Chapter 45: The Black Letter

Along Blackwater Rush

Stefan fought to keep his mouth closed. Him, punish Damon? He glanced at his brother. Damon tried not to show it, but he could see a tinge of worry on his face, not because he was afraid of the pain, but because they both knew that if Damon healed in front of everyone, the game would be up. Their secret would be exposed and then…who knew what would happen next? Westeros might not be ruled by religious fanatics, unlike medieval Europe, but Stefan doubted they would take very kindly to blood-drinking immortals. The idea was too new and the threat they posed was too great. Humans had always feared and hated what they did not understand.

Stefan bowed in acquiescence to Tywin's command and both he and Damon left the command tent in silence.

"So…" began Damon.

"How much blood have you had lately, Damon?"

"I don't really keep count, but let's just say I haven't eaten so well since the last world war."

"This is serious, Damon," said Stefan. "If you…"

"I know, Stef." It wasn't clear who shoved who inside Stefan's tent, not that the thin walls afforded much privacy, so they kept their voices to the barest of whispers. Anyone listening outside might have thought that Stefan had already murdered him. Or perhaps vice versa. One could never really tell with the Salvatore brothers and he wanted to keep it that way. The less people knew about them here, the better. "You think I don't worry about that?"

"Well, there is a way," said Stefan as he produced a knife. He felt his lips twitch. Before Damon could demand of him what 'stupid' idea he had, he lunged for his brother and plunged the dagger into his neck. Blood spurted out from the severed artery. Damon snarled and gripped Stefan's wrist, but the initial surprise and the loss of blood had already weakened him a little. Still, it didn't stop him from pulling the dagger out and attempting to stab Stefan in the heart with it. It was metal. No one would die.

Blood sprayed onto the tent walls as Damon drove the dagger into Stefan's thigh, staining the cloth a darker shade of red. He was glad that, as a knight, he didn't get a white tent. Now that would have been suspicious, especially considering the amount of blood that was being spilled.

Eventually, the two brothers pulled apart, panting. "So what now, Stef?" asked Damon. "Are we two immortals to be locked together forever in a never-ending fight?"

"You know you need to be weak when you undertake your punishment," said Stefan. "Lord Tywin wants blood, and nobody wants to see you heal."

"Are you sure you're not just jealous because I stole your girlfriend?" asked Damon.

"There is nothing to be jealous of," said Stefan. "It wasn't real."

Damon sighed. He must have known that Stefan was right. He withdrew his own dagger and slit his own wrist. Blood welled up and dripped onto the ground, darkening the soil beneath. The dirt soaked up the blood, luckily, because if it pooled, people would start asking questions about why Damon was still alive. The wound healed. Damon did it again. "It seems such a waste," he remarked.

"Then don't waste it," said Stefan. He put a basin beneath Damon's wrist to catch the blood. They were at war and medical supplies were rare in Westeros. Vampire blood was a useful commodity and Stefan wasn't so altruistic that he actually wanted to donate.


Arya stared at Damon. He looked awful, with no colour in his face except for the dark purple-grey circles around his eyes. His skin was the colour of candle wax that had been left too long in the holders. Looking at him, Arya had to wonder if she were looking at a man or a corpse. Damon moved with none of his usual grace and strength. What had they done to him? She swallowed. No, she would not cry, especially not for Damon. He'd been so mean to her! But he was her only friend now, and she didn't want him to die. She especially did not want to see him die. She pushed her way through the legs of the throngs of men who had gathered to watch the great Damon Salvatore be humiliated and punished for his betrayal of the Lannisters. She didn't know what was going to happen, only that it had been up to Stefan Salvatore to decide. Stefan Salvatore wouldn't hurt his own brother too badly, right?

She clenched her teeth and fists as Damon was chained to the post. He was shirtless. She remembered how Sansa had practically become speechless at the sight of the vampire's bared chest and torso. His skin was so smooth. Her eyes widened as the long tail of the whip cut through the air with a whistle and then squeezed them shut as it landed with a loud crack. Damon grunted softly.

She opened one eye. A long red line had appeared down his back. He wasn't healing; why wasn't he healing? He was a vampire! Had Stefan done something to him? She looked away as the lash fell again and swallowed rapidly. She didn't want to see this. It made her insides tighten and her stomach churn as if she had eaten something nasty. Except there was nothing inside it because she hadn't eaten anything all day. She'd been that nervous.

