Nerd In the North 5-13
Snow fell hard, each flake striking steel and leather, before sliding away as it melted
The white haze swallowed distances, yet the field still rang with sounds of battle and death, flesh and steel. Unhindered, the King in the North advanced through it, his boots carving trenches in the mud and drift. His cloak streamed behind him as he unflinchingly drove his sword through a Lannister gorget and twisted the blade.
With a silent grunt, he withdrew the blade and stepped aside as the knight fell to the muddy ground, folding to his knees, blood steaming from his gut and onto the frozen dirt.
Robb spoke once, loud and level. “For the North.”
The command cut through the weather as men no more than twenty paces off straightened their backs and tightened their grips on shield, sword, and spear alike
Grey Wind circled his master without a sound. The direwolf lunged, seized a destrier’s throat, and dragged horse and rider sideways. Snow exploded beneath their weight. Hoofbeats faltered in a ragged ripple as cavalry tried to steer clear of the jaws and the flailing hooves. The wolf’s eyes shone bright against the gloom, picking up torchflame like hammered gold.
A horn blasted as Dacey Mormont stamped forward at the left wing. Her mace rose, fell, rose again. Each impact rang like an iron bell as helmets crumpled around her. With another blow, one man spun across the ground, breastplate folded inward.
“Remembeeeeer!” The young Lady of Bear Island shouted above the charge, the words rolling farther than a human voice ought to travel. “Remember Ned Stark!”
Men behind her repeated the cry. “REMEMBER NED STARK.” Their line thickened. Shields overlapped. Swords hammered downward in a single, answering cadence.
A Lannister man rushed her, sword held high. With a move almost faster than a normal man could, Dacey caught the edge on her oak‑rimmed shield. Sparks snapped across the iron rim as she slid inside his reach and let the mace kiss his ribs with a sound like a branch breaking in half. The man arced backward, struck two companions, and all three vanished beneath stamping boots.
Smalljon Umber broke the snowbank on the right. He waded through bodies as though they were reeds. His two‑handed blade crashed across a spear haft, through the wood, through the iron, through the chest behind it. Blood fanned outward, hot against the falling snow. He laughed, deep and careless. “Come on then, you southern shits.”
He seized another soldier by the throat. Fingers sank until knuckles met mail. He lifted. Boots kicked the air. With a grunt he flung the captive over the press. The Lannister struck a shield wall on the far side; timbers splintered, men toppled, the formation bent inward around the impact.
Robb kept moving. His sword found a visor gap, then a thigh strap, then the point beneath an arm where padding failed. He never raised his voice again. He signaled instead. One quick gesture sent Karstark men angling left. Another brought Tallhart shields to fill the space. The battle bent under his hand like iron at forge heat.
Smalljon swung. His blade struck an upraised heater shield, sheared through linden and iron, and kept going. A second stroke drove a rider from the saddle. The Umber planted his boots, caught the horse’s bridle, and halted the charge. The animal reared, front hooves pawing air. The rider flew headlong into the slush. Smalljon snarled a grin, slapped the horse on the hindquarters, and drove it panicked back into its own line.
Dacey shifted her stance. Snow clung to her mail, vanished in sudden heat, and rose again in vapor. She sang while she fought. The melody turned to rhythm. Strike, block, riposte. The mace described an unbroken loop, every sweep timed to the pace of marching feet behind her.
“The frost bites deep where the south won’t tread,” she sang.
Voices nearby joined, unsure at first, then firm, =over steel clangor, over screams, over the hollow thud of bodies striking earth. “THE COLD WINDS HOWL THROUGH THE LANDS OF THE DEATH!”
The words rang louder, men singing as Grey Wind bounded past them. The direwolf’s fur burned gray under torchlight as the beast of the king slipped between shields, caught a mailed arm, tore downward, and vanished again into drifting smoke.
Robb pointed. His vanguard drove spears between shields in a ripple. The Lannister line bulged. Robb stepped through the opening. One clean thrust slid beneath a captain’s chin. The man fell with a strangled cough. Robb lifted his sword free, flicked scarlet flecks from the edge, and kept time with his soldiers’ march.
Mud mixed with blood beneath trampling hooves. The field churned. Snow turned to pink slurry. Robb’s voice reached across the noise, clipped and exact.
“Karstark, wheel left. Mormont, hold the center. They break in three, two, one.”
The command aligned with the shatter of the enemy shield wall. Lannister ranks folded across the center. Panic bled outward faster than the wound that caused it.
