Chapter 11: The Prince's Folly and the God's Rebuke
The air in the small room was thick enough to choke on, heavy with the weight of two irreconcilable sorrows. The Dragon Prince, with his youthful, tragic burden of prophecy, stood before a being who had been crushed by the reality of it. Rhaegar saw a piece of a puzzle, a key to a future he was desperate to unlock. Thor saw a fool, another bright-eyed idealist marching confidently towards a cliff he couldn't see.
"What will I do?" Thor's voice was a low, dangerous rumble, the sound of rocks grinding deep within the earth. He took another step, the floorboards groaning as if in pain. The candle on the table flickered wildly, its flame dancing in a nonexistent wind. "I will tell you what I will not do. I will not be a sword for a spoiled prince who reads too many books. I will not be a pawn in a game played by children who think a hundred years is a long time."
He loomed over Rhaegar, a mountain of shadow and regret. The prince, to his credit, stood his ground, his hand still resting on his sword hilt, his indigo eyes wide but unwavering. He was brave, Thor would give him that. But bravery, in his experience, was often just a prettier word for foolishness.
"You speak to me of prophecies," Thor sneered, the word tasting like poison. "Let me tell you of prophecies, little prince. I have heard them whispered by the Norns themselves, their words weaving the fate of gods and realms. I heard the prophecy of my own glorious reign. I heard the prophecy of Ragnarok, the end of my world, which I was destined to prevent."
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a harsh, intimate whisper that was more terrifying than his thunderous rage. "And I saw that prophecy come to pass. I saw my home burn. I saw my people slaughtered. I held the dust of half a universe in my hands. Prophecy is a lie whispered by a cruel and mocking fate. It is a beautiful, gilded cage, and you, Prince Rhaegar, are rattling its bars, begging to be let inside."
Rhaegar's carefully maintained composure finally began to crack. He had expected denial, anger, perhaps even a test of his own worth. He had not expected this lecture, this sermon of despair from a being who spoke of the end of worlds as a personal memory.
"It is not a cage," Rhaegar insisted, his voice tight. "It is a duty. A responsibility to the future."
"Duty?" Thor laughed, a bitter, barking sound that held no humour. "I knew a man who spoke of duty. My brother. He was driven by a glorious purpose, a destiny to rule. His duty saw him try to enslave a world and led to his death in the arms of a monster." He jabbed a thick finger towards Rhaegar's chest, stopping just short of touching him. "Your duty will see you covered in the blood of those you love. Your responsibility will be a crown of ashes. You will chase this song of yours, this promised prince, and you will find only a pyre at the end of it. A pyre of your own making."
Every word was a hammer blow, striking at the very core of Rhaegar's beliefs. He had lived his life by the light of these prophecies, they were the stars he navigated by. To hear them dismissed so utterly, so contemptuously, by a being who radiated an ancient and undeniable power, was to be cast adrift in a black, starless sea.
"You do not understand," Rhaegar said, his voice pleading now. "This darkness… if we do not face it, it will consume everything."
"There is always a darkness," Thor said, his voice flat and weary. He straightened up, the intense, dangerous energy receding, replaced once again by that profound, oceanic sorrow. "And there is always a fool who thinks he is the only one who can stand against it. You believe you are the hero of this story, don't you? You believe you are the one chosen to save the world."
He looked at Rhaegar, and his gaze was filled with a pity that was more insulting than any anger. "I have stood with heroes, little prince. I have fought beside men and women who held the fate of all reality in their hands. And I can tell you this. The surest sign that you are not the hero is when you are the only one who thinks you are." He shook his head slowly. "You will break your kingdom, your family, and yourself chasing a shadow. And for what? For a line in a dusty scroll? For a madwoman's whisper in the woods?"
Thor turned away, walking back to the rickety table. He picked up the wooden bird, his great, calloused hand surprisingly gentle. "Go home, Prince of Dragonstone. Play with your harp. Write your sad songs. Love your wife and your children. That is the only prophecy that matters. The rest is smoke and lies."
He had dismissed him. After eviscerating the prince's entire worldview, he had dismissed him like a pageboy.
Rhaegar stood frozen for a moment, his mind reeling. The god had not threatened him. He had not tested him. He had simply… peeled him open, laid his soul bare, and shown him the rot at its core. He felt a surge of princely indignation, a hot flush of anger at being spoken to in such a manner. But it was quickly extinguished by the cold, chilling truth in the god's words. He had seen the warning in Thor's eyes, the conviction of a man who was not predicting the future, but remembering it.
He took a step back, then another. He had come here seeking an ally, a weapon, a key. He had found a mirror, and he did not like the reflection. "You are wrong," he whispered, the words lacking any real conviction.
