[Kill The Boy] Chapter 80: The Equal Debt (Patreon)

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction and all rights for character, plots and settings belong to GRRM. I have no ownership.

A/N: The slight calm before the storm.

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Year 300 AC

Harrenhall, The Riverlands

The small council room earned its name only by Harrenhal's measure. Twenty men could have dined at the table beneath the maps, and Aemon's chair stood pushed back from the head of the board. But her eyes kept drifting toward the direwolf in the corner.

Ghost lay with his belly to the wall, muddy and matted from running the grounds with Arya’s wolf. Looking at him, she wanted only to take a comb to his flank until the coat shone snowy white again. Instead she had ledgers spread across scarred oak, though her thoughts refused to leave the beast.

"Across the water they call you a queen," Val said from the high window. "What are you down here?"

She had stood there so long in silence that the words landed like a war horn. In the corner, Ghost’s intelligent red eyes opened, fixing on Daenerys with as if wanting to know the answer himself.

"I am still a Queen," Daenerys said.

"You kneelers and your titles," Val said, turning from the light. Daenerys felt the familiar, irrational sting—the woman’s pale butter-gold hair and carved cheekbones looked more like old Valyria than half the dragonseeds of Dragonstone. "Down here a man sets a gold ring on his brow and thinks the metal makes him. North of the Wall, a chief is whoever keeps the frost out and the pot full."

A gold ring. As if everything she had bled for across the Red Waste and Slaver's Bay were only a trinket. The Iron Throne had been the sole star by which she steered—the birthright that gave purpose to every betrayal, every dead brother, every city sacked.

And now Aemon held it. Not by her side, but by ancient male descent and a marriage made in northern snows. Contesting him meant turning dragonfire upon kin and burning the realm before the dead even crossed the Neck.

Daenerys met Val’s grey gaze, her voice dropping into cold, deliberate steel. "The Iron Throne is a chair of melted swords. I did not cross an ocean to burn a realm I came to save. But this crown was not given to me by a septon, spearwife. I bought it with fire and blood, and it belongs to my armies, my dragons, and my people."

Val’s smile was thin, sharp as flint. "Aye. But that’s not what I asked. Dragons give you strength against men, but what’s coming are not men. The dead don't care who your father was. I just wonder if you're strong enough to stand when the fire isn't enough."

Anger flared hot behind Daenerys’s ribs, fanned by the insolence in Val’s stance. "Do you take me for a coward who flees when the wind turns cold?"

Val leaned against the window embrasure, unimpressed by the heat. "If you took your dragons and sailed back across the sea tomorrow, I wouldn't blame you. You’d be free of this frozen ditch. Free of the war."

"Free of a dream," Daenerys said, her throat tight. "Are any of us truly free of our dreams? I dream of spring, just like you. I cannot abandon this fight any more than you can."

"Aye." Val tapped two fingers against the map table, right where the blue ink of the Trident frayed into grey. "A dream of --"

The shouts and bells from the gate court broke the silence before Daenerys could answer.

Iron clangor from the gate towers first, then shouting under it, then a messenger in the doorway with mud to his knees and his breath gone ragged. "Your grace! The Ironborn—Asha Greyjoy is in the gate court under the king's summons, and unhappy Reachmen are filling the yard!"

Daenerys was already moving, Val falling into step beside her down Harrenhal's cold galleries.

The roar from the gate court grew heavier with every stride down the corridor. Servants shrank back against the walls to clear a path as Daenerys swept past with Val, Ghost loping silently at their flank, and the guards at their heels. The shouting ahead carried the frenzy of men bracing for blood, a roar she knew from the fighting pits of Meereen when a crowd clamored for slaughter in the name of justice.

By the time they reached the inner wall, the ordinary work of the castle had vanished into the crowd. Maids and kitchen boys crowded the stone to watch the archway, their gaze locked on the soldiers in mismatched iron who pressed together in a snarling ring.

