A/N: And we are back with KTB too! Enjoy the chapter :D
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Year 300 AC
Kings Landing, The Crownlands
Only the pop of dying embers broke the holdfast's new hollow.
Candles guttered in wax while wine crept across the carpet in dark streaks. As the tarry stuff from Robert Strong's neck cooled on the rushes, it gave off a foul sweetness. Meryn Trant lay where he had fallen with his white cloak soaked red. From somewhere below the chambers came the other smell Marbrand had named in a low voice, sour and sweet at once with murder underneath. It was wildfire enough to burn the city if some fool found a spark.
Jaime stood before Cersei.
She had slid partway down the pillar, her head tilted to one side. Purple marks ringed her throat where his hand had done its work. The wine stain on her sleeve had dried to rust, and her green eyes stared past him at nothing a living woman could use.
He was not sure what a man was called who murdered his sister and then carried her to bed.
With his left arm behind her knees and his shoulder under her back, he bent to lift her, an awkward and slow piece of work that one arm had long since made a dull lesson. Silk rustled against his mail as her hair brushed his jaw and Cersei's head lolled against his shoulder in the loose repose of too much wine and sleep beside a hearth.
The bedchamber lay only a few steps through the inner door, and he crossed them carefully. The bed curtains stood half-drawn over a coverlet someone had turned back earlier, perhaps a maid or perhaps Cersei herself before the night went mad.
He laid her upon the mattress and straightened her on the pillows, but her eyes remained open until he touched the lids with two fingers and drew them closed. He smoothed the twisted silk at her waist, then tugged the sleeve so the stain showed less and settled a strand of hair away from her mouth.
She was a part of me, and I was a part of her, from the womb to the end. Between the first secret and the last, there must have been a chance to save her, to save us. A moment lost in time, perhaps never there at all.
With one last lingering look, he pivoted and exited.
Back through the outer chamber he went. The giant's severed head sat where it had toppled, white enamel caved in above the visor. He stepped over splintered wood and shattered gears, past Trant in his blood-soaked cloak. The bridge beyond the doors lay clear, Bronn having taken the men and silenced the shouting while Arya fetched her wolf. Only corpses remained with Cersei, and they had watched over her often enough already.
As he stepped outside, the night air cooled the sweat under his collar. Cersei's nails had raked his throat raw, and the stump beneath the golden hand throbbed dully, but the night's work was not done. Ahead were the royal apartments and Tommen. Beyond them lay Marbrand, the garrison, the gates, the siege, and a city brimming with hidden green fire.
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Addam Marbrand stood outside the royal apartments, six men at his back and sword in hand, the others posted farther down the corridor at each turn and stair. Marbrand saw Jaime and took two quick steps forward, his glance passing from Jaime's face to the blood on his sword arm and then behind him in expectation of Robert Strong.
Jaime stopped before the door. "She's dead."
Marbrand drew a long breath through his nose, his shoulders sinking as he clamped his mouth shut, though his voice stayed steady. "And Qyburn?"
"Dead. Trant too. The trigger in the holdfast is smashed." Jaime looked toward the floor beneath them and almost expected the stone to turn clear. "Now, tell me my son lives."
Marbrand scrubbed a hand over his mouth. "The boy lives. A healer from the queen's household was here when we forced the door. She knew enough to begin purging him. Pale as milk, weak as a kitten, shaking besides. Worse than I feared, but alive."
"How many saw?" he asked.
"Those here, the twenty with me at the taking and a few servants. They'll keep quiet. Fear will do what loyalty fails at."
Jaime nodded. "We open the Lion Gate when light comes enough for banners to be seen. White banner first. I will go out under truce."
Marbrand's stare hardened. "You?"
"I give Connington the city, the gates, the garrison, and a living king who means to lay down his crown. He gets the truth of Tommen's birth besides. Lannister incest, bastard issue, the whole foul song. In return he keeps his men out of the streets until we have teams in the tunnels hauling up wildfire jars."
"And after?" Marbrand said. "You hand Connington a city and a crown, he pulls the wildfire from the ground, and then what? He hangs the Kingslayer from the gatehouse and rules from the chair you gave him. Where is our army that makes this more than a slow way to die?"
Jaime looked at him for a moment, then let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "What do you know of Jon Snow?"
Marbrand frowned. "Ned Stark's bastard? Lord Commander of the Night's Watch that left his post to take back the North from the Boltons. Impressive lad given the boy abondoned his post. But..." He paused. "What does a northern bastard have to do with our gates, Jaime?"
"Everything." Jaime leaned his shoulder against the wall. "Ned Stark lied, Addam. The most honest man in the Seven Kingdoms looked Robert Baratheon in the face for seventeen years and lied every single day." His mouth pulled sideways. "The boy… is not his. He never was."
