The Red Keep was a castle built by House Targaryen.
Aegon the Conqueror had merely constructed a wooden fortress here.
With gradual expansion, it was finally completed under the third king, Maegor the Cruel. Maegor built many secret passages within the Red Keep.
To protect the secrets of these passages, all the craftsmen who built the castle were killed.
Once, the Targaryens liked to use dragon skulls as decorations for the castle.
After the Baratheons took over, they moved those dragon skulls to the cellar, replacing them with the crowned stag of Baratheon and the golden lion of Lannister banners.
Since Robert's death, the joyous atmosphere in the Red Keep had vanished. Especially with the continuous failures on the front lines.
Jaime captured.
The Mountain killed.
The Westerlands invaded.
Stannis bearing down with a great army.
The Baratheon dynasty seemed to be teetering on the edge of collapse after just over a decade.
Guards and maids shuffled through the castle as if wading through an icy river filled with shards of ice.
Every step was cautious and arduous.
And Maegor's Holdfast, the royal residence, was the source of all this "chill." A woman in her thirties, with hair golden like true gold and eyes green like emeralds, stood on the balcony.
Her clothes were made by the finest tailors in the Seven Kingdoms.
Stags and lions formed the bright and dark patterns on her dress respectively.
Red and yellow accentuated her beauty and nobility. Yet even such clothes would not be worn by her more than three times.
This was none other than the Queen Regent of the current Baratheon dynasty—Cersei Lannister.
Cersei stood on the balcony, pacing back and forth incessantly. Even when she sat down, she would stand up again quickly.
It seemed none of the thousand chairs in the Red Keep could accommodate the Queen Regent.
Her green eyes looked toward the Mud Gate, as if trying to see through it.
She was extremely annoyed by Tyrion's decision to bring Joffrey to the battlements. What was more infuriating was that even Grand Maester Pycelle and Master of Whisperers Varys supported his decision.
Cersei simply couldn't understand.
A child.
What could a thirteen-year-old child do on a battlefield?
They even made Joffrey wear magnificent armor and his crown.
As if afraid the enemy wouldn't know he was the King. I must find a way to get Joffrey back. Cersei gripped her wine goblet tightly, but then realized a problem: if King's Landing fell, she would have to flee with Joffrey!
With the enemy army outside, where could she flee?
A figure flashed in Cersei's mind, and she turned to order her maid:
"Summon Lord Varys!"
The Master of Whisperers, Varys, was also bald.
His figure was somewhat rotund, and he always smelled of lilacs. No one had ever seen him raise his voice, let alone lose his temper.
Speaking of his voice, if one didn't look at his face, they might mistake him for a woman. sometimes he even giggled like a girl.
He seemed like a soft, oversized pillow.
But this man was by no means simple. He came from the Free Cities across the Narrow Sea. The last Targaryen king was Aerys Targaryen.
Known as the "Mad King" Aerys.
Varys once served the Mad King.
After Robert became king, he became Robert's Master of Whisperers, even obtaining intelligence on the exiled Targaryen heirs, Viserys and Daenerys.
Of course, these were not important matters to Cersei right now. She cared not about the Free Cities thousands of miles away, but the immediate King's Landing.
Soon, Varys was summoned before Cersei. She didn't beat around the bush and asked directly, "Lord Varys, I heard you know of secret passages leading out of the Red Keep?"
"Your Grace, please believe me, these are merely rumors," Varys replied calmly in his neutral, gender-ambiguous voice.
"But I heard the Mad King trusted you most in his final years. He should have told you about the secret passages," Cersei persisted.
"Your Grace, these are still baseless claims," Varys's tone became even more respectful.
"Am I to wait here for death, entrusting my life to that dwarf?" Cersei hurled her wine goblet onto the floor, shattering the expensive crystal.
"Your Grace, perhaps you should keep a closer eye on Eddard's daughter. At least she is a good hostage."
Sansa.
Cersei realized she was so frantic she had forgotten about this hostage.
After Eddard was executed, Sansa became Joffrey's toy for venting anger.
Whenever the war went badly, Joffrey would beat Sansa, and Cersei, as Queen Regent, turned a blind eye.
Now it was time for Sansa to be truly useful. But could Sansa's life buy Stannis's mercy?
This was obviously not something Cersei could consider.
She turned and ordered, "Go! Bring Lady Sansa to me!"
A red-haired girl stood by the window. Pale-faced, she looked like a broken flower bud ravaged by wind and rain.
"Look out the window! Look!"
The septa's harsh voice lashed at Sansa's heart like a whip.