At the center of the ring, a woman in salt-stained mail swung down from a lathered grey horse. She was slight beside her six-man escort, yet she carried herself with the rolling stride of someone accustomed to pitching decks in a gale. Tossing her reins to an older warrior with a split jaw and a beard like dried kelp, she turned a cold, insolent eye upon the Reach tabards closing around her..

"After all the slaughter you squids have done, you dare show your face here?!"

The white beacon of Oldtown stood broad across Baelor Hightower's chest as he pushed through the throng. He barred Asha's path with his face dark with fury and his hand resting near his sword hilt.

"I stood on the battlements and watched those... those black things drag my brother's ship under," Baelor choked out, his voice shaking with furious grief. "The water turned red with his blood right beneath our walls, while your reaving scum cheered the slaughter!"

Asha held her ground without shifting so much as a boot. "Euron was behind the slaughter, Lord Hightower, not me. I had to bury half the Iron Islands just to tear the Seastone Chair from his priests, and whatever took your brother in the deep answered to him alone. Look to the sea if you want your vengeance, because none of it belongs to me."

"You fucking whore!"

A young knight surged from the front rank, his face twisted with rage and grief. The red rose on his shield, the emblem of House Southshield, seemed to bleed as he shook with barely contained fury. Loras Tyrell leaned heavily on a cane beside him, his scarred hands trembling as his eyes fixed on the hated kraken.

"Southshield was my home!" Ser Owen Serry screamed. "My father held the walls! My brothers burned in their beds!"

"Ser Owen, hold—" Margaery Tyrell called out, catching at his mantle, but the boy tore free.

The crack of bone on iron sent a jolt of grim pleasure through Daenerys as Owen's fist struck Asha's jaw, the Ironborn woman crashing into the frozen slush. The crowd exploded into a frenzy of motion.

The Reachmen stomped ahead, heavy boots churning the slush, as someone bellowed, "Ironborn dogs!"

The ironborn escort leapt into motion, no hesitation in their eyes. A mountain of a man, his jaw split and scarred, crashed into the front line, his fist slamming a Hightower man-at-arms into the mud like a sack of grain. Another reaver lunged, seizing a Reach soldier by the throat and slamming him against the mounting block. The air filled with flying fists, elbows, and clubs as men grappled in the churned snow. Cloaks ripped and noses shattered under heavy blows, the outnumbered ironborn forming a desperate ring around their fallen lady, determined to shield her from the frenzy.

Ser Owen shoved through the riot, his eyes wild with murderous intent. "Die, reaver bitch!"

Steel flashed gray in the winter light—a long hunting dagger in Owen's hand diving toward Asha's neck as she struggled to rise from the mud.

Like a mountain falling, an ironborn reaver crashed over Asha. A knife flashed from his sleeve, catching Owen's plunging wrist. The two men hit the now crimson slush hard, steel singing as it scraped mail. Owen's scream split the air as the reaver's blade bit through his shoulder, while Owen's dagger ripped across the ironman's ribs, opening dark wool to steaming blood.

"Steel!" a sergeant screamed. "They've drawn steel!"

The Reach lines roared, hands flying to few that had swords.

Daenerys leaned over the inner parapet, her eyes cold as she watched the ironborn blood run dark. The memory of that accursed horn came back, the sound of Viserion's stolen fire still ringing in her ears. Victarion put the chain on my child. These pirates killed my son. Her blood boiled, silently willing the earth to drink the kraken's blood.

"Letting them bleed off the anger is fine," Val said beside her, untroubled by the brawl below. "Letting them kill each other will only anger Jon. It serves nothing."

Daenerys' attention remained on the chaos, offering neither answer nor command.

Fingers caught hard at Daenerys's sleeve as Sansa Stark reached the parapet, breathless and unhindered by guards who knew better than to stand in her way.

"Your Grace!" Sansa's voice cut through the clamor. "You have to stop them before they kill each other!"

