"Stop."
Cersei's voice cracked like a whip, instantly severing his pathetic fantasy. She didn't raise her voice, but the venom in the single syllable was absolute.
"I told you, nothing," she sneered, looking at his half-unfastened belt with pure disgust. "You are acting like a drunken sellsword in a Flea Bottom brothel. Have you no shame? Get out from here. I need rest, and my son needs peace."
Jaime's arrogant smirk shattered completely. Panic, genuine and ugly, leaked into his voice.
"Cersei," Jaime pleaded worriedly, taking a step forward, his hands dropping to his sides. "I... I promised you I wouldn't do anything rash. I took back my words. Why are you acting like this? Why are you punishing me?" His voice cracked, sounding more like a lost boy than a legendary knight. "You know it has been a long time since we have truly been together. Since Robert came back from the North... I just want to be close to you."
Cersei didn't even dignify his pleading with a response. She simply turned her head away, breaking eye contact. With slow, agonizingly careful movements, she shifted her bruised body down onto the mattress, curling her back protectively around the sleeping form of Yoriichi.
"Tell the maids to come in here for the cleaning and the miscellany tasks," Cersei ordered the stone wall, her voice muffled by the pillows but still ringing with absolute royal command. "And maintain the strict security protocol outside my door. No one enters without my express permission. Not even you, Kingslayer."
Jaime stood frozen in the center of the room. He stared at her golden hair cascading over the crimson silk, his heart hammering a frantic, painful rhythm. He had lost. He had pushed too hard, too fast, blinded by his own trauma and his desperate need for control.
Seeing that she would not turn back around, Jaime let out a heavy, ragged sigh. His broad shoulders slumped, the weight of the white armor suddenly feeling like a mountain of lead.
"As you command, Your Grace," he whispered to her back.
He turned on his heel, his boots dragging slightly against the rugs, and walked out of the bedchamber, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind him with a soft, definitive thud.
Outside in the corridor, the air was significantly cooler. Ser Meryn Trant and Ser Boros Blount snapped to attention as their comrade emerged, their white cloaks billowing slightly. Jaime ignored them. He walked past, moving down the dimly lit hallway until he reached an open archway that looked out over the sprawling, black expanse of King's Landing.
He gripped the cold stone of the windowsill, leaning his weight against it, and inhaled a deep, desperate breath of the salty, night air blowing in from the Blackwater Rush.
"Fool," Jaime muttered to himself, running his trembling fingers through his golden hair, pressing the heels of his hands hard against his temples. "What an absolute, blundering fool I am."
The cool air was clearing the manic fog from his brain. He realized the sheer, breathtaking stupidity of his actions. Cersei had literally just given birth. She had bled, she had screamed, and she had fought him tooth and nail to protect the infant. And his response was to demand she service him like a common whore?
It was the terror, Jaime rationalized, massaging his aching temples. The vision broke me. I just needed a release. I needed to feel something other than that suffocating killing intent. He sighed heavily, looking out over the flickering lights of the city.
He felt hollowed out, utterly drained of his usual arrogant vitality. If they could have just laid together, if she had just held him, he could have relaxed. He could have pushed the memory of that bloody mountain of corpses out of his mind.
Tomorrow, Jaime told himself, staring blankly at the distant silhouette of the Great Sept of Baelor.
I will ask her forgiveness tomorrow. I will play the dutiful brother. She just needs time alone with her thoughts. When the exhaustion fades, her sharp mind will return. She will look at the boy, she will see the unnatural mark, and she will finally understand the danger of that monster.
He clung to that hope like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. He had to believe she would come to her senses, or else he had truly lost her forever.
Below the Red Keep, the vast, sprawling labyrinth of King's Landing was going about its usual night business.
Despite the late hour, the city was alive. In the taverns of the Street of Silk and the muddy alleys of Flea Bottom, cups of cheap brown ale and sour Arbor wine were being raised. The bells had rung; the realm knew a prince had been born.
Gold Cloaks patrolled the winding, stinking streets, their lanterns swinging in the gloom, breaking up drunken brawls and chasing cutpurses into the shadows.
Whores hung from wooden balconies, calling out to passing sailors, while blacksmiths in the Street of Steel stoked their midnight forges to fulfill the endless demands of the Crown.
It was a city of rot, politics, and mundane, ugly human survival. It was business as usual in the capital of Westeros.
But even in the deepest, most suffocating darkness, a single spark is enough to ignite the dawn. Unbeknownst to the squabbling lords, the scheming Queen, and the terrified Kingslayer, a new sun had just been born in the viper's nest.
Yoriichi Tsugikuni had arrived—a quiet, peerless light descending upon the bleeding heart of Westeros, destined to eventually burn away the shadows of the Game of Thrones.