Jaime Lannister: Kingslayer.
A word every man and woman in Westeros spits at me, though many can't name the king I slayed.
I understand.
To them, I'm a symbol of everything they'll never have and a warning that'll never apply.
So they can loathe me from the safety of their small lives.
But when a dog goes mad, we put it down.
Why not a king?
I was never supposed to be on the Kingsguard.
Oh, as a boy, I dreamed of the white cloak like all boys.
But I was heir to Tywin Lannister, Hand of the King.
If he forbade the tides, the waves would cease.
Then I was fifteen, and my father was congratulating me on my new knighthood in the Red Keep.
I wonder if that was the last time he was proud of me.
That night, there was a knock on my door, and I'd opened it to find my sister Cersei
disguised as a simple serving girl.
I hadn't seen her since my father took her to court when she was twelve.
She had grown up.
As had I.
She told me that my father planned to marry me off to Lysa Tully.
But she could arrange for the king to raise me to the Kingsguard so I could stay in the
city with her.
All I had to do was agree.
I made the obvious objections.
Our family, our father, Casterly Rock.
Until she asked, "Is it a rock you want, or me?"
Come morning, she had my consent.
I would join the Kingsguard for her.
I would forswear my lands and title for her.
I would forsake our family for her.
Soon, a royal raven commanded my father to present me to the King during the Great Tourney
at Harrenhal to say my vows.
My father erupted in fury.
He could not object openly, but he resigned the Handship and returned to Casterly Rock,
taking Cersei with him.
Instead of being together, Cersei and I exchanged places.
Then, everything started to fall apart.
At Harrenhal, King Aerys made a great show of my investiture.
I knelt before him in gleaming armor and swore the oath of the Kingsguard.
Once Ser Gerold Hightower raised me up and put the white cloak on my shoulders, a roar
went up from the crowd.
I admit, despite my father's anger, I was happy.
And foolish.
That very night, Aerys soured, commanding me to return to the Red Keep to guard the
queen and little Prince Viserys.
Ser Gerold offered to take that duty himself so I might compete in the tourney, but Aerys
refused.
"He'll win no glory here," the king said.
"He's mine now, not Tywin's.
He'll serve as I see fit."
That was when I understood.
It was not my skill or valor that had won me this honor.
The Mad King had chosen me to spite my father and steal his heir.
I wanted to rip off the white cloak, but it was too late.
A Kingsguard serves for life.
So I upheld my oath, confined to the Red Keep where Varys could watch me and where the headsman
could find me if my father displeased the king.
I served at the king's pleasure as he burned Rickard Stark alive and strangled his son,
inciting the rebellion.
I defended the king's honor against courtiers as his generals lost battle after battle with
Robert.
I kept the king's secrets when his pyromancers hid caches of wildfire beneath King's Landing.
I gave the king counsel when my father's army was at the city gate, and Grand Maester Pycelle
lied that my father had come to save him.
Many forget that I also tried to defend the king from harm.
When the Lannister soldiers poured through the gates, it fell to me to hold the Red Keep
as the only Kingsguard in the city.
I knew we were lost and sent to Aerys, asking his leave to make terms.
My man came back with the royal command.
"Bring me your father's head if you are no traitor."
Aerys would have no yielding.
His pyromancer was with him, my messenger said.
I knew what that meant.
Aerys Targaryen was alone in his throne room when I found him, picking at his scabbed and
bleeding hands.
The fool was always cutting himself on the Iron Throne.
"Burn them!
Burn them!" he kept muttering.
Aerys had decided to let Robert be king, after all, over the charred bones and ashes of King's
Landing.
He must have thought his pyromancer was near enough to obey him, but I'd killed him a few
minutes before in the courtyard.
As I approached the throne, sanity flashed behind the King's eyes for a moment, just
long enough to read the look in mine.
His eyes grew huge, and the royal mouth drooped open in shock.
He turned and ran.
A single thrust was all it took to end the greatest dynasty the world had ever seen.
Beneath the empty eyes of the dead dragons on the walls, the last dragon king squealed
like a pig and shat himself.
So easy, I thought.
A king should die harder than this.
My father's knights burst into the hall in time to see the last of it, so there was no
way for me to vanish and let some bragger steal the glory or blame.
I knew at once when I saw the way they looked at me.
It would be blame.
Lannister or no, I'd been one of Aerys' Kingsguard.
I commanded them to announce that the Mad King was dead and to spare all those who yielded.
They asked me if they should proclaim a new king as well.
I knew what they meant.
Would it be my father, or Robert Baratheon, or maybe the child Viserys who'd fled to Dragonstone?
A Targaryen boy king with my father as Hand to rule in truth.
I thought of how Ned Stark and Robert Baratheon would howl at this end to their great heroic
war, and I was tempted.
Then I glanced down again at Aerys, his life's blood oozing from the wound and pooling on
the floor around him.
"Proclaim who you bloody well like," I said.
I climbed the steps to the Iron Throne and sat on it with my sword across my knees, waiting
to see who would come to claim the kingdom.