Disclaimer – This fanfiction was not written by me; it belongs to the user William Dellinger on alternatehistory, by publishing it here I only intend to bring it to a wider audience and make it available for offline reading. I do not claim any ownership of the content.

Rhaegar XII
Late 274 AC

Moonlight filtered in through the open window, the moonbeam glancing off floating dust motes in the air. Crimson embers seethed in the hearth, a faint glow that cast the tiny room in the killing light. I lay in the rough sheets of my bed, propped up against where wall met wall. Jenny lay beside me, her arm draped across my middle, her breathing slow and steady. I stroked her soft, golden hair with my free hand, mesmerized by her perfect beauty, even in sleep.

I slid out from the sheets, careful not to wake her. She slumbered on, her soft murmurs an unconscious protest that I briefly considered heeding. I dressed quickly, silently, black trousers and a dark green shirt. Perfect for nighttime skulking.

I opened the door to the sitting room as quietly as I could manage. Ser Barristan slept in his room, the door open. The light from the torches lining the walls showed the slight rise and fall of his chest, as if the snores weren't clue enough. His sword lay propped on the bed, unsheathed. The slightest sound would wake him, his hand finding the hilt by reflex. If he woke and saw me, he would come with me. If I ordered him not to, he would follow at a distance. If he saw what I was going to do, he would kill me.

I tiptoed through the door, my bare feet silent on the cold stone, and I made my way to the stage, through the wings and curtain. I stopped center stage, looking up at the balconies and the wide open pit, the full moon making a sort of spot light through the open roof. I had stood in such a place many times before, in my old life. Mostly Shakespearean work, but the community theatre I had volunteered at offered a wide range of performances. Musicals, some Chekhov. Legally Blonde, once. I had been the UPS delivery guy. Favorite role ever.

All that was behind me, well behind me. Nearly a year in Westeros, next month. Every friend that I had made back home, every person I had known, replaced by characters from a book. But, they weren't just characters. They were real, live, flesh and blood people, all with hopes and dreams and good parts and bad parts. They lived, ate, breathed, fucked, bore children, raised them, were buried by them. They laughed and cried and worried and rejoiced. They were human. They would live and die by the decisions I made. I wasn't sure how to handle that. That, or the task that lay before me.

How to kill a king.

And how to justify his murder? True, I knew what he'd done, what he would do. I knew his secrets, his sin. The legions of dead I could lay at his feet. The wet nurse. The mistress and her family. And more yet to come. The caches of wildfire planted all over the city, the Mad King turning the city of half a million into his own personal pyre. Yet, something stilled my hand.

What kind of man would that make me, killing the king to take his throne? Who was I, to have that right, that power? I was no hero. I was no savior, no avenging angel, sword of fire flashing down into the heart of the dragon. I was a man, a man who would kill the one person in his way to take the Iron Throne. It wasn't the killing, though; my mind flashed back to a hot, stark desert and the blood I left there. Blood on sand, the scent of copper and death, the fever pitch of pure terror and the cresting wave of adrenaline. The bodies on the ground. The macabre stills burned into my mind. The mission. No, it wasn't the killing that bothered me.

We're all bastards, bitched from the start, no matter what side of the bed we were born on. One bastard kills another, the world turns, nothing changes. Replacing one bastard with another could make things better, or worse, or the same. Ah, but I was a different kind of bastard than Aerys, wasn't I? Even that lie I told myself did little to comfort me. That I would rule better than Aerys, that I had the knowledge and foresight to prepare against the Others. That I would bring my superior knowledge and morality to Westeros and save them from themselves. Yes, that lie only framed my hypocrisy, coloring it with the rose tint of ego and narcissism.

Yes, there was no doubt I'd rule better than Aerys. That was an objective truth. But how many would die that I could save with my future knowledge? How many people, actual living, breathing people, would die because I sought to preserve the timeline, preserve my precious future knowledge so that I could benefit from it later? If I could lay the deaths that Aerys would cause at his feet as justification for his murder, then all those that would die because I chose not to save them would be laid at mine.

One bastard kills another. The world turns. Nothing changes.

