For your reading, I advise you to listen to The Hanging Tree, the song from Hunger Games, which is used in this fic.
The versions I recommend are :
- The Hanging Tree (Violin Cover) - Taylor Davis
- Hanging Tree - L.E.J.
- The Hanging Tree (A Capella) - Peter Hollens.
The whole Game of Thrones universe belongs to GRRM, DB & DW.
A huge thanks to BlackAngelis to have reread this fic ^^.
Good reading !
When Daenerys Targaryen entered what was left of the Throne Room of the Red Keep, she felt an indescribable wave of feelings overwhelming her.
A feeling of power. A feeling of strength. A feeling of victory.
She had succeeded.
She had won.
She had taken King's Landing, and ended Cersei Lannister's tyranny.
She was the queen.
She was Daenerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen.
She was Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, and she had taken what was hers.
She had taken it by fire and blood.
Fire and blood.
She was sitting on the Iron Throne with Tyrion standing by her side, when a dozen of her Immaculate Ones, led by Grey Worm, pushed Cersei and Jaime Lannister in front of them.
She smiled when she saw them.
They were dirty, covered with dust. They had nothing left of the proud golden lion of their coat of arms, they were nothing more than fallen lions now, they had no power left.
But what caught Daenerys' attention above all else was the little bundle of blankets that Cersei held in her arms and hugged her as if her life depended on it.
She had heard the rumors of the lion queen's pregnancy, and Tyrion had confirmed them by pleading with his sister that day when they went to the ramparts of King's Landing to negotiate Cersei's surrender, he had begged her to surrender without fighting, to surrender so that his unborn cub could live.
But Cersei did not listen.
Cersei had chosen war. Cersei had chosen violence. Cersei had chosen fire and blood.
And Jaime had come to her, convinced that he could save her.
And he had succeeded in saving her. At least at first.
They hadn't died in the collapse of the Red Keep.
But perhaps it would have been better if they had.
That's what Tyrion seemed to think when Daenerys turned to him to see his reaction when his two beautiful golden fools of brother and sister, who were not so golden anymore, were thrown at their feet, down the stone steps leading to the Iron Throne. At the bottom of the stone steps that led to power.
And he was right to think it.
''Your brother and sister will be executed tomorrow.''
Daenerys announced this to Tyrion as he entered his apartments, his apartments in the Tower of the Hand.
The Hand of the Queen.
He was holding his niece in his arms when she burst into the room.
He had managed to convince her not to kill her, to let her live, not to murder her, not another child, not this child, please, Your Grace, she is just a baby, she is innocent, she is not guilty of the crimes committed by her father and her mother.
He felt a ball in the back of his throat and his entrails began to weigh him down.
He was going to watch his sister die. Wasn't that what he had always wanted?
A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.
The debt was going to be paid, the debt was always paid, as the Lannisters liked to say, and were very diligent in doing so.
A Lannister always pays his debts.
And Cersei was going to pay hers. Shouldn't he be happy?
But no, he was not.
His sister may never have liked him, but she was his sister, his family, his blood, the blood of his blood, and nothing was more important than that, nothing was more important than family, that's what he had always been told, that's what he had always been told, since he was a child.
And he knew why he was not happy when he looked down on the little lioness in his arms.
Little Lelia Lannister had pretty golden curls that shone like the sun, and big emerald eyes.
Emerald eyes. Lannister eyes. Jaime's eyes, Cersei's eyes.
She looked so much like her parents that it was almost painful for Tyrion to look at her, and he couldn't, he didn't want to imagine those eyes, their eyes looking at him without having tried to save them.
''Your Grace...''
''No. I won't go back on my decision. You have already begged me to let their daughter live, but my sentence for them is final. Cersei and Jaime Lannister will die tomorrow.''
Cersei and Jaime Lannister will die tomorrow.
Starting a movement to leave the room, she finally turns around just before going through the door.
''If you have something to say to them, I guess now is the time.''
And she goes away humming The Rains of Castamere.
Cersei and Jaime Lannister will die tomorrow.
The subterranean chambers of the Red Keep were cold, damp, and dark, more so than in the memories of Tyrion.
He knew that it was there that the Unsullied had captured Jaime and Cersei. He knew because Daenerys had told him so.
And when he saw the pile of stones falling from the vaults of the ceiling, he couldn't help but regret it.
Regret that he had told Jaime to bring Cersei here. Regret that they hadn't died under the rubble, in each other's arms. To regret not being tall and strong like his brother to protect them when Daenerys makes a morbid spectacle of their execution. To regret not being able to prevent death from falling upon them as the fire fell on King's Landing and the rains on Castamere.
The people were right.
He was only a dwarf, a half-lion.
Lions were supposed to watch over each other, and defend each other.
But he could do nothing to defend the last lioness, the last lion and the last lion cub of his herd.
The two Unsullied who guarded the door of the cell where his brother and sister were locked up refused to let him in, claiming that they had been ordered to forbid any visit to the two prisoners, especially the "tyrant".
The word hurt Tyrion when it was uttered.
No matter what people might have said, no matter what people might have thought, no matter what she might have done, he could never have seen Cersei as the tyrant, as the monster they claimed she was.
Cersei was not evil. Cersei was not tyrannical. Cersei was not monstrous.
Cersei was sick, deeply sick, a sickness that Tyrion also suffered from, a sickness that was never really cured.
The sickness of love.
Cersei had been sick with the love of a mother who had left her too soon, Cersei had been sick with the love of a father who had only ever considered her as a commodity he could profit from, Cersei had been sick with the love of a brother she could never love in broad daylight, Cersei had been sick with the love of a husband who blamed her for having neither brown hair, nor the name Stark, nor the wolf as her emblem, Cersei had been sick with the love of three children whom she had survived, and now Cersei was sick with the love of a baby, her baby, whom she would never know.
