Blood and Cheese Part 2

Those brought in under guard were trembling.

The woman clutched her two children tightly, as if trying to shield them from the terror of blood and death with her frail body alone.

The older one was a youth, about ten or so, tears pooling in his wide eyes as he bit his lower lip hard, afraid to sob aloud.

The younger one was a girl, six or seven years old, burying her head deep in her mother's bosom, revealing only a mess of dry, yellow hair and small, trembling shoulders.

The woman herself was pale as paper, her gaze somewhat unfocused.

Cheese's eyes froze the moment they landed on them.

The pathetic mess of tears, snot, and blood on his face suddenly stiffened.

He understood. He understood it all.

This wasn't simple punishment or silencing—it was a carefully orchestrated plan to shatter everything he cherished in this world, right before his eyes...

"No... no... I beg you, Your Highness! I beg you!" Cheese burst into a wretched wail.

He struggled with all his might, trying to crawl toward Aemond, but Cole held him back.

His forehead slammed heavily against the cold, damp stone ground, producing dull thuds. "It's me! It's all my fault!"

"I don't know how I've offended you! Kill me! Cut me to pieces! But spare them, I beg you!"

"They know nothing! They're innocent! Please!"

Aemond simply watched him, his gaze utterly unruffled.

Only when Cheese's forehead was a bloody mess and his voice was hoarse to the point of failing did he finally speak.

"Your life," he paused, his eyes sweeping over the three trembling figures, "is not equal to theirs."

"I'll give you the right to choose," Aemond said, with a tone of deliberation.

"So, pick one."

He raised his hand, pointing at the two children clinging tightly to their mother.

"Between them," his voice echoed softly in the dungeon, "choose one."

"No!" The woman let out a heartrending scream, her arms locking around the two children like iron.

The youth finally burst into loud sobs, while the girl was too terrified even to cry, shaking violently.

"Choose." Aemond's voice was flat, without a trace of fluctuation.

Behind him, the Hightower guards' hands had already silently rested on their sword hilts.

Among them, several guards stepped forward, roughly but efficiently separating the woman from her children.

The woman wailed and struggled desperately, but she was firmly restrained.

The two children were left isolated in the center of the open space, lost and bewildered.

"Pick one," Aemond repeated, his gaze fixed on Cheese's ashen face. "Or, I'll decide for you, and then I'll slaughter them all."

The guards' swords slowly slid half an inch from their sheaths.

Cheese collapsed to the ground, trembling all over.

He looked up at Aemond's cold, merciless face, then at his wife, held by the guards and sobbing nearly to the point of fainting, and finally, his eyes landed on the two children in the middle—his own blood and bone.

The youth's eyes were so much like his own; the girl's nose resembled her mother's...

His world was spinning, crumbling.

This was a torment more cruel than killing his own father.

"Ah... ah..." Strange, guttural sounds escaped his throat. His gaze was unfocused, his mind clearly on the verge of collapse.

Under Aemond's increasingly impatient stare, amid his wife's desperate cries and the cold gleam of the guards' blades, his trembling, bloodstained finger finally moved.

It pointed, agonizingly slowly, as if bearing a thousand-pound weight, toward the smaller, still-shaking girl.

The moment he pointed, Cheese seemed to have all his bones pulled out, collapsing completely, leaving only broken sobs from his throat.

Aemond watched the finger pointing at the girl, no surprise on his face.

He even gave a slight nod, as if acknowledging Cheese's choice.

Then, he strode toward the girl in the open space.

He stopped before the younger one.

The girl lifted her tear-streaked face, staring in terror at the silver-haired, purple-eyed prince before her.

Aemond bent down slightly, leaning close to her ear.

"Did you hear that?" he said softly, but turned his gaze to Cheese, who lay limp as mud.

"Your father," he enunciated each word clearly, "wants you dead."

Before the words faded, he turned to the guards standing behind the boy on the other side and smiled.

That smile carried a kind of release.

The guard behind the boy didn't hesitate for a moment; he had already received the Prince's orders beforehand.

A flash of sword-light cut through the dim air.

"Thwip."

It wasn't the heavy thud of a cleaving blow, but the swift sound of a blade slicing through flesh, sinew, and bone.

The Youth didn't even have time to make a sound.

In his eyes—so like his father's—terror hadn't yet fully turned into agony before his head left his neck, arcing briefly through the air before tumbling to the ground.

The headless body stiffened in place for an instant, then gushed blood and slowly pitched forward.

The woman's scream caught in her throat, turning into a silent, violently convulsing suffocation.

The girl ordered to die by her father stared blankly at her brother's fallen body, her small mouth hanging open, utterly stunned.

And Cheese.

He looked as if struck by lightning, his whole body lurching violently. Those once-dazed, despairing eyes snapped wide to their limit, instantly shot through with bloodshot veins.

His mouth gaped, but no sound came out; only the veins on his neck bulged horribly.

After a few seconds of deathly silence, an inhuman shriek, torn from the deepest recesses of his soul, finally burst from his throat:

"Ah!!!"

The sound was so piercing it didn't seem human, filled with ultimate agony, unimaginable shock, and the mad despair of being utterly toyed with.

His finger, pointing at Aemond, trembled violently as he stammered, "You... you... you said... you promised... you promised..."

Aemond slowly straightened up.

"I told you to choose, but that doesn't mean my choice..."

The cold, taut expression on his face had quietly relaxed a great deal.

He didn't look back at the howling Cheese, nor at the sobbing mother and daughter.

His gaze met Ser Criston Cole's for a brief moment.

Cole gave a slight nod, then stepped forward expressionlessly.

Cheese was still roaring, still using the last of his life's strength to curse and question Aemond.

Another flash of sword-light.

Clean, swift, precise.

Cheese's head, filled with endless pain and bewilderment, flew from his shoulders.

The dungeon was left with only the woman's muffled, anguished sobs and the little girl's finally erupting wails.

Aemond turned, no longer looking back at the bloody, chaotic hell behind him.

After that flame burned in his heart, what remained wasn't emptiness, but a cold, settled calm.

These loose ends were dealt with. He strode toward the dungeon exit.

"Your Highness?" Terra followed behind him, asking cautiously, "What about the rest... how should we handle them?"

At that moment, Garvin Hightower, who had been silently watching, stepped forward.

He looked at his nephew's calm profile, then at the carnage in the dungeon, his brow deeply furrowed.

He didn't know exactly when, where, or how Blood and Cheese had so deeply offended Aemond.

To incur such brutal—even excessively cruel—retribution.

But regardless, the matter needed to be wrapped up.

"Leave it to me," Garvin said steadily. "I'll handle it."

Aemond didn't turn back, only nodded slightly in tacit agreement.

He had simply returned the nightmares meant for Helaena, unchanged, to their creators.

Curse me if you will, pain me if you must—let it all come to me...