Chaos and Order - A Multiverse Fanfic

C32: Cersei Lannister's Hidden Mission

Cersei swatted Kai's hand off her face.

Her eyes moved from Jon Arryn's finger to Kai, and then back to the finger. "Have you killed him?" asked the queen.

She recognized the gem, Kai could tell. He could see the slightest hint of a smile and victory on her face. He loathed to destroy that smile, but this had to be done, he knew.

"No, your grace," said Kai, shaking his head. "He is still alive."

The queen frowned. "Tell me then," she demanded. "What is this favor you speak of? And put this thing away for Mother's sake."

Kai did as he was told.

"May I?" he held the brush and went behind Cersei. The queen narrowed her eyes at Kai but didn't reject the offer. The brush had soft hair. Kai nuzzled Cersei's back, making the queen feel she was still in power.

"I have come from far, your grace," Kai told her. "I had no desire to see King's Landing. Nor did I lack work and skills to come here, seeking opportunities."

"Oh, then why did you come?" asked Cersei, playing her part.

There was amusement in her tone. A touch of impatience too. Kai ignored that.

"For you." A silence followed Kai's answer. He rubbed her shoulders, his fingers brushing off her skin, leaving white trails over red. "I am a man almost grown, your grace. But even when they called me a child, I had made up my mind to see you. I am not of noble birth, and my prospects of becoming a knight were close to null. So there was only one way to come to King's Landing for a skillful warrior like me."

"Sellsword," echoed the queen. "What does this all have to do with the Hand?"

"I am coming to that, your grace," Kai replied, caressing her neck with the brush. He brought down his mouth to her ear. He could smell her now. Kai remembered the fragrance of many flowers. But Cersei had her own scent. He took a whiff of her wet hair, making the queen shiver.

Then he whispered.

Kai told the queen everything. Whatever he could tell her, revealing nothing about the Primordial Tower and the Chaos, he did.

He told her about Big Waldo, the other sellswords, and the minor fights. When Kai mentioned the Hand and how the old man had hired Kai to save him from assassinations, the queen turned her head and looked at him.

She fears the truth, Kai realized, and she will kill me for it.

"Then why did you betray him?" Cersei asked, turning back as if nothing had happened.

Kai replied again, as calmly as he had before. A touch of warmth and adoration in his voice, some fake but most real.

"For you."

"For me?" asked Cersei, not letting the silence linger unlike before. "How?"

A complete lie can never fool a half-cunning mind, Kai reminded himself. So Kai told her what he had guessed by himself.

He said, "... and that's how from all the facts I had concluded that the Hand knows some secret. This secret must be related to someone who can easily kill him to prevent it from ever coming out."

The queen shuddered. "So... you know it then? The secret..."

"No," Kai replied immediately, not letting the suspicion take root in her mind. "I just mentioned random names to lord Hand. When I mentioned yours, I saw sweat on his brows even when the chamber was cool enough. So I thought it must be related to the queen."

The lie was ridiculous. But Kai could afford it. All the tales he had told Cersei, showing her his emotions, and mixing truth with lies, were enough to make her see some reason in Kai's actions.