The corridor was already bright.
Candles every three paces.
Gold light running the red carpet all the way to the Great Hall doors.
Lyonel pushed them open.
Noise hit him like weather.
Thirty bannermen.
A dozen knights.
Men sent in other lords’ names.
Near fifty along the long tables, cups crossing, knives working, roast and wine thick in the air.
He stepped in.
The hall went quiet for two seconds.
Someone had seen the short figure in the crimson lion cloak.
Eyes came at him like pins.
Curiosity.
Contempt.
The careful kind of looking-away that still looked.
He did not stop.
He walked the length of the table to the high seats.
Tywin at the head.
Jaime on his right.
Lyonel’s place sat between them.
High table.
Next to his brother.
He braced a knee, boosted himself, and settled.
The chair was still too tall.
His boots found the rung and stayed there.
Men nearby traded looks.
“Why is he sitting there?” “Lord Tywin set it.” “…the dwarf?” “Quiet.” Lyonel heard every word.
His face gave them nothing.
He took the cup in front of him and drank.
Decent.
Not the Kingsguard white Jaime had put in his hand that morning.
The feast was already halfway gone.
Tywin spoke harvest and tax with two lords and asked after the border holds the way another man asked after the weather.
Lyonel kept his head down and ate the lamb.
Char on the outside.
Juice when the knife went in.
A hundred times better than anything he had ever paid for out of a plastic box.
Jaime poured for him.
“Eat slower,” he muttered.
“You said you had something tonight.” Lyonel set the bone down.
Wiped his mouth.
Stood.
His knees hit the table edge.
The chair scraped back across stone, loud enough to cut the nearest talk.
Every face in the hall found him.
He did not raise his voice.
He made the words land.
“My lords.” “I have something to say.” The room thinned.
Eyes went to Tywin.
Tywin did not move.
He set his cup down and looked at his son.
Green.
Cold.
Empty of anything a man could use.
Lyonel spoke.
“From today I am not Tyrion.” “That name was put on me.
I am done wearing it.” “My name is Lyonel.” “Lyonel Lannister.” Silence held for three seconds.
Then someone laughed.
A young knight three tables down.
Grease on his chin.
Yellow teeth when the sound got out of him.
He covered his mouth and shook until his face went red.
That was all it took.
Grins opened along the bench.
“Lyonel?” “Pretty name for a half-man.” “Does he think a lion’s name makes him taller?” Laughter climbed.
A man shook his cup.
Another rapped a knife on a plate to keep it going.
The hall turned into a market stall, mockery stacked on mockery.
“A dwarf naming himself after lions.” “House Lannister’s joke just wrote itself a new title.” Lyonel stood where he was.
Nothing on his face.
The noise hit him and slid off.
Jaime’s hand closed under the table.
He started to rise.
Lyonel got there first.
“Finished?” Three letters.
Not loud.
They cut the room anyway.
The laughter stumbled and thinned.
They looked at him.
Lyonel looked the tables over and came back to Tywin.
“Father.” “I chose this one.” “Tyrion was yours.
I was born a monster.
I took the name that came with it.” “Tonight I am telling this hall a monster can name himself.” He let a beat sit.
The crooked mouth found its old ugly smile.
“Learn it.
You’ll say it whether you like the sound or not.” The hall went still.
Not fear.
The choke of hearing arrogance come out of a body that did not have the height to carry it.
A dwarf who did not reach a grown man’s chest.
Mismatched eyes.
A face assembled by a drunk mason.
Promising them they would bow.
The yellow-toothed knight found his laugh again.
Bigger this time.
Both hands on his gut.
“Little Lord Lyonel!” he shouted.
“How do you plan to make us say it?
Kick our knees with those short legs?” The noise started to rise.
It lasted a second.
Jaime stood.
The Kingsguard chair slammed the wall behind him.
Gold hair.
White cloak.
Blue eyes gone flat and bright as quenched steel.
He looked the hall over the way a man looks at meat that has started to turn.
“Anyone who laughs again leaves Casterly Rock on a board tomorrow.” Soft.
As if he were commenting on the wind.
The sound died on the next breath.
Heads went down.
Men discovered a sudden interest in their plates.
Jaime turned to Lyonel.
He lifted his cup.
“Lyonel.” He said it clean, teeth on every letter.
“Lyonel Lannister.
Good name.” “Your brother stands with it.” He drank the cup dry.
Lyonel watched the candlelight sit in those blue eyes.
Warmth there.
No performance.
He picked up his own cup and finished it.
Men nearby flicked looks at Tywin.
The Old Lion had not laughed.
Had not spoken.
Had not moved a piece on the board.
He sat and cut the venison on his plate.
Same thickness every pass.
The knife did not hurry.
Last piece.
He set the blade down.
“…Lyonel.” One word.
No heat in it.
The sound a man makes reading a name off a writ.
He had said it.
Lyonel’s pulse jumped half a beat.
He drove a nail into his palm, kept his face still, and sat.
The panel opened in the corner of his sight as his weight hit the chair.
[Official rename detected.
Identity confirmed: Lyonel Lannister.] [Family favorability adjusted — Jaime: +5.
Tywin: +2.
Cersei: −8.] [New quest issued: Win the public allegiance of at least three Westerlands bannermen within seven days.] [Reward: Blue entry — Diplomacy.] Lyonel held his cup and looked at the last line on the family list.
Seven letters.
Cersei: −8.
His sister was still in King’s Landing and the number had already gone bad.
Beautiful.
He drank and filed a seat for her at the bottom of the page.
The feast went on.
No one spoke the name again out loud.
The looks had changed.
Measuring.
Weighing.
Noting, quietly, that the dwarf and the Kingsguard were tied tighter than this hall had wanted to admit.
Jaime poured him another cup and leaned in.
“It’s a name.
Anyone who laughs at it later can be a bannerman or a beggar.
I don’t care which.” Lyonel looked up at him.
The smile that came was small.
The green eye and the black one folded with it.
“Brother.” “Mm.” “Today is a good day.”