22

22.

Walking In The Dark 

King's Landing.

"Were you unaware of this, Lord Varys?" Daenerys asked bluntly.

After Jon and his sister, Arya, arrived with information about the possible whereabouts of Cersei and Missandei — rather raising the possibility that she was hidden somewhere in the depths of the Keep, they all proceeded to a separate chamber, where maps and charts were spread out on a long table for all to inspect. Futile task hitherto, as there were no specific records of the castle's inner tunnels and secret underpasses.

Daenerys' gaze rested on the one person that should've at least suggested this possibility. 

"There have always been rumors, Your Grace. Although, nothing certain," he answered. 

While her eyes seared him with her fury ignited, Varys looked calmed and undaunted. 

"Either you're committed to failing me at every instance, or you are straightforward neglectful at your job, Master of Whispers," Daenerys pointed out.

"Far from meaning you any wrong, I look out for your best interests, my Queen," Varys added, rather brazenly, "As you can see from the maps and charts, there is no certainty as to what lies beneath Red Keep. On what grounds does Lady Stark suppose Cersei's hiding under our noses?"

Arya startled a little but maintained an upright posture and a serious countenance.

"The safest place in the city is the Red Keep. Where else would Cersei hide?" she asked.

"In the ports perhaps, to try to flee as fast as possible?" Varys chimed in.

Arya raised an eyebrow at him. "You know Cersei as well as I do, even better maybe. So tell me, do you think she'd give up so easily?"

A shadow fell across Lord Varys's face. 

"I believed so." Arya took a deep breath, approaching the table to better inspect the charts that detailed the hill that held the fortress. "A friend of mine said there is no safer place in the city than the Red Keep. It reminded me of the lessons of that old Maester, back when I was younger and my father was the King's Hand," she began her explanation.

"Great Maester Pycelle?" Varys cut in.

"Yes, him…his lessons preached that the city might fall but the keep will never." She clicked her tongue and a small grin chiseled her features. "When I objected that Red keep has indeed fallen several times, he went on and on about the impossibility of that ever happening. He mentioned then, the under passages — all of them," she asserted in the end. 

"The place Lady Arya's is referring to is been off-limits for years, since the times of Aegon V," Varys said.

"Forbidden does not mean unknown," Arya countered, "Just because something is off-limits does not mean it is out of reach. Being the curious thing I was then, I started wandering and exploring the Keep's underground." Arya cast a knowing glance at Varys. "Many times, without anyone noticing. One time it took me out of the city, another to a place I could not further explore, for the place was blocked by an iron gate, locked with chains."

"I bet you're rarely the kind of person who stays off-limits, are you," Varys intended to quip. 

"Neither are you," Jon interjected with a fiery gaze upon him. 

He caught everyone off guard with his interruption. 

"But in this case, I did, Your Grace, for we are talking about a place that is considered dangerous because of its instability. I carry whispers across the Realm, using the means available to me. I am neither a laborer nor a master builder."

"Greater impediments have stood in your way and yet you have come so far," Daenerys reminded him, "Lord Varys, don't underestimate my intelligence," she warned him.

Varys nodded and stayed quiet. 

Daenerys swept around to address Arya, "Lady Stark, are you here in good faith?"

"Yes."

"Do you swear it on your father's grave?"

Although the mention made her flinch, she nodded a silent confirmation.

"Then we shall go and investigate this route," said Daenerys, resolute. 

A ripple of protests and grievances swept up among her allies and advisors, most of them men. Daenerys wasn't sure she trusted Jon and Arya but she at least wanted to feel like she was doing something to get Missandei back, whatever way was granted. 

"I may object—" 

"I think you are not in the place to do so, my Lord," Daenerys snapped at Lord Varys, whose warning was already unwarranted. 

"And am I in the place to do so, Your Grace?"

Daenerys blinked curiously at the strange voice breaking in. It was the Captain Aurane Waters. 

