The sea was calm that day.
From the high gallery of Casterly Rock, it stretched as far as the eye could see, a deep blue almost deceptive, as if nothing in the world could trouble its eternal rhythm. The waves came to die against the rock with a soothing regularity, a cruel contrast with the thoughts stirring the men inside the fortress.
Aerys II Targaryen stood near the balustrade, his hands resting on the cold stone. His red-and-black cloak fluttered lightly behind him, caressed by the sea breeze. From behind, he still had the bearing of an invincible king: straight, elegant, flamboyant. But beneath that controlled appearance, something weighed heavily. An invisible tension, hidden behind pride and posture, like an inner fire that refused to go out.
The games, the jousts and the acclamations already belonged to the past. The tourney organized at the end of Joanna's pregnancy had done its work: impress, reassure, bind the court together around a spectacle. It had offered the Rock a shining parenthesis, a mirage of stability.
Then the feast had closed that parenthesis.
And in that feast, something ancient had awakened.
The aura bond.
People spoke of it quietly, in the corridors, in the kitchens, in the antechambers. The more learned tried to give words to the phenomenon. The others merely told of the light, the softness felt in their chest, and that troubling sensation that the world had briefly stopped being cruel.
Aerys had not come to admire the sea.
He was waiting.
The firm, regular footsteps he heard behind him had nothing hesitant about them. He did not need to turn to know who was approaching. Only a few men in the world walked like that, as if they owned the space ahead of them before they had even crossed it.
— Tywin.
The Lord of Casterly Rock stopped a few paces away. His crimson cloak was perfectly fitted, his expression as impenetrable as ever. He inclined his head slightly: neither too low to seem submissive, nor too high to appear insolent. The exact balance between respect and dignity.
— Your Grace.
A silence settled. Long, heavy, but not hostile. The silence of two men who had known each other too long to need useless politeness, too long not to feel immediately where the true tension lay.
The sea below continued to breathe, indifferent.
Aerys broke the calm first, in a low voice, almost calm.
— The Rock has found its silence again, he murmured. The banners have stopped snapping, the stands are empty, the knights have put away their armor… and yet I feel as though the air is heavier than before.
Tywin did not answer at once. He observed the king the way one observes a blade: with attention, without letting himself be distracted by its shine.
— It isn't the air that's heavier, he replied at last. It's the consequences.
Aerys gave a brief smile. Not a joyful smile. Rather that of a man recognizing a truth he did not want to hear.
— Yes. The consequences.
He turned his gaze to the horizon for a moment, then went on:
— You know why I asked you to join me here.
Tywin nodded.
— Yes.
Aerys finally turned his head toward him. His violet eyes were sharp, burning with intelligence, but a fine fatigue traced cracks there. Invisible to the court. Not to Tywin.
— You know why I want you to take back your role as Hand of the King.
— Because the realm needs it, Tywin answered bluntly.
Aerys let out a breath that almost resembled a dry laugh.
— Because I need it.
The words were simple, but the concession was immense. A king admitting a dependence. A dragon accepting that he needed another man.
Aerys placed both hands on the balustrade. His fingers clenched slightly, then relaxed.
— The wars left scars, he said. And scars are deceptive: they give the impression everything is closed, but all it takes is scratching for blood to return. The realm… the realm wants to believe it is at peace. It wants symbols. Certainties.
He paused.
— My sons are symbols.
A silence.
Tywin did not contest it.
Aerys continued:
— They are still so young… and yet people have already begun to look at them the way they look at pieces on a board. As if their existence were nothing but a future game of marriages, alliances and calculations.
Tywin replied, curt:
— That is how Westeros works.
— I know.
Aerys spoke those words with a cold bitterness.
— And that is precisely why I need you. You know how to make Westeros work. You know how to speak to it in its language. I… I know how to impose my will on it. But will alone is not always enough.
Tywin remained still, but something in the way his eyes fixed on the king betrayed that he measured the full weight of the confession.
— I will return to King's Landing, he said.
Aerys inclined his head.
— Officially, to take back your place. Unofficially… to help me prepare what is coming.
Tywin did not react to the phrasing. He did not need the king to say "after me" out loud. The subtext was obvious: Aerys was thinking of a future in which he could no longer carry everything.
— I will leave with Joanna and my children, Tywin added.
Aerys nodded immediately.
— It must be so. The court must see unity. The realm must understand that what happened here has not cracked the alliance between the Rock and the Crown.
He fell silent for a moment, then his features hardened.
— But there is a problem.
Tywin did not move.
— The children, he said.
— Yes… yours.
Aerys took a slow step, as if weighing the ground.
— The journey is long. And newborns… newborns are not made to cross Westeros in cold, rain, jolts, sickness, the unforeseen.
Tywin answered simply:
— Cersei and Jaime are too young for that journey now.
Silence fell again.
Then Aerys added, lower, as if that name contained in itself both threat and promise:
— And there is Aemon.
Tywin lifted his chin slightly.
— He will not leave the Rock without Cersei, he stated.
