JAIME

He had been down in the bowels of the castle for so long that the sudden light that flooded his cell now seemed like nothing less than divine providence. But it was only two guardsmen, attired in the Lannister colours – and Qyburn. Jaime fell back from the light, cringing. He would have stood, but his legs had gone numb ages ago, and so they had to support him under his arms, and lift him up, as if it were not just his hand that was crippled, but his legs too. From there, they stumbled down the dark hall, to a flight of stairs, up those, and then along a little ways further, through torchlit darkness, till they reached the winch lift at the far end.

Another pair of guardsmen operated the lift, turning the heavy wooden crank. Jaime watched them disappear below him as they slowly ascended. From across the lift, Qyburn stared at him in a decidedly dissatisfied fashion. Jaime wondered how hard it would be to lunge across the lift and strangle him to death before the guardsmen got the better of him. But he felt barely strong enough to stand on his own legs again, and when he opened his mouth to say something, he found his throat too parched to speak.

Eventually the lift came to a halt, on an unfamiliar level of the Rock. They stepped out, and he found himself in one of a thousand meaningless corridors, all carpeted and tapestried in rich red and gold. And he, in the midst of it, in his filthy ragged shirt, his face and hands with mud ingrained deep in their calluses. When they reached the end of the corridor he fell to his knees and began to retch, but nothing came out. Qyburn's soft voice came through. "Raise him up," he said. "Gentle, now."

They must have done that, for the next he knew he was in a spacious room, sitting on a chair, while maids walked in and out carrying soapy water for his bathtub. He watched them come and go for a while, and then he realised that he knew one of them. "I know you," he blurted out. The first three tortured syllables he had spoken in earnest for weeks, or months. "I know you."

The girl looked up at him, terrified, as if seeing a ghost. "I…" she began, but her words stuck as well. She had yellow hair, Jaime saw. No. Not yellow. Gold. Lannister gold. "You're my… cousin, aren't you?"

She looked around furtively, checking nobody else was listening. "I am, ser. I'm—"

"Joy Hill," said Jaime flatly. "My uncle Gerion's daughter. Aren't you?"

"Yes, ser."

"Joy." Jaime tasted the name; it seemed ironic given his situation. "And you were… her handmaiden?"

'Her' meant Cersei. The girl knew that. "Not anymore, ser. I was… disobedient, she says. That's why he sent me to you."

"And how were you disobdient?"

"I didn't tell her—" At once she stopped herself, and looked as tight-lipped and gaunt as Ilyn Payne. "I shouldn't say."

He reckoned she would have told him if he threatened her. But he was too feeble to make threats right now. "Go," he said to the girl, raspingly. He watched her go out. Faintly he remembered a conversation with Sybell Westerling, a thousand years ago at the siege of Riverrun – if that had been his lifetime at all. "Your lord father said that Raynald should have joy of him," she said, all smarmy and grinning. When Jaime informed her what that meant, she said, "You want a Westerling to wed a bastard?" He wondered if Lady Westerling had reconsidered those words, now. And then he remembered that they no longer mattered.

They had to drag him to the bath, in the end. He did not resist. They scrubbed him with sharp bristled brushes that scraped off more skin than mud, and cut his hair, which had grown matted again in his imprisonment. They would have cut his beard too, and left him clean-shaven, but he still had strength enough to grab the servant's hand and say, "if you take all of it off, I'll tear your guts out." He would not let them tame him so easily. The beard was his price, even if by the time all the necessary tangles had been sawed through it was little more than ugly stubble. But he still recognised himself. In appearance, at least.

They pulled him naked from the bath and led him into an adjoining room to be attired. The clothing was formal: stiff breeches, dark red leather tunic with golden buttons. His hand, of course. What was he if not Goldenhand the Just? And then he was ready. It was not hard to guess where he was headed.

Before, she had taken chambers in the ringfort, where they had first slept as children. But now the ringfort was gone, and instead they descended, deeper, back towards the bowels. When the lift stopped, they were – by his reckoning – one level above Casterly Rock's throne room and great banqueting hall. Where else to be, if you had delusions of power?

