"Your Grace. If you would come with us."
The guardsman, an officer, yellow stag surcoat over gleaming half-plate, shivered in his boots, his voice not much steadier.
"The King" – a shuddering breath– "demands your presence."
Raising a brow, I rested my wineglass (the umpteenth of the night) down beside me on the bench.
Some twenty-odd soldiers, fully armed and armored, encircled the terrace where I'd … relocated to, and languidly spent the last few hours watching the moonlight dance upon the water. Baratheon, Lannister, Arryn, goldcloaks from the City Watch, a handful of miscellaneous strays, their mistrust of each other – even now, in the middle of an arrest, house rivalries ran hot – was dwarfed solely by their quite understandable fear of me.
Pale-faced, trembling, the officer fidgeted with the hilt of his sword.
"Please."
My fingers drummed against my knee; my lips pursed; my eyes narrowed.
I rose to my full height.
The greener ones recoiled; the tougher ones blanched.
Staring the officer in the eyes, I leaned down close, our noses nearly touching.
He stood his ground.
I scanned the ranks arrayed behind him, and silently weighed the prospects.
'No, more trouble than it'd be worth.'
"Lead on, then."
At the end of a corridor between the throne room and royal apartments, ten or so minutes from the terrace, the small council chamber was only a tense, brisk march away.
Consistent with the rest of the Red Keep's sinister pageantry, the chamber loomed at the top of a black marble staircase, its heavy iron doors flanked by a pair of obsidian sphinxes; a small crowd of the usual parasites had flocked at the bottom, drawn by the whiff of scandal, craning their ears to catch a hint of muffled argument, held back by a cordon of guards.
Barging through, trooping up the stairs, my escorts took up spots around the doors, and I made my way inside.
" – murdered him!"
"Your Grace, for all we know – "
The room, it seems, had been dedicated as a shrine of sorts to unbridled sumptuosity – Myrish carpets and crystal chandeliers, vibrant frescos and carved screens, jewels and ivory, gilt and pigment, lapis and pearl and porphyry.
(I suppose that if you're one of those poor souls stuck dealing with a king's bullshit all day, you'd like to be surrounded by pretty things, too.)
" – surely had a reason."
"What reason could possibly justify – "
A thick granite table dominated its center, surrounded by high-backed chairs, one on each end and three on each side; Robert and the rest, however, his queen and council, hadn't bothered with protocol, and instead battled it out on their feet, huddled together at the near end.
" – allow her to go unpunished!"
"And how do you propose we do that?"
"We're hardly powerless! If we just – "
I cut her off.
"Mind telling me what this is all about?"
Eyes widened, heads whirled around, mouths clacked shut.
"Well?"
Cersei, bloodshot and unkempt, thrust a trembling finger at me – "You!" she seethed.
Arryn pursed his lips; Stannis glowered; Varys and Baelish silently lingered at the back.
Robert crossed his arms, plainly uncomfortable with the situation, but not all that shaken up about it – like he'd walked in on someone else's kid throwing a fit over a missing toy.
"Kingslayer's dead," he grunted.
What?
"What?"
How on earth did that happen?
Butterflies, sure, but it didn't even make sense. He can't have been much older than 20, fit and healthy from a lifetime of knighthood, and while his family wasn't particularly well-liked, I can't imagine that anyone actually had the gall to –
Oh.
Oh, goddammit.
Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Seriously? Not even a patsy? He just up and …
I mean, points for daring, but … really?
"Are you sure it was him? Not that I'm doubting you, but the, uh … the mess wasn't exactly identifiable."
Arryn – the perpetual bags under his eyes sagging especially heavy – took a couple steps closer. "There was enough. Scraps of armor, clumps of hair. An eye."
Cersei sobbed into her hand.
I clicked my tongue.
"Right."
I frowned, hands propped on my hips.
"Well, it was hardly my fault. He leapt at me from a fucking closet." I jabbed my neck with a thumb. "Knife to my throat and everything."
Keenly aware of the darkening mood of the room, I crossed my arms over my chest.
"Don't give me that. He'd a history of this sort of thing, you know? Wouldn't be his first regicide."
But what the hell could've possibly motivated him?
