Cersei?

  Her son sat the throne of the Kings of the Rock of old, a thing carved from a vein of gold that ran down the back of the cavernous throne room. He cut a dashing figure, a crown of antlers and shimmering rubies resting on his golden curls, only marred by a petulant frown.

  She knew he wanted nothing more than to take the field against the Tyrells, just as brave and foolhardy as Jaime, yet her lordly father had bid he learn something of kingship first. The long, winding line of petitioners come to beg favor from Casterly Rock made for a dull sight.

  The Hound loomed over the procession not unlike a gargoyle, his monstrous visage none softer for the white cloak he was given. Ser Flement Brax had also taken the vows of the Kingsguard, or the Unicorn Knight as some knew him, a spiral horn springing from his helm. Ser Meryn stood nearer to the towering doors, the third member of that brotherhood there.

  Her eyes raked next across the assembled court thick with Lannisters.

  Her uncle stood next to his chinless, chicken-legged wife and their children. All except for Lancel, who had followed her dead husband to the bottom of the narrow sea.

  Her other uncles she cared even less for, one a dullard and the other a lackwit.

  She spared not a glance at her aunt's weasel of a husband and his weasel sons, as much Lannister as pondwater.

  "My treacherous uncle schemes to steal my throne and you come to me complaining about sheep and goats?" Her Joff clutched the lion head armrests as he glowered down at the two cowering beneath his throne. "Ser Ilyn, take a hand from each of them. At least one will be a thief's."

  The dull procession continued for some time yet.

  That night she dreamed of Solomon, but they were only dreams. The morning found the sun caressing her skin like a lover's sigh.

  Sometimes she had wondered if Maegor's Holdfast were as cursed as men said. Rare were the days when her dreams had not been troubled within its walls, and in winter the wind passing through the cracks in the stones had oft sounded to her like wails, long and haunting.

  Renly and his dolt of a queen could choke on it, she thought with a sneer.

  She had thought to take Margaery Tyrell into her confidence once, more fool she. The girl had the wits of a particularly clever pigeon, just as like to repeat anything she heard to anyone who asked as tell her anything she cared to hear.

  Soon she stared into the mirror with its burnished gold frame. After Tommen she had seemed a horror for six moons, her beauty marred by the sagging skin of an old crone. Now, not even three moons after she bore her twins into this world, her beauty was already returned to her, the fruits of the sorcery Solomon had worked clear as day.

  Of all the stories her mother spoke to her, the ones she had loved the most were the stories of Shiera Seastar, of Tyanna of the Tower and Danelle Lothston, how they spurned the Seven and bathed in the blood of maidens. No doubt she meant to warn her away, but Cersei had only found herself enthralled instead.

  She cupped her breasts, still heavy with milk. What were the years to a sorcerer? Cersei knew in her heart that he would not let her turn old and grey.

  Her ladies helped her don a cloth-of-gold and jadestone gown, with circles of spun gold around her wrists and a silver-and-tourmaline dagger at her waist, a queen's arms and armor if her lord father asked after her presence at his war council uninvited.

  Ser Mandon and his dead eyes already waited for her outside, silently falling in step behind her.

  Their eyes all turned to her as she entered, and she smiled sweetly as she spied the burning tree of Marbrand and the six seashells of Westerling, the three silver ships of Farman and the hooded man of Banefort. All the high lords of the westerlands, and none dared gainsay her as she seated the sprawling table carved from stone.

  Her lord father had only stared at her cooly before he continued. "It seems that Renly has underestimated us. He will not come at us with all the strength he has, only the Reach and the stormlands."

  That was still almost double their number by her count, and her uncle had surmised the same. "Randyll Tarly is also a seasoned battle commander," he added after.

  A small sneer showed on her father's lips. "Whose greatest victory had been against an outnumbered Robert Baratheon on an open field. We will not give him that pleasure."

  "Likely he will march up the ocean road to Crakehall as a dozen Gardener kings have," Lord Roland Crakehall spoke next.

  "And if he takes the gold road instead?" the Lord of Deep Den asked. "If Deep Den is taken in a storm then all the westerlands will be Renly's to take."

  "Tarly cannot move such a force unnoticed," Lord Lefford suggested, his eyebrows like two excited bees. "The greater threat I think would be if he split his army into three parts. We would be hard-pressed to give challenge to each."

  They all reminded her of a gaggle of fishwives, though she imagined they would not like the comparison.

