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Cersei Lannister's heart would be heavy, were she not leaving to marry Rhaegar Targaryen. Her father is returning to King's Landing, and will bring his charming daughter too. In two or three years, she will wed her dragon prince and be the happiest girl in the world. Her father promised.
Jaime has scarce left her side, knowing she leaves to become a princess and he stays to become a knight. Cersei won't tell him this price was not so hard to pay.
The feast buzzes around her, words too jumbled to hear. They have a grand hall but the summer breeze has made the day so beautiful that her lord father raised the pavilions outside the castle. She looks down the table to Father but he is speaking with Aunt Genna. Good. That means she can go find Jaime, who disappeared after the swan was served. Graciously excusing herself, she makes for the courtyard.
Instead of her twin, two lordling sons tramp around.
“My lady!” greets the fatter one. “Help us find your brother.”
Cersei eyes the boy who is trying, and failing, to grow a beard. Of course Jaime still plays hiding games. He forgets he isn't a child anymore. But Cersei knows where he'll be. The courtyard hosts a lion statue three times as tall as her father, brought from the Free Cities. It sits on its haunches, claws jutting from its paws, guarding Casterly Rock. Dragonstone can keep its cold, crumbling gargoyles.
“You’re behind its mane, Jaime!”
At her voice a golden curl wisps from behind the lion’s neck, but quickly pulls back. He always hides up there, tucked in the hollow between its pale shoulders, laughing at all the people too scared to really explore. Cersei isn't scared. He'll come out if she asks enough, but she is reckless after several cups of wine and restless after hours at a dull feast. Kicking off her slippers, she steps onto the lion's paw.
“My lady, you can’t climb it—” the first boy ventures.
Cersei turns to smirk. “My claws are sharper than yours.”
Cowardly boy, to be afraid of a statue. She's climbed it before, albeit with Jaime to help.
Yanking her pale green dress to her knees, she wedges her foot in another hollow, then another, and then her hands find their own spaces. Finally, a blond head pokes out and Jaime looks down to laugh. The afternoon sun catches his hair just right. No dragon has hoarded such fine gold. Until Rhaegar marries you, of course. Cersei grins. She is no limpid southron lady, nor a wild she-beast of the North. She is a lioness, proud and elegant and fierce. And she wants to see Casterly Rock one last time with her brother.
“Stay, I’ll come down.” Jaime edges around the lion’s mane, feet finding the nooks in its muscular shoulders.
“You stay. I want to come up.”
She climbs higher, fingers and toes starting to ache but paying no mind. She is almost halfway.
“My lady, get down at once!”
Wrinkled crone. Cersei is furious the crotchety septa will accompany them to King’s Landing. Paying her no mind, she pulls herself up. How would Father punish me anyway? Her brother's smile edges between laughter and unease. She grins, even as her feet scrape against the rock. Like as not he imagines a kiss between those lion shoulders, their secret place to touch and play. At last he kneels and holds out a hand. Cersei's too high to easily climb down. The wind pulls more at her gown. Ah, the sun and fresh salt-sea air!
“Cersei you will—” but her father cuts off as Cersei’s dress catches underfoot.
She digs in her good foot and heaves, a lioness’s desperate leap for the top. In truth, she has no claws. But her lunge does push her back from the statue, back and down. Jaime dives, swipes, trying to grab her wrist. Too slow you fool! Cersei screeches as she plummets. Breath wheezes out as her lungs crumple against the stony courtyard. Her head cracks against stone and it hurts. Then the ringing in her ears turns everything black.
Black Prince
Her cheek rubs against something soft. Incredibly soft—like a lady’s velvet, or rabbit fur. Cracking open an eye, she sighs when there is no bright light. A chuckle rumbles above her.
She snaps up, ready to scream. But she only looks into beautiful violet eyes. Rhaegar Targaryen is carrying me? The crown prince looks down and offers her a wry smile. She sees the glint of one incisor. Yet she's at Casterly Rock, not King’s Landing. His eyes are wrong. She fell in love with her dragon prince's melancholy gaze, gentle but never weak. These eyes are sharp with humor. And something sharper.
The fall. She slipped, Jaime missed, her father shouted, and the stones crunched. She was falling, smashing...dying? No—you have a prince to marry! A name comes to her. His arms hook beneath her back and knees, like a hero in a song, but no one sings about the Stranger.
She's found her breath again. “Put me down! I am Cersei Lannister!” Cersei writhes, trying to sling an arm around his shoulder and make him stop.
His grin grows toothier, so different from Rhaegar’s brief smiles, “Should I care? I've called on Queen Visenya and the Dragonknight. You are just a cub.”
How dare—“I am no child, and I said leave me!” Before she can think, she slaps him.
Her skin meets cool flesh, hard bone, but no sound snaps back. The Stranger’s eyes still widen, amused, almost surprised. Cersei glares. Everything around them is dark and billowing, like he carries her beneath a bottomless lake.
Then the Stranger lays her on something soft, something with the pillows she knows every embroidered stitch of. Her own bed. His cold fingers graze her brow, pushing back a lock of hair. He sits beside her, no care for propriety.
Her thoughts make her giggle. Of course she dreams. She hurt herself so she dreams of death; she loves Rhaegar so she dreams of her silver prince. People who hit their heads think funny.
“Why should I?” he repeats, soft, sonorous, like the tides outside her window.
If this is a dream, no one will know if she's improper. Cersei looks him straight in the eye. “Because I am Cersei of House Lannister, soon to also be Cersei of House Targaryen, and you will not stop me.”
The Stranger laughs again, something she feels more than hears. He wears black, his doublet studded in dark rubies. Velvet or leather? The texture seems to change every moment. He's a courtier, then he's a hunter, but while his silver hair frames his high cheekbones and his lilac eyes gleam in the scattered light, he's never Rhaegar. Or human. But he is beautiful. When has she thought the Stranger beautiful? Her septa's blathering make her picture an old hooded man, cruel as a mother's death in childbed. But her bed is so soft. It pulls her down, cradling every bit of her. It would be lovely to sleep. And very bad.
Something steels in his eyes and he leans closer—Cersei realizes why, and her hand snaps over his mouth.
“I am no tavern wench,” she says, lowering her voice like her father, who almost never yells but still scares every man at court.
The Stranger pulls back and she sees something soften.
“No, you are not.” He takes her hand and kisses it instead, his lips like ice. Somehow she knows if they touched her mouth, they'd freeze all the life in her body.
Still, some instinct makes her reach up and cup his cheek. The one she slapped, though he deserved it. His other hand settles on hers and Cersei marvels at his long fingers.
