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The letter was addressed to Cersei.
Not her king nor her lord father or the imp usurping his position at court, whom all customs dictate should receive this offer. Sealed with the red-and-blue trout of Tully, her own name became a mockery in looped, delicate script. Cersei crumpled the letter between two fingers and thought to send a servant to fetch Sansa. Your mother wrote you from Riverrun, sweetling. She sends word of your brother. As the girl’s wide Tully eyes filled with grateful tears, Cersei would toss the letter into the hearth and watch her charge struggle to concoct a pretty platitude.
She opened the letter instead. In the end, Catelyn Stark placed this delicate dove in the palm of Cersei’s hand and asked her to feel its little heart beating the pace of war drums. In the end, the letter was addressed to her.
The skies above the Red Keep were clear and blue on the day Cersei saw the fruits of the letter born lush and ripe and red. She wore a fine cloth-of-gold gown with myrish lace, while Lady Stark stepped outside the carriage still donning her heavy brown winter cloak. Her face was a ghostly mockery of the serene woman who stood beside Ned Stark in Winterfell. Lined and empty—until she met Cersei’s gaze. Then, she hated.
Cersei’s breath quickened. Months spent waiting for Sansa Stark to crumple and her mother was the loose thread all along. She waited to feel the triumph like the blood of a lioness’ first kill, hot and sweet. But Catelyn Stark didn’t blink. Even when she allowed her ugly companion to remove her cloak, revealing her rounded belly.
“Where are my daughters?” Catelyn Stark barked. “We had an agreement!” She tried to lurch forward, but her ugly companion held her back. She fixed Cersei with a judging stare, huge teeth snarled and pimply forehead wrinkled.
Cersei only smiled. She stepped forward. Her entourage stepped with her. “Waiting most eagerly for their mother, Lady Stark. But first…” She beckoned for Maester Pycelle, who bowed low and made to approach Ned Stark’s widow.
The ugly woman reached for a sword belt. Cersei’s lip curled. “Maester Pycelle is simply confirming your claim, Lady Stark. I’m certain you understand why we cannot trust the words of a maester who serves traitors to the realm.”
After a silent conversation between the two of them, the sword belt was left alone. The ugly woman faded into the background as Catelyn stepped forward, still glaring and glaring. She didn’t flinch when Maester Pycelle pressed probing fingers onto the cradle where her child grew. He bowed his head toward Cersei to confirm the obvious and returned to her rows of servants, fading too.
Queen and hostage crossed the courtyard to meet each other. All at once, Cersei was met with wind-struck red cheeks and red, red hair and the memory of a young girl’s laugh in a godswood. Jaime, that’s not how you play Come Into My Castle! You’re as bad as Petyr!
Catelyn’s gaze cut beside her, then returned just as quickly. “I’m surprised the Imp isn’t here. We still have matters to discuss.”
Such insolence. Cersei almost called for Ilyn Payne and Ned Stark’s broadsword, but she took his wife’s hand instead. “Tyrion is handling matters in the city today, my lady. He’ll see you when he returns.” The little monster will enjoy seeing you in the chains this time. “In the meantime, you and I have much to discuss as well.” She let her gaze fall and roam. “You’re carrying low,” she murmured. She reached out a hand to Catelyn’s belly and kept it there.
Lady Stark startled like her daughter might have done, but only for a moment. Cersei watched, enthralled, as she maintained the hate in every line of her face, in the tightening muscles of her hand. She wanted to claw Cersei’s throat out, that much was obvious, but her mouth could only struggle in the air for the right words. Her face flushed prettily and Cersei felt a sharp, strong kick into her palm.
She gasped and forced her mouth into a smile to hide the memory of Joff kicking just like this, when Cersei thought he would split her in half. But outside her own feeble body, the kick seemed stronger still. Is this how Robert felt before he fled her birthing chamber for a hunt? Did he imagine twenty years into the future, when the boy could decide where to aim his first blow?
“If it pleases Her Grace,” Catelyn gritted, “I should like to see my daughters now.”
“Of course. You must rest as well—the babe is most discontent with the long journey.”
The babe kicked again. Ned Stark’s heir, all Cersei’s to shape and break and mend, over and over again, the Father’s knowing hand striking true. One day soon, Tywin will see the boy silent in a nurse’s arms whilst his mother supplicates before the Iron Throne, Joffrey tall and strong underneath his golden crown. Tywin would never look her way across the dais; such things show the common folk a weak Hand. But her lord father will smile.
For this prophecy to come true and damn the others to the seven pits of hell, Catelyn Stark must break. Cersei stared until Catelyn appeared to finally remember what her Septas taught and inclined her head in resentful deference. Only then did Cersei finally remove her hand from Catelyn’s belly and fold their arms together. They walked towards Maegor’s Holdfast as might a pair of girlhood companions, without all the silly gossip and giggling. When Jaime is free, I’ll tell Cat she kissed me in the godswood that day. Not him. Never him.
As they arrived at the barren moat that separated the holdfast from everywhere else in the Keep, Cersei stopped abruptly. She released a saddened sigh and adorned a properly devastated expression. She savored every moment of Catelyn’s confusion unfurling into fear.
Then she dealt the killing blow herself.
“My dear lady…I’m afraid I have some dreadful news about sweet little Arya.”