A Game of Lies

Never Let Go: Part 1

Jaime was far too protective over the baby boy. He couldn't help it. He need not have use of the wet nurses employed, accept when the babe had to eat. He did everything himself, laying the child to bed each night in a bassinet close to his own bed, in his own bedchamber.

So it was he who had awoken with a gasp, to the babes cries, in a cold sweat.

He had been dreaming a terrible dream. A nightmare.

He was in the courtyard, when he'd heard the screaming. All of them. The innocent ones he never meant to be hurt. He never thought they'd be killed.

The screams of the dead rang out, overtaking him with emotion, as he ran frantically, trying to find the babe, as he heard the ever more persistent cries of the ones he knew to be dead already. He could just feel it. They were already gone. All but the babe. And he must get to him in time. He must.  But it felt as if he was running in circles. Each corner he turned seemed to take him further from the cries of the babe, the screams of the dead growing louder and louder.

"Please!", he screamed as he ran, feeling his legs weaken and give out under him. He crashed to the floor, hard.

"Please! I'm so sorry! Just make it stop!", he screamed, falling forward, squeezing his his eyes shut, and covering his ears with his hands.

He couldn't stand to hear them anymore. The screams terrorized him. Tortured him. He never meant for it to be this way. He never meant for the children to be hurt. He never meant for any of them to be killed. The second he killed the Mad King, he sealed their fates as well, and he never even meant it.

"I'm so sorry!", he screamed to no one in particular. All of them.

"Let me get to him! I swear I'll protect him! I swear it!", he continued to scream.

The screaming stopped so abruptly, that his eyes shot open. It sent shivers down his body, the sudden silence.

He climbed quickly to his feet, spinning around, looking in all directions.

He had to find her son. He had to save the baby boy.

It came so quietly at first, that he wasn't sure he had even heard it at all.

Then it came again, and he turned in the direction of the sound.

The cry of a babe.

Jaime had never run so fast. It felt as if he was gliding over the floor, as he followed the sound of the crying babe. The sound seemed to vibrate in his head, his ears felt as if they were throbbing from the sound. He gasped for air, as he ran, the cries becoming louder and louder.

As he came to the hall, just outside the throne room, he stopped running, walking, nervously to the grand doors of the room. He pressed his ear against it, and sure enough, the sound was coming from inside.

He quickly pushed the doors open.

He instantly felt sick, as all their bodies lay on the cold hard floor, blood smeared everywhere, on everything.

"No, no, no!", he cried, as he saw all of them.

He covered his eye, and turned, stumbling, before the cries of the babe forced him stay where he was. He was going to have to walk across the room. He was going to have to see all of them, to get to the babe, that lay naked upon the seat of the Iron Throne. He would have to look at all them. The ones he failed.

He didn't want to look. He had never thought they would be hurt. The women, the children. Even the tiny bodies of babes littered the floor. It took everything for him to keep walking, stepping over the bodies as he went, looking down at each mangled face. His whole body shook as he made his way through the dead.