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  Jaime Lannister

  The timber of the inner gate screamed as it gave way, a sound like a giant's bone snapping.

  Jaime Lannister didn't wait for the dust to settle. He surged through the splintered gap, his sword leading the way, stepping over the ruin of the men Sandor Clegane had crushed against the wood to force it open.

  The courtyard of Castle Bcktyde was a cauldron of noise and death. It was a smaller space than Casterly Rock or the Red Keep, enclosed by high walls of volcanic stone that trapped the din of battle, amplifying every scream, every csh of steel, every wet thud of a body hitting the mud until it was a physical weight pressing against the eardrums.

  "Secure the perimeter!" Jaime roared, his voice cutting through the cacophony. "Push them back! Clear the yard!"

  The Lannister heavy infantry poured in behind him, a river of red steel. Locking shields, thrusting spears, advancing like a machine designed to grind meat.

  Against them, the Drumm garrison broke like waves against a cliff. The Ironborn fought with a savage, desperate courage; they knew there was no retreat, no ship to carry them away, but courage was poor armor against superior numbers and better steel.

  Jaime parried a wild swing from a bearded reaver, the impact jarring his arm, and riposted with a fluid thrust that found the gap between helmet and gorget. The man fell, choking. Jaime stepped over him without a second gnce. He wasn't looking for duelists. He wasn't looking for glory.

  He was looking for a way down.

  "Clegane!" Jaime shouted, scanning the melee.

  He found the Hound twenty yards ahead, a dark stain in the center of the crimson tide. Sandor had abandoned any pretense of defense. He wasn't fighting; he was exterminating. He wielded a greatsword that looked like a toy in his massive hands, a sword that sheared through shields and limbs alike.

  "Where is he?" Sandor screamed at an Ironborn captain he had pinned against a water trough. The Hound's helmet was gone, lost in the crush at the gate, and his burned face was a map of hell, slick with blood and sweat. "Where is the boy?"

  The captain spat at him. Sandor headbutted the man, a sickening crunch of bone, and then drove his sword through the man's chest, pinning him to the wood.

  "Useless," Sandor snarled, ripping the bde free. He turned, his eyes wild, scanning the castle keep that loomed above them. "They're all fucking useless."

  "Sandor!" Jaime reached him, grabbing the giant's pauldrons to get his attention. "He must be in the dungeons. The lower levels. We need to find the entrance to the undercroft."

  Sandor's chest heaved. He looked at Jaime, and for a second, Jaime saw genuine panic beneath the rage. "If they killed him... if they heard us coming and slit his throat..."

  "Then we kill them all," Jaime said, his voice ft. "But we have to look. Come on."

  They fought their way to the main doors of the keep. The Ironborn had tried to barricade them, piling benches and tables against the wood, but the sheer weight of the Lannister assault shattered the obstacle.

  They burst into the lower entry hall. It was darker here, lit only by flickering torches in iron sconces. The air was thick with the smell of old smoke and unwashed bodies.

  "Down," Jaime commanded the squad of ten household guards who had stuck to them like burrs. "Find the stairs down."

  They found them behind a heavy tapestry depicting a kraken pulling down a galleon. The stairs were narrow, steep, and slick with moisture.

  "I take point," Sandor growled, shoving past a soldier.

  "Don't kill the ones who might talk," Jaime warned him, though he knew it was likely wasted breath.

  They descended into the belly of the rock. The sounds of the battle above faded, repced by the drip of water and the heavy breathing of men in armor. The air grew colder, heavier. It smelled of tide and excrement.

  At the bottom of the stairs, a single Ironborn guard stood watch. He was young, his eyes wide with terror as he saw the golden knight and the burned giant descend upon him. He dropped his spear.

  "I yield!" the boy cried, falling to his knees. "I yield!"

  Sandor grabbed him by the throat, lifting him off his feet with one hand. "The prisoner. The Lannister boy. Where?"

  "Ch-chamber three!" the guard gargled, cwing at Sandor's gauntlet. "Down the hall! Left! Please, I just guard the door!"

  Sandor threw him against the wall. The boy crumpled, unconscious or dead, it didn't matter.

  They ran. The heavy boots of the Lannister guards thundered on the stone floor. Jaime's heart hammered against his ribs, louder than the battle, louder than the bells. Please be alive. Please be whole. Cersei will never forgive me. I will never forgive myself.

