A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

station. Ravens were carrying her promise to every part of the Seven Kingdoms, and soon enough word would cross the narrow sea to the Nine Free Cities and the lands beyond.
Let the Imp run to the ends of the earth, he will not escape me.
    The royal procession passed through the inner doors into the cavernous heart of the Great Sept, and down a wide aisle, one of seven that met beneath the dome. To right and left, highborn mourners sank to their knees as the king and queen went by. Many of her father’s bannermen were here, and knights who had fought beside Lord Tywin in half a hundred battles. The sight of them made her feel more confident.
I am not without friends.
    Under the Great Sept’s lofty dome of glass and gold and crystal, Lord Tywin Lannister’s body rested upon a stepped marble bier. At its head Jaime stood at vigil, his one good hand curled about the hilt of a tall golden greatsword whose point rested on the floor. The hooded cloak he wore was as white as freshly fallen snow, and the scales of his long hauberk were mother-of-pearl chased with gold.
Lord Tywin would have wanted him in Lannister gold and crimson,
she thought.
It always angered him to see Jaime all in white.
Her brother was growing his beard again as well. The stubble covered his jaw and cheeks, and gave his face a rough, uncouth look.
He might at least have waited till Father’s bones were interred beneath the Rock.
    Cersei led the king up three short steps, to kneel beside the body. Tommen’s eyes were filled with tears. “Weep quietly,” she told him, leaning close. “You are a king, not a squalling child. Your lords are watching you.” The boy swiped the tears away with the back of his hand. He had her eyes, emerald green, as large and bright as Jaime’s eyes had been when he was Tommen’s age. Her brother had been such a
pretty
boy . . . but fierce as well, as fierce as Joffrey, a true lion cub. The queen put her arm around Tommen and kissed his golden curls.
He will need me to teach him how to rule and keep him safe from his enemies.
Some of them stood around them even now, pretending to be friends.
    The silent sisters had armored Lord Tywin as if to fight some final battle. He wore his finest plate, heavy steel enameled a deep, dark crimson, with gold inlay on his gauntlets, greaves, and breastplate. His rondels were golden sunbursts; a golden lioness crouched upon each shoulder; a maned lion crested the greathelm beside his head. Upon his chest lay a longsword in a gilded scabbard studded with rubies, his hands folded about its hilt in gloves of gilded mail.
Even in death his face is noble,
she thought,
although the mouth . . .
The corners of her father’s lips curved upward ever so slightly, giving him a look of vague bemusement.
That should not be.
She blamed Pycelle; he should have told the silent sisters that Lord Tywin Lannister never smiled.
The man is as useless as nipples on a breastplate.
That half smile made Lord Tywin seem less fearful, somehow. That, and the fact that his eyes were closed. Her father’s eyes had always been unsettling; pale green, almost luminous, flecked with gold. His eyes could see inside you, could see how weak and worthless and ugly you were down deep.
When he looked at you, you knew.
    Unbidden, a memory came to her, of the feast King Aerys had thrown when Cersei first came to court, a girl as green as summer grass. Old Merryweather had been nattering about raising the duty on wine when Lord Rykker said, “If we need gold, His Grace should sit Lord Tywin on his chamber pot.” Aerys and his lickspittles laughed loudly, whilst Father stared at Rykker over his wine cup. Long after the merriment had died that gaze had lingered. Rykker turned away, turned back, met Father’s eyes, then ignored them, drank a tankard of ale, and stalked off red-faced, defeated by a pair of unflinching eyes.
    Lord Tywin’s eyes are closed forever now,
Cersei thought.
It is my look they will flinch from now, my frown that they must fear. I am a lion too.
    It was gloomy within the sept with the sky so grey outside. If the rain ever stopped, the sun would slant down through the hanging crystals to drape the corpse in rainbows. The Lord of Casterly Rock deserved rainbows. He had been a great man.
I shall be greater, though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be remembered only as Queen Cersei’s