But there was something about the sight that attracted her attention again. She wanted to see if only to make sure that Damon was still alive. His shoulders tensed with each lash and his back was slowly becoming a net of red lines criss-crossing over each other, but he still had yet to cry out. How brave must he be? Wait, he'd said something about vampires and pain once. When you healed that quickly, you tended to get hurt a lot more. She'd seen him get shot before and he hadn't so much as blinked. But that had been during a fight when the heat of battle had taken over his head.

And why was she caring? She shook her head angrily. No one noticed the little errand 'boy' as they all placed bets on how many lashes Damon would last until he started screaming. She wanted to place a bet herself and say that he wouldn't scream at all, but that would be drawing too much attention. She couldn't afford to do that.

Instead, she slipped away from the crowds. Damon was weak because he was half starved. He would need blood and since she now worked in a mess tent where animals were being slaughtered every day, getting a little bit of blood shouldn't be a problem. He'd hate it, but he would take it anyway because even little children ate their vegetables when they were starving. He could go hunting for something better later.

The mess tents were mostly deserted, with the men having gone to watch the head cook looked up briefly when she came in. "They're going to make fillets out of your master," he said with a smirk when he saw her, and then he went back to cutting up the deer that one of the men had brought in. For Lord Tywin, of course. Because, apparently, mutton wasn't good enough for him.

Arya ignored him and ducked into the shadows where there were a few sheep waiting to be cut up. Their eyes were glassy and open and their tongues lolled out, not unlike the dead men she'd seen.

She hauled one of the sheep towards her so that its head dangled over the edge. Once, during a family hunting trip, her father had shown her and her brothers how to drain the blood from an animal. He'd slashed the animal's throat and hung the carcass from a tree. Sansa had been completely disgusted by it all.

The throat of the sheep had already been cut when it had been killed. Arya held a bowl beneath it, letting the remaining blood drip slowly into it. There wasn't much left and she had to move onto the other sheep before she even had something that would be worth more than three mouthfuls. Damon drank a lot of blood.

Suddenly, she heard Stefan Salvatore's voice. She stiffened but stayed in the shadows and willed her heart to be calm. He was a vampire. He could hear her heartbeat if it was too loud. She breathed in and out slowly, thinking of herself as one of the rocks or trees outside. They never panicked, never moved, and no one ever took any notice of them.

The cook bowed to Stefan. "Ser Salvatore," he stammered. "Is there…is there anything I can do for you?"

"I have come for my boar," said Stefan.

"Yes, yes, of course," said the cook hurriedly. For the first time, Arya noticed the huge cloth-covered mound on the wooden table a few feet away. The cook dragged off the cloth to reveal a monstrosity with hook-like tusks and wiry bristles for fur. It was, however, undoubtedly very dead.

Stefan motioned for the other kitchen attendants, who had come back in now that the show was over, to help him carry the boar.

Arya pushed the bowl of blood beneath the table where no one would be able to see it and stood up slowly. Stefan turned and focused his eyes on her. She'd never noticed that they were green before, just like the Lannisters'. A funny thought suddenly struck her. Damon had blue eyes like Robb and the Tully side of her family, and Stefan had the same eye colour as the lions he served. Was it fate? Or maybe the gods just thought this was funny too.

"I can help with that, Ser," she said.

"This one came with your brother, Ser," said the cook.

"Did he, now?" asked Stefan with interest. His voice was like that of a lord's, without the harsh rasping quality that so many men had, and he spoke without the mocking tone that was always in Damon's voice. "Yes, Colyn Morland did mention his servant."

"His squire," said Arya. Servant indeed.

"You're a very bold little squire, then," said Stefan. "What's your name?"

She had to think quickly. She couldn't say 'Stefan' like she and Damon had discussed because that was Stefan Salvatore's name! "Harry," she said. "My name's Harry."

"And how old are you?"

"Nine," she said. They'd discussed that too and apparently, she sounded far too young to be an eleven year old boy.

"Well, Harry," said Stefan. "You can take one of the legs." Was it just her, or did his voice sound a little gentler when he was talking to her? She didn't know very much about Damon's brother, mainly because Damon had never talked about him very much. She knew that they did love each other, but it was confusing now that they were fighting on different sides, and purely by chance, it seemed. What if it had been Stefan that her father had found on the road instead of Damon and Bonnie? Would Stefan have become House Stark's only knight, then? And would he be as loyal? Well, he probably would have come up with a better idea to save her father and Sansa, but she didn't think he would be as fun with her and her brothers and sisters. And he buried people alive.

