Tysha woke to sunlight slanting across her face in warm, golden bars. For several heartbeats she simply lay there, blinking at a ceiling she didn’t recognize, her mind adrift in the soft, weightless haze that follows a deep sleep. The bed beneath her was impossibly soft, nothing like the rough wool blankets and packed straw of home.
She blinked again. Above her were not the rough-hewn timber beams of her father's cottage, but smooth, pale stone carved with delicate spirals.
Then the memory of yesterday struck her in sharp, jagged fragments, and she bolted upright.
The road. The trees. Rough hands tearing at her dress, and laughter twisted into something animalistic. She could still see the bandits closing in, could still feel the rancid breath of the man with the cudgel pressing against her cheek. The world spun. The carved ceiling and tall windows blurred into a nauseating smear.
The road, she thought, her breath catching. The men. The dwarf and his golden brother.
The dwarf. Tyrion Lannister.
Tysha's breath caught in her throat. She pressed her palms flat against the bed on either side of her, feeling the softness give beneath her weight, and she forced herself to breathe as her father had taught her when she had nightmares: in through the nose, out through the mouth.
Gradually, the room steadied, and the blur resolved itself into windows, walls, and unfamiliar furniture.
She was in Casterly Rock.
The weight of the name settled over her, pressing her deeper into the bed.
Casterly Rock. The fortress carved from a mountain, the seat of House Lannister, spoken of by her father with the same awe reserved for the Seven. Yet here she lay, a crofter's daughter from Sarsfield, saved by Tywin Lannister’s sons.
She took in the vast chamber: stone arches soaring overhead, walls hung with crimson-and-gold tapestries depicting hunts and battles, three arched windows framing the endless blue of the Sunset Sea. The bed was a behemoth of carved oak, its four posts topped with lion-head finials beneath a canopy of cloth-of-gold, the sheets made of the finest linen embroidered with gold thread. A polished writing desk held a silver inkwell and parchment tied with crimson silk, flanked by a velvet-upholstered chair. A dark-wood wardrobe carved with dancing lions and a marble washstand completed the room.
Tysha stared, her breath caught. Her father had plowed fields for twenty years without ever owning a single golden dragon; the furniture in this room alone, if sold, could feed her family for years.
She swung her legs over the side and set her bare feet on the polished marble floor. The shift fell loose around her calves, and she realized someone had removed her torn, dirt-stained dress and dressed her in this clean garment. The thought of unknown hands on her while she lay unconscious sent a spike of fear through her, but she could see that her cuts and bruises had been gently cleaned and oiled with a fragrant honey-herb salve.
She crossed the room to one of the windows and pressed her palm against the cool glass. Far below, the sea crashed against the base of the mountain in a muffled, rhythmic thunder.
I am alive, she reminded herself, pressing her forehead to the window pane. She breathed deeply until the trembling in her hands finally stopped.
Then, a sharp knock fractured the silence.
Tysha’s heart lurched into her throat. Her hand flew to clutch the neck of her tunic as the heavy oak door began to swing inward.
A middle-aged woman entered, dressed in simple grey wool with a linen cap pinned over her neatly bound hair. Her hands were red and work-rough as she set down a tray bearing a loaf of bread still steaming from the oven. Behind her followed two younger girls, their faces flushed with effort as they carried a copper tub between them.
Tysha froze. Her hand tightened on the neckline of her tunic, and she rushed forward, her bare feet slapping against the warm marble as the words tumbled out in a breathless stammer.
"Oh, please, you don't have to—I can—please, I'll do it myself, I don't want to trouble—"
The woman stopped. She set the tray on the writing desk and turned to face Tysha with an expression that looked carved from stone. Her mouth was a thin, bloodless line, her eyes flat and assessing. The disapproval radiating from her was palpable.
"Lord Tyrion has commanded me to bring you breakfast and a change of clothes," the woman said, her voice clipped and stern.
She looked Tysha up and down, a slow, comprehensive survey that took in the borrowed linen shift, the bare feet, the dirt still clinging to the edges of her nails, and the bruise darkening on her collarbone. The woman's nostrils flared slightly, her mouth curling into something dangerously close to a sneer.