  "Are we all so blind?" her lord father interrupted humorlessly. "What Tarly does matters none if the board remains unchanged, or worse changes against us. Renly has sent Eddard Stark to treat with Prince Doran. If he is successful…"

  The assembled lords only looked uncomfortable as he let the thought linger a breath.

  "It is in the Vale where we will turn the board to our favor. Lord Grafton and those lords still true to Lady Lysa Arryn have already promised to pledge fealty to King Joffrey as soon as they are able. I have as such agreed to open our purse at the Iron Bank. Soon Renly will have to contend with every free company from Braavos to Qarth."

  There were some nods along the table at those words, and relief. She knew not much sweetness had touched their ears of late.

  "What of the reavers to our west?" Lord Farman asked. No doubt he worried for his Fair Isle.

  "They will do as they always have," her father answered dismissively. "We can be certain that Balon will move to test us, but he will not find us easy prey this time. Once that is made clear even to him, he will prove more of a nuisance to Renly."

  "And Stannis?" Lord Quenten Banefort broached. "If we could turn him to our cause as Lord Grafton…"

  "It was Stannis that first dared to speak that ugly lie," she spat. "He is only furious that Renly betrayed him."

  "We should be thankful that he had," her lord father followed cooly. "Eddard Stark might have joined with Stannis willingly, but Renly has forced his hand."

  The lords glanced at one another until their Lord of Crakehall spoke again. "Is there a hope of turning the Starks and Tullys against him?"

  Her father let the question hang in the air for a time. "The son might prove less recalcitrant than the father."

  One of the lords laughed, then another, then all of them, a laughter she knew only she could hear for the Lord of Casterly Rock watched it all as if a statue.

  They laughed so madly they cried tears of yellow that smeared across the room. From all the yellow the husband she had chosen entered the world, all the lords as small and insignificant as ants before him.

  "Truly, all the fools of the world would weep at such a sight, for none of them could ever hope to match it."

  She had made to speak when she caught herself in time.

  "You can speak freely," she heard instead as he neared. "They see only what they want to. Even if they saw, they would shy away from it." His fingers tangled in her golden curls. "Not like you."

  Cersei smiled back at him with teeth, his eyes as green as the wildfire that she watched devour River Row, and she hardly fought him when he swept her from her seat and claimed her right in front of the men that ruled the westerlands.

  His tongue crawled into her mouth like something alive, slithering down her throat, touching parts of her no man had ever touched. But then he was not a man but a sorcerer, the monster her septas had once warned her about.

  The thought took to her like a flame to thistledown. The Seven would have had her be content as Maggy's curse choked the life from her, a good, obedient wife not even to a man but to a crowned beast that only thought to drown himself in whores and wine.

  She would have sneered if her true husband was not claiming his rights. Already she had given him a son and daughter, and she would give him a thousand more if she could.

  Cersei felt his tongue reach as far as her belly before it retreated, and the next moment he ripped open her gown as if it were made of parchment.

  His tongue slithered down her pale neck, lapping at the milk that escaped her nipples. "Divine," he husked. His eyes looked through her again. "It's time. You will take my blood and scatter it across every part of the Rock. Leave the godswood for last."

  She smiled up at him, her thoughts heavy. "I will." Her hand dared to venture into all the yellow that smothered him, touching on her quarry.

  Soon she had stirred him to claim his rights again, bending her over the cold stone and swiftly kissing her womb. The lords still turned a blind eye as their queen entertained a sorcerer and a wife entertained her husband.

  A thousand moans and groans and screams were drawn from her until his tongue crawled down her throat again, smothering her in silence. It felt as if every part of him filled every part of her.

  Her nails scratched fruitlessly at the stone as he enjoyed her. She had lost her crown and one of her slippers from the strength of him, her thoughts harder and harder to string together.

  Somehow she didn't even need to breathe.

  When he at last spilled his seed in her, it was almost a relief. She struggled to even stand after, her knees bending together as his starkly yellow seed trickled down her thighs. The remnants of her gown barely stuck to her, the jadestones that had adorned it scattered across the room.

  "It will not be long now," he told her lovingly, his kingly member smeared in yellow. "You must be ready for when the sky bleeds red."

  He laid a final kiss upon her brow, and then he was gone. Instead she sat again and stared as the lords of the westerlands hemmed and hawed over swords and lances, children playing with toys.

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  She knew she hadn't imagined it when she felt his seed smearing between her thighs and clinging to her womb, a gift from her husband.

