115: Chapter 115 Cersei's Mourning Clothes

At the same time. Upper levels of the Red Keep.

Cersei's private sitting room.

This sitting room was a world away from the cold and damp of the underground cellar. Myrish carpets covered the floor, woven with the red and gold lion sigil of House Lannister. Lannister red and gold tapestries hung on the walls. A silver mirror stood upon a man-sized gilded frame.

The air was thick with the scent of rose oil and lemon soap.

Cersei Lannister stood before the massive silver mirror. Her golden hair was draped over her shoulders, and a maidservant behind her was adjusting the folds of her hem. She wore an exquisitely tailored mourning dress of pure black—not a gown for a wedding, but for a funeral.

Black lace trim, black silk lining, even the pearls at the neckline were black. Every fold was impeccably smooth, and every black pearl glinted coldly under the light.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Her emerald eyes—the same Lannister green as Jaime's—glinted coldly. She reached out a finger and stroked the black lace trim at her waist. The lace trembled slightly under her touch.

"Sansa Stark's wedding. I wear black. Not because she is dead—but because the day she marries a Lannister is the anniversary of House Stark's total submission. Her father wore gray; I wear black."

She turned around. Her hem swirled in an elegant arc across the carpet, the black silk billowing like waves of ink in the lamplight.

"My father said the Young Wolf has written back to Dragonstone.

The North wants to join forces with the Targaryens. Sansa—she is my answer to the North.

Once she marries into House Lannister, the Young Wolf will not dare to make a move in the North.

Unless he wants his sister to become a widow—and a widow who dies at my hands."

The maidservant did not dare to respond, merely lowering her head to continue tidying the hem. Her fingers trembled slightly against the black silk.

Cersei turned toward a corner of the room. Qyburn sat there—gaunt, in gray robes, wearing a maester's chain that had been confiscated by The Citadel and then returned to him by Cersei.

Before him stood a low table with a glass orb emitting a dim green light. Slow green mist flowed within the orb—it was the core of his black magic detection array, placed on the second basement level of the Red Keep to monitor the magical fluctuations of the entire castle's foundation.

"Qyburn. Is there any movement underground?"

Qyburn’s grayish-blue eyes shifted away from the glass orb. His voice was dry, as if he hadn't drunk water in a long time.

"Very faint temperature fluctuations. Coming from the direction of the cold cellar. But the intensity is not enough to trigger an alarm—it's more like a cold air leak from a cracked pipe. Your Majesty—the temperature in King's Landing has plummeted tonight, reaching the lowest recorded for this period in recent years. This may just be a cold snap."

"Confirm it. I do not want to hear any bad news before the wedding. Especially regarding the wildfire."

"As you command."

He lowered his head, staring at the glass orb once more. The dim green light within pulsed steadily, showing no abnormalities. Qyburn narrowed his eyes, staring at the green light for a long time. Then he picked up a quill, wrote a line on the parchment, and crossed it out.

Dragonstone Castle. Late night. White Mane's room.

White Mane remained cross-legged on the campaign bed. The night brazier burned with a low-lying holy fire beside her, casting faint patterns of blue-green light onto the ceiling—like moonlight reflecting off water.

Her right hand covered the Brand on the back of her neck. Her eyes were closed, but her lips curled into a faint, barely noticeable smile.

The Brand had experienced a violent temperature fluctuation earlier this morning—around 4:30 AM King's Landing time. First, it had suddenly become searing hot, so hot she nearly jumped from the bed. The skin around the Brand's edge flushed red, as if touched by a branding iron for half a second.

Then the temperature plummeted, turning as icy as the snow on the cliffs of Storm's End, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. From that moment on, the Brand's temperature returned to a "warm" state—not the erratic hot and cold caused by the Storm Ancestor Dragon's interference, but a long-awaited stable warmth. That was the signal that the Domination Brand automatically returns to balance after its master completes a major action.

She opened her eyes. A flash of confirmation, known only to her, flickered in her amber eyes. She did not speak to Melisandre, who was keeping watch beside her—she simply picked up the dragon-kiss sword, placed the old scabbard next to the blade, and tapped the mouth of the scabbard twice with her finger. Tap. Tap. The leather cord of the scabbard looked lighter than the old leather under the holy fire.

"He's finished dismantling it. The Brand told me. The temperature is stable."

Melisandre's red eyes rose from the night brazier. The flames faintly reflected images of the Dragonpit ruins beneath King's Landing—a silent expanse of wildfire jars, with dark green liquid sitting still at the bottom. A main fuse had been pulled out and placed in a bag of dragon-glass fragments. Her voice held the calm of a prophecy fulfilled.

