Work Text:
Jaime kills her mother at dusk.
It is a painting, in truth—endless color, swarms of it. Moonlight bathes the Rock in silver, pooling over the leonine throne of gold, as gold as their three manes, and Jaime’s looming shadow is black, swelling amidst amber firelight that waved, and danced, and glowed. And in the sky above them, that endless darkness as empty as her heart, auroras haze shades of teal and amethyst, misting light, breath from the stars. Stars, glittering, gleaming. Like the gods were watching.
It isn’t a god that holds her green gaze, though. Far from it.
“Myrcella,” her aunt had said, voice stuck between a snarling order and a pleading—pleading, as if she had the right. As if Myrcella were still the illegitimate princess, the lone girl-child who only existed when Cersei fancied gazing into a mirror. As if there was any reason for Myrcella to stop this, her end, their end.
As if there wasn’t a debt to pay.
Jaime does not take his eyes from Cersei when he speaks. “Your Grace,” he says, voice the quietest rage, calm and hating all at once. A question. Myrcella knew what he sought. An order. Stand down. Halt.
“Myrcella,” she hears in the distance. Panicking, now. “Sweetling…”
There was no order to give.
Myrcella doesn't answer, doesn’t move. Just stared at her, watched as the bitch dared to look betrayed, of all things, until the fear set in. The fear, but then, fury.
Fury, at them, for being her puppets no longer.
For having the nerve, the audacity to kill her.
Cersei is mad until the end.
But Myrcella is madder.
She keeps her gaze locked with her aunt’s, stare as cold as any good Lannister’s should be, and waited. She didn’t know what was greener; those Lannister eyes, or the dormant wildfire in the distance.
As Jaime’s shadow swallows his twin’s, Myrcella wonders if the red of Cersei’s blood would be as vibrant as their green eyes, would join the colors that surrounded them, choked them. She wonders if that red would drown out the other shades of the world, consume and take and ruin it, as Cersei Lannister ruins everything.
Myrcella hoped it would. As the last of her mother’s breath graced her ears, she hoped it more than anything. But even now her mother denies her happiness, because the only red was in her eyes, bulged and bloodshot, the green in them wild and wide and dulling with each breath the world took.
There was red on Jaime’s hands, though. Red from the digging claws of the old lion queen, nails that scraped and slashed and streamed red ribbons. She is fighting him, and he is fighting her. They thrash, and twist, and grunt and scream, and they look like they’re fucking.
Myrcella wonders if this is how they looked when they made her. Her, and Joffrey. Only them, though. Not Tommen. They had to have been sweet with one another whilst creating such a soft, precious thing—pure, and perfect, and good, more good than she could ever be, but the Mountain had killed him anyway, dashed his head across the wall as he’d done Myrcella’s good-cousin, baby Aegon. As he had ripped her s…
Funnily enough, Cersei shares the same excuse Uncle Tyrion claimed that Tywin Lannister did, when denying blame for Princess Elia’s murder; they didn’t order Gregor not to kill those people. So Gregor had done as he pleased.
But unlike Tommen and Aegon and the other one, Cersei fights. She is slashing and crying and clawing. Those hands didn’t care, though. They are unyielding, flesh and gold, and those white and yellow fingers press and dig, trap, clench, and they are red, drowned in it, drowned as the throat clouds in violet.
Then, the green. Wild, wide. But waning.
A hitched rasp, a choked sigh. The breath. The last breath. Trapped, yet free.
Green. Waning. Waning. Then, then, glass.
And her father-uncle is sitting astride her hips, silent and still, bloodied hands red and wrenched and resting, now. Queen Myrcella of the Rock stands above him, stands above them both, the order rotting dead on her lips. No, not dead. A shadow, never existing—unconceived, just as she should have been.
Lord Tywin and Queen Cersei never ordered Ser Gregor to kill Princess Elia and Prince Tommen.
Well.
Myrcella hadn’t told Jaime to kill Cersei, either.
..
“Daybreak,” said Jaime.
Myrcella opened her eyes. Darkness met her, and the frost hazed its breath through her flesh with little iced teeth, eating her. As she did with every eon that passed, Myrcella wondered if she were dead, or truly awake. Daybreak was the dawn of dusk now, and had been for months, but somehow sleep always brought a certain ignorance with it—not a blissful one, but one nonetheless. It was not better to see red than to witness the endless white that swallowed them now, the veiling sun that draped the world in grey for only a breath before night came to shroud them, just… different. Waking up made her forget. Waking up made her remember.
Myrcella sat up, eyes searching, as Jaime had taught her. The Riverlands were silent. White earth glittered underneath a dim sky. The dullest twilight peaked over the horizon, faint hints of teal and amethyst melding with the rising moon.
She’d seen that same twilight reflect off glassy green eyes, once.
“It’s clear,” Jaime said, impatient.
Myrcella glared at him. “I can see that.”
“Then move,” he said, voice attempting sharpness and anger, but only mustering unkind softness. He hadn’t the energy for it—true Lannister cruelty. He was tired. He’d been tired for years, even before Myrcella had closed her own eyes. Not that she gave a fuck.
Myrcella clenched her fists, stared holes in the frozen ground. He wouldn’t have spoken to her like this, before. Eons ago, he wouldn’t have dared. But she was his Queen, then. Now, only Winter ruled, and he was twenty years her senior, and her creator. So he gave her orders, and she heeded them—defiantly, a bitch to the end, but still, heeding. His orders kept them alive, and it was her fault she’d lost her power, anyway, her fault she’d kept that last order unmade and unthought and unsaid, her choice to be silent.
Somehow, that silence had shifted what lay between them, reversed it. The silence, and the curse that came with it. Perhaps it was because it had not been a Queen allowing a servant to execute a traitor, but a daughter watching a father end a mother. Or a niece, and an uncle, and an aunt. Both. None.
