Chapter 17

Visiting and exploring a true medieval castle was one of those things I've always wanted to do since my past life. While I was a proud American and had no desire ever to live elsewhere, it didn't change the fact that my country of birth was so utterly young.

Hell, just thinking about it made me realize the Targaryen Dynasty was older than the official founding of my previous country of origin.

In all, it meant that if I wanted to see an actual castle, I would have to visit the old world.

Casterly Rock didn't count since it wasn't really a castle, being tunnels burrowed through a mountain and all that. I loved my new home but yeah, it just didn't give me the same castle-y vibes. I wanted to stand upon the high battlements, gazing over its dominating view of its surroundings and peer through the murder holes.

While we saw a few structures while traveling to King's Landing, there weren't that many. The only large castle we visited was Deep Den but our visit was stay was curt, merely a night before the next day saw us resuming our eastward travel. The rest were less castles and more akin to holdfasts, single towers, or small structures that only sometimes had a village surrounding them.

But here and now?

This was a castle, baby!

There was even a moat filled not with water but with iron spikes!

Not a clue how viable such a thing was but damn, nothing felt more medieval-y than a spike moat.

The only thing more hardcore is if the moat had crocodiles in it.

Or lizard-lions as I think they were called here.

The Red Keep also felt far more dense compared to Casterly Rock, where its population was scattered across all levels, through mostly the bottom two-thirds.

Here was the absolute center of power and it was in its shadow that all the Seven Kingdoms pledged fealty too.

Which meant it was busy, with throngs of servants moving to and fro, tending to the upkeep of the castle and those who lived within it. Lords high and low, courtiers noble and common. Many flocked to this center of power and that required many servants.

I kinda felt bad as my group and I made a nuisance of ourselves by tripping over them as we wandered the Red Keep's many halls.

I am Cersei Lannister.

And was once again on the hunt for goodies!

Though we found nothing so far, and quite frankly, I doubted anything of true import would be found.

Dragon eggs were still the holy grail but those were always carefully watched over by the long-extinct order of Dragonkeepers.

I highly doubted any were lying around and conveniently forgotten since it was likely the last of them in Westeros burned down with Summerhall.

Then again… Dragon eggs don't burn, do they?

Perhaps I should take a trip to Summerhall to double-check.

Though more likely, a jaunt through Dragonstone would be more fruitful. I'm sure there's something hidden in all the caverns that dotted the island which were once inhabited by the native dragons.

Not that I had any way of accessing the island just yet.

Summerhall was close-ish though if I recall, something about Rhaegar taking trips there to play his lute and sing sad songs.

Gosh, I think I cut myself on all this edge.

No, no. I was being too harsh. It was a tragedy and many died there on the day of his birth so he had the right to his melancholy.

Just as I had the right to call him a Chuuni.

Not out loud of course.

Don't want to lose my tongue since lèse-majesté and all that.

As expected of the seat and capital of the Seven Kings, the Red Keep was both opulent and resplendent with all its decorations.

Rich and colorful draperies, finely carved sculptures, paintings, and art, it was a demonstration of the class and wealth of the royal family.

A full set of armor costs quite a pretty penny but here in the capital? They were placed on stands and used as hallway decorations.

Wild.

Though easily the coolest part of the Red Keep was all the hidden tunnels criss-crossing and interweaving throughout the entire structure.

There was uh, quite a bit of them.

And the idea of hidden tunnels just tickled me pink.

The only thing more magical than exploring the Red Keep was if this was Hogwarts.

Many of them were damn well hidden too but seismic sense was too OP!

Some I honestly didn't know how to enter cause whatever contraption that opened a hidden wall was not made of stone leaving it a blindspot in my senses and others just didn't work anymore as far as I could tell. Whatever mechanism of pulleys and levers having broken down during the passing of years, making passage inaccessible.

Thankfully for me, these secret tunnel systems were less shortcuts and more entrances into a wholly separate network meaning I only had to find a single way in to gain access to the whole thing.

Which led to where I was currently, having entered into a darkened passageway with Lanna and Jaime behind me.

"Kinda spooky, ain't it?" I say while peering down into the dark hallway. I wasn't sure why I was whispering since I knew no one was nearby. It just felt apropos for the situation.

"Mmm," Lanna made a sound of agreement.

"Are you sure this is safe, Cersei?" Jaime asked, ever mindful of danger.

I thought about that. Was it? I didn't remember if traps were placed in here since it never showed up in the books.

Then again, this is Maegor the Cruel we were talking about.

Yeah, there were probably traps and shit.

"Probably? We'll be careful." I say assuringly.

Traps in hidden tunnels? Well, it only adds to the ambiance of course!