  "Chamber three," Jaime counted as they passed heavy oak doors. One. Two.

  The third door was open.

  Jaime stopped, his boots skidding on the damp stone. Sandor was already there, filling the doorway with his bulk.

  The Hound went rigid. He didn't roar. He didn't curse. He just stood there, staring into the room.

  "Sandor?" Jaime stepped up beside him, dread coiling in his stomach like a cold snake. "Is he..."

  Jaime looked inside.

  The cell was small, lit by a single high window that let in a shaft of grey light.

  There were two bodies on the floor.

  Both were men. Both were Ironborn.

  One y near the door, a burly man with a beard full of bells. He was face down in a pool of blood that had spread across the uneven stones, soaking into the straw.

  The other y further in. A man with a wide, toad-like face.

  "Clear the room," Jaime ordered his men, his voice tight. "Guard the hall. Let no one in."

  The soldiers obeyed, retreating to the corridor. Jaime and Sandor stepped into the sughterhouse.

  It smelled of copper and death, fresh and sharp.

  Jaime knelt beside the toad-faced man. He was lying on his back, his eyes staring up at the ceiling in frozen shock. His neck was a ruin.

  "Look at this," Jaime whispered.

  He pointed to the wounds. There were multiple puncture marks in the man's throat. They were small, ragged holes. Not the clean slice of a sword or the heavy chop of an axe.

  "He was stabbed," Jaime said, his mind racing. "Repeatedly. Frenzied."

  He looked at the man's hands. The knuckles were red, as if he had been clutching at his throat. Beside him y a ring of keys.

  Jaime moved to the second man. The one with the bells. He rolled the corpse over.

  This one had a simir wound in the neck, but also a deep puncture in his stomach.

  "What weapon makes a mark like that?" Jaime murmured. He looked around the cell. There were no weapons on the floor, save for the Ironborn's own swords, still sheathed or fallen nearby.

  He looked at the shackles bolted to the wall. They were empty. The cuffs y open on the floor, unlocking keys still in the mechanisms.

  Sandor walked to the corner of the room. He picked up something from the floor, a broom. He stared at it for a moment, then tossed it aside.

  "The boy didn't have a weapon," Sandor rumbled. His voice was dangerously quiet. "I don't think they would have left him carry any weapons."

  "Someone helped him?" Jaime suggested, though he didn't believe it. "A sympathizer?"

  "Look at the Toad," Sandor gestured to the first body. "Look at the angle of the wounds. Upward thrusts. Under the jaw. Into the soft spots."

  Jaime looked again. The wounds were low. Struck from below. Or struck by someone kneeling.

  "The keys," Jaime realized. "They're on the floor. The cuffs are unlocked."

  He visualized it. The guard unlocking the prisoner. The prisoner striking.

  "What did he use?"

  Jaime leaned closer to the Toad's neck. The wounds were jagged. Tearing.

  "Bone," Jaime whispered. "Or a sharpened stick. Something improvised."

  He looked around the cell. In the corner, a rotting fish y half-eaten by rats. Its ribs were exposed.

  Jaime felt a chill that had nothing to do with the damp dungeon air.

  "He made a shiv," Jaime said, standing up. He looked at Sandor. "He made a weapon out of garbage. He tricked them into unlocking him. And then he killed them."

  Sandor was staring at the bodies. A strange expression crossed his scarred face, a look of pride.

  "He killed them both," Sandor said. "One six-year-old boy. Two armed guards."

  "He ambushed the second one," Jaime deduced, pointing to the shadows by the door. "Waited for him. Jumped him."

  He looked at the second guard's belt. The scabbard for his dagger was empty.

  "He took the dagger," Jaime said. "And the second man's sword is too heavy for him... but look." He pointed to the empty loop on the second guard's belt. "He had a crossbow. It's gone."

  Silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating.

  Jaime had come here expecting to find a terrified child huddled in the corner, or a corpse. He had expected to be the hero, the knight in shining armor rescuing the damsel in distress.

  Instead, he had found two dead guards, killed by someone who shouldn't be old enough to write his own name.

  "He didn't get rescued," Sandor said, his voice rough. "He got himself out."

