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GOT Chapter 33: It Was the Bastard All Along!
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 05:20:54 +0000 UTCJaime hadn’t even had time to react before realizing the situation had already spiraled out of control—Cersei had made sure of that.
It all began after Joffrey had been cleaned up by the servants and thoroughly examined by the quickly summoned maester. The diagnosis was clear: aside from being badly shaken, there were no serious injuries.
The boy was prescribed a few doses of calming draughts and advised to rest for several days.
After his hot bath, Joffrey had been bundled up and sent to rest in the Queen’s quarters.
But the moment he saw his mother, it was as if he finally snapped back to reality—and immediately broke down in tears.
Before anyone could make sense of what was happening, Joffrey, bawling his eyes out, began to recount his ordeal at the Trident—his words stammering, embellished, soaked in sobs.
Those present—including Jaime, Tyrion, even Myrcella and Tommen—could only look on in stunned silence.
Not a single one of them believed what Joffrey was saying, no matter how vivid or heart-wrenching his performance was.
Even little Tommen Baratheon, only seven years old, wasn't buying it.
Because what Joffrey was claiming was so absurd, so wildly unbelievable, that it strained all reason.
In his version, Kal Stone wasn’t his savior—but a monster. A cruel devil. An evil sorcerer. The true culprit behind all the torment he had suffered.
And from there, everything unraveled.
No one believed his shrieking accusations—not even Jaime himself, who simply assumed the boy had been so traumatized by his near-death experience that he was now hallucinating.
But none of that mattered to one person.
His mother.
The Queen.
Cersei Lannister, who loved her son with a ferocity that bordered on madness.
The instant she heard Joffrey’s frantic accusations, her eyes turned bloodshot and wide with fury. Rage consumed her—swift and total.
Already panicked over her beloved son’s accident and overwhelmed by helpless wrath with no outlet, Cersei didn’t care whether Joffrey was lying.
Or rather, perhaps she did know.
But she had no intention of digging deeper into the truth.
And so, naturally—
Driven by a mother’s blind fury, Queen Cersei brushed past Jaime Lannister’s attempts to stop her. Ignored Tyrion’s calm, rational words—he had only come along to check on his nephew, after all.
Cersei stormed out of her chambers, dress hitched up, howling for guards and swearing she would personally see Kal Stone dead for his crimes.
She even took with her the two Kingsguard knights Robert had stationed to protect Joffrey in the aftermath.
Ser Meryn Trant and Ser Boros Blount did not resist.
Instead, they bowed low and placed hands to their chests.
“At your service, Your Grace.”
...
“Testing your patience? Heh…”
Cersei scoffed at Robert’s fury with a cold, mocking laugh, not even sparing a glance at the longsword he still had pressed to Jaime’s throat.
Instead, she turned sharply—her gaze venomous—as she locked eyes with the calm and composed Kal Stone.
She had no interest in dealing with Robert Baratheon. At this moment, her entire being was focused solely on Kal.
Her glare, thick with hatred, bored into him.
If a look could become a blade, Kal would have already been flayed alive under her stare—his flesh sliced away, piece by piece, until he lay on the ground, wide-eyed in helpless, wailing despair.
And yet, she wasn’t the slightest bit concerned about the sword in Robert’s hand. On the contrary, she simply stepped past him, ignoring the standoff entirely, and made her way straight toward Kal.
Then Robert heard her speak—her voice cold and flat:
“Robert, do you know how Joffrey ended up in the river?”
Cersei’s lips curled in a frostbitten smirk. Though her eyes stayed locked on Kal, the words were clearly aimed at the King behind her.
Her question sent a ripple through the gathered crowd. Not just Robert Baratheon, but nearly everyone present felt a subtle chill prick at their spine.
No one noticed that Jaime’s expression had turned even darker.
“Cersei, listen—” Jaime began, face tense, clearly trying to intervene.
But Cersei had no intention of giving him that chance. She cut him off without hesitation and raised her voice: “Do you even realize that your son—the heir to your kingdom—was nearly killed by this lowborn, malicious bastard?!”
“And what did you do?!”
“You knighted him. You paraded him around as a hero!!”
Without waiting for a reply, she answered her own question, her voice rising to a full-throated shriek.
It was a searing accusation—unfiltered and merciless—hurled straight at Kal.
The noisy murmur of the gathering died instantly at her words.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, and shadows spread across the land.
Flames from the bonfires roared into the darkness, casting a flickering crimson glow across Cersei Lannister’s twisted, contorted face—bathed in firelight, eerie and unearthly.
The wind stirred, and the flames crackled violently.
A droplet of fat hissed as it dripped into the coals, rising in a puff of smoke.
