The passage was already bright.
A candle every three steps.
Flame on the red carpet all the way to the hall.
He pushed the door and the noise came in like water.
Thirty-odd bannermen.
A dozen knights.
Men sent by the greater lords of the West.
Near fifty down both sides of the long table.
Cups.
Plates.
Laugh piled on roast and wine.
Lyonel walked in.
The room thinned for two seconds.
Someone had seen him.
The short one in lion crimson.
Looks like pins.
Curious.
Contempt.
The ones who pretended not to look and used the corner of the eye anyway.
He did not stop.
He took the length of the table to the head.
Tywin in the high seat.
Jaime on the right.
Lyonel’s place set between them—high table, tight against Jaime.
Knee.
Hip.
He climbed the chair and settled.
Bannermen beside them traded a glance.
“Why is he there?”
“His lordship put him there.”
“…The dwarf?”
“Hush.”
Lyonel took the whispers in and gave them nothing.
He lifted the cup and tasted.
Fine.
Not the Kingsguard white Jaime had put in his hand that morning.
The feast ran to the middle.
Tywin did his duty.
Harvest.
Tax.
The watch on the borders.
Lyonel said nothing and worked a lamb rib.
The fat had taken the fire.
Juice when he bit.
A hundred times any box he had ordered in the old world.
Jaime filled his cup.
“Slower,” Jaime muttered.
“You said you had something tonight.”
Lyonel put the bone down.
Wiped his mouth.
Stood.
His knee hit the table lip.
The chair scraped back on the stone.
Every face came around.
He cleared his throat.
Not loud.
Every word clean.
“My lords.”
“I have something to say.”
The hall dropped another degree.
They looked at Tywin.
Tywin did not move.
He set his cup down and watched his son.
Nothing in the green.
Lyonel spoke.
“From today I will not answer to Tyrion.”
“Tyrion Lannister is finished.”
“My name is Lyonel.” Get faster updates on g.com.
“Lyonel Lannister.”
“A lion’s name.
Mine.”
It landed.
Three seconds of quiet.
Then a man laughed.
“Pff.”
Third table.
A young knight with a greasy face and yellow teeth.
Hand on his mouth.
Shoulders going.
Red all the way up.
He started it.
The men beside him opened with him.
“Lyonel?”
“Which one?
The circus cat?”
“Hah—”
It got bigger.
Cups swinging.
Knives on plates.
The hall went up like a pot left on the fire, mock and noise boiling out together.
“The dwarf names himself a lion.”
“He thinks a word will put inches on him.”
“House Lannister’s face is in the dirt.”
Lyonel stood where he was.
Nothing on him.
The noise hit stone and ran off.
Jaime’s fist closed under the board.
He started to rise.
Lyonel got there first.
“Finished?”
Three letters.
Not loud.
It covered them anyway.
The laugh wound down.
They watched him.
He took the room and came back to Tywin.
“Father.”
“This name is the one I chose.”
“Tyrion was yours.
I came out a monster.
I took that.”
“Tonight I am telling this hall a monster can name himself.”
He let a beat sit.
The crooked smile pulled.
“And Lyonel is a word you will bow to.”
Quiet.
Not fear.
The wrong-sized arrogance had stopped their mouths.
A dwarf, not half a proper man, eyes that did not match, ugly meat on the bone—and he would make them bow?
The yellow-tooth knight went again, bigger, holding his belly.
“Little Lord Lyonel!” He pitched it to the beams.
“How do you plan to put us down?
Kick our knees with those short legs?”
The laugh started.
It lasted one second.
Jaime stood.
The Kingsguard chair slammed the wall.
Gold hair.
Cold face.
Blue eyes like a blade left in ice.
He went around the hall with that look.
“Laugh again and you leave Casterly Rock on your back.”
Soft.
Weather talk. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
The sound cut off.
Heads down.
Nothing had happened.
Jaime turned to Lyonel.
He raised his cup.
“Lyonel.” He put the word through his teeth, clean.
“Lyonel Lannister.
Good name.”
“Your brother stands with you.”
He drank it dry.
Lyonel watched him.
Candleflame in the blue.
All of it warm.
He lifted his own cup and finished it.
Men flicked looks at Tywin.
The old lion had not smiled.
Had not cursed.
Had not taken a side.
He sat and cut the venison on his plate, one strip, then the next.
The same thickness.
Every stroke.
Last piece.
Tywin set the knife down.
“…Lyonel.”
One word.
No heat.
A name on a writ.
He said it.
He used the name.
Lyonel’s pulse jumped a half step.
He put a nail into his own palm and sat.
The pane flashed as his weight hit the chair.
[System]
Official rename detected.
Identity confirmed: Lyonel Lannister.
[System]
House regard adjusted.
Jaime +5.
Tywin +2.
Cersei −8.
[System]
New task: within seven days, win public allegiance from at least three bannermen of the West.
Reward: Blue trait — Diplomatic Touch.
He held his cup and looked at the pane.
Seven days.
Cersei: −8.
The sister in King’s Landing, and the number was already falling without her in the room.
Fine.
He drank and left her a mark.
The feast went on.
No one picked the name up again.
The eyes had changed.
Measuring.
Turning it over.
Filing this: the dwarf was tied to his brother and the knot would not slip.
Jaime poured him another and leaned in.
“It’s a name.
Anyone laughs at it again—bannerman or not—I handle him.”
Lyonel looked up and gave him the smile.
It moved in the candlelight.
The two colors bent.
“Brother.”
“Mm.”
“This was a good day.”