Tyrion had been sick with the love of a mother he had never known, Tyrion had been sick with the love of a father who did not consider him his son, Tyrion had been sick with the love of a sister who blamed him for killing their mother, Tyrion had been sick with the love of a woman who had been taken away from him by his father, Tyrion had been sick with the love of a woman who had betrayed him, and now Tyrion was sick with the love he had for a woman, a queen whom he believed could change the world and make it a better place, and who had reduced it to fire and blood, who was going to slaughter the last remaining members of his family, including the only one who ever truly loved him.
When he finally managed to convince the Unsullied to let him see his brother and sister, he saw a scene that caused him more pain than anything he had ever faced before.
They were sitting on the floor. Cersei's face was buried in Jaime's neck, curled up against him, and he held her tightly, his arm with his golden hand embracing her and his other hand caressing her hair, her neck, and, from time to time, her cheek, as if to wipe away the tears that Cersei no longer had the strength to shed, whispering soothing words to her.
She didn't even raise her head when he entered the darkness of the cell.
Maybe she had managed to fall asleep and Jaime refused to deprive her of that little moment of peace, maybe she just didn't want to escape from his embrace, because it would reveal to her again all the ugliness, all the horrors of the world, and she had had enough of them, and it wasn't about to end yet.
It broke Tyrion's heart, more than he had ever believed, to see them together at the gates of death as they had been at the gates of life, and as they had never been allowed to be in between.
Jaime looked at him as he entered. He felt as if he had already experienced this scene, in another world, in another life, when Tyrion was condemned to death by their father for Joffrey's murder, which he had not committed.
Only this time it was Tyrion who was free, and Jaime who was condemned.
Tyrion wanted to scream, you're all right, there, you thought you were clever, both of you, you thought you were smart, you're just fools, beautiful fools, beautiful golden fools, how could you believe you would escape, how could you believe you would win, you would triumph, you should have left, you should have left a long time ago, you could have been happy, you could have been free, you could have been in love, you wouldn't be about to die.
Tyrion wanted to scream out his sadness, his rage, his despair, his helplessness, but the only thing he managed to do when he saw his brother and sister intertwined, cursed lovers, was to burst into tears.
The only thing that managed to make him stop sobbing was Jaime's voice, barely louder than a whisper, hoarse because of the lack of water and dust, and the two green emeralds that were still barely shining and looking at him, while from his chin he pointed at their inert sister :
"Save her, Tyrion... Please save her...''
But Tyrion did not have the strength to answer that he could not save her, that he could not save them, that he could not save anyone.
The square in front of the Red Keep was crowded.
The last survivors of the devastation of King's Landing and all the people that Daenerys had forced to come were massed in the ruins of the city, their feet treading the ashes, the piles of stones still piled up, and the charred bones of the hundreds of thousands of unfortunate people who had died in this immense inferno.
Those people who had nicknamed Queen Cersei the "Mad Queen" after she had destroyed the Great Septuary of Baelor, and who now realized what madness was, true madness, pure madness, when they saw Daenerys Targaryen, the new queen, climbing for the first time on the esplanade in front of the castle, surrounded by a dozen of the Unsullied, the others trying to contain the crowd, just after the destruction of the city. Not that it was necessary, people did not want to fight, not want to resist, not after what they had seen, not after what they had experienced.
Now they didn't even know why they were there. They assumed that it was one for a new speech by the Dragon Queen, a speech that would speak of freedom, of conquering the world, of liberation, and of broken chains.
But they weren't free, they felt it.
And they felt it even more so when, once again, they watched the Mad Queen, the real Mad Queen, climb onto the stage, holding a baby, accompanied by the leader of the Unsullied, Tyrion Lannister following her, looking contrite.
They had never seen the little girl that the new sovereign was holding in her arms, but just by looking at her, they knew.
They knew, because in twenty years they had seen enough babies with golden hair and emerald green eyes to guess who the little girl's parents were.
The cub of the lioness in the claws of the dragon.
It did not bode well to see the little lion cub in the arms of Daenerys Targaryen, and the murmurs rose in the crowd.
Where are Cersei and Jaime Lannister?
They were not dead, that was for sure. Their murder would have come to light, they would have known.
And they had the answer to their question when a horde of soldiers came out of the castle, escorting two easily recognizable figures.
The queen and her twin brother were brought to the dais.
Tyrion did not want to attend the execution of Jaime and Cersei, and he did not want Lelia to attend either. She was too young to see all the horrors this world was capable of, and he didn't want the only memory the little girl had of her parents, if she ever had any, to be their screams of pain.
Pain of being separated, pain of being burned, consumed by the fire of the dragon, consumed by the fire of their love.
He had managed to convince Daenerys to give them a quick death. Since he had failed to persuade her to let them live, since he had failed to keep his promise to Jaime to save Cersei, he owed them at least that.
Save her, Tyrion... Please save her...
He thought these words would haunt him for the rest of his life, as a constant reminder of his failure, a constant reminder of his weakness, a constant reminder of his powerlessness in the face of the inexorable death of his brother and sister, in the face of the inexorable death of his family, in the face of the inexorable death of a part of himself.
But Daenerys had ordered him to come, to follow her.
You are the Hand of the Queen. You owe it to yourself to be present at the Queen's side for her greatest victory, as you were for her greatest defeats.
He implored her to leave little Lelia in the castle, not to force her to witness the execution of her father and mother, young and innocent as she was. But she had also refused to do that.