Daenerys chose to do nothing as the shouts rang out louder as swords were drawn, the mob closing in on the Greyjoy woman and her reavers. "Why hold them back? They are ironborn, and not a one in this castle will weep for them."

"It will not stay between them and the ironborn," Sansa insisted, stepping beside her to the edge of the stone walk. "Look at them! Half the men down there hate the man standing at their back. Brackens and Blackwoods, Reachmen and Dornishmen, stormlanders and Northmen. If you let them butcher someone here and now, you tell every man here that private blood feuds rule Harrenhal. The coalition will tear itself apart before we ever march north."

"The maid speaks true, dragon queen," Val added with her arms tucked into the white fur of her sleeves. "Free folk know how a clan war begins. One man bleeds by the fire, three draw steel to avenge him, and by morning no one remembers the quarrel—only that they have brothers to bury."

The words cut through her anger. This was not mercy for ironborn, but the realm itself, balanced on a knife's edge before they ever marched north. Daenerys stepped to the parapet.

A shadow moved high above on the scorched stone of the Tower of Dread as Drogon lunged forward. His long black neck whipped back and broke into a roar that ripped the courtyard open, driving a blast of sulfur across the yard until the deep foundations of Harrenhal shuddered and the slush trembled under every man's boots.

Every shout died beneath the roar. Men stood frozen where they fought, their faces pale as frost while drawn steel slipped from slack fingers.

"Enough!" Daenerys's voice cracked across the dead silence like an iron whip. "Guards forward! Put spears between them!"

The Unsullied moved instantly, driving their spear butts between the Reachmen to pull them from the battered ironborn.

"The Lady Asha rides under the king's summons and the king's peace!" Daenerys commanded, her purple eyes sweeping over them. "Seize every man who drew steel—the knight of Southshield and the Ironborn both. Disarm them!"

They wrenched the dagger from Ser Owen with his arm twisted behind his back. He looked once at Margaery and Loras before dropping his gaze knowing even they can't help him. The bleeding Ironborn opened his fist and let his knife fall, but they bound him all the same.

Asha waved off a guard's reaching hand and dragged herself upright as Daenerys approached. One arm pressed hard against bruised ribs, blood dripping from her split mouth into her salt-stained wool collar. Her left eye was beaten shut, but the open right pinned Daenerys with an unyielding iron stare before she spat into the slush.

"Call a Maester," Daenerys commanded the nearest guard. "Too much blood has been spilt."

"I don't need a maester," Asha said through split teeth.

"You will need a maester if you want those bones to knit straight," Daenerys said coldly. "Sit down."

Asha remained on her feet, supported by one of her ironmen while the maester's boy brought vinegar and linen to wash the cuts. Daenerys descended from the parapet, heedless of the blood in the slush blackening the white fur of her hem. Through the parting crowd came the a captain, his gorget dented, hauling Owen Serry and the Ironborn forward by their bound arms.

"Your Grace," the captain reported gruffly. "The Reachman attacked first and the Greyjoy woman was already down on the ground when Ser Owen pulled his hunting blade to finish her. This is Lord Rodrick Harlaw, who threw himself across her and drew his own knife to turn the blow. They cut each other in the grapple."

A dozen Reach knights and Northern men-at-arms nodded grimly, knowing denial was useless before so many witnesses.

Baelor Hightower came to the young knights defense. "The boy's kin burned on the Shields, Queen! Will you punish a knight of the Reach for cutting down reavers that have killed so many of our people?!"

Daenerys stepped onto the stone mounting block so every banner in the yard might see her against the falling dusk.

"Hear me!" Daenerys commanded, her voice cutting cold across the freezing yard. "The Wall has cracked, the dead march south, and you brawl in the mud over old grudges? King Aemon proclaimed any man who draws steel in this peace forfeits the hand that held the blade. The law exists so this army does not butcher itself before the Long Night even begins. Ser Owen drew first. Lord Harlaw drew to defend his Lady. The law takes both hands. The debt is equal, though the guilt is not."

