For the moment, only Lo Quen and Janice remained in the great hall.
Lo Quen let out a slow breath. Carrying the lingering fatigue of battle, he settled back into the high-backed chair.
He reached out and drew Janice closer, letting her petite frame sit sideways on his lap as his arm wrapped naturally around her waist.
Janice leaned into him without resistance, feeling the warmth and solid strength of his chest.
Seeing the weariness etched into Lo Quen's features, she picked up a plump green grape, a specialty of the Stormlands, from a nearby silver platter. With fingers slender and pale as jade, she carefully peeled back a bit of the skin and gently placed it into his mouth.
Lo Quen did not refuse his beloved wife's attention. He took the grape between his lips, and with a light bite, the blend of tartness and sweetness burst across his tongue, as though it carried with it the last lively trace of summer.
He closed his eyes, savoring the rare moment of peace and Janice's quiet tenderness.
In the warm, intimate hush, they spoke softly, reminiscing about everything they had endured. From their desperate escape amid the ruins of Valyria to the turbulent years that had brought them to the brink of conquering half of Westeros, the memories left them both quietly reflective.
Suddenly, as if recalling something, Janice shifted the topic.
"By the way, Your Grace, when we were clearing out the dungeons beneath Storm's End, we found an unexpected prisoner."
"Oh?" Lo Quen asked, idly stroking her long hair. "Who?"
"Tyrion Lannister," Janice replied, her tone faintly uneasy.
Lo Quen's hand paused. Surprise flickered across his face. "Tyrion Lannister? He's here? I thought he'd died in one of the many upheavals."
Janice nodded, looking slightly uncomfortable. "It is him, but his condition… isn't good."
She hesitated, as if weighing her words.
Seeing her expression, Lo Quen pressed at once. "What do you mean by 'isn't good'?"
Janice lowered her voice. "Young Aegon picked up some mad notion from who knows where. He believed a dwarf's manhood might help hatch dragon eggs. So he had Tyrion castrated."
Lo Quen's pupils tightened, a flash of shock crossing his face.
Young Aegon's madness, it seemed, had gone far beyond anything he had imagined.
"Bring him up," Lo Quen said after a brief silence, issuing the order to the Dragon Soul Guards nearby.
Before long, two Dragon Soul Guards escorted a staggering figure into the hall.
It was a dwarf bound in iron chains, dressed in filthy, tattered clothes, his body carrying the damp, moldy stench unique to dungeon cells.
His face was pale to the point of translucence. His golden hair and beard were knotted and unkempt. The mismatched eyes that had once brimmed with sharp wit and mockery now held only exhaustion and a dull, ashen despair.
Tyrion lifted his head, his gaze sweeping over the man and woman seated upon the high dais.
In an instant, he understood who stood before him, and what that meant for his own fate.
The Young Aegon who had tormented him was clearly gone, defeated at the hands of this Eastern king.
"Tyrion Lannister," Lo Quen said calmly. "I've long heard of you. I never imagined we'd meet here at Storm's End, under circumstances like these."
He released Janice and rose to his feet, taking a goblet filled with golden wine from a nearby table. Stepping down from the dais, he approached Tyrion at an unhurried pace.
He held the goblet to the dwarf's cracked, dry lips.
For Tyrion, who had suffered countless days in the dungeons, the scent of wine should have been an irresistible temptation.
Yet Tyrion merely pressed his chapped lips together, shook his head weakly, and rasped,
"No, Your Grace. Thank you for your kindness, but I've given up drinking."
There was none of his former sharpness in his voice, only deep weariness and resignation.
Lo Quen could not hide his surprise.
The Tyrion he remembered, the wine-soaked "Imp" with a silver tongue, had sworn off drink?
It seemed that what had been done to him had changed him utterly.
Lo Quen didn't press the matter. He set the goblet aside.
"This is our first proper meeting, I suppose."
Tyrion nodded. "Yes, Your Grace. It is."
He studied Lo Quen's face, searching for something to grasp.