Myrcella bit back a bitter laugh. None. She wished. But she could not deny her blood—it was the lion’s ilk within her that made her petty, that made her want to sit there longer, yawn, stretch, scratch, pack her things with the slowest leisure, take her time as if the world hadn’t ended, and they didn’t need to flee the cold, and her stomach wasn’t twisting from hunger, because fuck him. But it had, and they did, and it was, so she moved with haste.
They ate while they trekked, the crunch of snowy footfalls almost as loud as their chewing. Dried meat and hard bread. Bland peasant’s food, but all they had, until they found more game. Myrcella’s bow could take down any deer or rabbit, but they were scarce to come by, either because of survivors plucking them off, or the cold, or both.
The rattling bones in Jaime’s knapsack didn’t need to eat. They rattled, though. Rattled with each step they took. Never quiet, always talking, even after they didn’t even have the right to call themselves a corpse. Never shutting up, just like in life. Except now, Myrcella could not understand a single word, could not laugh, or roll her eyes, or reply with a retort that was half as clever as anything that had been said.
Jaime didn’t understand it either. Elsewise he’d be laughing, and talking back. Jaime had not laughed in years, even before Myrcella’s own smiles died.
When the food was gone, they stopped for a rest in a clearing, not far from the frozen path. She didn’t look at him, didn’t speak. Just rested.
After Myrcella’s feet ached just a bit less, she stood. “Scouting,” she muttered.
Jaime shrugged, let her go. Myrcella walked until she couldn’t feel the burn of his stare anymore, only the cloud of cold, and the emptiness. Scouting. That was always her excuse, and he would allow it, never expose her lie. He needed it too, she knew. Mercy. The light of her flowing Lannister curls dimmed in the distance, then gone. Her missing ear and sliced cheek killed the illusion that had once haunted her face, but from behind, Myrcella was still the old queen’s mirror. Her very existence made Jaime remember, and when they traveled he would stare, and she felt it, every moment, every time. Sometimes, she would not scout. Would stay, because he deserved it. Deserved to see, to face what he did.
What she allowed.
There was a boulder in the strip of ice that had once been the King’s Road. Myrcella leaned against it, watched, scouted. No enemies, only a vast, empty world before her. Darkling light, drowning neverending white. Pretty. Too pretty to be any of the Seven Hells, but not earth, or the Heavens, surely. An in-between place the gods had damned them all to, silent and endless and cold, where the wights were more alive than her. More alive than Tommen and Trystane, surely. More than J—
The thought came unbidden, like always. Myrcella’s hollow belly churned. She closed her eyes, breathed, in and out, breathed. Listened. The ever haze of winter, its endless soft hiss that would claim them all before long. Her hitched breath, puffing silver in the dimming air. Small game just beyond her, light steps, a fawn, their hooves crunching on the snow and ice, and her heart, her bleeding, racing heart, and babbling, giggling, cooing—
And then, birdsong. Lilting, sharp, soft. Familiar. A Dornish swallow. Bright and lovely as they sang in the Water Gardens, fluttered, perched on her and Arianne’s fingers while they lay in the grass, dangled their feet in the pools, tasted wine and blood oranges, laughed. When she was still Princess Marci, only half a lion, and trueborn. When Arianne still pretended to love her.
A Dornish swallow.
Dorne.
In the Riverlands.
Her blood ran hot. Fingers twitched, almost reaching for the bow at her back.
Almost.
The fawn fit perfectly in her arms, cradled and innocent, feeling just as soft and dead as before, but warmer, less savaged and bloodied.
At the sight, Jaime’s dull eyes lit with the slightest hint of pride and fondness, like they always did. He hadn’t the strength or joy to let it truly shine, though, so it always died before it could brighten, stay there. Myrcella would have preferred it never showed itself at all. Of course he approved of her hunts—lionesses were the hunters in every pride, not the males, according to Tyrion and his books, anyway. Perhaps that is why Lannister women are so strong, he had jested, mismatched eyes watching her crown. Her skills as a huntress was yet another mark of her blood, the truth of it. In her bow, her aim, her quickness. She was a warrior, like him, archer though she was. Jaime misliked archers. That was just as well. Myrcella misliked incest and red hands. Almost as much as she did breathing. Almost.
Myrcella watched as he skinned the babe as well as a man with one hand and one hook could. Small and tender, in his arms. Dead and bleeding, but whole, at least. Not ripped in half, not a red ruin of flesh, not in the arms of...
Unlike a true lioness, she’d been kind to the creature in its final moments, soothed and caressed it as death embraced it, heard its last breaths. A faint mewl, soft and sad but pretty. A plead for his mother, who had not been there to save him. They all shared one voice, when they were that young. Sounded the same. Human, fawn.
Cub.
Myrcella went over to their weakening fire, pricked her finger on one of her arrows, let her queen’s blood call R’hllor to warm them. Natural fires did not exist in the world they called the Long Night, only spellborn ones. Without her royal blood, they would have frozen ages ago. Would that she were not Lann the Clever’s get, the descendant of kings, and therefore, a queen in her own right… but even if she had been trueborn, had been Robert Baratheon’s seed, he and his Targaryen grandmother would have given her enough king’s blood to make firestorms. Even in another life, she would never have had an excuse, before. Myrcella would have laughed at the thought, if she remembered how. I laughed a lot, once, she knew. Well. Marci had.
At the taste of her blood, the fire bloomed bright, ready to cook the babe. This was her lot in life, now. Hunter. Firebringer. Keeper of unsaid orders and words.
She did not pick apart the corpses of children, though. That, she left to her guard. In this one way, Jaime Lannister was still her servant. Still did the dirty work for his queen, without her having to command it.
Jaime eyed her while he worked. “Nothing?” he asked, as he always did, when she returned from a scouting.
Far beyond her good ear, the Dornish swallow crooned again, leagues and eons from where it was meant to sing.
