102: Chapter 102 Absolutely Not Taking

Jaime lifted his golden hand from the armrest, using the fingertips of his left hand to draw a tiny circle in the air.

"But there's a problem. That pedestal is the most unstable location beneath the entire Red Keep.

If the wildfire jars beneath the pedestal are forcibly broken by external force, there is a high probability it will detonate the main jar, then trigger a chain reaction that detonates all fifty-six jars.

If you try to do this yourself without accurate blueprints—the northwest corner of King's Landing will be blown straight into a volcanic crater by green flames."

"Who has the blueprints?"

"There are no blueprints. The Mad King burned all the copies. The only people who have seen the blueprints are himself, the pyromancer Rossart, and me. Rossart is dead, and The Mad King is dead. The only one left alive—is me."

Drogon fell silent. Jaime was not boasting.

He truly remembered the contents of the blueprints. A set of engineering drawings he had only seen once twenty years ago; for twenty years, he had repeatedly recalled every detail, every position of the wildfire jars, and the tone of The Mad King's voice every time he said "Burn them all."

That wasn't memory. That was a form of atonement.

"Can you draw them?"

"I can. But I can't finish them tonight. The distribution of the jars in the Cremation Array needs to be precise down to the step—the distance from the main jar to each circle of secondary jars follows the standard 'nine steps per ring' of Old Valyria funeral rites. I need time to reconstruct them to scale."

He looked up. His emerald eyes gleamed coldly in the firelight. It wasn't hostility. It was a kind of clarity that had finally found an outlet after being suppressed for twenty years.

"Give me two days. I will draw a complete set of engineering drawings for the Cremation Array—ten times more precise than your rough 'wildfire coordinates.' Once the blueprints are drawn, I'll have Tyrion take over in King's Landing. He understands architecture, and he can lead men to dismantle all the secondary jars except for the main one."

Drogon stared at him for a long time. Then he did something Jaime did not expect—he unbuckled the forged valyrian steel sword from his waist and placed it on the stone floor in front of the fireplace.

The blade shimmered in the firelight with the dark, rippling patterns of true valyrian steel, and the traces of the forged joint were almost invisible in the firelight. He deliberately let the seam face upward so Jaime could see it clearly.

"Tyrion said you are the only family member he cares about. Before I came, I was prepared to fight you—because you are a Lannister, and I am a dragon of the Targaryen.

But just now, when you spoke of The Mad King, you didn't defend yourself. You only stated the facts. What you did to King's Landing—you owe King's Landing nothing. But these blueprints, you have owed for twenty years. Draw them."

Jaime looked down at the fake sword. Then he looked back up at Drogon.

A faint smile, identical to the one he wore when drinking cheap wine with Tyrion, appeared at the corners of his mouth.

"Do you expect me to use this fake sword to fight White Walkers? Tyrion said you picked it up on the black market. A fake for the Kingslayer—it fits well."

"The fake sword is also valyrian steel. The forged joint is two inches below the crossguard—you can't see it because the seam has been aged by soaking in vinegar. But true valyrian steel doesn't need to be sharpened to kill White Walkers. The fake sword can also be used."

Jaime picked up the fake sword. He weighed it in his hand. The sword was about twenty percent lighter than a normal valyrian steel sword, but the balance was still there.

He placed the sword beside his chair, next to his unsheathed longsword. Two swords. One was his silence, one was his atonement.

"After the blueprints are drawn, I will send them back to King's Landing—through Tyrion's channels, not through my father. Besides—you said just now that I owe King's Landing nothing. I won't say I owe you nothing either. There is no alliance between us.

Only a consensus: I don't want Tyrion to die in the wildfire, and you don't want your Mother of Dragons to fight a war she isn't prepared for. That is enough."

Late at night. Deep within Casterly Rock.

The corridor below Tywin's bedroom.

Drogon left Jaime's tower and snuck in, following the route Tyrion had drawn.

The abandoned kitchen flue—the inner walls of the flue were coated with decades of grease, and his sleeves were rubbed black with soot as he crawled inside. He climbed from the flue into the third floor of the castle and snuck along the corridor, avoiding two night guards.

The guards' footsteps echoed in the stone corridor; he pressed himself against the wall and waited for six seconds until they turned the corner. Then he moved silently through the corridor and found an old maintenance door in the ceiling of the storage room below Tywin's bedroom that led to the top level of the treasury.

The system popped up a window.

"Current location: Directly above the Casterly Rock treasury. Tywin Lannister's bedroom is about three meters above. Detected Tywin's heart rate: approximately fifty-eight beats per minute—asleep, deep sleep. This four-hour window is the host's only opportunity."

"Just four hours. I can avoid taking full human form—I'll briefly revert to dragon-man form inside the treasury to use Dragon Perception to precisely lock onto the location of the relic. Once I get my hands on it, I'm out. I won't touch the gold coins. Absolutely not touching them."

