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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
ASOIAF and all of its characters belong to GRRM
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 33: The One Who Gives The Sentence...
The hall had fallen into a silence so profound that the drip of spilled wine from the shattered table sounded like thunder. Joffrey walked toward the center of the room. His footsteps were deliberate, each one echoing off the stone walls like a drumbeat announcing his unavoidable judgment.
Ser Meryn Trant stood frozen between the two Stark girls and their gold cloak escorts. His hand rested on his sword, but his knuckles were white, and a fine tremor ran through his fingers.
Joffrey stopped before him. Those glowing green eyes fixed on the knight's face with the intensity of a predator sizing up prey.
"Ser Trant." His voice carried through the hall, soft yet impossibly clear, as if the stones themselves carried his words. "Have you forgotten the instructions I left you with?. Are you an oathbreaker or merely a fool?"
"I..." Trant's gaze darted between Joffrey and the Queen, seeking rescue, finding none.
Cersei rose from her seat, her chair scraping against the stone. "Joffrey, I told Ser Trant that—"
"I told you." Joffrey cut her off without looking away from the knight. His words were not loud; they didn't need to be. They carried something far more potent than volume: an authority that pressed against the ears like a physical weight, a resonance that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.
His magic bled into his voice, filling the hall with an unseen presence that made every man present swallow hard. "I told you to guard them. I told you that if they suffered so much as a scratch, I would take your head."
Trant's mouth opened and closed. No sound emerged. His whole body shook now, a leaf in a storm.
Joffrey turned to Arya. His voice softened. "Who did this?" He touched his own lip, indicating her wound.
Arya pointed at Trant. Her small hand was steady.
Joffrey looked back at the knight. "You may want to close your eyes for a minute." His words were meant for the two girls.
His sword slid from its sheath. The blade caught the morning light streaming through the high windows.
The two gold cloaks who had dragged the girls in took several steps back, their eyes fixed on the door, weighing their chances. The other Kingsguard shifted uneasily, hands hovering near their swords but not daring to draw. To raise steel against their future king would break every vow they had ever sworn.
Joffrey stood an arm's length from Trant. His blade drifted to one side, casual, almost lazy.
"Any last words, Ser?"
Something snapped in the knight. Fear transformed into desperate rage. His hand closed on his sword hilt, his face contorting. "You're not taking my head, you bastard bo—"
A flash of silver.
A horizontal line painted across Trant's neck, so fast that most present didn't see the blade move at all. It simply appeared, and then it was gone, returning to its sheath with a soft click.
For one heartbeat, nothing happened. Trant's mouth kept moving, forming words that would never come. Then a thin red line appeared beneath his chin. It widened and opened.
Sansa screamed as the head toppled from the shoulders and struck the floor with a wet, heavy sound. Blood fountained from the neck stump, painting the stones in crimson. The body stood for an impossible moment, then crumpled.
Arya did not scream. Her grey eyes were wide as plates, fixed on the scene with an intensity that bordered on hunger. She had heard tales of executions. Her brothers had seen their father pass judgment, had spoken of it with solemn pride. But she had never been allowed to watch. Now she had, and as she looked at the fallen knight who had struck her, who had torn her clothes and bruised her flesh, she felt no disgust. No fear. Only a deep, resonant sense of rightness.
Sansa stumbled backward, away from the spreading pool of blood, her hands pressed to her mouth. But her eyes, her eyes could not look away.
The silence stretched over the hall. The tension was almost suffocating. Not one dared to say a word after seeing that.
Joffrey surveyed the room. No one met his gaze.
"Ser Arys Oakheart."
The youngest of the Kingsguard started, then stepped forward. "Your Grace?" His voice held a tremor, but his chin was lifted.
"I give you the same charge I gave the late Ser Meryn. You will guard our guests. You will ensure they come to no harm and protect them with the same fierceness and devotion you would show any member of the royal family. You will see them returned to their chambers, and you will ensure they are properly attended." His eyes slid to the Queen, then back to Oakheart. "If anyone demands they be removed from those chambers..." A pause. "The answer will be no."
Oakheart nodded once. "Yes, Your Grace."
"If this event were to repeat itself." Joffrey's voice hardened. "Your head may not be all I take. Do I make myself clear, Ser Oakheart? Do you understand your mission?"
"Crystal clear, Your Grace."
"Then go." Joffrey pointed at the two gold cloaks near the door, who flinched as if struck. "Take those two. I trust they will not make the same mistake twice."
Sansa found her voice, small and trembling. "Joffrey..."
He looked at her. He could see the terror behind her blue eyes, the confusion, the desperate grasping for something familiar in a world that made little sense to her. She was young, naive, raised on songs where knights were always noble and princes always just. Now she stood in a hall of blood and politics, watching heads roll. Her books and her septa had not prepared her for this.
"It's all right, Sansa." His voice was gentler than anyone in that room had ever heard it. "You have my word...this will not happen again. You and your sister remain valued guests of the crown, whatever your father may have done."
"Father did nothing wrong!" Arya's shout cut through the hall like a blade.
Sansa grabbed her sister, pulling her back, her face white with terror. Naive she might be, but she understood that such words spoken before the Queen could mean death.
Joffrey gestured. "Ser Oakheart. Take them away."
As the door closed behind them, Joffrey turned to the remaining Kingsguard. "Ser Barristan."
The old knight stepped forward, his weathered face unreadable. But Joffrey could see past the mask, the disapproval lurking beneath, the conflict between oath and conscience. Barristan Selmy had little love for men like Trant, but Trant had still worn the white cloak. Had still been one of the Kingsguard Order.
"It seems we need a new member for the Kingsguard. I leave the selection to you." Joffrey knew why someone like Meryn Trant had been chosen.