He isn't Rhaegar, and certainly not Jaime. And yet, the look he gives her—as if he's seen countless centuries and only now find something intriguing. Of all things, the Stranger pays her court. To intrigue something so old and untouchable…her throat tightens. For this, she loves him a little. Curious, heedless, she sits up to kiss that cold and perfect mouth.
Instead he pushes her back, gentle as the sweetest poison. Cersei sees the flash there, the hesitation, his surprise how suddenly he refused her. Desire is still an unvarnished thought in her mind, but somewhere deep she feels a sharp thrill. Could Jaime ever present a gift so grand?
“Not today,” he murmurs.
Finally he stands and Cersei marvels at his darkness, his pride, his beauty. But to take his hand would mean an end, and Cersei’s song has just begun. So she stays, giving him a calm nod. Knowing it's only a fever dream gives her a rush of poised daring. Why can't she be shameless as a courtesan and regal as a queen?
“We are alike, Stranger.” It's rare she feels so solemn, and so suddenly. "Proud, oft alone for it. You are a black prince, and I am a golden queen.”
The amusement sharpens his eyes again, their dark pupils larger than the violet rings. There's a detached cruelty there, no matter his regard. “Before you're a queen, you are mine.”
Cersei scoffs. She is a queen, first and forever. A dragon’s golden queen. But the phantom disappears then, stepping into the dark, departing her dreams. Cersei wishes…no, that is silly, for she is dreaming.
It seems a moment later she awakes still in her bed. Someone lies alongside her, face buried in the hollow of her shoulder. She shoves Jaime off, wriggling until she can breathe without her stale breath filling her nose. Immediately the stones grind into her skull and she whimpers, fighting back the urge to retch. Her brow is slick with sweat, cheeks chilled from a broken fever.
Jaime stirs beside her. “Cersei…”
She looks at his bright green eyes and golden waves, so like her own. Green, not violet.
“What?”
He rolls over her, his forearm keeping his weight off her chest. His kiss says more than words. She considers pushing him away when pins jab inside her forehead, but she tastes his dear panic and grief.
Foolish brother, she thinks, her tongue occupied. The Stranger pays me court. I won't die from something so inglorious as a cracked skull.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I let you fall.”
She hears the guilt and kisses him harder.
Cersei leaves for King’s Landing three days later, still prone to headaches but her father’s sympathy is at an end. As far as he's concerned, her fall is her own fault. A lesson, not to reach so foolishly.
The Final Dance
As she sits at her wedding feast, a beauty of six-and-ten, her thoughts waver. Rhaegar is dead, his chest smashed in by her new husband. Robert Baratheon couldn't save his ladylove, the she-wolf who seduced Cersei's dragon prince. But Lyanna is dead too, and King Robert has taken a Lannister as a wife.
He bears not the beauty of her prince. Where Rhaegar was lithe and melancholy, Robert is muscled and boisterous. A friend to all, some say. Unless you're a dragon. Her thoughts pause when a callused hand extends to her.
“The first dance is mine, my queen.” His wine-washed breath makes her nose burn, but a dance is his right, her wont.
Smiling isn't so hard. He is handsome and strong, with all the practical grace of a lusty stag. His eyes always match his mouth and now he smiles at her. They dance to a cheerful melody, his steps confident if not so deft, her feet easily keeping time. There is a girlish giddiness to feeling so light in his arms. She's a queen, a stag’s queen if not a dragon’s. The only queen in all seven kingdoms. That is worth something.
She shivers as ice prickles her neck. Her wedding gown has elaborate skirts but a fitted, shoulder-bearing bodice. The shiver stays, twisting between intriguing and afflictive, like a hundred eyes on her exposed neck. Robert slows, his arm growing too heavy at her hip, his feet sluggish. Even Jaime, standing near their hideous brother, wears a blank smile more sleepy than forced. And the dark—she feels it as much as sees it.
Robert stares at nothing and stills, like a puppet frozen on its strings. Stepping back, her stomach turns cold.
An icy hand catches her wrist, twists her around, and she looks into a dream. The Stranger still looks like her dragon prince. Has he no respect for the dead? Cersei would curse him but his eyes make her feel as if she has stumbled onto a half-frozen lake and now hears the first baleful crack.
“A golden queen after all. And so soon.” He smiles, canines sharp, voice like creeping frost. Never like Rhaegar’s.
His other hand drops to her waist and he draws her too close. She must tilt her chin to meet his eyes. Behind him, the feast hall has gone still and silent.
Cersei scoffs in his face. As if her time was hers to waste. “Sullen it isn't you?"
“I merely wish a dance with the fleeting bride." His fingers move from her wrist to her hand, twining with her fingers. His voice lowers. "And to give my sympathy.”
Her temper sharpens at his last word. “Don’t be a fool.”
The Stranger bares his teeth in a grin, mouth close to hers. “Dance with me and you will see.”
The threat is there. He pulled back from her lips once, but Cersei knows, like an expecting mother who awakens to bloody sheets, that he will not have a second moment of weakness. But she fixes him with her lioness’s slaughterous smile and when he moves, she slips into a dance that's tune plays only in her mind. Few dances have only one partner, even among ribald peasants. But her feet follow his, too long trained not to find his steps. Still, it is a strange dance, full of sweeps and turns—is he trying to make her head spin? All she hears are their voices and sorrowing music. Her shoes make no sound over the stone floor.
“Why would I need sympathy on my wedding day?” She will always meet his eyes.
The Stranger loses his smile. Years ago he softened, but mayhap death can't suffer tenderness too long.
“You were told why, in part, my sweet murderess.”
Ice lances down her spine. Cersei never thinks about that day of cursed fortune tellers and drowned companions, but she remembers the words. The burn of fear and anger.
“Should I have survived that day at the Rock?” Cersei jars to a halt, tearing herself from the Stranger’s cold embrace. Wine and crowns have made her bold. “War and death lead others.” She is led by no one.
He bows, all mocking grace. Did my bitch of a septa ever imagine this when she prayed?
“Enjoy your cage, dear lioness. You gave me a dance, brief though it was.” What wouldn’t be brief to this reaper? His face regains its wrathful grin and she finds herself stepping back. “The shadows grow longer. One day, we will dance again.”
Cersei backs into her husband, blinks as she collects herself, and suddenly sound returns to the hall. Robert’s hands squeeze her shoulders and he plants a wet kiss on her neck.
“We will have the bedding soon. Sooner, I think. You make a beautiful queen.”
But not a queen of love and beauty. His hands are too warm on her shoulders.
We will dance again.
