The days after my conversation with Tywin settled into a new rhythm.
Mornings belonged to Maester Creylen. Afternoons belonged to Ser Denys. Evenings, when Tywin allowed it, belonged to books, maps, and whatever strength remained in my arms after hours spent being knocked into the dirt.
Apparently grief could be treated with education and bruises.
At least, that seemed to be Tywin's approach.
I was seven by then, and Casterly Rock had begun to feel less like a prison and more like something I wanted to understand. The mountain was enormous, far larger than anything the show had ever managed to convey. Entire halls disappeared into the stone. Stairways twisted downward toward mines and storehouses. Passages connected kitchens, barracks, chambers, armories, vaults, and places I still wasn't allowed to enter.
Thousands of people lived beneath the lion.
That realization bothered me.
Not because of the number itself, but because I had never really thought about them before.
In my old life, castles had been scenery. Lords mattered. Armies mattered. Kings mattered.
The people carrying food through the halls barely existed.
Here, they had names.
Myrla complained about her knees whenever it rained.
A stable boy named Benn had a crooked front tooth and could tell which horse was approaching just from the sound of its hooves.
One of the kitchen girls, Lysa, secretly fed scraps to a half-blind cat behind the bakehouse.
People.
Real people.
It made the future harder to ignore.
Wars were different when you knew who would be crushed beneath them.
"Again."
Ser Denys's wooden sword struck mine hard enough to numb my fingers.
I stumbled backward across the training yard, boots scraping against packed dirt.
He gave me no time to recover.
The next blow came toward my shoulder.
I barely blocked it.
The impact rattled through my arm.
"Again."
I gritted my teeth.
"I am."
"No. You're thinking."
I frowned.
"Isn't that good?"
His sword cracked against mine.
"Not when someone's trying to kill you."
He was a broad man with graying hair and a nose that had been broken at least twice. He was not cruel, exactly. He simply believed children improved fastest when treated as if childhood were a temporary illness.
I swung.
He sidestepped.
His wooden blade tapped me across the ribs.
Pain burst through my side.
"Dead."
I glared at him.
"Again."
From the edge of the yard came laughter.
Cersei.
I turned.
She stood beneath the shade of a stone arch, wearing a crimson dress with gold thread at the sleeves. Jaime stood beside her, gripping a wooden sword almost as tall as he was.
"You looked stupid," Cersei called.
"Thank you."
Jaime grinned.
"Can I fight him?"
Ser Denys looked toward the four-year-old.
"No."
Jaime's face fell.
"I can fight."
"You can fall over while holding a sword."
"I don't fall."
Cersei immediately pushed him.
Jaime toppled sideways into the dirt.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
He jumped back up, furious.
"Cersei!"
She was already running.
Jaime chased her across the courtyard while Ser Denys pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Your family will be the death of me."
"You work for Lannisters," I said. "That seems possible."
His eyes narrowed.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
It was one of the first times I realized adults here could be surprised by me.
That was becoming a problem.
Maester Creylen had noticed how quickly I learned. Ser Denys had begun commenting on how I anticipated movements before he made them. Even servants sometimes stared when I asked questions a child probably should not care about.
How much grain did the Rock store?
How many ships regularly docked at Lannisport?
How many men could the Westerlands raise?
Which roads flooded during autumn?
How much gold actually came from the mines each year?
At first, I asked because I was curious.
Then I began remembering what was coming.
Robert's Rebellion.
The Greyjoy Rebellion.
The War of the Five Kings.
The Long Night.
If even half of the future remained unchanged, House Lannister would eventually stand at the center of nearly every major war Westeros would see in my lifetime.
And I was supposed to inherit it.
That changed the meaning of lessons.
A map was no longer a map.
It was a battlefield that hadn't happened yet.
After training, I joined Maester Creylen in one of the smaller libraries carved into the western side of the Rock.
Sunlight poured through narrow windows, turning dust into floating gold.
A large map of the Seven Kingdoms covered the table between us.
Creylen tapped the Westerlands.
"Name the great houses sworn to your father."
I began.
"Crakehall. Marbrand. Lefford. Brax. Westerling. Banefort."
He nodded.
"Continue."
"Clegane."
A pause.
"Technically landed knights."
"They still answer to us."
"They do."
I continued until he seemed satisfied.
Then his finger moved east.
"And here?"
"The Riverlands."
"Who rules them?"
"House Tully."
"Strong?"
I hesitated.
That wasn't a normal question.
"Compared to us?"