“Nothing,” Myrcella answered, for that was what they were. And when the Brotherhood woke them and yanked them from their beds, she forgot to turn her cry of joy into a scream.
..
Myrcella could not see.
There was no way to tell what was his armor and what was his blood. The black and red paint on his chest was blurred, and the dragon was swimming, and her breath was falling, and her hand ached from clenching the dagger.
She could hear, though. Could hear her thrashing heart and his gasps as his throat gushed and wept and poured and he choked and convulsed, and she could not stop staring even though she could not see, because the world was a mess of silver and blurs, just a blur, tears unshed because she never cried, she was strong, a lioness, and that was why she’d stabbed him, because she was a queen, and this was her Rock, and he was the false Aegon’s ilk, and he was dying, because she killed him, she killed him—
“Cella!” The voice was behind her, and gods, her breath slowed just a bit. She wanted to run to him, but her feet were planted, and her hands shook, and she could not stop staring.
“Cella,” Jaime said again, flesh hand turning her toward him. She blinked up at him, eyes wide. He frowned at her, eyes wild with worry and the heat of battle. “Are you hurt?”
Marci shook her head. “Him,” she choked out. “He got in somehow, he—”
Jaime looked down then, at the trembling body in the corner. He was standing in front of Marci, so she couldn’t see the soldier anymore, but she heard him, still. She clutched her arms. “I killed him,” she croaked, and the tears escaped before she could catch them. “I killed him.”
Jaime shook his head. “No,” he said, voice soft yet rough. He bent down before the man, unsheathed his Valyrian steel, the one that had been Widow’s Wail, before Tommen renamed it Ser Fang. “I killed him, see?” The sword came down, and Marci cried out.
Jaime was back in front of her. “I killed him,” he said again, so gently it made her want to weep more. She wiped at her tears with shaking hands, tried to look past his arm—
Jaime held her face, shielded her view. “Don’t look at him,” he murmured. “Don’t look. Look at me.” She did as he bid her. Green eyes stared into hers. “I killed him. Do you hear that? Listen.”
Myrcella listened. Silence, save for her hitched breaths. No choking. Only death.
“You killed no one,” he told her.
Myrcella nodded, because it was true, but there was so much blood, and he was convulsing, and he was dead, now—
Warmth muffled her sobs as he brought her into his arms. Marci held him just as tight, buried her head in his chest.
“Cella,” he said, and it was such a beautiful thing, his nickname for her, but it could not calm her. He rested his cheek on her head, shushed and soothed her. “It is your first battle, and normal to fear. But it was me.”
His hand in her hair was soft. Myrcella closed her eyes.
Later that night, when she was safe in Trystane’s arms, she thought of Jaime’s words.
Her first battle.
Not the last.
..
When the neverending night first touched Winterfell, Ser Fang’s blade lit with flames in shades of sapphire.
“It is as the Lord of Light has shown me,” said Melisandre to the council meeting, as she watched Jaime. Her eyes were red, redder than the blood of the endless fallen soldiers the Others had taken. The blood that was still on the ice, even though their corpses had been long burned. “Two blades of frozen fire. They were whole, once, before the lion’s false flames parted them. When they are wielded by warriors who share one soul, they will merge once more. Their flames will burn the winter with R’hllor’s embrace, and spring will come upon us.”
“Pardons, my lady,” Jaime said. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were not. “But when your flame god was a small ember, did he miss his counting lessons, perchance?” Only Myrcella noticed the wooden table creaking under his clenching nails. “There is only one blade aflame, here. One.”
Melisandre was unfazed by the insult. “A second wielder will come,” she said. “It has been foreseen. To bring the dawn, the whole of the blade must be held by its true wielders, for only they can summon the flames. Your sword needs its twin.”
Myrcella bit back a hitched breath, fought her pulsing heart at the Red Woman’s words, their doom, the endless winter, the death staring at their face. Eyed Jaime.
For eons, wild green watched Melisandre, murderous and blank.
And he laughed.
He laughed, breathy and low at first, then, deep, the sound swelling in the silent room, over their disturbed stares. He laughed, loud, bent over, holding his stomach. He laughed until it was not a laugh, but a mad, broken choke.
Myrcella looked at their audience—Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, Melisandre. “Leave us,” Myrcella commanded, even though she was not Jon Snow’s queen, or Daenerys Targaryen’s. Her voice held no argument, though, so they left. They left, and Jaime was still laughing. He fell to his knees, laughs breathy and hitched, tears pooling in his shut eyes.
If Brienne of Tarth were here, perhaps she would kneel beside him, run her huge hands through his curls. Whisper to him, as she had so many times when she was in their company, still. We do not need the other sword, Ser, she would say, her voice far more gentle and lilting than her hulking frame and hideous face should’ve allowed. We will survive. Do not fret.
But Brienne of Tarth was not here, nor was Oathkeeper.
And they never would be.
Jaime’s laughs were half-breeds now, hysterical giggling torn by bitten back sobs. He’d brought his hands to his face, the flesh one and his new hook of dragonglass. The sharp hook kissed his cheek, and red tears mixed with the clear ones.
No tears ran from Cersei’s eyes when they went glassy. In the end, she had been too surprised and afraid to cry, Myrcella knew. After the rage left her when those white and gold hands squeezed tighter, and the realization set in, there was no room for tears. Only shock, and defiance.
There was no defiance in Jaime, now. Only suffering.
Myrcella’s hands twitched, but she did not reach for him. Did not go to him, did not kneel, did not hold and caress and hush, Father. Just watched. Watched, and stood, and said nothing. Said nothing, because he deserved this. He did.
He did.
They would all feel pain, soon, though, because there was no twin wielder, and so, no fire to bring the dawn. There would be no dawn, only cold, and their soldiers and food would not last forever. The Night did, though. It had just begun, and it was long.
Wait.
Twin.
