Queen Cersei

Ronan had not expected his first private meeting with the queen to take place in her bedchamber.

In fairness, the customs and architecture of Westeros made that less strange than it first seemed. The king and queen each kept their own chambers.

The two most powerful people in the Seven Kingdoms did not seem as close as songs might pretend.

In Cersei's room, Ronan saw almost no trace of Robert.

"What are you looking at?"

The queen waved a hand. Timid Lancel quickly turned and withdrew. The large chamber was left with only one man and one woman.

If Ronan had been a loyal courtier, perhaps that would have meant little. But Ronan was a sellsword with very few restraints.

With no outsider watching, that part of him came awake.

"Your Grace," Ronan said, "I am looking at you. Such a beautiful woman, and no one here seems worthy of appreciating her."

"Sellsword," Cersei said coldly, "mind your tongue. This is not a yard for you to swagger through."

Cersei was lonely, but she was not careless. Ronan's station did not impress her, and she had not summoned him intending to buy him with her body.

Ronan smiled as if her anger amused him.

"No need to be offended, Your Grace. As you said, this is your ground. I would never be foolish enough to..."

"Let go."

Cersei had not expected him to step close enough to catch her wrist before her warning fully left her mouth.

The murmur beside her ear sent anger through her, and something sharper underneath it. She pulled once, testing him. He released her before the struggle became ugly.

Even so, her heel caught on the edge of the carpet, and she dropped back onto the soft floor.

For a heartbeat, the queen of the Seven Kingdoms looked almost like a furious girl. But the queen was still the queen.

Cersei rose quickly. When she looked at Ronan again, murder gleamed beneath the gold. Ronan saw the hostility at once, and it displeased him.

His displeasure showed as a kind of madness. Cersei recognized that look. She had seen it in men who thought desire and danger were the same thing.

She opened her mouth as if to call for guards. Ronan moved first, closing the distance before her voice could grow.

"Call them if you want," he said softly. "But if you wanted witnesses, you would not have sent Lancel away."

Cersei's breath caught. He was right, and she hated him for noticing. She could have screamed anyway. Instead, her fingers closed around the front of his coat.

"You think boldness makes you a king?"

"No," Ronan said. "But you wanted to know whether I was only another man who would kneel."

Cersei's eyes narrowed. The next motion was hers. She dragged him down and met him with a kiss that felt more like a challenge than surrender. The rest of the room fell away.

No one in King's Landing had ever handled her like this. Robert took. Jaime worshiped. Courtiers flattered. Ronan met her will with his own. It was dangerous, insulting, and alive.

For the first time in years, Cersei felt a contest for power that was not dull, not safe, and not already lost.

Ronan was no gentle lover, and Cersei was no yielding maiden. What followed was fierce enough to leave pride bruised on both sides.

Yet when the struggle finally eased, the look in Cersei's eyes was not fear. It was fury, satisfaction, and calculation braided together.

Ronan dressed with the careless calm of a man who did not intend to apologize. He paid little attention to what Cersei might misunderstand.

Then, as he rose, her hand caught the edge of his clothes and held him back. Ronan glanced at the owner of that hand.

A flush remained on her face. Shame crossed it for half a breath, then vanished behind a smile too proud to be soft.

He had won the first clash with Queen Cersei. That was astonishing enough. But Ronan was not naive. A woman like Cersei was not won forever in a single night.

Her lowered posture now was temporary, and even that small concession had not come easily.

"Ronan," she said, "serve House Lannister. I will give you everything you want."

That was the Cersei he recognized. A beautiful serpent choosing the moment when a man might be most pleased with himself to strike an offer. She was not as foolish as many believed.

"Gladly."

Ronan's hand slid along her waist, and Cersei's invitation was exactly what he wanted. The quiet answer she gave pulled at him, which irritated him more than he cared to admit.

What a maddening woman. Cersei smiled like sunlight on a blade, graceful and difficult to hold.

Men who tried to seize monsters from old tales usually paid for it. Ronan suspected this one would be no different.

Still, proof soon followed: the beautiful queen was far more generous than the stingy Hand.

Before formally serving the Lannisters, Ronan accepted Queen Cersei's private hire. When Eddard Stark heard of it, jealousy and anger tangled in his chest.

He envied Lannister wealth. He hated Ronan's greed. What he did not know was that the queen had not paid Ronan in gold. Ronan's days under that arrangement were comfortable.

Inside the Red Keep, almost no one dared trouble him. So long as he did not disturb the drunken king, even spending nights near the queen's chambers drew no open challenge.

That owed much to Lannister power. Servants and maids had long ago learned which doors not to speak about.

...

Night laid a smothering veil over the lonely Red Keep. In the queen's chambers, a breathless cry rose sharply enough to carry into the passage. Yet the nearby corridor had no guards.

It was almost as if someone had arranged it. In the Red Keep, only two powers could interfere with Lannister arrangements so cleanly: the king, or the Hand.

Through the dim passage, a weary knight in white walked with thoughts of an old and forbidden comfort.

Jaime Lannister had grown increasingly disgusted with his duty. Once, the Kingsguard had been his pride. Now it felt like slavery to a fat king who cursed him, used him, and treated white cloaks like fine-dressed servants.

The old honor did not warm him as it once had. When night deepened and regret pressed close, Jaime thought of his beloved sister.

Only Cersei could ease what lived inside him. But as he walked, something felt wrong.

No royal guards stood in the passage. Even the wall lamps had not been properly filled. Jaime's temper rose.

These men guarded the royal family and the heart of the realm. Such neglect was unforgivable.

What troubled him more was the silence along the passage to the queen's chambers. The closer he came, the stronger his unease grew.

At last, the thing he least wished to imagine became impossible to deny.

"No," Jaime whispered. "Cersei."

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