"The Lord of Light has shown me in the flames—the Dragon's Heart has stopped beating. The Cremation Array is dead. Tonight, the True Dragon has saved King's Landing. And the remains of the Storm Ancestor Dragon deep within the mineral veins have flared up in anger—there was a flicker of ice-blue wrath in the flames. It knows he is coming."

"Let him come. I owe him a scabbard. After he returns it to me—let him go and beat that old bone pile awake."

A very faint smile touched the corners of Melisandre's mouth. The priestess rarely smiled. But in the bond between these two Dothraki women and a dragon, she saw something clearer than some of the Lord of Light's more obscure oracles. She withdrew her hand from the flames, her fingertips still stained with blue-green light.

Morning. King's Landing. Street of Steel. Anvil and Bed Inn.

By the time Drogon returned to the room, the sky was already light. The blacksmith's apprentice downstairs was starting the fire, and pungent coal smoke rose through the cracks in the floorboards, stretching into several bluish-gray lines in the morning light.

Ignoring the smoke, he walked straight to the bed and pulled two items from the leather bag beneath it—a sample of weirwood root carving powder from the main tank's secret chamber, which he had collected in a small cloth pouch before leaving.

And the remains of the main fuse, which he had carefully wrapped in the dragon-glass fragment bag. The dark green cotton core lay quietly among the dragon-glass fragments, no longer posing any threat.

He placed the main fuse remains on the table and used a charcoal pencil to mark the map of King's Landing: "Main tank dismantled. Sub-tank pressure loss being confirmed." The charcoal pencil scratched across the parchment, leaving several heavy characters. Then he leaned over the table and closed his eyes.

A system window popped up.

"Main tank dismantling task completed. Current host physiological state: Fatigued, thirty-six consecutive hours without full sleep. Ice Element consumption is approximately twenty percent, within normal recovery range.

Dragon race instincts have accumulated stress due to prolonged suppression in complete dragon-man form—the tail has spontaneously popped out three times, most recently forced back by you. Immediate sleep for four hours is recommended to stabilize the remaining duration of the complete dragon-man form—approximately twenty-four hours remaining.

Next priority: Confirm sub-tank pressure loss, expected this afternoon via the Tyrell Mansion chimney signal. Afterward—plan the Sansa rescue for tonight."

"The timing for the Sansa rescue will be set after the sub-tank pressure loss is confirmed. If the chimney shows white smoke this afternoon—we can save her tonight. Jaime's letter is already here; 2:00 AM."

"Prerequisite for tonight's rescue: Sub-tank pressure loss confirmed—completed via the white smoke signal. Jaime Lannister has sent word from Casterly Rock regarding the specific hours when the Red Keep's back gate will be unguarded. All preconditions have been met. The host currently requires sleep."

"The operation is at 2:00 AM. I'll sleep for four hours first."

King's Landing. Late night. Copper and Bed Brothel.

Tyrion sat alone at the table by the window. Before him lay Jaime's final draft of the Cremation Array engineering plans, and beside it sat a glass of genuine Arbor wine, newly opened tonight.

The wine glinted deep red in the candlelight—it was sent by Margaery's people today, and it was the real thing. He didn't drink it, but instead stared at the marked position of the main tank on the blueprints—he had drawn a circle around the Dragon's Heart pattern with a charcoal pencil and then poked a small hole in the center with the tip of a crowbar. The hole pierced through the parchment.

Outside, the night in King's Landing still smelled foul. But there was no scent of wildfire in the stench tonight. The Mad King's Cremation Array died tonight. A two-hundred-year threat had been silently ended by an Ice Fire in dragon-man form and a dwarf's crowbar.

He raised his wine glass to the empty table.

"To The Mad King. May you never touch wildfire in your next life."

He drained it in one gulp. Then he tapped the table leg with his short cane. The proprietress peeked out from behind the bar. He pointed to the empty glass.

"Pour another. This one isn't for The Mad King—it's for a dragon with a very long tail. Although he doesn't have a tail right now."

Drogon turned over on the hard board bed at the Anvil and Bed Inn.

The blacksmith shop downstairs worked through the night, clang, clang. He was so tired that even the clanging couldn't wake him. He flicked his tail in his dream; this time, the tail was very obedient in the dream and didn't knock anything over. It just coiled around his waist, the tip curling slightly and resting gently on the edge of the bed.

Outside, there was no moon in the night sky over King's Landing. But the Tyrell Mansion's chimney had already sent up white smoke during the day. The Cremation Array was dead. Tonight, beneath King's Landing, there was only dead wildfire and two men preparing to rescue a woman before dawn.