But the heat of the fire did nothing to warm the hearts around it. If anything, the air grew colder.
No one spoke.
Yet every eye was wide with shock—fixed on Kal Stone and the Queen who had just launched such a brutal accusation.
A chill crept over the onlookers, tingling down their spines.
And as the seconds dragged on and Cersei’s words sank in, people began to truly grasp what she had just said.
Gasps followed. The collective intake of breath was audible.
Even Robert, who had moments earlier seethed at Cersei’s defiance, faltered.
Her shrill indictment left him stunned.
Already a few drinks deep, his muddled thoughts now stumbled and crashed, unable to process what he had just heard.
“Cersei, that’s not how it happened!”
Jaime Lannister’s face was dark and heavy, like a storm about to break.
He could see the mood of the crowd shifting, stirred by Cersei’s venomous accusations against Kal Stone. Instinctively, his gaze flicked to Kal—who now stood there wide-eyed, seemingly stunned, as if genuinely caught off guard by the Queen’s words.
Jaime was still trying. Still making a last-ditch effort to prevent the lie from taking root.
He knew exactly what Cersei was trying to do. She had told him as much just days ago.
But he hadn’t agreed. Hadn’t wanted any part of it.
Especially not like this—not with such a vile, baseless attack.
And certainly not against the man who had saved their child’s life.
How could he reconcile that in his heart?
But Cersei—Cersei wasn’t listening.
She had long since crossed into madness.
And when Robert heard Jaime attempting to calm her down, his frown deepened even further.
Something didn’t sit right. He could feel it in his gut.
But before he had time to unravel the confusion, Cersei barreled ahead, utterly unrelenting.
Her eyes—bloodshot and burning—remained locked on Kal. Her bared teeth gleamed under the firelight. The way she stared at him, she might’ve swallowed him whole and drank his blood without a second thought.
Then, with a violent flick of her hand, she raised a trembling finger—drained of color from how tightly she’d been clenching it—and jabbed it toward Kal’s face.
The venom in her words was almost tangible.
“This filthy wretch—this is the one you chose to knight?!”
“Heh… Robert, let me tell you something: a bastard will always be a bastard! Nothing more than a maggot crawling through dung!”
“From the moment he was born, his bones and blood were made of greed, deceit, and malice!”
She had shouted it all in one furious breath, and only now did she stop to take in air.
But the fire in her heart didn’t cool. On the contrary—it blazed even hotter, fueled by the poison she’d just spilled.
She believed every word.
And then she turned suddenly, eyes wild, her face twisted in hatred—locking on Robert Baratheon, who now stood dazed, clearly shaken by the sheer force of her tirade.
Cersei’s shrill voice rose again, cutting through the night like a blade: “And now this lowborn bastard of yours—this filth—he’s trying to kill Joffrey in his own twisted way!”
“He’ll torture him where no one can see! Then spin lies to deceive everyone, dragging their reason into the illusion he’s crafted!”
“And through repeated deceit and manipulation, he’ll grind away their vigilance—”
“Until at last, he’ll kill Joffrey. Then Tommen. Then Myrcella. And take their place!”
“…”
“…”
Cersei unleashed the entire tirade in one breath—harsh, terrifying, and full of fire.
Though her voice finally fell silent, her accusations still echoed in the minds of everyone present, lingering like a curse.
The night air had turned cold, a sharp wind rising as dusk settled over the gathering. The only sound left was the crackle of firewood as coals burned and popped in the hearths.
But to those gathered, it felt as if the entire world had gone utterly silent.
They stared blankly at Queen Cersei, still hearing her words reverberating in their ears—those searing accusations against the newly knighted man.
Her words sounded so certain, so convincing, that some began to doubt what they thought they knew.
Though most were still caught in confusion and shock, uncertainty had already taken root.
Instinctively, they glanced at each other, hoping to find some sign on another’s face that they hadn’t misheard—hadn’t imagined it.
Had they truly just heard what they thought they had?
Kal Stone—a bastard of Robert Baratheon?
And not just that. The Queen had accused him of plotting to kill the King’s son—the heir to the Iron Throne?!
What kind of twisted tale had they just been dropped into?
The whole thing was so surreal that many began to wonder if they’d simply had too much to drink—if this was all just some strange dream.
Then, just as the silence became absolute—
A voice broke through. A little breathless, but calm and clear, cutting the tension like a dagger through fog: “If the Seven truly have eyes, then I imagine they must’ve blinked at the exact moment they made me.”
“So… can someone spare a little pity for a poor dwarf?”
“At the very least—show a little extra patience when he’s trying to walk across a crowded room?”