"The credibility of the host saying 'I won't touch the gold coins' is approximately—historical data does not support this."

"...I'm serious this time. I've already obtained the intelligence on the main jar, and I'll just grab the relic on the way. As for gold coins—I have a whole room of them in the Meereen treasury, and I have a share in the King's Landing treasury; I'm not lacking for that much."

"Host. Your tail popped out when you said you weren't 'lacking'."

"...That's a remnant of claustrophobia. It's not greed for money."

The maintenance door was silently pried open. Drogon had switched to dragon-man form, his tail nervously controlling its sway behind him. He landed silently in the treasury.

Then he froze.

His dark golden slit pupils dilated suddenly in the darkness, swallowing the entire scene inside the treasury.

It wasn't an ordinary treasury. Tywin Lannister's private treasury was the essence of three generations of House Lannister's wealth. Gold coins had been melted into standard gold bricks and stacked into three walls, each one so neat it could be measured with a ruler.

Beneath the walls were dozens of large iron-clad wooden chests, their lids half-open, revealing heaps of raw gemstones inside—rubies, sapphires, diamonds, emeralds, categorized and organized even more neatly than the treasury he had in Meereen.

In the center of the treasury stood a pure gold statue of a Lannister lion, the lion's mouth holding a pigeon-blood ruby the size of a fist, which emitted a soft, deep red fluorescence in the darkness on its own.

Drogon's slit pupils locked onto that pigeon-blood ruby. Inside the ruby was a mass of flowing light, like a living creature sealed within the stone. It wasn't reflection—it was spontaneous fluorescence. That stone glowed by itself.

"...System. Is that pigeon-blood ruby a mineral associated with dragon glass?"

"No. That is a natural fluorescent ruby, which fluoresces because it contains trace amounts of Valyrian volcanic ash. It is extremely rare. There may only be this one in all of Westeros. Estimated value: approximately equal to half of all the liquid assets in the host's Meereen treasury. But host—Tywin is sleeping upstairs."

"I know."

He forcibly tore his gaze away from the pigeon-blood ruby and turned toward the depths of the treasury. Dragon Heritage Perception locked onto the exact location of the relic—a black iron chest at the very back of the treasury.

He bypassed the gold lion statue and opened the black iron chest. Inside the chest lay a dark silver valyrian steel breastplate, the pauldrons carved into the shape of crossed lion claws, with extremely fine gold wire inlaid into every claw mark.

"Lion's Claw." A valyrian steel armor that House Lannister purchased from a certain Dragonlord. It happened hundreds of years ago.

"Relic retrieval complete. Suggest leaving immediately. Tywin is still asleep, but there are about fifty minutes left until his first light sleep cycle ends."

"Received. I'll take two more things and then leave—I've already gotten Tyrion's dagger. This pigeon-blood ruby—I'm just looking. Absolutely not taking it."

He looked at the pigeon-blood ruby. The pigeon-blood ruby glowed in the lion's mouth, as if it were looking at him too.

The fluorescence inside the ruby flowed slowly, casting a dark red hue on the lion's golden teeth. His tail drew a circle extremely slowly behind him. Then the tip of his tail stopped.

He took it.

He pried the pigeon-blood ruby out of the lion's mouth—the system hadn't even had time to pop up a window—and stuffed it into the leather pouch at his waist. His movements were extremely light, making no metallic scraping sounds at all.

Then he picked a raw sapphire that had split into two halves from the raw gemstone chest.

The color was exactly the same as the pear-shaped sapphire Illyse White Mane had, which could make a pair of earrings. He stuffed the raw sapphire into the leather pouch as well.

His tail curled around the lid of a chest of gold coins nearby, preparing to cover it back up. Then the tip of his tail touched an old gold coin on the edge of the chest that was slightly thinner than the other coins and had extremely fine serrated edges pressed into it.

It wasn't minted by House Lannister. It was a gold dragon coin from Old Valyria. From before the Doom. There might only be a dozen left in all of Westeros. The gold coin shimmered in the darkness with a deeper red light than ordinary gold coins—that was a sign of slightly lower copper content, meaning higher purity.

"...One coin. Just take one. Tywin won't notice one old gold coin is missing. He might not even know this one is in this chest."

"Host. The pigeon-blood ruby. The raw sapphire. The Valyrian gold dragon coin. Tywin will notice. His treasury is the only thing he truly cares about—he doesn't care about his children, but he cares about the whereabouts of every single gold coin."

"I know he cares. That's why I'm taking them."

"...This is not greed. This is strategy. Weakening the enemy's economy. We'll have to collect House Lannister's debts sooner or later anyway. Consider this gold coin an advance on the interest."