Asha?

  She had grown rather fond of Dorne this past moon. It wasn't Lys with its beaches of purest white sand and water like glass, but it was still everything the iron islands weren't.

  It didn't hurt that she grew more rich each time her Black Wind set sail thanks to that uncanny gull Solomon had left with her. While she had heard the Farwynds of Lonely Light were skinchangers, she had not seen it for herself until she met the man that always made her feel a fool.

  Though it did beg the question of why the Farwynds were so poor then.

  She sighed as she put it out of mind. The Dornish did not love her, she knew, but they had grown close anyway, a fledgling alliance of Houses Greyjoy, Martell, and Targaryen having come together. Asha was still uncertain about throwing her lot in with Viserys Targaryen, but she could admit the would-be king had taken Solomon's words to heart.

  He had even asked if he could join her on one of her forays, which she found simply adorable.

  Mmm, perhaps she would bed him also. She did not imagine it would be too hard to wrap a man like him around her pinky finger. Certainly not like a certain sorcerer she could name.

  Her poor rear had been sore for half a moon for indulging him, but how could she not after such a display? It had terrified her as much as it lit her womanhood on fire.

  "Greyjoy!" Asha stirred as she recognized the voice for Nymeria's.

  Oberyn Martell's bastard daughter was as sharp as the whip she carried, sharper than any of her sisters, certainly. Asha had tried to make friends with Arianne Martell as well, but the Dornish princess had already pinned her as a rival for some childish reason.

  She left her cabin, looking down at Nym from her high deck. "Miss me already?"

  Prince Oberyn had recently returned from the Red Mountains so she expected that Nymeria would not return at least until the next day.

  "Something like that!" she shouted back.

  That snake of a woman being so vague. She knew Asha could never deny her curiosity.

  She took one of the ropes down to the docks, her feet not as steady as upon her beloved ship. Qarl had followed her after a sigh.

  He had quieted with Solomon gone, but he was still petulant sometimes. But then she had always liked that. Made it more fun to have that pretty face between her legs when he complained.

  Nym soon spirited them away to Sunspear, into one of the windowless rooms below she hadn't yet seen. It was as damp as it was cool, and rather crowded with Martells and Sands. Viserys Targaryen was there as well with a thin smirk on his lips.

  He swiftly stood as she entered, stalking over to kiss her hand, his hair like polished cobalt tickling her arm. "I am pleased to see you've joined us, my lady."

  Her eyes found Prince Oberyn watching what looked like a knight bound-and-gagged with a dark smile. There was a sigil of a manticore on his breast. It seemed familiar to her, a house from the westerlands if she wasn't mistaken.

  Then it hit her. "House Lorch."

  "Mmm, the manticore is rather distinctive," the roguish prince husked. "We found Ser Amory here lost in the Red Mountains. It would have been such a shame if the thirst killed him."

  She scratched at her cheek thoughtfully. Why would a knight whose name was only known for butchering a Dornish princess ever show his face in Dorne? The answer didn't take long in coming to her.

  Sorcery.

  "Now that we are all here," she heard a softer voice say. Asha couldn't help some surprise at seeing Prince Doran standing, if with the help of a gnarled and pale cane.

  "Yes," Viserys left her side to take a seat on the throne there, a thing of carven stone with a cloth of orange velvet placed over it. "I think we are all aware of your crimes, Ser Amory. But we are not monsters. Not like you." The knight's gag was removed. "How—"

  "Your Grace, p-please! My guilt is only one of circumstance! Lord T-Tywin, he threatened me, threatened my house with the s-same fate as the Reynes and the Tarbecks if I did not obey!"

  Asha almost gagged at how snotty and blubbery it all was said.

  "You accuse Lord Tywin Lannister of charging you to the task?"

  "Y-Yes, Your Grace! Lord Tywin wanted Prince Rhaegar's line wiped out, root and stem!"

  Viserys nodded, his cheeks seeming gaunter in the dim room. "And I assume the same is true of Ser Gregor Clegane?"

  Asha spied Prince Oberyn carefully sharpening a thin dirk as he watched, all his eldest bastard daughters standing behind him, all as hungry as him.