The world would be shrouded in endless darkness and frost because Jaime Lannister did not have his twin, Myrcella realized, and suddenly she was laughing too, a light chuckle at first, then more, and she was laughing, and laughing, or maybe she was crying—she did not know. She did not know, but soon she was bent over, clutching the table, and holding her stomach just like him, and her eyes were burning, and she could not stop.
If Brienne of Tarth were here, she would comfort Myrcella as well, poorly, but not for lack of effort, sweet and awkward as the woman had been. Do not fret, Your Grace, she would say. I will protect you.
I am not your queen, Myrcella would tell her, because it was true. Brienne was not her subject, but she was something else. Had been. She was nothing now, though, just like all of them were, and would be, soon.
Jaime’s eyes were on her. His torn chuckles had quieted to little hitches, and that made her calm, as well. She met his eye. He shrugged, and gave her the smallest smile that was somehow both the saddest thing she’d ever seen, and the most uncaring.
She understood it. If they were to die, why not here, in the wolves’ caves, taken by the very winter the Starks always knew would come? They had summoned a great debt upon the House—Joffrey, Cersei, Jaime, Tywin.
And now, they must pay it.
..
Jaime and Myrcella loved.
Especially Jaime. Even after he’d turned from Cersei, he could not seem to deny her. She had wanted fire, and he had given it to her.
Amber licked at dead pale flesh, glowed around golden curls, the lion shaped crown atop her head. It wasn’t green. The fire. Perhaps that was Jaime’s silent rebellion living on, even in his twin’s death. She would have fire, but one that rid the world of her, not her enemies, as she had wished. One that cleansed.
But Myrcella did not feel clean as she watched her lady aunt burn, only numb. Only nothing. She stared at the halo, focused on its ethereal beauty, its otherworldly light, and the longer she stared, the more the stench of royal burning flesh faded. Jaime had told her of this. Of going away inside. Perhaps she was doing it now. Perhaps it was another thing she’d inherited from him. That, and the curse that made them love others more than they could ever love themselves, that made them surrender their hearts rather than let them beat in their chests, where they belonged.
Jaime and Myrcella loved.
And love was only breaths away from hatred.
The flames spiked higher, rose to the non-green skies, rejoicing hands from the sun. Embers rained golden tears in the night air, and Cersei Lannister’s flesh sloughed and melted like candles. The glowing halo of her hair had burned away now, and there was nothing pretty left to see. Roasting flesh invaded Myrcella with every breath she took, and she found that she did not mind, not at all.
Love was the shadow of hatred.
But apathy was the death of both.
When the amber was as dead as her mother, and the body was black and crumbling, Jaime left through the clearing smoke without saying a word. His steps spoke for him, though. Quick to free him of the smell and the sight and the remnants of what he’d done—what they’d done—but slow, somehow. Slow enough to allow himself to be followed and yet, still, running.
Myrcella went.
..
Myrcella cannot go away inside. She can only think, and think, and think.
..
They stayed up North until the first blizzard rose.
It was a merciless one, wild and white, a stormed flight of winter’s tears. And when the frost came, that unnatural mist of the Others’ breath, it was a herald, somehow.
The battlefield was a frozen waste, blood congealed and glittering just over the snow. A sea of soldiers, felled and still. Myrcella and Jaime were one of those sent to burn them. Better to be ash than risen.
Ser Fang’s flames took them faster than even her queen’s-blood-fire did. Without Brienne and Oathkeeper, it was only good for killing a few wights here and there, lighting the way, warming them. No Others had been felled by its blue kiss, yet. Perhaps they evaded Jaime because they knew of Melisandre’s prophecy too, but did not know it would never come to pass. Did not know they had won the moment Brienne of Tarth closed her eyes.
The world was silent as they walked, the wafting smell of burnt flesh fluttering through their mouths like the sickliest kiss. Jaime was always jittery, when they did this. When they burned them. It was the smell, Myrcella knew. It brought him back to Aerys Targaryen, and Rickard Stark. He had told her bits and pieces, once, after she had accused him of leaving her Aunt Elia and the children to die. Told her how the flesh sloughed and melted off those wolf bones, and the scent, and how he’d thought of her grandmother’s lullabies, and Tyrion’s laugh, and Cersei’s kisses. “I’d gone away,” he’d said, voice distant, the softest murmur. “Inside.”
Going away inside. The thought of it sounded so foreign, yet wanting. “And when Grandfather presented the bodies to court?” she’d asked. Her voice had been soft and pained, from her aching heart, the sight of him still so broken from a life that had passed ages before. “Were you away then, too?”
He did not answer her, just shrugged, smiled, and she did not accuse him of abandoning Elia and her children ever again.
She could blame him for her own sickness at the scent, though. Could remember the glow of the pyre, the crackling of burning wood. The halo that burned Lannister gold.
The silence stole her from her thoughts. Jaime. He had stopped. Stared.
Myrcella turned, eyed him. “What is it?” Her voice echoed in the emptiness.
Jaime said nothing, kept staring. Then, he walked. Walked like a dead man, slow, staggered, and he reached. Cradled something. Cradled it close.
Myrcella went closer. The nearer she drew, the more the mist cleared. She saw. Spikes. Iced, dark and clustered, hordes of them, peaked with bleeding human heads, watching her.
The one in Jaime’s arms was larger than them all. Snowy hair streamed with black. Dim, mismatched, unseeing eyes stared into Jaime’s chest.
Myrcella could not move. Just stared at Jaime’s trembling hands holding the hair, fingers caressing, his eyes blinking and wide.
“We—” she stopped, bit back her bile. The cold whipped at her wet eyes. “We’ll find his body.” She did not know why she said that. Why did she say that? But she had to say something, because he was holding it so tightly, but soft, like the last flower in a drought, and it was Tyrion’s head, and she couldn’t—
“I’ll find it,” she croaked. “Don’t worry.”