She took up one of the boar's hind legs. It was extremely heavy. It might have looked spindly on the boar itself, but up close, it was actually thicker than her leg. She wrapped both arms around it, trying not to mind the smell and the prickling of the bristles through her clothes.

The other kitchen boys smirked at her but they dared not say anything while Stefan was there. They followed him through the camp, dodging carts and men on horseback as they steered the pig through small spaces until they reached his tent.

"Leave it here," he said. The other boys didn't think much of it and left, but Arya lingered there just a little while too long for Stefan not to notice her hesitation.

"Is he going to be all right? Ser Damon?" she asked.

Stefan smiled at her. How that smile changed his whole face! She'd thought him cold before, but he did have a warm smile that looked very kind, even if it was only an illusion. Maybe that was why Elena had fallen in love with Stefan first but then she'd switched to Damon when she'd realized what a monster he was.

"He will be fine," said Stefan. "Now, shouldn't you be going back before the cook misses you?"

She didn't want to go back just yet without seeing Damon, but she knew that she couldn't really help him and he would be fine in the end. He was Damon Salvatore. He'd been shot full of arrows before and he'd been fine. Stefan was still looking at her and there was something worryingly close to pity on his face. It made her feel very uncomfortable.

"Yes, Ser Stefan."


Damon thought he was such a genius, waltzing in here and 'winning' over Tywin Lannister. He had no idea that Stefan had deliberately fallen for this trap in the fight; that he had deliberately lost. Of course, Stefan was not going to tell him, or anyone, for that matter. His brother did not have the slightest inkling of how thin the ice beneath his feet was. One wrong step, and he would be dead, vampire or no. This wasn't Mystic Falls, and Tywin wasn't Klaus. They all knew as well as one another that Damon wasn't really loyal to House Lannister or to House Stark. Damon was only ever loyal to himself, his brother, and Elena. Everything else depended on those three people.

"Stefan!" Caroline hissed his name. He turned and found her beckoning to him from behind one of the tents. He checked to make sure no one was watching and followed her to where they kept all the horses hobbled. Nobody was there, for the stable boys and pages were all off running errands.

"Did you know Damon's here? Our Damon?" she said.

Since when did Damon become their Damon? But he let that slide. It was one way of differentiating between Daemon Lannister and Damon Salvatore. "Didn't you hear?" he asked. "He was whipped before the whole camp."

"Wait, what? Damon was whipped?" asked Caroline.

"Never mind," said Stefan. "It's not important. He's going to be okay."

"Well, he deserves to be whipped," said Caroline. Then she paused. "Wait, did he heal?"

"If he had, do you think I'd be standing here talking to you? Relax, we took care of it."

"Why does nobody ever tell me anything?" she demanded. "Who found him anyway?"

"Remember, I'm his brother," said Stefan.

"Yeah, sometimes I forget that," admitted Caroline.

"I was the one who discovered him," said Stefan. "Do you think anyone else would have known? He didn't exactly come here and announce that he was Damon Salvatore."

"I suppose even he's not dumb enough to do that," Caroline conceded. "But what is he doing here?"

"If he is to be believed, he wants to join the Lannister cause," said Stefan.

"I don't believe it."

"Neither do I, and Lord Tywin doesn't either," said Stefan. "But it doesn't really matter. He's here, and not with the Starks. He's their only knight. If word ever gets out, it's a bit of an 'up yours' to the Starks."

"What if he's working for them?"

Didn't Caroline know well enough by now? "That would imply he actually cares about the Starks," said Stefan. "I can't see that happening."

"Well, I wouldn't have said you'd have made the perfect Lannister knight a few months ago, but look what happened to you," said Caroline.

"But I am not Damon," said Stefan. "Don't worry, Caroline. I will keep an eye on him."


Harrenhal

Robb slammed his fist onto his command table, making the figurines on the map jump. "Damon. Salvatore," he said. His voice was so low it was almost a growl. First Theon, and now Damon had betrayed him. They were all betraying him and leaving him. They knew he was winning battles, but he was losing the war. That was why they were all turning their backs on him.

