Wife of the Wolf, Husband of the Sun

Chapter Eighty-Five

Cersei had not slept well the last night, she had thought of summoning Pycelle and having him make a sleeping draft for her to help her rest but in the end she decided against it, the draft that he had prepared for her in the past had left a terrible taste in her mouth and when she woke the morning after he head would be heavy and she would find it had to string thoughts together.

Now, more than ever, she needed to keep her wits about her. Her husband had returned to the capital but any joy that she might once have felt at that had long since been quenched like the wick of a candle dipped into water. Now, all she felt when she thought of her husband was rage when she thought of his betrayal of her and the danger that he had put her and her daughter into with his foolishness.

She should have killed him before now, she would have done better to smother the man in his sleep if she had known what was to come but she hadn't and so Cersei had been forced to suffer with the whispers behind her back and the looks from ladies and lords who thought that she could not see them, oh but she could.

And she would be sure to make them pay for every moment that they had enjoyed her suffering, she would make certain of that. Let them have their sneers and their jeers for the moment, but in the end she would be the one laughing as their lives crumbled into dust all around them.

She was breaking her fast with her ladies that morning and for all that the realm was falling apart outside of the walls of the city, it had not seemed to touch the larders of the Red Keep yet. Bread that was still steaming from the ovens had been laid on the table along with little clay pots filled with blackberry jam and freshly churned butter.

Bacon, both from boar and from pig, eggs that had been boiled but their yolks were still slightly runny in the middle just as Cersei liked it, pork sausages and fried fish and a ham glazed with honey and studded with olives and Cersei was glad for all of it, when Rhaenys had been growing in her belly Cersei had found that her daughter had demanded that she eat apples that had only just ripened, other wise she would make her stomach turn.

With this babe, it seemed that there was nothing specific that they demanded of her but they wished for her to eat until her belly was fit to burst, it had been growing rather tedious if the truth was to be told but she imagined that there were worst things for her to suffer that eating a great deal of food but it was a pain that she had to suffer through.

A servant brought in a tray of blueberry pastries and placed them in front of her and Cersei helped herself to three of them and dared all of her ladies with a glare to say anything about it, but all of them did at least have some wisdom in their mostly empty skulls and so they kept their mouths shut and their eyes down as they filled their own platters.

If Cersei was ever to say one good thing about them, they knew that it was best to hold their tongues to her and not speak overly much. Indeed, when news of the lords of the North and the Stormlands and the Vale and the Riverlands and Dorne had risen in rebellion against the crown all of her ladies did not seem like that were overly inclined to chatter as much as they had been doing.

Lilianna seemed more quiet than any of them as of late, when word had reached them that ironborn ships had been spotted not far from the coast of Lannisport the woman wailed about how her sisters and her Father were still inside the walls of the city and she had gone on and on about all the horrible things that might happen to them.

It was foolish for her to worry as she did, Lannisport's walls were strong and heavily guarded and it's fleet was one of the largest in all of the Seven Kingdoms that would surely be able to throw back a few ironborn raiders and even if the Ironborn managed to breach the walls of the city then it still did not matter, her family were still Lannisters, even if from a lesser branch, and they could just seek shelter in Casterly Rock.

But Lilianna had not been soothed when Cersei had explained all of this to her and so she had simply stopped trying to console her about it, when the rebellion was put down she would see what a fool that she was being. At least she had the sense not to bring it up in Cersei's presence again after that first time, she had a thousand and one things that she need to concern herself with and the silly fears of one of her handmaids was not high on that list.

Cersei finished breaking her fast and chased down her food with a long glass of lemonsweet, some fool had put too much sugar in it so that the tartness of the lemon was nearly lost but in it's own way it was quite refreshing and so Cersei decided that she would not complain of that out loud, before she rose from the table and bid her ladies farewell before she left her chambers and made her way to the royal nursery.

It was the most perfect sanctuary she could imagine from the troubles of her world, few could breach it without her express permission after all and the King showed little and less interest in his granddaughter and the Queen was at the very least quiet whenever she choose to come and see her granddaughter, Viserys was a pain but he also held little and less interest in a babe that he could not play with and so the nursery was almost entirely hers in all practical sense.