Marbrand held his tounge. A seasoned soldier knew better than to interrupt the flow of information.
"Lyanna Stark bore Jon Snow at a tower in Dorne while my father's men were sacking this city. She gave birth to... Rhaegar's son. Ned Stark brought him home, called him bastard, and let every lord in Westeros, his own wife included, believe the lie. Seventeen years, Addam. The man who made me feel like filth for breaking one oath to saves the lives of many carried a secret that would have burned the realm to the ground."
Marbrand put a hand against the wall to steady himself. "Jon Snow… is Rhaegar's son?!"
"The boy, he took the black, died at Castle Black." Jaime stared past Marbrand. "Died, and came back. But what came back…" Jaime's voice dropped to a gravedigger's whisper. "Is Aemon Targaryen with wings, scales, and a shadow the size of Balerion the Black Dread, Marbrand."
For a long moment, Marbrand studied him and searched Jaime's face for fever or fracture. "Jaime, your sister died tonight. You fought that… thing in the holdfast. If you need to sit down, I will not think less of you."
"I need you to listen." Jaime's hushed voice conveyed the gravity of his words. "I watched Ned Stark's bastard become something the size of Balerion the Black Dread. You don't have to believe me right now, but you all will, soon enough."
Marbrand's eyes bored into Jaime, silent as a tomb.
"So… not the dragon outside our walls," Marbrand said slowly. "A different one."
"Rhaegar had two sons, it seems. One is real. The other has twenty thousand Golden Company men."Jaime gave that time to settle. "Aemon sent me south. The Riverlands bent the knee to him before I rode. He sent me to stop Cersei and hold the city until he arrives. Days at most."
"You might have led with that."
"That's a difficult truth to lead with."
"Even so. You need to take the boy and quit the city. Slip out a postern with ten good men. I can hold the garrison, yield to Connington, keep the peace until your Targaryen arrives. He can sort his own city when he gets here."
Jaime looked down the corridor through its turns and torchlight, letting Marbrand's words hold for a moment. He could ride out with Tommen and find a ship bound for Volantis or Qarth. There dragonlords, dead armies, and green fire were only tales told by drunks in harbor taverns. Marbrand watched him weigh the thought of leaving Westeros to choke on its own crowns behind a one-handed knight and a sick child. Had the temptation never existed, Marbrand could have despised him resolutely.
He said, "If I flee, Connington storms the walls. Men get loose in the streets, lighting torches where they please. The wildfire stays buried because no one will trust a map sent by the Kingslayer after he's run. And the boy becomes a fugitive claimant that every lord between here and Oldtown will want to use or bury."
Marbrand's grip shifted on his sword hilt. "Then send me."
Jaime shook his head. "The Kingslayer's word is worthless, but his body is a different matter. Connington will trust my voice under his blade more than any vow I send him by another man."
"Then we wave the white banner," Marbrand said at last. "You and me with the walls fully garrisoned. The rest stacked behind each postern and tower stair to keep the sellswords from trying their fortune."
"And archers over the Lion Gate," Jaime said. "Visible with bows lowered. Connington will expect a trick."
Marbrand snorted without humor. "Aye. Any reasonable commander would."
Jaime rested his hand on the door latch. "Strip the kingsguard of what remains. Any pyromancer with keys to those tunnels comes under guard. When the garrison hears Cersei is dead, some will panic and some will cheer. Beat both out of them." He paused. "And Addam. Not a word of Aemon before he is overheard, lest it spread more panic. "
Marbrand nodded curtly. "The lists will be made. And not a word beyond that." He stepped aside. "Go in. He has asked for you twice."
Jaime opened the door.
The chamber reeked of vinegar and crushed herbs. Curtains hung open at the windows for any breeze the night brought, and two bedside candles lit the space around Tommen. He lay propped up with pillows and blankets drawn to his waist with Ser Pounce curled on his lap.
The lad's face was all sharp angles and sallow skin, lips faded to a pale line. His hands drifted over the cat's back in a weak, uneven rhythm that made Ser Pounce's ears flatten and his gaze grow cold. An old crone hunched by the bed, sleeves pushed up, hammering at a mortar and pestle. She shot Jaime a quick, assessing look before returning to her grinding, the bitter smell of herbs filling the air.
"Keep him warm," she said. "Keep broth in him if he can hold it. Slow, small sips. If he sleeps, wake him every little while."
The crone spoke briskly, like a camp healer who had no patience for courtesies, directly to men who could hang her — but Jaime inclined his head in approval.
Tommen looked at him. "Uncle... Jaime?"
Jaime crossed to the bed and put the back of his fingers to the boy's brow. It felt cool, far too cool. When he took the wrist next, the pulse fluttered thin and hurried under the skin.
The maester deserved three deaths, not one.
"Easy," Jaime said.