Those grey-brown eyes were like muddy ice blocks, and the grey habit became the girl's most feared attire.
Sansa opened her eyes, red and swollen from crying, and looked out the window. There, impaled on a spike, was a human head.
It was the head of the previous Hand of the King, Eddard Stark's head, her father's head.
Joffrey used this method to torture Sansa's spirit.
Her arms were covered in pinch marks, and her back bore whip scars.
But she endured it all. These were caused by Joffrey.
The whip scars were because her eldest brother Robb had captured Joffrey's uncle, Ser Jaime Lannister.
The pinch marks on her arms were because her bastard brother Jon Snow had slain Tywin's most capable general, Gregor Clegane.
A fire burned constantly in Sansa's heart. She believed her family would come to King's Landing to save her.
But trapped in the enemy camp, boundless fear swallowed her again. Her once round cheeks were sunken, veins visible on her neck. The delicate beauty of a noble lady had left her in just over a month.
At this moment, a knight-like figure entered her room.
"Sansa Stark, Her Grace commands your presence."
"The Queen Regent."
Sansa remembered how she and Cersei got along when Eddard was still alive. Cersei always patiently taught her court etiquette and dos and don'ts, even drinking tea and chatting with her.
But once her father Eddard died, she became like a roadside weed, not even allowed to see Cersei.
Sansa didn't know why Cersei wanted her, but she followed obediently. At least she didn't have to look at her father's increasingly decayed face.
Urged by the septa, she changed her clothes.
However, due to her weight loss, the clothes no longer fit well.
Sansa followed the knight. After all, she was only in her early teens. The knight was tall and long-legged, walking ahead without any intention of accommodating Sansa.
Sansa could only stride to keep up, but with her food rationed and her stamina low, she was somewhat breathless.
"Hurry up! Don't keep Her Grace waiting!"
The knight urged, making Sansa feel wronged. The knights she had seen before were all so polite.
Tears welled up in her eyes, and Sansa prayed sadly:
Mother, Robb, Jon—when will you come to save me?
Just then, a low, vibrating sound rang out, causing even the urging knight to slow down.
Oooooooo-oooooooo-ooooooo-oooooooo...
The low hum was like an invisible tide rolling in from the direction of the Blackwater Rush to the south.
"It's a horn!"
Sansa suddenly remembered when she and her father Eddard first arrived in King's Landing, King Robert held a tourney to welcome them.
At the start of the tourney, there were horns like this.
Not just Sansa and the knight.
Throughout the Red Keep, all the guards and maids heard the battle horn.
They stopped in their tracks.
Some even prayed on the spot.
Because they knew that once Stannis's army breached King's Landing, a terrible fate awaited them.
Being raped would be a mercy; keeping their lives would be thanks to the gods' benevolence.
Cersei still stood on the balcony. Hearing the horn, she could barely stand. She could now only pin all her hopes on her dwarf brother Tyrion.
---
The battle horn had sounded, but Davos remained restless.
This "Onion Knight" had smuggled food into Storm's End during Robert's Rebellion, allowing Stannis to hold the castle.
Through smuggling, he leaped from commoner to noble.
Though only a minor noble, it was enough for him to be utterly devoted to Stannis.
He placed all four of his adult sons in the most dangerous positions.
He also told his sons that this was the place of "highest honor."
He hoped they would be the first to fight their way into the city to repay Stannis's kindness.
Only—
Davos looked again at the winch towers behind him.
He often claimed to know the waterways around King's Landing like the back of his hand.
But the appearance of those two winch towers seemed to him like two extra fingers growing on his hand.
He felt that Imry Florent, commanding the fleet, was somewhat reckless.
The massive fleet couldn't utilize its advantage in this narrow channel. Instead, the warships hindered each other's maneuvering.
But they were already deep into the Blackwater Rush; there was no turning back. The massive fleet couldn't turn around, and even slowing down was difficult.
Now they had only two choices: either hold a victory celebration inside King's Landing or face a dismal defeat.
Death in battle, or capture.
The horn urged everyone on, echoing far away. Even the Northern army hiding in the woods north of King's Landing heard it.
Beric sought out Jon, only to find him still sleeping, with Sora still sitting by his side.
Seeing him, Sora said, "Jon said if you need to launch an attack, he will come find you. Please go back first, Ser, and have the soldiers check their weapons and siege ladders again."
Beric looked at Jon, who was "sleeping with his head covered," hesitated for a moment, and left the tent.
Jon had built this army; they had to listen to him, and could only listen to him.