Tysha shrank beneath the scrutiny. Her shoulders curled inward, her chin dropped toward her chest, and she felt the sudden heat of a blush climbing her throat to burn across her cheeks. The woman's gaze made her acutely, painfully aware of exactly what she was: a smallfolk girl, unwashed and unkempt, standing barefoot in a castle where she had no right to be.
"A bath will be drawn for you," the woman continued, ignoring Tysha's discomfort. She turned to the two younger girls, who had set the copper tub in the center of the room and stood waiting with their hands clasped. "Hot water. Now. And fetch the lavender oil from the third shelf."
The girls curtsied and hurried from the room, their footsteps fading down the corridor.
"Lord Tyrion has also instructed me to inform you," the woman said, turning back to Tysha "that he will come to see you in two hours."
Tysha opened her mouth to thank her, to apologize, to say anything that might soften the woman's rigid disapproval, but the words died before they reached her tongue. The woman's face offered no crack in the armor of her professionalism. Giving a small, tight nod instead, Tysha followed the servant's silent cue toward the writing desk where the tray had been set.
The bread was freshly baked. She could feel its warmth right through the linen cloth that covered the tray. Beside it sat a bowl of thick, golden soup, flecked with green herbs and tender chunks of meat. When the rich, savory scent hit her, her mouth immediately began to water. The smell suddenly reminded her that she hadn’t eaten since the previous morning, when she had finished the last of the hard cheese and bread her father had packed for her journey.
Perching on the edge of the velvet-upholstered chair, she tore a piece of bread from the loaf. The crust crackled beneath her fingers, the inside pulling away warm and soft. She dipped it deep into the bowl and brought it to her mouth.
The bread was still warm from the oven, the crust crisp and golden, the inside soft and yielding, and the soup was rich with butter and herbs. Before she had even finished chewing, a second bite followed the first, and the third followed the second, and within moments she was tearing off great chunks of bread, dipping and eating with a speed and urgency that would have shamed her if she had been capable of shame in that moment
From the corner of the room, the two servant girls had returned with steaming buckets, filling a copper tub with water that carried the scent of lavender. All the while, the older woman watched her eat. Her mouth had tightened into a severe line, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
Tysha became aware of the scrutiny mid-bite. With the bread halfway to her mouth and a drop of soup trailing from her lip, she froze. The flush that had been fading from her cheeks returned with a vengeance, spreading down her neck in a wave of scarlet heat. She set the bread back onto the tray with shaking hands and wiped her mouth with the back of her wrist, suddenly acutely conscious of the grease on her chin, the crumbs on her clothes, and the animal urgency with which she had been devouring the food.
"My apologies," she whispered, her voice thin and scraped. "I didn't—I haven't eaten since yesterday. I'm sorry."
The woman regarded her for a long moment. Uncrossing her arms, she smoothed the front of her grey wool dress with both hands.
"I know not what ditch you crawled out of, girl," the woman said, her voice carrying that same flat, measured cadence, "but it is not my place to question the young lord's whims. Lord Tyrion has seen fit to show you charity, for whatever reason, and I would urge you to remember that."
She turned toward the corner of the room. "Your bath is drawn. Wash yourself."
She gestured toward the copper tub, where the water steamed gently in the morning light, its surface scattered with lavender petals that turned the air sweet and heavy.
"A fresh change of clothes is hanging by the door," the woman added.
Without waiting for a response, she turned and swept from the room, her grey skirts brushing the marble floor with a soft, whispering hiss. The heavy door closed behind her with a solid, final click, and Tysha was alone.
The door clicked shut, and the room was quiet. Tysha sat with her hands in her lap and looked at nothing in particular while trying to come to terms with her situation.
She rose from the chair and crossed the room on bare feet, the marble cool and smooth beneath her soles. The copper tub stood in the corner, its surface still steaming, the lavender petals floating in lazy circles on the water's skin. She reached out and dipped a single finger into the warmth.
The heat bloomed up through her fingertip, through her knuckles, into her wrist. Bathing was a luxury that few smallfolk could afford. In Sarsfield, a bath meant a wooden bucket hauled from the well, water warmed over the hearth in a single iron pot, and a cloth scrubbed hastily across skin still shivering in the cold air of the cottage.
For a long moment she stood there with her eyes closed, and she asked the Seven for guidance.