  Jaime looked at the blood on the floor. There was so much of it.

  "He's loose," Jaime said, the realization hitting him. "Sandor, he's loose in the castle."

  "Aye."

  "The castle is a war zone," Jaime said, his voice rising in panic. "There are five thousand Lannister soldiers out there who have been told to kill anything that moves in Drumm colors. There are Ironborn defenders who will kill any hostage they find to spite us."

  "And he's covered in blood," Sandor added grimly. "He won't look like a highborn hostage. He'll look like a monster. Or a target."

  Jaime turned and ran for the door. "We have to find him. Before one of our own men puts a spear through him."

  "Where would he go?" Sandor asked, following close behind. "The harbor?"

  "The harbor is on fire. The courtyard is a meat grinder." Jaime stopped in the corridor, looking left and right. "If he went down, he ran into the soldiers. If he's smart..."

  "He went up," Sandor finished. "Away from the fighting. To the high ground."

  "The Great Hall," Jaime said. "Or the Lord's Sor. He'll try to barricade himself."

  "Or he's hunting," Sandor muttered.

  Jaime looked at the Hound sharply. "He's a child, Sandor. Not you."

  "Up," Jaime commanded. "We go up. Run."

  They sprinted back toward the stairs, ignoring the burning in their lungs. Every second mattered. Every shadow could be hiding a terrified boy with a crossbow he could barely lift, ready to shoot the first thing that opened a door.

  As they climbed, Jaime noticed something on the steps.

  A single, bloody footprint. Small. Bare.

  "He was here," Jaime said, pointing.

  They followed the trail. It was faint, intermittent, but it was there. A smudge of red on a wall. A drop on a floorboard.

  They reached a nding where a basket of undry had been spilled. White linens were scattered across the floor.

  One of the sheets had a perfect, small, bloody footprint stamped onto it.

  "He encountered someone here," Jaime said, slowing down, sword raised.

  Sandor knelt by the basket. "No body. Whoever it was ran."

  "Or he let them go."

  "He didn't let those two in the cell go," Sandor growled.

  They pushed on. The keep was echoing with the sounds of the sack now. Doors were being kicked in. Men were shouting. The discipline of the Lannister army was fraying into the inevitable chaos of looting and securing a captured fortress.

  "We need to hurry," Jaime said. "Before the rearguard gets up here."

  They turned a corner and nearly tripped over a body.

  It was a young man, a squire by the look of his clothes. He was lying face down in the hallway.

  Jaime wanted to look more into it, but they didn't have the time; they needed to find him.

  "The Great Hall is just ahead," Sandor said, pointing down the corridor. The double doors carved with krakens loomed at the end of the hall.

  "He's there," Jaime said. "I can feel it."

  "Lannister," Sandor said, grabbing his arm. "If he's in there... and he's armed... be careful. He won't know it's us. He'll just see armor and swords."

  "I'll talk to him," Jaime said. "I'll talk him down."

  "Just don't get shot," Sandor grunted. "Your father would be cross if I let you die too."

  They approached the doors. They were slightly ajar.

  Silence drifted from the room beyond. A heavy, waiting silence, he looked through a small opening, and was sure he could see the silhouette of a boy sitting.

  Jaime sheathed his sword. He didn't want to walk in with a bde drawn. He wanted to look like a brother, not a killer.

  "Adrian?" he called out softly. "It's Jaime. It's your brother."

  No answer.

  Jaime pushed the door open.

  Adrian Lannister - Ten Minutes Ago

  The Great Hall was too big.

  It felt like the inside of a whale, ribs of dark wood arching high overhead into shadows where spiders lived. Adrian crouched behind the long table on the dais, squeezing himself into the smallest ball he could make.

  He was good at making himself small. He had practiced in the cell. If you were small enough, the monsters might look right over you.

  His hands were sticky. The blood from the squire in the hallway was drying on his skin, making it feel tight, like he was wearing gloves made of old paint. He held the crossbow on his knees. It was heavy, a dead weight of wood and iron that wanted to drag him down, but he wouldn't let it go. It was his only tooth.

  He heard the heavy doors bang open.

  Adrian stopped breathing. He pressed his face against the dusty wood of the Lord's chair legs.

