TYRION

The world was alive with dancing forms of fire. The deck of Fury glided forth beneath his feet, her passage smooth as silk, and he watched them all burn. I did this, thought Tyrion, I, not uncle Kevan, not Cersei. He was unsure whether that should dismay him or please him.

The green flames were a bloody-handed beast with a thousand arms, its body crouching across the river. Wherever it reached, men died. He delighted in their screaming, in the breaking of the vanguard of the foe, until the demon stood, rearing up in front of him, huge and terrible, and grasped out towards the royal fleet with a clawed hand to destroy him…

…and became Cersei, smiling with her flashing feline eyes. "You do us a great service, brother dear," she purred at him. "Joffrey will be so grateful." For my death, Tyrion thought, and it is yourself that you mean, not Joffrey… but did he do her a disservice? Cersei had never tried to kill him. Not outright.

Petyr Baelish had none of his sister's unconcealed joy. He looked innocent as a maiden while he twisted Tyrion's own plan to exile him. "As this idea is yours, my lord Hand, and long has it been said that the Hand speaks with the king's voice, I suppose you will soon be on your way to Dragonstone."

The foe speaks. A hundred gold cloaks rushed to Littlefinger's quarters, but the mockingbird had vanished, borne away by his servants like smoke on the wind. He proffered his dagger, no, Robert's dagger, wrought of Valyrian steel. "It's yours," Lord Baelish said, mocking. Tyrion screamed at him and named him liar, and calm as still water the slight man drew it across his throat…

…and became Cersei, struggling under a lanky brutish southerner without her clothes. Maegor's Holdfast was afire around them. "You could have saved me," she cried at him between grunts. "You could have stopped this. Why didn't you come?"

"I wanted to come!" he told her. "I couldn't come! I had to save your son, I thought you wanted…"

"It never mattered to you what I wanted," Cersei sneered, sounding far too imperious for her current position. She spoke incisively, an impossibly precise mockery of his own voice coming from her lips: "My sister is nothing to me. Joffrey is my blood, and, what matters, Jaime's son as much as Cersei's."

"No," Tyrion called, "it isn't true, it isn't true," but the flames grew too bright, then they retreated into the corners of the room, to lamps, and he stood not in Maegor's but in one of the great halls of Casterly Rock. It was no longer Cersei being raped, but another, in the same place, by the same man, and Tyrion recalled he was no southerner. He had been the second of them. That was when Tyrion had perceived the horror of it; he had not realised his lord father's intention when it was only the first.

"Stop it!" his boyish self yelled, so young, so weak and so uncertain, struggling against the arms that held him, that remained unyielding and strong. His lord father's speech was curt and well-chosen, selected with care to drive a point home. He flailed for words like a market fishwife accused of her catch having rot. "You can't, you can't, she's my wife, I'm a lion, a Lannister, a lion of the Rock, I'm your son, your son, she's your daughter by the gods, how could you?"

"She is not your wife. She's a whore, fool of a boy." Tysha did not deny it. She was weeping, drawing in breath between moans and hiccups. "Everything she did she did for gold. She cares nothing for you, she never will, she never has. That is how my own lord father came to ruin, brought our family to ruin, to the edge of a cliff that it took much skill and much time and much luck for me to secure it from. I will not have you follow in his footsteps. You think me cruel, 'tis plain to see, but there is purpose here. You will see her now for what she truly is, I command you—" there was a sort of desperation in his lord father's voice that had not been there before, or else he had not noticed; the iron composure faltered— "I am your lord father and I command you; you will see… you must see… Look at her." Tyrion shook his head, refusing to see it. "Look. At. Her."

His father bent down to touch him, steel fingers grabbing at his chin to force his over-large head aside. Still Tyrion refused to see it, struggling against Lord Tywin's grip, staring with youth's desperate defiance into his father's green, golden-flecked eyes…

…which became Jaime's, so very alike to them. That was the only way Tyrion recognised him at once for Jaime. He had grown so different since. His hair was long, a shaggy golden mane, and he sat chained in a cell in the midst of his own filth, hopeless and wan and tired.