  Cersei found some reason to excuse herself, returning to her rooms in the Rock. There she plucked a glass vial from beneath a false stone, one that Solomon had drained his blood into.

  Though now it was a red smeared with yellow rather than red alone.

  Seven places would she visit in the Rock that day, the Hall of Heroes where the greatest of the Lannisters were interred, the Golden Gallery that apart from Brightroar held every Lannister treasure, the throne room, even the deepest, darkest part of the mines that still teemed with a thousand golden veins.

  It was a sprawling maze of caverns and tunnels and false ends that lay beneath Casterly Rock, promising a slow and torturous death to any would-be-fool who thought to steal Lannister gold.

  The sun was near to set when she had found herself in the Stone Garden, the sprawling roots of the weirwood choking every part of the cave as she remembered. As Ser Mandon stood at her back, she let the last of Solomon's blood seep into the stones.

  Cersei watched as the white roots of the weirwood shivered, some of its red leaves turning yellow.

  "All that's left is for your blood to join mine," Solomon whispered in her ear, the thought as lovely as his voice.

  A terrible rumble broke the quiet as her blood soaked into the same stones, and she could only watch with wide eyes as the very earth began to quake. Her Kingsguard protector had made to flee with her, only for the world to still again.

  The weirwood! The face carved into it had changed, and she imagined it speaking.

  "Blood," it asked of her. Blood. Blood.

  And she would provide.

  The Old Blood?

  The return of his baby brother to Volantis had been a queer thing, not for Maegon himself, but for the sorcerer with not a drop of Valyrian blood.

  Aenor had thought this Solomon the Magnificent a mummer's cripple for it, but Maegon hadn't proved that much of a disappointment. Why, he had even returned with their Valyrian steel sword. Mayhaps he had been too harsh on him.

  His sister had even shown some life in their bedroom again. The tears had bored him years ago.

  Soon Maegon would be found a wife and the fortunes of Laessaryon would rise to greater heights still. It was known that war was a treacherous woman, but with some luck she might also prove a boon. Braavos could not truly hope to stand against the might of more than half daughters of Valyria and what remained of the Ghiscari, even if Myr had been so mad as to cast the same die.

  The Braavosi would sue for peace once the tide turned against them and coin grew scarce, and Myr would lose all her claims in the Disputed Lands.

  He raised his cup to drain the vintage when he noticed a queer sight. There was a pink scar across his palm that…

  He drained the vintage, the sweet and sour taste of it divine. There was no finer vintage, east or west, than ones from the Volantene countryside.

  The sorcerer had proven himself useful in that regard. With his insight, he had managed to secure three contracts of trade he would have been hard-pressed to otherwise. All it had taken was a secret whispered in the right ears and the blood of his slaves.

  Oh, they complained to him, named his guest a horror and a servant of the Great Other, but what use were slaves if not to serve their masters in all things? Even the Braavosi partook in the oldest right, only they dressed it in motley first and named it debt.

  …

  He woke in a fever one night, his head hot and thoughts heavy. He commanded the slaves to bring him a mint and thyme tea with a drop or three of poppy.

  A cough took him, and when it ceased he stared at the yellow smear in his hand. He…

  He drank the tea, slumber finding him quickly.

  …

  He was enjoying one of his more spirited slaves, this one from Naath, her fevered eyes like molten gold and skin the color of rum. A frown took him when he spied a scar down the length of his arm, still red and inflamed. It twinged unhappily as…

  Aenor held the girl's dark hair tightly as he emptied himself in her. It would amuse him if a bastard became of it, a butterfly as much as a Valyrian.

  …

  "You've hidden that sorcerer of yours well, Aenor," Taerion Amaeryen mentioned, his indigo eyes mischievous.

  "Have I?" He was not much inclined to part with the sorcerer, but Taerion was a dear friend.

  "Don't demur, you cad. Did you find him in Mantarys?"

  He gave a put-upon sigh. If there was anything he misliked about the Black Walls, it was how unlikely it was to keep a secret.

  "Perhaps I might introduce you. For a favor."

  Taerion spun a lock of his silver hair as he thought. For a moment it was another he saw in his place, skin like old milk and wax, eyes that burned like weathered copper, and a horror of a smile from ear to…

  "You have a deal," his friend told him.

  The sorcerer was amenable, and Taerion happily proffered his slaves for secrets whispered in his ear.

