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SLW Chapter 93 : The Crown Abandoned
🕑 Added 2025-06-27 21:51:42 +0000 UTCRED KEEP – KING’S CHAMBER
The doors creaked open on ancient hinges as Lord Tywin Lannister or rather, the man who wore his face strode into the now-silent chamber. The air hung heavy with a stillness that was… wrong. The sunlight pouring through the tall windows gave the room a golden hue, yet it was cold. Devoid of presence. No attendants. No guards. No king.
Just the hollow echo of footsteps on polished stone.
Aeron still in Tywin’s skin paused at the foot of the boy king’s grand bed. It had not been slept in. The blankets were neatly folded, untouched. No scent of burning candles. No armor resting in a corner. No trace of a child’s rule… or retreat.
He turned slowly, his violet gaze scanning the corners of the room beneath the mask of the Lannister patriarch.
Nothing again.
No servants. No guard posted at the chamber doors now. No quiet chatter. Not even whispers.
“Empty once more,” he murmured aloud, his voice still Tywin’s, deep and commanding but the mind beneath it sharp with suspicion.
His eyes narrowed as he reached for the system within him, weaving through the lattice of shadows he’d scattered across the city. He had not bothered to plant one on the king on the boy. He was a puppet, soft and frightened. His mother would never let him out of sight. There had seemed no need.
“I did not attach a shadow soldier to that boy,” he muttered under his breath, frustrated. “But…”
Aeron’s violet eyes flared beneath Tywin’s visage.
There was another.
A presence tethered tugging faintly through the dark thread of his magic. A shadow fragment, watching quietly, bound to another.
Jaime Lannister.
With a whisper of will, Aeron seized the connection.
Darkness surged behind his eyes, and in a heartbeat he saw through the shade drifting over waves, wind tugging at sails, seafoam glistening beneath the open sea skies.
A ship.
Far from the harbor. Sailing through the waters.
He blinked.
There, on the deck Jaime, his golden hair tousled by the wind, speaking to a cloaked figure. Then another. A slender form, arms folded tight.
Cersei.
And near the mast, the boy-king himself. Tommen. Sitting quietly. Myrcella not far off.
A family in flight.
“They actually fled..” His tone was neutral, yet beneath it, something cold stirred.
An actual king… abandoning his throne.
A mother once queen of the realm slipping away like a thief in the night.
Aeron slowly lifted his head, violet light gleaming through his eyes.
“So much for lion’s pride.”
He stood at the window, watching nothing.
Then a slight smile touched his lips.
“Well…” he said quietly to himself. “This makes things a lot easier.”
His gaze turned toward the Throne room in the distance where the jagged monument of blades and ambition gleaming under the last light of day.
RED KEEP – THRONE ROOM
The hall was quiet, still and broken only by the occasional groan of old stone and the fluttering of tattered banners. Shadows stretched long across the chamber floor. Above them all loomed the Iron Throne sharp, cold, and empty. A monument to centuries of ambition. Of blood.
Aeron stood beneath it, one hand resting loosely on the hilt of his fake sword. He looked up at the twisted metal, his violet eyes unblinking, glowing faintly from within the visage of Tywin Lannister his face borrowed, his posture precise.
Footsteps.
Aeron didn’t move at first. His senses whispered of steel and blood and old resentment wrapped in a man’s aging bones.
He turned slowly.
Kevan Lannister stood in the archway of the throne room.
His face was drawn, his beard grayer than it had been even a fortnight ago, and his eyes were narrowed with the weariness of a man who is now carrying a heavy weight. A storm gathered behind his calm voice.
“You are not my brother. My brother is dead.”
Aeron blinked once. Then let out a sigh.
“Seven hells,” he muttered under his breath, tone dry. “I’m starting to question the point of this mask…”
He reached up. The illusion shimmered. And with a breath of shadow, Tywin Lannister’s visage faded replaced by the pale, solemn face of Aeron Grim, eyes aglow.
Kevan stiffened, but did not reach for a weapon.
“So,” he said slowly. “You must be Aeron Grim.”