It was not a question.
Aerys closed his eyes briefly. Fatigue passed over his face like a shadow.
— Rhaella understands it. Joanna too. And I… I cannot ignore it.
There was something new in his voice: not a royal whim, but a lucid resignation, almost worried.
— Then we will wait, Tywin concluded. Five… perhaps six months. Long enough for my children to be strong enough to travel.
Aerys nodded.
— That is what I thought.
He straightened.
— But I cannot stay here six months.
Tywin did not answer.
Aerys continued, in a calm but firm tone:
— I will leave in a few days. The realm cannot remain without a king. King's Landing is not Casterly Rock. There, power never sleeps. It waits for you to lower your guard.
Tywin stared at the king.
— And you will leave Rhaella here. With the princes.
— Yes.
The word fell like a stone.
Aerys inhaled deeply. A brief pain crossed his abdomen. He hid it by straightening a little more, as if pride could hold his body.
— I trust her, he said. And I trust you, Tywin.
Tywin, rarely moved, let an almost imperceptible nuance pass through his gaze.
— I will not fail.
Aerys gave a tired smile.
— I know.
They stood for a moment in silence, facing the sea. Two men bound by power, pride, loyalty… and the sharp awareness that the world was more fragile than it seemed.
— When you all leave together, Aerys resumed, it will be more than a journey.
— A signal, Tywin completed.
— Yes. A signal to the realm. And a signal to those already trying to guess the future.
Tywin did not ask "who." They both knew. The houses, the courtiers, the ambitious, the silent enemies.
Aerys turned once more toward the ocean.
— The decisions are made, he concluded. All that remains is to bear them.
— As always, Tywin replied.
And this time, in his voice, there was the gravity of a man who knew that bearing them would mean carrying far more than parchments and seals.
When Tywin left the gallery, the steady sound of his footsteps echoed for a long time in the stone corridors of Casterly Rock. He did not hurry. He saw no use in it. The decisions had just been made, and no speed would make them lighter.
Aerys remained alone, facing the sea.
The wind snapped gently at his cloak, but he no longer paid it any mind. His gaze, instead, had hardened. Not with anger, but with that cold lucidity that seized men when they understood time was no longer their ally.
He placed a hand over his side.
The pain had returned, dull, insidious, like a constant reminder. It was not unbearable — not yet — but it was there, faithful, patient.
"A few days…" he thought.
A few days more before leaving the Rock.
A few days before leaving his sons behind.
A part of him — the proudest part — hated the idea. A dragon did not leave its young. It kept them under its wings, it burned the world for them if it had to.
Another part — more lucid, more terribly human — knew that excess control would end up suffocating them, and that safety did not exist.
Aerys inhaled slowly, then straightened. A king did not allow himself hesitation for long.
Tywin, for his part, was descending toward the apartments that had been assigned to his family. Each step sank him a little deeper into the reality of what he had just accepted.
Taking back the role of Hand of the King was not a new honor to him. He had carried it before. He knew its weight, its demands, its sacrifices. But this time, it was not only the realm he would have to carry.
It was also the children.
Not only his own.
He stopped a moment before a narrow window, from which the inner courtyard could be seen. Servants bustled about, going back and forth in a well-practiced choreography. Everything looked normal. Stable. Predictable.
Tywin knew better than anyone that this stability was an illusion.
He thought of Cersei.
Of the way little Aemon almost never left her — not out of whim, but out of an instinctive, silent closeness that made those trying to understand it rationally uncomfortable.
He did not like what he could not control.
But he was not blind.
Aemon was not an ordinary child. And this bond… this bond was already imposing its own rhythm on the world around him.
Tywin resumed walking.
In the apartments reserved for the queen, the afternoon light filtered softly through pale hangings. Rhaella sat near an open window, Aemon against her, while Rhaegar slept peacefully in his cradle.
Joanna was not far, Cersei nestled against her chest, Jaime in the arms of an attentive nurse. The child's face was peaceful, but he shifted sometimes, as if the world already bothered him.
The room was calm. A calm almost fragile.
Rhaella raised her eyes when Tywin entered. She read immediately on his face that the conversation with the king was over.
— It's decided, she said softly.
Tywin nodded.
— Yes.
He stepped closer, lowering his voice instinctively, as if even the walls could listen.
— The king will leave for King's Landing in a few days. Alone.
Joanna inhaled slowly. She had always known this moment would come. But hearing it put that way, without detour, gave her a strange sensation of emptiness.
— And us? she asked.
— We stay here, Tywin answered. Five or six months. Long enough for the children to be strong enough to travel.
He paused, then added without detour:
— Mine. And… the condition of the bond.
Rhaella nodded. She had already understood. She had even accepted that reality before it was imposed on her.
— Aemon wouldn't leave without Cersei, she murmured.
It was not an accusation.
It was a fact.
Joanna lowered her eyes to her daughter. Cersei was awake, calm, but attentive. Her eyes followed the room in a way too focused for a baby… and, sometimes, stopped on Aemon.