No maiden could offer a better consummation, after the dozen ways she has made Jaime swear her name. Cersei vows to cut herself if need be, but at least the pain will be less. It is, barely. Seven save her if she had gone to Robert's bed unspoiled.
Her king chooses to reenact the Battle of the Trident, a damn sight drunker, aiming his fury at her imagined maidenhood instead of Rhaegar’s chest. Jaime, her beautiful Jaime, has made her moan and mewl, but for entirely different reasons. But she could bear that. Perhaps in time she would learn to like Robert's beard scraping red marks over her breasts, his bulk making her gasp, and his thrusts hammering all the way to her lower back. What comes at the end, she cannot.
“Lyanna..." His wine-raspy voice is hot and wet against her ear.
“Cersei!” she snarls before she can stop herself. But he has already collapsed upon her. Unlike Jaime, there is no protective love in his embrace. Only desire for a girl she knows for a thrice-damned fact he barely knew.
She squirms away scraped, sticky, and sore. Cersei knows his courtiers wait outside. She is half-tempted to throw open the door, teats unbound, and direct their gawking to her besotted husband. But instead she drifts off, wishing she were still in that feast hall where her feet made no sound.
Dawn is a mere suggestion when she wakes. Robert sleeps the sleep of sots. Shrugging on a dressing gown, she checks her face in the vanity mirror. Beautiful, as her mother birthed her, her father raised her, and her brother worships her. Her green eyes give away nothing of her own drinking. Cersei glances up and startles from her fleeting thoughts. Lilac and silver flash just out of sight. Her silly dreams, of course. Her king dreams of his dead she-wolf, his queen dreams of her broken dragon.
At least Jaime still lives.
She knows she's being reckless but she cares not. Her brother barely has the door open and his eyes rubbed free of sleep before she ducks under his arm, hissing at him to lock it. Jaime has not asked what would happen to them. The last time he did, he wound up in the Kingsguard and named the most dishonorable man in the realm. Yet he takes what she offers.
It is not long before Cersei understands why the Stranger, however angry, still managed a spiteful smile at her wedding.
Stations of Marriage
The role of queen has become her world of quiet fury. Cersei imagined contributing to the rule of her king. Their first few years, she contributes to his bed when he thinks of sons and his side when he holds a feast or tourney. And yet, she sometimes thinks she rules as much as he does, which is almost never. Most days, Stannis frowns, Renly titters, and her father tells her to be grateful and beget an heir.
Cersei is not grateful when Robert insists she go with him to Dorne, despite Lannisters being less welcome there than modesty. Her father’s men murdered Princess Elia. Cersei would go through a dozen tasters. But he pesters, pushes, until finally she unsheathes her claws.
“Why not take the wolf-girl’s bones? You two would make a far more loving—”
The backhand sends her reeling as numb heat crackles across her cheekbone. Her blood tastes coppery. Robert stalks closer, less angry stag than ill-tempered sot.
“If you ever mention her again…” Robert trails off, the storm-blue eyes she once thought handsome now narrowed in rage.
Jaime almost goes after him when his mouth smears her powder and her sighs turn to flinches. As a compromise he begs her to take a personal guard—not a Kingsguard—and suggests a minor noble’s second son. She grimaces at his burned face when she first sees him, but after he holds his own against Jaime in the practice yard, she has a new sworn shield. Only later does she realize he is the younger brother of Gregor Clegane, her father’s fiercest dog. He is younger than she is, but few could tell with his scars.
Even with a surly hound as her shadow, she has precious little to do but chatter with vapid women and remind her husband not everyone falls for his sledgehammer charm. At least the Clegane seems to agree. Some days, she knows not if boredom or anger will kill her first.
Joffrey changes that. His birth is a battle, bloodier than Robert’s hunt of a poor doe in the kingswood that same day. Even Jaime sitting behind her cannot chase away dreams of bloody sheets and viscera. They only fade when she holds her lion cub. There is not a trace of Robert on him, nor on Myrcella and Tommen who come in due time. In him is a different matter. Joffrey is a lion, born for red and gold, but even young he shows a ferocious temper. It reminds Cersei of her husband, but of course fools mistake it for an echo of the Mad King.
With little else to do, she gives him her hound. Whether it is fear or respect Cersei knows not, but the younger Clegane keeps him civil.
Robert still hates Joff though. Her golden boy is prone to temper and her king refuses to think he had any influence. When he enters Cersei’s chambers one night, takes her with his usual force, and mumbles he wants to send the boy to foster, she considers gouging his eyes out with a sewing needle.
In desperation she writes her father. Does he want his grandson tainted by Starks or Martells? His reply comes short and swift.
Dictate a price.
What does she have that is not already his? Cersei puzzles over this. By rights Robert can fuck her ten times a day…but is a lioness fettered by daft laws? If she were, she would've died that day in the courtyard, her brains matting her hair. Instead, she seduced the Stranger.
She has not seen her jealous black prince since her wedding feast. Sometimes she feels a prickle, or sees a flash in the mirror, but nothing more. Until she names her price.
How Long the Ice Will Hold
The night comes when she sits at her vanity, a handmaiden brushing out her hair. Her doorhandle rattles and finally he pounds on the wood.
“Wife!” She can tell by his voice he is not so very drunk, but that only means he had several cups of wine instead of decanters.
She grabs her handmaiden’s wrist. “Open that door and I will cut your fingers off.” The girl blanches and shuffles into another room.
“Cersei,” he hoarsely moans, “I need my queen.” He sounds bothered by something other than his cock.
What in seven hells did he drink? Collecting herself, the green-eyed lioness begins negotiations. She walks to the door, key tucked away in her dressing gown.
“Would a whore not suit you better? At dinner you called me cold and cruel.”
Her husband was not expecting that. She braces for his torrent, and is surprised when he rumbles back almost calmly, “What do you want?”
“What any mother wants." She forces her voice to be calm, as cold as he says she is. “Give me leave to raise my children or you best move a brothel into your bedchamber.”
Her heart hammers when he strikes the door. “I am your king.”
“King of the Andals or King of Rape?” she bites back.
That makes him pause. Her husband is a brute but does not like to be seen as such. When he cannot blame wine or poor hearing, she has a chance of stopping him.
“Damn you, Cersei.”
It stings to offer concessions…but a price often needs a pinch of sweetness. A lesson any girl learns well. “Husband, give me this and I will be the happiest, most grateful woman in the city.” Even a lioness can purr.
She thinks she has won when he shoves away and stalks off. He would never admit defeat to her. Most likely in a day or so he will rumble something about reconsidering his choice about fostering, as he does with his advisers. Her breath rushes out in a long shudder. Between the pounding of her heart and the tremor in her hands, Cersei is glad he could not see her. Had he been drunker or angrier he could have kicked down her door…she does not know if her king’s recourse or her brother’s reaction would be worse.