  "Yes, Your Grace! Y-You have the right of it!"

  "Your confession is noted, Ser Amory." He did not ponder the issue long. "I find your defense woefully lacking, however, and seeing as your guilt is—"

  "P-Please, Your Grace! You m-m-must see t-that—"

  Prince Oberyn gagged him again, and what a mercy that was. If she had to hear another word, she would have slit his throat herself.

  Viserys tried to speak again, but the fat knight squirmed and groaned unpleasantly. Like a pig rolling around in the mud. "I strip you of your knighthood first, and shame on whoever had done the deed. Finally, Amory of House Lorch, I sentence you to die."

  The blubbery mess on the floor only blubbered harder, at least until Prince Oberyn met him with a dark smile and touched the dirk to his thick neck. "They said that you had stabbed my niece half-a-hundred times. I could scarcely imagine at the time a knight could have been so unmanned by a girl of three years that he thought it necessary." The Dornish prince hissed the words near alike to the viper whose name he had taken. "You will not die today, nor tomorrow, nor a moon from now. You need not wait for the seven hells at all, for I will make one for you right here."

  It was a shame she had not met the Red Viper when he was younger. A man like that she would have bedded with no regrets.

  As the blubbering hunk of lard was dragged from the throne room by the Dornish prince, Nymeria blowing her a kiss as she and her sisters followed, she spied Viserys leaning back into the throne with a tired sigh.

  "You did well, Your Grace."

  "This isn't done until I see Lord Tywin dancing with the Stranger on a noose, Prince Doran." There was something like fire in his pale eyes that she quite liked.

  "I long to see that day as well." She could hardly read the elderly man, for the lines of his face could have been cut from stone as always.

  His daughter soon neared the would-be king on his throne. "Will you join me for a stroll, Your Grace? I think the fresh air will do us both well."

  Asha saw Viserys nod after a moment, though she joined them as he stood. "You won't mind if I join you?"

  Arianne sent her an unhappy look, but her betrothed only gave a satisfied smile. "It would please me if you did, my lady."

  They soon left the dreary room behind for more sunny grounds, and she relished each and every frown the Dornish princess sent her.

  It helped her not to dwell on the horrors she saw each time she closed her eyes now…

  Jaime?

  He wetted his dry, chapped lips as he watched Stannis Baratheon's men take crate after crate aboard the Fury. It was a cool day in King's Landing today, the wind from the narrow sea leaving a chill in his bones as if the Seven were touching a hand to the scales to speed the wildfire away from the city.

  He gave a soft snort at the thought. He had believed in the Seven once, but a year with Aerys the Second was all it had taken to smother his faith. The Seven could no more stop Aerys than they could Maegor the Cruel.

  More likely it was that the long summer was finally beginning to wane…

  His eyes turned to Stark's men as they brought another heavy crate and gently laid it down next to the others. With each one he wished he would have slayed Rossart sooner.

  The breadth of wildfire that he and his fellow madmen had been able to produce in the short time they had was obscene. Truly, it was a mercy that Aerys had never sent for a red priest and priestess of his own. The last thing the paranoid monster needed was madmen who loved fire as much as him whispering in his ear of their god.

  Thoros of Myr had done a few sermons that he could remember, but so sparingly that Jaime had imagined the Lord of Light as a god of spirits at one time. Stannis's red priestess had left him with no such delusions, and her sermons often continued through the night.

  It didn't make him sleep any easier knowing the red priestess was a sorceress in her own right, but then Solomon also told him not to worry, that her heart was in the right place in the end.

  Jaime gave a soft sigh. For all Solomon asked him for nothing and was always happy to listen to him, he still could not help but feel a pawn in the sorcerer's plans sometimes.

  "A dreary day, isn't it?" he heard someone comment.

  He looked down to find Tyrion giving him a mismatched smile. He could be as quiet as a ghost sometimes.

  "At least it means we are less likely to be courting disaster this way."

  "Truly? I have found my nights more restless since finding out we have all been living atop a tinderbox."

  Jaime scratched at his smooth cheek. "Have you told him?" He did not need to elaborate who.

