GOT: My Secret Lover is sansa-Chapter 123 Cersei panic

The Red Keep, King’s Landing

Hundreds of leagues away, high in the sunlit towers of the Red Keep, a crystal goblet shattered violently against the heavy stone wall, raining sharp glass and dark red wine across the floor.

"Out!" Cersei Lannister shrieked, her voice cracking with raw, unfiltered hysteria. "Get out, all of you!"

The terrified servants scrambled over one another to escape the Queen’s chambers, pulling the heavy wooden doors shut behind them. Cersei stood alone in the center of the room, her chest heaving violently against her silk bodice. Her golden hair, usually pinned in flawless, intricate braids, hung loose and wild around her pale face.

Her manicured hands trembled as she looked down at the crumpled parchment lying on her polished desk. The black ink looked like poison.

Renly Baratheon is dead.

That alone should have been a triumph. The Baratheon brothers tearing each other apart was exactly what she had prayed for. But the rest of the raven’s message sent the room spinning out of control. The Tyrells had not bent the knee to Stannis. They had not retreated to Highgarden to lick their wounds and wait out the storm.

They had pivoted. Margaery Tyrell had married Alaric Thorne.

"A ward," Cersei hissed, her voice vibrating with venom and disbelief. "A nameless, landless, Northern ward!"

She paced the length of the room. Her mind was fracturing under the weight of the impossible mathematics. Tywin’s army was bogged down in the Riverlands. Her golden twin, Jaime, was currently sitting in heavy iron chains, humiliated and dragged through the mud by this very same boy.

And now, this arrogant Northern bastard didn’t just have the twenty thousand wildmen of the North at his back—he commanded the absolute, terrifying might of the Reach.

One hundred thousand fresh, well-fed swords were marching directly up the Rose Road.

"How did he do it?" she hissed to the empty room. She dug the heels of her hands so hard into her temples that her heavy gold rings scraped her skin. "How did a nameless boy convince Olenna Tyrell to hand him a hundred thousand swords?"

Her breath hitched, coming in short, shallow gasps. She looked wildly toward the heavy oak doors, as if the Northern army were already battering them down. In her mind’s eye, she didn’t see Alaric Thorne; she saw Joffrey’s blonde head mounted on a rusted iron spike.

Cersei slammed her hands flat onto the polished mahogany desk. The sharp crack echoed in the quiet room.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She curled her fingers inward, her long nails biting deep into her own palms until the sharp sting grounded her.

She took a long, slow breath. She smoothed the wrinkled silk of her red dress and pulled her shoulders back. Her hands finally stopped shaking.

She walked over to the tall arched window. Her gaze climbed up to the highest tower of the Red Keep, and the blind panic in her eyes hardened into a cold, sharp gleam.

A slow, dark smile crept across her pale face.

"Sansa," Cersei breathed to the empty room.

She leaned closer to the glass, her voice dropping to a vindictive whisper. "We still have the little bird to buy our peace."

...

The Rose Road, The Tyrell War Camp

A week of relentless marching had ground the Rose Road to fine, choking dust beneath the boots of a hundred thousand men.

The Tyrell war camp had swelled into a moving, breathing city of green and gold. Deep within its heavily guarded center, the command pavilion offered a cool, shaded sanctuary from the blistering afternoon sun.

Margaery Tyrell leaned over the massive oak strategy table. Her delicate fingers pushed a carved wooden wolf across the parchment map, placing it directly over the Riverlands to symbolize the Northern host, before moving a golden rose to the borders of the Crownlands.

"Husband," Margaery said, her brow furrowed in thought. "Wouldn’t it be far simpler to march directly on King’s Landing and take the throne while Tywin Lannister is bogged down fighting the Northern army?"

Alaric leaned over the map, the dark velvet of his doublet straining against his broad shoulders.

"It’s a tempting thought," Alaric rumbled, his voice low and vibrating through the wood of the table. "But King’s Landing is not just a city; it’s a cage of hidden wildfire and cornered rats. If we march a hundred thousand men to the gates, Cersei will use Sansa as a shield and the city as a pyre to spite us."

He reached out, his large, fingers grazing the back of Margaery’s hand before he moved the heavy Lion token representing Tywin Lannister.

"Tywin is the head of the beast," Alaric explained bluntly. "If we cut it off in the Riverlands, the body in the capital will wither and die on its own."

Alaric’s thumb traced a slow, deliberate circle on the back of Margaery’s hand.

"Besides," Alaric continued, his glowing eyes shifting from the map to meet Margaery’s gaze with a chillingly calm intensity. "It isn’t as if Sansa is in any real danger. The Lannisters don’t realize she has hidden teeth, and my eyes are already inside those walls, watching every breath Cersei takes. A direct march on the capital right now is a blunt instrument. It turns a city of half a million people into a slaughterhouse."

...

Harrenhal, The Riverlands

The blackened, melted towers of Harrenhal loomed over the Lannister camp like the skeletal fingers of a dead god. Inside the massive, drafty solar of the Kingspyre Tower, the air was thick with the smell of old ash, dry dust, and the sharp, metallic tang of fresh ink.

Tywin Lannister sat perfectly still. He did not eat. He did not drink. He simply stared at the two unrolled raven’s scrolls spread out on the heavy wooden table before him.

Opposite him, Tyrion Lannister shifted uncomfortably in his oversized chair. His mismatched eyes darted nervously between his father’s utterly stony face and the disastrous reports lying between them.

The silence in the room was suffocating. Tyrion reached for his goblet of wine, his hand shaking slightly enough to make the metal rattle.