Ser Pounce rose, arched his back, and stepped aside so Jaime could sit on the edge of the bed. The cat settled against Tommen's hip once more, tail curled over his paws.
"Where is Mother?" Tommen asked.
Jaime kept his hand at the boy's wrist. "Your mother… she passed on."
The boy's hand stopped its rhythmic petting, his fingers frozen deep in the cat's coat as he stared.
The old woman lifted a spoon from her bowl and held it to the boy's lips. "Drink, Your Grace."
Tommen obeyed.
"But Myrcella still lives," Jaime said. I pray she does.
The boy swallowed with effort. "Will I see her?"
"If the gods show a rare mercy."
Tommen gave a small nod and shut his eyes. Jaime drew the blanket higher over his chest and smoothed the fabric bunched beneath one elbow. His hand lingered for a breath at the boy's shoulder, measuring bone through linen. Joffrey had died by poison at his own feast, Myrcella was abandoned in Dorne, and Tommen lived by a thread an old woman tried to knot back into place. Their crowns were gold, as were their shrouds.
Ser Pounce pushed his head under Tommen's palm, demanding the service due a cat. Tommen obeyed that command as well, fingers moving weakly through the fur.
"Sleep if sleep comes," Jaime said. "You have good men at the door."
"Will you stay?"
Jaime looked at the boy, at the wide eyes sunk in a pale face too soft for crowns and siege lines and poison cups. So he gave him the useful answer.
"I have work below stairs and at the gates. I will return."
Tommen nodded again. Perhaps he even believed it.
Jaime's eyes rose to the sword tht hung upon pegs in a wall rack across the chamber, set above a carved chest. The dark steel carried ripples no castle-forged blade could mimic, with a lion-head pommel and a grip of crimson leather. Widow's Wail. It was half of Eddard Stark's greatsword, melted and reforged by his father so that even an enemy's steel must serve the Rock in the end. He rose and took the sword down.
The sword was lighter than it looked, perfectly balanced for all the foulness of its name. When Jaime stepped out and pulled the door shut, Marbrand turned toward him. His gaze fell to the dark steel, and he knew it for what it was.
"Hold this," Jaime said, and held the sword out hilt first. "The King will want this back when he arrives, and I will be in no position to carry one."
Marbrand took the sword, drew a thumb across the dark steel, and belted Widow's Wail at his side. "Then we had best keep the city standing long enough to hand it over."
"Aye," Jaime said. "That would be courteous."
The distant groan of siege timber marked the work of the men outside. Jaime felt the heavy bite of his mail against bruised skin as he rolled his shoulders and started for the stairs.
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Jaime reached the Lion Gate stripped of mail and sword, wearing a plain crimson doublet from some chest in the Hand of he King. Marbrand sat a bay destrier beneath a white banner, with fifty bowmen lining the wall above the gate with shafts pointed at the stones, letting the men beyond see order held. The gates cracked open first, then widened enough to allow horse and rider to pass.
A slight figure waited between the gate and the first rank of pikes beyond bowshot, grey eyes in a dirt-streaked face, mud on her hem and Needle riding her hip. Arya had shed the stolen face. Behind her, Nymeria sat on her haunches, the direwolf's shoulders as high as a destrier's chest, her gold eyes tracking the siege lines unblinking.
Arya looked Jaime up and down, then past him toward the siege lines. "They have elephants. Six that I counted from the treeline, maybe more behind the tents."
A few paces from her, Jaime stopped on ground churned by thousands of boots and hooves. "You were busy."
"I couldn't just sit still. Nymeria has her pack in the kingswood, waiting." She didn't move her hand from Needle's pommel, her voice cold. "I'm taking a seat at the table."
"Your brother will love that."
"His anger can wait." Arya's eyes raked over him, taking in the state of his gear and his face. "You look like terrible."
"I strangled my sister and fought a dead man. How should I look?"
Arya considered that. "Fair enough."
The gate yawned wider behind them to let out the men, who marched in pairs with grounded halberds under flags of truce. Marbrand sat tall in his saddle as the white banner caught the wind. All around the city, the horizon was a thicket of pikes and cookfire smoke. Painted caparisons draped the elephants that loomed over the siege lines, and the griffin of the Golden Company flew amidst a sea of Tyrell green. With tens of thousands of men at their back, they had enough steel to break the walls and leave nothing of the city standing.
Arya's attention shifted towards the elephants. "Ugly beasts." She watched one swing its trunk and shift, mail plates grinding. "How do you get on top of one?"
"I'll ask the Golden Company for a trainer. Perhaps a saddle in your size."
"Would they allow that?"
She was serious, Jaime realized. He let his eyelids fall for a long, weary second before he looked at her again. "We are going to a parley, not a horse fair."
"You mean an elephant fair," Arya said. "And I know that but it's worth asking."