And she had need of it more and more of late, it wasn't that she was afraid of course, she was a lion and and a Lannister of Casterly Rock and fear was for the lesser beasts of the realm. No, it was not fear, more that it was concern for her daughter who could still stand to lose everything because of her father's foolishness.

It was also the only place that it was possible for her to be as close as she could to alone in the Red Keep.

When she came to the door of the nursery, a frown spread across her features as she heard her daughter babbling on to someone. Cersei was not frowning because she heard her daughter's voice, she enjoyed hearing her speak nonsense that only a babe could speak without sounding like a fool but Rhaenys was as shy as she was sweet and her daughter would only speak to her.

Not even her septa or nursemaid could get anything more than a few words out of her.

She had to know, even before she opened the door she had to know. That did not make it any easier to open the door and see her husband, the man who had betrayed her, sitting on the floor of the nursery with his legs crossed and her daughter in his lap, smiling serenely as he watched her babble like nothing was wrong at all. Like he had not betrayed her and shamed her and abandoned her.

And now he was ignoring her and Cersei wanted to scream at him, she wanted to throw something heavy at him that would crack his skull open and make him bleed across the floor of the nursery. But, she could have none of that and so she settled for clearing her throat and when her husband looked up she did not allow him to have the first word, "Where is the Septa?"

"I sent her away, I told her that Rhaenys would be fine with me and she had no reason to doubt it. I am her prince." Rhaegar rose from the floor with her daughter held in his arms and Cersei watched as he bent his head and pressed a kiss to the top of her head and once, not so very long ago, such a sight would be enough to make her love her husband all the more and make her go to him for an embrace.

Now, all that was left was rage. She saw no reason to hide her displeasure, he had shamed her in front of all the realm and had abandoned them to go and commit that foolishness with the Stark girl, what right did he have to her courtesy now? "Yes, you are her prince and you are mine as well. You are also, from what my memory recalls, my lord husband. But how can that be? No prince would have ever treated me as you have treated me. No husband would have abandoned me as you have done."

Rhaegar looked at her with such sorrow that once would have made Cersei want nothing more than to go to him and take him into her arms and make her do all that could in order to sooth his suffering but now the sight of that sorrow in his eyes made a feeling of pride swell up in her chest, knowing that she had hurt him felt better than anything that she would ever be able to describe.

Her husband carried her daughter over to the cradle and laid her down in it, making sure the cat doll that she carried with her always was laying next to her before he turned his full attention on to Cersei, "I am sorry that I hurt you. I truly am. I sorry that you felt abandoned." His face looked pained for a moment before he spoke again. "When I was informed that I was to marry you, I swore that I would do all that I could to make you as happy as I could but there are somethings that are beyond our control, even before we were born, I learned that when I was a young boy."

Cersei slapped him. It felt good, to watch as his head snapped back as her palm had lashed out quick as a whip across his face and when he turned his head back to her with shock in his indigo eyes and he brought his hand to rest on the red hand print on his cheek. In that one moment, Cersei of the House Lannister felt so good that nothing could touch the satisfaction in her chest.

But she could not deny that it was dimmed when his eyes were not full of the rage or indignation that she expected him to be feeling in that moment, instead after the shock had faded all that was left was the same sorrow that was always there. The fact that she did not even seem to be worth his anger, that enraged her all the more. "I deserved that." Rhaegar spoke, his voice was whisper soft.

"That and much more." Cersei spoke and she hated how her voice cracked and her chest began to tighten as she stared at him. In that moment she hated everything in the entire world, the gods for giving her the soft heart of a woman and not the strength of arms to kill the one who had shamed her, the lords and ladies of Westeros who expected her to bare the shame with dignity, her father for not seeming to care at all. All of it.

"I do not know what it is that you wish for me to say." Rhaegar spoke again with a shake of his head as his fingers came up to run through his long silver hair, she used to love running her fingers through his hair as he slept with his head on her chest. Now all she wanted was to grab handfuls of that hair and rip out handfuls of it from his scalp. "I've been a terrible husband, I confess it. If things were different then I swear to you that I would never have done what I've done, but I have no choice in this."

"No choice?" Cersei scoffed. "You are a prince, the heir to the throne. You have nothing but choice, all of the freedom in the world. And the choices you have made have brought naught but shame on to me." She shook her head and began to pace. "I gave you a child, I would have given you a son if you would have given me enough time to do so. Why her? Why start a war over a woman when you have one who has given you all you want and is proven fertile."

