Scene 1: The Mad King's Order
Location: The Throne Room, The Red Keep.
Time: The Sack Begins (Minutes after Rossart's death).
The cavernous hall of the Iron Throne was a tomb of echoes.
High above, the stained glass windows, usually casting colored light across the floor, were dark with the smoke rising from the city below. The sound of the Sack—the screams, the steel, the roar of dying men—penetrated the thick stone walls like a low, vibrating hum.
Aerys II Targaryen paced the dais.
He looked less like a King and more like a scavenger bird. His fingernails were yellow claws, uncut and jagged. His beard was a matted thicket of grey. Scabs covered his arms where he had cut himself on the throne, picking at the metal in his anxiety.
Ser Jaime Lannister stood at the foot of the dais. He was seventeen years old. He was wearing the white enamel armor of the Kingsguard, but he felt like he was wearing lead.
"He is here," Aerys muttered, pacing back and forth, his eyes darting to the massive oak doors. "Tywin is here. My friend. My servant."
The doors banged open.
A messenger stumbled in. He was a Gold Cloak, bloodied and missing his helmet.
"Your Grace!" the man screamed, falling to his knees. "The gates! Grand Maester Pycelle opened the gates! The Lannisters... they are attacking! They are killing the City Watch! They are scaling the walls of the Keep!"
Aerys stopped pacing.
For a moment, the King went perfectly still. The madness that usually whirled in his eyes seemed to freeze into a singularity of pure, crystalline hate.
"Attacking?" Aerys whispered.
"They are sacking the city, Your Grace!" the messenger sobbed. "We cannot hold them!"
Aerys began to laugh. It was a dry, wheezing sound.
"He thinks he can take it," Aerys giggled. "He thinks he can take my power. He thinks he can present my head to the Usurper."
The King spun around, his robes swirling. He looked at the empty space where his Hand, Lord Rossart, usually stood.
"Rossart!" Aerys screamed. "Where is he?"
The King's eyes darted around the empty hall.
"No matter. He knows the plan. The order stands!"
Aerys looked down at Jaime. His eyes were wide, wet, and terrifying.
"The Lion is eating my city, Ser Jaime! Do you hear them?"
"I hear them, Your Grace," Jaime said, his voice hollow. "We should surrender. We can yield the Keep to Lord Tywin. He is my father. He will not—"
"Yield?" Aerys shrieked. Spittle flew from his lips. "We do not yield to traitors! We do not yield to dogs!"
The King rushed to the edge of the dais, pointing a crooked finger at Jaime.
"Go to the battlements! Command the garrison! Kill him! Bring me his head! Bring me my servant's head!"
Jaime didn't move. "I cannot kill my father, Your Grace."
"Then you are a traitor too!" Aerys howled. He turned back to the empty throne, clutching his head.
"Burn it," Aerys whispered to the empty room, to the ghosts of his ancestors. "Burn it all. The Red Keep. The Sept. The Flea Bottom. Leave them nothing."
He turned back to Jaime, his face twisted into a mask of cruel ecstasy.
"Let Robert be King of Ashes! Let him rule over a graveyard! Let him sit on a throne of cooked meat!"
Aerys ran toward the back of the dais, toward the hidden door that led to his solar.
"Burn them all!" Aerys screamed. "BURN THEM ALL!"
Jaime Lannister stood alone in the vast, echoing hall.
He looked at the white cloak on his shoulders. The cloak that bound him to protect the King.
He looked at the empty spot where Rossart had stood earlier.
Rossart isn't here, Jaime realized, a cold dread settling in his stomach. If he isn't here, he's in the vaults. He's lighting the fuse.
The wildfire was real. Jaime knew it. He had stood guard while they plotted it. The King had just given the order, and his Hand was missing—likely executing it this very second.
And if Aerys reached the solar? He could send birds. He could signal the other Pyromancers—Garigus and Belis.
I swore an oath, Jaime thought.