Bronn chose the worst possible moment to come slouching from the city side with a plain helm tucked under one arm and a sword at his hip. He had found time to wash the blood from his face, though the cut over his eye still shone raw.
"You two done discussing whose death would be stupider?" Bronn asked. "The griffin's people are laying out a table. Time to work your magic Lannister, though I would have preferred your brother for this part."
Jaime glanced at Arya again and wondered if Aemon would geld him for letting his younger sister walk into a parley in enemy territory. It was too late to fret now.
"Come along, then," he said. "Let us see if treason, kinslaying, and poor manners still buy a hearing in this madness."
Arya snorted and Bronn grinned. There was little sense worrying about the future if Connington killed him first.
The parley ground was nothing more than a patch of trodden earth between the Lion Gate and the forward trench. Seven people gathered around a lone trestle table and its six chairs. Jaime sat with his hands empty and his gold fingers bared to the sun.
To his left, Arya stood small and silent as she watched the enemy pikes. Nymeria had settled in the dirt behind them, and the nearest elephant was already straining at its picket, spooked by the sight of the wolf. Bronn lounged to the right with all the grace of a tavern bravo who had blundered into a king's council and found the chair suited him.
Across from them sat the claimant.
If the boy believed he was Aegon Targaryen, he certainly dressed the part in black steel chased with red at the throat and wrists. He had the silver hair and handsome features of Old Valyria, looking every bit the composed young Prince. Exile had stripped the softness from him, but the courtly bearing remained, a polished performance surely drilled into him by Connington.
Two years standing guard outside Rhaegar Targaryen's chambers had taught Jaime enough to know the jaw across the table was wrong. The eyes were set too wide and the cheekbones lacked Rhaegar's razor cut. Jaime had seen the true likeness in another boy's face, and it made this boy's silver hair look like a mummer's wig.
Connington loomed at the boy's shoulder with one gloved hand on the table and a mouth set in a grimace of permanent pain. Beside him, Garlan Tyrell sat in green enamel polished to a mirror sheen, looking like a soldier waiting for a tourney's trumpet blast rather than a important lord at a council. Varys occupied the far end of the boards, a heap of soft wax and lavender silk that had somehow remained pristine despite the muck outside.
Marbrand halted behind Jaime and kept the white banner upright.
For a moment, the seven people around the table said nothing. None seemed sure which courtesy applied when a kingslayer came to surrender to a king whose grandfather he had murdered. Jaime let the silence gather its weight before setting his gold hand on the boards where every man could see it.
"Your Grace," he said, finding that a polite lie cost him far less than the truth.
Aegon inclined his head a fraction while Connington remained still. Varys offered a smile so thin it might have been a crease in the silk.
"You called this parley, Ser Jaime," Connington said. "State your business."
Before Jaime could answer, Connington's gaze had already moved past him. "And explain why you brought a child to a war table."
Arya's face was turned away but it snapped back to meet Connington with a sneer.
"She is here because she chose to be," Jaime said, cutting off whatever prickly answer the girl was preparing. "We will speak of her in a moment. What I have to say first concerns every man here, and it begins in the dark beneath our feet."
Jaime locked eyes with the boy. "The city sits on wildfire."
Beyond the trench-line, an elephant let out a low, vibrating rumble that filled the silence at the table.
"Say that again," Aegon commanded, sitting up straigter now.
"Cersei and Qyburn stockpiled jars beneath the Red Keep and across the city. I found the trigger meant to set it off and broke it. But the jars still remain. If your men take the walls by storm and bring torches into those tunnels, King's Landing becomes a funeral pyre."
Connington leaned forward a finger's breadth, his gloved hand pressing flat upon the boards. The leather at the knuckles had stretched thin with use. "Now that the walls close around you, you just happen to find wildfire under those very walls. Convenient."
Jaime turned his head toward him. "You of all men should know I do not lie about wildfire." Connington looked as if he were swallowing a mouthful of bile.
Aegon let the silence linger. "What are your terms?"
In three words, the boy reclaimed control of the table by getting straight to the point. Jaime approved, despite himself.
Jaime laid out his terms one by one. They began with Cersei dead, Tommen laying down his crown, and a public declaration of the boy's true parentage. Under Marbrand's command, the garrison would stand down as the gates were opened in order. Jaime would lead men to mark every cache before any torch entered the tunnels, and Tommen would receive the cure for the poison. A child in bed with a cat on his blanket and broth on his lips was the sum of his kingship now.
Connington spoke at last. "You come from a keep full of corpses and ask us to spare the last whelp of your line."
"The last whelp of my line is in Dorne," Jaime said. "This one happens to be ill, eight years old, and useless to any cause save pity."
"Pity has little place in war."