"You would maim a Reach knight beside an ironborn dog?!" Baelor roared.

"He pulled iron because the fool came at with a knife!" Asha screamed just as loudly as Baelor.

"If the Reach cannot keep the king's peace under a dragon's shadow," Daenerys said to Baelor, "you may take your knights and guard Oldtown without our protection. See how long you survive."

She then turned to Asha. "The law is set, Lord Baelor. It knows no difference between a rose and a kraken."

Margaery Tyrell stepped forward with her skirts gathered in one hand, cutting Baelor off before the fury couldd make it worse.

"The law is the law, Lord Baelor," Margaery said coolly. "Ser Owen drew the blade. Ser Owen pays the forfeit."

"Ready your irons, Maester," Daenerys commanded. "Bring the block here."

No man moved to stop it. A coal brazier was dragged out before the dais, its coals blown dull red until two heavy iron cauteries glowed the color of ripe cherries. The lords of the Reach and the ironborn captains watched in dead silence, neither side daring to break the peace of the hall again.

Owen Serry stepped up to the block, his face drained of color. He attempted to speak of his father and Southshield men, but his voice faltered. The maester placed the leather strap between his teeth, and Owen bit down with eyes closed.

The captain holding the cleaver looked toward Daenerys, who gave him a nod. The cleaver swung down.

Owen made a muffled, strangled shriek into the leather. Then came the hiss of glowing iron pressed against the bleeding stump, filling the damp stone room with the sickening stench of scorched flesh and sizzling pitch.

Nearby, at the edge of her vision, Ser Loras flinched violently. The stench of burning flesh caught in her throat, and she knew it was dragging him back to the mast of the Silence. Margaery's hand slipped over his ruined knuckles, fingers tightening to hold him upright.

Rodrick Harlaw stepped up next, clutching his bleeding ribs, blood running through his split beard. He spat onto the rushes and grinned up at Asha. "The Drowned God gave me two hands to row with, girl. As long as I have one, I can row."

The cleaver fell again.

A queen had to look upon the blood she called for, and Daenerys kept her eyes on both strokes.

"Take them to the maester's tower under guard," Daenerys commanded.

With the wounded carried out, the crowd started to disperse. Asha sat on an overturned supply crate, pressing a vinegar-soaked cloth to her split lip, glaring at Daenerys and shifting to Sansa.

"The King commanded me to bring the Iron Islands to heel," Asha said, her voice rough through broken teeth. "I brought them. Forty-three longships fit for sea riding anchor at Seagard, and a dozen trade hulks behind them. My captains bent the knee to the dragon. But my men cannot row on empty bellies, Queen, and your Reach lords will try to burn my masts the moment we make port."

"And now they know the cost of breaking the peace," Daenerys said.

Asha stared at her, and seemed to come to an udnerstanding and nodded her head. "Where is the King? And what do you mean the wall is cracked?"

"It's as I said. And the king is flying towards the Wall right now." Daenerys looked to Sansa. "Where do we put them?"

Sansa looked thoughtful as she took her time answering. "Seagard to the Saltspear and the mouth of the Fever River. If Lady Asha's ships run the coast, we can move thousands of people a week off the northern roads and bypass the mountain passes entirely. But we also need ships to help bring in the dragonglass faster."

"Then split them," Val said. "Put twenty longships on the Fever River to pull the women and children off the road first, and use the rest of the hulks for the dragonglass."

Asha looked up at Val, a crooked smirk touching her bloody lip. "I don't take orders from a wildling woman."

"You will, when the woman is your Queen." Daenerys replied, a smile growing when she saw the Ironborn's eyes widended, taking a second look at Val.

"Fair enough," Asha grunted, wincing as she favored her cracked ribs.

"I'll take half the longships to move the folk," Dagmer grumbled from behind them, his split jaw dragging sourly over the words. "So your greenlander lords do not foul their breeches thinking we've come ashore to reave."

