At twelve years old, I finally beat Ser Harys Kenning.
Once.
That distinction mattered.
Our swords struck hard enough to numb my fingers.
Harys attacked again.
I stepped back.
Steel passed inches from my chest.
Blunted steel, technically.
It still hurt like hell when it landed.
He came forward.
I gave ground.
Once.
Twice.
His third strike came from my right.
I blocked.
He expected me to retreat again.
I didn't.
I stepped inside.
Our shoulders collided.
Harys cursed.
I turned my wrist, caught his blade against mine and drove my pommel toward his chest.
He twisted.
Too slow.
The pommel struck.
Not hard.
It didn't need to.
We both stopped.
The yard became quiet.
My breathing sounded painfully loud.
Harys looked down at the place I'd touched him.
Then at me.
I smiled.
"I believe you're dead."
His sword struck my leg.
I collapsed.
"Seven hells!"
Harys stood over me.
"Now we're both dead."
"You can't do that after I win."
"Apparently I can."
"You cheated."
He offered me his hand.
I took it.
He pulled me upright.
"Five years," I said. "Five years and you refuse to admit I won."
"You won."
I stopped.
Harys rarely gave anything freely.
"What?"
"You won."
A smile spread across my face.
"Say it again."
He hit me in the shoulder.
"Don't ruin it."
Someone applauded.
Slowly.
I turned.
Jaime leaned against the edge of the yard.
At ten, my brother had lost almost all the softness of early childhood. He was growing quickly, golden hair falling around a face that already made half the castle servants smile whenever he passed.
More importantly, he had become terrifyingly good with a sword.
"Very impressive," Jaime said.
"Jealous?"
"Of your one victory in five years?"
"Deeply jealous."
Jaime picked up a practice sword.
"My turn."
Harys groaned.
"No."
Jaime's smile widened.
"Afraid?"
"I have trained Lannisters for five years. I fear nothing because the gods have already abandoned me."
I laughed.
Jaime tossed me the sword.
I caught it.
"Come on."
My arms were already tired.
That was probably why he'd waited.
Bastard.
I raised the blade.
Jaime attacked immediately.
Of course he did.
That hadn't changed.
What had changed was everything after.
At five, Jaime had been aggressive.
At ten, aggression had become speed.
Real speed.
His first strike came high.
Second low.
Third from the side.
I blocked all three.
Barely.
He smiled.
"You've gotten slower."
"I just fought Harys."
"Excuses."
He attacked again.
I stepped sideways.
Jaime followed.
He was stronger than most boys his age and faster than nearly all of them.
But he still had a habit.
When he thought he had someone hurt, he pressed harder.
I let my guard drop.
Just slightly.
His eyes saw it.
There.
Jaime attacked.
I turned.
His sword passed.
Mine touched his ribs.
He froze.
"Dead."
Jaime looked down.
Then at me.
"I hate when you do that."
"You've hated it for five years."
"Again."
Harys sighed.
"Gods help me."
Five years.
It sounded longer than it felt.
The boy who had returned from King's Landing with a cut on his arm was gone.
Mostly.
I had grown.
Not enough for my liking, but quickly.
My shoulders had broadened. My arms carried the beginnings of muscle from years of swordwork, riding, climbing and whatever other torture Harys invented.
My hair remained dark gold.
Not brown.
Not the brilliant pale gold Jaime and Cersei shared.
Dark golden strands fell around my face, broken naturally by lighter streaks that became far more obvious beneath sunlight.
I had Joanna's green eyes.
At least everyone said I did.
The scar from King's Landing remained on my upper arm.
Small.
White.
Easy to miss.
I never forgot it.
Harys made sure of that.
Whenever I became too confident, he'd tap it with his practice sword.
Steel doesn't care how talented you are.
I had learned.
Over five years, I had learned a great deal.
I could ride properly.
Fight with sword and shield.
Use a dagger.
Shoot a bow badly.
Harys insisted it was merely "less terribly" than before.
Creylen had moved beyond basic histories years ago.
Now we studied laws.
Trade.
Debts.
Military campaigns.
Harvests.
Inheritance.
The histories of houses that had risen and fallen.
Lord Damon had stopped giving me pretend problems.
When a fishing village petitioned Casterly Rock over taxes, I read the petition.
When repairs were required on a road near Lannisport, I saw the costs.
