Tyrion steadied himself, digging his nails into his palms and forcing down the instinctive shudder that seeped from his bones before a beast of living calamity.
He stepped forward another half pace and raised his head, trying to reclaim even a sliver of control over the conversation. His voice sounded painfully thin beneath the dragon's deep breathing.
"Your Highness," he began, meeting Aegon's cold Violet Eyes, "you may question the Iron Throne's sincerity, but you cannot disregard the laws Westeros has upheld for a thousand years..."
"Whatever blood feud arose from the events seventeen years ago, any judgment of guilt requires evidence. Witnesses, testimony, proper proceedings-not one can be omitted."
"The nobles and people have gathered in Duskendale today precisely to clarify every accusation from that time, to reveal the truth to the world, to see justice..."
"Truth?"
Aegon abruptly raised his eyes.
In that instant, flames that had lain frozen for seventeen years seemed to erupt within those violet eyes, churning with a fury cold enough to freeze the soul.
His voice remained quiet, softer even than before, yet it sliced like a red-hot blade across ice, effortlessly cutting through the false veil of "law" and "procedure" Tyrion had so carefully maintained.
"When you brutally murdered my mother, did you ask for evidence?"
"When you seized a nursing infant by the ankles and smashed him against a stone wall until his brains burst out, did you follow procedure?"
"When you trampled over Elia's blood, Rhaenys's blood, that infant's blood, to climb onto the Iron Throne and sit comfortably there for seventeen years, treating the Red Keep as your home and the Seven Kingdoms as your backyard... did you ask for justice?"
He paused, his gaze passing slowly over Cersei's face, filled with terror and some unreadable emotion, then over