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  Tyrion snorted. "And be accused of having had too much to drink? He never gave a thought to what foolishness our sweet sister got up to unless it was thrown in his face, and I imagine it will be the same here."

  Jaime could only imagine what his little brother would think of him if he'd known how often he entertained the same foolishness with her. Though that only brought his thoughts to how Cersei had spurned him these past moons. He saw the sense in not smothering Robert's spawn to protect their other children, but that did not mean they need be apart.

  With the whoremonger and the eunuch gone, it was even safer for them to see one another, and still she denied him.

  "I was thinking of asking the foul sorcerer we have lurking about if he knew how to fix the issue of my small stature," Tyrion continued. "Do you think he'd go for it?"

  Jaime could not tell if he was jesting, but he assumed so. "He might demand your firstborn," he whispered back unseriously.

  "I would take it in a heartbeat seeing as I lack one. I would be more worried if he asked that I give up whoring and wine. I could think of no price more heavy."

  They both chuckled until they heard another join them.

  "I would not be so quick to say so," Solomon said as if he had heard every word. Jaime did not see where he had even come from.

  "Oh, I am quite sure I lack one. As if any whore would not chase me down if I had, demanding Lannister gold."

  "Unless she's had her fill of Lannisters."

  Solomon's dark eyes caught his, and suddenly he understood. He had mentioned it once before, the lie his lord father insisted Tyrion be made to swallow. It was for his own good, he had said. The lowborn wench would ruin him as their grandfather's mistress ruined him.

  The guilt returned with a vengeance.

  Tyrion thankfully did not suspect it more than a jest as the sorcerer continued. "Though I fear I am here on other business. The Lady Melisandre has seen men with a mockingbird on their cheeks where fishmongers tread."

  Jaime hardly noticed the stench of fish anymore with how often he had been in the docks these past few days. His eyes scanned all the men he saw though nothing suspicious stood out to him.

  Solomon appeared entirely unbothered despite his own words, his eyes closed.

  "Then I best leave it to you," Tyrion said. "We dwarves don't make for very brave knights."

  He felt some relief at the words but did not voice it, giving his leave to enjoy his whoring and drinking instead.

  There was a quiet for a time until the sorcerer broke it. "The truth will out whether you wish it or not, Ser Jaime." He was still serene as he stood next to him, his dark hair having grown longer and more messy as it touched his back. "He will only take it worse the longer you wait."

  "He would hate me, and I wouldn't blame him. He loved her."

  "He still does."

  Jaime let out a nervous breath. "She gave him a child?"

  "A daughter," the sorcerer revealed.

  "Gods have mercy," he whispered. "She would be almost three-and-ten now." A Lannister. His niece.

  "Quite. I will not pretend that you did not do him an injustice, ser. It is in your hands to make amends."

  He wanted to pretend he hadn't heard a word instead, but he could not be such a coward. Not before a man who had seen his heart and said he found it true.

  "Where is she now?" Surely he knew. He always knew.

  "Braavos. There they know her as the Sailor's Wife, for she only beds a man she has married. Her daughter she named Lanna, a girl with golden curls, one eye green and one eye blue…"

  Lanna. It might as well be staring them in the face.

  Jaime had to tell him. Damn the consequences, he had carried this guilt long enough. Tywin Lannister did not deserve his silence.

  Still he sat there, wondering what the right words were. Coward, his thoughts yelled at him. Just tell him. "I—"

  Solomon's eyes had opened suddenly, and he followed where they went. Three men slowly meandering their way down the docks, crates of what looked like fish in their hands.

  "We have our would-be villains."

  Jaime had already drawn his sword, staring them down as they retrieved their own weapons from the crates they were carrying, allowing them to fall and break upon the floor after.

  They came quickly at the heavy crate Baratheon's men had just picked up with a bravery that surprised him, seeing as he stood in their way, armed and armored. He easily slit one of their throats, but the man never stopped running, almost mindless. What had the whoremonger threatened them with?

  Baratheon's men had set the crate back down and moved to guard it, but it was too late, one of the three having gotten through, his mace poised to smash into the crate of wildfire.