Qyburn was outside the door. "Ser Jaime," he said with a sly smile. "You are quite recovered?"

Jaime looked at him incredulously, and did not answer.

The door opened and a herald emerged. "My lord," he said, "and Maester Qyburn. The queen will see you now."

Queen, he said. Not Queen Regent. Jaime had no choice but to step over the threshold. The solar within was ludicrously vast, no doubt formed by knocking several rooms together. The ceilings loomed fifty feet high, supported by thick stone columns with crimson draperies hanging. The back wall was all irregular lancet windows, curtained and closed fast against the snow outside. Enormous sofas and chaises crowded the main floor, beneath swaying golden chandeliers. The walls hung with tapestries and frescoes of bizarre heroism. And in the middle of it she who would be a hero awaited him, on the room's only chair, a great gilded throne raised on a platform. At Cersei's side stood Ser Robert Strong, implacable, his armour dented but not to his detriment. That armour was now no longer the pale enamel of the Kingsguard, but burnished gold.

The herald called, "Your Grace, may I present Ser Jaime Lannister and the maester Qyburn. Goodmen, you are in the presence of Her Grace Queen Cersei of the House Lannister, First of Her Name, Light of the West, Lady of Casterly Rock, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Protector of the Realm." Then he added, "it is expected that you will bow."

Qyburn did just that. But nothing in the realms of gods or men could compel Jaime to answer that demand.

"You will not bow, ser?" Cersei asked. "Some might take that as disrespect. I am a gracious monarch today, but in the future, I would advise you to comport yourself with honour. Ser Robert does not take kindly to insults to his queen."

"You are not the queen," Jaime said. But with her in her radiant splendour, and him supplicant below the dais, his words felt hollow. "You have no claim to the throne."

"My claim is to the West as lady of Casterly Rock, and to the Iron Throne as Robert's wife."

"Myrcella comes before you as his daughter."

"Let's not lie to one another while we're in private, Jaime." Cersei walked to the edge of the dais and stared down at him. "Myrcella has no more of a claim to the throne than I do. And besides, she is not here to claim this throne of hers."

Jaime felt a stab of fear. "Where is she?" he snarled.

"Gone. Oh, she lives, do not worry. But she decided this was not her place. And that we are not her family, not anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I will let you see for yourself. You can read, can't you?" She nodded to Ser Robert Strong, who picked up a paper scroll from a side table, and brought it to him. Jaime unrolled it and read:

I, Princess Myrcella of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister, daughter of King Robert Baratheon and Lady Cersei Lannister his wife, sister and Heir to King Tommen of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister, do hereby declare I am the rightful Lady of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, and Queen of the Westerlands. I do hereby denounce my mother, Lady Cersei, who would name herself Queen in my place, as a false queen and an Usurper, and ask that all men falsely following her come to me, and bow before me, and declare their loyalty. In the name of the Seven, I swear they will be forgiven their misobedience, for they have been cruelly tricked by Lady Cersei. No remonstrations will be made against those who beg innocence and forgiveness.

Unto Lady Cersei herself, I command that she come kneel before me, and swear her own loyalty, and thereafter be commended into the wardenship of my Crown. I swear that if she does so, mercy of her life will be granted her.

This proclamation dated the tenth day of the first moon of the 303rd year since Aegon's Landing, in the sight of gods and men.

"What do you make of that, ser?" asked Cersei.

All he felt was cold. It is Tommen all over again. And the only thing he could say was "Why?"

"Why? I have been asking that question myself. I made no threats against her. The throne was hers if she wanted it."

"You honestly expect me to believe that?"

"I do. Because it is the truth, Jaime. I do not want a throne."

Bile rose up inside him. "And yet here you stand, with a crown on your head, calling yourself Queen Cersei, the First of Your Name."

"I did what I had to do. With Myrcella gone, there was nothing to bind the lords of the West to us. I have evidence that Lord Serrett was floating away to join Daenerys Targaryen, and that the bitch Lady Lefford had the same idea. Maybe while I held Margaery Tyrell it was enough to stop an insurrection, but now she is gone too, and the Reach will soon be coming to our borders, Jaime. Along with the Dornishmen—"

"Because you burned their prince alive! You murdered Prince Quentyn, just as you murdered Loras Tyrell, and—" Suddenly his voice failed him. "And—"

"And what?" Cersei's voice was unnervingly soft. "Say it, Jaime. Say what you meant to say."