Dacey pressed forward. Her mace punched a helm, then the collar beneath. She leaned into her shield, braced, let another blow glance off, and answered with a snap of the wrist. Metal collapsed inward like wet parchment.
Smalljon forged a path through dismounted cavalry. A second later, the big man caught a spear under his arm, snapped the shaft, and slammed the jagged end into its owner’s face. Blood sprayed against his beard, froze at the edges before it could run. He laughed again, louder, throat raw. “That all you’ve got? My gran hits harder.”
A rider charged him, hoofbeats beating the ground and tearing up mud on it’s path towards the small giant.
Smalljon sidestepped in two bounding strides, the Umber plantting a hand on the saddle, and with a grunt, the man heaved. Horse and man turned over as one, the man rolling once only to tumble away and vanish behind a hedge of northern pikes.
Snow thickened, then thinned, fell and melted, mud filling with blood and the smell of shit from dying men filling the air. Robb struck a helm rim, a gauntlet cuff, and a breastplate seam. Each and every impact landed with practiced certainty, neither hurried nor delayed, striking with the experience of a man twice his age and with force at least twice that as well.
Karstark spearmen pressed the left flank. Arrows fell among them, hissed, died in shields. Their sergeants shouted cadence. Feet pounded in unison despite churned earth.
Mormont shields in the center advanced by inches. Dacey stood at the point of the wedge. Mud reached her ankles. Blood streaked her cheek, drying dark against the winter air as she shifted grip, drove the mace down on a helm visor, and stepped over the body before it so much as settled and stilled from its death throes.
On the right, Umbers shouted themselves hoarse. Smalljon broke formation only to run forward, grab an enemy standard, and wrench it free. He hurled the pole backward. A northern bannerman caught it, raised it higher, and the Umber line surged with new hunger.
“FOR THE KING IN THE NORTH!”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Three weeks later the same snow lay heavier on a different set of ramparts. Torches rattled against the wind. The northern camp sprawled across a captured bailey. Tents leaned against curtain walls black with old fire.
Robb stood over a map spread on a trestle table. Candles flickered across the parchment. Pins marked three red castles behind them, one black ruin ahead. His gauntlets lay beside the map; his fingers traced supply roads without touching the vellum.
“We have taken three strongholds in three weeks.” His voice held the same measured cadence heard on the field. “They pull back to Harrenhal.”
Veder and Umber men waited beyond the torch radius while Tully and Stark officers lingered near the doorway. Snow drifted through the open gate and melted on flagstones warmed by camp braziers as a low hum of conversation floated among tents.
Dacey Mormont sat on an overturned water barrel, the young woman loosening her gauntlet straps with deliberate fingers. The mace lay across her knees as she wiped it clean with a strip of linen already stained dark. Metal glimmered where cloth passed. “The men fight like they have winter in their bones, Your Grace,” Lady Mormont spoke without looking up.
She turned the weapon, examined fresh dents along the flanges, and resumed the slow polishing.
Robb glanced over. He said nothing. The map corner lifted under a draft. He set two fingers on the vellum until the candle flame steadied.
Dacey folded the linen, pressed it to another patch of dried gore. Her shoulders rose and fell once. “Feel it too.” She kept her gaze on the metal. “Like the Old Gods are watching.”
A brazier popped, throwing sparks against the stone as snow hissed where embers landed.
Smalljon emerged from the doorway, mail jingling. He stripped off a soaked surcoat. Blood crusted the fabric in long dark streaks. He dropped it on a bench and rolled his shoulders. Arm muscles balled under bare skin, broader than when the campaign began. He flexed his hands, opened and closed them as though testing unfamiliar weight.
“Never felt so strong,” he said. He rubbed a thumb against his palm, watched the motion, and seemed to measure it almost. “Could crush a man’s skull like an egg.” He smiled at the thought, teeth bright in the torch glare. Fingers curled again, then straightened. “Might try it next battle.”
None of them chose to question their gifts aloud, content to consider them blessings of the gods.
Aloud, at least.
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Sun found every gilt ridge on Jaime’s breastplate and would not stop admiring itself. He pulled his visor low, more for vanity than shade, uncaring as the glare blinded the footmen who dared look up. Three thousand red‑and‑gold bodies stretched across the field, shields locked tight as coins stacked edge to edge. Spears waited in a silver forest ahead of them as a familiar smell of oiled leather and nervous sweat drifted under the morning wind.