Movement caught my eye from the west entrance. Two men made their way into the pit, both dressed in dark cloaks with their hoods pulled up. They blended in with the night effortlessly, stopping just short of the light of the moon. I stepped down from the stage, leaving my vacillation behind, and began walking softly toward the pair. I wasn't afraid of Barristan overhearing; the apartments were too far away, and there was plenty in between to block the noise. Still, it didn't hurt to be cautious.

I motioned with my hand for them to meet me in the shadows, near the front of the pit where three small steps led to the first balcony. This was where the merchants and knightly houses sat, paying their four stars for a seat above the smallfolk and drinks brought to them by servants. One floor above was for the lesser lords, a full Stag for those seats buying a better class of wine and ale, and the better view of the stage. The petty hierarchy disgusted me at times, particularly their ignorance; there were lords looked down on as little better than jumped up smallfolk, marrying their daughters to the richer merchants to save their dying legacy. They, in turn, looked down on the smallfolk. But that petty hierarchy could be taken advantage of, and I could've bathed in the silver it brought me.

More hypocrisy. Enough to choke on.

Lord Tywin removed his hood once we reached the first balcony seating, his golden hair dimmed by the near total darkness. Should Ser Barristan awake and see me not in my bed, he would look in the pit; but even he could not see me at this distance, in this darkness. Such was a fitting place for the plotting.

The man beside him was Ser Ilyn Payne, his Captain of personal guard. Ser Ilyn was the only man Tywin trusted to bring along, the result of his missing tongue. Yes, sadly, Ser Ilyn had lost his tongue shortly after losing his wits; for surely no full witted man would give voice to the notion that Lord Tywin actually ruled in place of the Mad King Aerys Targaryen. It was a shame; the man had possessed a fine singing voice once properly lubricated.

Lord Tywin kept his voice purposefully low as Ser Ilyn moved away, toward the back rows of seats. "We should not meet like this again. The king grows suspicious of shadows," he said, glaring into the darkness. "The petty lords he has taken at court pander to his paranoia. They play their games and cross each other for position. He changes his favorites daily." The disgust in his voice was tangible, cutting through the darkness with vengeance. This was no whim for the man; this was his reason for being.

I nodded, then realized he probably couldn't see it. "I agree. I dislike our meetings so close to Ser Barristan." Not just the thought of him stumbling onto our conspiracy, but of forcing him to choose between me and his vows. "We could use Arry as a go-between. I assume he has a discreet method of getting to the Tower of the Hand?"

There was a pause and I realized Tywin had nodded before realizing I couldn't see him. "He does. And, if he should be seen, the court will assume I am spying on you," he said, his voice growing wolfish. "I think it pertinent that we are seen as rivals for the King's favor."

A very cold, very suspicious part of me wondered, at that exact moment, if I was being played. If Lord Tywin had concocted this ruse to bring my traitorous ass before the King, bound like a pig for market, I'd catch a blade in my neck if I was lucky. I hoped I was wrong.

"I've received an invitation from House Thorne. Lord Thorne has arranged a hunt, followed by a feast, in two days' time. I assume you had something to do with that?" Not that I was downplaying my own rugged charm, but invitations from the noble houses of the Crownlands had been few and far between since I had left the Red Keep. From what Lord Tywin had told me, the petty lords had seen my distance from the King as political. Not wanting to tie themselves to a dead horse, they had pretended I didn't exist.

"I did," Lord Tywin said, without a hint of pride. It was the tone of the man who had done something meaningless, like he could've done it in his sleep. "A loud conversation with one of my attendants regarding your newfound favor with the king. The result of your damn fool mummer's plays." He paused a second, considering. "Lord Thorne isn't intelligent enough to pay the right men to learn what I say, and if he was, he wouldn't have offered a political outcast the invitation based on one overheard conversation. Someone else, one of the other houses, must have told him to reach out to you. Odds are, the spy's master won't even be there, instead waiting to see how things go." He looked around again, checking the exits and entrances. "You'll receive more invitations in the days to come, once everyone sees you taking part in the politics again. More bootlickers, like the Thornes, eager to tie their banners to yours." He paused. "The fourth invitation, though, perhaps the fifth; that will be the house that bought my servant."