  "Hold them at the stairs!" a voice roared. It wasn't Father. It was a rough, wet voice, like rocks tumbling in the surf. "Buy me time, you useless sow-sons! I'll secure the... the valuables!"

  "But Captain!" another voice shouted from the hallway. "They're in the courtyard! The Lion is—"

  "I said hold them!" The first man shouted. There was a sound of a boot kicking something hard. "Die for your King, damn you! I'll be right behind you!"

  The doors smmed shut. A heavy bar was dropped into pce with a thud.

  Silence returned to the room, but it wasn't empty anymore.

  Adrian peeked around the leg of the chair.

  A man stood in the center of the hall. He was big. Not as big as Sandor, but wide, wearing armor that looked like it had been patched together from dead men. Rust stained his mail, and his helmet was a bucket of iron with a slit for eyes and breathing holes punched in the front. He looked like an iron beetle.

  The man was alone.

  "Cursed," the man hissed, pacing back and forth. His boots left muddy tracks on the rushes. "Crow's Eye cursed us all. Mad bastard. Left us to rot while he sails off..."

  He wasn't looking for Adrian. He was looking at the room.

  He grabbed a silver goblet from the table and shoved it into a sack at his belt. He swept a heavy candebra into his arms. He was a rat, Adrian realized. A big, iron rat scurrying before the cats came.

  Adrian stayed still. I am the gss, he thought. I am the shard on the floor.

  The man moved toward the dais. He was coming closer.

  Adrian's heart beat against his ribs like a trapped bird. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It was so loud. Surely the man could hear it? Surely everyone could hear it?

  The man stomped up the steps of the dais. He was breathing hard, a rasping sound inside his helmet. He stopped right in front of the table where Adrian was hiding.

  Adrian gripped the crossbow. His finger found the trigger. It was cold.

  The man didn't look down. He looked up.

  On the wall above the High Table, mounted on a rack of dark driftwood.

  Red Rain

  The man made a low, greedy noise. "There you are," he whispered. "Ticket out of here. Ticket to the Free Cities."

  He reached up. His gauntleted hands grasped the scabbard. He lifted the sword from the hooks.

  "Mine," the man grunted. "Better than dying for a dead squid."

  He looked down to fasten the sword belt around his waist.

  And he saw Adrian.

  For a second, nobody moved. The man froze, the red sword half-buckled. Adrian froze, looking up through his matted, filthy hair.

  The man blinked behind his eye slit. He saw a small, ragged boy covered in dried blood, huddled under the table like a goblin.

  "What in the seven hells..." the man muttered.

  Then he saw the crossbow.

  His eyes went wide.

  "You little—"

  Adrian didn't think. Thinking was slow. Thinking got you killed.

  He aimed. He squeezed the trigger.

  THWACK.

  The crossbow bucked in his hands like a living thing. The wood stock smmed into his chest, knocking him backward. He hit his head on the Lord's chair, stars bursting in his vision.

  A scream ripped through the air.

  Adrian scrambled up, his head spinning.

  The bolt had flown true, but the recoil had thrown his aim off. It hadn't hit the throat. It hadn't hit the chest.

  It was buried deep in the man's thigh, right through the gap in his skirt of mail.

  The man roared, dropping Red Rain. The beautiful sword cttered to the stone floor. He grabbed his leg, staggering back.

  "You rat!" the man screamed. "You little gutter rat!"

  He wasn't dead. He wasn't dying. He was just hurt. And he was very, very angry.

  The man looked at Adrian. His eyes inside the helmet were wide and white with rage.

  "I'm going to peel you," the man hissed. He took a step forward, limping, dragging his wounded leg. "I'm going to peel you like an apple."

  Adrian dropped the empty crossbow. It was useless now. A heavy stick.

  He pulled the dagger from his belt—Toad's dagger. It felt big in his hand.

  The man charged.

  He moved fast for a wounded man. He lunged across the dais.

  Adrian tried to stab him. He thrust the knife forward, aiming for the belly.

  The man ughed. A wet, ugly sound.

  He spped Adrian's hand. His gauntlet was heavy leather and iron. It hit Adrian's wrist with a bone-jarring crack. The dagger flew spinning into the shadows.

  "Stupid," the man growled.

  He kicked the crossbow away. It skittered across the floor and fell off the dais.

  Then he hit Adrian.

