Interlude 4 — The Lion's Reflection
POV: Jaime Lannister
The bastard…
Jaime leaned against a marble pillar, one boot crossed over the other, watching the sparring yard below through half-lidded eyes. He circled his opponent, some green boys in northern colors, with lazy, coiled grace. Not northern brute strength, not the dull caution of a castle-born squire. No. This was… poised. Measured. Dangerous.
"Too good for a Snow," Jaime muttered to himself.
The boy parried a low strike, then pivoted, catching the knight on the shoulder with the flat of his blade. A clean, efficient hit. Final. The other man yielded, red-faced and panting.
Jon gave a shallow nod, then stepped back, sword still in hand, posture as straight as a tower's spine. No triumph. No grin. Just calm. Controlled.
Jaime sipped his watered wine. It tasted like dust.
He had seen the bastard before, of course, at feasts, passing in the training yard. The bastard of Winterfell. Ned Stark's cold afterthought. Now legitimized by some twist of Baratheon folly, standing tall in a world that should have spat him out like gristle. And yet… he thrived. No, commanded. Quietly. Always quietly.
There were no boasts, no bawdy tales, none of the howling wolf pride he expected from a Stark boy. Just observation. Strategy. Thought.
And those eyes. Gods, those eyes. Purple, unlike the dull gray of the North. These were deeper, older. Like still water over a long memory. Like someone who had lived too many lives already.
He'd seen them once before.
Jaime shook the thought away. Foolishness. Ghosts.
Still, the boy haunted him.
Later that day, in the Queen's chamber, Cersei had asked a passing question about the Northmen. Jaime had offered a shrug and a joke about wolves. She laughed, brittle and beautiful, then went back to her book. But he kept thinking of Jon.
He remembered a feast not long past. The boy had stood beside Ned Stark, dressed simply, yet carrying himself like he wore rubies on his chest. He'd spoken little, but when he did, the room listened from curiosity. And when Jaime had offered a barbed comment, the boy hadn't flinched or fumbled or puffed up like most boys his age.
He had simply looked at him with quiet, unbothered assessment. Like a man measuring stone for a castle wall.
Just like Rhaegar used to.
Jaime scowled at the memory. Damn it. He hadn't thought of Rhaegar in years.
But now he couldn't stop.
This cold is fucking with my mind…
The way Jon moved, centered, elegant, sparing in motion but devastating in effect. The way he stood, weight evenly spread, chin tilted but never bowed. The way he spoke, always choosing his words carefully, always poetic, when the words came, they cut clean as Valyrian steel.
"Who is this boy?" Jaime asked aloud, though no one answered. "Why do I feel like I've seen a ghost?"
But now there was Jon Snow, no longer Snow, cutting down knights with a borrowed blade and speaking like a king in exile.
And for the first time in years, Jaime Lannister felt the sharp edge of something he hated.
Uncertainty.
King's Landing stank worse after absence.
The air was thick with rot and roses, piss and perfume, and beneath it all, the rot of lies left too long in the sun. Jaime dismounted at the gates of the Red Keep two days prior and had felt that familiar sense of things being just a little worse than before. The new Hand had been installed and the court had swallowed him like soup. The king was still a puppet. The strings were only knotted differently now.
But none of that mattered.
What mattered was that he was home. Back in the only place he hated less than anywhere else.
Back where Cersei was. They couldn't do anything while on the road. And it had taken them moons to reach the capital.
He'd spent too many nights on hard cots dreaming of her skin, Jaime wasn't used to being denied. Especially not by her.
So he walked the gardens alone that evening, letting his boots crunch gravel and his thoughts twist like ivy. The shadows were long. The courtiers had retreated. The only sound was the gentle hiss of wind through lemon trees and the sigh of stone remembering the sun.
And then, soft as a whisper between silks: "Ser Jaime."
Gods save me.
He turned, and there stood Varys, robed in lavender, hands folded like a prayer, his bald head gleaming faintly in the last light. Always appearing when least wanted, like guilt or rats.
"Spider," Jaime said flatly. "Out for a spin?"