Jaime breathed it in like he owned the patent. “Steady ranks,” he called, voice mild, almost bored. “These are the same northern dogs we have killed since Spring.”
The men straightened, flattered by the lie. A few even believed it. They should. He patted his destrier’s neck and kept the smile narrow. Behind the first line, the drums of House Lannister rumbled slow, measured, certain.
Ser Addam Marbrand approached at a trot, the sun catching the red in his hair and making it look aflame. “Scouts place Stark’s column at fifteen hundred, no more. They come from the north road, one hour out.”
“Good odds.” Jaime twisted in the saddle, signalling the left cavalry to ready their lances. “Signal when they cross the stream. I want the charge timed to the fourth drumbeat.”
Ser Forley Prester rode by, shouting a single silver for every northern head. His words earned a cheer from all the men around. Coin always sang louder than honor.
The formation settled into the hush of professionals. Helmets tilted. Fingers flexed beneath rawhide straps. Horses snorted clouds into cold air. Jaime let the quiet soak, the calm just before a sword met its first shield and decided which was sharper.
A sergeant pointed with a gauntlet. “Stark banners, m’lord.”
Across the field a narrow ridge lifted dark shapes from the horizon: direwolf standards, pale cloth, no horns, no drum. The line advanced with too much discipline, too little noise.
No taunts. No winter curses.
Only the measured crunch of boots on frost and the creak of leather stretching under plate.
“Silent goodbyes,” Jaime muttered. “Charming.”
The northerners kept coming.
Then a white flare burst at the Stark flank, bright enough to sting the eyes and leave a violet echo. Jaime frowned as a figure stepped from the glare, armor polished silver, accents of blue catching sunlight like ice does dawn. The sword in the youth’s hand burned white at the edge, not reflection but ignition.
“Finally,” the knight shouted, voice bright, impatient, almost cheerful. He waved at no one in particular as though greeting late dinner guests.
Before Jaime could shape a curse, air behind the silver boy twisted. A shape unfolded from the shadow of trees: it was the size of a destrier, black, wings thick like massive sails of leather dark as night, eyes glowing ember red. The beast reared on hind legs, Jaime’s green eyes widening at the sight.
Half bear, half dragon, mouth packed with fangs too many and too long. Wind from its wings slapped banners backward.
They had spoken of this beast around campfires. Rumor said it fell on supply trains, clawed men from saddles, breathed something hotter than wildfire. Jaime had filed the tale beside children’s songs and Tyrion’s diplomacy.
Now it snarled across open ground at his right flank.
The silver boy glanced up at the monster with a look of annoyed familiarity. “Ash, not now.” He sounded like an elder brother chastising a pup. “You ruined my entrance, bud.”
The beast roared, torching the sky.
“Ah, fuck it,” the boy in silvered armor shook his head, making some sort of noise that one could only describe as wordless childish frustration.
Mummer’s tales, eh, father? Jaime’s smile thinned. “Archers,” he began. “Target the abomination.”
First rank archers lifted bows yet they were somehow too slow as the bright‑armored youth moved.
One heartbeat he stood fifty yards away.
The next he was inside the Lannister spear wall, shoulders brushing iron tips that had no time to angle. The white blade in his grip swept once and three spearmen split before they could even scream, armor popping like ripe fruit.
Gasps cracked the order. Shields shifted. Lines bent.
Men tried to backpedal but boots slipped on frost made slick by sudden blood.
Jaime spurred forward. “Hold rank! Left shields pivot. Right spears brace.”
The silver youth slipped past a thrust, kicked a shield rim so hard both shield and man broke apart, and slid behind another man. The sword cut the back of a knee as the boy spun to his feet, and opened up a throat in the same motion. Each strike looked careless, almost danced, yet bodies fell faster than he should have had time to aim.
Steel and shield squealed where it met the white edge; then both failed as easily as flesh.
Behind Jaime, the beast chose the cavalry as its playground.
It landed among destriers, weight slamming hoof‑prints into frozen earth. Horses screamed, jerked reins free, turned in blind terror. Flames curled from the creature’s jaws, thick like poured oil, licking men from saddles in dripping sheets. Crossbow bolts peppered its hide; scales deflected most, two sank shallow, one glanced and spun away. The monster roared again, fury and something that sounded damnably like laughter.
Ser Addam shouted for more bolts. The next volley rattled uselessly across black wings. One shaft struck the left membrane, tore a sail‑cloth hole. The creature beat its wings once, kicked snow and ash skyward, and vaulted over the second rank, landing deeper among the horsemen.
