The little girl's eyes were like the embers of a fire just before it died, wide and afraid, gasping for a breath that she knew would never come again, her white hands clutching her House colours; the red and silver of House Reyne. Tywin drove his sword into her throat and watched her die and his chest was like hoarfrost as her blood sprayed both his front and hers, red on red on red when Tarbeck Hall had fallen, he had been like an animal drunk on bloodshed, roaring like an undead horror from the deepest of the seven hells as he rode down life after life, entering like a shade into the soul of every last murdering stone that had crushed that House to ashes; his entire being aflame, uncontrollable, alive his arm lacerated down to the bone spilled ice across his armour, red ice that burned like winter, like the Red Lion who lay dead and mutilated in the forecourt of Castamere, his body resting three feet from his head, his mouth ripped out, his teeth his tongue, he had bathed in his blood he had wanted to he had Many times towards the end of the slaughter, the more experienced of his commanders had urged him to stop. 'The battle is won, my lord. There is no need for further butchery. High born hostages bring a good price. Good servants and soldiers will always be of use' He kills an old man with wise eyes in a window seat the blood the red spraying and dripping and dissolving across the book he holds, a scholar like him but old a rebel a Reyne who spits at him as he dies and he moves to the next room almost slipping in the red and the white, the white flesh, the hacked-off limbs like tree stumps like rotting fish, and little Joanna in his mind with her wide green eyes and her voice beyond her five years so long ago 'Don't kill him! Please! Please don't!' But at Tarbeck Hall, he had not called off the attack until every last man, woman and child lay dead, and even after that he had hunted through the ruins himself like a dog seeking carrion, until Kevan had emptied an entire barrel of water over his head and had screamed at him that there was no one and nothing left to kill But in the next room a girl cowers against the wall in tears wearing the red and the silver around her neck the rubies the red rubies of her House, her hands and cheeks alive but she does not say a word and he rips out her stomach a butcher a conqueror while she gasps and screams.

He had felt exhilarated and ashamed.

Succumbing to the battle fury makes you no better than a common footsoldier. Unleashing yourself in such a way weakens you. You cannot let it happen again. You will not. You will do this as a lucid, thinking man, because what you are doing is right.

But he could not be lucid and he could not think. His soldiers courted death around him, and slew, and raped, and he moved from one room to the next like a wraith, his sword an icy flame that guided him in the dark. His hands were so wet with blood that his sword began to slip in his hands and he could not wipe them on his armour or his boots or on anything around him because it is all soaked drenched inundated with the blood the red and he scorns at the memory of the golden little girl screaming 'Don't kill him! Please! Please don't!' because she did not understand though now she understands, understands better than the frost and the ecstasy and the silver and the red that this must be done for honour for vengeance to protect the family to defend my blood, and the necessity of it the knowledge is exhilarating is serene and still, it puts me at peace as my sword does my work, unfurling a banner of peace of red that stinks and slips and stains nothing, not me, not my armour, because it is red, red like the blood like the lion, like Castamere.

He reaches the top of the Keep, the entire family is dead, and he strolls back down again to survey his work, a red stone carpet guiding his passage past rooms, through halls and down stairs. His soldiers stop their raping and their pillaging as he passes, saluting him, and he bids them continue like a god of death, a destroyer, the sound of screaming like music in his ears, like a song.

'Have some of the men bring the bodies of the family down into the forecourt,' he tells Kevan, whom he finds standing beneath the gates of Castamere, a flagon of wine clasped in his hands.

His brother starts at the sight of him, but recovers quickly, beautiful and terrible in his red and crimson armour, bowing to him as he would to the Lord of Casterly Rock and opening his mouth to speak.

'To be burned, my lord?'

Tywin looks up at the Keep once more, and in his mind he crushes its grim grey stones to powder, so that they may lodge within his blood and travel into his heart.

'No,' he responds, 'they are to be loaded into an open supply wagon for the journey back to Casterly Rock.'

'Even the women and children, my lord?'

Kevan's face is silent and tranquil, but Tywin knows him. This idea does not please him. He considers grasping his shoulder, or speaking some words of encouragement that will remind his little brother that it is still him, Tywin, his brother, his brother who loves him.

But he does nothing of the sort and nods grimly in response to Kevan's question.

'Yes. Even the women and children.'

When he returns to his tent, he looks into the glass. He does not recognise himself.

Wet, slick blood clings to his face, to his hands, to every inch of exposed skin like sap. His hair persists in falling into his eyes; bloodshot, sticky strands of it puncturing his eyes, the gold invisible, turned to crimson, turned to red. He imagines himself standing at the foot of the Keep as the throat of each Reyne is cut above him, their blood flowing into a scarlet waterfall that sheets down to earth, to him, cleansing him, setting him free. Even his eyelashes are red. They turn his vision to ruby silk.

Kevan rejoins him.

'It is done, my lord.'

Tywin utters not a word, continuing to study his reflection.

Kevan gently grasps his shoulder.

'Tywin,' he whispers gently, 'should I have a bath prepared for you?'

His eyes meet Kevan's in the glass, and he smiles at him widely, and

'No,' he says, 'I shall wait a while longer, I think.'