Jaime’s darting eyes steadied, but he did not move, did not speak. Myrcella left. Searched. Dug through piles and piles, battered armor, frozen, shattered, blood, but none were small or headless or had the same arms that would hold Marci as he read her to sleep and she drifted to his voice, rich and deep for one so little, and he had just spoken to her before he left, was just here a breath ago, More frost to chip at your crown, sweetling, he’d jested, and his black and green eyes were alight despite the death that faced them all, and she couldn’t find him, but she had to, because he needed to be burned, Jaime couldn’t see him raised and headless, walking, she had to find him, had to save him—
The breath flew from her like birds, and she clutched the frozen ground, held in a sound—a cry, a choke, a scream, she did not know, but it was thrashing within her, and she closed her eyes, opened them, looked back. Jaime was still there, still standing, still holding his little brother. Holding what he could. Myrcella had held what she could of Tommen, too. Wrapped her arms around his fat little belly and rested her head on his chest, because his head had been smashed, and his brains painted the golden walls of the Rock.
She hadn't disturbed his little hands, though. They'd been cradling something just as precious. Protecting it. I’ll be the greatest uncle ever, Marci, you’ll see.
Tyrion had laughed, the first time he held him. Finally, a Lannister who is smaller than me.
Myrcella had held him too. Felt him. Soft, tiny brown hands, reaching for her, brushing her nose.
She shook her head. No. No, no, no, it was Tyrion, now, and she had to help Jaime. He deserved to hurt as much as she did, more than she did, deserved it, but not now, not this.
She searched. Searched until her fires dimmed, and the wind bit at her, and her face was numb. Nothing. All of them, all of them dead with eyes staring back at her, but heads attached, with brains not splattering walls of gold. She burned them all, and when the smoke choked her and stung at her eyes, she went back to Jaime. Went back to Tyrion.
“We’ll find him,” she said. Her voice sounded far away, dull and thick.
The green in Jaime’s eyes were faded fog, and he did not speak. Just held Tyrion’s head, held him tight, and Myrcella didn’t know which brother was protecting the other.
She knew he was away, though. Deep away, inside, and if she let him, he would stay there forever.
“It’s cold,” she told him, gently. “Let’s… let’s go to the castle, and return once we’ve warmed. He’ll be safe, there.”
Jaime did not look at her. “I have to find him,” he said, voice softer than the drifting snow. He did not move.
“We will,” she promised him. “We’ll come back.” She reached for his arm, but it was too close to her uncle’s stray pale strands for Jaime’s liking, and he pulled away from her, held Tyrion closer to his chest.
It took all her strength not to break at the sight. “All right,” she said. She opened up her cloak, inched toward him. When he did not fight her, she wrapped it around him, wrapped it around both her uncles. Her father leaned into her, rested his cheek on her head, and the snows kissed them both.
Myrcella held him, closed her eyes. He did not mean to leave, she knew, and that was just as well; she would not leave, either. Somehow, it was fitting that they all freeze in the North together—the last of the lions, holding one another, one already dead, with the other two soon following. Cersei, Tyrion, Jaime, Myrcella, all together, in kinslayer’s hell. Never to feel Tommen’s hugs, or Trystane’s kisses, or the brushes on her nose ever again. Damned. Damned for all eternity.
This was sweet, though. And she found that she did not mind.
But the sound of her title echoing through the world brought her back.
She opened her eyes, left Jaime’s warmth. It was Jon Snow, long Stark face solemn, dark eyes somber. And in his arms, a small, headless thing.
When the body was burned and the bones were given, Jaime spoke.
“He goes to the Rock,” he commanded, and left.
Two of them.
There were just two of them, now, and they were even more dead than before.
Myrcella went.
..
“Your Grace,” mocked Lem Lemoncloak.
Myrcella did not struggle in her captor’s arms, did not feel the pain at his digging nails in her flesh, the numbing of her skin, the frost biting at her. Just bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
She did not take her eyes from Lem’s, but Jaime was there, at the farthest side of her vision. He was not fighting, either. Was just as tired as she was. That was just as well. She hoped they made it slow for him, nevertheless.
“Why?” she asked Lemoncloak, because it was a good question. She could call herself queen all she liked, and R’hllor drank her blood as he wished, but there were no true kings and queens, not anymore. Not with the Wall fallen, and the North taken, and the undead that chased them further South. Not with the neverending night, and glassy green eyes, and little red strings tethering two tiny pretty brown halves together, and painted brains, and red hands. The highest peaks of the Rock had frozen over, with only the crypts and the mines living, but that would be taken by wights and cold, too, when the Others reached the West. The lives of Lannisters should have little value, now. The Brotherhood served Catelyn Stark, even with her twice dead, but Winter had come, so their vengeance was wrought in the most perfect of ways already. Killing them would prove nothing.
But they would still prove it, though. She knew.
Lem did not answer her, just smirked, stared.
Jaime leaned forward, before one of the Brothers tugged at him. He smiled anyway, sly and dangerous, and for half a breath he was her golden uncle again, the man he’d been before Brienne of Tarth, and the red hands. “You are not Westermen, but before your betters, nonetheless. A queen has asked you a question. You’re quite inclined to answer.”
Lem laughed at that. “Never you mind. She won’t be alive for much longer, Kingslayer.”
Queenslayer, Myrcella almost corrected him, but she kept silent. It did not matter. None of this did, because hell was coming soon. The hazing moonlight showed the shadows of the scabbard at his hip. Yes, yes, there it was. Her end. A cut throat, a skewered gut, a stabbed heart—all lead to the kinslayer’s hell. There were seven of the Hells, Marci’s septa had told her, long ago. Myrcella wondered which one she and Jaime would be sent to, and how long it would take them to find Cersei and Tyrion. She would find out. She would find out.