His grey-green eyes bore deeply into Dany's. "If I may question: is it in your best interest to trust your contender?" he asked her, eyes rising to point at Jon.

"My contender?" Dany asked in a whisper, Jon's frame quickly flashing through her sight. She whipped her face around and looked out for Jon's eye. "Are you contending me?" she questioned him, almost in a taunting tone.

She found Jon transfixed, with his posture stiff. 

"I'm not seeking to harm the Queen if that's the Captain's assumption," he said clear and loud. 

"The King in the North is in open rebellion. Any other monarch would be at least suspicious about it all," Aurane insisted cautiously. 

Dany sighed wearily. Again, she confronted Jon, betraying a brittle edge to her voice when asking him. "Is this a tramp? I'm going to turn around and you're going to stab me in the back?" 

"I'm not!" Jon denied it categorically, almost disgusted with the notion of it.

Daenerys didn't miss the irony of it.

Sighing defeatedly, Jon added, "I sincerely wish to help you."

"So you can have something to bribe me with?"

"If that were my intention, I wouldn't have to you first," Jon said, putting forward a simple and sensible defense.

He and Daenerys shared a long look of unspoken understanding. 

"Well, that's enough for me. We are going down there," Daenerys ended the matter. 

Captain Aurane Waters was a hard nut to crack, however. 

"Your Grace," he persisted, with an urgency that gnawed her indignation.

"Captain Waters your insistence will do nothing to change my mind."

Making his way apart from Lord Varys, Grey Worm, and Ser Jorah (this later who stood silent with a stern look on his face), Aurane stood before Daenerys.

"Then let me go in your place," he proposed, "Lord Varys is right about the place being a dangerous and unexplored terrain."

"I'm not a helpless maiden, Captain. I'm not sending my people there while I sit here idly and wait."

"I'm suggesting pragmatism, your Grace. Your court will object to your following the King in the North and his sister just because of a groundless supposition."

"And what makes you think that I do care for their opinion?" Retorted her, with crescent outrage at the impediments presented. She ought Missandei more than mere pawns. 

"Cersei is a dangerous and frenzy-driven woman, Your Grace. There are several caches of Wildfire that remained untouched beneath the city's foundation. If the Starks' suggestion is correct, we are talking about something entirely different."

A shadow of hesitation hung over Daenerys. Though she had ordered the caches to be located since her arrival in the city, it was no simple matter to move - a single slip-up was enough to have the city engulfed in a firestorm.

"Allow your captain to embark with us," Arya spoke, after a moment. 

"Us?" Daenerys asked, surprised. 

The Stark girl stepped forward.

"I am in a debt with you," she stated quietly, "Let me pay my debt by bringing Cersei back. Alive, that'd be. If I go down there, you are not risking being exposed to her designs and we will be walking a step forward." With a soft voice, she added, "Needless to say, your servant's innocence does matter to me."

Daenerys' mouth twitched. "Do not call her that. She's not servant," she choked out, "Missandei of Naath that's her name and she's more than that. She's blood of my blood."

Arya nodded respectfully. 

"I'll bring your friend safe and sound if the choice is given to me. I promise this, in the name of my father." 

Tension-filled silence hung over the darkened room, lit only by dying fires in the torches nailed to the walls. Muted servants entered to rekindle the fires, as Daenerys pondered her decision.

"I don't trust you, Lady Stark. And certainly, I don't trust your word. Yet I don't care about Cersei's welfare. I only care for Missandei's safety, I cannot risk an attempt on Cersei's life that puts Missandei's in danger."

Arya's gaze traveled to her side, where Aurane stood.

"I'm sure the Captain will do a good job overseeing that your interests are well looked after."

Daenerys looked up at Aurane, a slight nod of her head authorized his request.

Almost as if surging out of the darkness and into the light, she caught Jon out of the corner of her eye.

Laughing as though incredulously, Dany's stiffness wavered. She faced Jon.