Jaime tightened reins. Keep the center, break the flanks later. He wheeled, seeking the silver boy.
There he was, assisting enemies. Golden light bled from the youth’s hands into wounded northerners. Gashes closed, mail knitted. A Lannister swordsman lunged at the shining knight’s unguarded back; the youth pivoted, punched him in the helm with a gauntleted fist, shattered visor bars, and returned to healing without comment.
“Reform pike squares,” Jaime called. The command felt ridiculous with no pikes left steady.
Panic rippled. Rankers tried to rally around surviving captains. Every cluster became a pocket for the monster’s wings or the healer’s blade.
A roar deeper than the beast’s shook the field. Jaime looked past the chaos, spotted motion at the Stark center. A figure advanced, enormous, shoulders armored in layered slabs of dark metal and ragged cloth. The sword across his back dwarfed the man by nearly half again.
Black from hilt to tip, the blade looked forged for siege work, improper for a man of any size to wield. Green eyes went wider than they had even upon seeing the beast. Not even Clegane, either one, could wield such a thing.
“Form on me,” shouted a Lannister captain. He led six spearmen in a wedge against the newcomer. Jaime tracked it from the saddle, curious.
The giant drew the slab of metal in one smooth pull. No flourish. Just inevitability. He stepped once, wide stance, and swung level with the ground. Wood, iron, leather, and bone surrendered in a single pass. Six bodies separated, halves dropping where they may. The blade whistled through empty air, not slowed at all, and parked on the other side like a pendulum completing its arc.
The giant walked on, shoulders set, expression unreadable beneath the helm’s shading brim.
Panic found voices.
“Sorcery,” Ser Forley Prester croaked, staring at a sudden geyser ripping open beneath a fresh cavalry advance. Water erupted, hurled men and animals sideways. Mud swallowed hooves. A roar of fire followed, sweeping across frozen grass and cutting retreat off at the ridge. Northmen advanced behind the flame curtain, untouched.
Jaime rode hard toward the silver boy, the only breach he could still attempt to plug. Men scattered before his destrier, keen to avoid trampling. He closed within ten paces.
“Face me, boy,” he called, letting the rush of the charge carry the words to a derisive purr. “Let us see whose arm wears the brighter polish.”
The youth turned.
Blue eyes, pale as a new glacier, measured Jaime without surprise or haste. “Your choice, pretty guy.”
Mocking was a reflex Jaime had mastered early. He offered a salute anyway, blade lifted, then urged the horse in.
They met at speed.
Jaime felt the first impact through elbow, collar, jaw. It vibrated teeth against tongue as parks spat sideways.
The boy’s strength jarred him hard enough to numb palm and fingers yet from the smile on his face, he might as well have been playing a game. Bastard.
Jaime recovered the guard, circled left, feinted high, cut low. The white blade parried, slid down his edge, and flicked out with ease and speed both, pommel slamming Jaime’s visor before the Kingsguard could so much as blink. Pain flashed bright, tasted of copper as he bit down hard on his tongue, stars dancing behind his eyes.
The eldest son of Tywin hissed, pivoted, struck again.
Yet the boy did little but laugh at him as he stepped aside, inside, under, and twisted. With a blow that came with another high laugh that could only come from one not yet a man, Jaime’s sword wrenched free, the blade cartwheeling tip-first into churned snow.
Cold air felt louder than cheering had ever sounded as time narrowed to the white blade resting against his gorget.
“Yield,” the youth said, voice calm. “Or I take your hands.”
Golden fire licked along the sword edge, gentle, hungry.
Jaime saw writs of light chase themselves across the metal as though writing a story too fast to read. Around them the Lannister host folded. Men dropped shields, ran, or froze where they stood. Horses plunged through gaps, reins trailing. The black beast circled overhead once then banked toward the northern rear, flames guttering from a wounded mouth. The big swordsman waded through stragglers without bothering to raise his weapon again; panic cleared his path faster than steel.
Jaime kept his gaze on those winter eyes. He saw no hate. No triumph. Only a steady patience that froze marrow. He could kill me, heal me, or forget me, Jaime realized. I am an inconvenience.
The boy tilted the blade fractionally.
Jaime’s fingers tingled inside the gauntlet, still numb. His own breath fogged inside the visor and condensed near the mustache. He tasted iron on his tongue. Pride that spat and screamed like his sister and father both told him to spit, stand, swing fists yet sense that sounded infuriatingly like his brother whispered that hands mattered more than virtue.