"Compared to their own vassals."
I looked at the map.
In the story I remembered, the Riverlands suffered constantly because of where they were. Too central. Too open. Too many roads.
"The Tullys rule," I said, "but some of their bannermen are nearly as powerful as they are."
Creylen's eyebrow lifted.
"Such as?"
"Frey. Mallister. Blackwood. Bracken."
"Good."
He leaned back.
"And what does that mean?"
I thought for a moment.
"That ruling them depends more on loyalty."
"All rule depends on loyalty."
"Some more than others."
That earned me a long look.
"You have been listening to your father."
Maybe.
Or maybe I knew what happened when Walder Frey decided loyalty had a price.
I kept that thought to myself.
Creylen moved his finger south.
"The Reach."
"House Tyrell."
"Rich?"
"Very."
"More than us?"
"No."
He almost smiled.
"You answered quickly."
"We have gold."
"They have food."
That made me pause.
Creylen noticed.
"Gold buys food."
"Unless no one wants to sell."
His expression changed slightly.
That thought stayed with me.
Gold buys food.
Unless no one wants to sell.
Unless roads are cut.
Unless armies burn fields.
Unless winter comes.
I stared at the Reach.
In my old life, I had thought wealth meant money.
Here, wealth could be grain.
Ships.
Horses.
Iron.
Men.
Land.
Information.
And perhaps most importantly, time.
That evening, I found Jaime and Cersei in one of the galleries overlooking the sea.
Jaime was sitting on the floor with two carved wooden knights, smashing them together.
Cersei watched from a window seat.
"Took you long enough," she said.
"For what?"
"To come."
"I didn't know I was invited."
"You weren't."
I stared at her.
She smiled.
At four years old, Cersei already had a talent for making every conversation feel like a challenge.
I sat beside Jaime.
He handed me one of the wooden knights.
"You be the bad one."
"Why am I the bad one?"
"Because I'm the lion."
I looked at the tiny figure in my hand.
Its shield had been painted with a badly shaped black stag.
Of course.
"Fine."
Jaime attacked.
Our wooden knights clacked together.
Cersei sighed dramatically.
"Boys."
"You were chasing him this morning," I said.
"That was different."
"How?"
"I was winning."
Fair enough.
For a while, we played.
No kings.
No prophecies.
No White Walkers.
Just three children sitting beneath a window while the sea crashed against the cliffs below.
Then Jaime looked up at me.
"Will you be lord after Father?"
The wooden knight stopped in my hand.
Cersei turned from the window.
Apparently she wanted the answer too.
"Yes."
"When?"
"When Father dies."
Jaime frowned.
"Is he going to die?"
"Everyone dies."
Cersei didn't like that.
"Not us."
I looked at her.
For one strange moment, I remembered another Cersei.
Older.
Standing in the Red Keep.
A crown on her head.
Enemies everywhere.
I pushed the image away.
"Eventually," I said.
She crossed her arms.
"Then I won't."
I almost laughed.
Of course that would be her answer.
Jaime leaned closer.
"When you're lord, can I have a horse?"
"You'll have ten horses."
His eyes widened.
"Really?"
"No."
He punched my arm.
Cersei laughed.
And suddenly something in my chest loosened.
Maybe this was why Joanna had asked me to protect them.
Not because they were destined to become the people I remembered.
Because they weren't those people yet.
Jaime wasn't the Kingslayer.
Cersei wasn't a queen.
Tyrion wasn't the Imp.
They were children.
My siblings.
Whatever they became later would not simply appear from nowhere.
People were shaped.
By parents.
By pain.
By choices.
By each other.
The thought frightened me more than any prophecy could have.
Because it meant the future wasn't fixed.
And if the future wasn't fixed, then my knowledge of it was not a map.
It was a warning.
I looked out through the window.
Far below, ships moved around Lannisport like tiny dark insects upon the water.
For the first time, I wondered how many ships House Lannister actually possessed.
How many soldiers.
How much food.
How much influence.
Small questions.
Practical questions.
The sort of questions a future lord ought to ask.
At least, that was what I told myself.
I did not yet dream of crowns.
I did not dream of dragons.
I did not dream of ruling Westeros.
At seven years old, my ambitions were much simpler.
I wanted my family to survive.
I wanted Casterly Rock to be ready for the wars I knew were coming.
And I wanted to become strong enough that, the next time I knew something terrible was going to happen, I would not simply stand there and watch.
It wasn't much.
But it was a beginning.