Father above, who judges us all, she prayed silently, guide me. I am lost in a place I do not understand, among people who look at me and see dirt. The Mother, who shelters the innocent, protect me. The Maiden, who keeps the young and pure, watch over me. The Warrior, give me strength. The Smith, mend what is broken. The Crone, light my way. The Stranger, stay your hand. I am alone, and I am afraid, and I do not know what is expected of me here.
She wished, with a sudden and aching intensity, that she could ask her father what to do. Right now, he would be in the fields. She could see it with perfect clarity, the stoop of his shoulders beneath the morning sun, the rhythmic swing of the scythe through the barley, the sweat darkening the back of his shirt between his shoulder blades. He would work until midday without pause, his hands raw and calloused, his thoughts on the harvest and the weather and whether the barley would fetch a decent price in Lannisport this year. He would not know she was here. He would not know she had been set upon, or rescued, or brought to a castle carved from a mountain and bathed in water scented with flowers that grew in gardens he had never seen. There was no raven that could carry word to a crofter's field, no messenger who would ride to Sarfield.
Finally, she pulled the linen shift over her head and let it fall to the floor. She then folded her arms across her chest, glanced once at the closed door, and stepped into the tub.
The water rose around her in a slow, enveloping warmth, and she sank into it until it reached her collarbone. The heat seeped into her muscles and her bones and she sat there in the silence of the enormous room with her eyes closed and her dark hair floating on the surface of the water, and for a brief moment she let her thoughts drift. __________________________
Tyrion PoV
Tyrion stood before a cask the size of a small cottage, drawing a wooden cup from the tap. The mead poured in a golden stream, catching the light of the glowing orbs hung along the walls.
He brought the cup to his lips and sipped. Closing his eyes, he savored the familiar warmth spreading through his chest, followed by a sharp clarity that settled into his mind.
"Mmm," he said, smacking his lips. "If I do say so myself, that's rather good."
From the pocket of his apron he withdrew a small notebook bound in supple leather, its pages filled with his cramped, precise handwriting - formulas, observations, notes. He flipped to a fresh page, plucked a stub of charcoal from behind his ear, and began to write.
"The seventh batch of the autumn harvest shows remarkable improvement in clarity," he muttered to himself. "The addition of crushed moonstone during the second fermentation has eliminated the bitter undertone that plagued the sixth batch. The restorative properties appear to have intensified as well."
He tapped the charcoal against the page, considering. Not bad, he decided, for an idle morning's work.
Above him, an intricate network of copper piping wound across the ceiling, feeding into dozens of casks arranged in concentric rings around the central chamber. Each cask bore a neat label: Summer Stout, Golden Restorative, Dwarven Fire-Ale, Honeyed Clarity. The filtration system was his own design, charcoal filters layered with crushed quartz and thin sheets of mithril, each stage refining the brew to achieve supernatural purity.
The knowledge Bugman's Legacy had handed him was a library of ancient recipes and techniques, perfected over generations by men who'd devoted their lives to getting drunk properly. Brewing lore hummed in his blood, an instinct that bordered on prescience, telling him the exact moment a batch peaked, letting him catch a contaminant by smell alone and blend ingredients by feel rather than by measure.
It was, he privately thought, his favourite gift from the grimoire so far.
He traced a rune of preservation and enhancement on the page that glowed briefly before fading into the parchment.
Then a bell rang loudly, a single chime that reverberated through the cavern with a purity that cut through the low hum of the brewery. From a recess in the stone wall, a tiny metal cuckoo emerged on a brass spring, its wings beating in a frantic mechanical flutter as it circled the chamber once, twice, three times, its beak opening and closing in silent, rhythmic clicks before it vanished back into its alcove.
Tyrion grinned. "Ah," he said to the empty air. "It's time."
He closed his notebook with a snap and tucked it back into his pocket. The cup he set on a nearby table, next to a half-finished plate of bread and cheese he'd been picking at between notes. He brushed the crumbs from his beard and turned, and the cavern came into full view.
It was vast, a cathedral of stone carved from the heart of the mountain through years of patient work. The ceiling arched high above, lost in shadow, while the walls curved outward in a gentle arc that gave the space the feeling of a great, subterranean amphitheater. The floor was smooth, polished to a mirror shine.