Weary, she collapses onto her feather bed, shivering in her dressing gown. She is the most powerful, powerless woman in the Seven Kingdoms, forced to bargain herself to keep her children close. Always fighting from a place of weakness. Her mother never…Gods, did the stupid wench leave a window open? Cersei jolts up, just as—
“Cersei…” he soothes, appearing from the shadows.
The Stranger remains a specter of Rhaegar, still dressed in black and glittering rubies, still seeming to shift before her eyes. So beautiful. Even Jaime cannot compare. The varnish long gone from her wedding feast, she cannot help the way she misses him.
When she blinks he's settled at the foot of her bed. She had candles burning but his world has once more bled into hers and all that gleams is moonlight off lacquered wood.
“My queen, what have they done to you?” His voice is gentle, steeped in all the whispered regard Robert refuses to show and Jaime is rarely allowed to.
At her drowsy nod he slips to her side, resting on his knees and gathering her into his lap. Still as soft as she remembers. And as sharp too, with his aquiline eyes, cold pride, and keen accord. For the first time, she senses his longing.
“They are drowning fools. Do you remember when we danced together? Sink with me, be free.” His voice lowers and she feels the bottomless lake again. It can always draw her deeper. He caresses her cheek, lowers his face to hers. “Stay with the one who loves you.”
His mouth is so near, noxious and beguiling. He has crawled to her, offering freedom, and she… she is a fool to trust the tenderness in his voice.
Ramming her hand into his mouth, she shoves his perfect face away.
“How dare you!” Cersei jerks from her bier. Lunging to her feet, her legs burn and sting as blood races back. “You want me to give up? I do not!”
His eyes go hard and his smile cuts like a saber. Like her, his pride has no place for looks of hurt.
"Get out!" You almost abandoned Joff…you almost let Robert win. "I am Cersei Lannister," she snarls. "No man, no spirit will best me."
Indifferent to her seething, he gives a cold nod and rises. "Foolish woman." She catches the barest flicker of pity, too wrapped in ice to reach his voice. "The world is breaking. You just do not see it."
Cersei never loses her glare until he melts back into the shadows. Just who will do the breaking?
Shadows Grow Longer
Joffrey grins as the Gold Cloaks drag Eddard Stark away. Hardly an evening on the throne and he already looks born to it. Cersei lays her hand on his and he tolerates it a moment before pulling free. She smiles their secret smile, her lips curled the slightest. Voicing her approval would be unsuitable.
He looks elsewhere, his eyes hunting through shadows. No one's moved the eviscerated corpses in front of the throne. Her cub seems almost disappointed.
“What are you looking for, love?” she says softly.
“Nothing.”
Cersei can't help rolling her eyes. She loves him, but the boy is a poor liar. At least to her. But who is he looking for? A thought nips at her mind and will not let go. But she cannot very well ask him if he is visited by a phantom who looks like Rhaegar Targaryen.
Think of a problem and it appears. Her father said that once. She feels the icy presence alight beside her, like a landing bird fluttering its wings for balance. But when she looks askance, there's nothing there.
The Stranger appears in due time. The queen stands on the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor with her son, the Stark girl, and the Small Council. A crown suits him, as does looking over a crowd. When the roar begins, she knows they lead out Ned Stark. He limps, leaning more on his guard than his feet. His red-rimmed eyes shine with fever.
An honorable man. A stupid man.
“A doomed man.”
She startles at the discordant voice, earning an odd look from Lord Stark’s pale daughter. No one pays attention to the reflection of Rhaegar who appears beside her, his hair almost glowing in the sunlight. Cersei would yell at him, slap him, never forgive him for his almost-kiss…but those would have the Small Council thinking she has gone mad.
An inglorious end but hardly doom. He finishes his days at the Wall, severed from his power.
His face tilts, eyes mocking. But as Lord Stark nears, she sees the Stranger’s face grow blank. Melancholy. For a single moment, he is Rhaeger to her eyes. He turns to Joffrey, who is smiling like it is his name day. The Stranger's eyes have no softness, little cruelty either.
“You pull him into the night, my queen.”
Leave me!
The Stranger does not. His attention falls only to Lord Stark. The man rasps out a confession, giving up everything he valued for everyone he loves. Raising a hand, the young king addresses his people.
"—Bring me his head!"
And suddenly the world explodes. Sansa screeches like a dying cat. The eunuch is putting on a show. Ser Ilyn, no smile or scowl, unsheathes his blade.
This is madness. Her little lion thinks like Robert; he does not see. Jaime, they will kill Jaime! Cersei crosses to him, whispers in his ear—
“Be silent, Mother.” It comes out crooked, almost hesitant. But she does not doubt its significance.
When Robert first struck her, it shattered a dam. After that first backhand left her tasting blood, it took far less than the wolf bitch to make him lash out. Now that Joffrey has discarded her counsel, has ordered her complacency…
Her eyes narrow on the one person not flapping or shouting. Lord Baelish watches with impassive gray-green eyes as if the execution is no more than a dull stage show. Did his whispers sway her son? Or someone else’s?
No one heeds the Stranger. He weaves through the pandemonium like a ghost. Ser Ilyn seems to move through water.
Her black prince kneels before the fallen lord. For once she sees him clear as day. He is a hunter, kneeling there in onyx leathers, his boots higher than his knees, red rubies glinting from his chest. An ivory hand caresses Lord Stark’s jaw, tenderly, a last kindness for a doomed man. Cersei feels not a drop of compassion, but a simmering anger that he receives the Stranger’s pitying touch. But I can choose when I take his kiss.
Eddard’s eyes are no longer glazed in fever. He looks at his death and seems almost peaceful. Cersei knows he sees someone else, a lover or a dream. The Stranger’s lips press against his, a hand still holding his unshaven jaw. Her black prince freezes the life out of him.
In a single blink the world shifts. Cersei flinches at Ser Ilyn, almost where the Stranger stood, while Lord Stark’s legs spasm in death and his neck gouts blood. There is no peace here.
An icy hand winds around hers as if he never moved at all. He squeezes, harder than is comfortable.
“Take heed, my cruel, hungry queen.” His voice is sharp once more, on the edge of amusement. “The shadows grow longer. Night comes before your day even begins.”
In a flutter he is gone and Cersei remembers the others around her. Sansa has fallen in a dead faint—a guard knows not what to do with her.