Prince Rhaegar looked so conflicted, like she had asked him to explain some great mystery of life. "Cersei, I...I will try to explain to you. But you must try and understand me."

Must? He dare say must to her after what he had done? He should be on his knees and begging her for her pardon but he was not and Cersei wanted to at least try and hear him account for himself, so she bit her tongue and nodded and waited for him to speak.

"Do you remember, at Harrenhal, on the night that we arrived , I asked if you had any belief, any faith, in the power of prophecy?" Her husband asked and Cersei stared at him, utterly dumbfounded. He asked her to recall back to Harrenhal and that was the part that he wished her to remember?

She supposed that if she cast her mind back to that day then she could remember that when she had gone up to the chambers that had been prepared for her and she found her husband already waiting for her that he had spoken for foretelling the future to her, the speaking of it had dragged up ugly old memories of Maggy the Frog and the queer smell of her tent and her yellow eyes that had seen far too much.

Her thumb throbbed as she remembered the pain when she had sliced it open with the knife that the witch had handed her and then the cold wet feeling of her mouth wrapping around it to suck down the blood down her throat and then the way her voice had sounded as she had spoke her lies. Her nightmares that night had ensured that she had not been able to sleep that night, when it wasn't about the witch it was about a pair of black eyes or scores of bloody crowns falling from the sky.

"I do remember." She said for for lack of anything better to say, he had made her remember that night so she might as well carry it all the way through. "And I told you that there was nothing in it, only children and fools hold faith in the words of soothsayers and mummers."

She had been just a child when Maggy the Frog had tried to scare her with her words and her tricks but Cersei knew now that she was never nothing more than an old fool who had hated her for being young and beautiful and wanted to hurt her and spoke some words that she thought would do so but it hadn't worked. It hadn't.

Melara suddenly flashed into her mind, her long dark hair and her brown eyes. Her eyes had been so dark that they had been almost black, mayhaps a part of her had thought that it would be her eyes that would bring her end to her and that had been why she had to do what she had done. Those dark eyes had gone so wide before she had fallen into the well, her screams and shouts and begs had echoed up to her from the depths.

"Well, I am no child and so I must be a fool." Rhaegar spoke and the laugh he gave was the shortest and the saddest that Cersei had ever heard. "But that is only fair enough as I was born into a family of fools, and madmen. There is a prophecy, my grandfather believed in it and he made my mother wed my father. My father believed in it, and that was why he hated Viserys for not being a girl. I believe in it...and that's why I've done all that I have done."

"There will come a night, my lady. A night that is longer than any other. The snows will fall and they keep falling, the cold will cut through all and the dead will rise as slaves to a greater evil than the world has ever known before. It will be the end of all that is ever known, but there is a way to stop it. A hero that will bring the dawn, the prince that was promised, Azor Ahai. He will be born into the Targaryen line with two sisters and he will be born of Ice and Fire."

For a moment, Cersei was silent. Then, she started to laugh as she began to understand. "Ice and Fire?" She laughed all the harder after that, as if it was the funniest thing in the world that she had ever heard and it might just have been and so she kept laughing even as Rhaegar stared at her, a heavy frown fixed on to his lovely, hated face.

"So to be certain that I understand you, my sweet husband, you abandoned me and our daughter here with your madman of a father who has proven again and again that no one is safe from him, not little children whose only crime is being hungry, not the head of the Faith and not even those who share blood with him, to go and steal a girl who is half a child herself, starting a war in the process of doing that."

"And the reason that you have done all this, is because someone read in some dusty scroll or some charlatan told you that the world will end if you did not?" She started laughing again, she could not help herself. It was just so very funny. "And you took the Stark girl, because you thought she would be the Ice to your Fire, I assume? Oh, I remember that as well. Do you? When at Harrenhal I came into our chambers and found you and you asked if I thought that I was Ice, did you decided then and there that I played no part in your prophecy? That our daughter was not part of your chosen?!

Anything funny about any of this was gone now, her rage had flared up with every word that she spoke and nothing would stop it now. She reached over and grabbed the nearest thing she could find without looking at what it was and without a care in the world flung it at her husband's head. Rhaegar bent his head to avoid the cushion as it went flying through the air and collided with the wall at the far side of the nursery.

