This chapter was written as part of the Facebook challenge "Sur Votre 31":
- Invite : ''Flame''.
- Number of words: From 100 to 1000 words.

This chapter is a prequel of my work Joanna.

It follow the chapter ''Dark Wings, Dark Words''

All the universe of Game of Thrones belongs to GRR Martin, DB & DW.

Enjoy reading!

King's Landing was burning. King's Landing was suffering. King's Landing was screaming. King's Landing was bleeding.

Fire and blood.

The capital was reduced to ashes, flooded with the blood of its inhabitants, while fire rained down on its red tiled roofs.

Targaryen Red. Lannister Red.

The flames had set fire to some of the caches of wildfire under the city, causing green explosions here and there, sweeping away everything in their path.

The gravity of the atmosphere was horrible.

The surrounding heat could be felt from the Red Keep. The air was even heavier than during a storm.

Except that it was not the rain that flooded the streets of the capital.

It was the flames that had started to rain, like when the rains had rained on the castle of Castamere forty-five years earlier.

From afar, it almost looked like a shower of stars, as if the gods themselves were cheering the little princess born a few moons earlier.

But that was not so.

It was fire, it was death raining down on the city.

Cersei was interrupted in her observation of the world that was collapsing by a strange feeling of moisture at the tip of her index finger, and lowered her eyes.

The baby she was holding in her arms had grabbed her mother's finger and was happily suckling it, chirping, completely unaware of what was happening outside.

Holding her daughter even tighter, Cersei moved away from the window.

Qyburn had come to give her news from the front, and it wasn't good. It was really not good.

The Golden Company had been decimated by the dragon. There was nothing left of the Lannister armies, which she had sent to Winterfell for the war against the White Walkers, led by Jaime.

Jaime.

He still had not returned, although he had promised to.

He wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead.

Cersei would have known that. After all, they were one: how could she not know if her half was gone for good?

But until he came back for them, she had to put her little lion cub away.

She had already planned a place where she could keep Joanna safe until things calmed down.

Daenerys had started to attack the castle, which was gradually falling apart.

Finally, Cersei reached Qyburn's apartments in the Tower of the Hand. She found the secret passageway again without any problem and entered the interior, sinking into darkness.

At last, she saw the cradle she had had installed out of sight.

Kissing the baby's golden curls, Cersei put her inside and, wrapping her in the blankets, whispered to her:

''Mommy is coming back, my little love... Mommy is coming back very soon...''

A tear escaped from her eyes and rolled down her cheek when she turned around.

When she heard her baby start crying, she couldn't go to pick her up.

When her heart broke.

Jaime was afraid. He wasn't ashamed to say it, even though he had always been taught that fear was a woman's thing.

He was afraid, but it was not the apprehension with which he had fought the White Walkers.

It was different, because it wasn't for him that he was afraid.

He was afraid for Cersei. He was afraid for Joanna.

Joanna.

That name still seemed so strange on his lips.

It had been the name of their late mother, who had taken the happiness of her two twins with her.

But now it was her daughter's name. Their daughter's name, to Cersei and to him.

And he had not yet found them in the Red Keep.

He ran through the corridors, despite the deadly rain that Daenerys was pouring down on the castle, despite the fact that he risked burning to death with every step he took.

In spite of the fact that Euron Greyjoy's injury was tearing his guts out with every move he made.

Because nothing mattered to him except Cersei and Joanna.

He absolutely had to find them.

As he approached the heart of the building and the Maegor's Holdfast, Jaime inexplicably felt sick, a pain in his stomach that had absolutely nothing to do with the hole the kraken had dug in his flesh, a pain he had never felt before, as if he was dying...

It was when he saw her that he understood.

And, just from the vision he had before him, he already felt dead.

Cersei was lying on the ground.

Motionless. Bathed in blood. Her blood. Their blood.

No.

That was not possible.

Jaime rushed to her, praying to all the gods that it wouldn't be that, that a miracle would happen, that they would listen to him for once.

When he was near Cersei, he noticed many burns, her flesh raw in several places, covered with ashes.

Feeling the tears streaming down her face, he took her in his arms, with all the delicacy of the world, sticking her forehead to his and her nose to hers.

When Cersei felt Jaime's breathless breath close to her face, she found the strength to open her eyes:

''Jaime...''

Hearing her voice, hoarse from the dust, he thought he was in paradise, where he would have joined her.

He opened his eyes again.

Jaime... Joanna... We have to go get her...".

At the mention of his daughter, he began a movement to get up, but the pain of the lesion in his abdomen combined with the pain of Cersei's discovery in this state, without having arrived in time to save her, and the heavy bleeding, forbade him to do so.

Feeling weakened, he let himself fall to Cersei's side, taking her in his arms, holding her tightly against him, his hand on the back of her head, as the flames rose higher and higher and the Red Keep partially turned into an inferno.

The smoke darkened the sky, the ground cracked, blackened, and ashes covered everything.

Red.

Fire and blood. Blood and fire.

Thank you for reading!
Please take the time to leave a little comment, it's always a pleasure ^^
Don't be too hard on English, it is not my mother tongue.