“Clegane,” she snaps. Her hound looks to attention. “Take Lady Stark to her chambers. Ensure a maid stays with her.” Sansa does not seem the type to open her veins in a steaming bath or have the nerve to hang herself, but Cersei will take no chances. Jaime, come back to me.
The Hound shoves his way to the white-lipped girl and scoops her up with ridiculous gentleness. Cersei laughs to herself, though most would think her jape cruel and in incredibly poor taste. Her mind thinks what it will.
Joff looks beatific as he studies the stray drops of blood on his knuckles, as if they are a mystical work of art. It makes Cersei cringe. She never thought he would do something so stupid, not when his father is captive. And now, he looks like he would rather be sticking a sword in a girl instead of his cock. Do not be a fool, he is reckless, not…dangerous. Not to her.
Though the Stranger is gone, she still feels a chill in her joints. Lord Stark’s body has stilled, wallowing in blood. The cold does not leave; she cannot help but think of his words.
Winter is coming.
And the shadows grow longer.
Strong Enough Alone
Cersei stumbles onto her balcony, too warm by half and lusting for air. Wine and revelry don't mix well with a warm night. But to hell with that. The feast celebrates their victory over Stannis. Her and her father’s victory.
She is almost giggling, alive from head to foot, careening in glee and too much Arbor red. At last she has it. Power. Father respects her now—she saw the approval when she told him about the wildfire. Tyrion’s actions caused more destruction than she intended, but it balked the heathen's fleet long enough for her father to arrive. Now that her deformed brother has been knocked from his tower, her worst shackle is broken.
With Tywin as Hand, he can curtail Joffrey’s high-strung antics. Joff and the Stark boy will keep him busy. She is Queen Regent, the most powerful woman in the Seven Kingdoms, and free to lead her family.
Jaime remains her one sorrow. Strung up in a Stark cell, poked and prodded like a caged beast…it makes her seethe. When he returns, she will seal her chamber from dusk to dawn. Robert’s death now makes moon tea a necessity, but that's a small price to pay.
Cersei sinks enough into reverie that she realizes too late when ice prickles her neck. A cool form envelops her, hands settling on hers. She shoves him back with her elbows. The Stranger or not, she is no doxy to use at will. As she twists to face him he takes her hand, fingers soft.
She no longer thinks of Rhaegar when she sees his pale face. His eyes are too old and sharp, his mouth too hard. Tonight he gives her his courtier’s bow, and brings his wintry lips to her knuckles. Cersei has not seen him since Eddard Stark’s execution, and not felt that obnoxious flutter in her belly since...a foolishly long time.
The bay is quiet. He has encased them in his piecemeal world. Instead of scowling, she smiles. Cersei can be a torment. This close, it's easy to hook her arms around his neck. She pulls herself into danger, if he tries to steal a kiss and she is too slow to duck her head. But like that day in the courtyard, sometimes she welcomes danger.
“Calling on me in my moment of triumph?” she murmurs.
His canines flash. “My triumph. War and death rage across the kingdoms, as I wanted."
“Death comes to us all, sweetling.” She's honeyed in her tone. “If it took a small war to see my son on the throne, so be it. The North is weak. Stannis is shattered, and my father will take care of the rest.”
He laughs into her shoulder. Cersei never relaxes completely around him, ever since he almost won. The Stranger regards her with coy eyes that have seen too much.
“Your bloodthirst blinds you. Let me accompany you through the storm.”
She bites his throat. As she thought, she tastes nothing, senses no blood, and he hardly looks bothered. But no one is too high above her to act like her guiding light. Not even a god.
“I need no one’s company. I cut my strings.”
The Stranger slips one arm around her waist as if they are dancing again. When Cersei blinks, she can feel a shift. She still stands upon her balcony, but also in a great hall, its walls aphotic and the other guests shadowed. What nerve! The Stranger pulls her into that strange dance from her wedding, that flowing, twisting thing she has only seen here in these wraithlike halls. Against her better judgment she falls into the steps, chooses to take this dance. So many men clamored for her at the feast—it amuses her to give her hand first to death. But she must be wary of that ache.
“You are only free through me,” he says, spinning her until her back grazes his chest.
She smiles, fierce. “Why would I want any freedom with you attached?”
“Because I am the only one who understands you, and because you love me.”
As if. “My brother—”
“Does not understand himself. How can he understand you? You dance to a music few hear—that few want to hear.” He speaks so pleasantly as he pulls her closer, lips murmuring at her temple. I should never trust this cold creature when he sounds this dulcet… “No one else admires your cruelty and pride. Your beauty and brittleness—”
Cersei whirls away from him, teeth bared, breaking out of his grasp. “I am not brittle.”
Though bearing no judgment, he grows less amused. “You were only strong when you believed you were weak. You will call on me, lioness.”
“Get used to loneliness,” she snaps. “My life is fine once more."
The cruel lines near his mouth deepen. “Soon you will hate it. The power you crave will become another collar, tightening until you fight the leash instead of its keeper.”
The Stranger reaches for her and she slaps at his cheek. For once he catches her hand. Cersei feels an embarrassing stab—the last time a man did that, he dislocated her wrist. But the Stranger merely lowers it, fingers loose.
“Peace, my queen. You gave me a dance. I will give you a gift.”
“A gift of death?” She is suspicious. His eyes hold too many centuries and secrets. My queen—she does not miss the small mockery. He accords her the title only because death reigns over all.
“Your child’s life.”
It stops her cold. She spins on her heel again, tearing free and demanding herself to return to the balcony. Once more, Cersei looks out over the battlements and bay. Alone.
All Questions Answered
A Lannister wedding is a glorious affair. A Tyrell wedding is radiant. When the houses join in marriage, the spectacle sets the city ablaze in crimson and roses. I would rather set the city ablaze with wildfire, she thinks with surly peevishness. She draws long on her cup of wine, barely tasting its floral notes.
Cersei loathes that the Stranger was right. Since her father forced her to remarry, every day carries her closer to another painful marriage bed, another brute, and another hand on her leash. As if. She is no girl. Her husband will learn that quickly enough.
At least her son looks resplendent. His red and black raiment will be worn once, and costs more than some peasants earn in a dozen years. She supposes his bride looks attractive too, with eyes as big a doe’s, and a face made for summer. It is nearly impossible to be unattractive at six-and-ten, unless one is as grotesque as Stannis’s daughter
Lady Sansa, she admits, is a striking beauty, stupid though she is. According to the regent's spies, the Imp will not bed her until she wants it. He will not hold out until she is willing though, for he would be waiting until the Wall crumbled. Cersei can imagine venereal diseases more pleasant than her brother, but she supposes she approves of the sentiment. At least it gives her the chance to mock his impotency, and keeps him even further from her father’s favor.