"Good," Daenerys commanded. "Leave as soon as you are able to. The dead don't wait on winter tides."

The courtyard began to empty as night settled over Harrenhal. Sansa hurried toward the rookery to dispatch the couriers, while Asha was helped toward the gatehouse to have her ribs bound. The Reach knights retreated toward their quarters in sullen silence.

Only the guards remained in the yard—a silent ring of Unsullied standing rigid with their spears, and Northern sentries wrapped in shaggy bearskins leaning against the stone walls.

Ghost trotted over from the steps and sat heavily beside her leg, his flank warm against her skirt. Daenerys reached down without thinking, burying her chilled fingers into his thick white ruff. The direwolf leaned into her touch, his breath rising in white plumes dissappearing with the snow.

Val unhooked a leather skin from her belt, uncorked it with her teeth, and took a long swallow. She wiped her mouth with the back of her glove and held the skin out toward Daenerys.

"Sour blackberry," Val said, her breath plume rising white. "Burns on the way down, but it keeps the frost out of your bones."

Daenerys took the skin from Val's hand. The liquor burned her throat like liquid fire, but it drove the numbness from her fingers.

"You hesitated," Val said quietly, watching the steam rise from where men had bled an hour ago. "This could have been bloodless if you interceded before."

"I did not see you step forward as Queen either."

"Free folk brawl whenever you pack three clans around one fire. It's the only way men stay warm. But I am still learning what Southron Queens do. It is good to know we bleed the same."

Daenerys snorted. She did not want to lie to her. "The ironborn killed my child. Part of me wanted their blood spilled as revenge."

Val tilted her head. "You had a child?"

"Yes," Daenerys said, her hand tightening in Ghost's fur. "Not the kind you think. Viserion was a dragon." She looked down at the wine skin. "And once I had a son of my own blood, who died at birth."

Val measured her in the freezing air, letting the silence stretch. "Aye. A dead child will do that."

"Inside," Daenerys said, hadning back the wine skin. "You asked what I was down here."

Val took the looped the skin back to her belt and waited for Daenerys to continue.

"To shield the living, and to keep what remains of my blood." Daenerys met the wildling woman's steady eyes. "I came to fight, even if I am not Queen here."

The grimness went out of Val's face, yielding to a rare smile. "A wasted worry, then."

Val made a low clicking sound with her tongue. Ghost rose from the slush beside Daenerys, nudged her open hand once with his cold snout, and padded silently after Val.

She took three paces toward the doors before stopping to look back. "Do not write off your crown just yet. You have the dragon blood in you, don't you?"

Daenerys stood alone in the dark courtyard, feeling a warmth rise in her cheeks that had nothing to do with the falling snow. She couldn't mean... could she?

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The Flowstone Yard was full of hurried men pretending not to rush. Tully guards in mud-red and blue pulled pack frames tight and yanked at cold saddle girths to beat the weather, while the escort lined the stones beneath the gate tower in a bristling row of steel.

From the lee of a supply wagon, Tyrion watched with quiet relish as two burly rivermen veterans attempted to hoist a minor god onto a horse.

On the mounting block, a grizzled river captain and an iron-faced Northman hovered at Bran's elbows, hands twitching near the girth like they were tasked with adjusting a manticore's harness while the boy struggled to balance. His legs were braced, but still unsteady as someone who'd only just learned to walk again after a long illness. A cloak of grey wolfskins, broad enough for a grown warrior, swaddled his small frame.

"I do not need help," said Bran, his voice clam yet eerily cold amid the stamping hooves, "I can grasp the stirrup."

The captain cleared his throat, focused intently on the cinch rather than the boy's eerie stare. "I just wanted to be sure you're prepared, my lord. The roads ahead are bound to be rough with this snow."

The men hovered, desperate to lift the boy but terrified to lay hands on him. Veterans who would have charged a pike wall now skirted around the ten-year-old, giving him a wide berth as if he were a fissure in the earth venting demon smoke. Yet there the terrifying greenseer remained, feared by killers, knowing secrets older than the Wall, and unable to hoist his own small backside into a saddle without a boost.

