"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Theodore Roosevelt
If you've never spent forty-eight hours straight in a subterranean furnace breathing dragon-soot and sweating through three layers of linen, I don't recommend it. One star on Yelp. My joints felt like they'd been packed with crushed gravel, my throat burned like I'd swallowed a wildfire jar, and the palms of my hands were a raw, blistered mess.
But as I stood in the bright morning sunlight of the Red Keep's upper yard, leaning lightly on Dominion, none of that mattered.The seven-foot spear thrummed against my collarbone. It wasn't just metal and bone anymore. Thanks to the spatial core humming in my chest and the weird, cosmic instinct of Anamnesis, the weapon felt like a fifth limb. I knew its center of gravity down to the millimeter. I could feel the microscopic ridge where the dragonglass merged into the dark Valyrian steel blade as clearly as I could feel my own teeth.
"Your Grace," Ser Barristan said, hovering a few paces back like a protective, white-armored ghost. "Perhaps a hot bath first? The Grand Maester has prepared a soothing salve for your hands.""Maester Pycelle can take his salve and rub it into his own beard," I said, rotating my shoulders until a satisfying pop echoed from my spine.
"Call Ser Meryn."
Barristan blinked. "Ser Meryn Trant, Your Grace?"
"Unless there's another Ser Meryn in the Kingsguard who looks like a disappointed bullfrog, yes. Get him out here."
Two minutes later, Ser Meryn Trant ambled out onto the packed dirt of the yard, buckling his white sword belt over a gut that was rapidly expanding on a diet of court wine and venison. He carried a heavy wooden tourney sword and a padded shield painted with the royal stag and lion.
Trant looked at me, then looked at the soot-blackened spear in my hand, and let out a wet, wheezing laugh."A spear, sweet prince?" Trant smirked, adjusting his grip on the tourney blade. "A noble knight fights with steel at close quarters. Spears are for Dornish peasant levies who can't afford proper iron.""Is that right?" I turned, planting the butt of Dominion into the dirt. "Then it should be very easy for a knight of the Kingsguard to take it from me. Strike at me, Ser Meryn. Don't hold back."Trant hesitated, glancing at Barristan. "Your Grace... the Queen would have my head if I left a bruise on you."
"The Queen isn't running this yard," I said, my voice dropping into that flat, quiet register that usually made people look for the nearest exit. "If you don't swing that sword within three seconds, I will have Ser Barristan strip your white cloak off your back and assign you to shovel horse manure in the lower stables."
Trant's face darkened. Pride is a funny thing y'know, give a mediocre man a fancy white cloak, and he starts believing his own hype. He grunted, raised his tourney sword, and took a heavy, lunging step forward, sweeping the blunted wooden blade toward my neck in a lazy, telegraphed arc.
Now fellas, before the fever, the old Joffrey would have panicked, dropped his weapon, or screamed for help.
Instead, my body reacted before my conscious mind even registered the attack. Eternal Arms Mastery didn't just give me technique; it gave me absolute spatial awareness. Trant's movement looked comically slow, like a man trying to swing a club underwater.I didn't even parry. I took half a step backward, letting the wooden blade pass two inches from my nose.Then I shifted my spatial core.
It wasn't a full teleport, just a tiny, six-inch spatial warp of my left foot. To Trant, it looked like I vanished from his field of vision for a fraction of a second. Before he could recover his balance, I slammed the blunt dragonbone butt of Dominion directly into the side of his helmet.
CLANG.
The sound echoed off the stone walls like a anvil dropped from a tower. Trant's head snapped sideways. He stumbled three paces, his eyes unfocused, blood spurting from his nose."Again," I said, spinning Dominion over my shoulder with a soft, hypnotic whir, while doing giggling in my mind.... I feel like Cú Chulainn.
"You... you little—" Trant snarled, his pride utterly shattered. He dropped into a real combat stance, sweeping his shield up and thrusting hard toward my chest with a killer's intent.This time, I tested the spear's reach.
A sword gives you four feet of threat distance. A seven-foot spear gives you seven and with a tiny spatial pop, it gives you ten. As Trant lunged, I flicked the dark Valyrian blade forward. The leaf-shaped tip didn't cut him; I caught the rim of his shield with the runic bronze socket, applied a leverage technique used by ancient Hoplites, and twisted.Trant's shield flew out of his hand, spinning through the air before crashing into the dirt fifteen feet away.