  It was a backhand, casual and brutal. The iron knuckles caught Adrian on the cheekbone.

  Pain exploded in Adrian's face. It was a white-hot fsh that blinded him.

  He flew backward, hitting the wall with a thud that knocked the breath out of him.

  He slid down to the floor, gasping. The room spun. The floor tilted.

  A hand grabbed him by the throat.

  It was a big hand. It squeezed.

  Adrian was lifted into the air. His toes kicked uselessly at the man's armor. He couldn't breathe. The world was going grey at the edges.

  The man brought his helmeted face close to Adrian's. He smelled of sour wine and hate.

  "Die," the man whispered. "Just die, you little mistake."

  The grip tightened. Adrian's vision started to go bck.

  He filed his hands. He hit the metal breastpte. Hard. Cold. Unyielding.

  He was going to die. He was small and weak, and he was going to die.

  No.

  His hand brushed his pocket.

  The fish bone.

  Adrian's fingers scrabbled at the fabric of his breeches. The man was shaking him now, enjoying the choke.

  "Pop goes the weasel," the man taunted.

  Adrian ripped the bone free.

  It was sharp. He felt the point prick his thumb.

  The man was staring at him, watching the light go out of his eyes. The helmet had a T-shaped slit. A vertical bar for breathing. A horizontal bar for seeing.

  The right eye was right there. A wet, white marble behind the iron.

  Adrian swung his arm.

  He drove the fish bone into the eye slit.

  Squelch.

  It wasn't a hard sound. It was soft. Like poking a finger into a ripe peach.

  The man stiffened. He made a noise that wasn't a scream, but a high, thin eeeeeeeeee.

  He dropped Adrian.

  Adrian hit the floor hard, nding on his hands and knees. He gasped, sucking air into his burning lungs.

  The man staggered back. His hands flew to his helmet. He was screaming now, a raw, terrifying sound that echoed off the vaulted ceiling. Blood, dark and thick, was spurting from the eye slit, running down the rusty iron.

  "My eye! My eye! You little bastard! My eye!"

  The man was blind on one side. He was wounded in the leg. But he was still big. He was still armed with a shortsword at his belt. And he was thrashing around, swinging his fists blindly.

  Adrian scrambled backward, wiping blood from his mouth. His cheek throbbed like a drum.

  He looked for his knife. It was gone, lost in the shadows under the table.

  He looked at the man. The armor was thick. Leather and mail and pte. A bone wouldn't go through that. A knife wouldn't go through that.

  Only one thing would.

  Adrian looked at the floor.

  Red Rain.

  The sword y where the man had dropped it. The scabbard had slid off partially, revealing three inches of metal.

  Valyrian steel.

  Tyrion said it cuts through iron like butter, Adrian thought. Tyrion said it never goes dull.

  The man was recovering. He was pulling the bone out of his eye with a wet sucking sound. He was turning, his remaining eye wild and bloodshot, searching the room.

  "I hear you!" the man shrieked. "I hear you breathing!"

  Adrian ran.

  He ran to the sword.

  He grabbed the handle. It was long, a hand-and-a-half hilt. The leather was soft.

  He pulled.

  The scabbard slid off with a hiss.

  The bde was long. So long. It was almost as tall as Adrian.

  He tried to lift it with one hand like he had seen Ser Jaime do.

  His arm trembled. The tip dragged on the floor. It was lighter than iron, yes, but it was still a bar of metal meant for a grown man to kill other grown men.

  He couldn't swing it. He couldn't lift it high enough to chop.

  The man heard the scrape of metal on stone. He turned. Blood masked half his face.

  "There," the man gargled. He drew his own sword, a jagged, rusty piece of iron. "I'm going to cut your hands off."

  He charged.

  Adrian looked at the sword in his hand. He looked at the charging monster.

  I can't lift it, he realized with cold panic. I can't fight him.

  But I can point it.

  He grabbed the pommel with his right hand.

  He didn't care.

  He grabbed the bde with his left hand, halfway down the steel.

  The Valyrian steel bit instantly. It sliced into his palm, through the skin, into the meat.

  Pain, white and sharp, shot up his arm, but he was able to lift it up. His heart beating faster than ever before, Adrian felt stronger than ever.