Still, I should be careful.

I bend over and balance one of my hands against the wall of the tunnel while grabbing and pulling off one of my little slippers with my other hand before switching hands to repeat for my other one.

In my mind's eye, the world opened further and further as my seismic sense range expanded.

Phew. It was like a weight was lifted from me as if I had spent all day walking around wearing blurry glasses.

Societal norms are lame!

Why can't I just walk around barefoot, eh?

No shoes, no shirt, no service? It's called discrimination!

Eventually, my range capped out and oh boy, was there a lot to process.

For one.

There were traps.

As far as I could see, it wasn't anything utterly ridiculous like something out of a Souls game. There were no rooms of swinging blades or pressure plates that trigger poisoned dart traps. There was no hallway where a boulder would be released to flatten intruders Indiana Jones style.

False steps were pretty common, a thin step that would collapse and send people careening into a hole.

False walls were another. Hidden tunnels inside hidden tunnels where those not in the know would only find a dead end.

Very cool.

This was an adventure now!

"Follow my lead, there's a few false steps here and there but I'll let you know where they are." I both cautioned and commanded.

A flex of will saw a ball of flame erupt into being in my left hand, warding off the darkness. I could see well enough but that wasn't the same for Jaime and Lanna. I handed my slippers off to Lanna who wordlessly took them.

Also, I wasn't sure if there was non-earthen stuff here out of my view so using my actual eyes was another precaution. Casterly Rock was easy since it was a mountain and all that, but everything here was man-made.

I marched, or more like stomped ahead, squeezing as much as I could out of my seismic sense so I didn't miss anything.

Honestly, there wasn't much to see at all.

"Watch your step here," I announce as I step over a false step. "It's a trap!"

Jaime and Lanna both stared suspiciously at said nondescript step.

For their sake, I crouched slightly and brought my ball of light and heat closer to it.

Without my bending, I would never have been able to distinguish it from any other step but that didn't change the fact the stone step was extremely thin, that even with our childish weight, it would have snapped clean in two the moment any of us stepped upon it.

"You sure?" Lanna asked.

Oh, ye of little faith.

I snapped my finger and the step broke in twain before falling.

And falling.

And falling further still.

It took a few seconds of falling before the stone step finally crashed onto the bottom of the drop hidden beneath the step.

It seemed like both Lanna and Jaime's expression became slightly pale but maybe that was a trick of the light.

"Maegor wasn't messing around, it seemed," I say with a nod. "There's a few of these."

I held out my hand to help pull them over the now gaping chasm. "Come on, careful now."

As we progressed, I noticed that the walls of the tunnels worked as walls for the rooms on the other side.

There were even tiny holes that allowed a person to eavesdrop on conversations going on in the other room.

However, instead of overhearing exciting plots of treason or stumbling upon continent-spanning conspiracies, it was just servants gossiping so we found ourselves exploring further.

At the end of the tunnel, unexpectedly, we found a locked gate.

"Huh," I muttered. "Wasn't expecting something like this."

I thought these tunnels were meant to facilitate quick movements around the castle undetected so it seemed a bit counterintuitive to place barriers in here since the security of these tunnels should have laid in their secrecy.

A random thought popped up in my head. Did Varys ever skulk about in here only to reach this door and realize he left his key back in his room?

"What do we do now?" Lanna asked.

Hmmm.

I mean…

It's a solid iron door. A part of me just wanted to crush it into a tiny ball as a show of dominance.

Another solution presented itself as further examination revealed that the gate was hinged against the wall. The wall which was comprised of stone.

It would take only the barest of efforts to shift the state of the stone anchoring those hinges to sand.

Hmmmmmmm.

But those are the ways of brutes!

Ninja Cersei is back in play! Nin-nin!

I'm sure all those hours of watching LockPickingLaywer on YouTube will be of massive help.

I placed my hand against the door lock and tuned out all my other senses, focusing on what was in front of me.

Well, the first problem quickly made itself apparent.

There were no pins as far as I could detect within the mechanism.

Guess those were too advanced for medieval times.

Yeah, I'm going to need a finer look to see just what I was dealing with.

"I'm going to put out the fire," I warn my companions. "I needa concentrate."

Flowing from one element to another element is one thing, doable and relatively simple, but bending two elements simultaneously is a wholly different matter and a bit beyond me at the moment.

My ball of flame and light vanished, its fuel source cut, which suddenly plunged us into pitch black.

Yet I still saw with senses beyond just my eyes.

I didn't fully understand what I was seeing. No tumblers so this was something else.

But it was also simpler.

I think.

