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Jaime Lannister's entrance shattered what little equilibrium remained in the study.
His gilded armor caught the candlelight and threw it back cold, a stark counterpoint to the complicated look on his handsome face.
His gaze swept past Eddard Stark and Varys without pausing, and landed on Lin En.
Scrutiny. Irritation.
And beneath both, something he hadn't noticed in himself. Something that looked almost like concern.
"Lysa Arryn has gone mad."
Jaime's voice cut through the silence, carrying that particular Lannister brand of arrogance — the kind that didn't bother dressing itself up.
"A widow who wept over her dead husband and retreated to the Eyrie to nurse her child — what exactly does she have to march on the North?"
He let the pause stretch.
"Her son's diapers?"
Varys, whose face never went anywhere without its smooth, accommodating smile, had the corner of his mouth twitch. Almost imperceptibly. Almost.
"Ser Lannister," he said, voice gentle and measured, "be that as it may — the knights of the Vale are as loyal to House Arryn as the stones of the Eyrie are hard."
"Lady Lysa may be mad."
"But a mad woman is often more terrifying than ten sane men."
"Enough!"
The bellow came from the doorway. Robert Baratheon lurched in, massive as a bear and swaying like one that had gotten into the mead, his face crimson, his body reeking of wine. But his eyes, clouded as they were by debauchery, poison, and drink, burned with a sickly, feverish excitement.
"One madwoman makes noise, and this is what you all look like?"
He scanned the room. His gaze settled on Lin En, and something openly amused lit his face.
"Perfect. I was starting to worry my good son-in-law would never get a chance to show his fangs."
The king's decree spread through the Red Keep before the hour was out.
An impromptu Small Council, convened in the dead of night, in a room that smelled of wine and schemes, was hastily assembled.
Inside the Throne Room, the air was thick enough to choke on.
Robert sat sprawled across the Iron Throne, one hand wrapped around his enormous golden goblet as though it held not wine but the authority of the Seven Kingdoms themselves.
Cersei sat below him. Her face was beautiful and frozen.
When Robert's decision reached her ears, fury ignited in those green eyes like a spark dropped in dry straw.
"Have you gone mad, Robert?"
The composure she wore as queen cracked completely.
"You want Lin En to face the entire strength of the Vale alone?"
"Myrcella only married him today!"
"You want to make her a widow on her wedding night?!"
"This was Petyr's fault to begin with. This concerns all Seven Kingdoms. You cannot make Lin En bear this alone!"
"Shut your mouth, you foolish woman!"
Robert cut her off with all the grace of an axe.
"This is men's business. What do you know about any of it?"
His gaze moved around the hall.
Renly wore that faint, unreadable smile of his, the one that meant he was enjoying himself. The Tyrell representative had gone carefully blank, watching nothing, committing to nothing. And the rest of the lords and bannermen were watching like sharks that had just caught a scent, their eyes bright with greed and anticipation.
They wanted Lin En dead under the hooves of Vale knights. They'd been waiting for a chance like this. Once he was gone, they could descend on his lands, barren as they were, and divide the scraps.
All of King's Landing was an arena. It always had been.
Everyone was waiting to see blood.
Robert savored it. He drained his goblet and hurled it to the floor with a crack that rang through the hall.
"Lin En!"
His voice thundered off the stone walls.
"Since the queen has spoken so passionately — I'll give you 3,000 men!"
"One month. Bring me the head of that madwoman Lysa Arryn!"
"Don't you have a dragon?"
"Aren't you supposed to be a fighter?"
"Then go!"
"Prove it to all of Westeros! Prove it to your king!"
"That Robert Baratheon's son-in-law is not some weakling hiding under a woman's skirts!"
He wasn't testing Lin En.
He was killing him.
3,000 men against the Vale. Lin En's death in exchange for smothering Lysa Arryn's rebellion, for buying the Iron Throne another year of stability. And when it was done, Lin En's dragon would be his. Daenerys, the woman who could control it, would be his. Lin En's business, his wealth, his holdings.
All of it.
This too was an option worth considering. A clean one, even.
The real problem was that Lin En was too powerful. Too powerful for Robert to sleep soundly. The suspicion had become constant, a low hum beneath every interaction.
Eddard Stark stood at the Hand's post and trembled.
He looked at the man on the Iron Throne, the friend whose soul had been eaten hollow by power and drink, and felt something give way inside him. Twenty years of loyalty. Twenty years of belief.
Ground to dust in an instant.
He thought of the campaigns they had ridden together. The wars they had survived. And what he had gotten in return: his daughter insulted, and the man he had welcomed as a son sentenced to die.
Eddard closed his eyes.
On that steadfast face, something that looked like grief and regret slowly surfaced.
Lin En, from first to last, simply stood there.
He watched the king raving on the Iron Throne. He watched the lords around him barely concealing their delight. He watched the despair settle into Eddard's face like something that had been there a long time, waiting to be named.