Joffrey has cut a pie filled with pigeons and Cersei looks away as one flaps too close to her cheeks. Then she flinches, almost dropping her wine. The Stranger leans against a nearby wall, dressed as courtier. The black velvet and rubies do not shift with every change in light. Her son takes a generous gulp of wine, not the first of such. He has ordered his uncle to be his cupbearer.
Excusing herself, she stalks up to her black prince, taking up the space next to him.
What are you doing here? I hardly lack for dancing partners.
“Do you think yourself so important?” His voice sounds clipped, as if she is distracting him.
Her stomach goes cold. His eyes are blank. Not avoiding hers, but divorced from all expression. Who dies?
The cough answers for her. Cersei snaps toward the sound—toward her cub. Pounding his chest, the young king clears his throat, red in embarrassment. Or red with…
Poison.
Cersei bolts. If she can reach him, ram her fingers down his throat...he keeps hacking, sounds growing wheezier. Already his Kingsguard are tearing his beautiful collar. Something slows her, fights her every step and slows every moment. So is everyone else. The Tyrell crone screeches for aid. Tywin is halfway to him, ready to haul him up by his leg and beat it out of him. Margaery has backed away, a hand to her mouth, while her younger brother stands beside her, hand on his pommel.
Nothing slows death. The Stranger glides to the boy, who dangles from his Kingsguard’s grasp. Her young king twitches like an animal dying from an arrow. Yet Joffrey’s head tilts up and his choking quiets, suspended in the same limbo as the one that cripples her.
Joff does not draw back or look surprised. He looks straight at him, and Cersei can see recognition. In a tangle of memory, she thinks of the Sept of Baelor. A lion, even a cruel one, does not know his own strength until he is told. Who made him think he could execute the Warden of the North without consequence?
The Stranger’s lips brush the boy’s, no last stroke of gentleness. Her son simply falls. When the room blinks into focus, Cersei is already screaming. Collapsing to his side, she almost retches when she sees his clawed throat.
“You promised! You promised! You promised!” Few could likely make out what she said between snot-soaked sobs. You lied to me.
Looking up, she sees the dwarf who promised to destroy what she loved, who served his wine. She demands his arrest, before crumpling back with her babe.
A hand settles on her shoulder. At first she wrenches away, expecting silver hair and violet eyes. Instead it is her father.
“Let him go, Cersei.”
As if she would ever…but two Kingsguard pull her away. Hooking an arm under hers, Tywin half-leads, half-drags her from the feast hall, Cersei sobbing the entire time. He kicks open a door and hauls her into the corridor. For the briefest moment he embraces her, cheek grazing her hair, but in instant he remembers himself and keeps her at arm’s length.
“Where is Tommen?” she squalls.
“With the Kingsguard." He holds her gaze, forces her to understand him. "Retire to your chambers, daughter. There is nothing you can do now.”
Tywin steps away but has to grab her as she buckles, her vision mottled and her head reeling. Muttering a curse, he picks her up like she has already fainted, and calls for his own guards.
“Take her to her chambers. Stay by the door.”
Tywin hands her off and Cersei’s cheek pinches against armor. It is not soft, not one bit. Her sodden face must look wretched. As if she cares. She hangs limp as a trampled flower when her guard lowers her to the bed and leaves.
She thinks her world cannot fall further. She is wrong.
Malady
In a month, her father’s legacy is burnt and shattered like a lightening-struck tree. The Old Lion is dead, her son is dead, one brother is crippled, and the other plots her death. At least I cannot wed. The Red Viper is also dead, Balon Greyjoy is dead, Theon Greyjoy is as good as dead, the Tyrell crone sequesters her heir, and the remaining Warden married a Frey sow.
Everything lies with Tommen, though he is more kitten than cub.
Her own safety is far from guaranteed. Jaime commands the Kingsguard but when Cersei said she would only feel safe with him in her bed, he refused her.
Most days she can stitch together the wan smile of a strong, mourning mother, but not tonight. Too much wine, too much death, has left her sprawled on her bed, arms spread wide. Cersei wants her black prince, his tender-cruel eyes, his cold pride. She wants his kiss, craves it more than any passion. She hardly cares if he stained Joff, if he fostered this war into existence.
“Have I not endured enough?” She may speak to shadows but she cares not. He will hear. With all the death in King’s Landing, he cannot be far. “You were right,” her voice chokes deep in her throat. “Always right, my merciful prince. Let us fly away.”
Her eyes are closed when his hand touches her cheek. She sobs in relief, can almost feel his chilling breath, and looks. He stands at her bedside, not leaning over her like she thought. Then his fingers slide to her throat, hard as ice. His expression makes her freeze.
Cersei always thought fury as hot and wild. A winter storm is deadly, not angry. The Stranger is. His lips curl in a disdainful smile but his lilac eyes are narrowed and steely. At a certain point, ice and fire burn just the same.
“No.” His breath is sharp and brittle. “You mean nothing to me.”
His pride is the same as hers. Cersei will not be spurned; she will deny she ever wanted it in the first place. And she knows his hand was first gentle on her face. She almost made him reconsider, and that sharpens his fury.
“So death denies me?” Her teeth bare in a smile. “Now I can ride to Stannis and take his head off.”
He laughs, as cold and dark as that world he sometimes lets her glimpse. “No, you cannot.” Too bound to her, he knows her next thought. “Just try hanging yourself, my queen. I will leave you like that, with your neck black as your son’s, blood seeping from your eyes, completely and painfully alive.”
Cersei was already wounded when she entered her chamber. To her shame it takes little to break her claws. “Why did you lie to me?”
As if death would lie, his scowl says. He may not be human, but even a beast has pride. And she will always find another way to lance it. His shifting form seems to fade, to slide back into the darkness. But she hears his voice one last time.
“How many children do you have?”
It takes longer than it should for her to make sense of it. Why did you save the wrong one?
Yet she cannot help her sobs of relief months later when she receives word from Dorne. Her beautiful Myrcella was attacked by a traitor and saved by her shying horse. He wanted her head but got her ear. Either he is the most incompetent traitor to grace the Seven Kingdoms, or her daughter’s horse saw the Stranger that day.
On the Deck of a Sinking World
When the mummer’s dragon arrives, he will find the fire his ancestors thought was theirs alone. She hopes it cooks him alive in his armor. Her attendants say she should fear his kinswoman, but Cersei thinks not. When the dragon-mother landed near the Neck, she went north to the Wall. What kind of dragon flies into the cold? A dead one. Others take the usurping bitch. Cersei rallies her defenses against Rhaegar’s supposed son…almost my son. She hates that thought.