Cersei cursed, cursed that she had missed and that it had not been something heavier and damn all the consequences for it before she turned and began to pace up and down the nursery, to angry to care about anything at the moment other than moving up and down. Rhaegar at the very least had the sense not to speak to her but she could still feel his eyes on her and all she wanted to do was rip them out.

A soft cry went up into the air and Cersei sighed, she had forgotten about Rhaenys. She walked over to her cradle, pushing past Rhaegar as she did so, and reached down into it to pick the babe up and hold her close to her should while she stroked her golden hair and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. As she held her babe, all her anger seemed to drift away.

So of course her husband would not let her keep it, her body tensed as she heard him step close. "Cersei, I promise you that I have not and will not abandon you and nor will I ever abandon our daughter. I swore my vows to you in the sept that day and I meant every single word of them. I swear that I did. But I have a duty to more than the two of you, I have a duty to the realm as well and I do not just mean when I am the King."

"If we are to have the golden dawn after the long night then we must have the Prince Who Was Promised and his is the song of ice and fire, he must be that. He must be ice and he must be fire." A hand was placed on her shoulder and Cersei had to struggle not to shudder or to spin around and spit in his eye. "But that is not to say that Rhaenys does not have her own role to play, the prophecy speaks of the dragon having three heads. Aegon had his sisters, when my son is born he will need his sisters as well. Only the prince need be born of Ice and Fire."

Was that meant to be some sort of comfort to her? Mayhaps if she was plain faced, flat chested and dutiful Elia Martell or wide-eyed, foolish little Lysa Tully then his words would have done that and she would have accepted the shame forced on her with a smile on her face with the knowledge that her wise prince was doing all that he had done to save them all in the end.

But Cersei was a Lannister of Casterly Rock and her husband's words did not sooth and they did not convince her, he was as mad as his Father. After a while Rhaegar sighed and pulled his hand away from her shoulder and began to move towards the door but Cersei spun around and called after him to stop him from leaving the nursery.

She waited until Rhaegar had turned to face her before she spoke. "If your whore or her bastard step one foot inside of this castle, I will have the both them drowned in the Blackwater Rush. I swear I will." A Lannister paid her debts, after all.

Her husband stared at her for a moment and then the mad bastard deemed it fit to laugh at her, it was naught more than a short chuckle and yet it was enough to turn Cersei's blood to fire. He dared to laugh at her after all he had done. "I have no whore, my Lady. Lady Lyanna is mine own wife just as you are, our marriage was overseen by a septon and our child will be trueborn. Now, I beg your leave."

And just like that Rhaegar was gone and Cersei was left in silence. Her hold of her babe tightened and tightened and she did not notice until Rhaenys's let out a little whine of pain and Cersei loosened her hold and apologized her to babe and whipped her tears off of her little chubby face and placed her back into the cradle and waited for her to go to sleep.

Once her daughter was asleep and the septa came back into the nursery Cersei left and went to find a dark alcove. Once she had, she buried her face into her hands and began to scream. She rose her face from her hands after she had finished screaming and tried to catch her breath but even that seem impossible with how angry she was.

She sank down the wall until she was on the floor and reached up to wrap her arms around her legs as she tried to breath. She didn't understand what was happening, not so long ago everything had been perfect and Cersei had thought that she was living in the light. But now it seemed as though the world was coming to an end and the entire Red Keep was collapsing on top of her.

The wetness of her cheeks that proved she was crying only enraged her more, aunt Genna's words echoed around in her head again and again. Dry those eyes little one, have you ever seen a lion weep? She could almost see Lord Tywin staring at her with those cold green eyes of his, the ones that could always see how weak and worthless and ugly you really were, disgusted at her for showing such weakness. She was still a Lannister of Casterly Rock and princess of the realm.

A woman may weep, not a princess.

"My my, what is all of this now?" The voice that spoke was so soft that Cersei barely heard it but when she locked up and saw that it was the eunuch standing over her, something that might have been pity in his dark eyes she wished that she had not bothered to look up at all. Bad enough that anyone should see her shame, even worse that it had to be this simpering wreck of a man.

Cersei was about to snarl at him to get away from her but the words would not come out of her throat, no roar would come either. All that came out was a rough sob. "Oh dear." Varys clucked at her like he was some goodly matron who had noticed that one of the children under her charge had come down with some sort of illness.