"It seems you're never really gone, aren't you?" She faced him off.

"It's my fault you assume me untrustworthy to your eyes," he responded.

Nonetheless, Daenerys cursed softly under her breath, "You believe you've offended me with your words? I've been called far worse than my father's daughter. It is to your own person who you've been failing as of late. Your case, that of keeping your skin and that of your family safe, you've jeopardized."

"Why does it seem you're judging me on my wanting to keep my family safe? Isn't it the natural order of things?"

"There's a difference between wanting their safety and continually overlooking their misdeeds. Tyrion—"

"I'm not Tyrion," he cut her off before she could go into a tirade, he'd certainly felt tempted to join, "We could certainly argue all night, throw accusation after accusation about who's fighting the other, and still we'd never get to the truth. You're under pressure, as I am too, to bring assurance to our people. You won't be able to do that if you continue to walk in the shadows, frightened—"

"I'm not frightened—" 

But her voice, trembling, betrayed otherwise. 

"You are," he persisted with a starting gruff, "You are, and there's nothing wrong with that, anyone in your place would be within the right to be," his ascertain categorical, although his almost pleading stare had a soothing effect on her — a deceitful provocation in her perception.

"Daenerys," Jon uttered her name as in times they have been less than enemies, closer than friends, "I'm not your enemy. Don't make me one by impeding me to show you otherwise."

After his blunt statement, there was silence. The looks of curiosity could no longer be disguised. Those around them watched with wide eyes the interaction of the King and Queen. Neither Jon nor Daenerys were oblivion to it. 

"Blood of my blood," said Jon, out of the blue. 

"What?" asked Dany in confusion, blinking several times. 

"You've called Missandei the blood of your blood," he said.

"It's a Dothraki term," she explained, "It means family."

Understanding dawned in his eyes and it urged him to say what he hadn't planned to say, "Then I promise your family will return with you, safe and sound."

She let out a soft, mirthless laugh and shook her head. Memories of times past flooded her mind and she couldn't have been more transfixed with all of it.

In Jon's gaze was the unmistakable sincerity, his intentions were never premeditated and they were always honest. The same one that had made her fall deeply for him, instead of being more careful as she found herself walking on the brink.

"No one can promise me that," she said in barely a whisper, her eyes riveted on him with utter certainty, "No one," she repeated. 

Daenerys withdrew her gaze from him and cleared her throat. Jon again saw her two sides playing out in front of him, the one totally vulnerable and the one that shut down the moment he was about to get a glimpse of the true her. 

"Gentlemen, this will be a long night," Dany announced, "I will allow a mission to inquire into this lead brought by the Starks." Sighing, she lifted her gaze up to Varys. "And you, my Lord, tonight you will prove your worth, otherwise, there is a promise I made to you that I will have to see through."

***

Moving further into the depths of the under passages, Daenerys follows the sound of Brandon's voice guiding her, believing that her short sojourn has come to an end. When she reaches a place that was almost completely in darkness, a slender masculine figure stands with his back to her. 

It is Brandon.

"How did you get here?" Daenerys asks him, addled.

It could have been rather a silly question but he'd never presented himself in her travels. Hitherto he's been more a guide than an intervener.

Slowly, he turns around. It is a strange sight, him standing and not in his wheelchair.

"There's something you need to know. A discovery I've just made."

"What discovery?"

A sound comes from behind her.

Daenerys turns with a jolt to find Rhaella standing a small distance away in equal amazement. 

***

Rhaella looks puzzled between her and Brandon, at no time being taken by the fear that she is being ambushed by two traitors. Finally, her gaze slides vacantly to Dany's, with more than just bewilderment.

"Do you possess...magic?" she asks her, swallowing hard in between. 

Daenerys shakes her head vehemently, looking back at Bran for an explanation. 

"Yes," Bran says bluntly, "We've all got a bit of it."