Cersei stood out as the likeliest suspect, of course, stupid murder plots were entirely within her character, though I couldn't shake my reflexive disbelief. After all, she loved Jaime far too much (largely as an extension of herself, mind) to ever risk him directly – no, she'd use some bribed menial, or smitten cousin, someone whose death she wouldn't lose a wink over.
Varys, then, or Baelish, one of the slimier courtiers – they might've blackmailed him, or conveyed their orders as the Queen's, or convinced him through some fanciful sophistry. But it just didn't fit. They'd sense enough (Varys especially, since our earlier talk) to keep their heads down until the storm passed, and I doubt any of them had much of a pressing desire to kill me in the first place.
Perhaps – God knows why – Jaime planned it himself, a fatal dose of initiative. Even beyond his apparent lack of motive, however, he surely must've recognized that it wouldn't have ended well for him (and should've had the sense to go with Valyrian steel, at the very least, anything more substantial than that pissy little letter opener.)
Honestly, it felt like some massive Rube Goldberg was toiling behind the curtains, but all I could see was my toast arriving at the table.
(Not that the truth behind this nonsense mattered that much to me, at the end of the day – the culprit was really, most sincerely dead, and I rather doubted that his co-conspirators, if they even existed at all, would've been much harder to handle.)
The long-suffering adult in the room, Arryn adopted as conciliatory a tone as he could, rubbing the few grey wisps of hair still clinging to his scalp.
"Yes, I … I see. Your claims are not … " He winced. " … entirely unbelievable, but they must, of course, be verified."
"Must they?" Stannis muttered. "We all know they're true."
I liked him more and more each time I saw him.
Cersei, meanwhile, looked a second from ripping his head off with her bare hands. "I will not, My Lord, suffer you to slander my brother." She sucked through her teeth. "And certainly not at the behest of his murderer."
Arryn interposed himself between them. "This is a delicate situation, Your Grace. We cannot rush to judgment."
"Rush to – ? Listen to yourself!" The queen threw up her arms. "She just admitted it!"
"If Ser Jaime did, in fact, attack Queen Marika, then that may well be a … mitigating factor."
"Look," I butt in, before they started again, "are any of you honestly going to mourn him?" I counted my fingers. "Smarmy at the best of times, questionable loyalty, horrible taste in wome – "
A blood-curdling scream – Cersei launched herself at me, intent to claw my eyes out.
The guards burst into the room, Lannister redcloaks seizing their Queen by the arms.
"Your Grace!"
She writhed and snarled, tears pouring down her cheeks, until her feral mania bled away, and all that remained was hatred. Wrenching her arms from their grips, she sneered some more, shot a few scowls, and then stormed out, her guards filing behind.
The doors slammed shut.
A moment passed in silence.
I clapped my hands together.
"Well, I'm pooped."
The councilmen stared, the stodgier ones faintly aghast.
"Pick up again tomorrow, yeah?"
Not bothering to wait for an answer, I steamrolled through their blinks and furrows, striding over to Robert.
"Capital."
The king blushed when, without warning, I scooped him into a bridal carry; and the others didn't dare to try and stop me when I hauled him from the small council chamber – through the halls, up the stairs, over the threshold into his bedroom.
My dress dissolved into motes of light.
I grinned.
Call it what you want – poor taste, poor timing, poor breeding – I wasn't going to let a little justifiable homicide stop me from enjoying myself.
Robert, certainly, had no objections.
V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V
Later that night, nearly the next morning, Robert sprawled on a feather mattress, while I slowly ran my fingers up and down his bicep – hard, thick muscle, pronounced without being grotesque, softened by a thin layer of fat.
More than satisfactory.
"I think I've overstayed my welcome."
Nothing official, not yet, but I'd a sense for these things: Westeros had gotten stale, and I'd done enough to make enough enemies.
Robert took a long, deep breath.
"Aye, you're probably right." He folded his hands, resting them on his bare stomach. "Where to next, then?"
"East. Valyria."
The mere mention of the place furrowed his brow, and he rolled over onto his side to eye me with concern.
Sweet of him.
"Don't worry," I chuckled, pulling him closer. "I'll be fine."
With my tit rubbing against his cheek, the king blushed some more.