Cersei rubbed roughly at her eyes until they burned from something other than tears and when she pulled her sleeve away she saw that Varys had extended a soft palm down to her. This close Cersei noticed that there was the smell of flowers, lavender. Cersei would always wear lavender in her own hair and used oil of it when she bathed and she reached out and took hold of his hand and Varys helped her up to her feet.

"Of course you would be upset my Lady, it was very insensitive of me to ask. I hope you will forgive me." Varys said with a smile as he patted the back of her hand. "No doubt you have already heard that Prince Rhaegar means to ride out to the war on the morrow, as will your Lord Father. You're concern does your great credit my lady."

Cersei pulled her hand away from him as she considered what the Spider just told her. "My Father will ride out on the morrow?" She repeated, needing to make sure that she had heard him properly before anything else.

"Oh yes, have you not heard? The King has given leave to both him and Lord Tarly, Lord Mace will go and lay siege to Storm's End after they have gone while Lord Randyll hunts down the vile raiders of Dorne and your Father will then ride into the Westerlands in order to secure your home from the Ironborn and those raiders who have crossed into the west from the Reach."

Cersei nodded. "I see, thank you Varys." Cersei moved out of the alcove and began to make her way to the drawbridge that lead out of Maegor's Holdfast, but not before Varys called after her.

"One very last thing, Princess Cersei. While some men's loyalties may change with the wind, there are some who know true loyalty and we have not forgotten that your daughter was born first, in a true wedding and in your undisputed marriage bed." The Spider smiled at her then, a friendly smile, and then he was gone so quickly that it almost seemed that he had never been there in the first place.

Cersei considered the words the Spider and spoke and found herself smiling as the rage inside her was soothed, somewhat. It was good to know that she did have some friends at court and the Spider was a powerful friend to have indeed, he was the only one of the king's councilors who actually seemed to be able to get the king listen to him which meant that Cersei as good as had the king's ear.

A pretty picture of Lyanna Stark and her northern bastard being tied to a pyre and burned until nothing was left but ashes entered her mind and Cersei found herself smiling as she thought of it. Cersei had not thought she would ever want anyone to be fed the King's flames but that little northern slut and the thief that would still the birthright of her own daughter could be force fed the pyromancer's piss and Cersei would be well and truly happy with it.

But that was for the future, right at this moment she needed to go and find her Father.

For a half a moment she had thought about going to the tower of the Hand, not that she could be blamed for doing so as her Father would ever be the true Hand of the King in her mind and for much of her life he had been the only hand until he and the King had fallen out and he had been replaced by that pillow biter Connington, but Lord Tywin was not in the Tower of the Hand as he had been placed in the Maidenvault by the King.

Cersei had to wonder how much of that was to try and humiliate her Father and how much it was the King being too afraid to sleep in Maegor's if he knew that her Father would be there as well.

Why did she even have to ask? All Aerys had done when it came to her Father was due to fear and jealousy, he knew that her Father was the better man. It was why he had ended their friendship and took the handship away from him. So he did not have to live in his own Hand's shadow.

But it didn't matter, the mad king would be dead soon enough, more than likely he would open up a vein on one of the blades of the Iron Throne and Pycelle would only need one whisper in the ear in order to not be able to stop the bleeding and with a bit of luck her husband would do her one last final kindness and fall from his horse and break his neck.

And then, when Rhaenys was Queen and Cersei was her regent then she could name her Father as hand of the King. And Jaime would be at her side. Oh yes, it would be perfect.

There were two guardsmen of the Red Keep standing outside the doors of the Maidenvault each holding a pike. They did not see any reason to stop her and even if they had done so then it did not matter as Cersei would have killed them with their own pikes, she was going to speak with her Father and gods help those who tried to stop her from doing so.

A young boy of ten with a golden lion stitched on front of his doublet was quick to tell her where Lord Tywin was, he was on the highest floor of the keep in the same chambers that Baelor the Blessed had built for Daena Targaryen when he had imprisoned her in the vault along with her two younger sisters. Even now, the story still made her angry, how unfair it was that the three princesses had been punished for no other crime than being beautiful. Madness and cruelty ran strong in the Targaryen blood, she should have seen this coming with Rhaegar when she thought of all of it.