“Just so you know,” the youth said, casual, almost weary, “they said you’re kind of important. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
Jaime heard shouts in the distance, northmen calling positions, counting prisoners. The giant’s tread vibrated the ground through the horse’s hooves. The beast’s shadow passed overhead, wings beating slow.
He let pride cool on his tongue. “I yield,” he said. “I yield.”
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
King Joffrey Baratheon, First of His Name, sat tall once again on the Iron Throne as morning light crawled through the thone room’s high windows. Chin raised, crown pressing just enough to remind him who he was, he was reminded of the power he held, the unquestioning rule over his lessers throughout Westeros. Look at me. He scanned the line of courtiers. No one dared meet his eyes long. Good. Fear tasted better than fruit.
The Grand Maester, pathetic old fool he was, hobbled forward, chain links clattering against each other. “Your Grace, the ravens from the North bring troubling tidings.”
“Speak plainly, old man.” Joffrey rolled a gold coin across his knuckles. The dragon glinted in his fingers, almost smiling with him.
Pycelle bowed. “Robb Stark has been proclaimed King in the North.”
His smile vanished as the coin did, the latter rolling down the throne and across the hall to be plucked by some servant blessed with fortune.
The throne room shivered with murmurs. Joffrey let them rise, swell, then fall silent against the hard edges of his grin. “King in the North?” His voice came out clean, almost bright, before it cracked on the second word. He swallowed the crack with volume. “King?” The coin slipped; he caught it before it struck the floor. “How dare that northern pup name himself so. There is one throne, one crown, one king.” His grip whitened around the throne’s armrests. Steel points bit flesh. He welcomed the sting; it proved the throne listened.
No one answered. The silence felt like applause he could not hear. That angered him more.
– – – – – – – –
He summoned Tommen to his chambers, a desire filling him since the news of the “King in the North”, a foolish idea if he had ever heard one. As if those Northern savages could ever have any such thing as a real king from one of their number, he nearly spat at the thought. They need to be ruled by their betters.
A white‑cloaked Kingsguard, Oakheart, soon ushered his brother inside, Joffrey nearly growing impatient after calling for the boy so long ago. His eyes narrowed, heat rising into his gaze as he saw the dragon that rode his brother’s shoulder, claws hooked through velvet, tail coiled round the boy’s neck like a living torque. Charcoal hide, wine‑dark wing folds, eyes a vivid gold.
The dragon blinked at him, judging him almost.
He hated judgement.
His own gaze flickered to Tommen, eyes as purple as the dragonlord he now apparently was.
Dragonlord, but no king. “Closer,” Joffrey ordered. Tommen stepped forward, small hands clasped to keep them from shaking. Myrcella slipped in behind, unbidden, silver‑gold hair catching the torchlight.
He nearly hissed at the sight of her, his mute weak little whelp of a sister. “Did your king call for you?”
Eyes as green as his own stared back at him, unblinking and unflinching, remaining silent as she always was now.
Joffrey sneered and turned aside as he ignored the mute once again, a surprisingly hard thing to do, his cape sweeping across the rug as he paced. “Why does every whelp in Westeros receive gifts while I wait?” He let a map table feel his palm; a silver goblet skittered to the floor as he swept the table. The dragon hissed, smoke curling from its nostrils, but stayed perched, wings tucked with insulting ease.
“Show me your pet,” Joffrey said, voice thick as honey left too long in the sun. “Bring it to me.”
Tommen’s tone did not tremble as the dragon reared at his words. “He does not like you, Brother.”
The hiss sharpened into warning. Joffrey cut instinctively backward, boots grinding against marble. The retreat tasted sour, so he laughed over it—loud, lingering, false. “He will. I am king. Everything beneath this roof is mine.”
A hand stretched out in front of Tommen, a paler feminine hand. Myrcella’s eyes matched the dragon’s as she stared at him with defiance, not in color, but with tone, pure judgement and contempt.
Joffrey felt the floor tilt, as if the world dared lean away from him.
“Leave,” he snapped, heat edging each syllable. “Take the beast.”
Tommen bowed; Myrcella did not. The dragon clicked its teeth together while exiting, rasping like a file against steel. When the echoes died, Joffrey slammed the door. Anger cooled into something harder. I need a display.