  His heart caught in his chest as he knew he couldn't reach him in time, but the thin reed of a man had suddenly lurched, the mace falling from fingers just as thin as he fell to his knees and screamed like a man that had just been gelded, clutching at his skull and tearing at his hair.

  Jaime moved to put him out of his misery as Baratheon's men had done to the other two, hacking them apart with swords until they stopped moving. "Peace, Ser Jaime. We might still learn something, unlikely as it is."

  He saw Solomon giving the whimpering man on the cobblestones a soft smile. For all he knew the man was a sorcerer, he had never seen it with his own eyes. To fell a man without a touch frightened him more than he would have thought.

  Stannis Baratheon had also been lured out of his cabin, staring down at them all. "Whose men?"

  "Baelish's," Solomon answered simply.

  The Baratheon lord ground his teeth a moment before he swept back into his cabin.

  Stark's men soon returned to find the chaos, dragging the man at their feet away to the black cells.

  Solomon laid a hand on his shoulder after. "Let us return to the Red Keep. I imagine you are as famished as I am."

  He nodded after glancing at the bloodied cobblestones. It was well past noon now.

  Jaime's thoughts quickly returned to what they were speaking on earlier, though it would take him a few more days to muster the courage to go through with it.

  Tyrion thought it a bad jest at first. "Father insisted it was in your best interests to learn that lesson early and I… I was too much fool to deny him."

  His mismatched eyes had turned half mad. "Lesson?" he croaked. "He had her… my wife… raped, and then he bid you to name her a whore. And you did."

  Jaime pulled at his golden locks. "You have the right of it."

  "Why tell me now," Tyrion asked incredulously. "What can I do but drown myself in more wine?"

  "You have a daughter," he quickly muscled through. "A daughter, Tyrion. Her name is Lanna."

  "Lanna," he whispered hoarsely. Suddenly his eyes turned stormy again. "The sorcerer. He told you."

  Jaime nodded hesitantly. "Tysha had taken the coin and left the Seven Kingdoms behind entirely for Braavos. She still resides there at the Happy Port."

  "How could I even show my face after I believed my father's lies spoken from your lips?" he asked. " I should have known better. She loved me, Jaime. Sang for me. You and Father, you ruined everything."

  He had not a word in his defense.

  "Would you have even told me had Solomon the oh-so Magnificent never graced King's Landing with his presence?"

  Would he have reopened an old wound with nothing to show for it? No. But he did not say that.

  "Say something, damn you. You've too much of a cock for the silent sisters. I thought you would know with how often you've put it in Cersei."

  He met his eyes again nervously. "You knew?"

  "I kept your secret because you have never hurt or humiliated me like she did. More fool I." Tyrion spat on the stones as he left, smothering the room in silence.

  His heart hurt but he knew it could have gone worse.

  He found Tyrion the next morning already in his traveling clothes. Normally he would be nursing the wine he had the night before until noon, but not now.

  "You're going to Braavos," he whispered.

  "Even if it kills me, and maybe that would be for the best. There are enough storms in the narrow sea."

  He stared a moment as he came to a decision that might well cost him his head. "Let me come with you."

  Tyrion seemed surprised at the words, but then so was he.

  "A Kingsguard going where his king is not?" It was said mockingly, but there was an undercurrent of something else.

  "Barristan will have to miss me for a moon or two," he answered more easily. Now that he had said the words, he felt the tingle of excitement in his fingers. He had never been to Braavos.

  Tyrion looked at him with those mismatched eyes that made it hard to read his mood. "I still have not forgiven you."

  "I did not expect you to," he simply said.

  "And the wildfire?"

  "Almost gone from King's Landing now."

  Tyrion had a ghost of a smile on his lips now. "Father will be furious."

  Jaime tried to match it. "I hope so."

  They had quickly found a Braavosi merchant after. They certainly weren't starved for coin, and the Braavosi loved their coin. Soon enough they had set sail.

  He hadn't even told Cersei, but he did not find himself much caring. Imagining her shock when she heard put a smile on his lips instead.

  Whatever they would find in Braavos, he was happy to get away from this stinking rot of a city.

  He hadn't felt like this since Ser Arthur Dayne had knighted him.