the shadows of the alcove where he had been waiting. He moved silently, his grey robes whispering against the stone. In his hand, he held a single piece of rough parchment, tied not with silk or wax, but with a strip of black wool.
Cersei stared at him. "What is this?"
"A raven, Your Grace," Qyburn said gently. "From Raventree Hall."
What is Tytos begging for now?
She took the parchment. It felt coarse under her fingers, cheap and hurried. She unrolled it.
The handwriting was jagged, sharp strokes that tore into the paper.
The war is over. The Freys are broken. The Riverlands belong to the Tullys once more. We do not kneel to Lannisters, only to the Dragon.
A blunt, clumsy threat from a desperate enemy. Cersei almost laughed. Did they think to frighten her with words? She had burned the High Sparrow. She had burned the Tyrells. She was fire itself.
Then her eyes fell to the signatures at the bottom.
Brynden Tully. The Blackfish. An old man clinging to a dead house.
King Aemon Targaryen?A mummer's name.Where are these pretenders coming from?
And below them, a scrawl she knew better than her own. A signature she had seen a thousand times, on letters of love, on orders of war, on promises made in the dark.
Jaime Lannister.
The goblet slipped from her fingers.
It hit the floor with a dull thong, splashing dark wine across the hem of her gown. Cersei didn't notice. She couldn't breathe. The room seemed to tilt, the walls closing in around her.
She traced the ink with a trembling finger. It was his hand. Changed, perhaps, by the loss of his sword hand, but unmistakable. The loop of the L, the sharp slash of the J.
He hadn't been captured. He hadn't been forced.
He had signed it.
He had joined them.
"No," she whispered. The word was a shard of glass in her throat. "No. It's a forgery. A trick."
"The seal is genuine, Your Grace," Qyburn said softly.
The world fractured. Jaime. Her twin. Her shadow. They had come into this world together, clutching each other's heels. He was the only part of her that was real, the only person who had ever truly known her. Tyrion was the monster, the valonqar, the little brother destined to choke the life from her.
But Jaime?
We will die together, she had told him once. We are the only two people in the world.
A scream built in her chest, a raw, animal sound that wanted to tear her throat apart. She bit it back, clamping her teeth together until her jaw ached. She would not scream. She would not weep. Tears were for Harys Swyft. Tears were for weak women who waited for men to save them.
She was Cersei Lannister. She was the daughter of Tywin. She needed no one.
"Your Grace?" Qyburn took a step forward, concern etching his pale features.
Cersei turned away from him. She walked to the window, her boots crunching on the broken goblet. She looked out at the city.
Smoke still rose from the crater of the Great Sept of Baelor, a thin grey finger accusing the sky. The city sprawled beneath her, a maze of crooked streets and hovels, teeming with a million unwashed souls who hated her.
They were all against her now. The North. The Riverlands. The Reach. The Stormlands. The Iron Bank. Even her own blood.
They were coming to take her crown, to drag her through the streets, to put her head on a spike. Jaime would be there, watching with his golden hand and his traitor's heart.
She looked at the crater again. The scar on the city. It was beautiful in its own way. A testament to absolute power. A reminder that she could unmake the world if she chose.
If she could not hold the city...
The thought crystallized in her mind, cold and sharp and perfect.
Why should they have it? Why should she let them sit on her throne, walk her halls, sleep in her bed? Why should the smallfolk who cursed her name be allowed to cheer for her usurpers?
If she was to fall, she would not fall alone. She would be the funeral pyre of the world.
She turned back to Qyburn. Her face was a mask of calm, the porcelain smooth and unbroken. Her eyes were dry.
"They want my city?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper that chilled the stifling air of the solar. "Let them come. But we must ensure they find no victory here."
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