  Adrian screamed. It wasn't a scream of fear. It was a scream of rage. It was a scream that said I am hurt and I am bleeding and I am going to kill you.

  "RAAAAAHHHH!"

  He ran.

  He didn't try to swing. He held the sword like a spear, gripped by the hilt and the bde, blood from his own hand lubricating the steel.

  The man swung his rusty sword. It was a clumsy, blind swing. It whistled over Adrian's head.

  Adrian ducked under the blow. He was small. He was low.

  He drove Red Rain forward.

  He aimed for the waist. The gap between the breastpte and the mail skirt. The soft spot.

  The tip of the Valyrian steel touched the ringmail.

  It didn't stop. It didn't bounce.

  It punched through the links like they were made of paper. Snap. Snap. Snap.

  The bde slid in. Deep.

  It went through the mail. It went through the leather jerkkin underneath. It went into the belly.

  Adrian kept running, his momentum driving the sword in until his left hand—his bleeding, sliced hand—hit the man's armor.

  The man stopped. He looked down. He looked surprised.

  "Oh," the man said.

  Blood poured out around the bde. It wasn't red like normal blood. It looked bck in the shadows.

  The man dropped his sword. He fell to his knees.

  He grabbed the bde of Red Rain with his gauntleted hands, trying to pull it out.

  Adrian let go.

  He stepped back, panting, his left hand dripping red drops onto the stone.

  The man was on his knees, the great red sword sticking out of his gut like a cross. He was making wet, gurgling noises.

  He wasn't dead yet.

  He was trying to stand up.

  "No," Adrian whispered. "Stay down."

  He looked around frantically. The knife. Where was the knife?

  He saw a glint of metal near the table leg.

  Adrian scrambled for it. He snatched up the iron dagger.

  He ran back to the man.

  The man was still trying to pull the sword out. His remaining eye was unfocused, looking at nothing.

  Adrian didn't go for the belly. He didn't go for the throat.

  He ran around behind the man. He jumped onto his back, just like he had with the guard in the cell.

  The man grunted, sagging under the weight.

  Adrian reached around. He found the face. He found the other eye hole.

  He stabbed.

  He drove the iron dagger into the left eye.

  The man convulsed. He fell forward, face pnting into the rushes, the hilt of Red Rain preventing him from lying ft.

  Adrian rode him down.

  He pulled the knife out. He stabbed again. Through the eye slit. Harder.

  Crunch.

  Again.

  Squish.

  Again.

  "Die!" Adrian screamed. "Die! Die! Die!"

  He stabbed until his arm burned. He stabbed until the man stopped twitching. He stabbed until there was nothing left inside the helmet but ruin.

  Adrian sat back on his heels, straddling the corpse.

  He was breathing so hard it hurt. His chest heaved. His cheekbone throbbed where the man had hit him. His left hand was a mask of blood, a straight, deep cut running across the palm where he had gripped the sword.

  He couldn't feel it. He couldn't feel anything.

  He looked at the sword sticking out of the dead man. It was beautiful. The blood on it matched the ripples in the steel.

  Red Rain, he thought. It made it rain red.

  He slowly climbed off the body. He tried to wipe his hands on his tunic, but his tunic was already soaked. There was no clean pce left on him.

  He was red. He was all red.

  He walked to the steps of the dais and sat down. He put his elbows on his knees and let his hands dangle. The blood dripped from his fingertips. Drip. Drip. Drip.

  It was quiet now. The screaming outside had stopped. Or maybe he just couldn't hear it anymore.

  He stared at the doors.

  He waited.

  He didn't know how much time passed. It might have been a minute. It might have been a year.

  The heavy doors groaned.

  "Adrian?" He heard a voice. "It's Jaime. It's your brother."

  Adrian watched as the door opened, and two men stepped inside.

  Jaime Lannister

  The doors to the Great Hall did not yield easily. They were heavy oak, bound in iron, but Jaime Lannister kicked them with the strength of a man who had spent the st hour wading through a river of blood.

  The wood groaned and flew inward, banging against the stone walls with a sound like a thundercp.

  Behind him, Sandor Clegane breathed like a dying bellows, his greatsword raised, blood dripping from the tip to spatter on the fgstones.

  But there was no one to fight.

  The Great Hall of Castle Bcktyde was vast and silent.