Tyrion hid a wry smirk behind his gloved hand. The boy could see the deepest mysteries, but magic didn't lengthen his legs.

Since Sunspear, Tyrion had scoured every scrap of parchment he could find, poring over Septon Barth's Unnatural History and the charred remnants of Valyrian bloodmages' tomes. He sought any shred of knowledge on how Aemon Targaryen might shed his mortal form and become a winged nightmare. But the books yielded no useful insights, only hazy notions of blood purity and the Fourteen Flames.

On the other hand, it was the few Northern scrolls that had curdled his blood. In the moldering accounts of the First Men and the children of the forest, he had found half-rotted references to greenseers--beings who wore the skins of beasts, who saw through the sap of carved weirwoods, who remembered every word whispered beneath the leaves since the Dawn Age.

Aemon in his dragon skin terrified the common levies, who saw only black scales and violet fire capable of reducing a garrison to grease in three breaths. But a beast of wing and claw was terror they could see.

A beast of fire was simple enough for highborn dynasties and whisperers, but Bran Stark threatened the very trade that kept them alive. No locked solar could shut out him out, and no chest of silver could buy that power or poison a memory. Before such sight, every bribe and piece of statecraft in the realm collapsed into hollow theater.

Yet as he walked toward the boy swathed in wolfskins, Tyrion felt utterly, humiliatingly exposed. He knew with a sick certainty that Bran Stark could look at him and recite the night Shae had died, the silver doled to sellswords, the crossbow bolt lodged in Tywin’s groin, and every bitter, cowardly thought he had ever buried in the dark.

Bran finally hauled his boot into the stirrup and swung himself into the high-pommeled saddle.

Tyrion stopped at the horse’s flank. "Give him room, captain," he said mildly. "If the Lord of Winterfell falls off, he will only remember which of you failed to catch him."

The river captain grunted in profound relief, took two hasty steps backward.

Bran turned his head. He had a child's pale face inside a hood of dark fur, but the dark eyes looking down held an ancient wisdom that prickled the hair along Tyrion's arms.

"Lord Tyrion," Bran said softly. "How may I serve the only Lannister who does not run from me?"

Looking up, Tyrion saw only a common river saddle beneath the boy. The custom rig of wood and straps he had drawn out on the boards of Winterfell's great hall was gone, lost somewhere beneath a lifetime and three wars.

Tyrion let a brow rise in mild amusement. "My brother never did care for uncomfortable conversations. I came only to wish you well, my lord, and give what luck I can for your journey."

A faint smile touched Bran's mouth, unsettling Tyrion's easy composure. "Are you sure that is all you came to say?"

He was a fool to try to play the mummer here. "No, no." Tyrion said, and felt his throat work as the courtesy peeled away. "That was not all. What you said through that raven in Dorne rattles in my head yet." He reached out, his hand gripping the edge of the saddle while he dredged up the breath for her name. "Tysha. Does she live?"

He had spent the night polishing grander, sharper ways to ask it, but standing before those ancient eyes, the wit had burned away.

"Yes, she lives." Bran said.

Those two small words punched into him, knocking the wind from his lungs as the world around him dissolved. She lives.

"Where?" Tyrion whispered, his voice cracking. "Bran, where did she go?"

"Across the sea," Bran answered, his gaze drifting past Tyrion toward the grey southern sky. "The weirwoods do not grow in the Free Cities, Lord Tyrion. The trees have no eyes beyond the water. But when the ravens roost on the salt quays of the east, I have seen her. She walks upon white stone by a bay of blue water. She has a son with dark curls."

Tyrion’s fingers dug into his wool cloak until the seams strained. "Is the boy... is he mine? Is he... normal?"

"She tells the lad his father was a great lord of the sunset kingdoms," Bran said gently. "A man who loved her. And yes, he's a healthy boy. More than that, I cannot tell."