Varys smiled with that maddening calm. "Merely enjoying the evening air. I find twilight the most honest hour, don't you?"
"No," Jaime replied. "I prefer daylight. You can see who's stabbing you."
The eunuch chuckled. "Ah, but you've always preferred steel to silk, haven't you?"
Jaime didn't answer. He didn't like it when Varys started with flattery. It meant something worse was coming.
They walked a few paces in silence. Lemon trees stirred above. Varys plucked a leaf and examined it like a maester reading a raven's wing.
"I heard your journey north was fruitful," he said.
Jaime shrugged. "A parade of treaties and petty squabbles. Half the lords wanted gold, the other half wanted to murder each other. The usual."
"And the new Hand?"
Jaime's lip curled. "He'll do. He listens, at least. Too many in this city think they're kings just because they sit near one."
"Ah." Varys made a gentle noise of amusement. "Power attracts flatterers the way corpses draw flies. One must be careful not to let either rot too long."
Jaime turned toward him, expression unreadable. "Speaking of rot... how's the Small Council these days?"
Varys smiled like a man stepping over a pit. "No worse than under the last king we served."
For a moment, they stood still, only the faint chirp of crickets and the hush of the breeze between them.
Jaime's hand flexed. "That king," he said, "was mad."
"He was," Varys agreed. "But not always."
Jaime gave a short, humorless laugh. "A man defending a pyromancer's cookbook."
"Only a man who remembers. You were close to him, after all."
"Close enough to shove a sword through his back."
"And yet you stayed beside him for a year."
Jaime's eyes narrowed. He had lost that exchange, the spider was always tricky.
Varys didn't press, he simply turned, and began walking again, hands folded into one another. "I've always wondered," he said lightly, "what Aerys saw when he looked at you. Did he see a knight? A threat? A mirror?"
"I don't care what he saw." Jaime's voice was sharp. "He was a monster."
"Some say monsters come from grief," Varys mused. "Others say they're born screaming."
"You trying to flatter me or bait me, Spider?"
"Neither." Varys looked at him, calm as a still pool. "I only wonder. If Aerys had been stopped sooner… perhaps the realm would be different."
"He was stopped."
"Yes," Varys said. "But not before the realm burned died. Not before the princes' children died."
A slower breath passed through Jaime's lips. He looked away.
Varys's tone softened. "You were close to him too, weren't you?"
"I was sworn to him."
"That's not what I asked."
Jaime didn't answer right away. He remembered the prince he met at Harrenhal. The man he had admired since he was a boy.
Rhaegar had been many things. Strange, solemn, thoughtful. Sometimes cold. But he had never been cruel. And when he looked at people, he saw them, even Jaime, even then.
"He was… kind," Jaime said. The word felt strange on his tongue. "He made you feel like you mattered. Like your life meant something."
"Rare in a prince," Varys said. "Rarer still in a king."
"He died," Jaime said bluntly. "Whatever he believed, it didn't save him."
"No," Varys murmured. "Ghosts linger longer than we expect. Especially when the realm forgets to bury them properly."
With that, the Spider bowed, just a slight incline of the head, and began gliding away, silent as fog. Just one more strange talk, prodding each other until they got tired.
Jaime remained rooted.
Ghost. Forget to bury.
Something inside him shifted, a tension long dormant, flaring with each piece that clicked into place.
Jon Snow. The eyes. The poise. The silence around his birth.
Rhaegar.
It fits. Gods, it all fits.
His pulse quickened. The gravel at his feet seemed to crack louder beneath his heel.
Jon Snow. Or not Snow at all.
He didn't know how long he stood there, but when he finally moved, it was without swagger. Without smirk. His jaw clenched. His thoughts sharp and scattered like broken steel.
If it was true… then everything had changed.
And the realm didn't even know it..
No.
The Trident.
Rhaegar dying.
Lyanna screaming.
And Ned Stark's silence for fifteen long years.
Jaime's eyes widened.
"No," he whispered.
Jaime stood before the mirror in his chambers, shirt unlaced. The city lay asleep beyond the windows, but his thoughts churned like storm-tossed waters.
Jon Snow. Jon Stark. Rhaegar's son.