Dany gasps — how can he just blurt that out like that? Intervening in her mother's reality, altering who knows how many fates with it. 

But nothing seems to succumb under the weight of it all. A glint flashes in Rhaella's eyes as if she's been waiting for this revelation already.

"Does this have anything to do with the prophecy?" her mother enquires.

"What prophecy?" asks Dany, this time she is the one who is lost in the middle of the two of them.

"Of course it does," Bran replies, calm and devoid of any emotion. "Everything at some point has to do with that prophecy. That's why Aegon V forced the marriage between you and Aerys. That's why Rhagar ran off with Lyanna. And that's why Daenerys is here."

Mother and daughter together startled. 

"Daenerys?" Rhaella whispers.

"Stop it," Daenerys growls a warning.

Brandon however, continues, "Her name is Daenerys Targaryen, and she is your daughter." 

***

Arya led them through the corridors of Red Keep so swiftly and directly that it was hard to imagine it had been so many years since she was last at Red Keep.

"You remember very well," Jon commented, walking up behind her.

She just nodded.

They descended to the cellar of the dragon skulls, which looked as haunting and solemn as the Stark's crypts itself.

"There are nineteen of them," Arya explained as they crossed the rows of dragon's skulls. "The biggest one there," she pointed to the larger skull in the center, "That's Balerion."

Jon stood still for a moment, transfixed with his gaze fixed on the dark orifices that once held the eyes of the great Balerion. He pictured Daenerys' dragons at that same size.

A shocking and frightening sight, for certain, but just as mesmerizing.

"Come on Jon," Arya called, leading him down a flight of stairs that disappeared into deep darkness. His sister seemed familiar and comfortable in the shadows but he was not, so he took a sconce from the wall and followed her.

On the way down he heard a threatening hiss, which made him jump and bring his hand to Longclaw.

Arya reassured him with a hand on his forearm, "They're just cats, Jon."

The bloody beasts were everywhere, getting in his way downstairs, hindering his steps by almost making him trip over, even having the audacity to hiss at him every time he bumped into one of them.

"Jon, you seem rather hectic," Arya complained. "Did your little exchange with the Queen put you in that mood?"

"Nonsense," he gruffed. 

"Bullshit," she answered, with giddiness. "There's familiarity between you two."

"What?" he almost slipped.

Arya raised an eyebrow at him. "Whatever. It just seems to affect you in a personal way. And I've seen you deal with less affable people and take it easy. She gets on your nerves, just admit it."

"The woman in the house of your friend Gendry? Hale was her name? Is she his wife?" 

"This way," Arya led to a deflection, a wary look on her face, "Don't believe I don't know what you're doing," she murmured.

"What?" he laughed this time.

She hummed a response.

The rest of the way was in silence.

They approached the rendezvous point — the iron gate that Arya mentioned — which was already guarded by a retinue of the queen led by Captain Aurane Waters. Toward this latter character, Jon felt brand-new acrimony surging forth. There were valid reasons for the man to raise objections to his person and his intentions, but what Jon translated from his stern, cold stare was not mere wariness; there was full acerbity, which Jon now reciprocated.

"You managed to reach the destination very well for a first time," Arya commented, deliberately suspicious.

Captain Waters returned a knowing half-smile, with the slightest glint of amusement. 

"I've always been good at following guidelines, my Lady."

Unlike other opportunities, Arya did not cross him for the way he addressed her. His gaze lifted to him, growing serious and acerbic. Without uttering a word, he nodded at Jon in silent acknowledgment.

"Shall we proceed?" he asked.

***

Jaime hissed in pain even long after the healer had finished stitching the scars on his face. The surge of disgust only compounded when he saw his battered face in the mirror.

"We have never looked more alike, brother," Tyrion commented, his tone irritably light, almost jovial. "The great dynasty of Casterly Rock come to pieces, a pitiful, eyesore relic. It will be a challenge to dig deeper into the ground."