He saw none of Joffrey's cruel delight, none of Viserys's frantic, feverish unease, and none of Young Aegon's arrogance and hate.
This king's gaze was deep and steady, calm with the kind of confidence that came from knowing he held the reins. In all the years Tyrion had spent near the top of power, this was the closest he had ever seen to a ruler who looked… normal.
The thought made the corners of Tyrion's eyes sting. A bitter, absurd sadness rose in his chest.
The gods truly did have a sense of humor. Why make him endure so many madmen, only to finally meet someone who seemed sane?
And yet I've become…
He didn't dare follow that thought any further.
He steadied himself and went on. "Your Grace, I assume you've already defeated the boy who called himself Aegon Targaryen?"
Lo Quen shrugged. "Just a Bastard Blackfyre pretender. I had him executed on the Redgrass Field. The only Targaryen still alive in this world is my wife, Daenerys Targaryen."
Tyrion had clearly been locked away too long to have heard any of this. Surprise flickered across his face.
Then it melted into something else, and he let out a low, rough laugh. "Good. Good. I only regret I didn't get to kill him myself."
The laugh twisted into a clenched, grinding fury, his small frame trembling with hatred.
Lo Quen watched the poison on Tyrion's face and spoke slowly. "Tyrion, the past can't be changed. The future can be chosen. Would you like to join me and march north to Moat Cailin? The true war is coming. We need every clever mind we can get to stand against the threat in the North… the Others."
"The Others?" Tyrion snapped his head up, his mismatched eyes wide with uncertainty. "Those things from the old tales? They… they really exist?"
A faint, knowing smile touched Lo Quen's mouth. "You'll see them with your own eyes soon enough. Trust me. Those charming little creatures shedding frost as they move will leave you with an impression you won't forget."
If anyone else had said it, Tyrion would have laughed it off as nonsense.
But coming from an Eastern Sorcerer who rode dragons, it landed differently. He found himself believing it more than he wanted to admit.
Tyrion didn't answer the offer right away.
After a brief silence, he asked the question that had been lodged in his chest all this time.
"Cersei and Jaime… what happened to them?"
Lo Quen thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm afraid my reports say they fell into Euron Greyjoy's hands in the Westerlands. After that, I don't know. I only just finished the fighting with Euron in Oldtown, but I didn't find any sign of them. I suspect…"
He left it unsaid, but the meaning hung in the air all the same.
It hit Tyrion like a blow. His face went even whiter. "Captured in the Westerlands? But… weren't they in Duskendale?"
His information was badly out of date, anchored in an earlier time.
Lo Quen gave him a concise account of the upheavals of recent days.
As Tyrion listened, the light in his eyes drained away, shifting from disbelief into complete despair.
Almost his entire House had turned to ash.
The world seemed to collapse before him, leaving nothing but a vast, hollow void.
Seeing him break, Lo Quen softened his voice. "You don't need to sink into despair. At the very least, Myrcella is still alive. And she's safe."
Tyrion jerked as if he'd been thrown a rope. "Myrcella? She…"
"She has become one of my queens," Lo Quen said. "She's safe for now at Conquest Keep, across the Narrow Sea. In time, her child will inherit Casterly Rock."
"Myrcella… Casterly Rock…" Tyrion murmured.
Once, that had been his dream, to inherit Casterly Rock himself. But after all the betrayal, pain, and what had been done to his body, whatever hunger he'd had for power and succession had long since burned away.
Now he wanted only a quiet life. Books to read, wine to drink…
No. Not even wine anymore.
To learn that Myrcella was alive, and more than that, had a secure place to stand, was the single thin thread of light in the endless dark.
Myrcella was Jaime and Cersei's daughter. She had her mother's beauty, but none of her mother's madness.
Tyrion drew a deep breath, and something firmed inside him at last. "Your Grace… I will serve you. I'll do everything I can. I'll advise you, and I'll help you prepare for the Others."
In the end, he chose to take up the burden, not for power, but for the land where he had grown up.
He could not stand by and watch it be destroyed by the horrors beyond the Wall.