To protect the innocent.
To protect the weak.
To obey the King.
He realized, with a sickening clarity, that he could not keep them all.
Jaime Lannister made his choice.
His hand moved to the hilt of his golden sword. The metal was cold.
"Forgive me, father," Jaime whispered.
He drew the blade.
[End of Scene]
Chapter 30: The Green Fuse
Scene 2: The Double Strike
Location: The Throne Room, The Red Keep.
Time: Seconds Later.
Aerys was halfway to the hidden mechanism behind the Iron Throne when the side service door—the one used by servants to bring wine to the dais—exploded inward.
It wasn't a polite entrance. The heavy timber splintered under a force that felt less like a man and more like a battering ram.
Robert Baratheon stumbled into the hall, mere yards from the base of the throne.
He was a nightmare. He was covered in the black slime of the sewers and the bright arterial blood of the Hand. He had dropped his heavy warhammer in the corridor to gain speed. In his hand, he gripped a castle-forged longsword.
He looked up. He saw the white cloak. He saw the Iron Throne.
And he saw the Mad King scrambling like a rat toward the back of the chair.
"AERYS!" Robert roared. It was a sound that shook the dust from the rafters.
Aerys froze. He whipped his head around. He saw the Usurper standing barely twenty feet away.
Panic, pure and primal, seized the King.
"He is here!" Aerys shrieked, his voice cracking into a falsetto terror. "Burn him! Burn them all!"
Aerys scrambled. He lunged for the hidden lever located in the stonework behind the massive chair—the failsafe that would ignite the cache directly beneath their feet.
"NO!"
The shout came from two throats at once.
Ser Jaime Lannister, standing at the foot of the dais, realized he had run out of time. He didn't think about oaths. He didn't think about honor. He saw the King's hand inches from the trigger that would turn King's Landing into a crater.
Jaime lunged. He didn't slash; he thrust, driving his golden sword upward, aiming for the King's back.
Simultaneously, Robert Baratheon sprinted.
He covered the short distance to the dais in four massive strides, vaulting the marble steps with the momentum of a charging bull. He saw Aerys turning to face the mechanism. He saw the vulnerability of the chest.
Aerys's fingers brushed the cold metal of the lever.
Jaime arrived first by a fraction of a second.
With a cry of desperate fury, Jaime drove his golden sword forward. It punched through the back of Aerys's heavy velvet robes, piercing the kidney and lung.
Aerys arched his back, screaming—a high, thin wail of agony—and was spun around by the force of the blow.
In that exact second, Robert crested the final step.
He didn't stop his momentum. He put his entire weight, his entire rage, behind his own blade.
He thrust the steel sword forward, driving it deep into the center of the dragon crest on Aerys's chest.
A wet, tearing sound filled the silence as the steel punched through bone.
The two blades—the golden sword of the traitorous Kingsguard and the bloody steel of the Usurper—met inside the body of the Last Dragon King.
Aerys was lifted off his feet, suspended on the two points of steel like a pinned insect.
He gasped, blood bubbling instantly to his lips. His eyes, wide and clouded with madness and pain, rolled wildly.
He looked to his left, seeing the golden lion helm of the boy he had trusted to guard him.
He looked to his right, seeing the mud-spattered, furious face of the Storm Lord come to claim his crown.
Lion and Stag. Past and Future.
They held him there for a heartbeat, a gruesome tableau framed by the twisted swords of the Iron Throne.
Then, as one, they ripped their blades free.
Aerys Targaryen collapsed onto the cold marble of the dais, twitching once, then lying still. His blood pooled quickly, running down the steps of the throne he had defiled.
Behind the throne, the hidden lever remained untouched. The cache beneath the floor remained dark.
Robert stood over the body, his chest heaving, his sword dripping red.
Jaime stood opposite him, his golden armor splattered with the King's lifeblood. The boy looked shaken, his breath catching in his throat as the reality of his kingslaying washed over him.