If Jaime had the strength he would have punched him in the face.

"What's your problem, anyway?" Jaime croaked out, "You're down there, already."

In former times, it would have been a joke. Now it was simply a spiteful remark.

The thunderous creak of the heavy door ushered the Dragon Queen back in. Perhaps she had reconsidered her decision to let them live, at least for now.

Her face betrayed no emotion, her small frame stood just as proud and imposing as she'd been on other occasions. Even though Jaime had known her so little and so recently, there was something very familiar about her. Rhaella's looks and the constant shadow of madness she must've inherited from Aerys. The latter he did not take for granted, and it was rather the impression he'd gotten. It was not easy to separate her from her father's legacy, just as it had been impossible for Jaime to pull apart from the crime he committed against said man.

This sudden reaction of near emphatic understanding was like a revelation to him, perhaps prompted by the recent news he had received.

Daenerys Targaryen swept her gaze over the freshly stitched wounds on his face.

"Do I err on the side of naivety in even supposing you would consider talking now that you know the truth about Cersei?"

"What the Maester said is untrue," Jaime replied quickly, though he did not sound convinced, "And anyway, nothing we say is going to bring her or the girl back to you."

"It's hard to accept painful truths," she said.

"You tell me," he opposed, still contending with what little pride he had left. "The girl is dead. The sooner you accept that the sooner this will all be over."

Jaime moved to sit on the seat against the wall. A chuckle escaped him unintentionally when a ghostly reflection of his right hand deceived him into clasping them together. 

"You should have killed Cersei when you had the chance," he said in a harsh voice, looking up at her, "You should have killed me when it was a power play." And nodding to Tyrion, who stood silently watching, he added, "You shouldn't have listened to that fool bluffer."

"You are right. That's why he's here and would remain here," Daenerys replied, sparing a sharp look at Tyrion. "Tyrion's reasons remain unknown to me. But yours are as clear as water, Ser Jaime. I, as well, held impossible tight onto a love that almost killed me, and the cost was too great."

Tyrion fixed a curious stare at her.

Daenerys continued,

"Cersei is hiding somewhere in the depths of the Red Keep and there's a mission already tracking her down. There is no place in this city she can flee where I will not find her sooner or later. And when I do, Cersei will die. In the meantime, the fate of thousands remains uncertain. When my father ordered the city to burn, you thrust your sword across his throat. If it was Cersei who gave that order, what would you do?"

She held her chin up and looked at him pointedly. Just then Jaime saw something new flashing across her face like a shadow, something that was dissimilar to anything he'd seen in her kin before. 

Silently, one of her soldiers walked in bringing Window's Wail with him and retrieving it to Jaime.

***

Behind the iron gate that Arya had mentioned, there was only darkness. Aurane Waters asked if there were any volunteers who wanted to venture out first, and when he received no response he just stepped into it without much ado.

Arya and Jon looked at each other with unspoken suspicion. They didn't have too much time to share their common misgivings in regards to the Captain when they were prodded by him to go in, and the search began.

If there was anything worse than complete darkness, it was the deathly silence and the humidity-laden air. Many of the men in the group were beginning to exhaust themselves too quickly compared to them, and Arya instructed them to wet the collars of their robes and breathe through it so as not to suffocate. 

Ahead they came to a fork. Two caves that led who knows where.

"We should split up," Arya suggested, "Half and half on each side. The Captain and I will go left, and Jon, you will lead the others on the right."

Aurane's and Jon's voices protested at the same time.

"Who made you the commander of this mission?"

"Arya I'm not going to let you go alone!"

Arya shot a sharp look at Aurane, "I'm sure your Queen will not be pleased if you let go of the one person who compromises this mission the most and as a result, her beloved Missandei gets hurt." Then she turned to Jon, eyes wide with confidence. "I don't need my brother to protect me. I did well on my own in these very same paths when I was younger. Besides," she nodded at Grey Worm, "He'll watch over you."

