Jaime?

  His white cloak swept behind him as he stepped inside Cersei's bedchamber, hearing her softly humming a lullaby their mother used to sing to them. Jaime couldn't remember the last time she had done so.

  So engrossed she was that she hadn't noticed his entrance, and he took advantage to watch her go through her garments for a time.

  His sister was as beautiful as ever, with her sun-spun curls and perfect figure, but something had changed, and he knew its source, that supposed sorcerer with a name fit for the king of mummers.

  "Cersei," he finally whispered.

  Turning around, she smiled sweetly when she saw him. Knowing its price was poison being whispered into her ear did much to ruin it.

  He would have to approach this as delicately as he could. "This all seems sudden," he quietly said.

  Her eyes bored into his. "It will do the children good to visit the ancestral seat of their house."

  He didn't believe that. "Why Storm's End and not Casterly Rock? They are as much Lannister as they are Baratheon."

  A lie wrapped in sheepskin, but by necessity.

  "The oh-so honorable Lord Arryn already grumbles about Lannister influence at court, all while my dear husband's brother grinds his teeth to nubs at the mere sight of me," she hissed. She soon shook her head and recaptured her smile. "This move will do much to not only allay suspicions, but calm tensions as well. Trust me on this, Jaime."

  She had moved close enough that he could smell her sweet scent, laying her soft hands over his. He tried not to let her talk him down so easily.

  "And these are your words, Sister? Not someone whispering poison in your ear?"

  A frown replaced her smile as she looked up at him with cool green eyes. "He comes and goes at my beck and call. You worry needlessly."

  He sighed under his breath, struggling to find the right words to say to her.

  "You could speak to him yourself, if you like," she continued. "Get his measure."

  "There are better ways to spend my days than speaking to mummers," he snarked.

  "It couldn't hurt to try. For me?" she asked.

  Staring down at her, he knew he couldn't ever tell her no. "If I must."

  Her smile returned, and she stood up on her tiptoes to press her soft lips to his cheek. He was about to make a move when she backed away, returning to her task.

  Jaime watched her for another few moments before he left.

  He loathed the very idea, but this wasn't the first time he had to swallow something unpleasant for Cersei's sake.

  He swept through the halls of the Red Keep in search of the mummer, brooding as he was wont to do. He grimaced when he finally found him in the company of Renly Baratheon and Ser Loras Tyrell, Robert's youngest brother all smiles as he laughed at something the mummer said.

  They seemed as thick as thieves, he thought unhappily.

  "Kingslayer," Renly greeted him with a mocking bow, curdling his already poor mood further. "You grace us with your presence."

  Ser Loras had not even tried to hide the frown on his lips as he stared, his boyish looks framed by tumbling ringlets. It was the mummer Jaime's eyes settled on, however, his strange foreign clothes impossible to miss. All that otherwise adorned him was a silver band on his primary finger.

  Black eyes found him in kind, and an almost welcoming smile blossomed on the mummer's lips. Jaime did not know why, but he pressed forward nonetheless. "May we speak?"

  "I'm guessing you mean in private," the mummer said in that strange accent.

  He gave him a nod. While he did not mislike Renly as much as he did his two older brothers, he couldn't say he liked the peacock either. That he looked not unlike Robert had before he drowned himself in food and wine did him no favors in his eyes.

  "You will return after, I hope," Renly said to the mummer. "Loras and I have found your company rather pleasant."

  Jaime bit back a snort. He could guess why Renly enjoyed the mummer's company all too easily.

  "Of course," the mummer replied, touching a hand to Renly's shoulder. Those black eyes returned to watching him again after. "Lead on, ser."

  Jaime swept his white cloak behind him as departed, listening to the quiet footsteps behind him. He hadn't expected the mummer to agree so easily, despite being unarmed in the presence of a man with his reputation. That spoke to either an uncanny confidence or naked ignorance, and he didn't know which he misliked more.

  Satisfied at their location, Jaime sharply turned around. "What business do you have with my sister?"

  The mummer's expression remained annoyingly pleasant. "I warned her of the unhappy path she was meandering down and advised her on a solution."

  Jaime stared at him dubiously. "What unhappy path? Speak plainly."

  "Why, the noose you have both been tying around your necks by cuckolding the king."