"You didn't help me," said his brother. "I languish in the dungeons of Riverrun now. When that hateful Stark bitch took you captive, I drew steel against the Hand of the King, I fled my place at Robert's side in the capital, I and our father raised the west in arms, I came with fire and sword, I did all that a man can do to bring you home, all for the love of you. Yet here I am, in the cold and the darkness, and you didn't set me free."

"I tried," said Tyrion, weeping openly, "Jaime, you, you, you must surely understand, I do not have strength of arm as you do. I used trickery, I used what little was in my power to use, I sent my men to break you out, to break you free, I'm told you even got far, got beyond the keep of Riverrun…"

"Not far enough," said Jaime bitterly, quite unlike Jaime. "I should have left you to die in the Eyrie. Then there would be no war and I would not be here, had I not been fooled when I thought in your poisoned dwarfish heart there could be any love for me to match mine for you."

"No, Jaime, no!" Tyrion was beyond embarrassment, beyond humiliation. His brother turned away from him. "I love you more than any other on this earth, I always have, you're the only one of our family who was kind to me. Don't go. Don't go. Don't go…"

But Jaime had already faded into nothingness while he spoke. Now once again he was on a ship, and he faced a red-haired knight, a ruddy burly southerner. Roaring with rage, the man struck with his greatsword and knocked Tyrion off-balance. He missed a return blow with his sword, clanging with armour, and though it came strangely slow, though he raised a hand and wept and prayed for his deliverance, he was utterly helpless to prevent the second blow.

The world dissolved in red and blood and agony. "My lord!" someone was calling him. "My lord Hand! My lord of Lannister! My lord!"

The red turned black. Tyrion could see nothing at all, but that, it may be, was a mercy. He could hear, though, no matter that voices sounded muffled right next to his ear.

"He's awake," said a highborn voice in tones of wonder.

"Uncle!" cried a shrill voice. "Uncle Tyrion, can you hear me? Is that you?"

That could have been the sweetest sound Tyrion had ever heard. He survived. Jaime's son lives. I did it.

Tyrion tried to open his mouth to reply to his nephew. It was full of blood; he had badly bitten his tongue. Somehow—he knew not—it was also dry as bone. He croaked, "Water," though to anyone outside his head it was almost certainly just a croak.

"Somebody fetch the lord Hand a drink," said the first voice, sounding as if its owner could rather do with one himself.

Somebody did. Tyrion felt it poured into his throat. It was assuredly not water. It was a crummy, scummy ale that would not have been out of place if in the lowest brewhouse in King's Landing. It might have been the nectar of the gods for the eagerness with which Tyrion drank it.

"Gurrh," he managed, feeling somewhat less abysmal.

"Uncle Tyrion," said Joffrey happily. Tyrion thought, I never thought I'd see the day! The boy king prattled on about something or other. King or not, nobody was paying heed to him. A measure of hearing was returning to Tyrion, and distantly he could notice somebody shouting to the rest of the ship. Probably news of my survival, he thought sourly. Look, the twisted little monkey demon hasn't been called to the Stranger's hall quite yet.

Tyrion beckoned, and somebody poured into his throat another drink. Indeed, too much of it. They stopped when Tyrion spluttered. "Joff." He was beginning to regain feeling in scattered places. He could feel harsh, scratchy wool against parts of his skin. Nonetheless his words must come seldom and slowly. "Where. I?"

"A ship," said Joffrey. "My father's ship. My ship, they say, though they don't do what I tell them, not even my Kingsguard. That is, the King Robert's Hammer." Tyrion noticed the boy spoke a lot when he was nervous. "Uncle. What happened to my throne?"