At the far end, dominating the cavern like a sleeping dragon, stood the forge. It was enormous, three times the size of any smithy in Lannisport, built of black stone and reinforced with bands of steel that Tyrion had forged himself. The heart of the forge glowed with a deep, sullen red, fed by a channel that ran from the depths of the earth, carrying magma from the volcanic veins beneath Planetos. The heat was intense, producing a dry, oppressive warmth that made the air shimmer and dance.
The walls surrounding the forge were lined with weapons and armor, each piece hanging in its place like a gallery of lethal art. Swords of every description: longswords, shortswords, bastard swords caught the forge-light and threw it back in sharp, glittering reflections. Axes with blades so keen they could split a hair lengthwise. Warhammers with heads of black steel. Spears and pikes and daggers beyond counting. Beside them stood full suits of plate that gleamed with the warm, silvery luster of mithril.
Tyrion surveyed his work with a grin. The workshop had been his sanctuary and his obsession, hollowed out over years of patient, relentless work with his stone-sense and the earth-shaping gifts the grimoire had given him. The walls were smooth and lined with iron sconces holding torches that burned with a steady, smokeless flame, another small magic, a trick of alchemy he'd developed to keep the soot from building up in his underground workshops.
He crossed to the center of the floor, where a circle of inlaid stone, slightly larger than a dinner plate, lay inscribed within the ground.
Tyrion tapped his right foot twice against the circle. The response was immediate: the stone beneath him trembled, and a circular platform smoothly detached itself from the ground and carried him upwards toward the ceiling. As he neared the top, the ceiling opened above him in a perfect cylinder that widened just enough to accommodate his passage. He never tired of this part, it was like riding his own personal elevator.
Powered by his earth manipulation, this pseudo-elevator moved through a private passage he had carved through the mountain's heart, connecting his subterranean workshop to his personal chambers on the upper levels.
He passed through strata of limestone and granite, through veins of copper that glowed dull red in the darkness, through pockets of quartz that caught the light of the orbs he had embedded in the shaft walls and threw it back in fractured rainbows. The temperature shifted as he rose, transitioning from the volcanic heat of the deep forge to the cool, dry air of the upper mountain.
The elevator emerged through the floor of his personal chambers with a soft, pneumatic hiss, and the stone platform dissolved into the rock under his command. The walls of the shaft sealed themselves behind him, the seam vanishing until the floor was once again an unbroken expanse of polished stone.
Tyrion stepped off the platform and stretched, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. The journey had taken perhaps four minutes.
His chambers were spacious by any standard, though modest for a son of Tywin Lannister. The sitting room was furnished with a deep leather armchair, custom-built to his proportions, a writing desk of dark oak, and shelves that groaned beneath the weight of books, histories, philosophies, treatises on metallurgy and engineering, volumes of Valyrian poetry and Rhoynish architecture, and notebooks filled with his own insights.
Tyrion crossed to the armchair and dropped into it with a grunt of satisfaction, letting his head fall back against the headrest as he closed his eyes.
It had been a fairly eventful last few years. The drainage system, the brewery, the forge expansions, the endless commissions from lords and ladies who had fallen in love with his work, and of course,, his endless experiments.
From the fragmented recollections he possessed of the future, the Greyjoy Rebellion was just around the corner. Balon Greyjoy would crown himself king, the Iron Fleet would burn Lannisport, and Robert Baratheon would assemble a fleet to crush the Ironborn beneath the weight of seven kingdoms united against one.
And what of it? Tyrion thought, cracking one eye open to stare at the ceiling. I'm not a general. I'm not a king. Though it would be rather amusing to participate, if only to spite Tywin by parading himself in front of the Lords of Westeros.
Besides, he had already irrevocably changed the future by saving Elia and her children. The ripple effects of that single act were still propagating through the timeline like a stone dropped into a pond, and he had no way of predicting where the waves would break. The Targaryen dynasty was not entirely extinguished. Aegon and Rhaenys lived, hidden somewhere in Dorne under Doran Martell's protection, and according to rumours, Rhaella Targaryen had been seen in Essos.
Frankly, he had little to worry about. Not with the various gifts the grimoire had bestowed upon him. He had even empowered Sandor Clegane far beyond the man's own comprehension; the various draughts and potions Tyrion had forced him to ingest had turned his already considerable strength into something approaching superhuman. Still, Tyrion made it a point to wipe the floor with him in training whenever he could, just to keep the Hound’s ego in check.
Tyrion sat up, swung his legs off the armchair, and stretched.