Sometimes she wants to treat with him. She is still beautiful. If she were to meet Rhaegar’s son, charm him, ensnare him, it would be such sweet irony. Alas, she doubts he will parley, and so he must die. She will not be as crude as a warhammer. For now, she must keep justice in King’s Landing.
A mummer’s show has picked up a following. The Lion’s Fall, a backbiting history of the Lannisters. The company performs in a tavern. Her attendants do not know she sneaks out of her den sometimes, to wander as only a bold lioness can. Hooded and cloaked, she sidles into a free space along the tavern wall, nose curling at the smell of drink. Her guard captain stands beside her, his golden cloak left behind. Outside, his men wait for her signal.
Already the tavern is sweltering from the number of dirty bodies. Most eyes fix on the platform in front of the hearth.
The amber-eyed youth calls himself the Dornishman. Cersei thinks him a thinly veiled mock of the Red Viper. As he narrates the history of the Lannisters, other actors mime his words. Soon he nears the present. Sweeping his arm to the crowd, winking at a wench who sprawls in a brute’s lap, he addresses them like he is the host of a grotesquerie.
“King’s Landing is a ship, and the ship goes down, its hull clawed open. How did we arrive at such a place? May I present Gerion Lannister! ” A man in a long blond wig steps out, hand to his brow as if searching the horizon. Cersei thinks he looks nothing like Uncle Gerion. The Dornishman affects a tone of bravado, his teeth stark white against his olive skin. “A fearless adventurer. He vowed to find his family’s ancestral sword and set sail for the Smoking Sea. Sinking, sank, sunk!” The blond man suddenly crashes to his knees, choking and drowning.
A burly man appears, waving a sword, only to spasm and die as the dark-haired mummer japes about her uncle Tygett. Next Kevan dies from an argument with the late Maester Pycelle. When another mummer takes the stage with glued-on golden whiskers, Cersei’s nails dig into her flesh. The tavern is already laughing. They roar when her father appears.
“Tywin Lannister! How we love him for his vigorous sacking. You know what they say about Lannisters and gold?” He winks, and her father’s counterpart mimes sitting on a privy, his face screwed in frustration. “Shot while taking a shit…he must’ve died aggrieved, knowing we would learn the truth about the lion’s gold.”
Cersei feels her blood simmer, then boil as a sweet-faced youth steps up, wearing an oversized crown and accompanied by a doe-eyed girl who could only be the Tyrell whore. The girl frantically waves for help, grimacing in revulsion when the boy takes her hand.
“Joffrey Lanni—ah, my pardons, Baratheon! I guess you can tie antlers to an alley cat and call it a stag. Our sweet king left us too young, poisoned at his own wedding. My king, is that a thorn in your throat?” The youth dies clawing at his neck and the girl takes a deep bow. The tavern erupts in wild cheers and whistles.
She is about to signal her guards, about to claw the Dornishman’s face off, until she hears—
“Cersei Lannister! Would that she loves her city as much as she loves her brother…or the Kingsguard.” A fat-breasted woman staggers out with a goblet of wine, waving her free hand as if giving orders. Several curs shout vulgarities. The Dornishman wags his finger. “If you sinners doubt the gods, shame on you! How deep does the Stranger’s love go? He rescued the Red Viper and the Old Kraken before they could take her hand in marriage. A pity King Robert was not so loved.” The woman’s orders become erratic and she bashes her goblet into an adviser. “At least with dragons, everyone expects them to go mad!”
Cheeks flushed in fury, she hisses at her captain. Her guards are not kind, but still more merciful than she. In the end, the Gold Cloaks drag the mummers to the Red Keep, break the tavern owner’s arms, and beat any man who has not fled into the night.
Later, Cersei grins when the Dornishman collapses at her feet, his pretty white teeth splashed pink from a split lip. She sits on the Iron Throne now. It feels like she was born for it. For his japes he loses his hands, for his lies he loses his tongue. Thank goodness Tommen is asleep…she tries to show him the ferocity needed to be a king, but the boy learns slowly.
They say she is mad. Only because I took what I wanted. No one challenges her though. Not when the behemoth knight stands near the throne, rock-still except when he kills. Ser Robert Strong is perhaps the most useful man she has ever known. No bargains, no prices, no questions, just orders and blood.
But power weighs on her. Every day, without fail, she is told how close the Targaryen is, and how inadequate her defenses are. And the whispers. She used to have someone who could tell her what they meant. Until she realized, while breaking her fast and listening to his report of the North, that the eunuch was a liar and traitor who hid in plain sight. She knew he would learn of any plot, so she did not plot. She called in Ser Robert from outside her door and stepped back to avoid the blood. Qyburn warned her that the Spider kept agents in the walls, and her Gold Cloaks spent a month purging the Red Keep. Ser Robert guards her while she sleeps in case they missed one.
Sometimes she regrets not keeping Varys alive. Like the day her guard captain tells her the city is being attacked from within.
The Veil Falls
Treachery. She felt that first cold stab when the Stranger abandoned her. She has realized he was always near—as a presence she could not describe, but feels with a keening loss now that it is gone. A flash in the mirror, a flutter of dark wings, or an overlong shadow. Perhaps that is why Robert met a boar that day instead of a deer. Why Jon Arryn keeled over from poison just before he revealed her secret.
She feels a second stab when her city turns into a bloodbath. No warships sail through the bay, no army crests the hills. No dragon screeches in the sky. And yet her Gold Cloaks are falling back, caught by surprise and overpowered. The fighting erupted just outside of the Red Keep when nameless faces in the crowd drew steel and massacred the closest guards.
The lioness is glaring at Qyburn, who tells her they are led by Ser Bronn of the Blackwater. Cersei’s knuckles ache from how hard she grips her throne. The lowborn scum…she had forgotten about him after her trial. What cause would he have to attack the capital? Her breath hisses as the question comes to her. Once a sellsword, always a sellsword.
“Who paid this dog?”
The Targaryen, more cunning than he seems? Dorne, aiding their kin? My hellspawn brother, the dragon queen’s rumored jester? Qyburn hesitates, sweat already gathered at his gray-shot temples. This makes her eyes narrow—the reason she likes the former maester is his calm and honest manner.
“It is not clear. But…” he breathes deep and does not meet her eyes. “Ser Jaime is with them.”
Blood drains from her lips. Jaime turned on her too, but with an ugly, freakish slut from Tarth. He disappeared while she shamed herself before the whole of King’s Landing. Her false twin, her children’s treacherous father. My little brother. Not my littlest.
