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King's Landing, the Queen Dowager's Chambers.
Cersei Lannister submerged herself in a tub filled with scalding hot water, rose petals drifting on the surface.
She closed her eyes, trying to use the searing heat to drive away the chill seeping from the bottom of her heart.
But it was useless.
Joffrey's eyes, filled with venomous hatred, were still plunged into her chest like daggers.
"You are a woman without virtue!"
"A slut who seduces her own kin!"
"What is the difference between you and those women in the brothels who sell their bodies for copper?!"
Ungrateful wretch!
The son she had spent her life protecting, indulging, and paving the way for, had used the most vicious language to insult her.
And her father, Tywin Lannister, that eternally calm, eternally correct man.
For the sake of so-called family interests, he was treating her like a broodmare to be sold to the highest bidder—just as he had sold her to Robert, now he was selling her to the Tyrells of Highgarden.
In her son's eyes, she was a shameless slut.
In her father's eyes, she was a mare that could be bred at any time to exchange for profit.
She had lived through tragedy, thought the nightmare was over, only for it to replay again.
What had her life been for?
For Jaime, she bore the world's most vicious infamy.
For Joffrey, she exhausted all her efforts, enduring Robert Baratheon's humiliation and cold violence.
For the glory of House Lannister, she staked everything on this gambling table of power.
But in the end, what did she get?
Jaime was far away in the North and had actually chosen to fight for Lynn.
Joffrey hated her to the bone, piercing her last shred of dignity as a mother with the most vicious words.
And her father, the man she once feared most and whose approval she craved most, unhesitatingly pushed her into another fire pit.
Marry Loras Tyrell?
Who in all of King's Landing didn't know what secrets that "Knight of Flowers" hid in his breeches?
He liked men!
He loved Renly Baratheon!
To make her marry a fellow who liked "sword swallowing" behind men's backs?
This was more humiliating than marrying a mountain goat!
Yes, Tywin wouldn't care if her betrothed liked men or women.
He only needed the other party's seed.
As long as she could get pregnant, what did anything else matter?
Cersei's body began to tremble violently.
Those once incredibly proud emerald eyes were now dead ash.
No.
She could not accept such a fate!
She was Cersei Lannister, the Queen Dowager of the Seven Kingdoms, the most beautiful woman in Westeros—did she deserve only such an end?
She was unwilling!
She stood up abruptly from the tub, water splashing everywhere.
The mirror reflected a mature, voluptuous body that could still drive any man mad.
She looked at herself.
This body that had been conquered in the roughest way by that devil Lynn.
Lynn...
At the thought of this name—fear, shame, resentment... and a trace of sickly desire she wouldn't admit even to herself.
That man, he was like a true dragon, barging into her life with the most tyrannical posture, tearing all her pride and dignity to shreds.
He possessed her, humiliated her, threatened her.
But he... also acknowledged her.
In his eyes, she wasn't some Queen Dowager, not some political tool of the Lannisters.
She was a woman more beautiful than others.
A woman who could arouse his desire, making him want to conquer.
This undisguised desire made Cersei feel she was still a woman, not some political chip...
"Your body exists for my use alone..."
That domineering and possessive whisper rang in her ears again.
That sentence had once made her feel immense shame and fear.
But now, when she heard she was to be married to another man, that unreasonable declaration echoed repeatedly in her ears like the sweetest vow.
She was his.
Even if just a plaything he tired of, she belonged to him alone; no one else could touch her!
Her father had no right to sell her like goods to someone else!
Cersei's hand moved down uncontrollably...
"Lynn..."
A crazy idea grew and spread uncontrollably in Cersei's mind.
Escape!
She wanted to escape this cage!
She wanted to go to the North!
She wanted to find that man!
She wanted to tell him personally that she hadn't betrayed him!
She wanted him to see what price she paid to keep their "contract"!
Maybe he would pity her for it.
Maybe he would reignite his interest in her body.
Regardless, it was better than being treated as a broodmare and married to a "Knight of Flowers"!
Cersei stopped her movements and rushed out of the bathroom, not even drying the water droplets from her body.
She pulled open the wardrobe, throwing expensive gowns onto the floor one by one.
She needed a disguise.
She rummaged through chests and finally found, at the bottom of the wardrobe, a few plain handmaiden dresses she used to wear secretly to sneak out of Casterly Rock when she was a girl.
With trembling hands, she put on the linen dress that no longer fit well, wrapping her dazzling golden hair tightly in a headscarf.
The woman in the mirror looked so strange, so... humble.
But in her eyes burned a fire like never before.
She took all the gold dragons and jewelry she could carry from her jewelry box, stuffing them into an inconspicuous cloth bag.
She knew the secret passages of the Red Keep.
They were the masterpiece of Maegor the Cruel.
Intricate and complex, spreading throughout the castle underground.
She had once accidentally discovered an entrance behind the fireplace in her bedroom.
As long as she could leave the Red Keep through the secret passage, she could blend into the crowded slums of King's Landing, then find a way to get a ship to White Harbor in the North.