"Robb," said Katherine. She placed a hand on his arm. Something about her voice and her light touch made him force himself to breathe slowly and to think about the situation in a more distant manner. He had abdicated, at least for now, so the target painted on his back had faded somewhat. He had Stannis' men on his side, and they were getting ready to launch a two-pronged assault on King's Landing. Everything was going according to plan. If it worked, the Lannisters would no longer hold the capital. Once Westeros was his, and only then, would he dole out retribution to those who had wronged him. The Lannisters, obviously. Joffrey, Theon. Damon. He placed his hand over his wife's, marvelling at the fineness of her bones and the smoothness of her skin. He squeezed her hand.

"Salvatore has gone over to the Lannisters," he said. "I know you care for him, but when I see him again, I will have his head."

"I know, my love," said Katherine. "If he has truly betrayed you, then I would expect nothing less."

"But you think he has something else in mind?"

"All I am saying is that Damon may yet surprise you. He has turned his back on the Lannisters once. Why turn back now, when we are at a stalemate? Why not wait until there is a clear predictable result?"

"You know him," said Robb. "What do you think he wants?"

Katherine paused. "If he had wanted to side with the Lannisters, he could have stayed in King's Landing and sided with them then. Maybe he is simply doing what he needs to do to survive until he can find his way back to us." She didn't sound convinced.

"Tell me what you really think, Katherine. I told you once that I want you to tell me the truth, no matter how much you think it might hurt me," he said.

"In one word, he's improvising."

Robb stared at her. "Improvising," he said slowly, as if the word were in a foreign tongue and he had never heard it before.

"Making it up as he goes along," said Katherine. "Why else would he be with the Lannisters one day, against them the next, and then back with them the following day?"

Robb blinked. "What does he hope to achieve?"

Katherine sighed. "With Damon, it would be beyond my abilities to say, but if I had to take a guess, I would say it has something to do with Elena."

"You think he's doing this because he's trying to keep her safe, or maybe just trying to look for her?" asked Robb.

"His life is Elena these days," said Katherine. "It's very sickening."

"I find myself strangely relieved," said Robb. "You do not think he has betrayed me?"

"Betrayal means he actually planned something. I would have preferred it. Alas, I do not think he has betrayed anyone except Cersei."

"I hope you are right," said Robb. He wanted to believe Katherine very much. Damon had been his friend. But then, all his friends had betrayed him. He had betrayed his friends too. Jon Umber had trusted him, and he had killed him to make a lie look more real. Was this what being king meant? Did kings ever have friends, or did they only have subjects that they used and discarded as needed?

Katherine moved behind him and rubbed both his arms as if to warm him up. "Come, my husband, we have a letter to write. We promised the king we would write one for him."

It was all part of the plan to keep the Lannisters distracted and off guard while the real plan went ahead, with Stannis moving his men inland so that his army could attack King's Landing from the south through the Kingswood, where the Lannisters would not expect it. To move so many men without Tywin's spies noticing was difficult, which was where the letter came in. Let the Lannisters be so…distracted by their 'overtures' for peace that they wouldn't realize what was happening on their own doorstep. Of course, one letter couldn't do all the work, which was where the ghost fleet came in. It was actually very real, for there were two hundred ships in it, all to be manned by skeleton crews, with flimsy catapults that were more suited to Katherine's favourite stage dramas –she called them 'plays'– than actual warfare, considering they were made of glue and flimsy wooden boards and could not actually be fired.

Robb summoned his scribe, a frightened young man who had tried to become a maester but had ended up quitting before two years was up. Nevertheless, he wrote well, and swiftly. He didn't need the man to be able to think; he just needed to be able to write things down as he said them.

"We want Joffrey's head on a silver platter," said Katherine, "in retribution for what he did to your father, my love." She poured both herself and Robb cups of sweet wine with a bite.

"A golden platter," Robb amended. "Joffrey is a Lannister through and through and a Lannister should use gold."

The scribe crossed out the word 'silver' and wrote 'golden' above it. It was the most ridiculous plea for peace anyone could ever imagine but, the truth was, if it had even had the possibility of being believable, then Tywin would have become suspicious. Since this was so beyond the realms of reality, the Lannister patriarch would think it was just a boy and a girl playing tricks rather than any real political move. It would, however, anger Cersei.

"The Lannister army will be disbanded," Robb continued as he tried to think of the most outrageous demands possible. "And Tywin Lannister will take the black." Katherine laughed and just about clapped her hands in glee like a little girl rather than the lady of Winterfell. Robb had to admit that he was getting into this. If only he could see the look on Tywin's face when he heard this read out to him! He had never met the man before in his life, but based on what he had heard, he had already formed an image. Would it make him burst a vein, he wondered? Hopefully. Then he wouldn't have to bother with this war, and fewer men would need to die.