If it's true.
He'd turned the words over a hundred times since Varys spoke them, or rather, didn't.
But why does it fit? That was the part that gnawed at him.
The boy's stance, the precision with a blade, the haunted eyes. The way people looked at him and didn't quite know why they stepped aside. Rhaegar had had that too, the calm before fire.
And Jon Snow…, if that was his name… he was no Stark bastard. Not truly. No bastard at all, if Rhaegar had wed Lyanna.
Which meant… he had a claim. A strong one.
Seven hells.
Jaime dragged a hand down his face and sank onto the bed. Did he tell the king? Did he tell Cersei? Was it even his to tell? If the truth got out—
No. Not yet. Not without proof. Not when everything could burn.
Still, the unease remained, like a sword half-drawn.
He didn't expect to find her awake.
Days had passed since his talk with Varys. Jaime had busied himself with patrols and training, avoiding court, avoiding questions. But on this evening, long after the torches had been lit and the nobles' laughter faded into their wine, he climbed the steps to her solar on instinct.
Cersei's voice reached him before he reached the door. Low. Clipped. Cold.
"—he's digging where he shouldn't, his bastards are best left forgotten."
Another voice replied. Smooth. Too smooth. Baelish.
"I merely offer advice, my Queen. The Lord of Winterfell plays the game, whether he admits it or not."
Jaime halted just beyond the archway, cloaked in shadow. The door was cracked just wide enough.
"Advice or veiled threats?" Cersei asked.
Littlefinger chuckled. "Merely observations. Lord Stark has taken a curious interest in the king's bastards. One might wonder… is it paternity that concerns him? Or succession?"
There was a silence so long it made Jaime's skin crawl.
Jaime stepped in.
Baelish turned with the calm poise of a man who always expected to be caught. "Ser Jaime."
"Lord Baelish." Jaime's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Is there a reason you're speaking to the Queen in the dark like a thief?"
"Only ensuring the peace of the realm," Baelish said, with an exaggerated bow. "Though I'll leave you to your peace now."
He left with a rustle of fine cloth and that same smirk, the one that made Jaime want to plant a gauntlet in his teeth.
Cersei waited until the door clicked shut. Then: "How much did you hear?"
"Enough," Jaime said.
She turned back to the fire, arms folded. "Ned Stark's grown too bold. I warned Robert, but he listens with his cock and thinks with northern fire."
Jaime leaned on the table. "And what exactly are you planning?"
"Nothing… yet." Her tone was wary. "But if Stark uncovers—" She stopped, lips pursed. "We need leverage, Jaime. Something that cuts deeper than whispers."
His jaw tightened. She was watching him now, with those green eyes that had once held everything he wanted, power, love, possession. They didn't comfort him now. They cornered him.
"Tell me," She said. "You have something in our mind." She always knew.
He shouldn't tell her.
Gods, he knows he shouldn't.
It isn't his secret to share. It isn't even a secret he asked to carry. He hadn't sought out truth, hadn't dug through old ghosts or followed whispers. But now it sat in his mind like a splinter of glass, glinting every time he closed his eyes, and every time he looked at her.
And she was looking now.
That look. That damnable look that made his pulse slow and his reason scatter. The one that had always undone him, ever since they were children playing at royalty in the shadows of Casterly Rock. She wielded it now like a knife, and he could already feel it carving through the resolve he barely had.
He tried. Truly, he did. He paced the floor of his chambers for days. He held the truth in his chest like a drawn breath, refusing to exhale. He told himself it didn't matter. Let the bastard be what he is. Let Ned Stark play his games and Robert drink himself into a grave. What difference did a name make?
But the question kept rising: what if it mattered more than anything?
And now Cersei wanted leverage. She always wanted leverage. She asked with velvet words and hard eyes. She pressed him, gently at first, then with the quiet, cruel precision she knew how to use so well. Her voice wrapped around his thoughts like silk and wire.
He could lie.
He should lie.
But he'd never lied to her. Not really. Not when it counted.