Lemoncloak went on. “Aegon Targaryen lives, and with his aunt dead, he is king of what little civilization is left in this world. He has a bounty for the Lannisters who dared desert the resistance at Winterfell. Their king’s blood will flow, summon R’hllor’s grace, and bring forth the dawn.”
“Have at it, then,” Jaime said. “The dawn shan’t be waiting long, I suspect.”
Lem’s smirk was sharper than Valyrian steel. “It has waited this long, it can wait a bit more. Did you truly think I would give you a quick death? After what you and your whore of Tarth did to my brothers? To Stoneheart? Lannisters aren't the only ones who pay their debts.”
Jaime’s eyes darkened at the insult to Brienne, but his voice was soft. “We never were,” he said, “but we pay it best. Remember this.”
As Myrcella’s pyre was built, her heart raced. She misliked the slow, painful death of fire, but she had taken much from R’hllor; perhaps this was payment. Her rage at the sheer gall of these peasants was just swimming below the surface of her acceptance, though. Cousin Nym had taught her how to undo every knot known to man, she knew. She could free herself, take as many with her as she could before they killed her, but no, she could not be a Lannister, now. Could not put pride over what must be done. They both deserved this.
She would have preferred Jaime not see her like this, though. Preferred if they’d burned together… but then she remembered how Cersei always claimed she and Jaime should die as one, together, and the roiling of her stomach rendered her silent.
When they came for her, Jaime snarled. “Touch her, and you die slower,” he said, but they just laughed at him, and dragged her to the pyre. Jaime’s eyes were enraged, panicked, but when they found Myrcella’s calm ones, he was quelled, a cracked dam flowing, eyes closed. He had accepted their fates, made peace with it. Good.
It was not good to Lem. “Before we light the fires, I’ve one last thing to show you,” he said. He unsheathed his sword, and the moonlight caught it just right—
Myrcella bit back a gasp, could not even look at Jaime, see the shock and agony that was bound to take his face. Gods. A golden lion’s head, sapphires in the pommel, black blade with red ripples, and no, no, no, they could not allow this, would not.
Myrcella could feel Jaime’s rage, calling out to her. She tugged at her restraints.
“How,” Jaime asked, the one word between a growl and a hiss.
Lem laughed. “A reward from your sister. She did pay her assassins well, rest her slut soul. Your other whore gave a good fight, I’ll give her that. She was such trouble that we had to gut her right away. Some of my brothers were disappointed with that. They had wanted to play with her a little, sample the Kingslayer’s goods, and all that. Put her in her place before sending her to the Stranger—”
Jaime kicked him, headbutted his captor, and somehow, his ropes were gone, and he’d stolen someone’s sword, and red splattered the snow.
Myrcella did not think. She freed her ropes and elbowed her prisoner, the crunch of his nose somehow louder than the clash of blades beyond her. She ducked him, running for her bow. Arrow after arrow she shot, but she left the ones who’d touched her for Jaime, because he had promised they would die slow, and she would not make him more of a liar.
Slashes, stabs, arrows, until there was no one left but Jaime, and Lem. Somewhere along the way, Lem had lost his sword, so there was no chance, not with Jaime’s lion’s rage. He was down, but Jaime did not make a quick end, no. He beat the man, bashed, stomped on his head again, and again, and again, and Jaime’s back shielded her, so she couldn’t see, but Lem Lemoncloak squelched, and splattered, and dripped, and Jaime kept stomping, and her eyes were closed, and she could not move, and it went on, and on, and on.
Then, silence. Merciful silence.
Myrcella turned, but before she could escape, Jaime was on her. Grabbing her. Pulling her toward the body.
“Myrcella,” he hissed. “Look.”
She kept her eyes closed, fought against him, but he was behind her, trapping her, and far stronger than she could ever be.
“Look!” he commanded, and he had never sounded so mad, so vicious. “You will not be craven. You will see what you have wrought with your lies. Look.”
Fuck you, she wanted to spit, but she could not speak. If she did, she would vomit.
“Open your eyes.”
She opened them, turned her head, looked everywhere but there, the other corpses, any of them, all of them, anyone but—
He grabbed her jaw, forced her to see, and gods, gods—
“Look.” It was a growl, and his grip was tight, and he towered over her like the Mountain did everyone, and the blood was everywhere, and Lem’s head was a fucking destroyed melon, thrashed and splattered and brains and pink and white shards of skull in the bleeding savaged ocean, and babbling, and cooing, and smashed heads and red strings tethering two tiny pretty brown halves—
The scream that left her mouth was not her own. A cry, a plea, a pathetic mourning, and hitched, choking sobs.
The sound threw Jaime from his madness. His grip on her fell, and he was silent as the grave. Nothing sounded but her hushed staggering breaths, her clenching fists. Jaime walked over to the corpse, and saw it, truly saw it, and she could tell by his wide, shamed eyes that he realized just what he had done to her.
He did not apologize. He did cover Lem’s head with a blanket, though. Myrcella would have smothered him with it, if her hands weren’t trembling.
Oathkeeper lay on the iced ground, lone and unbloodied. She watched him lift it, hold it, soft and gentle. Your sword needs its twin, Melisandre had said. The twin had found its way home, but its wielder was still gone, and would never return.
No wielder.
No body.
Jaime had been so possessed by fury and grief that he’d forgotten to ask the Brotherhood what they’d done with Brienne’s body, before killing them. Looking at his defeated, pathetic stance, she knew that had just dawned on him, too. Good. They could both hurt.
Jaime walked past her. He stood there, still, watching the frozen wastes. After eons of silence, Jaime spoke. “Take anything from their belongings that’s useful,” he said, quietly. He kept walking.
Myrcella did not move. “The sea is completely frozen, and overrun with dead things in the water, besides,” she told him, and she hoped he felt every ounce of hatred and spite in her voice. “You will never be able to take the sword to Tarth. Never.”
Jaime faltered, his stance tense, and for half a breath, just one half, Myrcella thought he would turn and strike her.