He offered Katherine his hand, and she took it, letting him twirl her around inside bed chamber as if they were in a ballroom, even though the only music was the sound of their voices, their laughter, and the scratching of the scribe's quill.

"Cersei Lannister, of course, will become a septa and never interfere with matters of state ever again," said Katherine. "On the upside, Jaime Lannister will be freed to also take the black with his father. That should make them a little happier." She rubbed her leg against Robb's, and all of a sudden, he was regretting the generous allowance he had given her to make new clothes for herself. There was far too much fabric separating the two of them.

"Cersei Lannister a septa? I can hardly imagine it. And the day Jaime Lannister becomes a man of the Night's Watch, I will forsake my name and take up yours, my lady wife," said Robb.

"It is hardly more ridiculous than Tywin Lannister taking the black," pointed out Katherine.

"Fair point," said Robb. "Or as you say, too shady."

"Touché," Katherine corrected him.

"Too-shy."

"Too-shay."

He gave up trying to pronounce the strange word and dipped her down low so the only thing stopping her from falling to the ground was his arm around her waist. "What would I give to see this all come true?"

"They may soon wish they had complied," said Katherine.

"I like the way you talk," said Robb. "And Myrcella and Tommen will take the name of Hill and leave King's Landing to never return again. Casterly Rock will become part of the Baratheon lands, and all debts to the Lannisters will be written off." That was a lot of money, but he supposed it was rather just a side dish to the main course, considering what they were demanding of the Lannisters.

They fell into a heap on his bed, breathless and giggling at the silliness of it all. One could dream, right? "They will never acquiesce to such terms," said Robb as he bent down to kiss Katherine's slender neck. The skin at her throat was so soft. He nipped gently at it and noted with satisfaction the way bumps were raised on the surface of her skin wherever he touched her.

"We don't expect them to," said Katherine. Her hands were wandering down his body and deftly moving in on his belt buckle. He strained against the ties of his breeches, wishing that she would hurry up and free him already.

"Will that be all, my lord?" stammered the scribe. Robb paused in his attempt to make his wife speed up. Damn. They had forgotten all about the scribe.

"Write up the letter and take it to the King for his final perusal, and then have one of the Lannisters take it to Cersei once the King has approved of it," said Robb. He didn't bother waiting for the scribe to bow and run out of the room. His guards knew enough to not let anyone else in after a certain hour. He brushed Katherine's hair back from her face. Even though he knew she was his wife now, he could never stop marvelling at her beauty, with her perfect skin, luminous brown eyes framed with lashes so long they could not possibly belong to a mere mortal, and her full lips, just slightly parted, waiting for him to kiss them. He had prided himself on being a rational man before, but he had fallen quite irrationally in love with this woman. He could barely remember back to a time when she had not been in his life.

"I love you," he whispered into the crevice between her breasts. He kissed both of them, letting his lips just lightly touch the cool skin and then grinning with satisfaction when she arched her back to bring her body up closer to his. Her bodice was getting in the way. He slowly untied the laces, teasing her with each light brush of his fingers. Two could play her game, and there were no rules. Neither of them liked rules.

She flung off his belt and moved onto the ties of his breeches, quickly undoing them and letting him free. At the same time, he slipped off her gown, leaving her only in her thin linen shift. Her dark nipples poked up from beneath the translucent fabric. He resisted the urge to suckle them through the linen. It would be better to make her wait. He slowly eased the hem up her legs, running his hands over the lean suppleness. She hooked one leg around his waist and then with a well-practised move, flipped him over so that she was on top and straddling him. Her hair fell like curtains on either side of her face, casting them both in shadow.

"Not so quickly, my lady," he whispered. He grabbed her buttocks and then rolled over so he was straddling her again. "It's my turn to be on top."

"Are you afraid of letting me be on top?" said Katherine. "Don't worry. I'll play nice."

"I didn't know that playing nice was the point of this whole…exercise," said Robb. "How disappointing." He pulled the shift over her head and ran his tongue over her nipples, circling one, and then the other. "I must say, however, that I like you like this, all gentle and submissive. I may keep you this way for a while."