When mine production changed, I saw the figures.
Tywin never allowed me final authority.
Not yet.
But he increasingly asked what I thought.
Usually so he could explain why I was wrong.
Sometimes I wasn't.
Those were the days I enjoyed most.
Cersei had changed too.
At ten, she had become impossible to ignore.
She looked like Joanna.
More every year.
That was both comforting and painful.
Golden hair.
Green eyes.
Pride enough for three people.
And a growing awareness that being Lord Tywin's daughter did not grant her the same freedoms as his sons.
She hated that.
"I could beat half the boys Jaime trains with."
We were walking through one of the upper galleries after breakfast.
"No, you couldn't."
She glared at me.
"I could."
"With a sword?"
"Yes."
"You've barely trained."
"Because no one lets me."
"That would make beating trained boys difficult."
She shoved my shoulder.
I smiled.
"You always take his side."
"Whose?"
"Jaime's."
"You were talking about Jaime?"
"You're impossible."
She walked faster.
I caught up.
Five years had changed our relationship in smaller ways too.
As children, Cersei had followed me everywhere.
She still sought me out constantly, but now she pretended she hadn't.
She'd appear in the library and claim she wanted a book.
Then sit beside me for an hour without opening it.
She'd come to the training yard because she was "walking."
Apparently all her walks ended beside the sword racks.
She wanted my opinion on dresses, horses, musicians, books and people she disliked.
Especially people she disliked.
Which was becoming a long list.
"Father says I'm to spend more time with Septa Amabel."
"Then my condolences."
Cersei's anger disappeared.
"You agree?"
"I've met Septa Amabel."
She smiled.
Victory.
That was what she wanted.
Not agreement about the septa.
Mine.
I knew that.
I'd known it for years.
I still thought of it as what it had begun as.
Joanna died.
I became the person who stayed.
So Cersei attached herself to me.
Simple.
At least for now.
"Tycen."
"Hm?"
"Are you listening?"
"No."
She hit me again.
Tyrion was five.
And Tyrion could talk.
Constantly.
That might have been my greatest mistake.
"Dragons could not actually fly."
I lowered my book.
Tyrion sat opposite me, his short legs dangling from a chair far too large for him.
"What?"
"The dragons."
He pointed at the book Rhaegar had given me years ago.
"They're too heavy."
"You are five."
"That doesn't make me wrong."
I stared at him.
He smiled.
One green eye.
One dark.
A head still slightly too large for his body.
And a mind that frightened Maester Creylen in entirely different ways than mine had.
"How do you know they're too heavy?"
"Birds have hollow bones."
"Dragons aren't birds."
"They have wings."
"So do bats."
Tyrion frowned.
I had him.
Then he said:
"Bats also have light bones."
Damn.
"Magic."
His face twisted.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the answer to most Targaryen problems."
He laughed.
I smiled.
Tyrion's childhood had not become easy.
I couldn't change everything.
Servants still stared.
Children whispered.
Some visiting lords looked at him as though he were an embarrassment given human form.
But inside Casterly Rock, there were limits.
Limits I enforced.
Jaime loved him.
Cersei tolerated him.
Usually.
Tywin...
Tywin remained Tywin.
He provided tutors.
Clothing.
Rooms.
Everything required of a Lannister.
Nothing more.
Tyrion noticed.
Of course he did.
He noticed everything.
"Will I get a sword?"
"When you're older."
"Jaime started younger."
"Jaime is stupid."
"I'm telling him you said that."
"He knows."
Tyrion grinned.
I returned to the book.
He waited approximately five seconds.
"Tycen?"
"What?"
"Can I have a dragon?"
I closed the book.
"No."
"Why?"
"They're extinct."
"But you just said magic."
I stared at him.
Tyrion smiled triumphantly.
Five years old.
Gods help us.
Rhaegar and I kept our promise.
We wrote.
At first, often.
Every few weeks.
Then months.
Life interfered.
But the letters never stopped.
Rhaegar wrote about books.
Music.
Court.
His training.
Sometimes his father.
Rarely directly.
Aerys had changed.
Even from hundreds of miles away, I could see it between the lines.
Father dismissed another servant today.
Father believes Lord so-and-so insulted him.
Father and your father argued again.
Tywin remained Hand.
But whenever he returned to Casterly Rock, he seemed colder than before.
More tired.