"No."

"Say it."

He could hold it back no longer. "And you murdered Tommen! You murdered our son!" He rushed at her, but even as he did so, he knew it would be no use. Ser Robert Strong lifted him bodily into the air and threw him back down to the floor beneath the dais. Jaime sat up, winded, to see the dead-eyed golden giant advancing on him, reaching for the hilt of his greatsword. Then Cersei's high, cold voice cut over the sound of clanking armour: "Enough."

"I will speak with my brother now," she said. "Alone."

Qyburn spoke up in reply: "Your Grace, it may not be safe."

"Alone, I said."

There were sounds of retreating footfalls as both the maester and his golden monster quitted the room. Jaime rose up from where he had fallen; his exhausted limbs burned with pain. "Why?" he said again, very quietly.

Cersei was still for a long time. "It was not supposed to happen," she said at last. "I did not think he would continue fighting. I…" She seemed uncertain. "I made sure that the Westerling girl and the Tyrell girl were well away from it all. He was supposed to lay down his arms when he saw that winning was impossible, and surrender."

"And what then?"

"Then… I thought, fool that I was, that we might have supper. The three of us. As a family. As a—"

"Don't you dare lie to me," Jaime growled. "Don't you dare. You would have thrown him as a cell as quickly as you did me—"

"I loved him!" Cersei shouted, "And he loved me! No doubt while you've been rotting in your cell you've been drawing the battle lines up, but there never were any battle lines, Jaime. Neither of us would have dreamed of hurting the other. And as he lay dying, he looked to me. He forgave me, and I forgave him. Because I loved my son from the moment he drew breath to the moment he didn't, and you cannot say the same. It is over, Jaime. It is done."

She could pretend whatever she liked. She could forget if she wanted. But he would not, and he could not. "It is not over," he said, "and it never will be over. Because I will never forgive you, I swear it. You took the only good thing we ever created between us, and you burned it."

Cersei took a long, hard look into his eyes. "No, Jaime. Because if I burned it, then so did you. We burned it."

They took him back to his cell after that. Which was for the best, as he was not far from springing at her. Cell no longer meant the damp dungeon where he'd been kept for weeks previously, but a suite of chambers in the belly of the castle. "You will wait here until the queen returns," Qyburn said.

Jaime's voice grew hoarse. "One day, it is going to end for her. I don't know when or how but it will. And on that day, you will not survive, Qyburn. And I do know that, because I will hunt you down myself."

The not-maester smiled crookedly. "Is that advice, or a statement of fact, ser?"

"Advice. I'm saying 'get out before my strength returns, or I'll strangle you myself'."

Qyburn went, though he was still smiling to himself.

There was only one way out of the room beside his guards and that was the window. Maybe Cersei had thought he might try, for the window was a good three hundred feet above the sea below, high enough to kill him no matter how he hit it. And if he hit one of the rocks, it would not even be a quick way to go.

Maybe he could fight with the guards until they had no choice but to cut him down. That might even count as dying heroically. But more likely they would just beat him senseless and drag him back to his cell. And even if he did die… what would he gain from that? Some sense of pride as he bled out on the flags, that he had never served his sister? No. That would be a lie, too. He had served his sister for many years before now, in more ways than was sane. Defying her once would be nothing but a pointless anecdote in his history. The Kingslayer, died trying to escape his cell, attempting yet another betrayal. Or maybe not even that: The Kingslayer, died in captivity.

The window beckoned to him again, though not for the same reason. Suppose, somehow, that he did survive the fall. The water might be deep enough to cushion him if he landed feet-first – which would be hard but not impossible. And that was only if he managed to miss the rocks. Or if he was right about the height, which he didn't think he was.

Besides, what would he do if he did survive, without broken arms and legs to drag him out to sea? First: swim to Lannisport, and escape from it before Cersei's men inevitably sought him out. And then where? It would have to be Myrcella. His daughter whose brother he had let die, who likely hated him as much as her mother did.