  His blood went cold as ice, and before he even knew it he had drawn his sword and punched the mummer in the mouth, sending him stumbling back with a split lip. "What did you say?"

  Those black eyes still stubbornly watched him. "Peace, Ser Jaime. Your sister knows."

  Jaime's expression was stormy as he touched the steel to the soon to be dead man's belly. "You threatened her."

  He couldn't silence the doubts whispering into his ear. Why hadn't she told him if that was it? Jaime would have carved him up and thrown his body into the sea, as he intended to this very moment. But first he had to know.

  "Did you hear it from Varys's lying tongue? That slimy whoremonger, Littlefinger? Or did you come up with it yourself?"

  The mummer didn't piss himself even as naked steel threatened to disembowel him. Instead he flashed a bloody grin. "Should I also mention how you lied to your brother at your father's bidding? Or maybe why you had truly put your sword through the heart of the last king? Do you remember his words still, ser? Let him be king over charred bones and cooked meat. Let him be king of the ashes."

  Hearing those words again made Jaime feel faint, and sick. How? He had slain Aerys, Rossart, and all the pyromancers who knew. "You will tell me how you know," he demanded, sounding like half a ghost himself.

  "You could call it sorcery." It was said with such aplomb that Jaime could have laughed. He wondered if this was some fresh nightmare. It had been some years since he had found himself in one of those.

  It didn't seem like he was likely to stir himself awake at any rate.

  "Kingslayer they named you," the man continued, "as if it was a curse. You could have stood aside as you and your brothers had for years and watched the city burn, but you refused. Your defiance saved the lives of hundreds of thousands that day, Ser Jaime. In that moment, you were as true a knight as there could be."

  Jaime stared for a long moment, and then he laughed. It was a bitter, broken thing, that of all the people to tell him those words, it was this man. His sword was slack in his hands now, and he fell on his arse.

  He didn't expect Solomon to join him on the floor, not speaking a word as he fell apart.

  "Why do you care?" he couldn't help but ask.

  "A good deed punished is evil done," the sorcerer answered. "And maybe I don't think much of kings either."

  "I…" Jaime started, his mouth dry. "I had stood by as Aerys burned men alive. As he raped and brutalized Her Grace, even when she screamed herself hoarse."

  "As did Ser Barristan Selmy and Ser Arthur Dayne. Knights beyond reproach."

  He frowned instinctively. Who was he to judge any of them? "You have no right—"

  "No man is above reproach. Any of you could have put an end to him when you saw the monster he was becoming."

  "We swore oaths," he tried to defend, though whether himself or his brothers, he didn't know.

  "You had all taken a knight's vows first, had you not?" Solomon asked. "Don't doubt your decision now, Ser Jaime."

  Jaime's eyes lowered to his sword. He had seen himself gut Rossart and draw a bloody smile across Aerys's throat with a pretty golden sword a thousand times, and Ned Stark's judging eyes.

  "What does it matter now," he muttered under his breath, but the sorcerer still heard him.

  "The wildfire still sits all across King's Landing."

  He couldn't help a small smile. "I'd killed every pyromancer who knew, and when I took it to my grave, that would be the end of it."

  "Mmm." There was something hard to place in those black eyes now. "Maybe that would have been true if wildfire didn't grow more potent and unstable with time. In the end, the city will still be consumed in flames."

  Jaime's heart had started racing halfway through his words, and he made to stand. The stench of burning flesh had returned as if he stood beside a cackling Aerys again.

  "Not for a few years yet," the sorcerer continued, causing him to pause.

  Jaime craved to name him a liar, but his doubts had been smothered. "The wildfire can be removed," he argued hastily.

  "It can be, though given how much time has passed…" There was a thoughtful pause. "If we act blindly, we only ensure it happens sooner."

  He didn't know the first thing about wildfire except that it had been cast from the seven hells, and even less about sorcery. His sword was as useless as nipples on a breastplate in its face.

  "Fortunately, there is still time to avoid such a sorry fate." He watched Solomon stand and offer him his hand. "It will not be easy. It is up to you to again choose to act as a true knight should, or to continue as you have. Will you help me, ser?"

  He already knew his answer. For the first time since he made the decision to put an end to Aerys and his pyromancers, he had felt true purpose. "I will."