Tyrion's chest seized with pain, as if a knife struck him. "Tell me the city. I have gold—I have ships—"

"No," Bran said. It was not spoken in anger, but it fell with the finality of an iron gate. "If you seek her, Lord Tyrion, your ghosts follow. Do you think it would be a good idea to bring her here while death itself is at our doorsteps? She is safe because you are dead to her."

Bran adjusted his grip on the reins and settled himself between the pommels, letting out a small, tired sigh that did not belonged to a ten-year-old child.

"Leave her to the sun, Lord Tyrion," Bran murmured. "Some debts are paid only by letting them go."

The river captain stepped forward, seizing the lead horse’s bridle, and the Northern and Riverlander escort closed around them in a wall of iron and wool.

Bran gathered the reins in his small hands, looking down at Tyrion one last time. "But if we live to see the spring... I will give you her city. Farewell."

Tyrion managed a stiff bow. "Farewell, Bran. And thank you."

Tyrion stood watching the escort ride toward the lake road until the boy's wolfskin cloak vanished into the morning fog. The boy was right, of course. He had no business dragging Tysha into this gathering ruin, yet the plain sense of it did nothing to quiet his heart.

A son. He had a son. Somewhere across the sea a boy walked under lemon trees, carrying his blood without the twisted spine or the stunted legs. For thirteen years Tysha had been a wound he kept hidden, and now it was torn wide with wonder and fury and grief.

He turned his mismatched legs back toward the castle, a monstrous sprawl vast enough to swallow entire towns. Across the lower court beneath the shadow of the Wailing Tower, movement caught his eye as several figures emerged into view, one of them clad in dark wool.

Jaime.

His brother wore neither white nor gold today. In their place was a heavy tunic of rough charcoal wool and boiled black leather, not yet the official garb of the Night's Watch but the color of a man whose sword had been pointed north. And standing before him in a heavy samite cloak was Myrcella. Her hood had fallen back, baring the pale, jagged scar that sliced from her right ear across her cheek—Darkstar’s mark upon the girl who had done nothing to earn it.

His daughter, Tyrion thought, watching the two blond heads close together. She had Cersei’s jaw and Jaime’s eyes, left to wonder what name a girl was meant to give an 'uncle' who was also her father.

As Tyrion got closer, he picked up on thier conversation choosing not to intervene.

"--sitting up eating broth," Jaime was saying, and Tyrion knew from the tone that he was trying to be soothing. "He has good men watching his door, and the maesters purged the nightshade before it could take him. When you ride south with the Prince's guard, go straight to the Red Keep. Tommen is waiting."

Myrcella reached out, her gloved fingers touching the rough wool of Jaime’s collar. "Does he still have his kittens?"

A faint smile touched Jaime’s mouth. "The black one never leaves his pillow. Ser Pounce. Tommen will need his sister to remind him that a stag does not hide under the bed."

Myrcella looked at his dark clothes, her lower lip trembling. "Must you take the black? Mother is gone, and with you leaving... there is no one left at Casterly Rock, nuncle. Only us. Can King Aemon not grant you a pardon?"

Jaime touched her cheek with his left hand. "A pardon for what, little princess? The dragon king gave me the only honest trade left in the world, a sword in my left hand and a wall to die against. It is not an exile, Myrcella. It is the first clean thing I have done since I was fifteen."

He leaned in and kissed her brow. "Go to your litter, sweetling. It's warmer in the south, and Harrenhal is no place for a girl with gold in her hair."

Myrcella forgot the curtsy and threw her arms around his neck, her face pressed into the damp wool of his collar. Jaime gathered her close with his left arm, held her tight against his chest, and let her go.

"Goodbye, Father. I pray I may see you again." Mycella said and Tyrion could even see the tears in her eyes. With that, she turned on her heel and hastened inside, her maidservants flocking tight around her.

The word struck him dumb. Jaime merely stood in the yard watching her retreat, stunned by a title he had likely never heard from her lips in all her life.