Right. Tysha. The girl is waiting.
He crossed to the wardrobe and pulled out a tunic of dark crimson linen, a pair of leather breeches tailored to his proportions, and a belt of tooled leather studded with brass rivets. He dressed quickly while humming softly.
Once his tunic was laced and his breeches fastened, he moved over to the washstand and caught sight of himself in the polished silver mirror hanging above it. At fifteen, the softness of childhood had been burned away by five years of relentless labor. His eyes carried a sharp, restless intelligence that often made people uncomfortable. His nose was broad and flattened, his brow heavy, and it was all perfectly framed by his glorious beard.
He reached for the small glass jar of beard oil that sat on the washstand — his own formulation. He poured a measure into his palm and worked it through the golden mane with his fingers, combing the braids until they hung in neat, oiled plaits.
The beard had sprouted two years ago, and its arrival had filled him with a joy that had to be an echo of his transplanted dwarven genetics. A genetically encoded instinct that instilled pride in one's facial hair.
He ran his fingers through his beard one last time and grinned at his reflection.
You handsome devil.
Turning from the mirror, he crossed to the door. As he walked, his mind turned back to Tysha.
I'll just see how it goes, he decided. That's always worked before. Mostly.
He stepped out into the corridor and began the walk toward the guest quarters.
After all, he thought, a grin spreading across his face, what's the worst that could happen?
____________________________________________
Tysha sat on the edge of the bed, her hands pressed flat against the brown wool of her new dress, smoothing the fabric over and over in a nervous, rhythmic motion. Down her thighs and up again. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird as she waited for Lord Tyrion to arrive.
Without warning, the heavy door swung open. Tysha leapt to her feet with a startled gasp. The door banged against the stone wall and rebounded, revealing Tyrion Lannister framed in the doorway, one hand on the latch and the other resting casually on his hip.
He was exactly as she remembered him from the road, extremely short, broad-shouldered, and boasting a glorious golden beard braided and oiled to gleaming perfection. His eyes danced with a restless, bright energy. But here in the morning light, free from the terror of the highway, she truly saw him for the first time, and the realization made her breath catch.
He was quite handsome.
The thought arrived unbidden. She pushed it down forcefully, but it refused to stay buried.
"Good morning, my dear," Tyrion boomed, his voice filling the chamber with a rich, resonant warmth. His eyes were twinkling, the green one catching the light and throwing it back in a flash of emerald fire. "I trust you had a comfortable night? The beds here are rather indulgent, I'm afraid. I've tried to have them replaced with something more sensible, but the servants refuse to listen to reason."
Tysha stood frozen for a moment, her mouth half-open, her hands still pressed against the front of her dress. Then the words registered, and she dipped into a deep, clumsy curtsy.
"Yes, milord Tyrion," she said, her voice breathless. "The bed was — it was very comfortable. Thank you. Thank you for everything. The food, and the bath, and the dress, and —"
"Think nothing of it," Tyrion said, waving a dismissive hand as he strode into the room.
"Casterly Rock has rooms to spare and food to waste, and I find that hospitality costs me nothing but the effort of asking for it, which I am more than happy to expend." He stopped before her and looked up, a full head and a half below her eye level, and his grin widened. "You look well rested. The color has returned to your cheeks. That's good. I was concerned the shock might linger."
His gaze dropped to her collarbone, where the bruise from the brigand's grip had darkened overnight into a mottled purple-black bloom the size of an apple, and his expression cooled.
Ah," he said softly "I see the bruises haven't faded."
He unhooked a small glass vial from his belt. The liquid inside caught the morning light and glowed with a soft, golden luminescence, as though he had somehow captured a piece of the sun and sealed it in glass. He held it out to her between his thumb and forefinger, turning it so the light played through the amber liquid.
"A small swig of this should do the trick," he said, and the smile returned, bright and easy. "It's one of my own concoctions."
Tysha looked at the vial, then at his face, and the wariness in her eyes was plain. She had been given strange things by strange men before the village healer had offered her a draught for her father's cough that made him cough blood for a fortnight. But Tyrion's eyes held nothing but open, cheerful confidence.
She took the vial and had a small, cautious sip.
