Near the edge of the fountain, the playful chase had soured into genuine drama. Myrcella had tripped over a protruding root, falling hard onto the muddy grass. Jeyne, unable to stop her momentum, had tumbled over her older sister.
"You ruined my silk!" Myrcella cried out, tears welling in her eyes as she looked at the mud caked onto the delicate, expensive lace of her favorite gown.
"You tripped me!" Jeyne spat back, rubbing a fresh, bleeding scrape on her elbow. Her temper flared, and she grabbed a handful of wet mud, rearing her arm back to hurl it directly into Myrcella's face.
Before the mud could leave Jeyne's hand, a blur of crimson and black intercepted them.
Yoriichi had crossed thirty paces of the garden in a fraction of a second. He moved with a fluid grace that made absolutely no sound. He gently but firmly caught Jeyne's wrist mid-throw, arresting her momentum instantly without hurting her.
"Let go!" Jeyne demanded, struggling against his immovable grip.
Without a word, Yoriichi knelt between them. He gently prised the mud from Jeyne's fingers, tossing it aside. He reached out, using his thumbs to carefully wipe a smudge of dirt from Myrcella's tear-stained cheek, before turning to inspect Jeyne's scraped elbow.
"It is only cloth, Myrcella," Yoriichi said calmly, his voice acting like a cooling balm on their hot, childish tempers. "The seamstresses can mend the silk by morning. And Jeyne, the scrape is shallow. It will heal, and the mud will wash out in the bath."
He looked at both of them, his burgundy eyes deep and serious. "You are both princesses of the realm. Out there, the court is filled with vipers waiting for us to show weakness. Do not let something so small break the peace between you here. We are family. We must not tear at each other."
His quiet, absolute authority instantly defused the tension. The girls looked at the ground, thoroughly chastised by their younger brother's maturity.
"I am sorry, Jeyne," Myrcella mumbled, wiping her eyes.
"I am sorry for the dress," Jeyne muttered back, her anger deflating.
By the time the apologies were exchanged, the darkness had completely fallen over the capital. Their play and chat time was finished.
The siblings stood, brushing the grass from their clothes, preparing to return to the Holdfast for a quick nap before supper. Before they parted ways in the corridor, Myrcella and Jeyne turned their heads to their brother.
In unison, they stepped forward and pressed a loud, affectionate smooch to each of his pale cheeks. They giggled at his entirely unimpressed, stoic expression and scurried down the hall toward their respective rooms.
Yoriichi stood alone in the dim corridor, scratching the side of his head. It was a relatively daily, albeit strange, ritual. They argued that it was some kind of good luck charm for their dear brother. He didn't bother to argue with them anymore; he merely shrugged and endured the affection.
The cool evening draft flowing through the stone halls quickly dried the wet spots on his cheeks as he walked silently toward his own chamber.
As he approached his heavy oak door, a tired, slightly wary smile touched his lips. Would she come tonight also? he thought. Well, not that I dislike it.
He thought about Cersei, who frequently came to his room at night to sleep beside him, only to mysteriously slip away around midnight. The children now had their own respective, massive chambers as they were getting bigger, but Cersei would only reason that sleeping beside him "bonded a mother and son more deeply."
He genuinely liked her scent—a rich perfume of myrrh and sweet wine that enveloped him like a protective shield. But she always held him like a desperate octopus. Her embrace was so incredibly tight, so suffocatingly obsessive, that sometimes he felt he needed to fight just to draw a proper breath, rather than trying to be suffocated by her love.
Deciding he needed a cup of water from the kitchens before returning to his room to wait for her inevitable arrival, Yoriichi altered his path.
As he passed through a certain secluded corridor—one that housed Cersei's private solar and guest rooms—he paused. His highly attuned senses picked up a faint, rhythmic sound bleeding through a thick oak door.
It was the sound of heavy, ragged breathing. Someone was panting hard, accompanied by the distinct, wet slap of flesh against flesh and the violent, rhythmic creaking of a heavy wooden bedpost. Activity was clearly going on inside.
Yoriichi frowned. At first, he assumed a maid had snuck a guard into an empty room. But then, a sharp, choked gasp echoed through the wood.
It was a strange, raw noise, but the underlying pitch was incredibly familiar. Yoriichi's eyes narrowed slightly. He realized instantly that it was none other than his mother's voice.
His protective instincts flared white-hot. Is she in pain? Is someone attacking the Queen?
Stealthily, moving with the absolute silence of a hunting predator, Yoriichi went toward the door. He decided to observe the situation first, his brilliant mind already calculating a dozen different lethal plans for the worst-case scenario he could think of. The door had not been latched properly; it was left ajar by a mere sliver, letting a thin beam of golden firelight spill out into the dark hallway.
Yoriichi came near the ajar door, his face devoid of emotion, and glanced through the crack into the flickering gloom of the bedchamber.
He was entirely surprised by the situation inside. His burgundy eyes slightly widened, absorbing a scene that shattered every conventional reality of his royal life.
There was no assassin. There was no struggle for survival.
Queen Cersei Lannister was standing near the edge of the grand canopy bed. She was entirely naked, her hands gripping the heavy wooden bedpost so tightly her knuckles were white. Her golden hair was wild and tangled, falling over her sweat-slicked shoulders as she gasped for air.
And standing directly behind her, his hands gripping her hips with a bruising, desperate force, was Ser Jaime Lannister. The famous Kingslayer, her twin brother, was naked from the waist down, hammering into her from behind with a brutal, frantic rhythm.
Outside the door, Yoriichi stood perfectly still, his breathing completely silent. The ancient soul within the ten-year-old boy merely observed the scene, processing the horrifying, world-shattering reality of the treason playing out before his very eyes.