He spoke less about Aerys.
That told me more than speaking would have.
Rhaegar had changed too.
His handwriting became cleaner.
His letters longer.
His interest in old Targaryen histories deepened.
Then, one year, the tone changed.
He began asking about prophecy.
At first casually.
Have you ever read anything about the prince that was promised?
I knew enough to understand why that question mattered.
I also knew enough to be afraid of answering carelessly.
So I wrote back:
I've read stories. Stories become dangerous when people decide they must be instructions.
Rhaegar's response came a month later.
That sounds like something your father would say.
I'd been deeply offended.
Still, the letters continued.
And whenever Tywin allowed me to accompany him to King's Landing, Rhaegar and I picked up almost exactly where we'd left off.
Older.
Taller.
Better with swords.
But still arguing over dice.
I still won.
He still claimed I cheated.
The wider world had not stopped while I grew.
That was perhaps the most important thing I learned between seven and twelve.
When I was younger, the future had existed in my head as a list of great events.
Rebellion.
Wars.
Deaths.
Kings.
But history didn't jump from one famous moment to another.
It moved every day.
Marriages were arranged.
Children were born.
Lords died.
Debts grew.
Grudges deepened.
Knights earned reputations.
Small decisions accumulated.
And King Aerys changed.
Slowly.
Not yet the monster history remembered.
But enough that even people far from King's Landing had begun telling stories.
His suspicion.
His temper.
His pride.
Tywin never discussed those stories with me.
Until one evening.
I had just finished supper when a servant entered.
"Your father requests you in his solar."
That usually meant one of two things.
Work.
Or trouble.
I found both.
Tywin stood over a table.
A raven's message lay open.
He didn't greet me.
"Read."
I took it.
The message was short.
I read it twice.
Then looked up.
"The king wants you in King's Landing."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Tywin's mouth tightened.
"He has summoned me."
That wasn't unusual.
He was Hand.
Then I saw the second parchment.
An invitation.
Not to Tywin.
To me.
I opened it.
The wording was formal.
King Aerys requested that Tycen Lannister accompany his father to court.
I frowned.
"He remembers me?"
Tywin's eyes hardened.
"The king forgets very little when he believes remembering may prove useful."
That wasn't comforting.
"Rhaegar?"
"Will be there."
That part was comforting.
"When do we leave?"
"Ten days."
I nodded.
Then noticed another letter beneath his hand.
The seal had been broken.
A dragon.
But different handwriting.
Rhaegar.
Tywin followed my eyes.
"For you."
I took it.
The letter contained only a few lines.
That was unusual.
Rhaegar normally wrote pages.
Tycen,
Come quickly.
Something is wrong. Father is afraid of something, though he will not say what. Your father knows more than anyone tells me.
Then the final line.
And I have found something I need to show you.
No joke.
No insult.
No complaint about dice.
I read it again.
"What does he mean?"
Tywin's expression changed.
"You will not involve yourself in the king's fears."
"I didn't say I would."
"You were thinking it."
Annoyingly true.
"What is Aerys afraid of?"
Tywin looked toward the window.
The sea crashed far below.
When he finally answered, his voice was quieter.
"Enemies."
"Which enemies?"
"That is the problem."
He looked at me.
"He increasingly believes they are everywhere."
Something stirred in my memory.
Aerys.
Paranoia.
Duskendale.
Fire.
Except the pieces still refused to arrange themselves neatly.
Dates blurred.
Events overlapped.
Five years of changing this world had made relying on old memories even more dangerous.
I looked at Rhaegar's letter again.
I have found something.
"What happens in King's Landing?"
Tywin folded the raven message.
"We shall discover that when we arrive."
He dismissed me.
I returned to my chambers with Rhaegar's letter in my hand.
My sword rested beside the bed.
Not a child's practice weapon anymore.
Real steel.
I had grown five years since the last time King's Landing had swallowed me.
At seven, I had arrived as Tywin's curious son.
A cupbearer.
A boy people ignored.
At twelve, that would no longer be entirely possible.
I was the heir to Casterly Rock.
People knew my name.
Some knew I could fight.
Others knew I had the Crown Prince's friendship.
And King Aerys Targaryen had personally asked for me.
I wasn't sure which of those things worried me most.
Ten days later, I would return to King's Landing.
And this time, I had the feeling the city was waiting for me.