– – – – – – – –
The throne room was filled by his order, men and women, smallfolk and noble, servant and knight alike, filling the space as Sansa Stark stood in the center, pale, hands folded, eyes lowered. Pretty puppet, he thought, watching her tremble. For a savage, she was undeniably a thing of beauty.
“Lady Stark,” he said, savoring the fragile hush. “Or should I call you sister to a traitor?”
She curtsied, voice thin. “I am Your Grace’s loyal subject.”
“Are you?” He leaned forward, letting the throne bite into him but enjoying it all the same. “Then help me send a lesson north.”
The King gestured with a single hand, a lazy thing, but undeniably a thing of power. Ser Mandon Moore stepped from the Kingsguard line, white cloak trailing, moving on the orders he had received previously. The knight’s shoulders squared, the man seemingly frozen in place as he stared forward with uncertainty clear in his eyes.
“Ten lashes, Moore,” Joffrey commanded, voice strong and eager. “Each one to mark her for her treasonous kin’s actions against the throne.”
Ser Mandon’s jaw tightened, the man unmoving despite a clear command.
Did I not speak? Was the king not heard? Am I nothing to you? Joffrey’s ears roared as his smile sweetened, the cold expression his mother had worn enough to chill grown men even more fearsome on his face. “I suppose you misheard me, Moore, so out of kindness, your king will repeat himself only one.” The words silked out. He felt something cold stir, like ice touching bone at the base of his skull. “Now, beat her.”
A pulse of unseen weight rolled through the hall, silent wind making banners flutter as the last two words were filled with raw power, his own voice sounding off in his ears thrice. What was-
Ser Mandon’s eyes glazed as his own blinked, and then twice more. The Kingsguard raised his gauntleted hand and struck. Leather cracked flesh as Sansa cried out, the girl stumbling from the strike.
Joffrey drank the sound, too lost in it to even consider what just happened a thing of note.
“Again,” he whispered, the sound carrying further than a whisper should. Somehow Ser Mandon both heard and obeyed. “Harder.” The third blow drove the Stark girl to her knees as blood dotted marble like spilled wine. The other Kingsguard shifted, unease everywhere, but none stepped forward. “Again.”
Light bled from the crown of his head on the fourth command, a sickly gold shimmer that Joffrey noticed. It pulsed with each command, seen and felt by all. Joffrey’s skin prickled, alive with borrowed thunder, his awareness of the light ignored as he thought it clearly natural. They will obey. They must. They should.
Ser Mandon’s arm trembled mid-swing, awareness suddenly returning. He staggered back, horror dawning. “Your Grace, I—”
Joffrey cut him off with a laugh. “Stand aside.” He rose from the throne, height suddenly important. “This power is mine.”
Ser Boros Blount shifted. Joffrey fixed him with eager wonder. “Kneel.”
The knight hesitated, clear doubt flickering across the kingsguard’s face.
Cold power surged again. “Kneel.” The order slammed the air and Ser Boros dropped, armor clanging as all the Kingsguard moved in unison.
Gasps floated as Joffrey’s laughter rang high, brittle as he clapped once and then again, delight clear on his face. They bend. They all bend.
The doors banged wide as mother swept in, skirts whispering. Her green eyes took everything: Sansa bleeding, Ser Boros, Moore and all the other Kingsguard prostrate, the glow fading around the crown.
Annoyance twisted to fear and shock. “Joffrey, what is this?”
“Justice, Mother.” He spread arms, cape billowing. “The gods have seen my worth.” He touched the crown. Light flicked again, brief but bright. “Robb Stark calls himself king. Let him. I have a gift now.” His gaze drifted to Sansa, crumpled but breathing. “One day I shall bring him to heel with a word.”
Cersei stepped to Sansa, pressing a cloth to the savage girl’s cheek as her hand shook under his gaze. Women are weak, even mother. “Send her back to her quarters. Summon a maester.”
Joffrey waved dismissal, already bored. She will recover or she will not. The important thing shimmered on his brow, warm, waiting. He walked the hall, enjoying the way guards flinched from his path.
Tommen’s dragon shrieked somewhere beyond the windows, a sound serrated with warning. Joffrey paused, listening. His smile widened. “Let it cry. I am the storm.” He mounted the throne again, each step ringing. The blades accepted him, cold edges against calves and shoulders. He welcomed the hurt.
Somewhere below, courtiers and servants shifted, whispering prayers, prayers that only made him feel stronger.
“I shall show them the power of the king.”