But he kept walking. Slow enough to follow, and yet, running.
Myrcella went.
She trailed behind him this time, knowing the sight of Cersei’s hair was nowhere near as torturous as Brienne of Tarth’s sword with no Brienne of Tarth to hold it.
The more they walked the frozen path West, with Tyrion’s bones rattling and Oathkeeper gleaming, the more she thought of her old septa. The woman had been wrong about more than just the depravity of the Dornish, or her dresses being too thin, or we should all love our mothers, my Princess, for they reflect the Mother’s light. She’d been wrong about everything.
There weren’t seven hells, just one.
Just one.
..
“The last syllable is an ode to Nymeros,” she told Jaime, matted hair sticking to her pillow. “For Nymeria, and the full name of the House: Nymeros-Martell.” Trystane had been poisoned before they could discuss it, but she knew he would’ve loved that.
Jaime grinned down at the bundle in his arms, eyes alight in a way she had never seen before. The light of a grandfather. A great uncle. Grandfather-great-uncle. No. Just Jaime.
“And the first part?” he asked, looking up at her, exuding mischief. “J…?”
Myrcella gave him a shrug and a smirk. “That part is a namesake, as well,” she said.
He laughed. “Oh?”
“Yes,” she said. “After his great-great-grandfather, of course. Jason Lannister.”
A knowing quirk took his lips. “Oh, of course. A fine name for a Prince of the Rock.”
“Of course,” she parroted, and the humming chuckle he gave her was nearly as sweet as the cooing beneath him. Jaime climbed onto the other side of the bed, slow and gentle, careful of the bundle he held. She rested her head on his shoulder, as he reached out, gave it to her. Myrcella took him, awed at the way the firelight caressed his brown skin, the black curls on his head. I’ve read that lions with darker manes are naturally stronger, Tyrion had told her, and she was glad of it, because it was Trystane’s color, just like the skin. The eyes had not opened just yet, but she prayed for black, the deepest black, like a moonless night, like Trystane.
But Lannisters were defiant even in their first breaths, so when the lids bloomed, emeralds gazed back at her, bright and beautiful and alive, and though her belly was hollow now, her heart was full, and she laughed.
Jaime held them close, pressed a kiss on her forehead. “You’ve done well, Cub.”
Cub. Out of everything, that made the tears well at her eyes. Her empty stomach twisted from the battle she’d just won, and her eyelids were heavy. She closed them, felt the warmth of Jaime’s arms, and soft pretty fists brushing at her nose. She snuggled closer to them both.
“I love you,” she whispered, and she did not know who she meant it for, but she did not regret it.
Silence sounded as sleep took her, but she could have sworn she felt him hold her tighter, just a bit.
..
Jaros.
Her son’s name had been Jaros.
And the Mountain ripped him in half.
..
“My son,” Myrcella says softly, in the silence. “You killed him.” It was not a question, but somehow, it was.
Jaime’s eyes are on her, now, but she doesn’t care. It is not his eyes she must see, look into, know.
Cersei looks at her, and truly, it is her face twenty summers away from now, uncut and only marred by age and madness. She scoffs, shakes her head, eyes playing at softness. “A son that is forced on a woman is no true son, sweetling,” she says. “The Imp arranged that marriage for you, and the Martells let him. They were conspiring, you see. To take you from me, to tear us apart. Tyrion and Doran Martell both let that boy rape you. They robbed you of your beauty, as well. They hurt you, all of them. Surely you see that.”
Yes, she saw many things now. Too many. “Answer me,” she commands.
Her aunt-mother gapes like a fish, and she looks to her twin for help. But he does not belong to her, not anymore—Myrcella has his vows, now.
Jaime’s stare is unyielding as he watches Cersei, twins staring, and they are both so beautiful it hurts. Their face. Her face, too, before the sword ruined it. She should have known the truth the moment she lay eyes on them. Should have always known the sin laced in her very flesh.
She could not hate them for that now, though. There were higher debts to pay.
Jaime finally spoke. “Our queen has given you a command,” he says, coldly.
Cersei cannot help herself. She scowls. “I am the queen.”
“And Tommen was the prince,” he says. “Was he included in your orders? Or did you not think of what it meant to send a monster to resume Father’s work?”
For half a breath her mother-aunt’s eyes flashed with pain, but the denial set back in, and so did the hatred. “I didn’t tell Gregor to hurt Tommen—”
“Just my grandson,” Jaime murmurs, roughly.
Cersei’s soft laugh is poison. “Playing the father now is the greatest lie you have ever told, Brother.”
“So you admit it,” Myrcella is as still as frozen water, but her nails dig into her skirts. “Do you admit to killing Trystane, too, before my son’s birth?”
“I admit nothing,” she hisses.
The queen raises her chin. “You do not have to. Gregor Clegane’s corpse only followed the orders of one.”
The old queen watches the two of them, Queen and Guard, standing side by side. Disbelief lights her eyes, then jealousy, fury. She lets out a hysterical laugh. “This was his plan all along,” she says, desperate and enraged. “The Imp. He was brought into this world by the gods to destroy me. He killed Mother, and Father, and now he comes for me. He knew both of you loved me, so he turned you against me.” The more she spoke, the more her face twisted. “I’ve done all I can to protect you from yourselves, to protect our House. To protect you from any and everyone who dares divide us. Tyrion, Doran and his marriage plots, that Martell boy and his bastard, and that wretched creature of Tarth, that beast who dressed in man’s armor and forgot her place, they all—”
Her breath halts, flies, and she stops. Watches. Knew she’d said too much.
Myrcella heard, though.
And Jaime.
Jaime heard most of all.
..
Jaime could always tell when her moon’s blood was upon her.
He always slowed their pace, always found excuses to rest more, or do the hunting himself, or give her more food than she needed. Perhaps he could sense the emptiness in her belly, too, the hollow pit from where the blood flowed. Either way, he knew.