Every time she leaned close, every time she needed him, he broke. Every fucking time. Because some part of him, however rusted and bent, still wanted her to look at him like he was her sword and shield. Still wanted to be worthy in her eyes, even knowing how often she made him feel unworthy.
So when she asked again, voice low and expectant, Jaime Lannister, oathbreaker, kingslayer, brother, lover, fool, finally opened his mouth.
He hesitated. Don't say it. Don't give her this.
But the pressure boiled over. The fear. The implications. The weight of it all, the threads tightening around his neck. He needed someone else to carry it, even if just for a moment.
So he said it.
"Jon Snow isn't Ned Stark's bastard."
Her brow arched. "What?"
Jaime's throat felt dry. "He's… Rhaegar's. Rhaegar and Lyanna's. I don't know how, but… it fits. Gods help me, it fits."
Cersei's face didn't change. Not at first.
Then she went utterly still. Like a viper between breaths.
"You're sure?" she asked, softly.
"No." Jaime's voice was barely a whisper. "But I can feel it. In my bones. And if it's true… then he's not just a threat to Stark. All those rumors about Ashara Dayne must be false."
She stared into the fire.
"A Targaryen boy," she murmured. "Hidden in the North all these years. Right under our noses. A bastard Targaryen?"
He nodded once.
And then she laughed. Cold and short.
"Oh, Jaime," she said, rising.
"I—"
"This is our dagger!" she hissed. "One sharper than any sword. If Robert finds out—"
"He'll kill the boy."
She smiled, slow and vicious. "Of course he will. And Stark will be done for in court."
Jaime stepped back, stomach twisting. "I didn't tell you so you could kill him—"
"You think he'll let a Targaryen heir live?" she snapped. "He hunted down Viserys and Daenerys for less. The boy has power in the North."
"I told you because it matters. Because it's dangerous—"
"Exactly," she said, voice like frost. "And now we know where to aim."
Jaime felt it then, the regret, thick and rising. Like bile.
He turned away, fist clenched. What have I done?
And behind him, Cersei poured herself a goblet of wine, already thinking ahead, already plotting.
The Game was moving again.
And Jaime had just pushed the next piece across the board.
The court was quieter than usual.
No trumpets, no crier. Just a low murmur, spreading through the Red Keep like smoke, until even the gilded fools of the small council wore drawn expressions and clutched their cups a little tighter.
King Robert was dead.
A heart attack, they said. Sudden. Tragic. A man of excess, cut down by his appetites. He died eating, they said, grunting his last over a boar and a wineskin.
Jaime didn't believe it for a second, not after she had told him about her conversation with Stark. The idiot Northman had warned her he knew about the children and told her to leave the city. How he had managed to follow the crumbs Arryn had left behind Jaime didn't know.
He knows, and he just told her… idiot.
Now Stark was running around the city with Baelish looking for proof Robert's children weren't his, Jaime didn't doubt Cersei would have him arrested any minute now. The bells hadn't tolled, it had been half a day and the city didn't know the king was dead.
He watched Cersei glide through the throne room in a gown black as pitch, her shoulders bare, her chin lifted high, her children flanking her like golden ornaments. The room bowed. Some wept. Jaime only stared.
She was not mourning. She was waiting.
She took her seat beside the Iron Throne with such fluid confidence that the hush turned to awe. The queen regent. Widow. Mother. Ruler.
And killer.
Of course she hadn't wielded the blade herself. That wasn't her style. No, she'd whispered in someone's ear, perhaps the steward who filled Robert's cup. Perhaps Varys himself, that spider with silk for veins. It didn't matter. The king was dead, and Cersei's fingers were already closing around the crown.
Jaime said nothing.
He never did.
But he could see it.
The false grief. The too-perfect silence around her lips when the lords of court offered their condolences. The flicker of calculation in her green eyes every time someone looked away. She had planned this. Maybe not down to the hour, but close enough to taste it. And he—he—had helped set the stage.
Because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
Because he still couldn't say no to her.
The bells rung telling the world about the Kings death and the ascension of another.
And then came the word that there were battles all over the city. And Lancel came running with word that men were batting down the Red Keep's gates.