Jon and Grey Worm assessed each other with mutual mistrust. He had to swallow a string of protests.

***

The sound of the door opening and Jorah walking in startled Dany, who was just finishing tying the leather laces of her armor.

He frowned as he noticed the object sheathed in her belt.

"Do you know how to use that?" he asked her, referring to the sword she had decided to carry at the last moment.

Daenerys turned and swallowed hard. Beside her, Qhono handed her a pretty rustic dagger, less confused than Ser Jorah but just as apprehensive.

"Would you believe me if I told you I learned something about it in our time apart?" 

"Daario Naharis?" surmised Jorah.

Daenerys just nodded.

Jorah crossed his arms back, and with a wary look, said, "I hear you've decided to release Jaime Lannister."

"I have not released him. I have given him the chance to do what is right."

"And what does that have to do with Cersei? Do you think he knows where she is?"

Daenerys began to walk toward the exit, Qhono, the Unsullied, her Bloodriders, and Jorah behind her.

"The Maester in charge of Cersei's care in recent weeks confirmed that Cersei lost the child she was supposedly expecting. Someone outside the Realm, someone I hope to confront very soon, was getting messages to her through him."

"And just because of that you think Jaime will suddenly turn on her?"

Daenerys paused, looking around the open corridors as outside the storm gave no let-up. 

"The child was not Jaime's." Outside, a shadow flitted as a rumble of thunder rolled. "Cersei was manipulating him. Both of them." She took a breath of air. "I know nothing about Jaime Lannister but I know about the betrayal. It stings to the core of your being."

The hurt reflected in Jorah's look made Daenerys realize her words had been misinterpreted. But unable to explain herself accordingly, she reached his hands between hers.

"Back when you said that message came from Tywin Lannister to separate and weaken us, you were right. And because of my pride, I lost Ser Barristan." She swallowed hard, outside on the castle battlements, Drogon roared to rush her. "I'm not going to let it happen to me again."

***

The torchlight faded as the other group started off to the left, only then did the Commander of the Unsullied issue an order for their retinue to set out on the right path. Of course, he dictated it in a language unknown to Jon.

The Unsullied turned to look at him with a blank expression.

"Slow down and watch where you are stepping," he urged him in a rather strong accent.

Jon observed his calm demeanor carefully, finding him a far less nagging company than the Captain. His name was Grey Worm and he was a morose, straightforward, and reticent man, traits Jon valued greatly in a soldier.

They went ahead, testing each step before committing to the next one. The further on they went the more they encountered tight places and crevices, which they all avoided, not wanting to fall the risk to get stuck. Meanwhile, Jon felt a strange sensation that had nothing to do with the heaviness in his chest. It was as if there were murmurs trapped in those dark walls. Unintelligible whispers that seemed to want to drive him mad. He realized that no one else there seemed to be affected by it. 

A grave thud broke from behind. 

Jon and Grey Worm looked back at the same time and saw that one of the men had fallen through a hole that opened up from the ground.

"Dīnagon hen!" Grey Worm shouted, what Jon surmised was to get away from there.

Even though the order was that Grey Worm lunged towards that very spot to hook his fellow soldier in an impossibly tight grip. Jon shook himself out of his stupor and rushed to the aid of both men.

Pinning Longclaw to a safe surface already trodden, Jon hooked one of his arms into the leather loops of Grey Worm armor, straining to bring both men upwards. At times it felt like a futile effort, the hole in the earth growing larger and almost swallowing the three of them. The others held Longclaw pinned to the ground so that it would not lose its hold. 

Finally, the three managed to escape the plunge. Jon's arms and hands throbbed from the overexertion required.

With bated breath and faces covered in dust and grime, Grey Worm and Jon looked into each other's eyes with more than just recognition. It was the kind of shared sentiment of men that were on the verge of meeting death, and escaped her.