"Call it prudence then, for a dead boy is the stuff of songs while a live one in a sickbed is merely paperwork."
Bronn offered a pointed cough into his knuckles, a sound Jaime chose to find beneath his notice.
Connington's gloved hand curled, leather squealing against the wood. "And we are to trust you with the tunnels, the jars, the very means by which you might murder us all."
"You may place a sword at my throat the whole while. Two, if you're feeling anxious." Jaime lifted his maimed hand a little. "I've had poor experience with too few swords at my throat."
Aegon's mouth twitched. "Why yield at all?" the young man asked. "You have walls, some stores, and men enough for a siege. Remove the wildfire yourself and hold."
"To what end?" Jaime said. "The queen who continued this war is dead. The cause behind those walls died with her. Every day I hold them, the people starve and bleed for a corpse's pride, and I have had my fill of that."
Varys tittered as he tilted his head. "The Kingslayer, concerned for common blood. One might almost call it noble."
"Call it what you like," Jaime said. "Do we have an accord?"
Then the griffin looked past him toward Arya. "Before that, you said we would come to the girl."
Arya stood through the exchange without a fidget or a glance, her grey eyes fixed on the far line of pikes. She looked younger here than she had in the holdfast.
"The girl is—" Jaime began.
"Arya Stark," Varys said.
Every head at the table turned toward the eunuch. Varys sat with his hands folded, his expression carrying the mild satisfaction of a man who has held a card through an entire hand and chosen this moment to lay it down.
"Eddard Stark's younger daughter," he continued. "She vanished from this city the day her father lost his head. That was years ago. Every whisper I have heard since placed her dead or nowhere at all." He considered the girl without hurry. "The Stark coloring is difficult to mistake, even after so long."
Arya looked at Varys. "So is lavender. I smelled it in those tunnels once before, years ago."
Varys's smile held, but his hands went still in his sleeves.
Connington's stare moved between Arya and Jaime. "A Stark girl, standing with the Kingslayer. Either she is your hostage or the world has gone stranger than I thought."
"I am no one's hostage," Arya said, her voice rising with a hard edge of disgust.
"She was inside the Red Keep before I was," Jaime said. "She found her own way in and she can find her own way out."
Aegon leaned forward. "Then why stand with the man whose family destroyed yours?"
"I came to this city for my own reasons," Arya said. "Those are finished, so now I am waiting for my brother."
Garlan looked at the girl in confusion, asking, "Your brother?"
"Your brother in the North knows you live?" Aegon asked, clearly aware of Jon Snow.
"He will," was her only reply.
Strickland stirred after sitting through the parley with folded arms and a shut mouth, which Jaime supposed marked the full extent of the captain-general's talents. He leaned toward Connington now and spoke low enough that the words barely carried.
A frown creased Connington's brow. He looked at Arya, then gave Strickland a curt nod.
Two Golden Company men approached from the camp with prisoners between them.
Jaime saw the black hair first and then the shoulders, Robert's broad shape hammered into younger flesh. The boy was bruised and split of lip with his wrists bound, and beside him shuffled a man Jaime had not seen in years. Thoros of Myr had once charged through the breach at Pyke with a flaming sword and half the realm cheering behind him, but now he wore rust-red robes gone brown with dirt, his scalp patchy and his beard singed.
"My men picked up these two trying to breach the siege lines," Strickland said, addressing no one in particular. "The smith has been yelling that he needs to get to 'Arya' in the stockade." He looked at the girl. "I assumed the name was nonsense until just now."
Arya gave a short, sharp breath through her nose. Color touched her cheeks and vanished as quickly as it came, though Jaime caught it. "You followed me," she said, quiet enough that only Jaime and the prisoners heard. "You absolute fool."
The dark-haired boy lifted his chin. "You left without saying goodbye. Seemed rude from a highborn lady."
"Hold on. The smith. He bears a passing resemblance to the late Usurper," Connington said, his voice careful.
"The realm breeds bastards faster than kings," Jaime said. "What of it?"
"They're mine, release them over to me." Arya's voice cut across the table, loud enough for every man to hear.
Connington's stare hardened. "Prisoners of the Golden Company are not yours to claim, girl."
"A blacksmith and a washed-up red priest," Jaime said. "You are not losing much, Connington."
"It is the principle, Kingslayer."
"The principle." Jaime left the word between them. "You hold a city full of wildfire, a poisoned king ready to abdicate, and a dead army marching south. Principles are a luxury none of us can afford at this table."
Garlan spoke before Connington could answer. "The man is ceding us a city, Lord Connington. Two prisoners are a small courtesy against that."
Aegon's gaze settled on the bound smith, then moved to Connington. "Release them."
Connington's mouth pressed thin. "Your Grace—"
"A blacksmith and a priest buy us nothing," Aegon said. "The girl's goodwill with her brother how hold's the North might." He held the griffin's stare until the older man looked away.
