She couldn’t meet my gaze, and in that cold and lingering instant I knew that help wasn’t coming. I looked her in the eye with a pitiful, pleading expression – my spouse and best friend and partner of almost a decade. Only a timely intervention from the Stark armies marching from the North – and controlled by my wife – could save me. My forces had been battered back, and now I found myself beleaguered and cowering in my own stronghold, waiting for the inevitable Lannister counterattack. Things hadn’t gone quite as I had intended. With a strong force of cavalry, infantry and ships, I’d planned a succession of lightning attacks that would culminate in my seizing the city of King’s Landing and establishing House Baratheon as the rightful holders of the Iron Throne.
I’d set out from my home on Dragonstone intent on raiding the Lannister lands on the eastern shores of Westeros. And at this particular moment, my chances for survival didn’t look too good. When you play the Game of Thrones, as Cersei Lannister famously observed, you win or you die.