The liquid ran down her throat like honey, thick, golden, impossibly sweet and then it popped and crackled in her mouth, tiny effervescent bubbles bursting against her tongue with a sensation that was half pleasure and half surprise. She gasped, and the sound came out startled and involuntary, and she pressed her free hand to her mouth as the warmth spread outward from her throat through her chest and down into her limbs.
The ache in her collarbone faded. The stiffness in her shoulders unknotted. The soreness in her legs from three days of walking dissolved. Even the lingering exhaustion, the bone-deep weariness that had settled into her, lifted and was gone, replaced by a clean, bright energy that made her feel as though she had slept for a week and woken to a perfect spring morning.
"Gods," she whispered.
"Well, that's done the trick, I can see," Tyrion said, watching the color flood back into her face with evident satisfaction. He plucked the vial from her fingers and recorked it with a deft twist of his wrist.
He hooked the vial back to his belt and offered her his arm with the same courtly flourish he had used on the road, his grin widening until it threatened to split his face.
"Now come," he said. "Let me take you on a tour of Casterly Rock."
Tysha, after a moment's hesitation, slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. His arm was solid beneath the fine linen of his tunic, thick with muscle, and the warmth of his body radiated through the fabric.
"Where are we going, milord?" she asked as he led her toward the door.
"Everywhere," Tyrion said. "Casterly Rock is the greatest fortress in the Seven Kingdoms, carved from a mountain that has stood since the world was young, and I intend to show you every inch of it. We'll start with the Lion's Mouth and work our way up. The Golden Gallery, the Hall of Heroes, the Stone Garden — though I warn you, the weirwood in the Stone Garden is a miserable, stunted thing. I've tried to cheer it up with conversation, but it's remarkably unresponsive for a tree that has a face."
Tysha blinked. "You talk to the weirwood, milord?"
"I'm capable of conversing with anything, my dear. " He pushed the door open with his free hand and ushered her into the corridor beyond. "The Rock has been my home and my prison and my playground for fifteen years, and I know it better than anyone alive."
Tysha listened with her mouth slightly open. The words poured from Tyrion endlessly, each sentence tumbling into the next, each idea sparking three more, and she found herself carried along by the sheer momentum of his enthusiasm.
Casterly Rock was not a castle in the way Tysha had traditionally understood castles. It was not a structure built upon the land but rather carved from it. The mountain itself had been hollowed out, shaped, and transformed. The corridors were vast, their ceilings lost in shadow, their walls lined with tapestries that told the history of House Lannister - battles and hunts, coronations and weddings, lions tangled in scenes of glory and blood.
Tyrion led her through the Golden Gallery first.
The gallery lived up to its name. It was a long, vaulted hall that ran along the western face of the Rock, and every surface — walls, ceiling, floor, the massive columns that supported the arched roof — was gilded. Gold leaf covered the stone in sheets so thick and so meticulously applied that the room seemed to generate its own light, the afternoon sun streaming through the tall windows and bouncing off the gold, enhancing its luster. Between the columns stood pedestals of black marble, and on each pedestal rested treasures that made Tysha's head swim, jeweled cups, golden goblets encrusted with rubies and emeralds, crowns that had belonged to kings dead for centuries, swords with hilts of ivory and jade, and a chalice so large that it could have served as a washbasin, its rim set with diamonds that caught the light and scattered it across the ceiling like stars.
"It's —" Tysha began, but the word died in her throat. She had no vocabulary for what she was seeing.
"Obscene?" Tyrion offered. "Garish? A monument to the moral bankruptcy of inherited wealth?"
Tysha let out a strangled squawk at the casual disregard with which Tyrion described the wealth before her.
No wonder, she thought as she surveyed the wealth before her, everyone says the Lannisters are wealthier than the gods. The Seven themselves could not have assembled such a hoard. The gold alone in this single room could have fed every person in the westerlands for a generations, could have rebuilt every burned village from the Riverlands to the Reach, could have - she did not know what it could have done, because the scale of it exceeded her imagination.
They continued for another two hours without stopping. Tyrion led her through the Hall of Heroes, where the armour of dead Lannisters stood on iron stands like hollowed-out men, their breastplates dented and scarred from battles fought and lost centuries ago. He told her the stories behind each suit - Gerold the Great, who had held the Tooth against the Gardener kings for forty days and forty nights; Loreon the Lion, who had ordered the capture of a pride of actual lions and kept them in the Rock's dungeons; King Tommen Lannister, who infamously sailed to Valyria and never returned.