I nodded to myself, absorbing the information. See, the plan was fairly straightforward. The Crown Conspiracy, as I liked to call it, had three stages. Stage One was killing the king. We hadn't settled on a cause of death yet, as Aerys was growing more changeable by the day. There was no daily routine to take advantage of, no set group of courtiers to turn. There was also the tiny fact that he surrounded himself with a group of highly skilled, elite killing machines who were sworn to protect him from all harm. A dagger in the night might as well have been a snowball in hell for all the good it would do.

But killing the king was only the first part. In Stage Two, once the king was safely dead, we'd have to hold the city against the inevitable siege. Those laying siege would be the houses who had thrived under Aerys' patronage; the Velaryons, the Stauntons, the Stokeworths, the Chelsteds, etc. Coincidentally, the most powerful houses in the region. Also coincidentally; the houses that hated Lord Tywin the most.

Which is why I was playing the part of the prince, hunting and feasting and drinking. My mission now was to gather support from among the Crownland nobility that weren't already sucking the milk from Aerys' teat. In this palace coup, it mattered not which Lords Paramount were kith and kin to another; indeed, it would take Lord Steffon Baratheon a minimum of four weeks to call his banners and march on King's Landing. And he was the closest of the Lords Paramount sworn to the king, geographically as well as genetically. In those four weeks, the Crownland houses I would gather would have to hold the city against the newly disenfranchised. The Crownlands were the key. And when the Stormlander banners reached the city? I would be either king or killed, anointed or buried in a shallow grave.

Thus, Stage Three; controlling the narrative.

But first thing's first. How to kill the king.

"The hard part will be making it look like an accident," I said. "Even if a man could get close enough to him, an outright assassination would only make it clear that either you or I were behind it. We could lose whatever support in the Crownlands we might gain, as well as beyond."

Lord Tywin nodded thoughtfully. "Unless there were alliances in place. A coalition of four Great Houses could be enough to stem the counter rebellion. Accept you as King no matter the circumstances of your rise."

I stopped at that, not daring to look at Lord Tywin. "I'd need to be married for that. Betrothed, at least."

To his credit, the Hand of the King didn't say a word, nor did anything show on his face. "We'll save that for Stage Three," I continued. "There's no point if Stage One never happens."

Lord Twyin nodded again. "Agreed. I suppose a Faceless Man could get close enough, wearing the face of one of the Kingsguard or a trusted servant."

I shook my head. "It would be too obvious. How many houses would support a kinslayer on the throne, even one allied to them by marriage? It has to look like an accident; or, enough of an accident to give us plausible deniability."

"What then?"

My mind went back to a thought I'd had early on, one I'd dismissed. "Poison, perhaps?" But Lord Tywin was already shaking his head.

"Everything he eats is tasted, every cook and servant watched. It cannot be done."

"Not in his food," I said, warming to the idea. "He cuts himself regularly on that monstrosity he calls a throne. He's covered in cuts and scabs. One of them is bound to go sour, eventually." I looked at Lord Tywin. "We could simply, speed the process along."

The Hand brushed his golden muttonchops. "Would anyone truly believe it to be accidental?"

I shrugged. "They might. The Grand Maester is the only one who would treat the king's wounds, or examine the king's corpse. And Pycelle will say whatever you tell him to say."

Even in the darkness, I could see Lord Tywin glaring at me. Though, it wasn't as if he were really glaring; he always looked like that. No, this was a fixed stare, a calculating stare. "One day, very soon, you and I will discuss how my agents are so obvious to you." He broke the stare, considering. "It may work. We will still first need the support of a number of Crownlander lords to hold the city."

I nodded. "I'll work on that from my end."

Lord Tywin nodded and, raising a hand to Ser Ilyn, moved off of the first balcony and into the pit. "I will await your message after you return from the feast," he said, inclining his head. Without another word, the two began walking toward the entrance, careful to remain inside the shadows of the theatre.

Watching them leave, the same words scrolled across my mind, over and over. A warning, certainly; a premonition, possibly.

You come at the king, you best not miss.