The accusation hung in the stifling air, foul and heavy. Demon. Monster. Curse.
Cersei's reaction was instantaneous. The maternal warmth that had suffused her features just moments prior evaporated, replaced by the lethal, freezing fury. She pulled the silk blankets tighter around the silent, unblinking infant, shielding him from Jaime as if her twin brother were an assassin sent by Robert himself.
"Have you lost your mind?" Cersei hissed, her green eyes flashing with a dangerous, manic light.
"Why must you always speak such absolute nonsense against him? Why are you lying to me, Jaime? Are you so petty, so consumed by your own bruised pride, that you must invent ghosts and demons to ruin my triumph?"
Jaime was still pressed hard against the heavy oak door of the bedchamber. The cold, iron-banded wood offered a grounding reality against his armored back, but his hands were still trembling. He looked at his beautiful, furious sister, and for the first time in his life, he felt a chasm opening between them—a rift carved not by politics or duty, but by something entirely unnatural.
He forced himself to take a deep, shuddering breath, trying to corral his racing heart. He needed her to understand. He needed her to see the apocalyptic truth hidden behind those calm, burgundy eyes.
"Cersei... Cersei, listen to me," Jaime pleaded, his voice cracking, devoid of its usual golden arrogance. He pushed off the door, taking a single, hesitant step forward, his hands raised in a placating gesture. "This is no lie. By the light of the Seven, I swear it to you. This is the absolute truth."
"Truth?" she scoffed, a bitter, venomous sound. "You stare at a newborn babe for five seconds and suddenly you are a prophet? You are pathetic."
"I... I don't know how, but suddenly I was there," Jaime continued, his words rushing out in a desperate, frantic torrent. He couldn't stop looking at the mark on the boy's forehead. "My mind, my soul—it was pulled from my body. I was in that place. That monster... I saw him."
Jaime's breath hitched as the phantom stench of blood and sulfur briefly invaded his senses again. "I saw a mountain of corpses, Cersei. Not men I think. They were twisted, unnatural things, butchered and piled to the sky. And the killing intent... Gods, the killing intent. It was suffocating. It felt like standing at the epicenter of a blazing inferno that wanted nothing more than to reduce the world to ash."
He closed the distance by another step, his eyes wide and pleading. "Tell me, Cersei, doesn't this all show and speak of something terrible? We have committed treason. We have defied the laws of gods and men in our bed. The High Septon preaches of the Seven's judgment... I believe they have finally seen our deeds. They have sent him to punish us."
For a long, tense moment, the room fell silent. The crackle of the hearth fire was the only sound.
Cersei stared at Jaime, her chest heaving. The sheer, naked terror on her brother's face was impossible to ignore. Jaime was the Kingslayer. He did not frighten. Yet here he was, shaking like a green boy facing his first vanguard.
And deep in the dark, paranoid corners of her own mind, Cersei's ironclad certainty wavered. She remembered the unbearable, unnatural heat of the labor. She remembered the eerie lack of crying. She remembered the alien, foreign word—Yoriichi—that had been forcefully planted in her mind like a seed of dark magic. Strange things were happening. She could not deny it.
A few errant teardrops, born of absolute physical exhaustion and overwhelming emotional whiplash, broke free and tracked down her pale cheeks. She looked down at the child. Yoriichi was still perfectly calm, his tiny chest rising and falling with that rhythmic, hypnotic breath.
Haaah...
"He is a blessing," Cersei whispered, her voice trembling, laced with a desperate, stubborn denial. She looked back up at Jaime, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "Why must I tell you this again and again? The Gods would not give me a weapon just to destroy me. They gave him to me so I could destroy our enemies."
"Yes... yes, that's exactly the thing," Jaime cut her off, his voice dropping to an urgent, chilling calm as he misinterpreted her vulnerability for agreement.
"I saw the future, Cersei. That boy's future. He will kill. He will kill so many that even I, who stood ankle-deep in Targaryen blood, tremble at the sight of it. I have never seen a force like that. Not the Mountain, not the Mad King, not Robert with his hammer. Westeros will not be able to face a calamity like him. If he grows, he will consume everything. He will consume us."
Cersei's brilliant, twisted mind could understand the logic of Jaime's terror. She knew power was a double-edged sword. But her heart—the fiercely possessive, narcissistic heart of a mother who saw her children as extensions of her own greatness—refused to yield. He was special. He was hers. That was all that mattered.
The exhaustion of the night finally seemed to break her formidable defenses. She slumped slightly against the pillows, looking suddenly very small and very tired.
"If... if he is such a calamity," Cersei asked quietly, her voice barely above a whisper, "then what should we do, Jaime? The court is full of vipers. Robert is a drunken beast. If this child brings ruin... should I go somewhere? Should I take my children and flee?"
Jaime stopped, surprised by the sudden shift.
Cersei looked up at him, her green eyes wide and vulnerable, offering him the very dream that had kept him sane through years of guarding a king he despised. "A place where no men can harm them," she murmured, her voice dripping with intoxicating sorrow.
"Across the Narrow Sea, perhaps. To Pentos, or Braavos. A quiet keep where I can raise my children alone, away from the throne, away from the lies." She reached out a trembling hand toward him. "Will you go with me, Jaime? Will you leave your white cloak behind?"
Jaime's breath caught in his throat. For a single, blinding second, the terror of the vision was washed away by the sheer, overwhelming beauty of the fantasy.