  He took Solomon's hand, retrieving his sword with his other hand. The smile the man gave him was not ugly, but kind, and it reached his eyes. He could admit he had been wrong about him.

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  "I will not ask you to make any oaths to me," the sorcerer continued, and Jaime was grateful. He could not stomach it again, and he did not think he could lie through the words when Solomon had seen into his heart as easily as a knife cut through butter.

  There was something else that weighed on him. "Cersei's children…"

  "No harm shall come to them if I can help it, as I have already promised her."

  Jaime breathed slightly easier for it. Even if he was never a father to them, he had still thought about them. He knew that most would look at them as nothing more than abominations born of incest if they knew the truth of it.

  "My thanks," he whispered. "And sorry for the…" He didn't have to point it out as Solomon laughed.

  "It will help remind me to be more courteous. I have never been one to mince words."

  "I would prefer you didn't," Jaime told him. "I've had my fill of empty courtesy." Though he had lost his temper, he had found Solomon's honesty refreshing, like iced wine on a hot summer's day.

  "I'll keep that in mind. I do have a small favor to ask of you, if you would hear it?"

  "A favor?" What might a sorcerer ask for, he wondered. He must have imagined a dozen impossible tasks before Solomon answered.

  "I've never ridden a horse, you see. I was hoping you could show me how."

  He blinked owlishly in the face of the earnest request. "I could, yes. Tomorrow at noon?"

  Solomon smiled again. "Until then, ser."

  Left to his thoughts, Jaime sighed, wondering how to distract himself from them. He glanced at the window overlooking the sea before he turned back to the sword still in his hand. He had until sunset to himself, and so he made for the yard.

  It seemed that another had the same idea.

  "Ser Jaime," the old knight greeted with perfect courtesy. "You seem troubled."

  "Ser Barristan." For a moment as Jaime stared into his pale blue eyes that always seemed so sad, he wanted to ask him how he lived with the guilt of standing by as Aerys committed one monstrous act after another. He never understood it. "I've been thinking," Jaime finally said. "About Aerys."

  "Ah." His sad eyes somehow turned even sadder. "I am not ashamed to admit that I still have terrible nightmares myself."

  No matter how much Jaime wanted to know, needed to know, he couldn't bring himself to speak the words. Barristan had never once called him Kingslayer, never once asked why he had done it. Sometimes it was as if the old knight was carved from stone.

  He sighed again, forcing a smile on his lips instead. "Shall we spar?"

  Barristan gave a nod, and soon their swords danced. As they did, Jaime's smile turned more genuine. His head always felt most clear with a sword in hand, and that hadn't changed.

  It was one of the few things that stayed the same after all these years…

  The Little Bird?

  The arrival of a sorcerer from west of Westeros had disturbed the delicate web the spider had spun. They had all felt it. They watched him wherever he went now, but all they learned had only made the spider more agitated.

  The sorcerer had now approached the spider, and so they were bid to hide, and wait, and listen.

  "Your star has risen high in but a fortnight, my lord. Begs wonder why you would trouble yourself with someone as small as I."

  There was a soft chuckle that echoed off the walls.

  "Am I a lord now?" The sorcerer's voice was deep, almost buttery, a sharp contrast to the spider's. "We are both strangers to the Seven Kingdoms. I wondered if you had some words of wisdom to share with me."

  Inside the walls, Naella clutched her dagger, all of them waiting for the spider to give the sign. She imagined the others were just as scared as she was. Most of them had heard stories about sorcerers.

  "A harmless courtesy," the spider tittered. "The city is perilous, it is true. Yet how many can say they have Her Grace's ear? You already seem to understand how the game is played."

  "I will take your word for it." The sorcerer seemed to hum a moment. "You hail from the Free Cities, isn't that right? I have read much of them, but I find the Grand Maester's books don't quite capture the human element as well as they could."

  There was a pause that lingered awkwardly.

  "I also admit a small curiosity about these lands beyond the Sunset Sea you call home," the spider finally said.

  The sorcerer clapped his hands together. "There you have it. A story for a story. I can start us off, though forgive me if I sound wistful."

  Naella listened closely in the musty blackness of the passageway as he spoke of a city of lights and other things that she could scarcely imagine. The spider had listened just as quietly.