"You could always stay here."
I raised a brow; he pressed on.
"They'll bitch and moan, but bugger them." He swallowed. "I'd be glad to have you."
Softly smiling, I kissed him on the forehead.
"You're a good man, Robert." Bizarrely enough, I actually believed it. "Though I'm afraid I must decline. Adventure calls, and now that I'm free … I won't chain myself to another throne."
I slayed the dragon, escaped from New York, achieved the object to which I'd devoted everything.
I don't regret it. How could I? The Lands Between were broken, fundamentally, one firm shove from oblivion.
As their accidental Queen, it fell upon me to fix them.
Such was my duty.
M̶y̶ ̶p̶e̶n̶a̶n̶c̶e̶.̶
But once you've won, what's left?
Ennui, inertia, a massive gaping hole, begging to be filled with something, anything, the smallest crumb of purpose.
And I knew I wouldn't find it here.
Besides, my last two marriages fell through quite spectacularly, so I wasn't holding out hope for a third.
We spent the next minute in companionable quietude – until impulse once more spurred me on.
"He isn't yours."
Robert shot me a questioning glance; raking my fingers through his hair, I held him tighter.
"Joffrey."
The king stiffened – after a moment, "Who?" he croaked.
"Who do you think?"
On some level, he must've already suspected it – he wasn't nearly as shocked as I thought he'd be. Just numb, deflated, filled with the ringing static of unwanted confirmation.
Twin or no, Jaime was always a bit too close to his sister.
"I suppose I should thank you," he murmured.
I rested my chin on his scalp.
"Whyever for? The truth always outs, I just hastened the inevitable."
For a time, he gazed vacantly at the ceiling.
"Is it strange I feel relieved? That I'm not his father?"
Absent-mindedly rubbing his shoulder, I scrounged for an answer.
Joffrey was a toddler, barely sapient, nowhere near the Caligula he'd have otherwise grown up to be – no, the kid wasn't the problem.
Rather, as I observed when we first met, you can either be a good politician or a good parent, and my bedmate found was stuck with the unenviable distinction of excelling at neither.
Robert commanded remarkable charisma, and boasted superb generalship, but simply hadn't a mind for the fine particularities of administration, and found the incessant scheming – the game of thrones, some might say – physically repellant. At his core, he was selfish, apathetic, in that harmless way you'd expect from a man constitutionally bereft of ambition – all he wanted was a horse and a spear, a forest to explore, and a nice girl to share it all with.
He never wanted to be king.
In light of this, the marriage to Cersei Lannister, though undoubtedly political, was intended as a consolation of sorts: in theory, if Robert was to be stuck with a crown, then there'd at least be a wife (albeit not the one he wanted) to support him, and children – a legacy – to give it all meaning.
The only trouble being, of course, that it was a marriage to Cersei Lannister.
At any other time, in any other place, he'd have probably been happy, enjoyed a simple life of simple pleasures.
Events instead conspired to shower him with greatness.
"I killed my firstborn."
It took me a second to realize what I'd said – the confession just about muttered itself.
Reciprocity, I suppose.
Robert tilted his head back to meet me in the eyes; beneath the roiling storm of emotion, plainest was his horror at the great taboo.
But he didn't flinch away.
I clung to that.
I trusted him.
"Others, too. Most of them. But he's the one I've dreams about."
I gave the lump in my throat a moment to deflate, my shuddering breath a moment to settle.
"I'd options. Alternatives. Even so, they'd have taken time, and I convinced myself I'd none to spare. Killing him was the expedient thing."
A swallow.
"It was easy. Like picking a flower."
'Oh, dear mother … '
"I don't … "
'... the flames, I feel them … '
"Well."
' … forgive me.'
"It is what it is."
Neither of us quite knew what to say.
His hand found mine; my thumb idly traced his palm.
Not love, but something.
V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V/\V
The battering ram crashed against the gate – splinters flying, hinges rattling, it nonetheless stood firm.
"Come on, you bastards!" a serjeant barked. "Put your backs into it!"