The Red Keep was burning with the fury of battle. Steel rang through the winding stone halls, and blood pooled between the ancient flagstones. Jaime Lannister moved like a specter through the chaos, his golden armor dulled by grime and splashed crimson. The Stormlander's were storming the Red Keep.
"Lannister!" someone shouted. "Kingslayer!"
Jaime turned just in time to parry the descending blade. A Stormlander knight, his green surcoat slashed with the sigil of House Penrose, drove forward with a ferocity born of fear. Jaime sidestepped, twisted the man's sword arm, and drove a mailed fist into his jaw. The knight crumpled. Another came, and another after that. Jaime's blade moved with grim purpose. He'd stopped naming the men he cut down. This wasn't a duel. It was butchery.
These were loyalists to Renly's dream, or perhaps just men who hated Lannisters. Regardless, they were fools. No one stormed the Red Keep without paying the price.
He caught sight of the man he sought just ahead, near the queen's solar, Ser Loras Tyrell, helm off, curls matted with sweat, sword in hand and murder in his eyes.
"Kingslayer," Loras spat, voice hoarse. "Let down our sword, knell to King Renly."
"Like you kneel before him? No thank you," Jaime said flatly, eyes locked with his. "How do you plan to explain to the kingdom of your little coup?"
"Joffrey is unfit," Loras snarled, stepping forward. "Renly will bring a golden reign."
Jaime didn't answer. There was no room for words anymore.
They are fucking delusional.
The Rose Knight struck first. A flurry of fast, elegant blows that rang against Jaime's guard. The boy was fast, faster than Jaime had expected, and stronger too. His blade danced like sunlight off water, and Jaime could see why half the court had once swooned at the sight of him. But war was no tourney, and Jaime had learned long ago that speed and style didn't matter when your opponent fought to kill.
Jaime caught Loras's sword on the flat of his own and shoved forward, using his full weight to push the younger man off-balance. Loras staggered but recovered, circling left, trying to find an opening.
Their swords flashed and clashed with each other. It was a duel worthy of song, it was sad few saw it.
More shouts echoed down the corridor, Stormlander men flooding in behind Loras, while Lannister guards fought to hold them off. Steel clashed, screams rose. Jaime blocked it out. The world had narrowed to one thing: the knight in front of him, he didn't even notice Ser Preston Greenfield being stabbed to death a few paces from him.
He twisted, feinted low, then came high, but Jaime had seen it before. He stepped inside the arc, caught Loras's arm, and slammed his pommel into the side of the younger knight's head. Loras grunted, staggered back, bleeding from the temple.
But he didn't yield.
He screamed and charged.
Jaime met him head-on, and this time he didn't hold back. Their blades sang in fury, slicing air and biting steel. Loras struck at his shoulder, Jaime turned it. Jaime slashed low, Loras parried. The clash continued, brutal and breathless, until finally Jaime caught the boy's blade in a bind and twisted. Loras faltered, just a step, just a heartbeat, but it was enough.
Jaime's blade slid beneath the younger man's guard and drove deep through mail and flesh, into the gut.
Loras gasped, eyes wide. He looked down, saw the black blade slick with red, and tried to speak. Only blood came out.
Jaime held him as he fell, easing him to the stone. He knelt there a moment, breath coming in shallow gasps. Loras's hand scrabbled at Jaime's wrist, weak, trembling, and then went still.
"Dumb boy…"
Behind him, the last of the Stormlanders were falling back or dying. The Lannister guards surged forward, finishing the fight. The hallway stank of sweat, steel, and fresh death.
"Tyrell is down!" one of the guards called.
Jaime rose slowly, blood dripping from his sword, and looked down at the boy's body. A lion killing a rose. Was there ever any other ending?
His arm ached. His heart ached more.
He turned from the body and walked away.
The fire crackled in the hearth, casting long shadows across the stone walls of the White Sword Tower. Jaime sat alone, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword, still bloodied from the fight. The armor on his chest felt heavier than it ever had in war.
He hadn't taken it off. He hadn't spoken to anyone since the screaming stopped.