Lelia would be with them on the stage. But when Tyrion had wanted to take her from the nurse's arms at the fateful moment, on the way to the square in front of the Red Keep, the maid had given her to Daenerys, who had a mischievous little smile on his face as the little lioness had been placed in his arms, the baby chirping joyfully, totally unaware that the silver-haired queen holding her was not her golden-haired mother.
Tyrion felt sick when he saw Daenerys take Lelia. She was obviously only trying to torture Cersei at the moment of her death.
She knew that the fallen lioness would have felt somehow relieved to see her little girl with her brother, because she knew that he could never hurt her. She and Tyrion had never gotten along, but her daughter was also Jaime's daughter, and Jaime was the only Lannister who ever loved Tyrion.
But he did not.
Instead, Cersei's last vision of this world would be that of her executioner holding her precious little lion cub, the baby for whom she had sacrificed everything, for whom she had fought, for whom she had refused to surrender, signing her own death warrant at the same time.
Before he had time to protest, Daenerys came out of the castle and climbed onto the dais.
Tyrion had no choice but to follow her, gazing at the strangely silent crowd.
While the Breaker of Chains and Mhysa had dreamed of a moment when she would appear before a people acclaiming her and giving her a standing ovation, Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, was delighted to see the silence of her subjects.
They did not contest her reign. No one contested her reign.
She was about to show what was happening to those who opposed her, to her enemies.
Cersei and Jaime Lannister were brought to the stage by the Unsullied, and she could not help smiling.
There she was, the real victory.
And her joy was even greater when she saw Cersei's reaction, who widened her beautiful green eyes when she saw that Daenerys was holding her daughter in his arms.
She knew that she had promised Tyrion that she would grant them a quick death. But she had no intention of keeping that promise.
Hadn't Cersei promised to send her armies north to fight the White Walkers?
If there was one thing Daenerys had learned from her rival, it was that kings and queens had the right to lie.
Jaime refused to let go of Cersei when the Unsullied came to fetch them from their cell.
He wouldn't let her go, he wouldn't let her down, not now, not ever.
He had to find a way to save her. He had no choice. He had no right to let her die without doing anything, it would be exactly as if he was killing her himself, as if he was killing her with his own hands.
And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you.
He would become her valonqar. It was his fault. He was the one who led Cersei into the underground tunnels of the Red Keep, he was the one who brought her there thinking he was saving her.
The Unsullied had separated them, dragging them brutally away from each other, and none of them had the strength to resist.
And now Cersei was pushed in front of him. She would be the first to be displayed to the crowd, as the Daenerys' trophy, as the symbol of the Mother of Dragons' greatest victory.
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
The dragon had won, and the lion was about to perish.
Jaime had come to terms with the idea that he should die. But he couldn't bring himself to believe that Cersei would die too, or that harm would come to her or their daughter.
He knew that Tyrion had managed to convince Daenerys to let their little girl live, he had told him so. But he didn't answer him when he implored him to save Cersei.
Save her, Tyrion... Please, save her...
He felt his heart skip a beat when he saw his daughter, his little princess.
She was in the arms of Daenerys.
And one look at Cersei was enough to tell him that she felt exactly the same as he did.
Jaime, caught in the wave of courage mixed with that of recklessness that animates all parents who see their children in danger, broke free violently from the grip of the Immaculate, seeking at all costs to get closer to Cersei and their daughter, under the gasps of the crowd of people present, and had almost managed to leap forward, when a throbbing pain crossed his right leg, making him fall to his knees on the ground.
One of the Unsullied who flanked him had just stuck his spear in his leg, breaking it, causing him to fall heavily, ponderously.
The cry of pain that he could not hold back passed his lips.
But after this cry came the desperate call to his twin:
"Run, Cersei!''
She had turned around when she heard his first complaint and absolute horror came to veil the green eyes he had loved so much.
She began to struggle against the four soldiers who were holding her, but could not shake off their firm grip. The Unsullied were much larger and stronger than she, who was weakened by the recent delivery, which had been more than difficult, and their imprisonment. She quickly gave in to them.
A soldier came leaning right behind Jaime and raised his head to force him to look at Daenerys.
He saw the Mother of Dragons give their daughter, Cersei's and his, to the leader of her armies. Then she stepped to the front of the stage, and addressed her people with a big smile, a crazy smile, the smile of a Mad Queen:
''What you are about to see will be the fate of all traitors from now on.''
She made a hand gesture to the General of the Unsullied.
The crowd shouted, panting, but the only things Jaime heard were Lelia's cries and Cersei's howl of distress.
Grey Worm dropped the still warm corpse of the baby, his baby, their baby, the dagger still stuck in her heart, from which was now pouring streams of sticky red liquid.
Cersei's scream would have been all the more inhumane if it hadn't come from a mother who had just lost her baby, her last and only baby, killed right before her eyes, and the entire crowd fell silent to the sound of her lament, which would now haunt the city streets and the minds of everyone present.
If Jaime's heart had been broken as the knife was thrust into his daughter's chest, it would have been reduced to ashes, like the capital of the Seven Kingdoms a few days earlier, when his other half in turn fell to her knees in despair and agony, weeping over all that remained of her people as she had so many times let herself go before him.
The pain caused by the murder of her baby right in front of her eyes was so great that Cersei barely felt the dagger of the Immaculate One, which went into her back, causing her blood to spurt out, causing a red and hot pool in which she fell when the life that had already begun to desert her many years ago left her definitively.
The pain caused by the murder of her baby right in front of her eyes was such that Cersei barely felt the dagger of the Unsullied which went into her back, causing her blood to spurt, causing a red and hot pool in which she fell when the life that had already begun to desert her many years ago left her for good.