In keeping with its designer's paranoia, Maegor's Holdfast – the blocky castle-within-a-castle that towered above the rest of the Keep, smack dab in the middle of the hill – was divided internally into several different sections, each with their own defenses, bulwarks and guardposts and the like; in the event of a siege, or riot, or coup, the loss of one section wouldn't spell certain doom for the rest, thus giving the defenders time to regroup, and the royal family time to escape.
Though impulsive, belligerent, and almost comically neurotic, Cersei at least had the sense to recognize just how precarious her position had become: I'd killed her brother, fucked her husband, and seemed perfectly willing to shout from the mountaintops the fact that her son was an inbred bastard – a fact that may well have seen her entire House obliterated.
Her options, therefore, were decidedly limited.
Sticking around and feigning normalcy would've surely seen her dead by the end of the day, a week if lucky.
Fleeing the capital for friendlier territory was a long shot at best – she refused the indignity of going it alone, and her sizeable retinue of footmen and handmaids would've been sitting ducks out in the open.
A more military solution, meanwhile, was out of the picture entirely, her guard falling markedly short of the numbers needed to pose any sort of credible threat, much less stage a proper usurpation.
The only real option – the least bad choice – was to hunker in her chambers, buy her father time to mobilize, and hopefully make herself enough of an obstacle to force everyone to the table, and, most importantly, save herself from getting tossed straight inside a gibbet.
That was her thinking, anyways.
An ill-advised escalation, the way I personally saw it.
"Push! Push!"
"Where are those bloody climbing spikes?"
"You lot, with me! To the tunnels!"
Troopers from the King's and Hand's respective household guards scuttled about the foyer, their chainmail jingling, bootsteps thumping, officers shouting.
Robert, face flat, hands on his hips, gleaming in his full panoply, bobbed his head in acknowledgment when I approached him.
"Marika."
"Robert."
He offered me a handshake.
"Safe travels. It's been good to see you."
Brow raised, lips pursed, I briefly contemplated accepting it, spouting some equally polite inanity, and leaving things at that.
But boldness never served me wrong.
So, instead, I took a step closer, draped my arms across his shoulders, and pulled him into a kiss.
Tongues and spit, it was, perhaps, a touch more enthusiastic than strictly necessary.
I pulled away, smirking at his stupefied daze.
His eyes burned with gold – a parting gift.
Call me territorial.
The ram swung; the doors cracked open, slamming to the floor. Guardsmen poured into the breach, crashing against a thin line of Lannister redcloaks, bolts thwacking against their shields.
"I trust you have things sorted."
Robert blinked, newfound power thrumming beneath his skin, alien senses tickling his brain; a faraway nod.
"Good boy."
Shaking his head to clear his wits, then shooting me one last grin, he thrust his warhammer over his head, belted out a deafening war cry, then barreled over to join the assault, wading right into the thick of it.
"Fury!" the men cheered.
I wished him the best of luck.
Nobody bothered my companions and me as we worked our way to the harbor – in fact, save for some scattered beggars and dogs, the streets were practically abandoned, a queer tension lingering in the air.
The harbor, too, lacked its usual bustle, only a small handful of ships remaining at their moorings, their crews nervously making to depart.
I went down the line, accosting the captains, demanding their destinations – Oldtown, White Harbor, Sunspear …
"P-Pentos, My Lady," the chubby, hairy, swarthy monger stuttered.
I narrowed my eyes, visualizing a map.
"Can you take us any farther? Lys? Volantis?"
He shook his head, neck flapping like a wattle.
Essos, at least – I considered it progress.
We boarded the galleon, tossing the monger some gold; and, soon enough, we were bobbing out to sea, King's Landing slowly shrinking into the distance.
The humungous explosion came as a surprise.
It started at the Dragonpit – the earth swelled like a pimple, groaning and steaming, then violently erupted, gushing scorched masonry and emerald flame; next went Baelor's Sept, then the Gates, and then the streets, homes and shops and all the rest; bells and screams, sky choked with smoke, what still remained standing soon ignited into an inferno, patches of fire burning on the water.
Boat rocking, nostrils aflame with the telltale odor of sulfur and blood, the crew watched on in horror.
Brynden just stared at me accusingly.
In retrospect, I probably should've done something about the wildfire.
"They'll be fine," I declared.
Hopefully.
Spilt milk, though, really, either way.