Aemon, precisely, was against Rhaella. He had not moved for some time. He was not staring at Cersei like a child staring at a toy. He was simply there, within reach, as if that closeness were necessary to his balance.
— I see it, Joanna said in a low voice. I don't understand how… but I see it.
Tywin remained silent. He preferred facts to interpretations. And the facts were simple: forcing a separation would be a mistake.
— When the children are ready, he resumed, we will all leave together. For King's Landing.
Rhaella placed a hand on Aemon's head.
— Together, she repeated.
She did not say it like a strategy. She said it like a promise.
Aemon made a small indistinct sound, as if the word "together" suited him without his understanding its meaning. Rhaella felt her heart tighten: it was too early for her sons to already carry the weight of the world, and yet, the world had begun.
The king's departure was discreet.
There were no grand announcements, no public ceremonies. Officially, the king was returning to his obligations. Unofficially, he was fleeing the temptation to stay here too long, surrounded by a calm that gave him the illusion of total control.
When the day came, Rhaella watched the departure from a terrace overlooking the harbor.
Aemon was in her arms. He did not understand what was being played out, but he felt something change. An imminent absence. A void already forming.
Aerys boarded the royal ship, surrounded by his guard. He turned one last time.
His gaze settled on Rhaella.
Then on his sons.
He raised his hand.
Rhaella answered the gesture, her heart tight.
The ship drew away.
Aemon made a faint sound, almost a whimper. Rhaella tightened her embrace.
— He will come back, she murmured. And until then… we are safe here.
She was not entirely certain she believed it. But she had to believe it.
The weeks that followed settled into a strange rhythm.
Neither quite that of court, nor that of exile. Casterly Rock became a place of transition, an in-between where future decisions were prepared without being spoken.
The servants grew used to seeing the queen and the princes among them. The guards doubled their vigilance. The ladies-in-waiting adapted their routines to this unusual presence.
The nurses watched.
They had heard the rumors. Murmurs about what had happened at the feast. About that golden light that had risen between the prince and Tywin's daughter. About the maester's explanation. About those frightening words: bond for life, shared destiny, impossible to break.
But hearing did not mean believing.
— Maesters always have stories, a servant said while folding sheets.
— Yes, another replied. They give names to things so they seem bigger than they are.
The oldest nurse, the one who had known several Lannister generations, often kept silent. She did not like stories. She liked habits. And what she saw was not an ordinary habit.
Aemon, when he was near Cersei, was calm.
Cersei, when he moved away too long, became agitated.
Nothing spectacular.
Nothing visible.
Just… constant.
Sometimes, they tried to settle them in different rooms. Not for long. Always carefully. Always "to see." And always, the result came back the same: tension rising, crying breaking out, an inexplicable agitation.
Then closeness restored everything.
Over the days, an implicit rule settled in.
No one wrote it.
No one ordered it.
But everyone followed it.
Do not separate the prince and the little lioness unnecessarily.
Tywin, meanwhile, spent long hours organizing what needed to be organized. Correspondence with King's Landing. Instructions to his stewards. Preparations for a future departure that had to be irreproachable. He did not like uncertainty. He liked deadlines, plans, structures.
And yet, for once, one thing escaped all structure: the bond.
One evening, as he crossed a secondary hall, he stopped upon seeing the simplest scene in the world.
Aemon was awkwardly playing with a piece of wood, sitting on a rug. Cersei was held nearby by Joanna. The child was not sleeping. She was watching.
When Aemon lifted his eyes by chance, Cersei stopped shifting. When he turned his head to follow a sound, she stirred slightly. Joanna had to rock her, then, without thinking, moved her chair a few steps closer.
Calm returned at once.
Tywin watched in silence.
The rhythm was no longer dictated by kings.
It was dictated by children.
And more precisely by a bond that no law, no title, no decree could break without consequences.
Tywin looked away.
He did not like it.
But he would learn to deal with it. Because, whether he wanted it or not, that bond had become a political fact as real as the gold of the mines and the oaths of the houses.
Rhaella, late in the night, remained awake for a long time.
Aemon was finally asleep, peaceful. Rhaella watched him for a long while, gently stroking his silver hair. In the cradle beside, Rhaegar stirred sometimes, then fell back into sleep.
She thought of Aerys, already gone toward King's Landing. Of the solitude of the throne. Of the way he refused to admit he suffered. Of that inner fire consuming him too quickly.
She thought of Tywin, so solid, so cold, and yet capable of taking the entire realm onto his shoulders without faltering.
Then she thought of the future.
Of what Westeros would demand of her sons.
Of what the world would require of them before they had even learned to speak.
— You are already imposing your rules on the world, she murmured to Aemon.
She did not yet know how true that thought was.
Far away, the waves continued to strike the rock, and the fortress breathed with them, like an ancient animal.
The realm moved on, now deprived of its games and its false brilliance, confronted again with real decisions. Slowly. Cautiously.
And without knowing it, it was already beginning to adapt to a future it did not yet understand.