Everything was planned.
Cersei took a deep breath and pushed open the loose stone brick behind the fireplace.
A cold draft hit her face.
Without hesitation, lifting her skirt, she dove into the unknown darkness.
The passage was pitch black, the stone steps underfoot slippery and uneven.
Cersei stumbled along, almost falling several times.
But at the thought of Loras's face, pretty as a woman's, and her father's cold eyes, she gritted her teeth and pressed on.
After walking in the darkness for who knows how long, a faint light finally appeared ahead.
The exit!
It was an exit leading outside the city walls.
Once through there, she would be free!
Cersei's heart beat wildly.
She quickened her pace, almost running toward the light.
She crawled out from behind the iron grate of a sewer.
The salty, fishy smell of seawater rushed into her nose.
She saw it.
She saw the docks not far away, saw the ships moored in the harbor, saw the azure sea leading to freedom!
She succeeded!
She really escaped!
A wave of ecstasy surged in her heart; Cersei almost wanted to laugh out loud.
However.
A calm voice, like a basin of ice water from the Land of Always Winter, instantly extinguished all her joy.
"My daughter, where are you going?"
The ecstasy on Cersei's face froze instantly.
Slowly, slowly, she turned her head.
In the shadow of the docks, a figure stood quietly.
Tywin Lannister.
He wasn't wearing the magnificent robes symbolizing the Hand of the King, just simple black leather armor.
Behind him stood only two Lannister guards.
But just standing there, he was like an insurmountable mountain, blocking all of Cersei's retreat completely.
"Father..."
Cersei murmured.
The cloth bag in her hand fell to the ground with a thud, gold dragons and jewelry spilling everywhere.
She didn't understand.
She didn't understand how her father knew her plan.
Was there a mechanism in the secret passage she didn't know about?
Or did he have spies around her?
Or...
could this man truly calculate everything?
Tywin ignored her, simply bending down to pick up a gold dragon that had rolled to his feet.
He rubbed the gold coin with his thumb and forefinger, then raised his eyes to look at his daughter, whose face was pale and body trembling.
In his eyes, there was no anger, no surprise.
Only a disappointment... thick enough to drown in.
"I gave you the Lannister name, the honor of Queen Dowager of the Seven Kingdoms, everything a woman could possess."
"And you, you want to dress in handmaiden's clothes and run away with this pitiful gold."
"Cersei, you disgust me."
He pocketed the gold dragon.
"I always thought that although you were foolish, you at least retained a shred of Lannister pride."
"Now it seems I was wrong."
"You are not only foolish, but base and ignorant of the times!"
"You don't even qualify as a passable political chip!"
He waved his hand.
The two guards immediately stepped forward, grabbing Cersei's arms from left and right.
"No! Let me go!"
Cersei finally reacted from the shock and fear, starting to struggle frantically, screaming.
"You can't do this to me! I am the Queen Dowager! I am your daughter!"
Tywin ignored her wailing.
He simply turned his back to her, leaving her with a resolute silhouette.
"Take her back to the Red Keep. Lock her in the top floor of Maegor's Holdfast."
Maegor's Holdfast again!
The place where the Mad King's queens were once imprisoned!
She had been there once already!
"No! Father! Please! I was wrong!"
Cersei was thoroughly terrified.
She began to cry, to beg.
But Tywin's steps didn't pause in the slightest.
"Tell the people of Highgarden that Cersei Lannister has caught a chill and is unwell, needing rest."
"The wedding can be postponed."
His voice sealed off Cersei's last hope completely.
"You will stay there until you understand."
"What your duty is as a Lannister."
"Or, until you rot in that room."
And all of this was seen by a young girl not far away.
...
Meanwhile, in the distant North.
An endless expanse of white connected with the grey sky.
A colossal wall spanning heaven and earth, like an eternal scar, was carved onto this vast land.
Even having lost its magic, the Wall remained magnificent.
Myranda tightened her bear-fur cloak, subconsciously leaning closer to Lynn.
She looked at the endless ice wall, awe in her eyes.
"My Lord, are we... really going over there?"
She had heard stories about the Wall.
It was the end of the world, the border between the living and the dead.
It was a place of exile for the forgotten and criminals.
"Of course."
Lynn smiled.
He ignored the commotion among the Night's Watch on the seemingly distant Castle Black watchtower caused by seeing them.
His gaze crossed the towering ice wall, landing on the land covered in eternal ice and snow beyond.
The Haunted Forest.
Beyond the Wall.
He could feel it.
Deep in that dark forest, a pair of eyes was watching him.
"Heh."
Lynn let out a light chuckle, which turned into a puff of white mist in the cold air.
You like hiding behind the scenes watching the play, like being a chess player?
Lynn turned around, his gaze landing on a "thin" Winter Wight.
The Winter Wight wore the face of Robert Arryn, without a single flaw.
Even he, without his unique connection, would think this was Robert Arryn.
"Old crow, I've found your successor for you."
Lynn spoke softly to the empty void.
"I wonder if you like this gift I carefully prepared for you?"