Free A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin Page B

the lantern one of the intruders held on high.
I must show no fear.
Cersei pushed back sleep-tousled hair, and said, “What do you want of me?” A man stepped into the lantern light, and she saw his cloak was white. “Jaime?”
I dreamt of one brother, but the other has come to wake me.
    “Your Grace.” The voice was not her brother’s. “The Lord Commander said come get you.” His hair curled, as Jaime’s did, but her brother’s hair was beaten gold, like hers, where this man’s was black and oily. She stared at him, confused, as he muttered about a privy and a crossbow, and said her father’s name.
I am dreaming still,
Cersei thought.
I have not woken, nor has my nightmare ended. Tyrion will creep out from under the bed soon and begin to laugh at me.
    But that was folly. Her dwarf brother was down in the black cells, condemned to die this very day. She looked down at her hands, turning them over to make certain all her fingers were still there. When she ran a hand down her arm the skin was covered with gooseprickles, but unbroken. There were no cuts on her legs, no gashes on the soles of her feet.
A dream, that’s all it was, a dream. I drank too much last night, these fears are only humors born of wine. I will be the one laughing, come dusk. My children will be safe, Tommen’s throne will be secure, and my twisted little
valonqar
will be short a head and rotting.
    Jocelyn Swyft was at her elbow, pressing a cup on her. Cersei took a sip: water, mixed with lemon squeezings, so tart she spit it out. She could hear the night wind rattling the shutters, and she saw with a strange sharp clarity. Jocelyn was trembling like a leaf, as frightened as Senelle. Ser Osmund Kettleblack loomed over her. Behind him stood Ser Boros Blount, with a lantern. At the door were Lannister guardsmen with gilded lions shining on the crests of their helmets. They looked afraid as well.
Can it be?
the queen wondered.
Can it be true?
    She rose, and let Senelle slip a bedrobe over her shoulders to hide her nakedness. Cersei belted it herself, her fingers stiff and clumsy. “My lord father keeps guards about him, night and day,” she said. Her tongue felt thick. She took another swallow of lemon water and sloshed it round her mouth to freshen her breath. A moth had gotten into the lantern Ser Boros was holding; she could hear it buzzing and see the shadow of its wings as it beat against the glass.
    “The guards were at their posts, Your Grace,” said Osmund Kettleblack. “We found a hidden door behind the hearth. A secret passage. The Lord Commander’s gone down to see where it goes.”
    “Jaime?” Terror seized her, sudden as a storm. “Jaime should be with the
king
. . .”
    “The lad’s not been harmed. Ser Jaime sent a dozen men to look in on him. His Grace is sleeping peaceful.”
    Let him have a sweeter dream than mine, and a kinder waking.
“Who is with the king?”
    “Ser Loras has that honor, if it please you.”
    It did not please her. The Tyrells were only stewards that the dragon-kings had upjumped far above their station. Their vanity was exceeded only by their ambition. Ser Loras might be as pretty as a maiden’s dream, but underneath his white cloak he was Tyrell to the bone. For all she knew, this night’s foul fruit had been planted and nurtured in Highgarden.
    But that was a suspicion she dare not speak aloud. “Allow me a moment to dress. Ser Osmund, you shall accompany me to the Tower of the Hand. Ser Boros, roust the gaolers and make certain the dwarf is still in his cell.” She would not say his name.
He would never have found the courage to lift a hand against Father,
she told herself, but she had to be certain.
    “As Your Grace commands.” Blount surrendered the lantern to Ser Osmund. Cersei was not displeased to see the back of him.
Father should never have restored him to the white.
The man had proved himself a craven.
    By the time they left Maegor’s Holdfast, the sky had turned a deep cobalt