This chapter was written as part of the Facebook challenge "Sur Votre 31":
- Invite : ''Shiver''.
- Number of words: From 100 to 1000 words.
All the universe of Game of Thrones belongs to GRR Martin, DB & DW.
Context: Alternate Universe – Season 8 – Canon Divergence
Enjoy reading!
Dark night reigned over King's Landing.
The sky was dark, despite the fact that it was still the middle of the afternoon, when normally, even though winter was there, it was still daylight.
But not that day.
Cersei realized this the moment she looked out the window, only to see the capital of the Seven Kingdoms plunged into darkness.
An icy wind blew through the wide openings in the walls of the Red Keep, more frigid than Cersei had ever felt in her entire life, even when she had traveled north with the royal procession nearly ten years earlier.
It was then that she really became aware of the situation.
Qyburn had warned her a few days earlier that the Night King, his White Walkers and his army of stiffs would march on King's Landing.
He had warned her, but she had not listened to him, nor had she listened to him on previous occasions.
And now, death presented itself at the gates of the city.
Cersei's breath was mist in the cold air, biting, piercing you to the bone.
The White Walkers were there, and she was alone.
Most of the others had died during the Long Night, a cruel battle that had seen the camp of the living lost, despite the support of Cersei and the Lannister armies, as well as the Golden Company at the last minute.
Daenerys Targaryen and her three dragons were dead. Jon Snow was dead. Sansa Stark was dead. Tyrion was dead.
When she had heard of the deaths of Sansa and Tyrion, from a few soldiers who had miraculously escaped the massacre, she felt tears come to her eyes, although she held herself back in front of the knights. After all, a queen does not cry in front of her subjects.
She never thought she would ever mourn the loss of a brother whose death she had so longed for, but she had, perhaps because Tyrion was so much more like her than she really wanted to admit, really wanted to admit to herself. And Sansa... she had been sincere when she said that she considered her almost like her daughter. Sure, she had been hard on her, maybe a little too hard on her young age and her innocence, but that's the way the world was, hard, cruel, ruthless with children and innocents, and that's what Sansa would find out some day. Cersei had been so proud of her little dove when she found out what had become of the Boltons. She was convinced that she would make an excellent queen, but after all, she had been her student, even against her will, and she had learned the lessons Cersei had taught her.
And Jaime... she hadn't heard from Jaime...
She refused to believe that he might be dead. This was utterly impossible.
She didn't want to think that he had died far away from her, alone, in the North.
And then, in any case, she would have known. She would have known, if he was no longer of this world.
But as the cold became more and more intense, she began to seriously doubt that he was still alive.
The North, the Riverlands, the Vale and the Westerlands had been invaded by the army of the dead.
Euron Greyjoy, coward that he was, had gone back to the Iron Islands with his fleet, as soon as he had learned the rout of the living.
And now Cersei was alone, lost in the vastness of the Red Keep.
She entered the throne room, pushing with difficulty the heavy swinging doors that refused to move because of the frost.
To her surprise, she discovered that white snowflakes were falling inside the room, covering the tiled floor with a thick, fluffy, white coat that was totally immaculate.
Cersei felt the cold numb, she shivered and trembled, trying in vain to warm herself by rubbing her hands up and down on her arms, but without much success, while the blizzard continued to blow with all its might, the winter winds really battering the city.
She couldn't remember a single moment when she had wished Jaime to be by her side, except perhaps for her Walk of Shame, but it seemed so long ago that she sometimes struggled to remember it, as if it was just the remnants of a distant nightmare.
She was completely alone, shivering, in the middle of the throne room of the Red Keep, in front of the Iron Throne, which was also beginning to be covered by snow, and she wished Jaime was there...
She missed him so much, more than she could ever have described him. There were no words to describe the desperation she felt at his absence, and she was surprised to pray to gods she no longer believed in that Jaime was coming.
Knowing his body better than her own, she could perfectly imagine his large build, his strong shoulders, his strong jaw, his hair, and his emerald green eyes so similar to her pools of fiery wildfire...
But while she was dreaming of green eyes, it was blue eyes that appeared.
She was stunned.
A White Walker stood over there in the doorway.
If she had ever seen a dead man before, when the Starks and the Targaryen girl had captured one beyond the Wall and brought him to King's Landing to show her, to make her realize it, this was the first time she had ever come face to face with a White Walker, whose stories had been told to her and Jaime by the fireside when they were children.
Without taking her eyes off him, she instinctively stepped back, now standing right next to his throne, her hand resting on the guard of the dagger she had stuck in her belt, ready to draw it out if the creature came too close to her.
Soon, however, it was not one, but two, then three White Walkers who were there, along with some of the corpses that stood in their place as soldiers.
She continued to shiver, to tremble, but out of fear or cold, she no longer knew.
She found herself paralyzed, unable to make the slightest movement as Death was inexorably closing in on her.
When suddenly...
A door behind it opened on the fly...
A cry from one of the ghosts tore the agonizing silence that weighed in the night...
One hand, cold as ice, which came to rest on his mouth, choking his screams, preventing him from screaming in turn, another, just as cold, which grabbed his arm and dragged him...
Thank you for reading!
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Don't be too hard on English, it is not my mother tongue.