Thor did not turn. "I hope that I am," he said, his voice filled with an infinite weariness. "Now get out of my room."
The command was not shouted. It was spoken with a quiet finality, but it carried an authority that brooked no argument. It was the voice of a king who had commanded armies and gods, a voice that expected to be obeyed. Rhaegar felt an invisible pressure, a psychic shove that was more compelling than any physical force. He found himself backing out of the room, his body responding to a will far stronger than his own.
He stumbled down the stairs and out of the tavern, pushing past the shocked and silent vigil keepers. He did not look back. He fled into the alleys of Flea Bottom, his mind a chaotic storm. The god's words echoed in his head. A pyre of your own making. You will break your kingdom.
But as he ran, another thought began to form, a desperate, defiant rationalization. The god was wrong. He had to be. He was a broken being, lost in his own grief. He couldn't see the truth. The prophecy was real. His duty was real. But the god's warning… it had changed something. It had instilled a new urgency, a new desperation in his quest. He had been moving too slowly, too cautiously. The god's talk of breaking his kingdom… perhaps that was the key. Perhaps the old order had to be broken to make way for the new.
His thoughts turned to Lyanna Stark. The wild, beautiful wolf-maid of the North. He had seen her at the last tourney, had felt a connection he could not explain. She was a part of it, he knew. The song of ice and fire. He had planned to meet her, to speak with her at the great tourney his friend Walter Whent was planning at Harrenhal. Now, that felt too far away. The god's rebuke had lit a fire under him. He had to act. He had to secure the pieces of the prophecy before it was too late.
The god had tried to warn him off the path of destiny. But in his desperate, tragic arrogance, Rhaegar Targaryen had interpreted the warning as a sign to run down that same path even faster. He left King's Landing that night, a man more convinced than ever of his own tragic importance, his mind now racing with plans for a wolf-maid and a tourney, plans that would, just as the grieving god had predicted, set his kingdom on fire.
Jaime Lannister watched the Prince of Dragonstone flee into the night. He had seen the confrontation through the window, had seen the god stand and Thor's shadow engulf his prince. He had seen Rhaegar stumble out of the tavern, his face pale as death, his expression one of a man who had stared into the abyss.
He remained in the shadows, his heart a cold, hard knot in his chest. His prince, the man he and half the realm looked to as the only hope to succeed the Mad King, had sought out the most powerful being in the world and had been sent running with his tail between his legs.
Jaime felt a strange, bitter sense of vindication. He despised the sycophants and schemers of the court, the lords who played their game of thrones with the lives of common men. Rhaegar, for all his nobility and honour, was still one of them. He played a loftier game, a game of prophecy and destiny, but it was a game nonetheless. And the god… the god was having none of it. He was a force that simply refused to play. He was a rejection of their entire world, of their titles and their ambitions and their pathetic little squabbles.
He watched as Rhaegar, his sellsword disguise a mockery of his princely bearing, slipped out of the city gates. The Prince was gone. The hope of the realm was gone. And Jaime was left to guard the madman who had started it all.
He walked back towards the Red Keep, the weight of his white cloak heavier than ever before. He had sworn an oath to protect the King. A King who burned men alive. A King who had just been publicly humiliated by a god and had shattered because of it. A King whose own son and heir was now sneaking around the city, conspiring with forces beyond mortal comprehension.
What was his duty? What was his honour? Was it to stand by and watch the realm burn, either by his king's fire or his prince's folly? The god's words, though he had not heard them, seemed to hang in the very air. Prophecy is a cage. Was his oath not a cage as well? A beautiful, gilded cage of white enamel scales and golden spurs that trapped him in a life of servitude to a monster.
He reached his post outside the King's chambers. The mad shrieking had subsided, replaced by a low, unsettling crooning. Jaime stood at attention, his face once again a mask of perfect, handsome indifference. But something inside him had shifted. The first crack had appeared in the gilded cage.
He had observed two kings that night. One, a prince of dragons, obsessed with the future, who had been sent fleeing in terror. The other, a god of thunder, drowning in his past, who had commanded the prince's retreat without lifting a finger. One was a slave to destiny, the other a prisoner of it. And Jaime Lannister, for the first time in his young, gilded life, began to wonder if there was a third option. Not to follow, not to obey, but to choose.
He did not know what that choice would be. But as he stood there, guarding the madness of the present, he thought of the god's weary, absolute power and his prince's desperate, tragic conviction. He thought of the coming storm. And for the first time, he considered the possibility of becoming a kingslayer. The thought was a violation, a blasphemy against everything he had been taught. But it was also, terrifyingly, the first truly free thought he had ever had. And it would not be his last. The god's rebuke of the prince had done more than set a prophecy in motion; it had planted a seed of rebellion in the heart of the King's own guard.