"Renly's," said Tyrion, shortly. "Till… city… re… taken. If… retak… en." He was in no mood for this. A measure of sight was just now returning to him, and there was a little dance of light against his eyes.

"What… I… of course." The boy hesitated and fidgeted incessantly. "Yes, of course I knew that. I…" At last, he burst out, "What happened to mother?"

Poor child. Tyrion could not begrudge even Joffrey something like this, but could not lie to him. "Dead… most like," he said, still slowly. "Renly. He'll be… sure of it."

"But why?" The boy looked angry. "I'm king, not her. Mother was just the old king's woman. She… she never did anything to him."

"Threat to… his throne," Tyrion managed. "Renly… requires… you and your brother be bastards. Long as Cersei lived, she could… could cast doubt on… that. He wants… the realm… to think her an adulteress… and they'll ne'er believe it, 'less he treats her as one himself."

Tyrion's sight was coming back further now. The boy's hands were even more of a blur than the rest of him; he must be moving them. "Why… you fidgeting?"

Joffrey said hesitantly, in a tiny voice, "Mother said I should be brave. She said no matter when other boys were rude to me, no matter when father didn't want me near, it doesn't matter, as long as she is there. She will ensure nobody will ever hurt me. Whenever anyone is cruel, forgets my station, I am always to come to mother. I am her little lion and I…" He paused. "Now she… now she won't…"

That was when Tyrion heard the unmistakeable noise of bawling. Joffrey wept his eyes out. Tall white blurs stood elsewhere in the room, all around them, loitering, unsure of what to do.

"There, there," Tyrion said in a moment of wretchedly supreme awkwardness. What do I, of all men, know of how to comfort a grieving child?

At last Joffrey recollected his composure. "Mother isn't here any more," he said, and even this circumlocution looked like to start him off again. This time it did not. "Nor father, that awful oaf, he hit mother, I'm glad he's dead… nor uncle Jaime. Nor grandfather, who she always said would keep me safe if she's gone. He's many miles away, and never went to save me in King's Landing. But you're a Lannister, you're my uncle too, but not like Baratheon uncles, mother said, ambitious, they hate me, they envy me, they have claims to crowns of their own. Lannisters can be trusted. Will you keep me safe now?"

Oh gods, will you never take pity on me?

There were many reasons to deny the boy's request. He was cruel. He was a haughty little brat. He did not deserve to be king. Tying House Lannister to the cause of a king like him had been a disservice to House Lannister, one which had already caused a war by the execution of Eddard Stark and which, Tyrion feared, may well bring much woe further. Tyrion had been in King's Landing to help him, to keep him on his throne, yet he had never been anything other than beastly to Tyrion.

He was Jaime's son.

"I will," said Tyrion, not pausing for a moment. It was the only choice. "Because… because you are my blood. Now, how bad is it?"

"What?" said Joffrey. "The war?"

"Oh no, I know exactly the festering creek of shit we've been dropped in in that regard. Me. My wounds. How bad is it? I'm numbed; smudges are all I can see, and there's even less I can feel."

"You mean… you don't know?" The golden blur of his nephew sounded appalled.

"Of course I don't know," Tyrion said impatiently, "I've been unconscious. Tell me. How bad is it?"

"I… uncle… your right arm… it's…"

An arm wound. That doesn't sound too bad. It could have been the neck or the chest. Shaking, Tyrion reached out with a faltering fist to press hard upon his right upper arm, and with what little strength remained to him he dragged the hand down.

He stopped feeling the pressure. His left hand must have fallen off before it reached the elbow. Tyrion drew it up again and put it back to his upper arm. Only, this time it did not hit that. It hit something curiously soft.

Then came the horror, and understanding—the vambrace, that godsdamned ruined vambrace—and Tyrion threw off the sheet and for the first time laid eyes upon the bandaged stump where he had once possessed a right forearm.

Author's Note: The end is nigh. One more chapter, and ACoK is done!