Jaime I
922 Words
"So is this what you wanted all along?" He asked.
"I've always been a Queen, Jaime," Cersei replied, sipping her wine, strangely calm, enough to make him anxious. "Only now I don't have anyone above me."
She put her goblet down and bringing her crown down from her head, started tracing it with her finger, with a smile on her lips. He was desperately trying to convince himself she hadn't gone mad, but she was making it harder for him to do so.
"Our son is dead, Cersei," he said. "And you are smiling at your crown. Was it more important than Tommen?"
She turned to look at him with daggers in her eyes.
"He was my son and I loved him more than anything! But he leapt to his death because he would rather die with his w***e of a wife than live with his Mother who loved him unconditionally." She looked back at her crown. "It's the prophecy, Jaime. I told you she was right. Gold their crowns and gold their shrouds. They were always fated to die before me."
"If you hadn't burned the Sept Tommen would be alive!" Jaime shouted, cursing the moment he had left for Riverrun. He should have been here with his son, no matter what he had said to him.
"I was tired of people telling me what to do. So I burned everyone who thought they were better than me. Everyone who thought I was weak."
"You talk like a mad Queen," he said, shaking his head. "You burned half the city down, and you think your actions are justified."
He had failed to see the truth. All that she had ever wanted was power, and Jaime had underestimated the measures she was willing to take to claim what she desired. But of all the women he knew, he never thought Cersei would be smiling after her son's death. He refused to believe it even now.
"It is justified, Jaime. I killed Margaery because she wanted to take my place as the Queen, I let her brother and her Father die just so. I killed the High Sparrow because he shamed me in front of every man and woman in this city and because he thought he had the right to judge me." She walked over to the window. "The others were just casualties. But I've set an example that anyone who dares defy me will be burnt to ashes."
Jaime stared at the back of her head.
What has she become?
They were far from perfect, but this was the gravest crime Cersei had ever committed, and he couldn't bring himself to look past that.
"We have made enemies now," he warned.
"Who?" She asked sarcastically. "The old Queen of Thorns who does nothing but talk? She barely has any strength left in her. She will wither and die before we know it."
He opened his mouth to reply, but was stopped by the sound of the door opening. Qyburn looked at him and bowing slightly, turned to the new Queen of Westeros.
"Your Grace," he said. "There is news from Riverrun."
Jaime frowned at him.
"What news?" Cersei asked.
"Someone has murdered Walder Frey, Your Grace. Two of his sons as well. They were...," Qyburn hesitated. "Their parts were found baked into a pie which Lord Frey was presumedly eating."
Jaime cringed at the thought. He was disgusted and astonished.
But he was alive when I left him.
Who would murder Freys and mutilate them?
But he wasn't young to deny he felt pleased the old s**t was no more. He spoke too much for his taste.
Cersei turned around and looked at him.
"See? There are things worse than burning, Jaime. I am hardly a monster. At least I don't bake people."
Jaime didn't say anything.
"It means Riverrun needs a Lord now," Cersei spoke again. "Ser Jaime will take Riverrun for himself. I have had enough of these good for nothing Freys. Leave, Lord Qyburn."
"I am not going anywhere," Jaime told her, as the door closed behind the former Maester.
"I don't think I was asking you."
"Please, Cersei," he insisted. "Don't do this. Let me stay with you."
Her eyes softened but only for a second.
"You will go to Riverrun. I command you as your Queen."
For the first time in many years, he wanted to hit her. The power was getting to her head and he knew her madness would only grow if he wasn't here to control her actions. But he was far from begging, and if Cersei wanted him to do it, he wouldn't give her the pleasure.
"Cersei, I'm telling you-"
"I want you to leave at daybreak," she interrupted him.
Jaime stared at her hard for a few minutes then only nodded. As he turned to walk out the door she called him again.
"I love you Jaime," she said, and he heard the voice of the woman she was before he left for Riverrun. "But this is what I was always meant to be, and I don't want to hear anyone telling me what to do ever again. Not even you."
I wouldn't order you. I would just love you.
But it was too late for that. Cersei had been his sister, then his lover, then the mother of his children. But now she was nothing but a Queen.
That's what she had always wanted to be, he thought.
And she is willing to give up even me for that.
- Writer