King's Landing was worse than he'd imagined.
He had believed that enough power was enough, that with sufficient strength, he could move through this game untouched.
He was wrong.
As long as Robert Baratheon sat that throne, there would be no peace. Not real peace.
After the poison, the man had become something beyond managing: suspicious, cruel, stupid, proud. Far less predictable than Lin En had ever accounted for. He was a child wandering through a house with a lit torch, too ignorant to understand what he was about to burn down.
And Lin En was the most visible piece of furniture in that house.
Robert had to die.
Even if Lin En could nudge and influence the king's thinking from the shadows, the thought was already there, already rooted deep, already growing.
Tywin's poison was too slow.
He might not have the luxury of waiting.
Lin En raised his head and met Robert's challenging stare. A mild smile appeared on his face.
"As you command, Your Grace."
"For the Seven Kingdoms, I am willing to do whatever is necessary."
---
The Small Council dissolved in barely concealed hostility.
Lin En didn't return to his wedding chamber. He walked alone to the walls of the Red Keep.
The night wind hit him hard, snapping his robes around him.
He stood over the sleeping city below, and the light in his eyes was colder than any star in the sky above it.
All he had ever wanted was space to build. Room to grow without the bleeding chaos of war dragging at him. But Robert wasn't giving him that anymore.
Fine. If that's what this was going to be, then that's what it would be.
He had the System. They had no one to blame when the bodies started adding up.
Soft footsteps sounded behind him.
He didn't turn. The footsteps told him everything he needed to know.
"Ser Lannister."
His voice drifted out into the wind.
Jaime Lannister came to stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder at the wall's edge.
He had left the gilded armor somewhere. He wore only a white silk shirt now, his short golden hair moving in the night breeze.
"You don't look worried."
Jaime studied his profile. There was something probing in his tone.
"Would it help?" Lin En said.
"No," Jaime admitted. "It really wouldn't."
A short, humorless sound.
"That fool Robert has made up his mind. He wants you dead."
A beat.
"Cersei is furious."
"I know."
"She doesn't want Myrcella widowed."
"I know that too."
Jaime went quiet.
He looked out at the darkness, and for once, that easy irreverence he wore like a second skin was gone. In its place was something heavier. Something real.
He thought about Myrcella as a little girl, trailing after him everywhere, tugging at his sleeve, calling him "uncle" in that unbearably sweet voice. He thought about how she'd looked at the wedding today, when her eyes found Lin En. There had been something in them he hadn't seen before.
Love. The uncomplicated kind. The kind that hadn't yet learned to protect itself.
He and Cersei had possessed that once, too.
He was not going to let it die.
"I'm coming north with you."
Jaime said it quietly.
Lin En turned to look at him.
"You're Kingsguard," he said. "Your oath is to protect the king. Not to follow me to war."
"Kingsguard." Jaime let the word sit in his mouth for a moment, like something with a bad taste. A self-deprecating smile pulled at his lips. "I stopped being an honorable knight a long time ago. You know that."
"I'm the Kingslayer."
"A traitor who killed his own king with his own hands."
"A man who can break any oath he swears."
He turned. Those green eyes, so like Cersei's, so like Myrcella's, found Lin En's face in the dark and held it.
"I'm not doing this for you, Lin En."
"I'm doing it so Cersei doesn't grieve."
"Her daughter will not lose her husband on her wedding night."
"That is a Lannister's shame. And mine."
His reasons were blunt, unpolished, and completely coherent.
What he didn't say was the part he couldn't quite bring himself to say aloud.
He was protecting his daughter.
Lin En looked at him.
This man. The Kingslayer. Despised across every corner of Westeros.
He found, somewhat to his own surprise, that the legend had been wrong. Or at least incomplete.
Whatever else he was, Jaime Lannister was a decent father. The kind who would set himself against the whole world if that's what it took.
"Robert gave me 3,000 men," Lin En said.
"The Vale has at least 20,000. Probably more if Lysa calls every banner."
"And my wildling army is barely equipped as it is."
Jaime shrugged.
"The Lannister army can march north whenever you need it."
"My father may not like you. But he likes the idea of his granddaughter left a widow even less."
Lin En was quiet for a moment.
"Tywin Lannister would actually agree to this?"
"He will."
The confidence in Jaime's smile was absolute.
Lin En stared at him.
That expression, utterly certain, completely matter-of-fact, and for a moment Lin En had nothing to say to it.
"Well?" Jaime raised an eyebrow. "One more ally is better than one more enemy. That's just arithmetic."
Lin En looked at the outstretched hand.
A moment of silence.
Then he reached out and took it, and they gripped hard.
"Welcome."
"I hope your sword is more reliable than your mouth."
"Worried about my reputation?"
Jaime's grin was sharp and self-aware.
"I understand the concern. My sword has killed a king, after all."
➤ Next: Jaime Longs for Recognition
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