The blood was still drying on the steps outside Maegor's Holdfast. Young knights from the Reach, boys with fine-braided hair and polished steel, now lay in pieces across the tiled floors. The white cloaks of his brothers had been stained red in the chaos. So had his own.
Loras Tyrell had died quickly, which was more than most of them got. The boy had been brave, foolishly brave, headstrong and mad with love for a man who thought charisma could bend the world to his will.
Jaime had almost admired him, right until the boy had tried to put a sword through his ribs. It had ended with a sword buried in Loras' gut. Jaime remembered the look in his eyes when it happened, shock, more than pain. As if he'd never imagined it could happen to him. As if his beautiful story could only end in triumph.
He stood, crossing to the window. From there, he could see the still burning fires all over the city, it was chaos even if it was over now.
The coup had failed before it began. Renly hadn't had the numbers. He hadn't had the patience. It was a shame he had escaped with his life from the city after hearing of the failed assault on the Red Keep.
He must have learnt Robert was dead and carried the assault. But how?
The following day, the city was full of corpses.
By nightfall, the truth came out.
Some said Stark had tried to flee Kings Landing, doubtful given his daughters were still in the castle, some said that he was just walking the streets of the city. He had a few gold cloaks with him, and Northmen. Some said he made it as far as the Street of Steel before they caught him. Others said it was a trap from the start and the Gold Cloaks stabbed his back.
What was known, what Jaime saw, was the trail of blood left in the gutters the next morning. Jaime had hated him for that once. For giving him is moniker. Now he just felt tired.
It ran from a cobbled alley down into a storm drain. A long smear, drying at the edges, still tacky in the center. There were three broken spears left in a pile and a sword blade snapped in half, still stained red. A child was poking it with a stick. Jaime had hated him for that once. For giving him is moniker. Now he just felt tired.
They'd put the Tower of the Hand to the torch after Stark's death. No trial, no mourners. Just ash and blood and silence. The guards found only two girls alive, the younger screaming and half-feral, the elder stone-faced and silent. Everyone else had been butchered in the purge. Stark's men. His scribes. The squire who'd brought him his armor.
All dead.
And yet a wolf had slipped through the net. The boy, Bran, had vanished. The old knight, Barristan Selmy, gone too. No body. No trail. Just an empty white cloak on the streets and a hole in the line of kingsguard.
And now I am Lord Commander.
Jaime stood there for a long time, silent, cloak pulled tight against the wind.
All for this, a Lord Paramount murdered in the street, the son of another dead by his hand, a crown on the head of his secret son, and a secret that had only ever led to more death.
He leaned forward, staring into the fire.
He could have stayed quiet.
He could have said nothing. Let Cersei keep playing her little games. Let Stark march to his fate without ever speaking a word. Let Jon Stark—Targaryen—remain a mystery wrapped in bastardy, far beyond the capital's reach.
But no. He'd opened his dumb mouth. He'd told her. Just a few cursed words, spilled in the dark like blood on the cobblestones. And now the boy's uncle was dead. Murdered in the streets like a common criminal.
He took a breath and let it out slowly, jaw clenched.
Jon had Rhaegar's eyes. Jaime saw it clearly now. That calm, focused presence. That strange stillness in a fight. That knowing. Gods, even the way he stood. The boy had looked right through him in the training yard, as if Jaime were the one being measured. As if he were the one with something to prove.
Even Stannis wanted to claim the head of the boy now, how he knew Jaime had no idea, Stannis had declared himself king too damn fast, even before news from the capital could have reached him. A day after Robert was dead and word had arrived of Stannis calling his banners and closing the gullet, like he had known it would happen.
He rose, slow and stiff, and crossed the room to where his sword leaned against the wall. He drew it free of the scabbard and held it in the firelight.
The Kingslayer.
The villain in every tale. The man who broke oaths, who killed kings, who served his sister's schemes like a faithful hound. The man who'd helped bury the last good Stark.
A thousand ravens flew from the Red Keep.
Jaime didn't need to read the letters to know what they carried. He'd seen the letters sealed with the lion and the black stag. They'd flown north, demanding the surrender of Winterfell, the head of Jon Snow, and the kneeling of the North.
A child's head, to end a war before it began.
-END-