  In the center of the room, near the steps of the High Table, a body y sprawled face down, and sitting on the steps of the dais.

  It was a child.

  Jaime felt his breath catch in his throat. He stopped moving. He felt as though the world had suddenly tilted on its axis.

  The boy was small. Painfully small. He was dressed in rags that might have once been fine velvet, but now were grey with filth.

  But it was the red that Jaime saw first.

  The boy was painted in it. It matted his hair, turning the silver-gold strands into stiff, dark spikes. It masked his face, leaving only the whites of his eyes visible. It soaked his tunic until the fabric clung to his ribs.

  His left hand hung at his side, and blood dripped from it in a steady rhythm. Pat. Pat. Pat.

  "Seven hells," Sandor breathed.

  The boy didn't flinch at the sound. He didn't run. He didn't cry out for help.

  Slowly, with a movement that seemed too stiff, too old for a child of six, Adrian lifted his head.

  He looked at the door. He looked at Jaime.

  Jaime had prepared himself for many things. He had expected to find a corpse. He had expected to find a weeping, broken child huddled in a corner, terrified of what he had done.

  He was not prepared for this.

  Adrian's green eyes were wide, unblinking, and utterly devoid of fear. They were empty. Cold. They looked at Jaime not with relief, but with a hollow recognition, as if Jaime were just another ghost in a room full of them.

  For a heartbeat, Jaime didn't see a boy.

  He saw Cersei.

  Not the broken woman who had wept in his arms at the Red Keep, but the Cersei of their youth. The Cersei who had twisted the heads off baby birds when they annoyed her. The Cersei who had looked at him with green fire in her eyes and told him that they were the only two people in the world who mattered.

  It was the same look. The look of a lion that has just eaten and is watching the rest of the jungle with disdain.

  "Adrian?" Jaime's voice was a croak.

  He walked forward, slowly, hands open to show he was no threat. He felt a chill crawl up his spine that had nothing to do with the damp air. He was walking toward a six-year-old boy, and he was afraid.

  Adrian watched him come. He didn't move.

  Jaime stopped five feet away. He looked at the corpse on the floor. He saw the wounds. The eye sockets were ruined masses of pulp, Jaime then looked at his wounded hands.

  Jaime looked from the savage wound on the boy's hand to the Valyrian steel sword burying the man. He understood instantly. The boy had grabbed the bde. He had grabbed the sharpest steel in the world with his bare hand to kill a grown man.

  "I paid him," Adrian said, looking up into Jaime's eyes.

  A Lannister always pays his debts.

  Jaime felt like it was his father who spoke in that moment.

  Jaime felt a wave of nausea and awe crash over him. This was what Cersei had been terrified of losing. This was what his father saw as the future.

  "I know," Jaime said softly. He knelt down, ignoring the gore on the floor, bringing himself to eye level with the boy. "You paid him well."

  Adrian blinked then, a slow, heavy movement. The flinty hardness in his eyes cracked, just a fraction. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind only exhaustion and pain.

  "I'm Jaime," he said gently. "I'm your brother."

  Adrian stared at him.

  "Brother," Adrian repeated.

  "Yes. And that is Sandor." Jaime gestured behind him.

  Adrian's gaze flicked to the Hound. For the first time, a flicker of something like human emotion crossed his face. Recognition.

  "Sandor," Adrian whispered. "You're not dead."

  "Hard to kill, little lord," Sandor grunted, though his voice was unusually thick.

  Jaime reached out, careful not to touch the boy's injured hand, and pced a hand on Adrian's shoulder. The boy was trembling, a fine, high-tension vibration that ran through his small frame.

  "You're safe now, Adrian," Jaime said firmly. "The castle is ours. The Ironborn are dead or dying. No one is going to hurt you ever again."

  Adrian looked back at Jaime. The green fire in his eyes had dimmed, repced by a vast, crushing weariness. He looked, finally, like a six-year-old boy who had seen too much.

  "Can I go home now?" Adrian asked. His voice broke on the st word. "Please?"

  Jaime swallowed the lump in his throat. He pulled the bloody, shivering boy into his arms, wrapping his white cloak around the small, red form to hide the horror of what he had done, and what had been done to him.

  "Yes," Jaime whispered into the boy's matted hair. "Yes, little brother. We're going home."

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