Connington gave one curt nod, and knives came out to cut the cords away.
The boy rubbed his wrists once before stepping to Arya's side. He placed himself half a pace ahead of her and a pace nearer the guards.
"You're bleeding," Arya said, still looking forward.
The boy touched his split lip. "You should see the other three."
Thoros swayed against the table. "The boy has a mean fist, I will give him that" he said.
"This big fucker is a 'boy' now?" Bronn muttered.
When Garlan Tyrell spoke, Jaime silently thanked every god for the timing.
"My father died in the Sept because Queen Cersei chose fire over defeat," Garlan said. His voice was even, fit for a council tent, though a pulse beat hard in his neck. "She is dead now, by Ser Jaime's own admission. The cause that brought Reach swords here is met. If the city carries wildfire in its cellars, we gain little by forcing an assault and much by removing it."
Connington turned toward him. "Do you speak for Highgarden?" he asked, most likely asking don't you need Olenna's premission
"I speak for the men who will burn first if we blunder," Garlan replied. He rested his gauntlets on the table. "I have talented engineers. Give them access under guard. Let Marbrand hold his garrison in place until the jars are hauled out. Put the boy Tommen in neutral keeping with a maester. My charge, if that eases fears on every side."
Mace Tyrell's son, thinking on his feet. The old man would have needed a week and a feast to reach the same conclusion. Aegon looked to Connington, whose mouth drew thin as a cut.
"It spares lives," Garlan continued. "Yours, ours, theirs. The city falls either way. Better it falls with walls still standing."
Varys tilted his head. "Smoke ruins everything it touches, Your Grace, including reputations."
Varys had always been smooth as butter and twice as slippery, yet useful on occasion.
Connington gave Jaime a long look, the sort a man might give a snake he meant to kill once the viper pit was emptied. "You lead us to the first cache yourself."
"I assumed you'd insist."
"If you lie, I hang you above the gate."
Jaime shrugged with one shoulder. "Connington, if I lie, hanging will be the least of my troubles."
Aegon placed both hands on the table. "So be it. The Lion Gate opens under truce. Lord Garlan's men take charge of the prince Tommen and his care. The garrison yields by ranks and lays down arms in order. The tunnels are searched at once. Ser Jaime leads."
Marbrand lowered the white banner a fraction, enough to show he had heard.
Bronn pushed back his chair and rolled his shoulders. At Arya's elbow, Gendry folded his arms. Thoros leaned on the table's edge and looked ready for a strong wind to carry him off.
He looked toward the city walls, then back to the men across the table. A dead queen lay in her bed and a poisoned boy kept company with his cat. A silver-haired pretender commanded twenty thousand swords, and green fire lay buried beneath half a million feet. Seven hells, he had attended worse counsels.
Connington let Aegon's judgment stand for half a breath, then said, "When the last jar comes up and the last tunnel stands clear, Ser Jaime dies. I have no wish to leave the Kingslayer loose in the world."
Arya spoke before Jaime muster an answer. "Kill him and you will not sleep peacefully in this city."
The Kingswood answered.
It came from the south first, one long howl that lifted above the treeline and hung in the air. Then the west, dozens joining dozens until the sound rolled across the siege lines and swallowed the camp noise whole. Horses fought their riders down the picket line. One of the elephants trumpeted and pulled its stake half out of the ground. Men at cookfires stood. Twenty thousand swords in that camp and every one of them was listening to the woods.
Nymeria had not moved from behind Arya. She lay with her head on her forepaws and her gold eyes on Connington while the forest answered her.
The howling faded.
"They answer to me," Arya said.
Connington's stare stayed on the girl. "Who are...no, who sent you?"
"My feet did." Arya's hand rested by Needle. "I came because I chose to and that is all you need to know."
The treeline beyond the siegeworks held Garlan's attention.
Connington studied Jaime. "Men hold defensible walls for less reason than you have given to yield yours. You could have waited for your army in the Riverlands to arrive. You could have moved the catches yourself, while holding the wall. Why are you truly here, Kingslayer?"
"Because I was ordered to keep this city and its people alive," Jaime said. "I have done that. The man who sent me south can sort the rest when he arrives."
"Ordered? Who orders the Kingslayer now that Cersei is dead?"
"He will come soon enough," Jaime leaned back in his chair and let the silence hold. "Ask him yourself. But he gave me two tasks."
The eunuch looked to the prince, then back to Jaime, his eyes narrow. Varys had spent half a lifetime arranging this board, and he hated a piece he had not placed himself more than any known enemy.
Jaime laid his good hand on the table. "One is complete. The other concerns all of you."
He turned to Bronn. "Bring it."
Bronn's grin died. He rose and walked back toward the Lannister lines without a word.