And through it all, she was spellbound.
Tyrion was a natural storyteller
He charted the bloody history of the westerlands, the brutal wars with the Reach and the Iron Islands, and the centuries of volatile marriages and betrayals that had shaped the realm. He jumped effortlessly from the mystical properties of Valyrian steel to the physical difference between a bastard sword and a longsword, before diving into the engineering principles of his new drainage system, the fermentation mechanics of his mead, and the migratory patterns of the seabirds nesting in the cliffs far below.
He spoke without pause or repetition, never once stumbling for a word, and always anchored his lectures with a dry, unexpected wit that Tysha invariably found herself laughing at.
He was, she realized, the smartest person she had ever met. And the funniest. And the two qualities were not separate but intertwined, each feeding the other, the intelligence giving the humor its edge, and the humor making the intelligence bearable. She had never encountered a mind that moved so fast or so freely.
They had walked for nearly three hours without stopping, and Tysha's legs were aching.
"Milord, please," she said. "I beg you. A rest. Just a moment."
Tyrion stopped mid-sentence. For a moment, his expression was one of genuine surprise, as though the concept of physical exhaustion was something that had never occurred to him.
Then he laughed. The sound filled the corridor, bouncing off the stone walls and coming back in overlapping echoes, and he unhooked the flask from his belt with a flourish.
"Of course," he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I forget that not everyone has my boundless reserves of energy. Most people find the Rock's endless corridors exhausting, and I've been dragging you through them for hours without mercy. My apologies, my dear. I get carried away."
He uncorked the flask and handed it to her. Tysha took it with hands that trembled from fatigue, and she drank deeply, feeling the mead's warmth spread through her chest and loosen the knots in her legs. Tyrion took the flask back and drank from it himself, his eyes fixed on the corridor ahead with a distant, contemplative expression.
They sat in silence for a moment, their backs against the cool stone wall, the flask passing between them.
Finally, Tyrion spoke first.
"I've arranged for you to visit your uncle," he said. "Harlan Tanner, on the Street of Looms in Lannisport. I sent a rider this morning. The man exists, I confirmed it through the guild records, and he's agreed to take you in. I've provided a small sum to cover your initial expenses. A cart will be waiting at the Lion's Mouth tomorrow morning, or whenever you're ready. You need only say the word."
"Thank you, milord," Tysha said, and her voice cracked on the last word. "I don't know how to —"
"You don't need to repay me," Tyrion said gently. "It was my duty."
They lapsed into silence again. The flask passed between them once more, and the mead did its work, smoothing the edges of the fatigue, filling the quiet with a comfortable, honeyed warmth.
Tyrion studied her from the corner of his eye. She was sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her dark hair falling across her face in a curtain that she kept pushing back with absent, nervous gestures. He had been watching her all morning, cataloguing her reactions, measuring her intelligence by the questions she asked and the observations she made. She had a quick mind and a razor-sharp wit that occasionally made its appearance once she became more relaxed.
It also didn't hurt that she was objectively very pretty, possessing striking blue eyes that contrasted beautifully with her dark hair. Baratheon blood somewhere down the line, perhaps, he mused.
"It is rare," Tyrion noted, breaking the quiet once more, "that a daughter of the smallfolk is as literate and well-read as you."
Tysha's head snapped toward him. A flicker of defensiveness crossed her face.
"I don't mean that as a slight," Tyrion added quickly. "Quite the opposite. Literacy among the smallfolk is vanishingly rare. When it does occur, it usually indicates either extraordinary parents or extraordinary determination. So which is it?”
Tysha looked at the ground, the silence stretching between them for a long moment."My father," Tysha finally said. "He was a Septon before he fell in love with my mother."
"He met her at the spring festival. She was a hedge knight’s daughter and she would often come to the sept to pray for rain. My father said she had the most beautiful voice he'd ever heard.”
Tyrion said nothing. He held the flask loosely in both hands, his eyes fixed on her face.
"He broke his vows for her," Tysha continued, lifting her chin with a fierce, quiet pride. "He chose her over the Faith. The septons stripped him of his robes and his position, so he became a crofter on her father's land. He told me it was the easiest decision he ever made, and he never regretted it. Not once. Not even when the winters were long, the harvests were thin, and the neighbors whispered."