Barristan inclined his head. "As you wish, Your Grace. I'll begin searching for suitable candidates."
"And make arrangements for the fallen one." Joffrey's added with a bored tone.
He walked back to the table, stepping around the blood without a glance. Cersei stared at him as if he'd grown a second head, or perhaps as if she were seeing his true face for the first time.
"Joffrey." Kevan's voice was careful, measured. "Was that... was that the best way to handle matters? You just executed a member of the Kingsguard."
"Members of the Kingsguard swear oaths. To obey the royal family. And must never betray their commands." Joffrey seated himself, reaching for his wine as if nothing had happened. "Ser Meryn broke his oath. I punished him for it."
Kevan shook his head slowly. "Still..."
"I gave the order to bring the Stark girls here." Cersei found her voice, though it wavered slightly. "They're too important to keep locked away."
"So you're saying I should have punished you instead of Ser Meryn?" Joffrey asked without skipping a beat.
Cersei flinched as if slapped. "What? No! I am the Queen!"
"For a few more days." Joffrey's voice was calm, almost conversational. "If I'm to be king, I may as well start acting like one. Wasn't that your idea?"
Cersei's mouth opened like a dead fish. For once, the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms had nothing to say.
Joffrey took a sip of wine. "Now. Let's discuss other matters. Any news of Uncle Renly?"
Lord Varys had not taken his eyes off Joffrey since the execution. Now he spoke, his voice smooth as oil. "He was spotted riding toward Highgarden, Your Grace."
"Highgarden? Not Storm's End?" Joffrey raised an eyebrow. "That's curious."
"His connections to the Tyrells are... substantial." Maester Pycelle offered. "There have long been rumors."
"So he's not joining his brother." Joffrey shook his head. "Truly foolish. Stannis is the elder. If they mean to challenge the crown, they should stand together."
"Lord Renly is known to be... impulsive," Varys agreed.
Cersei had recovered her composure. "What of the North? Any word from Winterfell?"
"Not yet, Your Grace." Pycelle bobbed his head. "Winterfell is far, and ravens take time. I imagine they're only now learning of the recent events."
"We should send a letter." Cersei's voice hardened. "Command Stark's eldest to come south and bend the knee."
"As you wish." Pycelle made a note.
Cersei's jaw tightened. "If they refuse..."
"What of Lord Stark himself?" Kevan interjected. "He should have a trial. One before the whole court. It's only proper."
"The King's funeral is in two days," Pycelle reminded them. "Then the coronation. Stark's trial should wait until things have settled. The man can wait."
"I agree." Cersei nodded. "Let him rot in his cell. With him and his daughters as hostages, the North won't dare move against us."
Joffrey set down his wine. "The Stark soldiers who surrendered. What of them?"
Kevan answered. "Locked in the lower cells. With the common criminals."
"We should execute them all," Cersei said immediately. "Make an example. Show what happens to those who betray the crown."
"Give them the choice to take the black." Joffrey's voice was flat, final.
"But Joffrey—"
"Haven't we shed enough blood?" He met his mother's eyes. "Executing those men would send a message, yes. But not a good one. Cruel rulers rarely die in their beds."
Lord Varys smile didn't reach his eyes. "Very wise words, Your Grace."
Kevan nodded slowly. "I agree. Most of the Stark men who came south are already dead. Sparing the few who remain shows the realm that their new king knows mercy."
Cersei looked at her son, this stranger wearing her boy's face, and for the first time, something like fear flickered in her eyes. The son she had raised would have delighted in watching those men die. This one... this one she did not know at all.
"How many are left?" Kevan asked.
"Twenty-one, my lord." Varys supplied.
"Then it's settled. Those who choose the Wall will be sent with the next convoy north. Those who refuse will stand trial and pay for their crimes." Kevan glanced around the table. No one dissented. They all knew not a single man would refuse.
Joffrey rose. "If that's all, I'll take my leave." Most of the food was on the floor. So there was little else to do.
No one spoke as he walked toward the door. At the threshold, he paused, glancing back at his mother. Their eyes met for a long moment.
Then he was gone.
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Cersei watched him leave , her hands clenched beneath the table where no one could see. He was nothing like the son she had raised. Nothing like the boy she had shaped and molded, the boy she had protected from Robert's indifference and the world's cruelty. This Joffrey was calm, where hers had been volatile.
Controlled where hers had been cruel. He spoke of mercy, of wisdom, of not shedding blood, but he also executed a man without blinking when this one betrayed him.
What are you? she wondered. What has happened to you?
But she dared not ask. Dare not challenge. Because when she looked into those green eyes, her eyes, Jaime's eyes, Lannister eyes...she saw something that made her blood run cold. Something strange and unnatural. Something that watched her in the same way a man might watch an insect.
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Joffrey spent the remainder of that day in his chambers, reading messages by lamplight and scratching out replies in his precise, careful hand. The stack of parchment on his desk grew and shrank as the hours passed. Outside, the castle slowly settled into an uneasy peace.
The King's funeral loomed two days hence. His coronation would follow. Tywin Lannister rode south, bringing the lion's might with him. The Starks and Baratheons would be making their moves now, sending ravens, raising banners, preparing for war.
And in a hidden dock, beyond the city walls, Tyrion and the Hound readied his ships.
Joffrey set down his quill and leaned back, closing his eyes. The pieces were moving. Soon it would be his turn.
A rustle from the wall behind him.
His eyes snapped open. Not from the corridor...Ser Barristan stood guard there, solid and vigilant. This came from the back wall, from the hidden spaces between stones where rats ran, and men could not follow.
He turned, watching and patiently waiting.
The rustling came again. Closer now.
Something was moving through the walls.
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