Outside, the sounds of the sack—the screams, the fire, the chaos—continued to rage.
But inside the Throne Room, there was only silence.
[End of Scene]
Chapter 30: The Green Fuse
Scene 3: The Survivor
Location: The Throne Room, The Red Keep.
Time: Immediately following Aerys's death.
The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by the dripping of blood onto the marble steps.
Ser Jaime Lannister looked at his sword. The gold-gilded blade was coated in red. He looked at the body of the King he had sworn to protect, now lying twisted and broken at his feet.
The adrenaline that had driven the strike evaporated, leaving only a cold, crushing weight.
I am a traitor, Jaime thought. I have no honor.
His fingers went numb. The golden sword slipped from his grasp.
CLANG.
It hit the stone floor, the sound echoing sharply in the vast hall.
Jaime didn't try to run. He didn't try to fight. He simply sank to his knees in the pool of royal blood. He lowered his head, exposing his neck, waiting for the blow.
The Usurper was standing right there. A giant of a man, covered in filth and blood, holding a sword that had just tasted the same life as his own. Jaime closed his eyes.
"Do it," Jaime whispered, his voice cracking. "I killed my King. Take my head and be done with it."
He waited for the bite of steel.
It didn't come.
Instead, he heard heavy boots crunching on the marble.
Robert Baratheon stepped over the kneeling knight. He stepped over the corpse of the Mad King.
Robert walked to the back of the Iron Throne. He leaned down, inspecting the stonework where Aerys had been scratching. He saw the small, recessed lever. He saw the mechanism that ran down into the floor.
Robert's eyes narrowed. The System confirmed it.
If Jaime hadn't moved... if they had hesitated for one second... the Throne Room would be a crater.
"He was going to light it?" Robert asked. His voice wasn't angry. It was quiet, rough with exhaustion.
Jaime didn't look up. He stared at his own reflection in the blood.
"He wanted to burn them all," Jaime rasped. "He said... let Robert be King of Ashes. The women. The children. He wanted to leave you nothing but a graveyard."
Robert looked at the lever. Then he looked at the boy kneeling in the gore.
He saw a seventeen-year-old kid who had been forced to choose between his soul and the lives of half a million people.
In the other life, they called him Kingslayer, Robert thought. They spat on him. They made him cynical and cruel because no one asked him why.
Robert sheathed his sword.
Shhh-clack.
The sound made Jaime flinch.
"Get up, Jaime."
Jaime blinked. He looked up slowly. Robert wasn't raising a weapon. He was extending a hand. A hand covered in sewer mud and dried blood.
"You... you will not kill me?" Jaime stammered. "I broke my vow."
"You kept the only vow that matters," Robert said, his voice firm. "You protected the people."
Robert grabbed Jaime's golden pauldron and hauled him to his feet. He gripped the young man's shoulders, forcing Jaime to look him in the eye.
"Listen to me," Robert commanded. "And listen well. Because I will only say this once."
Robert pointed a finger at the corpse of Aerys.
"That thing on the floor was not a King. It was a monster holding a torch to start The Doom."
Robert looked deep into Jaime's green eyes, rewriting history with a few words.
"You didn't break your oath, Ser Jaime. You fulfilled it. You saved the damn city."
Jaime stared at him, his mouth slightly open, unable to process the absolution.
"But... the realm..." Jaime whispered. "They will call me Kingslayer."
"Let them try," Robert growled.
He released Jaime and stooped to pick up the golden sword. He wiped the blade on Aerys's cloak and shoved it back into Jaime's scabbard with a sharp click.
"You are not a Kingslayer," Robert stated, staring at the Hud that now showed Jaime's loyalty bar unlocking from 'Enemy' to 'Neutral'.
"You are the man who stopped the fire."
Robert turned toward the massive doors of the Throne Room.
"Now wipe your face, Lannister. The Lion is at the gates, and I need you to look like a hero, not a victim."
[End of Chapter 30]