There was a guard on the door to the apartments and his crimson clock spoke that he was in service to her father and he looked like he was about stop her but Cersei glared at him with all the hate and rage that she had in her and the guardsman reeled back and Cersei pushed the door open and walked into the chambers, reminding herself that she needed to be strong no matter what happened.

Lord Tywin was sitting behind a desk that was situation in the middle of the apartment and he looked up at her with a single golden eyebrow raised slightly as he looked at her. "You might have knocked." He said, his voice as dry as firewood as he folded the letter he was reading in half and left it to rest in the middle of the table. "Do we have something to discuss?"

"We have plenty to discuss Father, you taught me that the power and the honor and the glory of House Lannister means more than anything else in the world. More than the whims and wishes of your actual children." Cersei did not mean for her voice to sound as bitter as it did but she could not seem to stop it either. "The future is what matters, the future of our family and the future of the Iron Throne. I've born one daughter and I am already carrying another child, but I do not wish to stay here. I want to return with you to Casterly Rock."

"Do you assume that the Westerlands are any less at war than the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, you understand that when I ride with Lord Randyll it will be with an army and not in luxury. Dornish raiders still scour the Reach and have breached into the westerlands, fires have been lit from Crakehall to Silverhill and a heavy force of Dornishmen are riding towards the Golden Tooth which Lord Lefford and your uncles thankfully hold for the moment but I cannot reach them as the Riverlands are in open rebellion and our forces will be bloodied if I attempt to get there through the riverlands."

"So then, I have a force that I must very quickly get to the west as fast as possible and hope that your uncles can hold the Golden Tooth long enough from an attack from inside the West and the Riverlands as I return to Casterly Rock, put myself in command of the levies that have gathered there and then race to the Golden Tooth and salvage whatever I can. And of course, that is assuming that I do not suffer from an arrow in the neck at any point from here to there."

"Oh, and one last thing. This letter came to me not half an hour before you did. Read it." Tywin pushed the letter close to Cersei and she picked the letter up and folded it open. She read the words once, and then again and again and again. It was like what was written on the paper made such little sense to her that it would not stay in her mind.

"How?"

"How?" Lord Tywin repeated. "Because we let our guards down, we assumed that the Ironborn would focus on the Reach due it being the most appealing prize for them and when reports came to us of the Shield Islands coming under assault we believed that we had been proven right, after all only a few sails had been sent off the cost and naught else."

"But it seems as though that the Ironborn only sent a small force to the shield islands, the majority of it must have sailed out of sight of the coast and then sailed back towards Lannisport. The fleet at Lannisport has been burned and the city has fallen, we have no word of those who have died yet but fires have been lit inside the walls. The steward at Casterly Rock has had no choice but to seal the gates of the castle and shut the ports."

"So, you will remain here and wait for your husband to return to you from the war and behave more suitably to him." Lord Tywin rose and began to walk to the door. "If you had, mayhaps he would not have strayed from your side."

"You will leave me here then!?" Cersei shouted after him. "My daughter you will leave, with no family or protection."

"You have your brother, just as you wanted." Lord Tywin voice's was cold but when he left the room he slammed the door, and the silence fell on Cersei like a death shroud.

End of Chapter Eighty-Five

Have I mentioned that Cersei is just one of my favorite characters to ever write, because oh she is. Even if you hate her as a character, which I do not, I think anyone writing her would admit that she is one of the funnest characters to write.

Some important things in this chapter, I hope some people will pay attention to the Varys and Cersei meeting because that will be important later but maybe not for the reason that you might think. Also, if people will recall to ACOK Cersei at one point mentions she thought that she could trust Varys, so she is more likely to believe that he could be a friend here.

I also intended for this chapter to go a bit longer and actually ending with Cersei informing Lilianna about what happened at Lannisport but I decided against it just cause I thought this was actually a better place for it to end, with the ending sort of paralleling the ending of Cersei's second chapter in AFFC when Kevan rejects her attempt to make him her Hand.

Any who, next chapter will be an Elia chapter and the one after that will be an Obara chapter and the one after is probably going to be a Ned chapter. Probably.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. With a ton of love and hope that you will leave a review, a follow and a favorite if you enjoyed,

DiscordantSymphony