Why? Is it not enough to abandon me? She cannot wreak vengeance on the Stranger, but Jaime is only mortal. Her fingers tremble, half in excitement, half in nerves.
“Find a choke point and send Ser Robert to hold them. Drive the scum together and release the wildfire.”
He hesitates. “Your Grace, releasing wildfire in the city…”
“—Will save it from worse if the sellswords gain a foothold. The area outside the Red Keep is mostly stone.”
“…Yes, your Grace.”
I am the last of a legacy with little hope left. Without her, Tommen and Myrcella will die or fall into disgrace. Who is this fool to question me? Normally she would tell Ser Strong to run him through if he did not follow her orders, but she would be mad to turn him against his creator.
“Ser Robert, go with him. Fight hard and keep him safe.”
The hulking knight clanks to life and follows the shuffling man from the throne room. She is alone, having done away with personal guards since Ser Strong. If an army breaches the throne room, two regular guards will not save her. Her son is safe in his rooms, guarded by a dozen men. What is Jaime doing? They say I have gone mad. Killing Tommen though…no, he would never. Taking Tommen…why?
The throne’s metal is cold so she folds her hands in her lap. Lannister red tends toward crimson, but oxblood and carmine look the best against the iron. Her dress is the color of dark blood, the material heavy to ward off the winter.
She could run. Run to Tommen, or barricade herself within her chambers, or try to flee the city. But that would leave the throne empty. A lioness may escape, but she does not hide. And I am tired. For the last two months sleep has taken her in fleeting bursts, and only after wine. Nerves, Qyburn says. Whatever it is, her eyes feel dry and a headache hangs just beyond outright pain.
Jaime enters alone. He wears a breastplate and pauldrons, but nothing like his magnificent gold or Kingsguard armor. His sword is bright with blood. Brother? Lover? Father to my children?
She straightens her already straight back and returns her hands to the throne’s arms. Cold, In a blink she feels it, an imperceptible shift. A flutter of wings in the back of her mind, shadows flickering in the corners, heedless of the burning sconces. Imagining these things would be utterly mad. Jaime watches her, expression guarded. He favors one leg.
Though she wants to rage at him, she forces her voice to calm. “Where is Ser Robert?”
His eyes darken. “In four corners of King’s Landing. What pit of hell did you drag that thing from? The madman was too dead to say.”
“And now Tommen and I die too.” She laughs, for she will not cry.
Jaime stays silent a moment, likely to keep from shouting. He starts across the throne room, slowed by his injured leg.
“No, but I knew you wouldn’t leave unless I dragged you out of here. I don’t know if you are mad or suicidal, but I am taking you and Tommen. Let the dragons have it—they will kill every Lannister, down to the lowest bastard.”
“You would abandon our throne? Our Rock?” Why can he not see?
He allows the smallest of smiles. “It’s not our Rock anymore, though we still drip Lannister gold. You know it was never our throne.”
Gods, that mercenary lord—Cersei balks, refusing to comprehend, but the truth remains. It drives her to her feet, snarling and cursing. “You sold our legacy to a fucking sellsword?”
“He already has a Tyrion.”
Almost in a daze, she storms down the dais. He is several yards from the steps when they meet.
“I do not give in to men or dragons or traitors.” Her voice sounds shrill to her ears, sharp and brittle. “I am never leaving.”
Cersei slaps him, a nail cutting his cheek. He pushes her back with the pommel of his sword, just enough unbalance her. Stumbling into his crooked arm, she feels his golden fingers prod her back. He has not lowered his sword hand, the blade resting along her breastbone. Of all the strange places for a sword…When she looks up, his eyes are glassy, transfixed. Cersei realizes now that what he came here to do has just parted ways from what he will do.
“I know,” he croaks. He drags the sword across her throat.
Somewhere she knows she sputters and falls against him. The sword clatters away. She knows he is crying and that her blood is drenching him as he pulls her close. He did not ride here to kill her. They sink, Cersei to her side, her twin to his knees. Sinking, but not as far as she wants.
Her throne room darkens, and a bleeding throat seems like a trifling thing. She climbs to her feet. Jaime remains but she can barely hear him, can barely see him, and knows he does not see her. Her hand runs through his hair once more, as filthy as it is. He came for Tommen—their son will be safe. Cersei cares about that more than Jaime opening her throat.
“Still you make me wait, Cersei?” His voice settles around her like a warm day in winter. Her twin will never know why his mind changed so fast. Cersei will.
She knows those fluttering wings at the edges of her sight, knows those writhing shadows—he can no more abandon her than she can despise him. The Stranger stands at the bottom of the dais, the sun from the window above the throne catching his face in a dappled light.
“Can I be free of this mad place?”
He smiles. It will never be a smile entirely of affection, but her love will never be without cruelty. Their pride has the same cracks.
“Let the dragons burn it. We will sink, or fly, or lose ourselves in eternity if you wish it.”
Cersei stops, just out of reach. With the diffidence of her youth and the cool assurance of her regency, she extends a hand. She would make him wait until the world ended. The Stranger knows this. Even if it destroys her, Cersei will always be the one to choose. He takes her hand and brushes it with his lips.
All questions asked, she throws herself into his arms.
“The world wanted to cage me,” she murmurs, nuzzling against him. “I showed them they could not.”
The Stranger’s laugh rumbles in his chest. “The world thinks you a mad fool.” As if she cares what they think. “They think you wicked for not sheathing your claws or purging your hate.”
All the things you love me for. She has stayed loyal to herself. Was it better, wiser, or nobler to scratch out the eyes that judged, cut the strings that pulled, and take her pleasure when it suited? Let others look in vain. Will he still love her the moment she is no longer the living creature who spurned and danced with him? Perhaps it matters not.
Cersei looks up at the Stranger. This time, neither can find the desire for cruelty. It is a first and final kiss that always allured her, enraged her, or repelled her, but never frightened her. The end of a dance in which, if she hated the music, she chose her own steps. His kiss is warmer than she thought, as she sinks against his arms, her eyes closing as her heart thrums to a stop.
The Stranger kisses her once more. After scant years of fire, he feels cold again.
Her twin struggles to his feet, her corpse in his bloodstained arms. With something close to reverence he sets her on the Iron Throne. She looks at peace, apart from the red cut across her throat. His arm is too bloody—Jaime cannot wipe away his tears, tears he never expected after she sauntered so far into madness. But now he must find his son and make for the Free Cities. They have perhaps a day before the lost prince returns.
Jaime always knew she had a shadow at her back, a darkness she could never escape. It was not until he entered the throne room and saw her jaded eyes, heard her empty laugh, that he knew she never wanted to escape it at all.