After the feast broke, Lyonel went back to his rooms.
Door shut.
Back to the wood.
Air out of him in one long line.
He had not eaten dirt tonight.
He had done more than the night asked.
The name was on the table.
Jaime’s backing was public.
Tywin had not blessed it and had not killed it.
When the old lion had said *Lyonel*, the weight in Casterly Rock had moved half an inch.
He pulled the pane.
[System]
Current traits:
Purple — Lannister Blood Resonance (Charm 5.
House starting regard +10.
Mood sense: 24h cooldown)
Blue — Photographic Memory (Reading speed +300%.
Memory 100%)
Purple — Fiscal Mastery (Anomaly flag 95%.
Economic understanding +100%.
Market Insight: 1/day)
Green — Basic Sword Frame (Seven cuts, form +80%.
Line prediction 15%)
Four.
Green, blue, purple.
Four days of stacking.
Letters to steel.
Head to face.
He grinned at it.
In any game this was the starter kit finished.
All that was left was to walk outside and take something off a body.
He found Jaime’s Kingsguard flask on the desk, twisted it, took a sip, and fell onto the bed.
Before sleep he opened the draw.
[System]
Daily draw reset.
[System]
Today’s draw—
White light.
A dusty tag dropped.
[System]
White trait acquired: Boundless Energy
Sleep efficiency +10%
He looked at the grey white.
Hah.
Fine.
Blue yesterday.
Not a feast every night.
White was still more than nothing.
Ten percent on sleep.
Forty minutes back a night.
Forty nights and you had a day.
Round it and the system had handed him a weekend.
He rolled over and shut his eyes.
Morning.
Gulls off the water dragged him up.
He washed, ate a heel of dry bread, and went straight for the library.
East tower.
Ground floor.
Iron on wood.
The door complained.
This was the room.
Childhood lockup.
Tywin had found him hard to look at and put him here for three days at a stretch.
A guard with a plate.
No one else.
The first Tyrion had turned pages to kill the hours.
Lyonel came in now and ran the shelves to the ceiling.
Worth it. This story is hosted at g.com.
A wall of sheepskin and bound books.
Histories of the West.
Lineages of the Seven Kingdoms.
Old Valyrian texts.
Trade routes bound in sets.
Half a shelf of songs and fables.
Photographic Memory went on.
He walked the stacks fast.
Fingers on spines.
A title crossed his eye and the book poured in.
Contents.
Preface.
Body.
Notes.
Pages taken like a scan and filed without a sound.
The stories the first Tyrion had used to fill the dark came up again, whole.
He stopped at a shelf set deeper in.
Casterly Rock.
House Lannister.
Old record.
The top row was grey.
No one had touched it in a long time.
He came up on his toes.
Not enough.
A stool.
He climbed.
From the highest board he drew a yellow roll.
Opened.
An old western dialect.
A story.
Lann the Clever.
The first Tyrion had had this one as a child.
Thousands of years back, when Casterly Rock was still a hill, Lann the Clever tricked the lord of it.
Made the man believe he had struck a mountain of gold.
Bought the whole rise for the price of one piece while the lord was still drunk on the thought.
Then he opened the richest mine in Westeros.
That was the Lannister fortune.
That trick.
Lyonel had read it for the joke, once.
At the end of the roll he stopped.
Last leaf.
In the blank, in a very fine hand, a line of marks.
Bent.
Nothing like any letter he knew.
Up close they ran like twisted flame.
An eye set in the middle.
He gave the line three seconds.
A hum in his skull.
[System]
Ancient Valyrian inscription detected.
[System]
Parsing… 15%…
[System]
Inscription linked to the Lann the Clever text.
Presumed information anchor from the Valyrian Freehold.
[System]
New module unlocked: Exploration.
[System]
Exploration: contact with objects or places tied to old Valyria, dragons, or magic will place a mark.
Accumulated marks may unlock hidden traits or bloodline threads.
He stood there a beat.
Then he looked at the marks again.
Heat in both eyes.
Valyria.
That road ran to Daenerys Targaryen.
To Khal Drogo, the horse king he would have to cross the Narrow Sea to hunt.
He rolled the sheepskin with care and put it inside his coat.
Two more hours in the stacks.
He turned Exploration’s marks on and pulled at least three Valyrian threads out of the old paper.
Two trade books: Valyrian porcelain moving through the port at Pentos.
A geography: northwest of Dragonstone, on the sea floor, a possible sunken Valyrian watch.
Pentos.
He closed the trade book and tapped the board twice.
Pentos in Essos.
First land across the Narrow Sea.
Illyrio Mopatis sat there.
Drogo’s khalasar used that coast.
He looked at the roll in his coat.
Lann the Clever.
A Valyrian mark.
Exploration.
The system’s crumbs ran in a chain.
A western story to the grass on the far side of the water.
Boots in the passage.
He packed what he had and dropped off the stool.
Turned.
Jaime in the doorway, turning an apple in his fingers.
“The library.” Jaime spoke around a bite.
“You hated this room.
What are you doing back in it?”
“Looking.”
“For what.”
Lyonel thought, drew the roll, showed a corner, and put a finger on the Valyrian mark.
“Brother.
Do you know this?”
Jaime leaned in.
His brow went down.
“…No.”
“Would Tywin?”
Jaime tossed the core at a basket.
“The old man might know everything.
Whether he tells you is another war.”
Lyonel put the roll away.
“I’ll find it.”
Jaime watched that face a second and laughed.
The hand found his hair again.
“Lately you feel like someone else.”
“I am.”
Lyonel looked up.
“A better one.”
Jaime’s hand stayed on his head.
Two seconds.
“Yes,” he said.
“A better one.”
They left together.
Sun came down the high windows and turned the dust into gold columns.
Lyonel stepped through one and paused.
His shadow on the flags: short, bunched, a lump on the stone.
The sheepskin against his ribs was hot.
Upper right on the pane, Exploration burned low.
A line under it:
[System]
Ancient sites marked: 1/10.
Ten marks: one gold trait draw.
He took the next corner.
Looked back once.
The iron door shut.
The books were still on the boards.
He had already taken the one that mattered.