Before he could pull his sword back to guard, the razor-sharp dragonglass edge of Dominion was resting perfectly motionless against his throat, right over his jugular. A single drop of crimson blood beaded against the black obsidian tip.Trant froze. His breath hitched in his throat. He looked down at the dark, impossible weapon, then up into my eyes.
"Technique," I murmured softly, leaning in close so only he could hear me. "Leverage. Geometry. That is what wins wars, Ser Meryn. Not a white cloak and an expensive title. If you ever swing at me with anything less than perfection again, I won't stop the blade at your neck."I pulled Dominion back, letting the point drop to the dirt.
Trant collapsed onto his knees, gasping for air, clutching his bleeding nose.Standing on the sidelines, Ser Barristan looked as if he had just watched a ghost walk across the yard. A twelve-year-old boy had just disarmed and humiliated a veteran knight of the Kingsguard in under thirty seconds, using a weapon he had forged himself in a sealed basement.
"Ser Barristan," I said, wiping a line of soot from my brow with my sleeve."Y-Your Grace?" the old knight stammered, recovering his composure with visible effort.
"Have Ser Meryn clean the lower stables anyway. He needs to learn how to keep his balance."
The dreaded storm hit twenty minutes later in my private solar.
I had barely managed to wash the worst of the forge-soot from my face and neck when the oak doors were slammed open so hard the iron hinges shrieked.Cersei Lannister swept into the room like a tempest of crimson silk, gold embroidery, and pure, unadulterated fury. Her green eyes were wide, her pale face flushed, and her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides.
"Joffrey!" she shouted, her voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "Have you lost your absolute mind?!"I didn't jump. I sat casually at my heavy oak desk, taking a slow sip of watered pear juice from a silver goblet. Dominion rested against the stone wall right beside my chair, its dark Valyrian blade catching the noon sunlight.
"Good morning, Mother," I said smoothly. "You're looking radiant.""Do not play word games with me!" she hissed, striding across the room until she slammed both hands onto my desk, leaning over me like an enraged lioness. "Janos Slynt is in a black cell! Lord Baelish is in a state of absolute apoplexy, threatening to withhold the Crown's payroll! And I am told you spent two days locked in a filthy smithy like a common blacksmith's boy, coming out looking like a chimney sweep!"
I set my goblet down with a soft, deliberate clink.
I looked up at her, letting my face soften into an expression of quiet, wounded innocence—the exact face the old Joffrey used whenever he wanted her to bake him sweetmeats."Mother," I said softly, standing up and taking her cold, trembling hands in mine. "Do you truly believe I did this to cause trouble?"Cersei blinked, her rage faltering for a fraction of a second against the sheer, magnetic warmth of my posture. "I... Joffrey, you stripped the Master of Coin of his command over the Gold Cloaks! You gave the soldiers a raise without consulting the council!"
"I took Littlefinger's knife away from your throat," I corrected, my voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper.
Cersei froze. "What?"
"Janos Slynt wasn't loyal to the Crown, Mother. He was loyal to Petyr Baelish," I said, looking deeply into her emerald eyes, weaving a thread of cold logic into her natural paranoia. "I read the ledgers. Slynt was stealing five hundred men's wages every moon turn. Where do you think that gold was going? Into Baelish's pocket. He was building a private army inside our walls, funded by our gold, while Father drank himself to sleep."
Cersei's mouth opened slightly, her sharp mind immediately seizing on the thread of suspicion. "Petyr... stealing from us?"
"He shuffles the Crown's debts to make us look weak and dependent on him," I continued, pressing the advantage. "If Father died tomorrow, who holds the city? Not the Lannisters. Not the Crown. Petyr Baelish and his bribed Gold Cloaks. I didn't destroy the City Watch, Mother. I bought it. I put Ser Jacelyn Bywater—a man who hates Baelish—in charge, and I tied the soldiers' loyalty directly to my purse."
I squeezed her hands gently.
