They moved by firelight and fingertips.
Lyanna led, holding Elia in a princess carry. Rhaenys kept close, clutching the kitten to her chest, bare feet silent on stone. The passage breathed cold air up from the deep places. Soot smudged the ceiling. When they reached the round chamber with the dragon mosaic, Lyanna paused to listen.
No voices. Only the faint splashing of water somewhere below.
She shifted Elia's weight and nodded toward the eastern arch. "Downward," she said. "The cove lies beneath the keep."
Elia's fingers tightened around the torch. "I can walk part of it."
"You'll walk on the boat," Lyanna answered, and kept moving.
Stairs turned and narrowed. The air grew damp and tasted of salt. Twice they stopped to press against the wall while a trickle of dust fell from overhead. Somewhere far above, a city was shaking. The sound reached them like thunder in a storm already moving away.
At the next landing, Lyanna spoke without looking back. "Varys told us he swapped the prince. I noticed you did not mourn the boy on the floor."
Elia's breath came thin. "I was hoping to keep his escape hidden. Varys should have kept such secrets to himself." A beat passed, then she continued softly. "If that was some other woman's son, I will grieve for her, when we are safe enough to remember how."
Rhaenys's small voice trembled. "Mama?"
Elia smoothed the girl's hair. "I am here."
The stair ended in a low tunnel. A black slit of night opened ahead, and the smell of tide swelled around them. Lyanna crouched and shouldered through the narrow mouth. Pebbles slid underfoot. Blackwater Bay murmured beyond a fringe of rock.
A man rose from the shadow of a skiff and raised his hand in salute. He had a strong, compact physique, his skin dark as wet driftwood, a green scarf tied at his throat. A narrow-bladed knife rode his belt. His eyes flicked from Lyanna's torch to the princess and her daughter.
"My name is Serin," he said in a Rhoynar lilt. "Orphan of the Greenblood. Prince Lewyn said I'd find my dear princess here. I am glad you are safe my lady."
"I am Princess Elia of Dorne, my daughter Princess Rhaenys," Elia gestured, hand steady despite the tremor in her legs. "And the Lady Lyanna."
"Good names to carry," Serin said. "In. We will ride the shadow of the keep, then swing wide out of the bay. Please keep talking on the water to a minimum, for your safety."
He steadied the skiff while Lyanna set Elia on the middle bench and helped Rhaenys climb in. The kitten leapt after her and wedged under Rhaenys's arm. Lyanna stamped the torch out in the wet sand and pushed them off, then swung aboard with one smooth step.
Elia glanced back at the tunnel throat, where darkness pooled. "Oswell?"
Lyanna kept her eyes on the cliff face, to make sure no one saw them. "If he were coming at our pace, he would have caught us by now." She swallowed. "He bought us this time. We cant't waste it."
Serin's oars dipped and rose, barely whispering. The skiff slid along the shallows near the cliffside then nosed into the open black sea. Behind them, King's Landing burned in fits and pockets, orange licking along rooftops, smoke banding the sky. Somewhere a woman screamed, then the sound thinned and broke.
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Jaime drew his sword and drove steel between the old man's shoulders.
King Aerys II writhed on the end of the blade like a worm on a fishing hook. "Burn them all," he croaked, as blood spurted out of his mouth. "Burn them—"
The last syllable broke when Jaime wrenched the blade free and opened the royal throat. The king toppled forward and laid on a red cloak not of his design. The shock of the scene froze every onlooker in place. Then the great hall breathed again.
Three pyromancers in green robes skittered at the foot of the throne. Rossart, Hand of the King, lifted a brazier with shaking hands.
"For the King!" Rossart bellowed, then tried to run with fire in hand.
Jaime ran him down, and cut him from collar to hip. Embers skittered along the floor.
Rossart's assistant raised a copper rod in self defense. But before a kingsguard, such effort was pointless. Jaime took his wrist, then his head.
The third and final pyromancer ran fleeing towards a side door. Just when Jaime turned to him, a mountain of a man forced the main doors wide and staggered through, helm dented, mail black with blood.
"Where are the whore queens?" The interloper roared, spittle bright on his teeth.
Jaime froze in confusion, blade slick in his hand. "Who?"
"Elia and Lyanna," Gregor Clegane said. "I need to kill the bitches." He took two more steps and crashed to the floor, a fallen tower, blood running from chinks in his plate.
Jaime stared at the toppled terror. Elia? Is Lyanna even in the keep? What is Clegane doing here? Surely my father wouldn't sink THAT low?
Then Jaime remembered. The last pyromancer. He had let one go. His body moved before the thought finished and he sprinted for the side door.
Too late.
The stones underfoot thrummed like a plucked harp string. A breath later the city shook. Through the high windows a pillar of green rose, a sudden noon of sick light. The blast rolled through the Red Keep and rattled banners from their poles.
Jaime reached the casement and looked out upon the hill. White Sword Tower shone, then seemed to melt, one side crumpling, bricks that once held brave men pouring down like sand from a broken hourglass.
He watched as the green flames burned lower and the smoke smeared the sky. His sword hand had stopped shaking. He did not remember telling it to.
Gregor snored in a pool of his own blood, a beast at the butcher's block. Aerys laid where he had fallen, eyes open, mouth parted, madness unspoken. Two dead pyromancers were next to him.
Chivalry felt like another corpse left bloody and trampled on the floor.
Jaime Lannister climbed the steps to the Iron Throne and sat. The seat bit as promised. He could hear the rusted blades scraping on his pristine white armor. They left dark iron dust behind, staining his armor to match his vows.
Footfalls echoed, then Lannister red filled the doorway. A captain halted when he saw the king's corpse. "Ser Jaime," he said, uncertain. "Who rules now? Who is king?"
Names rose up in Jaime's mind, spoken minutes before by his father's dog, Clegane. He thought of Elia, the frail mother to a frail baby. Lyanna, the feral girl who had lit half a realm on fire by seducing kings and lords.
Both were marked. Both were in his father's way. Jaime didn't want to upset his father.
"Cersei Lannister is the new queen of the Seven Kingdoms," Jaime said. His voice did not waver. The words rang in the great hall and came back to him as if someone else had spoken them.
The captain bowed and began to shout orders. Men scattered like thrown dice.
Jaime looked down at the ugly chair, at the dead king, at the once white tower now burning green. He forced himself to think instead of his dear sister, half a realm away.
Cersei will love being Queen, Jaime thought. He looked back at the king's corpse. I am a kingslayer now, an oathbreaker. My virtue is dead, burned, and Cersei is all that I have left.
Jaime didn't want to imagine what sins he would do for her love.