Why? Jamie's mind screamed.
Why did she let him touch her? She swore she would find ways to avoid his bed. She swore her womb belonged only to me!
The jealousy was an acidic, burning thing, crawling up his throat and choking him. Did she enjoy it? Was Robert the true father? Or worse—and his mind spiraled into even darker paranoia—had she taken another lover? A dark-haired sellsword? A knight from the Stormlands?
But then, his eyes caught the light playing on the child's head.
The ends of the black locks were not black. They were a vibrant, shocking crimson red.
What in the Seven Hells? The rational, cunning part of Jaime's mind desperately tried to seize control of his spiraling emotions.
Where do those red streaks come from? It makes no sense.
A cold, calculated realization slowly pierced through his jealousy:
If the child has black hair, no one will ever suspect us. The lineage is safe. Lord Arryn will stop asking questions. Stannis will have no cause to grumble. This is good. This is a perfect shield.
Yet, logic did little to quell the intense, suffocating ache in his chest. A shield or not, this child was not a reflection of their love. It was a stranger.
Cersei, who knew every micro-expression on her twin's face, saw the flash of devastation, followed by the rapid, frantic calculations.
"Jaime," she said gently, her voice cutting through the tempest in his mind. "This is not what you think. Do not let your pride blind you."
Jaime swallowed the lump of ash in his throat, trying to keep his voice steady. "Not what I think? Cersei, he looks like... he looks like him. But the red... I don't..."
"He is a gift," Cersei interrupted, her tone brimming with absolute, zealous conviction. "A gift from the Gods for us. For me. Look at him carefully, Jaime. Really look at him."
Jaime forced himself to look closer, pushing past the hair to examine the boy's face. The infant was unnaturally still, his breathing so deep and rhythmic it sounded like the steady pull of the ocean tide. But it was not the breathing that caught Jaime's attention.
There, on the left side of the boy's pale forehead, extending down toward the ear, was a mark.
It was a jagged, deep crimson crest. It looked like licking flames, or a brand burned into the flesh by some dark, arcane sorcery. In the dim, flickering light of the hearth, it almost seemed to pulse with a life of its own.
Jaime felt a slight chill run down his spine. The hairs on his arms stood a little. He had faced down the Smiling Knight, he had slit the throat of the Mad King, but looking at this mark, a primal, superstitious dread coiled in his gut.
"Cersei..." Jaime whispered, taking a half-step back, his eyes wide with genuine alarm. "This is... what is this? This is no child." The words tumbled out before his brain could stop them. "He looks like a demon. A curse. The Gods have marked him for our sins—"
"Jaime Lannister!"
Cersei's voice cracked through the room like a whip, loud enough to make Jaime physically flinch. The gentle, exhausted lover was gone in a fraction of a heartbeat. In her place was the Lioness of the Casterly Rock, her green eyes blazing with a maternal fury so toxic and pure it was terrifying.
She pulled the child tight against her chest, her lips curled back in a vicious snarl. "You dare? You dare speak ill of my boy? My perfect, divine son?" Her voice dropped to a lethal, trembling whisper. "Say that word again, and I will have Ser Barristan Selmy remove your tongue, brother or not. You will face the consequences."
Jaime stared at her, stunned. He had seen Cersei angry a thousand times, but never like this. Her protectiveness over Jeyne and Myrcella was fierce, but this was different. This was feral. Obsessive. She looked at him as if he were an enemy soldier who had just threatened her life.
Realization crashed over him: I have rushed this. I have made a terrible mistake.
He knew how to play Cersei. He knew when to push and when to retreat. If he pushed now, he would lose her entirely to whatever madness this strange child had sparked in her. He needed to be the soothing balm, not the antagonist. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just a birthmark.
Jaime immediately softened his posture. He unbuckled his sword belt, letting it fall to the rug, a sign of surrender. He slowly sat down on the edge of the mattress, careful not to jostle her, and reached out to gently stroke the crown of her golden head.
"Ah, Cersei... I am sorry," he murmured, pouring all his velvet charm into his voice. He offered a self-deprecating smile. "I didn't mean it like that. I am a soldier, sweet sister, not a maester. You know how we hear the night stories around the campfires. Tales of the Long Night and Grumpkins. The shadows played tricks on my eyes, that's all. Forgive me."
He kept petting her hair, exuding a calm, protective aura until he felt the rigid tension slowly bleed out of her shoulders.
Cersei's ferocious glare slowly melted back into a look of exhausted superiority. She leaned slightly into his touch, though her grip on the child did not loosen.
"I understand," she said coolly, her tone still holding a warning edge. "But do not ever speak that word in front of my boy again. He is perfect. He will be stronger than you or Robert or any man in this wretched city. Just See him."
With hesitant, careful movements, she extended her arms, offering the heavy bundle to Jaime.
Jaime braced himself. He reached out and took the child.
The boy was incredibly heavy for a newborn, dense with muscle and a strange, radiating heat. As Jaime cradled him in the crook of his armored arm, the rhythm of the child's breathing—haaah...—seemed to echo in Jaime's own chest, forcing his own frantic heartbeat to slow down.
A few seconds later, the infant instinctively opened his eyes.
Jaime found himself staring into a pair of bottomless, burgundy depths.
Yoriichi Tsugikuni had no memories of his past life. The names of the demons he had slain, the face of his brother, the tragedy of his wife—all of it had been wiped away by the mysterious cosmic tide that had deposited him in this brutal world. He was, in body and mind, a newborn.
But a soul like Yoriichi's could never be truly erased.
Deep within the subconscious core of his being, the spiritual instincts of the greatest swordsman to ever live remained untouched. His soul knew the difference between a predator and prey. It knew when to be cautious, and it knew how to read the aura of the beings around him.
Yoriichi did not fuss. He did not squirm or cry. He simply stared up at the unknown stranger holding him.
Jaime looked down, and the breath caught in his throat. This was not the look of a baby. There was no infantile innocence, no helpless confusion. The gaze was entirely calm, completely indifferent, and piercingly observant.
For this time, Ser Jaime Lannister—the Golden Lion, the Kingslayer, a man who feared neither death nor the judgment of the Seven—felt entirely exposed.
As he looked into those calm, burgundy eyes, Jaime felt a profound, chilling certainty that this creature was looking straight through his armor, straight through his flesh, and reading every dark, guilty sin etched upon his soul.