She smiled faintly at the memory. "He taught me to read every night by candlelight after the farm work was done. He had a copy of The Seven-Pointed Star, the only book he was allowed to keep from his old life, and he taught me the letters from it. Later, he traded a whole lamb to a traveling merchant just for a copy of The Lives of the Four Kings, so we could read that together too. He said knowledge was the one thing the Faith couldn't take back from him, and he wouldn't let anyone take it from me."
She looked directly at Tyrion. "He used to say, 'A girl who can read is a girl who cannot be cheated. A girl who can write is a girl who can speak even when she is not present. Never let anyone tell you that learning is wasted on a woman, Tysha. Knowledge is the one thing no one can steal from you.'"Tyrion's eyes went distant for a moment.
"A septon who chose love over faith," he murmured softly. "'The Seven rule the heavens high, but love rules all beneath the sky.'
Tysha's eyes went wide with sudden recognition. "The Song of the Seven," she said softly. "The third verse. My father often hums it while he works in the fields."
Tyrion’s eyes flashed with genuine surprise.
"It is indeed," he said softly.
He looked thoughtfuly at her for a moment. "Entire maester's treatises have been written on the conflict between duty and desire. I would love to meet the man who had to make such a choice."
Tyrion looked down and swirled the flask, before taking a slow, deliberate sip.
"And your mother?" he asked gently.
"She died when I was four from the spring-sickness," Tysha said flatly.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." She said sharply, and then softened. "It was a long time ago. My father raised me after that. He did his best."
"He did more than his best," Tyrion insisted. "He raised a daughter who can read, who can think, who survived an attack by six armed men without breaking, and who has the wit to keep pace with the most insufferable dwarf in the Seven Kingdoms."
Tysha looked at him, and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks again. She opened her mouth to respond, but Tyrion was already speaking again.
"Tysha," he said warmly. "I would like to make you an offer."
"Your uncle," Tyrion continued, "Harlan Tanner. He's agreed to take you in, and I've arranged for your passage. But I want you to know that the offer comes with no guarantees. You've met the man twice. He may be kind, he may be cruel, he may simply be indifferent."
He set the flask down between them and folded his hands over his knees, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that held her gaze.
"If your stay with your uncle does not satisfy you," he said, "if the work is poor or the conditions are worse or the man himself proves to be something other than what you hope, then I would like to offer you a position under my employ."
Tysha's breath caught. Her hands, which had been resting on her knees, tightened into fists.
"An assistant," Tyrion said. "Of sorts. I run a forge, a brewery, and a workshop that produces more commissions than any three men could manage. I need someone to organize the correspondence, track the orders, manage the materials, handle the scheduling. Someone literate. Someone with a clear mind and steady hands who isn't afraid of hard work."
He paused, letting the words settle.
"The pay would be decent," he continued. "Not extravagant, but enough to live on comfortably, your own room, your own coin, your own life. You would answer to me, and to no one else. No one in this castle would have authority over you except by my leave."
Tysha stared at him. Her mouth had opened, and it remained open, caught between the impulse to speak and the inability to find the words. Her mind raced, tumbling through the implications with frantic disbelief.
A position. Under the employ of a Lannister. Coin of her own. A room of her own.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Milord, you've known me for less than a day. Why would you —"
Tyrion held up a hand, and the gesture was gentle but firm, cutting off the cascade of questions before they could overwhelm her.
"I know you're literate, which puts you ahead of more than half the dunderhead nobles in the westerlands. I know you have a quick mind, I've been testing it all morning, and it passed every examination I set, whether you realized I was testing you or not."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "And I know that anyone who can endure three hours of my rambling without attempting to throw themselves from a window has a patience and a fortitude that I value enormously."
"I —" she began, and her voice cracked. She swallowed, pressed her palms flat against her thighs, and tried again. "I don't know what to say, milord."
"Then say nothing," Tyrion said. He reached for the flask, uncorked it, and took a long, savoring pull. When he lowered it, his eyes were bright. "This is not a decision you need to make today. Go to your uncle. See what awaits you there. If it suits you, stay. If it does not, and I suspect, given what you've told me about your father and the life he chose for you, that you will not be content with weaving cloth in a shop on the Street of Looms for the rest of your days - then the offer stands."___________Sorry for the delay! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!