I crushed some of the stone around me into sand before commanding it to rush into the lock. My metal sense was meh, but my earth sense? Well, that was much clearer as it wrapped around all the various pieces inside the lock.

Not that there was much.

It's a lock, I only needed to focus on what the key needs to touch with the rest ultimately unimportant.

Huh.

I bent and commanded more sand to fill the keyhole before I hardened it back into rock as a makeshift key.

Experimentally, I turned it only for nothing to happen.

But now I saw clearly what was going on. There were little metal blocks in the way of turning the key so if the grooves of the key didn't match the gaps between the blocks, the key couldn't turn.

That was it.

I reshaped the key to have the proper grooves and turned.

In the dim silence, everyone could hear the key turning the deadbolt. The sand that was currently clogging the mechanism probably didn't help as everything ground around in there.

"You did it!" Lanna yelped excitedly.

Simple.

Super simple.

Heck, I don't think I even need the key anymore.

In fact, I turned the key again and locked it once more.

"Cersei?" Jaime asked with confusion in his tone.

"Wanna see a magic trick?" I couldn't help but say with a large grin I knew they couldn't see. "Alohomora!"

I turn my hand in the motion of turning a doorknob, manipulating the deadlock directly with my metalbending.

The door once again clicks open at my spell.

Bending was magic so it counts as a spell!

Yer a witch, Cersei.

Hehe.

Fun over, I once again bring forth another ball of flame.

"What was that, Cersei?"

"Nothing," I replied to Lanna with a laugh. "I was just fooling around."

Pushing open the creaky iron gate, we found ourselves emerging into a round chamber that seemed to act as a meeting point since there were five other identical iron doors.

Stepping in, I noticed the floor was different as in this chamber laid a mosaic tiling set into the floor, and bringing my flame closer revealed the image was of the heraldry of House Targaryen and its three-headed dragon. In the corner of the chamber, therein lay a lone metal brazier beaten into the visage of a snarling dragon's mouth.

Very cool.

And oddly familiar.

Attempting to light the brazier proved to be a futile but not exactly unexpected endeavor. This wasn't Hollywood where torches seemingly burned by magic. Fire needed fuel and I doubted the servants were maintaining the torches and braziers inside these barely used tunnels.

Yet it wasn't until I noticed the ladder rungs inset into the wall that crystal clear realization struck me about just where I had stumbled into.

This was where Tyrion and Varys would stand after the former escaped the Black Cells, where Tyrion made the faithful decision to murder his own father.

Two hundred and thirty rungs.

My first instinct was to climb them and see what I could see.

"Cersei, where should we go now?"

That was Jaime.

"Ummm," I stretch to stall for a moment to reach out and feel my surroundings. "We're in the Tower of the Hand again and I think those rungs will probably take us higher into it."

My brother walked over and experimentally tugged on it, before stepping onto the bottom-most and putting his entire weight on it. He even did a little mini hop on it to double-check before stepping off of it.

"It seems sturdy enough." He declared.

"Fancy a climb then?" I said, stepping forward and placing one of my hands on the rung.

Before I could get further, Lanna interrupted and grabbed the back of my dress before I could start climbing.

"What do you think you're doing, Cersei?" Lanna said, nearly scandalized.

I turned back to the girl and blinked at the question. "What do you mean? I'm climbing?"

Even in the dim light, I could see her eyes roll. "You're wearing a dress m'lady. It's unseemly. Jaime must go first."

"He's my brother though?" I point out.

"He's still a boy." She refutes simply.

"I'll be putting out the fire so he wouldn't be able to see anything?"

"It matters little. It's just not right." My handmaid insists.

I could hear Jaime snickering from the side. "I can go first."

"Good." Lanna nods in agreement. "And what am I suppose to do with these?"

She waved my slippers about. I had completely forgotten she was holding onto those.

Damn. I wish I had pockets.

"Leave em here?" I suggest.

"What if we don't return?" She asks in turn. "It won't be easy explaining their loss to your lady mother."

"Fine then. Just uhh… Shove em down the back of my dress or something. We can get them out when we reach the top." Won't be comfortable but they just needed to be carried up.

Jaime broke into peals of laughter and Lanna only sighed resignedly.

Eventually, Jaime calmed down from his laughter and spoke. "Give em here, I'll loop them around my belt." To which Lanna gratefully handed them off.

"Alrighty gang! Let us set forth to further adventure! Go on Jaime, our brave knight. Be our torch in the night!" I cry out dramatically with my finger pointed into the air.

Jaime puffed up at my words and approached the ladder rungs.

"Oh wait, let's see how high up this actually goes first." Moving up to stand next to Jaime, I looked directly up into the void before shooting a bolt of fire straight into its gaping maw.