Her last tears fell into her blood that had spilled on the ground.
Scarlet blood. Scarlet Lannister.
And the last thing she heard before her heart stopped beating was Jaime's cry of pain.
Jaime, who screamed when his half was taken from him, when the love of his life was taken from him, when his life was taken from him, when he felt himself dying while his own heart was still beating.
When Cersei died and he was unable to save her or their baby.
When she left this world without him, when they should have left it together, as together they had entered it.
We will die together, as together we were born.
And Jaime, too, was so consumed by the pain of losing his daughter and his wife in everything but the law that he did not feel that he was dying.
He was already dead.
He had died with Lelia.
He had died with Cersei.
The crowd remained stunned.
The people did not know what to say in the face of such barbarity.
Certainly, they had never appreciated Queen Cersei, and had been delighted to see her at the bottom of her decline.
But no one deserved what had happened to her and her brother. No one deserved what had happened to her and her brother.
Her cry of pure agony, her tears, her blood, everything would remain forever etched in the memories of those present.
Maybe she wasn't totally a monster.
Maybe she was like them after all.
Maybe she was human.
Then all these people did the only thing they could still do for this queen whom they had at first despised and who had returned it to them, but whom they had seen perish in the most atrocious suffering.
With an almost uniform movement, as if they had all concerted before, when this was not the case, as if it was a gesture that came to them spontaneously, they bowed.
They all bent their knees and hailed Cersei of the House of Lannister, first of her name, Queen of the Andals and the First Men and Protector of the Seven Kingdoms.
Daenerys was upset. Daenerys was disappointed. Daenerys was angry.
She had thought people would scream their joy when Cersei Lannister breathed her last.
She had thought that her people would cheer her, the Breaker of Chains, who had come to give them back their freedom that the lions had taken from them.
It turned out she was wrong, and she suddenly realized it when, instead of giving her a standing ovation for putting to death a queen they hated and never wanted, they all bowed before the lifeless body of her rival.
They bowed to the corpse of Cersei Lannister, whom they had never before bowed to her, Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, Mhysa, the Breaker of Chains, the Unburnt, the Mother of Dragons.
And it was this gesture, which could almost seem insignificant, that completed the rise of a black fury in her.
Even though they had seen before their eyes the demonstration of what was happening to her enemies, they chose to oppose her.
She could execute them all on the spot, burn them alive, but that is not what she chose in order to shock them, in order to make them understand who the true monarch of the Seven Kingdoms was and what they risked by opposing her.
She had a completely different idea.
Because after all, what difference could a few hundred people, a few hundred innocent people make when you had her number of victims on her list?
Sansa was sitting in the center of the table, in front of the fireplace, in the great hall of Winterfell.
It was Arya's nameday, and although Arya does not like such festivities, Sansa felt it was important to invite the Lords of the North to their table, to show them respect and to show them that their good relations were still in order.
But Arya had managed to calm her older sister's fervor and persuaded her not to throw too big a party.
As a result, only a few singers who had sung the most famous arias from the Seven Kingdoms, such as The Rains of Castamere, The Bear and the Maiden Fair or Jenny of Oldstones, were available for any entertainment.
Until a miserable-looking bard appeared before her, claiming to have a new story to tell.
Sansa smiles at this declaration. As a child, she had learned every song imaginable. There wasn't one she didn't know the words to, or at least the tune of. And when she told the minstrel, he replied emphatically:
''I assure you, my lady. I come straight from King's Landing. There I witnessed the execution of the Queen, Cersei Lannister, and her twin brother, Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer. It is from there that I wrote and composed this song.''
At these words, Sansa stopped smiling.
The bard, who took it as an invitation to take the plunge, grabbed his violin and sang the tune he claimed to have written.
The part of herself that believed, no, that hoped, that it was a lie was mortified to realize that she knew neither the words nor the melody.
So it was true then?
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
They strung up a man
They say who murdered three
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Where the dead man called out
For his love to flee
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope,
Side by side with me
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree
When the bard finished his song, Sansa had tears in her eyes.
Because deep down, she knew.
She got up and, before the singer left, asked to see him in private.
She led him into a small adjoining room, followed by Brienne de Tarth.
Once she was sure that they were indeed alone, Sansa sat the man down and asked him in a white voice:
''You said that this song was about the execution of Cersei and Jaime Lannister, which you were at. Could you tell me what really happened?''
The bard was obviously uncomfortable with the idea of telling this story in more detail than he had chosen to tell in his song:
''My lady, I don't know where to begin... It was horrible, it was so horrible... Oh, of course, we all knew that Queen Cersei was not a good person, but no human deserves to suffer as she suffered... Neither she nor her brother...''.
As the bard said this, Sansa felt a ball forming in her belly, like a knot in her entrails.
She had told Jaime Lannister just before he left for King's Landing that she had always wanted to be there on the day Cersei died.
But now she wasn't so sure.
''Have you heard how King's Landing was destroyed?''
''Yes.''
Yes, of course she knows. It was all anyone could talk about now, about this and about the advent of Daenerys Targaryen and the beginning of her reign of terror.
''When the Targaryen girl started burning down the city walls, we all shouted out for Queen Cersei to give the order to ring the bells, the sign of her surrender. The bells rang soon afterwards, although we don't know if it was really the queen who ordered it. In any case, the city surrendered, but Daenerys Targaryen set it on fire and blood, burning everything in her path and slaughtering thousands of people, before going on to attack the Red Keep, which had largely collapsed. As no one had seen the queen again, we assumed that she had died in the collapse.''
