From the brothel to Casterly Rock.
Fifteen minutes on foot.
Ten in a litter.
On a horse, his legs wouldn’t reach the stirrups.
So he walked.
Lannisport was only half awake.
A few fishermen on the docks coiled their nets, saw him, and looked down as if the stones had become fascinating.
The body’s memories were clear on this point.
Everyone knew the dwarf.
Everyone had practiced not seeing him.
No greeting.
No salute.
Not even a second glance.
Lyonel rolled his cuffs one more turn and picked up his pace.
Short legs meant short strides.
He’d learned that trick in another life, wedging himself through rush-hour trains.
The gates of Casterly Rock came out of the morning fog.
A fortress carved from a single mountain of stone.
Thirty stories of gold-veined cliff dropping straight into the sea, bright enough in the sun to hurt.
He stopped and looked up.
Christ.
Bigger than any palace he’d ever stood in.
Taller than any stadium.
If he’d posted this in his old life, the caption would have been simple.
My house.
Two Lannister guards sat their horses at the gate, crimson cloaks slashed with gold lions, steel catching the light.
They looked down.
Their mouths twitched the same way at the same time.
“The Imp’s back,” one said.
“Lord Tywin’s waiting,” said the other.
Lyonel walked between them.
His boots hit the red-stone steps of the Great Hall.
He caught their eyes as he passed.
Not hate.
Not even disgust.
The flat look people give a rat already dead in the street.
A rat.
That was how the original owner had lived.
The sharpest memory rose whether he wanted it or not.
Seven years old, reaching for Tywin’s leg.
One kick.
Three yards of air.
His head meeting a pillar hard enough to paint half his face red.
Cersei had crouched nearby and laughed.
Jaime had climbed in through a window later and wrapped the wound himself.
Lyonel shoved the pile of it down, breathed once, and pushed open the doors.
The hall was vast.
A hundred times the size of the room he’d woken up in.
Twenty crystal chandeliers hung from the vault on chains of solid gold.
Both sides of the long table were packed with Westerlands lords and knights.
Thirty of them, easy.
Tywin Lannister sat at the head.
The Old Lion had not changed.
Gold hair combed to a knife’s edge.
Sideburns going white.
Green eyes that found Lyonel the instant the doors opened and pinned him there.
The hall went quiet for two seconds.
More than thirty faces turned together.
The short, ugly young lord in the doorway, coat still wrinkled into a fist.
Tywin’s brow creased.
Once.
Lyonel saw what lived in that crease.
The look a man gives shit on the sole of a good boot.
“Where have you been?” Tywin’s voice was not loud.
It was cold the way a locked cellar is cold.
Lyonel opened his mouth.
A bannerman beat him to it.
“My lord.
This morning.
At the Moulin Rouge.
I saw him.” He said the name softly.
The hall heard it anyway.
Silence fell like a blade.
Lyonel did not move.
The body shook under him.
Fear cut into the marrow, climbing from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair.
He forced it down.
He had not been born in this hall.
He had not spent fifteen years learning to flinch.
Tywin’s finger tapped the table.
Once.
Everyone sat up straighter.
“Tyrion.” Not son.
The name, spoken the way a man reads a warrant.
“Your mother carried you ten months and died the day you came out of her.
House Lannister has worn its glory for generations.
With you, we became the joke of the West.
“You cannot even keep your appetites in the dark.
You spent the night in a brothel.
In front of my bannermen.” Every sentence dropped the temperature half a degree.
A knight to the side snorted and covered it too late.
Lyonel watched Tywin’s face.
The Old Lion dressed it as honor.
Family.
Shame.
The meaning underneath was three words long.
You should not exist.
Memories shoved up behind his eyes.
Locked in the library three days at eight.
Mocked at twelve for reading—a dwarf playing at letters.
Reported through half the city at fourteen for his first trip to a whorehouse.
Fifteen years.
Not one kind look.
Not one day.
Lyonel closed his fists.
They were short and thick and useless-looking.
He started to speak.
“Father.” The voice behind him was lazy.
Gold hair hit the side door like a second sunrise.
Jaime Lannister came in wearing the white of the Kingsguard over gilt armor, a crimson cloak thrown back from his shoulders.
The Valyrian steel at his hip threw light the length of the hall.
On his face sat the smile he was famous for.
The whole world owed him money.
He could not be bothered to collect.
“My brother was with me last night.” Jaime crossed the floor and set a large hand on Lyonel’s head.
Three easy pats.
Warm.
Public.
As if no one else in the room mattered.
“We drank.
I sent him to bed.
The Moulin Rouge?
Your man saw a shadow and gave it my brother’s name.” The hall went still again.
The bannerman opened his mouth and thought better of it.
Jaime Lannister was Kingsguard.
The man who had put a sword through the Mad King.
No one in that room wanted his attention.
Tywin looked at him for three seconds.
“You are covering for him.” “I am speaking for him.” Jaime smiled and turned his head.
Those blue eyes were full of easy light.
“Isn’t that right, brother?” Lyonel looked up.
Jaime winked.
“Yes.” His voice came out level.
“I was with Jaime.
We sparred.” Tywin made a sound in his throat.
He did not call the lie what it was.
His finger tapped the table again.
“Good.
Since you have so much vigor, I have work for it.” He lifted a hand.
A steward came forward with a parchment book and dropped it on the floor at Lyonel’s feet.
The thing was thick enough to kill a man.
Gold letters on the cover: Annual Accounts of Casterly Rock and the Westerlands Fiefs.
“Three days.” Tywin held up three fingers.
“Find the holes in that ledger.
Find them, and you may still be of some use.
Fail—” He paused.
His gaze dropped, looking down at a son who did not even reach the height of the table.
“Take the black.
Freeze on the Wall with the rest of the realm’s refuse.” Laughter started along the benches and this time no one bothered to hide it.
Lyonel bent and picked the book up.
It weighed at least five pounds.
His face did not change.
He glanced at the cover.
The blue panel opened behind his eyes.
[Novice Quest: Within three days, obtain one acknowledgment from Tywin Lannister.] [Reward: Purple entry — Financial Mastery.] He tucked the ledger under his arm and looked up.
“Fine.” One word.
The laughter tripped and died.
They saw it then.
No fear on the dwarf’s face.
No anger.
Not even the old hurt.
He smiled.
The mouth twisted.
The mismatched eyes folded up with it.
A cracked nut that had grown teeth.
The men nearest him felt the cold go down their backs.
Tywin stared for two seconds and flicked his hand.
“Get out.” Lyonel turned.
As he passed, Jaime touched his head again, lighter this time.
“My rooms tonight,” Jaime murmured.
“I brought something back from King’s Landing.
White wine.
Kingsguard stock.” Lyonel glanced at him.
That beautiful face was still smiling.
The fondness in it was so open it almost spilled.
“Good.” He walked out with five pounds of parchment in his arms.
The doors shut.
He put his back to the stone and let the air out of his lungs.
The panel flickered again.
[Daily draw cooldown remaining: 12 hours 47 minutes.
Trait panel available upon return to quarters.] He looked down at the ledger and felt the weight of it.
Holes.
He licked the corner of his mouth.
“Three days?” He started walking.
“Tonight will do.”