AN :
Next goal for another extra chapter is 500 power stones.
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Cersei Lannister POV )
Cersei's mouth tasted sour as she walked through the dark tunnel, her nails digging into the palm of her hand. It had been two weeks since the book distribution, the riot of the faithful as they were calling it now, and everyone had been worrying about how to deal with the debacle. With the people just surging over the book piles that way there had been no way to track whether every family in Lannisport had got one. Uncle Kevan, Callum, and even Aunt Genna were focused wholly on cleaning that all up and trying to prevent future repeats of it. It was a double rush because Callum was to leave for the North Coast on the morrow, to squire with Uncle Tygget far away, where he could no longer manage his presses and such.
But that wasn't what was weighing on Cersei's mind, no, what filled her thoughts was a far more personal worry. Aunt Genna had said it, and Cersei had confirmed it. Callum was afraid of her. She didn't know when it had happened, or why. She had never noticed it before, but when she went to hug Callum the night after the speech, to tell him how pretty he looked up on the stands and how he did such a good job being brave and giving such a good speech, she had noticed how uncomfortable he was in her arms, how he squirmed, and he wouldn't look her in the eyes. It stung her heart, and she cried herself to sleep that night. But Cersei stopped crying in the morning. She had a boy's heart after all.
No, if Callum was scared of her, then she'd just have to be kinder to him, nicer, an even more loving older sister than she was before! And so she'd tried, all through the past two weeks, she'd tried, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. She'd stopped pestering Aunt Genna about getting her a tutor so she could learn more about sword fighting (a prospect her aunt had never actually shot down completely), she'd gone to her embroidery lessons without complaint just so she could get out of them faster and go visit Callum. She'd rushed back and forth across Casterly Rock trying to find him near every day and then practically planted herself at his side, asking if he needed anything, if she could help him with anything, if there was anything she could do for him.
At first, it had seemed to work, at least a little bit. Callum had, in those first few hectic days after the riot of the faithful, asked her to help him with some few small things. She had helped him with some of his logs, and he had talked to her about one of the problems he was having, that smallfolk didn't have house names so figuring out which of them did and didn't receive books already, even outside of the riot, was very complicated.
Cersei didn't particularly care about the smallfolk of course, but she knew Callum did, so she had asked why he didn't just give them numbers or something since he liked numbers.
Callum had actually looked over at her, no fear in his eyes, and thanked her for the idea. It had made her heart thrill. So she had rushed forward and hugged him, pressing his face to her boson.
Alas, the fear had come back after that, and Cersei again didn't know why. What was there to fear? Who could possibly be feeding him lies about her to make her fear him?
Her first thought was that perhaps it was the dwarf. Their ugly twisted sibling was close to Callum, for her brother's soft heart forgave even their mother's murder, but she dismissed it after a moment. While she hated Tyrion, he was also too small, dumb, and ugly to twist Callum against her. So it must be someone else… perhaps one of her bedmaids? But no, both of them liked Jaime better, and she hadn't ever heard them talk to Callum more than a few words.
So for two weeks now she has tried to grow closer to Callum once more. She would rush to embrace him, to compliment his every good aspect, and to encourage him that he would succeed at every pursuit he put his mind to. She tried her best, but it only got worse. He only seemed to grow more frightened of her if anything and it stung her heart like a poisoned dagger. No matter how much she thought of it though, she could not find the source of his fear. Desperation though told her to keep trying, to find the source of the spell that had been cast over her brother. The source of the wall that had come between them.
That desperation had only been building up until tonight, the evening before her brother left the castle for good. The thought of Callum leaving, still afraid of her, still scared of her presence. It was like ice water in her veins. She did not want Callum to fear her. She did not want him to need to fear anything! But all means of subtlety or intrigue had failed her. She still had no idea why he was scared, why her own little brother, her mirror in so many ways would be frightened of her.
She could not let it stand! She could not! It stopped her from sleeping, tossing and turning, and sending her bedmaids and servants away, she was unable to take her mind away from it. She had to know why! She had to fix it and make him love her again!
She could be subtle no more. Perhaps she never should have been, to begin with. Subtlety was a woman's way but Cersei had the heart of a man, so she should have been open and asked Callum directly. Yes! If she had done that first then perhaps she would not be trapped in this infernal dance. She stood from her bed, and put on her finery once again, fixed herself properly, and steeled her heart. Tonight she would learn the truth, tonight she would fix it.
And so, in the dark of the night, Cersei Lannister crept from her room through the dark. Her bedroom was far away from Callum's, on the other side of the living quarters section of the Rock, but that was no trouble. Cersei knew these tunnels like the back of her hand. She had long ago memorized them in her dreams of being Lann the Clever. She did not want to be seen, so she took one of the older tunnels, confined, but hardly ever used by servants, and she strode through the dark with confidence, her eyes glinting green in the sparse dim light available, until she found the door to Callum's chambers.
Cersei paused in the hallway, took a breath to steady herself, then pushed the door open and crept inside, careful to shut it behind her.
The light of the moon over the bay at Lannisport glinted through the plate glass windows, illuminating the spacious chamber. Callum's great four-poster bed sat in the middle, with a large desk covered in papers, a fat wardrobe with a trunk at its foot, and several bedside tables, candles, and more scattered about atop a fine Essosi rug. Cersei had not been here since she was a child, since before the King's tourney at least, but she crept forward with confidence, drawing back the curtain of the bed to find-
Nothing, Callum was not here.
Cersei swallowed, the ice water rushing back into her veins as her heart beat like a drum in her breast. Where was he? He should be asleep at this hour. Had Callum been hurt? Kidnapped? What had happened to her brother? Frantically she began to look around the room, walking over to the papers on his desk, she could not make them out in the moonlight more than that they were drawings of some sort.
Nothing to be found there, only more toys Callum was making. Her panic only grew as she looked elsewhere for a sign, anything to tell her where her brother was. She could not let it end like this! She could not let it end in failure with Callum still afraid of her!
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