Nobody spoke for a little while as camp noise drifted over the field, carrying the ring of hammers and the creak of leather.
Then Bronn came back, and forty-seven Riverlands men came with him, walking in pairs with poles on their shoulders and an iron-banded chest slung between them. The thing was long as a coffin and twice as ugly, with mud streaking the wood and iron straps across the lid. Its bearers wore the look of soldiers who had hauled a foul duty too often to waste fear on it.
The chest came to ground before the table with a thud that jarred the boards. One of the Riverlands men stepped back fast while another wiped his palm on his surcoat.
Something scraped against the wood from inside. The prince's shoulders lost their courtly ease while Connington drew a breath through his nose and held it. Arya's fingers closed around Needle's pommel, but Gendry had already moved in front of her.
"The lords of the North, the Vale, and the Riverlands have already seen this," Jaime said, "along with the Iron Bank. Now it is your turn."
Jaime undid the bars and lifted the lid.
The creature crouched inside in torn black wool. Half the cheek on one side was gone, his fingers raked at the iron strap, and blue eyes fixed on the living without a trace of the man he had been. The thing lunged against the chain fixed to its ankle, snapping its teeth as grey flesh pulled at the jaw.
Aegon's chair hit the ground behind him. "Mother have mercy!" someone said, one of the Golden Company men, and two of them had steel half drawn before Connington barked them back. Garlan had his sword half out of the scabbard before the chain snapped taut and the thing jerked short. Down the picket line a horse tore free of its handler and bolted toward the rear. One of the elephants swung sideways hard enough to crack a wagon tongue, and the mahout screamed something in a language Jaime did not know.
"Nymeria, back!" Arya screamed trying to get Nymeria to stand down.
"Fuck me," Bronn said, staring into the chest with the color gone from his face. "I rode beside that from Stokeworth onward." He looked at Jaime. "You might have warned a man."
"Would it have helped?" Jaime said.
"What in the hells have you brought here Lannister!" Connington shouted.
The Riverlands men stood easy after living with the creature for days. They had heard it scratch through nights on the road and hauled it over fords, hills, and rutted tracks. One spat into the dirt while another kept his spear butt firm by his boot. Given enough miles, men grew used to anything.
Jaime watched Garlan stare into the chest. Every sum the man carried in his head, from grain wagons to fodder and winter stores, had just grown teeth.
At Jaime's nod, two of the Riverlands men stepped in to finish the business. One forced the creature down by its shoulders while his fellow braced the chest against the struggle. Jaime slammed the lid home. The ring of iron gave way to a frantic scratching that soon faded into the dark.
Wind moved across the field while somewhere far off a man laughed, blind to what sat at the center of the camp.
"That is what is coming over the Wall," Jaime said. "Thousands of them, and worse besides. The man who sent me south has been fighting them while the rest of us bled over crowns. When he arrives, he will expect every sword in this camp pointed north."
They stared at the chest in a heavy silence. Aegon set his chair upright but did not sit, while Varys looked away and then back with a sudden, soft concern that Jaime trusted about as much as he trusted Gregor Clegane.
Bronn broke the silence. "How do you kill it?"
"Fire, if the northerners have it right," Jaime said. "Valyrian steel. Dragonglass, though I have never seen the stuff work myself."
Bronn looked at the chest, then toward the city. "Good thing we have a few thousand jars of fire nearby."
"I would not recommend it," Jaime said.
"Shame," Bronn replied.
"The work begins at once," Aegon said. "Lord Garlan, the boy goes into your keeping with a maester and sworn men enough to quiet any fool dream of rescue. Ser Addam yields the gates in order and keeps his men from heroics. Ser Jaime leads the search below."
Connington turned to Jaime. "When the last tunnel stands clear, the black cells."
Varys tilted his head. "Guarded quarters, perhaps. The Kingslayer has delivered a city, a confession, and a warning in the same morning. That buys a room with a door, if not a comfortable one."
"Guarded quarters with men I choose at every door."
"I would expect nothing less," Jaime said.
Garlan glanced toward the walls. "My engineers stand ready."
Aegon gave one curt nod. "So it shall be. Ser Jaime remains under guard. He goes where he is needed, nowhere else. When the last tunnel stands clear, find a room to keep him under guard." He paused. "His fate is still to be decided."
Jaime nodded toward the chest. "That stays with you. Show your lords, your captains, anyone who needs convincing. The dead argue better than I do."
Marbrand dipped the white banner. Across the field men already moved, Golden Company serjeants barking orders, Tyrell officers turning horses, runners streaming toward the trenches and gates. King's Landing would change hands through files, lists, and keys. That was far cleaner than sack and slaughter.
Jaime stepped away from the table, and four guards in gilded scales fell in around him beneath the black dragon of the Golden Company. So went Connington's notion of courtesy.
