Tywin Lannister rode on without looking back.
The dozens of guards behind him were all wounded, their armor stained with blood and dust.
Like a pack of wolves with broken backs, they silently left the city that had once belonged to them.
The news had already spread far and wide.
The king had dismissed the Hand of the King.
Joffrey, that little madman, had delivered a resounding slap to his all-powerful grandfather's face in the stupidest, most public way possible.
Tywin's face betrayed nothing. Neither joy nor anger showed on those features carved from stone.
But the captain who had served him for years knew that the calmer his lord appeared, the fiercer the fury burned within him.
They did not return to Casterly Rock, instead stopping at a secret outpost in the Crownlands.
"My lord, what do we do now?" the captain asked.
Tywin dismounted, accepted a waterskin from an attendant, and took a drink.
"Return to Casterly Rock."
"But King's Landing..."
"King's Landing? Let that little madman play his games with his newfound queen."
A trace of weariness flickered in Tywin's pale green eyes.
He had lost.
He had not lost to Joffrey's madness, nor to those opportunistic Gold Cloaks.
He had lost to that young man far away in the North, who had never once shown his face.
He finally saw it.
Sansa Stark.
Liana.
Even Varys.
They were all Lynn's pawns.
Lynn had thrown the entire game in King's Landing into chaos, forcing his strongest opponent out of the seat of power.
"That northern bastard..." Tywin murmured.
He finally understood that he had underestimated this enemy from the very beginning.
"Send someone to Highgarden," Tywin ordered.
"Tell Mace Tyrell that if he wants the roses of House Tyrell to keep blooming, he should come to Casterly