“Yes.” Aeron’s voice was firm and quiet. “And apparently, your king has abandoned his throne.”
Kevan hesitated, pain flickering in his expression. He glanced toward the Iron Throne, then back at Aeron. His voice dropped, hoarse.
“In fear of you. They all did.”
Aeron stepped down from the dais. He was close now, close enough for Kevan to see the blood still drying at the edge of his collar. The scent of smoke and dust still clung to him from the Sept’s ruin.
“I heard what happened in the Sept,” Kevan said, his voice nearly a whisper. “Was it you?”
Aeron’s gaze did not waver.
“It was.”
Silence.
Kevan looked away for a moment, jaw tight, lips pressed thin. Grief, fear, and duty warred behind his eyes but he kept himself still, hands folded behind his back, Lannister-trained.
Aeron stepped closer.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t have time for noble speeches or explanations for the likes of you. You’ll be coming with me.”
Kevan frowned, unsure. “And where, exactly....would... we be going?”
“To the people,” Aeron said. “You, as you. Me, as Tywin. We will speak of surrender and total submission.” He paused, then added with cold certainty: “There will be no Baratheon-Lannister bastard on this throne. Not anymore. The realm will not suffer weak blood clinging to borrowed crowns. And just so it happens the ruined sept now seems like a great place for a speech right now..”
Kevan’s lips parted, as if to argue.
But no words came.
What could he say?
The boy was gone. His mother, gone with him. The realm in shambles, its people leaderless, its banners frayed. And in front of him stood the one man, the man who had bent armies to his will, who walks with an army of immortal soldiers.
Who had destroyed the Sept for some unknown reason to him.
Kevan Lannister… said nothing.
Not out of loyalty. Not out of consent.
But because there was nothing left to say.
Aeron’s expression did not change.
“Good,” he murmured. “Then let’s get to work.”
****
THE GREAT SEPT OF BAELOR – MIDDAY – KING’S LANDING
The smoke still hung in the air, drifting lazily from the scorched remnants of the once-grand Sept of Baelor. Its towering dome now split and crumbled, jagged stone and charred wood scattered. the statue of the Father lay shattered in the street, his face lost beneath rubble.
Crowds had gathered in droves smallfolk, tradesmen, vendors, and beggars all murmuring, gasping, pushing against the line of Red Keep guards and Goldcloaks stationed to bar the way.
“What happened to the Sept?”
“Is it wildfire?”
“Was it the dragons!”
“I heard the gods struck it down!”
“Seven save us… is it war?”
Panic buzzed in the air. The guards shouted for calm, shoving back those who pressed too close, steel flashing in sunlight. But the unrest only grew.
And then
A figure stepped forward onto the ruined steps of the Sept.
Tywin Lannister.
Or so it seemed to everyone..
The golden lion’s armor gleamed faintly beneath his black cloak, and his face, stern and serious, the hand of the king looked exactly as the people remembered.
He raised one hand.
And when he spoke, his voice boomed over the square like thunder.
“SILENCE.”
It was not a request.
It was a command one King’s Landing had not heard in a long while.
The crowd fell quiet. Even the children stopped fidgeting.
“There is a royal announcement to be made,” Tywin said—Aeron, cloaked in the lion’s form, his words confident and commanding. “You will listen.”
He stood tall, back straight, eyes scanning the hushed masses as Kevan Lannister moved beside him, silent, his jaw set like stone.
Aeron let the silence linger. Let it settle into the bones of the people.
Then he spoke again.
“The boy you called King, my very own grandson, Tommen Baratheon has abdicated. He has abandoned his post, his crown, and his duty.”
Gasps rippled like a wave across the crowd.
“Left the realm in chaos at the first sign of war. But the gods, in their wisdom, do not suffer a kingdom to go leaderless for long.”
He turned slightly, gesturing to the wreckage behind him.
“The Sept of Baelor was not destroyed by chance. It was a consequence of divine judgment. Apostasy and rot had taken root in the very heart of our city. The gods themselves cast their gaze down upon this house of falsehood and struck it low. The gods… and the true hand of justice.”