The gates stood open behind them as men flowed in and out with the brisk misery of siege work. Garlan rode toward the castle with a knot of Reach knights at his back. Marbrand shouted at serjeants, setting lines and posting watches until surrender looked like drill.
Jaime led them to the first cache himself.
Through a postern they descended into cellars where the stone sweated and the air bit at the back of the throat. Leather aprons covered the Tyrell engineers who brought hooks, sand, and a cart padded with wool. Golden Company men carried the torches under the eyes of Marbrand's men.
The jars sat behind wine racks in bricked alcoves that smelled of must with something sharper underneath. Some bore old marks of the pyromancers, while others showed fresh clay.
When one jar slipped in a porter's grasp, every man in the passage froze. Jaime caught the nearest cart with his left hand and drove his hip against it to steady the load. Nobody breathed until the porter hugged the clay back against his chest and staggered on, weeping openly.
When the first cache stood clear and counted, Jaime gave Garlan's engineers every location he knew. Tunnels, cellars, old drains, bricked alcoves, the vaults beneath the Red Keep. He drew what maps he could with his left hand and talked the rest. The engineers took notes and asked questions that told Jaime they understood the work ahead of them.
The guards led him to a chamber and stripped the gold from his arm at the door. Without the weight of the metal, the stump felt raw and swollen. He tried to flex the muscle, but the movement sent a jagged edge of fire toward his shoulder.
The bar dropped, a heavy sound for a small room. His new world was a pallet, a bucket, and a slit in the stone no wider than his palm. Through the gap, he heard the business of the living: the bark of commands and the slow, agonizing groan of carts hauling wildfire away. A few hundred jars down, a few thousand to go. The work would take days, if they were lucky.
He lowered himself onto the pallet and considered how word would run before truth, giving singers three names for him. Kingslayer and Queenslayer would make the first verses, with Kinslayer waiting for the third. Brienne would hear what he had done long before she heard why.
A few hours later, the bar scraped again and the door opened.
Varys entered carrying a tray with bread, cheese, and a cup of watered wine. He set it on the bucket, which served as the room's only table, and settled himself against the far wall with his hands in his sleeves.
"You look dreadful," Varys said.
"It's been a dreadful day."
"Yes it has been a long day for you hasn't it. A queen dead, a city surrendered, and a dead man in a box. You have been thorough." Varys studied him. "I brought you some food."
"Courtesies from you come with interest."
"Everything comes with interest. The question is whether the rate is fair." Varys let that sit. "Strange tidings ride faster than ravens these days. I hear of a dragon in the Riverlands, burning a Bracken seat. Camp tales breed faster than flies, of course."
Jaime took the bread, then tore off a piece.
"One man spies a black beast in the clouds," Varys continued, "the next swears the Age of Heroes has risen from its grave." He smiled faintly. "More solid news comes from the east. Daenerys Targaryen has left Essos at last."
Daenerys on the water was worth knowing, but Varys could chase the dragon in the Riverlands as long as he liked. Jaime smiled, and Varys's scrutiny found him at once. The eunuch's silence lasted long enough for Jaime to chew and swallow.
"You know something," Varys said.
"I know a great deal, Lord Varys. It is only strange because I had always been told that knowing things was your trade, not mine."
Varys ignored the barb. "Does this concern the man you spoke of? The Stark girl's brother, I presume. Jon Snow, the Lord Commander who migh now command the Riverlords, if the few reports are to be believed." Varys folded his hands. "A bastard with the Riverlands behind him is a problem. A bastard with the Riverlands and a grievance is a different one."
"It concerns every man with blood and bones." Jaime glanced toward the narrow window where daylight made a thin stripe on the floor. "You have spent your life collecting whispers, Lord Varys. It must gall you that the fool Lannister has the one you missed."
Varys took that with a small incline of his head. "A useful lesson. I shall endeavor to improve. But I fear I have missed a very large piece of the board."
Jaime let the smile remain. He could give the eunuch half a trail and leave him wandering in circles while the true name stayed in Jaime's mouth and nowhere else. A sword remained safest in its sheath until the stroke.
Varys studied him. "You still chose to remain silent, even knowing we hold your son."
"Why bother with words?" Jaime asked. "He will be here in a few days' time, and you can see for yourself what you missed."
Before Varys could answer, the sky split with a roar that struck the keep. Through the stone climbed a vibration that caught in their teeth. Dust fell from the ceiling in fine threads as the cup rattled from the bucket and shattered on the floor. Through the narrow window, the light shifted beneath something immense crossing between the sun and the city. In the yard below, a horse screamed.
The color drained from Varys's face. His hands came out of his sleeves to brace against the wall as the stones trembled around him.
Jaime leaned back against the stone, now a genuine smile touching his lips.
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