It was a physical weight, a crushing, suffocating blanket of killing intent that drove Jaime to his phantom knees. It was an aura so overwhelmingly powerful, so devoid of mercy, that it made the Mad King's fiery madness feel like the temper tantrum of a toddler.
This was not the chaotic violence of a battle; this was the cold, absolute certainty of a natural disaster. It was the presence of a god of death.
Trembling, Jaime forced his eyes upward, tracing the river of blood to the absolute apex of the corpse mountain.
There, standing amidst the butchered ruin of a thousand monsters, was a man.
He was young, yet he radiated an ancient, terrifying authority. He was dressed in strange, flowing foreign garments—a dark uniform beneath a vivid, sun-faded red haori. His long, untamed black hair blew wildly in the phantom wind, the tips glowing with the same vibrant, bloody crimson as the infant's.
And on his forehead, illuminated by the hellish red moon, was the mark. The exact same jagged, flame-like brand that rested on the newborn's skin.
The man stood with his back partially turned, his posture completely relaxed, yet exuding a lethal perfection that made Jaime, one of the greatest swordsmen in Westerosi history, feel like a clumsy child holding a wooden stick.
In the man's hand was a sword—a blade of impossible design. It was not Valyrian steel, nor Castle Forged iron. The blade was glowing with a blinding, searing fiery red light, radiating a heat so intense that the blood on the corpses around him was visibly boiling into red steam.
Driven by a morbid, self-destructive compulsion, Jaime desperately tried to look at the monster's face. He needed to see the eyes of the creature that had wrought this apocalyptic slaughter.
The man atop the corpses slowly began to turn his head.
The moment their eyes were about to meet, the spiritual pressure peaked. It was like looking into the heart of a dying sun. The sheer, unadulterated purity of the killing intent—a purity utterly devoid of malice, yet absolute in its destructive promise—collided with Jaime's guilt-stained soul.
It was too much. The human mind was not built to withstand the aura of a peerless god.
With a sensation like a physical blow to the chest, Jaime was violently yanked backward, pulled down from the apocalyptic void, plunging through a vortex of screaming colors and rushing wind.
He slammed back into reality with a violent, full-body shudder.
"—aime! Jaime, by the Seven, what are you doing?!"
The voice sounded like it was coming from underwater, muffled and distant. Jaime gasped, sucking in a ragged, desperate breath of the warm, perfumed air of the bedchamber. His heart was hammering a frantic, painful rhythm against his ribs, fast enough to induce a heart attack. A cold, slick sweat had broken out across his entire body beneath his armor.
He was back in the Red Keep. The hearth fire was crackling pleasantly.
Only a few seconds had passed.
But the terror was not a dream. It was entirely, viscerally real. Jaime's hands, the steady hands of the Kingslayer, were shaking so violently that his gauntlets clattered softly against his breastplate. His eyes were wide, blown out with absolute terror, staring blindly at the space where the void had been.
He had completely lost control of his motor functions. The bundle of crimson silk in his arms tilted dangerously.
Yoriichi, utterly unfazed by the spiritual resonance that had nearly shattered the knight's mind, began to slip from Jaime's trembling grasp, sliding toward the cold stone floor.
"Jaime!"
Cersei shrieked, the sound tearing through the room. Her maternal instinct, sharp and feral, overrode her exhaustion. She threw herself to the edge of the mattress, her hands darting out like a striking viper. She caught the bundle of silk just before the infant tumbled out of Jaime's slackened arms.
Clutching the child tightly to her chest, Cersei scrambled back against the headboard, her green eyes blazing with pure, murderous fury.
"What is wrong with you?!" she spat, her voice a venomous hiss that echoed off the stone walls. "Are you drunk? Are you mad? My boy would have fallen to the floor if you were any more careless! You nearly killed the prince!"
Jaime did not answer. He couldn't. He was hyperventilating, his jaw slack, his eyes darting frantically around the room as if expecting the mountain of bloody corpses to materialize from the shadows of the tapestry.
Cersei's fury momentarily paused. She knew Jaime. She knew his arrogance, his grace, his unshakable confidence. She had seen him unhorsed in tourneys with a laugh, and she had seen him recount the murder of the Mad King with a lazy, indifferent shrug. She had never, not once in her entire life, seen her twin brother look terrified.
But right now, Jaime looked like a man who had just stared into the open maw of the Stranger. His usually vibrant green eyes were pale and unfocused, his skin the color of curdled milk.
A spike of genuine worry pierced through her anger. She carefully, protectively placed Yoriichi down on the mattress beside her, wrapping him securely in the heavy blankets to ensure he could not roll.
She leaned over the edge of the bed and grabbed Jaime by the heavy steel pauldrons of his armor, shaking him violently.
"Jaime! Wake up! Look at me!" she commanded, her voice dropping its royal cadence, sounding desperate and raw. "What happened to you? Jaime, speak to me!"
The physical shaking seemed to dislodge the remaining fragments of the vision. Jaime blinked, the opulent bedchamber finally coming back into sharp focus. He looked at Cersei's worried face, then his eyes darted to the bundle resting on the bed beside her.
The infant was looking right at him.
Calm. Silent. Indifferent.
The memory of the burning red blade and the boiling river of blood flashed behind Jaime's eyes. A surge of adrenaline, fueled by pure, unadulterated panic, flooded his system.
Jaime violently shoved Cersei's hands away and scrambled backward, his armored boots slipping frantically against the Myrish rugs. He didn't stop until his back slammed hard against the heavy oak door of the bedchamber, putting as much distance between himself and the bed as physically possible.
He stood there, chest heaving, his breath coming in ragged, audible gasps. Slowly, he raised a hand, his fingers trembling so badly he could barely keep them straight, and pointed directly at the silent infant lying on the silk sheets.
"Cersei..." Jaime rasped, his voice cracked and hollow, stripped of all its usual golden arrogance.
He swallowed hard, his eyes locked onto the crimson mark on the boy's forehead.
"That... that boy is a terrifying monster." Jaime's voice began to rise in pitch, laced with a hysterical, frantic edge. "He is a curse! I saw it, Cersei! I saw him! I saw him standing atop a mountain of corpses, bathed in blood and killing! The Gods have sent a demon to punish us!"