He could do it now. Brave the fall and brave the water. How bad could it be, compared to a life with Cersei? And even if he died from the fall, that would only last a few seconds. Living and dying with Cersei was a death of a hundred years.

In the end, being the fool that he was, he did nothing but fall down and sleep. He dreamed he was down in the bowels of Casterly Rock again, with his ghosts. The sword in his hand – Oathkeeper, he supposed it must be – was the only light, faltering, sputtering and hissing like a bitch in heat. The dead came for him out of the shadows, with ghoulishly contorted faces and strange smoky arms. The Kingsguard came first, as always, led by Ser Arthur Dayne and Ser Barristan Selmy. "You swore to defend the king, ser!" they crooned, their voices billowing it like curtains of smoke. "And then you shoved your sword in his back. Kingslayer." When they said that, he thought he heard Brynden Tully's voice too. "I despise you, Kingslayer," Tully said. Or maybe that was his nephew. It was hard to tell.

After that it was the turn of the great heroes of Robert's Rebellion: Ned Stark, Robert Baratheon, and, for some reason, Jon Arryn, who always stood in the back while his wards did their work. Robert was screaming at him as he swung his warhammer, but Jaime could not hear what he was saying. Ned Stark, meanwhile, spoke clearly: "You killed your king," he said. Then Jaime passed through them, and Stark's form morphed into two: the small boy Brandon and the Lady Catelyn. "You are a man without honour," said Lady Catelyn, screaming at him, as blood ran down her cheeks and inky tears dripped from her eyes.

Then there were other ghosts, in quick succession: the boy Edric Dayne, Sansa Stark, Brienne, Podrick Payne, the bastard Gendry, Aegon Targaryen, Myrcella – reflected at least three times; he thought she might be Cersei. But at last they too drifted away, and were replaced by the presence of his lord father. "You are no son of mine," said Lord Tywin, and his voice echoed, and echoed, and echooooed, until everything was forgotten except for that simple fact, that he was not Lord Tywin's son. He was nothing.

When he woke it was dark and for a time he thought he was back in his cell, and that the meeting with Cersei had been part of his dream, too. But he recognised the rich velvets and fabrics of the room as nothing like his cell. He wondered what had woke him, and then the door opened, and as he stood up to approach, his sister entered through it. Ser Robert Strong followed her in, and filled the doorway, barring his escape.

"You have had some time to rest," she said matter-of-factly. "I hope it has given you some time to think, too. And to make up your mind about what this is going to be."

"This?"

"This." She pointed to the crown, set neatly upon her head. "I am the queen. You are my brother, and my servant. And so you will cease your defiance, and you will serve."

"I will not," Jaime rasped.

"You will. Or you will die."

"You wouldn't."

"I would." Her eyes hardened. "You know I would."

She is right, he realised at once. She killed our son. She would have no hesitation. Yet still he hesitated. I swore a vow, as a knight, to defend the defenceless. But I also swore, as a Kingsguard, to protect my king, and I have failed in that so many times now. What are vows worth now?

Cersei took his hesitation as a sign of weakness. "Your task would be nothing extraordinary. We must all do our duty in these difficult times, Jaime." She advanced on him. "I must rule, and keep my people safe, keep our family safe. Ser Robert and Qyburn have their tasks, too, as do the loyal bannermen that remain to me. And then there is you, dear brother. You have your task." She came ever closer.

Jaime swallowed. "If I do," he said, looking up. "What task is this?"

And he could have sworn he saw Cersei lick her lips. "Stannis Baratheon has been seen marching down from Kayce, with an army of thousands. They say, too, that Lannister banners have joined his cause. Or traitorous uncle Kevan, no doubt. When they reach Lannisport and besiege the city, you will command our garrison that opposes them."

"Why has Uncle Kevan sided with Stannis?"

"Discovering that will be your task, too. It may have something to do with Myrcella." Jaime stiffened straight; she saw that and went on. "If you do not command, something may happen to her. She may be caught in the crossfire. That would be a shame."

"Caught in the crossfire as Tommen was?"