Sansa closed her eyes, and a lonely tear rolled down her cheek.
She had hoped, deep inside herself, that Cersei had perished that way, and not at the hands of Daenerys. She hadn't dared to imagine what she would have done to her.
''It wasn't so?''
''No. Daenerys Targaryen proclaimed herself queen, and a few days later, the Unsullied came to take us from the makeshift shelters we had built among the rubble, to take us to what was left of the square in front of the castle. The Mother of Dragons appeared, followed by the Imp and the General of her armies. She was holding a little girl as beautiful as daylight, with golden curls and green eyes... Oh, we had never seen her, but we had seen her brothers and sister when they were babies, and she looked so much like them... There was not a shadow of a doubt about the identity of her parents...''
Sansa stiffens, and swallows with difficulty. When he was in Winterfell, Tyrion had alluded several times to Cersei's pregnancy.
But what had Daenerys done with her rival's baby? What had become of the daughter of Cersei and Jaime Lannister?
She was taken from his thoughts when the minstrel resumed his story:
''And then we saw them. Cersei and Jaime Lannister. They arrived surrounded by the Unsullied, who pushed them onto the stage. You can't imagine the look the queen gave Daenerys when she saw that she was holding her daughter... And her brother... He struggled and managed to get out of the clutches of the soldiers beside him, as if he could save their child... And they stuck a spear in his leg. He shouted, in pain first, and then he shouted to his sister to run away. She didn't succeed, of course, she didn't have the strength. And before anyone could do anything - what could have been done anyway? - the Mother of Dragons had handed the baby over to the chief of the Unsullied, who stabbed her in the heart with a dagger ...''
Sansa let her tears flow freely when she heard the fate that had been reserved for the baby.
She had long considered Cersei a monster, but she had never - at least not to her knowledge - put an innocent child through anything. Unlike Daenerys.
''Queen Cersei let out a scream that I never thought possible to hear from a human being, let alone from her... It was agony, pure agony... She fell to her knees, and one of the soldiers behind her stabbed her in turn, right in the back... Her brother shouted when she passed away, and they killed him too... I will never forget anything that happened that day, never... But the worst thing is what they did afterwards...'"
Sansa wasn't sure if she wanted to hear what happened next.
Anyway, how could it have been worse?
What she had heard about Cersei's death was more than enough to make her sad, and she couldn't figure out why, but she knew one thing: she didn't have enough tears left to shed.
But she had to know. She needed to know what they had done to the woman whose death she had so longed for, as revenge for her innocence, as revenge for her father, but she was no longer sure she wanted, or rather, she was sure she no longer wanted, now that it had happened:
"What did they do next?''
''After the killing of the queen, everyone bowed to their bodies, to her brother, to her daughter and to her. It was a kind of homage to the suffering we had just witnessed... Daenerys Targaryen went into a black rage. She ordered that the bodies be hung from the heart tree of the godswood of King's Landing, as a reminder and warning of what would become of his enemies...''
Not wishing to hear any more, Sansa thanked the bard, and dismissed him.
Desperately in need of fresh air, she left the castle and went to the godswood of Winterfell, where she sat in front of the majestic barral, where she had played so much as a child. But this time, when she looked up at the scarlet foliage, it was not the leaves she saw.
It was the red, only the red, only the red.
Targaryen red. Lannister Red.
Red, like the blood that Daenerys had shed in the streets of King's Landing.
Red, like the castle that would have done better to collapse by burying the golden twins and their little golden lion cub.
Red, like the color Cersei and Jaime saw when they saw their baby in Daenerys' arms.
Red, like the blood that gushed from the little princess' chest in front of the stunned crowd.
Red, like Cersei Lannister's heart that broke when her last baby was coldly murdered before her eyes.
Red, like the blood that flowed in the river and in which she drowned, in which she lost her life.
Red, like Jaime Lannister's heart that bled when Lelia and Cersei died before him.
Red, like the blood he didn't need to see to know that he was dead.
Red, like the pool of liquid the same color as the banner with the roaring lion in which three still warm corpses were bathing.
Red, like the color Daenerys saw when his people bowed to Cersei's corpse.
Red, like the foliage that now sheltered the remains of three lions.
Sansa looked at the foliage and realized that she did not want all the blood of the North to be spilled by Daenerys.
She did not want to live under her eternal tyranny.
Brienne joined her, and sat down beside her.
Neither of them said a word for a long time, each one honoring the memory of someone who had had an important place in their lives.
After all, Brienne had been deeply in love with Jaime, to the point of giving him her virginity, and despite leaving for King's Landing, to go there to die with Cersei, to go there to die with the one true love of his life, she couldn't help but continue to love him.
And Sansa would never forget all that Cersei had taught her, willingly or unwillingly. It was because of her, and the persistence she had seen her show, that Sansa had survived everything she had gone through.
It was Brienne who broke the silence:
''My lady, I know what you are planning...''
Sansa replied a little curtly:
"No, you don't know that.''
''Yes, I do. You will want to start a rebellion against Daenerys Targaryen, but I swore to your mother to protect you, and...''
Sansa cut her off:
"You didn't swear anything to my mother.''
"Yes, I did. I promised Lady Catelyn...''
But Brienne didn't have time to finish her sentence that Sansa had said in a trembling voice, her eyes full of tears she thought she no longer had:
''My real mother died in King's Landing.''
With that, she got up, and left the godswood.
Fire and blood.
A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.
A Lannister always pays his debts.
Golden curls and emerald eyes.
Cersei and Jaime Lannister will die tomorrow.
The last lioness, the last lioness, the last lion cub.
''Save her, Tyrion... Please save her...''