Focusing ahead, the path already traveled, they realized that there was no turning back.

***

Irritation crawled its way up her throat and Arya had to swallow a grunt of disgust after Captain Aurane dismissed again her suggestion to slow down their march. At this step, they were bound to stumble badly or cause a collapse if they were not careful. It seemed to her, that the Captain had spent too much time on high waters that he had forgotten that firm ground was not always so firm beneath their feet.

In the pronounced swaying of his gait, she found him unsteady and hectic as though is rushing somewhere. Mayhaps he intended to surpass the other group and in so, gain the favor of his Queen, for whom he hardly disguised to covet. That was reason enough for his behavior and the manifested tension between Jon and him. At this, Arya rolled her eyes over. What a waste of time, she thought. 

Still, she did not rule out the possibility that this strange character had something else hidden. If only she had more time to make her inquiries and call upon her skills, she thought, he would be at the top of her list of suspects.

There was no time for that. Captain Waters looked at her over his shoulder with a smug grin as they reached the end of their tunnel, entering a large cellar similar to the one they had come from. A darker one. Still, looking up, Arya noted that the entire structure could be crushed under the weight of the hill and the fortified structure above it at any time.

Why would Maegor build this place? she wondered. Why not just run away?

Compression dawned on her: just like Cersei, he would have never abandoned Red Keep.

"Split up!" the Captain pointed out, to which his men obeyed.

Arya let out a sigh and cocked her head to one side. It was better this way, she mused. She had always worked better on her own.

Continuing along the trail left by the Captain, she followed a path parallel to his own. He ought to know more than he lets know, she thought. His footsteps became distant and soon she lost track. This place mirrored the House of Black and White, with sounds that came and went like the blow of the wind, impossible to trace. Arya continued on for what seemed like hours until she came upon something heavy and hard in the middle of the thick darkness. 

A body.

Arya turned the corpse around. It was one of the men who had come with them in the group. She cursed inwardly and pulled a knife from her pocket.

***

"The Stark girl is near," Aurane said, entering the chamber containing Cersei. She sat at a table, sipping her wine chalice and gazing into a hand-held mirror while the fire of a long white candle burn slow and steadily by her side. She was jaded.

When Aurane said that, every hair on her body stood on end.

"What gibberish is that?"

"I left a false trail behind that will distract her only for so long," he continued, rushing in, grabbing her arm tightly, "It's time for you to tell me where what I'm looking for is."

Cersei gnashed her teeth. "If that little bitch is around then I would deal with her as I must have done all those years ago."

"How precisely, darling?" he mocked her, "Cersei, the only reason you're still breathing is because of me. Baelish wouldn't give a penny for you if I hadn't told him that even in your folly, you are valuable. Now hurry up," by the arm, he dragged her with him out of the room, "Let's go to that place you talked to me about."

On one of all those nights they shared, Cersei had told him about Wildfire's caches beneath the city and although Aurane had no desire to see the city burn that night, he did want to get that precious information. 

Cersei, however, had other plans.

Shaking off his grip, they stopped in the middle of a corridor, right next to a small wooden door where you had to bend down to enter. There was the slave girl guarded.

Throwing one glance over his shoulder, he turned and bent down to unlock the door.

So Cersei let out one of those dry, wry laughs.

"Baelish can writhe in the very seventh hell, for all I care," she said with her chin held high, "And you, you have nothing to offer me anymore."

Then Cersei struck him a blow with the hand-held mirror that she still clutched in her hand all the way there.

Cersei pushed Aurane's unconscious body out of the way and proceeded to continue unlocking the door. Inside, the slave girl was still tied to her chair, her head hanging limp with the effects of a sedative she was given to keep her well-behaved.

She would have to find a way to make her walk, Cersei told herself, for she was the only way she had to escape.

Notes:

I know you want a conclusion. I want a conclusion too. LOL.

Sorry I need a break.