"Don't." Cersei's voice grew suddenly strained. "Stop it."

"Why? Does our son's name offend you now? Is the very memory of him painful to you?"

"You have no idea."

"Tommen—"

"You have no idea how easy it would be for me to convince them it was you, Jaime." Coldness flooded her face. "The Kingslayer, the murdering uncle, who wanted both his nephew and his sister gone so he could claim the throne for himself. He had already killed one king, so why not another? And in the end, that sister would have to take his head, though she would weep to do it."

Maybe he would take her head first. Grab her to him, and throw them both out of the window before Ser Robert Strong could get to them. But then he looked up at her eyes, and he saw that there were tears there. Crocodile tears, to be sure, but they still proved one thing. There was a heart in there, somewhere. And his heart was twin to hers; it had started beating mere moments after hers had.

Her voice fell to a whisper. She said, quietly, "Please." Then she unfolded her hand, and in it he saw his prize: the golden badge of the King's Hand. Or Queen's Hand, rather. A mockery of him, perhaps; a Hand without a hand, as he had oft jested himself. And the same thing Tommen offered me that night. Could Cersei have known?

"We were made to rule this world, Jaime," his sister said. "Stand with me. It's all I've ever wanted." She was not a thousand miles from begging. She was in her rich colours and wearing her crown, but she was humble before him.

And it was all a lie.

Jaime Lannister made up his mind. "No," he said. "I will not serve."

That took his sister by surprise, but only for the barest of flickering moments. "You will," she said, and her eyes were burned with some strange green fire. "Oh, you will." She glanced over towards the massive form of Ser Robert Strong, standing guard in the doorway, and then immediately back to him. "Take off your clothes," she said.

He stared back at her. "You are insane."

"Yes. And you will do as I ask, before Ser Robert has to compel you. Take off your clothes. I have need of you, Lord Commander. And if you do not want to fulfil that need, I shall have you held down. Do as I say."

"No," he said.

Cersei seemed to accept that. She stood back a moment. And then, turning pale with rage, she threw herself at him. It was without warning, without cause, and he was without the proper footing to withstand it. He went down on the slabs, and she tumbled on top of him, arms and legs thrashing with rage. The crown came crashing from her tresses and rang out as it rolled on its side across the floor. She grabbed at him, yanking at his hair, trying to get her arm round his neck, her eyes crazed and bright. Her skirts came up somehow, and she had him firmly gripped, and in his still prison-fragile weakness there was nothing he little could do to withstand. He tried to hold her back, but she had pinioned his arm across his chest, and when he tried to strike with his golden hand, she batted that away without a concern and it cracked against the tile and rolled away too. "Jaime," she was saying, "you take me, you have, I am yours, I am yours, I will be yours…" Her hand scratched up his leg, trying to tear through his tunic, her knee drove up into his belly, winding him. But Jaime had enough sense left in him to realise one thing. She will not end this. So I must. He grabbed Cersei by the wrist, ignoring her other scrabbling hand, and rolled her over, so that now he was on top. But his hold was still tenuous, she was a river and he was rowing with the current now but still wanting to fight it. His naked flesh touched hers beneath their robes, his fingers beat at hers frantically. All their gold was gone save for the gold in their hair, woven together in their sweat. They grappled as savages, grunting as they rolled across the hard stone flags, she driving into him and he into her, both wanting to hurt the other, to break the other, to make them bleed to death. His cock was now in her hands, now in her, without a care for any sort of gentleness, both of them scratched and bleeding and breathing in each other's rage and hatred and then, suddenly, orgasm.

Cersei convulsed and screamed, not his name, but a sound of raw anguish and power, and then she fell sideways away from him, and Jaime slammed backwards into the hard wood of the bed, and sat up ringing all over. His sister rose over him. She brushed down her skirts, looking frenzied, mad, alive – and beautiful, horribly so. He tried to stand, but his legs would not obey. It was over. She had won.

"You are mine," she said, cold as the sea. "Only mine. And you will never be anyone else's." She picked up the golden badge of the Queen's Hand from where it had landed, and tossed it towards him in his dazed heap. Then she walked to the door, and the Queensguard knight followed her out.