The cub of the lioness in the claws of the dragon.
''You are the Hand of the Queen. You owe it to yourself to stand by the queen's side for her greatest victory, as you did for her greatest defeats.''
When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.
"Save her Tyrion... Please save her...''
''Run Cersei!''
''What you are about to see will be the fate of all traitors from now on.''
Lelia's tears.
Cersei's howl.
Jaime's scream.
Daggers drawn.
The cries that dry up, replaced by the screams.
Blood spurting out.
The cries of the crowd.
Tyrion woke up with a start, alone in his big bed.
Machinally, he got up to go and bend over the cradle of little Lelia, which he had had installed in his apartments so that he could look after her properly.
But when he looked between the covers, he saw nothing.
He saw nothing, and that's when he remembered.
Lelia's tears.
Cersei's howl.
Jaime's scream.
He wasn't alone in his bed.
He was alone in his apartments. He was alone in the castle. He was alone in this city. He was alone in this world.
He was alone, completely alone, more alone than he had ever been.
He was alone because he had been too weak, unable to protect his brother, his sister and his niece from their doomed fate.
He became even more aware of what had happened, of what had really happened, than he had in the last few days.
He had been in a second state, as if he had been dreaming, as if he would wake up and Cersei and Jaime would still be prisoners in the underground tunnels of the Red Keep, and little Lelia would still be in her crib, sleeping soundly.
Tyrion slipped out of his apartments. He had heard what had been done to the bodies of his brother and sister, but he refused to believe it.
He refused to believe that Daenerys would be capable of such horror.
Certainly, she had changed a lot since the day he had met her.
He had met Mhysa, the Breaker of Chains, the girl with stars in her eyes and dreams in her head.
Dreams of freedom, dreams of peace, dreams of equality, dreams of harmony.
It's a beautiful dream, stopping the wheel. You're not the first person who's ever dreamt it.
I'm not going to stop the wheel. I'm going to break the wheel.
And now he found himself with Daenerys Stormborn, of the House of Targaryen, who took what she thought was rightfully hers by fire and blood, never again caring for the innocent and the marginalized.
He arrived in the godswood of King's Landing, without really being aware of where his legs were leading him.
And it was when he arrived in front of the barral that he wondered if he had really known Daenerys Targaryen.
When, in the darkness, the shapes finally became clear.
Cersei was the first to be visible.
Although she had closed her eyes when she died, they had been reopened.
Her beautiful green irises, which had once glowed with the intensity and danger of wild fire, now stared at her, dull, lifeless.
Tyrion would have preferred a thousand times over to see these eyes blaze with anger again, rather than see them like that, empty.
The gaping hole in her abdomen, caused by the dagger that had permanently taken her life, was still visible, and the blood had dried around it, invisibly staining her dress with a deep red.
And when Tyrion raised his hand to touch her icy cheek, he could feel with his fingertips the grooves caused by her last tears.
The last of a long series, the last of a life of pain, sorrow and suffering.
To this strange sensation of touching his sister's cheek, which she probably would never have allowed him to do while she was still alive, Tyrion burst into tears.
He burst into tears, because he wished she was still there, to push him away, to reject him, to scream at him not to touch her, but that she was still there.
And his sobs redoubled when he saw Jaime's dead body.
There were no words strong enough to describe the power of the wave of sadness that overwhelmed him when he saw the corpse of his brother, the only one who ever had anything but hate for him, the only one who ever really loved him.
Jaime's corpse was hung as far away from Cersei's corpse as possible, as if, even in death, they were deprived of being together, they were deprived of being happy, they were deprived of being at peace.
And between the two of them was little Lelia.
It was impossible not to see the deep gash that the knife had made in her chest, as it seemed so disproportionate compared to the baby's small body.
Tyrion stepped back, and once again could only see the striking resemblance of the little lion cub to both of her parents.
He sat down on a flat stone in front of the tree, took his head in his hands and began to cry.
They were tears of rage, rage that they were not powerful enough, rage that they were not big enough to be able to depend on the three bodies of the tree and give them the rest they deserved.
They were tears of sadness, sadness to be alone, because deep down, lions are like wolves, when winter comes, the lone lion dies, but the herd survives, and winter was definitely there, and Tyrion was a lone lion, half a lion, because he had done nothing to save his herd.
He was unaware of the dawn that came, nor of the time he had been there, nor of the Unsullied who came to get him to return to the Red Keep.
The only thing he knew, which was crystal clear, was that he was alone.
He was alone, because he had let his family be massacred.
He was alone, because it was he who had massacred his family.
Deep down, Cersei was right. If he hadn't killed Father, they never would have come to this point.
Tyrion might have died, but maybe it would have been for the best.
He would not have had to bear the crushing weight of the heavy guilt he carried on his shoulders, a guilt that even the greatest of men could never have borne.
The North had rebelled, followed by Riverlands and Vale.
The Hanging Tree had begun to be sung everywhere, quickly becoming the hymn of revolt, soon to be known by all.
Including Daenerys.
She had heard this song far too much and couldn't stand it.
How could people want to honor the memory of a tyrant, from whom she had freed the people?
How could people deplore the injustice that Cersei Lannister had suffered when, because of her, thousands of people had been killed during the destruction of King's Landing?
The first time she thought she saw it, Daenerys first thought she was dreaming.
That it was only a breath of wind, a draught, after all, the castle was half destroyed, no wonder.
She turned around and saw nothing.
(If she had looked a little better, perhaps she would have seen a slight golden glow, a small emerald sheen.)
She was in a dark forest, and everything was silent around her.
A creaking sound was heard.