"How boring," said Katherine. "Perhaps we shall have to change that." He groaned as he felt her wrap her fingers along the length of his hardness. Her hands were hot, and the heat spread all over his body, until he was consumed by his need for her. She, however, kept just out of reach, teasing him with her fingers. She knew just where to touch, and how to touch to make him writhe. And as he did so, she rolled him over again.

"You have no honour, my lady, to take a man unawares while he is distracted," he managed to gasp out.

"And you are talking too much." She silenced him with a kiss, pushing her tongue into his mouth, stroking the ridges at the top and sucking on his tongue when he reciprocated. All the while, her hands never stopped their work.

"No, Katherine. Not like this. I want you. Properly."

She guided him inside her, keeping in control the whole time. She liked being in control, his wife. In some ways, they were quite similar to one another. Normally, he would have expected two people such as themselves to clash, but as it were, he felt more whole with her here.

He felt her muscles clenching about him and he groaned as she drew out his pleasure. "Open your eyes, Robb," she whispered. He hadn't even realized he had closed them. She held his gaze as she rode him, moving her hips in time with his involuntary upward thrusts. With one final cry, he spilled his seed inside her. She threw back her head as she came. Something about her face changed. She was still beautiful, but there was something darker.

"Katherine. Your eyes…" he whispered.

She collapsed onto him and kissed him on the lips, nipping him just hard enough to draw a little blood. "You were saying?" she asked.

"Never mind," he said. He was pretty sure he had imagined it. The light inside his bed chamber wasn't exactly the best.

But the feeling stayed with him throughout the night even while she slept beside him, her head resting on his shoulder and her silky hair covering his chest. He stroked her hair slowly, wondering about her.

Who was Katherine, really?


King's Landing

The terms were preposterous! Joffrey's head? Myrcella and Tommen taking the name of Hill? Her father and Jaime taking the black? Her becoming a fucking septa? Cersei read the letter again, convinced that this was Stannis' idea of a joke.

But Stannis had no sense of humour, so he obviously meant every word, didn't he? She crushed the letter into a ball in her fist and threw it at the wall. It bounced off harmlessly and began to unravel, its words taunting her and mocking her. Then she picked it up and tore it up slowly and carefully.

"Maybe you should let me read that first, dear sister," said Tyrion. She handed over the half torn letter to him, letting him put the quarters together. He had liked puzzles as a child. He scanned the letter, his brows drawing together ever more closely as he went on. "You are right. Such a letter does not deserve to be read, although I had not thought that Stannis, of all people, would have had a flair for the dramatic. And I am very insulted that he has left my fate out." He put the pieces together and tore them up into miniscule little pieces, none of which were big enough to contain a single word. Then he gathered up the scraps and threw them into the flames. The fire flared as it consumed those ridiculous demands.

"How will we respond?" asked Cersei.

Tyrion remained silent. If he had been Jaime, he would have found some way to make light of the situation and maybe even force her to laugh, but he was most definitely not Jaime.

"We will write back, politely, but making it very clear that under no circumstances are such terms acceptable," Tyrion finally said. "And then we will lay out terms of our own that are more acceptable to us."

"Or we could not answer, and simply wait for Father to crush him."

"Stannis has an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men, give or take a couple of thousand," said Tyrion. "Robb Stark has bent his knee to him. Stannis now has men in both the south and the north. It will not be easy to deal with him."

"Well, I am not interested in peace with him," said Cersei. "In case you haven't noticed, dear brother, peace is not an option."

"We do not have to be interested. We simply have to feign interest to keep him off his guard."

Cersei felt a headache coming on. With Jaime still a prisoner of the Starks, Joffrey going out of control and spending excessively on redecorating the throne room, the threat of Stannis' impending invasion of King's Landing, and Robb Stark's very disturbing victory at Harrenhal –she had heard the rumours about his dangerous new weapon– she hadn't been getting very much sleep. When she looked in the mirror, she could hardly recognize herself. Just yesterday, she had discovered a grey hair. A grey hair.

"Do what you have to do," she said, getting up from her chair.

"Oh," said Tyrion. "I had expected more…resistance."

"You are the acting Hand of the King," she said. "You should have to work for your title."


Guest: We didn't realize you'd read the rest of our draft. Where'd you find it? :)

Next chapter: Damon and Stefan bond over serving the same master. Caroline suspects that Damon is up to no good, and so does Tywin. Jaime sees a thread of a chance for freedom and grabs it with both hands. Robb gets a reply to his (Stannis') letter.