  "Incredible. Such a place as you describe almost sounds to me like Valyria before the Doom had taken her, and yet you say these lands have never seen a dragon."

  The sorcerer chuckled again. "We've our own stories about dragons, though they are only that. I think I should be relieved that they seem to have gone from these lands also."

  "Many would agree with you," the spider said. "Although it is commonly believed that dragons and sorcery are one in the same."

  "Is that a question? I suppose you would be a poor master of whispers if you didn't already know."

  Naella shifted to her other knee nervously. She was among the oldest of them, reaching the age where she could no longer slip into the smallest passages.

  She had let the fat merchant's servants take her tongue willingly. To be so close to her reward, only to meet her end here…

  "Should I expect to hear my secrets from your lips as well?" the spider wondered.

  "Now, Lord Varys, we had an accord."

  "I fear I might tell you a story you already know."

  "Tooshay." Her brows furrowed when she heard it. It wasn't a word she knew. "We've danced around the elephant in the room long enough. I thought it would be prudent to inform you that I am not your enemy before you decided otherwise and had a bunch of kids with knives pay me a visit."

  Naella gripped her dagger tighter, her heart beating harder. She could hear the others shifting in the dark also. He knew.

  "It wasn't by my choice that I ended up marooned in this miserable place, and I don't much care who sits that ugly throne either," the sorcerer continued irreverently. "It could be a stag, a lion, or even a dragon, red or black."

  The spider was quiet as she awaited the words that would call them, but they never came.

  "What do you want, my lord?"

  "To return home. Unfortunately, that path is barred to me for at least three years, seven at worst. There's nothing more dull than waiting on the stars, let me tell you."

  "And do you require help with the endeavor?" the spider asked.

  "Something to occupy my time wouldn't hurt," the sorcerer said instead. "It isn't only the human element the Grand Maester's many books seem to lack, but magic as well. No surprise with how hard they work to deny it."

  There was another ponderous pause, and she decided that they both spoke in too many riddles.

  "I can have my associates across the Narrow Sea look into it. Though I warn you that such knowledge is guarded jealously by those few who still hold it after the events of the Century of Blood, by the red priests most of all."

  "Hmm. Maybe I'll travel to the Free Cities myself. See the sights."

  The spider tittered again. "That would be easier to arrange. You need only say the word."

  Naella heard one of their number let out a breath as they were instructed to leave. It might have even been her. Though as they quietly traveled along the passageways for an exit, she couldn't help her curiosity at the whispers continuing.

  Slinking back as quiet as a mouse, she pressed her ear back against the wall and listened.

  "The wildfire—you are certain that disaster will strike?"

  "The future isn't set in stone, but in this case it may as well be," the sorcerer said. "The wildfire will grow more unstable until a passing mouse might light the spark. Once it begins, there's little that can be done. Wildfire will burn even through stone if there is enough of it."

  The spider softly sighed. "I have bid my little birds to keep a close eye on all seven locations, but if what you say is true, then a more active hand may be needed."

  Naella had heard stories of wildfire, impossibly green flames with an unquenchable hunger. The mad old king that had ruled these lands before her birth had seen his enemies given to it, cackling as they burned.

  Her thoughts went to the dampest passageways under the Red Keep, which they were told to take utmost care to avoid disturbing. Unable to contain her curiosity, just like now, she had still taken a peek, just the once. There must have been dozens upon dozens of heavy clay plots there, and that was only what she could see. She hadn't dared to move any closer with a torch in her hand.

  The sorcerer speaking again drew her from her thoughts. "—only so much as you can move unnoticed. If a panic starts, we might as well light the match ourselves."

  Naella chose to flee then. While she had grown used to the pitch blackness of the passageways, it was never pleasant, and the stale air made one's head feel light after a long enough period of time.

  Once outside, she looked around as she greedily took in a few deep breaths. She soon found her eyes being drawn to the night sky.

  The sorcerer had said he had to wait on the stars to take him home, but she hadn't known what he could have meant by it. She still didn't, looking at them now. A star could not take you anywhere.

  Shaking her head to rid it of such foolishness, Naella still had one final mission to complete before she could rest her head for the night.

  She hurried as quickly as her feet could take her, thinking no more of spiders and sorcerers.