She turned around suddenly and found herself face to face with a pretty little girl.
She had white skin, long blond hair, golden as gold, a lovely little smile, and two emerald green eyes.
Eyes that she knew only too well - Cersei Lannister's eyes.
But when she reached out her hand in order to touch Lelia Lannister's pale face with her fingertips, it dissipated, like an illusion.
A gust of wind blew, and a childish voice whistled in Daenerys' ears:
''Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.''
Daenerys woke up with a start, still shaken by her dream.
When her eyes adjusted to the surrounding darkness, she could have sworn she saw a golden glow.
Perhaps it was a figment of her imagination, but Daenerys got up, got dressed in a hurry, and ran.
She ran as fast as she could, down the slippery stairs and deserted corridors, through the castle, through the gardens, through the sacred woods.
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree…
And she found herself face to face with the eyes that had contemplated her in her dream not long before.
Two emerald green eyes.
Cersei Lannister's eyes.
Except that those who looked at her now were dull, without the natural glow of life to animate them.
Those eyes that looked at her without seeing her were dead, just as dead as the queen to whom they belonged.
This is enough to reassure Daenerys.
It was nothing but a bad dream, nothing but a nightmare.
Wasn't it?
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
The second time this happened was the day she decided to enter her enemy's lair, the lioness' den.
In Cersei Lannister's room.
While she expected to find it completely destroyed by the collapse, she was surprised to find it intact.
The bed was in the middle of the room, which offered a broad panorama of the city.
The white sheets were stained brown, and Daenerys looked at them and realized that they were blood.
This was where Cersei had given birth.
Continuing his careful examination of the room, his attention was drawn to a reflection, a silver glow, this time on a table.
She approached and took the object in her hands, turning it over, looking at it from every angle.
When she put Cersei's crown back on the table, she heard the oak door squeak.
When she turned to see who had come to disturb her when she had explicitly asked to be left alone, she saw no one. Only emptiness.
She walked to the entrance of the room and looked carefully down the hallway. There was no one there.
But it was when she returned to the room that she saw her.
Standing next to the table where her wreath was placed, she was there.
Tall, taller than Daenerys, with her eyes of burning wild fire.
Except that this Cersei looked younger, with long, wavy hair, shining like spun gold.
Daenerys approached, and blew, as if to reassure himself:
''No... That's not possible... You're dead... You died right before my eyes, before the eyes of several hundred people...''
But Cersei didn't answer her, and just kept looking at her with her piercing emerald eyes.
Daenerys reached out his hand, just as she had done in her dream a few weeks earlier, to touch Cersei, to make sure that she wasn't really there, that it was a dream, or rather a nightmare, that she was going to wake up, and that Cersei was going to disappear, just as her daughter had done.
The golden-haired queen dissipated before the hand of the silver-haired queen came into contact with her diaphanous skin, but Daenerys did not wake up.
And just when she thought she had imagined it all, that it was because of the room, in which the spirit of the fallen queen was still alive, she heard a voice whispering in her ear, a voice deeper than the one she had heard last time, a voice that she recognized as belonging to Cersei Lannister:
''Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.''
Daenerys could not sleep.
She turned over tirelessly in her bed, without her eyelids getting heavy and she sank gently into the soft warmth of sleep, despite the sleeping pills she had taken.
She thought about what had happened.
Was she going crazy, as the people who sang The Hanging Tree outside liked to say?
She didn't have the answer to that question.
It could not be possible. It had to be a figment of her imagination. It was the only plausible explanation.
Wasn't it?
But she needed to know for sure.
So she got up from her bed, and, without rushing, this time got dressed, and left the castle, already knowing, deep down inside, what she was going to find there.
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
When she arrived in front of the barral, she saw nothing at first.
But as she went deeper into the godswood, she saw them.
The younger version of Cersei was sitting on the flat stone, the older version of Lelia sitting on her lap, patiently waiting for her mother to finish braiding her hair.
When Daenerys got close enough, Cersei and her daughter raised their heads at the same time.
Then a breeze blew, and they disappeared.
Daenerys found herself alone, in the dark, facing the barral from which the bodies of three of the last Lannisters were still hanging.
There it was, the corpse of Cersei.
She was dead, dead, and would not come to take her throne from her, would not come to take back everything she had lost.
That was all Daenerys needed to know.
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
The third time she saw him was a perfectly harmless day, when she entered the throne room to receive her subjects.
He was already there when she pushed open the heavy doors of the throne room to enter, her Unsullied standing on either side of the entrance.
He was seated on the Iron Throne.
He, too, was younger than when Daenerys had met him.
He was freshly shaved, his hair was the color of hammered gold, and above all, he had both of his valid hands.
She moved backwards when she saw what he was holding in his two fleshly hands.
Her left hand was on the hilt of a beautiful sword, whose hilt and pommel were of gold set with rubies, and her right hand was rubbing a piece of red-speckled cloth on the blade.
She also saw a black shape on the ground, a black shape with silver hair, into which crimson blood had flowed from a gaping hole in the person's back.
Jaime Lannister was wiping the blood of Aerys Targaryen, the Mad King, from his sword as he sat on the Iron Throne after killing her father.
Avoiding looking at the corpse of a father she had never known lying on the ground, Daenerys climbed the steps that separated her from the throne.
Before she reached it, the Kingslayer dissipated, as did his sister and daughter before him.
But once Daenerys sat on the Iron Throne, on her Iron Throne, and her father's body was gone, she heard a voice, this time a man's voice, whispering in her ear:
''Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.''
Once again, Daenerys could not sleep.
She kept turning and turning, but to no avail.
Her mind was too busy with the spirits coming back to haunt her.
