The wooden wagon wheels squeaked softly as they rolled along the dusty dirt road.
The steady clopping of the merchants' horses and the creaking of their loaded wagons became the only music accompanying our journey that afternoon.
The reddening sunlight slipped through gaps in the wagon's canvas tarp, casting a golden glow over the stacked grain sacks where we sat.
I leaned against the wagon's hard wooden wall, watching Tywin seated directly across from me.
The oversized, drab clothes of a commoner made his small body seem to disappear even further inside them. Yet he still sat upright, radiating a resolve difficult to explain in a ten-year-old child.
I tried to break the silence between us, hoping to comfort him and ease the oppressive atmosphere that had lingered for so long.
"What's it like riding in a merchant's wagon, Tywin?" I asked casually, trying to form a faint smile on my exhausted face.
"It must be very different from your family's carriage, isn't it?"
Tywin slowly turned toward me.
There was no trace of spoiled indulgence, annoyance, or regret on his small face.
"It's not bad," he replied calmly, his tone remarkably mature.
"At least in this filthy wagon... we don't have to keep running."
I fell silent, studying his clear blue eyes.
This child had just lost his entire family in a single night. He had been forced to shed his fine robes, put on drab cloth, and prepare to sleep atop piles of merchandise.
Yet not a single tear had fallen. No wailing or complaint had passed his lips since we fled that massacre.
His composure was truly extraordinary for a child his age.
Tywin suddenly tilted his head, staring straight through my eyes.
"You look much worse than this wagon, Cassian," he said abruptly.
I was slightly startled. "Hmm?"
"Your eyes are red. You haven't really slept since we left the forest."
Tywin pointed at my face with his small finger.
"You need to rest. If you keep this up, your wounds will never heal."
I chuckled softly, trying to brush aside his excessive concern.
"My duty is to protect you. A knight mustn't—"
"I can protect myself," Tywin cut in quickly, ending my sentence without hesitation.
He looked at me with an utterly serious expression.
"You can close your eyes now. I can hold this dagger and take turns keeping watch over you until night falls."
Another small laugh escaped my throat, this time colored by deep admiration and warmth.
How ironic.
A ten-year-old boy intended to become the guardian of the knight protecting him.
"Thank you. But my body is still strong enough to endure," I replied gently, giving his shoulder a light pat.
But... my faint laughter suddenly froze in the air.
The golden light of evening rapidly faded, replaced by a dark orange-red glow along the western horizon. Night's shadows began creeping in, filling every narrow corner of the merchant's wagon.
Tywin did not laugh with me.
His expression changed drastically... cold, sharp, and radiating an authority both unfamiliar and terrifying. The innocence in his eyes vanished without a trace.
"A king must never be seen as weak," Tywin whispered.
His voice no longer held any hint of innocence. It carried the chill of steel freshly forged in the flames of battle.
He stared straight through the gap in the tarp, gazing toward the territory of Kingspire slowly falling far behind us.
"They took my home, slaughtered my family, and forced me to crawl through this land like a fugitive," he continued in a flat, deeply intimidating tone.
"But remember my words... one day, I will return."
His small fingers clenched tightly around the drab shirt over his chest.
"I will reclaim the throne and honor that should rightfully be mine. And those who betrayed me..."
"...will pay for every drop of my family's blood that was spilled."
An overwhelming chill suddenly spread from the nape of my neck down my entire spine.
I shuddered violently.
A faint tremor unconsciously infected the fingers resting on my sword's hilt.
Those words had come from the mouth of a ten-year-old child, yet the weight and aura behind them were so dense, like a blood oath destined to shake the world.
The atmosphere inside the wagon suddenly fell into a tense, oppressive silence.
The sun finally sank completely below the horizon. The night sky descended over the earth, drowning us in cold darkness.
Within that darkness, I watched Tywin sitting in silence.
The child I had carried in my arms all this time was not merely a survivor of the massacre after all... but the seed of a ruler, harboring a blaze of vengeance that would one day be capable of consuming the entire kingdom.