  …

  He coughed again. It had proven a persistent one, coming and going as it will. Father had caught it also, but worries of a plague had subsided. It was only a nuisance.

  News had reached them that Myr had invaded the Disputed Lands with some fifty thousand men, and not only sellswords. Another had landed nearer to Tyrosh, a lesser force of thirty thousand, mostly Braavosi and Lorathi.

  Volantis would soon send an army of ninety thousand, and another would likely follow.

  The election had come to an end also, and luckily they did not have three mad tigers for triarchs as some feared.

  That it was the first time they had seen two tigers in centuries had still proven unpalatable, but Laessaryon was positioned to weather the storm nicely. He had secured seven more contracts, three of those in Slaver's Bay.

  Aenor paused as he found Mother standing in the garden alone. He neared her, but she hardly noticed, looking dully at a flower.

  "Mother?" he broached.

  She smiled like a simpleton. And her hands… scars…

  Xhobbaro brought him a cup of chilled wine as he watched the stars. They were beautiful.

  …

  His head ached. He coughed again, his chest feeling like a horse had trampled him. Another yellow smear…

  …

  He heard a queer sound from a room. He pushed the door open to see his Maena… Maegon on top of her as she smiled and laughed. The anger swept everything away…

  Aenor stared at a slave. He could not even muster the energy to enjoy her. A cough took him again, his breathing wet and scratchy.

  When would it end?

  …

  Yellow. It was everywhere. Smeared across his thoughts. Across his hands.

  "How much longer?" he heard in Westerosi near the guest rooms. It was an ugly tongue, the words spoken into the sorcerer's ear.

  Those uncanny eyes turned on him, Aenor's skin crawling as they looked through every part of him, dry, cracked lips turning up into another horror of a smile. "A fortnight. A moon at most."

  The pirate bitch hummed. "As you say. Never thought I would miss those dreary isles, but there it is all the same."

  Her black eyes caught his also as she sauntered past him, mocking him.

  He…

  He drained the cup of wine and poppy that Xhobarro had given him, slumber taking him swiftly.

  All his dreams were yellow.

  …

  He leaned on a cane, his strength failing him as he coughed and coughed and coughed, his arms a patchwork of scars.

  Was he dying? The thought terrified him in a way it never had. His plans. The war. He…

  He couldn't die to an autumn chill.

  He spied the sorcerer near a portrait of Father. Why hadn't he thought of it sooner?

  "Solomon… this sickness… can you purge it?" Aenor's pride burned at sounding so weak.

  The sorcerer touched a cold hand to his cheek. "All sorcery has a price," he whispered with a smile that turned his stomach.

  "I will pay it. A slave. Ten. However many you need."

  He couldn't die. He was Aenor Laessaryon.

  He coughed again. Yellow.

  "Come."

  The sorcerer brought him into the rooms accorded to him, every inch of it was smothered in parchment now. It was such a queer sight that he struggled to find any words to say.

  "Behold the work of many moons. Tonight I will see if it has borne me a harvest."

  He stared at the sorcerer for his queer words. He shook his head with another cough, every thought a struggle. "The price…" he whispered weakly.

  "Don't you see? You have already paid the lion's share. All I require now is an eye. You can keep the other if it pleases you."

  He felt some anger at the jest, but it was quickly smothered in the still water that threatened to return him to unconsciousness.

  Wait… no…

  He couldn't stir himself. He couldn't even scream as the sorcerer reached into his head and pulled out his eye, blood smearing down corpse pale arms.

  Why was it… gods, why was it yellow?

  His chest burned. The need to cough was maddening.

  It was hard to see, the one eye that remained to him wet with tears, but the sorcerer… his head had split open. It was grotesque. A horror from Mantarys or Gogossos, and from it poured a river of yellow.

  All the mummer's puppet he had become could do was watch as his stolen eye was placed into the crack running down the center of its head, above the brow.

  The monster's own eyes closed, leaving only his own to stare back at him. Aenor had seen himself in a mirror a thousand times, but this was not that.

  The river of yellow began to stem, the eye a dam as it stretched and yawned, the sounds as much a horror as the sight.

  For a moment the impossible weight over his thoughts seemed to have lifted. Until he dared to cough and it returned.

  He watched half-mad as the horror of an eye smiled at him, as red as blood and twice as foul. Then the monster's other eyes opened, green, and all three of them smiling.

  "The silence is… sublime. Thank you."

  He could only scream into the void as his thoughts fled him.