She remembered the one she had seen that morning.
Ser Jaime Lannister was nicknamed "the Kingslayer" for killing a monarch.
Why couldn't he kill a second one?
He had put her father to the sword at the first opportunity.
Why couldn't he do the same with her?
''He's dead, she repeated in her head, as if to convince herself. He's dead, like his sister, like his daughter. Never again will he be able to reach me. Never again will they be able to reach me.''
She didn't know how wrong she was.
But she had to be sure that he was dead, too, even though he had stopped breathing right before her eyes.
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
When she arrived in the godswood, the three of them were there.
Jaime had his arms wrapped around Cersei, who had placed her head on his chest, as they watched their daughter run through the grass.
This time they didn't notice her presence right away, and continued as if nothing had happened.
It was Lelia who saw her first, running towards her, at first without seeing her, and then coming to a standstill.
Cersei and Jaime turned their heads toward them and, seeing Daenerys, smiled.
As usual, a gentle breeze blew, and within seconds they were gone.
Daenerys stared at the corpses, trying to convince himself that it was them, that they were there, there and not somewhere else, that they could never hurt her again.
She wondered if it was better to order Drogon to burn their bodies, to make sure it was over.
But she felt foolish to have thought of that.
If she burned the bodies, how could she make sure that they were still there and would stay there?
How could she make sure they weren't lurking in the shadows somewhere, waiting for the right moment to attack?
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
Weeks had passed.
Daenerys hardly ate or slept at all.
She spent her days and nights in the sacred forest, watching over the three remains, so that they would not come back to haunt her sleep, so that they would not come back to haunt her life.
They were there every night.
They never said anything, but they were there, and it was already too much.
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
One evening, when Daenerys was expecting the three of them to appear, they didn't come alone.
There were tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands.
Men, women, children.
It was when Daenerys saw them that he understood.
The inhabitants of King's Landing.
And before them, the three Lannisters.
When they opened their mouths, it was to sing a tune she had heard all too often:
Then, as if possessed by a strange force, she listened to them.
She followed them.
Shadows.
A breath of wind.
Nothing more.
One more hanged.
Are you, are you, coming to the tree?
Wear a necklace of rope,
Side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here,
No stranger would it be,
If we met at midnight
In the hanging tree.
Tyrion had made a habit of going every morning to the Sacred Grove to recollect himself for a few minutes in front of the dead bodies of his brother, sister and niece, as if this would help to relieve the guilt that still suffocated him.
What was his surprise when, that morning, he found the body of Daenerys Targaryen next to that of Lelia, Cersei and Jaime Lannister.
He couldn't even manage to feel sad. He had already shed too many tears.
The Daenerys he knew and loved, to whom he had sworn allegiance and loyalty, had long since died.
She had been dead since the day she killed Mhysa and the Breaker, when she decided to set fire to King's Landing.
Maybe when a Targaryen was born, the gods didn't toss a coin after all. Maybe she automatically fell on the wrong side, because the madness of the Targaryen was a curse that one could not escape, just as one could not escape destiny.
As soon as the death of the Mother of Dragons, the Mad Queen was announced, the rebellion ceased.
A Great Council was convened at King's Landing to decide on the new monarch of the Seven Kingdoms.
It was Sansa Stark who was elected, almost unanimously. When asked who she wished to take as her husband, she replied that she already had one.
Tyrion Lannister had always been good and kind to her, and she had discovered during the war against the White Walkers that she felt more for him than she had ever felt for any other man.
He was convinced that she would make a very good queen. She had the perfect temperament for that.
And he would never forget the way she had glowed when, during the party following her coronation, he had slipped in, almost like a secret:
''Cersei would have been so proud of you... You are truly her worthy heiress...''
But now he had a request for her.
The day after Sansa's coronation, Tyrion received his permission to bury the last members of his family with dignity. He had had tears in his eyes, and had hugged her when she had accepted, without the slightest second of hesitation.
There was only one thing left to do before Jaime and Cersei could rest in peace with their baby.
Since the Great Baelor was obviously no longer a possibility, the corpses were covered with a golden shroud, and taken to the square in front of the Red Keep, the place where they had lost their lives, and the place that would forever haunt their cries of distress from grieving parents and lovers.
A crowd of people had gathered, and Sansa stood at the top of the stage with Tyrion, carrying a huge, heavy, thick red cloth in her arms.
The bodies of Jaime and Cersei were mounted on the platform in front of them.
When the crowd fell silent, Tyrion covered the bodies of his brother and sister with the Lannister cloak he was holding, a scarlet cloth with a roaring lion embroidered in gold thread.
Queen Sansa spoke:
''From this day forward, long after death has separated them, I have the honor to announce that Cersei of the House of Lannister and Jaime of the House of Lannister are one heart, one flesh, one soul. May they be as happy and together in death as they have never been together in life".
Cersei had a strange sensation when she opened her eyes, as if she was waking from a very long sleep.
Everything around her was white, absolutely everything.
She felt something brushing against her back, and passed a hand behind her head.
She smiled. Her long golden hair, her crown of glory, her lioness mane had returned.
And, further on, she saw him.
He was there, about twenty paces away from her.
Her Jaime was there.
She began to run, her need to be close to him much too strong, as if they had been separated for a long time, too long.
He opened his arms, and caught her with his two hands of flesh as she threw herself into his arms, twirling, kissing her on the temple as she buried her face in his neck.
At last. They were together.
As it had always been meant to be.
We've always been together. We'll always be together.
Thanks for reading! Please take the time to leave a short comment, it's always a pleasure. Don't be too hard on my English, it's not my mother tongue.