It traveled quite a bit before the chi inside it petered out and the bolt dissipated from existence.

I whistled.

Two hundred rungs and the distance between each hold was roughly a foot, it would come out to over a two hundred foot climb.

"Go on then Jaime. And why don't you go next Lanna? If you fall, I'll catch you."

Thankfully from what I could see, the climbing tunnel wasn't very spacious. If I hung off the rung, I could almost touch the other side so if any accidents happened, I could hopefully bend a sheet of earth out from the wall and catch us.

Probably wouldn't feel great but it was better than plummeting to the bottom.

We climbed.

And I made sure to keep count.

When I hit two hundred and thirty, I realized Jaime didn't stop since the ladder didn't stop there.

"Stop," I call out into the darkness of the void. "There's something here."

I bend another flame into my hand, lighting up the area.

And sure enough, adjacent to the rungs, there was another tunnel. Gingerly, I stepped off my step and onto the flooring.

"Careful now," I urge.

Lanna soon reappeared and followed my lead with Jaime shortly after.

While dusting off her dress, Lanna spoke. "So where are we now?"

"Must be near the top of the tower right?" Jaime offered.

"Yeah, we're near the bedchambers near the top. And watch your voices. These walls are a bit thinner than others so people on the other side can probably hear us." I answer.

Sure enough, the roof of the tunnel shrunk but as children, we could still easily walk with clearance but any person full-grown would have had to crawl.

"What are these?"

It was a metal hook of some kind, one that could be tugged. There was something in the walls, some larger mechanism.

Not all of it was visible to me though. I had not a clue how advanced medieval engineering but there was no doubt some clever engineering going on here. Maybe some kind of complicated rope lever and pulley system? If it was, I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"I think it'll open up the passageway," I say finally. "I'm not sure if it'll close back up again though so perhaps we shouldn't touch it."

We encountered and passed another before I finally stopped at the third. "We're outside mother and father's room."

"Really?" Jaime asked, intrigued.

"Yup. Behind their fireplace in fact." As far as I could tell, there wasn't anyone inside the room currently. Which was good.

Would've been awkward as fuck if we stumbled onto them doing naughty things.

"Now what?" Lanna expressed my thoughts.

I'll admit, this was just for curiosity's sake and a sightseeing tour. To stand where the characters of the books would once stand.

Oh, and because secret tunnels were cool as fuck.

"I dunno, should we just keep going?" I say with a shrug.

Jaime gave a nonchalant shrug at that.

"We should return soon lest questions be asked," Lanna said.

"True. Let's just continue to the end of this tunnel then."

Rooms, rooms, more rooms. As fun as this was, I could admit I was starting to get bored.

At least until we hit a dead end.

But that wasn't a bad thing because of where it led.

It was the main office where Tywin worked and their voices were emanating from above us cause this tunnel ended under the floor.

I put a straight finger upon my lips, indicating to Lanna and Jaime to be silent.

It seems the council was in session and with the King indisposed, Tywin opted to have the small council sessions within his chamber.

Listening in silence, I was perhaps expecting some grand insight into the running of the kingdoms, or important events occurring across the kingdoms.

Nope.

It was all rather mundane conversation.

The North was beginning to shut down with the onset of winter as they became more and more snowed in.

The Master of Coin reported that yearly taxes from the great houses had started arriving and that the vaults were healthy.

Expected raids by the mountain clansmen of the Vale as they attempted to make off with grain and foodstuffs in their own preparation for the winter.

The Master of Laws reported that the gold cloaks are struggling to contain an outbreak of violence between different street gangs in Flea Bottom and that they had to aid in smothering a fire that broke out in the wake of violence.

Until something of interest to me finally popped up.

"And how is the health of His Grace, Pycelle?" I heard my father say. "There was some matter last night of import?"

"Ah yes. A chambermaid reported that His Grace seemed to be muttering in his sleep and I was summoned to tend to him. I believe him to be deep in dreams."

Dreams?

"And what does that mean for his well-being?" A voice I didn't recognize asked.

"It indicates His Grace's mind is on the mend and that his body has healed well enough that he can once again dream."

"Can he wake?" That was Tywin.

"No, at times like this, it is better to let the body wake when ready. But judging by how often he can be found muttering, it seems his dreams are very active. By my estimates, he should wake soon."

They continued speaking about it but my mind was set on a single word.

Dreams.

Dreams.

Can patients with traumatic brain injuries even dream?

Rob damn it.

Bloodraven, is that you playing your damn games?! Do I need to send Raava with a message huh?!

With no more foothold in Rhaegar, did he change tracks to target Aerys?

Alrighty then.

Where's that fucking Godswood?