When the shock finally faded from Jaime's face, he reached for the reins of his bay courser, and Tyrion stepped out from the gloom.

"A touching farewell, brother," Tyrion said.

Jaime wheeled on pure reflex, left hand falling to his hilt until he saw who stood there. The faint smirk that followed looked worn at the edges. "Skulking around stable arches, Tyrion? I expected you to be in the local brothels by now."

"Brothels at Harrenhal? You always did overestimate my enterprise, brother. I was only appreciating the rare sight of a father talking to his daughter, but I did not come to banter." The wit died on his tongue, and he gave Jaime the name alone. "Tysha."

All amusement drained from Jaime's face at once. A single glance at the boy holding the lead rein was enough to send the lad bolting into the shelter of the stalls.

"Brandon Stark saw her," Tyrion said, taking two steps closer until he could see the grey stubble along Jaime's jaw. "In Essos. She lived, Jaime. Even as you and Father tried to remove her name."

A great stone lifted from his shoulders as he pressed on. "She has a boy, Jaime. My boy."

Jaime stared at him, his green eyes widening for an instant. "Congratulations, brother."

"Is that all you have to say to me?"

"What do you want from me, Tyrion?" Jaime looked past him. "Father's order was simple enough once the garrison finished with her. A crofter's girl had mocked our name, dead whores told no tales, and I was to slit her throat and pitch the sack into the sea beneath the cliffs."

The fury surged back into his chest, hot enough to choke him.

"I was seventeen," Jaime spoke without his customary armor, the golden insolence stripped entirely from his voice. "Still terrified of Father, but I could not cut her throat. I took a hundred gold dragons from my chest down to the quays beneath the Rock and put her on a Pentoshi cog. I watched until her sails cleared the bay."

"You let me believe she was a tavern slut hired with coin!" Tyrion shouted, the years of poison and bitter cruelty breaking out of him in a torrent. "You watched me drink myself into pigsties and brothels across half the world, hating the sight of my own face in a mirror!"

"If Father had discovered she lived, he would have sent a dozen cutthroats to Pentos to slit her throat!" Jaime took a furious step forward, his left fist clenched. "And then the years passed, Tyrion... and every year I held my tongue, the lie grew fangs. I was a coward. I wanted you to love me. I knew if you knew what I had done—what I had let Father do—you would never look at me again."

Jaime took a deep breath. "I will not ask you to forgive me. I kept the lie because I could not bear to lose you, and I bought my comfort with your life."

Jaime had not let their father kill her. He had lied and played the dutiful golden son while quietly steering Tysha out of Lord Tywin's reach. She lived, and his boy lived. The debt was staggering, turning heavy and sour in Tyrion's stomach. It did not wash away the years of lies or the whore jokes at court. It only meant the brother standing before him was no longer a simple monster he could hate in peace.

"You saved her," Tyrion said, the words barely audible between them, "and let my own life rot away."

"Do not sing a ballad for me, Tyrion," Jaime said, bitterness bleeding through the words. "We are both Lord Tywin's get. I could not defy his will, and you put a bolt through his groin while he sat his privy. We have both paid our debts in ruin."

A lifetime of exile and spilled blood had given him an answer for every cruelty, yet when he opened his mouth, not a word would come.

Jaime pulled himself into the saddle of his bay courser with his left hand and gathered the leather reins against his chest. High above Tyrion in the grey morning, he looked less like the golden knight of the tourneys than a soldier riding out to meet the dark.

"Moat Cailin will not hold itself," Jaime said quietly. "You need not worry, brother. It is likely the last you will see of me."

Tyrion gave a single, stiff nod.

Jaime turned the bay toward the sally port and fell in beside the armored files of the Westerlands vanguard. Tyrion lingered in the stable long after the hooves receded, his mind adrift even with work awaiting him, surprised by a lightness in his chest he had not felt in years.

Stay safe, Tysha. When this is over, I will come find you and the boy.