"I did it to protect you. To protect Tommen and Myrcella. Because while Father plays at hunting boars, someone has to make sure our family isn't butchered in our sleep by ambitious councilors."Cersei stared at me, her chest heaving beneath her silk gown. I could practically see the gears turning in her head. Her instinct to control me was warring violently with her deep-seated paranoia about everyone else in King's Landing. The idea that Littlefinger was plotting against her was entirely believable to her, because Cersei believed everyone was plotting against her.
Her eyes drifted past my shoulder, landing on the dark, mythic shape of my spear resting against the wall.
"And... that?" she whispered, her voice trembling slightly as she looked at the pitch-black dragonbone shaft and the rippled steel blade. "Where did you get such a thing?"
"I forged it," I said, letting a touch of royal pride seep into my tone. "From the bones of the old dragons in the cellar and the metal of our ancestors. A prince of the realm should not carry a wooden toy, Mother. He should carry a weapon that makes his enemies weep with fear."
Cersei reached out a trembling hand, her fingers stopping an inch short of the dark dragonbone shaft. She could feel the faint, radiant heat humming off the weapon.Slowly, the anger melted from her face, replaced by a strange, terrifying expression of maternal pride mixed with dark awe. She pulled me into a fierce, suffocating embrace, burying her face in my hair.
"My sweet lion," she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. "My brave, brilliant boy... you really are your grandfather's grandson, aren't you? Tywin himself could not have planned it better."I rested my chin on her shoulder, my eyes remaining cold, clear, and completely detached.
Hook, line, and sinker, I thought.
"You know, sweet sister," a dry, mocking voice called out from the doorway, "if you hug him any tighter, you'll smother whatever brain cells allowed him to pull off the most brilliant political coup this castle has seen in twenty years."Cersei pulled back, her face instantly hardening into a mask of cold contempt as Tyrion Lannister waddled into the solar, holding a jug of Arbor red and a half-empty goblet."Tyrion," Cersei sneered. "Have you come to whine on behalf of your little friend Baelish as well?"
"Baelish?" Tyrion chuckled, sliding into a heavy leather chair and pouring himself another glass. "Perish the thought. I came to see the prince who managed to rob the Master of Coin without firing a single arrow. The whole lower keep is talking about it. The Gold Cloaks are practically drinking toasts to 'Joffrey the Generous' in every tavern in Flea Bottom."Tyrion's mismatched eyes, one green, one black, shifted away from Cersei and locked onto me. Then they moved to the spear leaning against the wall.
The dwarf's smile faded slightly. He set his goblet down with unusual care, his sharp mind assessing the weapon with the keen eye of a scholar who had read every book on Valyrian history in the Casterly Rock library.
"Dragonbone," Tyrion whispered, his brow furrowing. "And... Valyrian steel? Embedded with dragonglass?""It is called Dominion" I said, stepping back toward my desk and resting one hand on the dragonbone shaft.
"Dominion," Tyrion repeated slowly, testing the weight of the word on his tongue. He looked up at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of profound shock and deep, intellectual dread. "Joffrey... I've read about the dragon skulls in the cellars. I've read about the old Valyrian forges. A master armorer with forty years of experience couldn't bind those three materials without shattering the blade. How did a twelve-year-old boy do it in two days?"
"A prince has his secrets, Uncle," I replied smoothly, giving him a small, enigmatic smile.Tyrion stared at me for a long, silent moment. The mockery was completely gone from his face. He looked at me not as a petulant nephew, but as a dangerous, incomprehensible entity that had suddenly dropped into the middle of his life.
"You're not going to hide it, are you?" Tyrion asked quietly. "The spear. The City Watch. The Small Council. You're not going to play the quiet little prince waiting for his father to die.""Why should I hide?" I asked, leaning against my desk, my voice ringing with absolute, unyielding authority. "A monarch who hides behind his councilors is just a hostage with a crown. The realm is rotting, Tyrion. The treasury is empty, the lords are ambitious, and a long winter is coming. If I do not build a state that can withstand the storm, no one else will."Tyrion took a long, slow drink from his goblet.
"Gods preserve us," the dwarf muttered under his breath, looking between me and the dark, thrumming spear. "Lord Tywin is going to lose his absolute mind when he hears about this.""Let him," I said quietly, turning my gaze back out the high window toward the sea.
"My grandfather is the past. I am the future."