And she hated it.
The hatred never stopped her from thinking about it, though. The blood, and the near year she had spent not bleeding, but swelling, instead. Trystane’s proud loving eyes as she grew, his kisses on her thickening flesh. Sunray, he’d say at her lips before going to her belly, and kissing there. And the Flower. Flower, because they only bloomed in sunlight. But there was only darkness, now. Darkness, and cold, and nightmares.
And Jaime.
She shifted her sleepless eyes just slightly, turned in her furs, watched him. His bedroll was on the other side of the fire, and he was quiet, and still.
Myrcella stood up, walked over. She hated this. She hated him. Had not forgiven him for what he’d done, the other night. What he forced her to see, and remember. Look, Myrcella, he’d commanded, and she’d obeyed. She had looked. And she did see. Even when she closed her eyes, she saw it.
That didn’t stopped her from seeking him out, though, when the dark grew darker, and the blood flowed, and flowed, drained her, made her even emptier, reminded her of that emptiness. Didn’t stop him from letting her open up his bedroll, lay her head on his chest, and hide there.
Jaime said nothing as she wrapped her arms around him, put her ear on his heart. Just held her back. Silence, and darkness, but Myrcella did not close her eyes.
“I wed her,” Jaime said finally, so soft it could have been the wind.
Myrcella was not surprised at his words, only her confliction. She had made herself not think about it, when the warrior-woman was alive, but with it staring her in the face, she found that she did not know how she felt about Jaime Lannister, Brienne of Tarth, and the thing they shared. It was good that Jaime had found someone that was not his sister, more than good, and yet, if one had the nerve to be incestuous and treasonous, they should fucking commit, should they not? But loyalty should be earned, reciprocated, and Cersei Lannister had been a lying cunt. She did not deserve the eternal devotion Jaime had given her, before Brienne came into their lives. But if Jaime had been loyal even despite that, then Cersei would not have grown jealous, and Brienne would be alive, and perhaps Myrcella and Jaime would still be cursed—because Trystane, and the babe—but at least the world would not have died in frost, because Brienne would be there to wield Oathkeeper, and its azure flame.
Regardless, it was a perplexing thing. As sweet as the woman had been, and brave and honorable to boot, she had been quite hideous. But then, what was uglier than incest? And Jaime had years of practice loving those not blessed with beauty, as he’d loved Tyrion like no other. It all made sense, in its own way. Her Trystane had been the sun made flesh, with skin brown as sienna, and hair and eyes black as a blazed kiss, beautiful, but she thought if he had not been, she would’ve still fallen in love with him, all the same. Perhaps she inherited such blindness from Jaime. The thought was not as unsettling as it should have been, but then, it was better than inheriting Cersei’s disdain for all things imperfect. And with only one ear and whole cheek, she had little room to talk, now.
Brienne’s cheek had looked far worse, though. Where Myrcella had just been cut, Brienne had been chewed—by what, Myrcella did not know. But she’d seen Jaime kiss it, once. The chastest thing, soft and oddly shy. It was not too long after Aegon had taken the Stormlands, and Brienne had come West, seeking asylum. While Lady Brienne was a guest in Queen Myrcella’s court, she was as reserved as they came, even more so around Ser Jaime. Awkward, distant, but Myrcella saw it, all the same. It made her wonder if they had ever fucked. In the brief time they were under one roof, though, Myrcella never saw or heard anything untoward.
They always stood close, though, when they thought no one was watching. Close enough for their breath to meld, to become one, like Melisandre had foreseen. The day Brienne of Tarth left to find Sansa Stark, Jaime had found her in the halls of the Rock, and Myrcella saw. Saw how that hand of flesh caressed the scar that roped just above her collar. So gentle on a thick, muscled neck, then, but merciless on a throat far frailer, only months afterward. Pressing, digging, clenched.
The hand was not bloodied when he’d touched Brienne, though. Not red. Clean and soft.
Brienne was murdered before her quest could be complete, though, so it mattered not. Died trying to get to Sansa Stark, her charge. Honorable til the end. Honor. Lannisters did not know the word, would never know it. She understood why Jaime would find that alluring, endearing, worthy of love—it was a rare gem, amongst their kind. In her own strange way, Brienne of Tarth been more beautiful than lions could ever be. Except for Tommen. No one was more beautiful than him. Not even the flower.
“A marriage,” Myrcella whispered against his chest. “And why was I not invited to the ceremony?”
Warm air plowed over her hair from his snort. “I’d hardly call it a ceremony. The only guests were monks, and a terrified child.” There was a hint of humor in his voice, revived and rising. It was not unpleasant. “Outside was an opportunistic rat not too different from a whore—he was the only one truly unwelcome. Either way, the wench didn’t even attend, in truth. She was too ill to say her vows, or even open her eyes. And her dress was one of blood.”
Myrcella frowned at that, but didn’t interrupt.
Jaime’s voice had grown soft again. “She was dying,” he said, and he sounded dead, himself. “On the Quiet Isle, men and women cannot share a roof through the night, lest they are wed. But she had called for me, in her sleep. I would not leave her. So I wed her.”
Beautiful. Trystane would have done that for her, she thought, numbly, as her heart ached. “That is something out of the songs,” she said.
He laughed, bitterly. “One she didn’t even know was sung. I never told her about it.”
She sat up then, looked at him. “Why?”
His eyes were pained, but his stare was hard. “What honorable woman would wed an oathbreaker?”
She scowled. “What woman would want a man who fucked his sister and got three bastards on her, you mean.”
Jaime did not look away. “That as well.”
They stared at other, stared, until finally Myrcella sighed and lay back down, the rage leaving as quickly as it came. That was an old hurt. There were better things to mourn and avenge, now.
“The truth would have made her turn from me,” Jaime said. “As it did you.”
“Only for a time,” she allowed. “And not even that long.” It was true. When she first learned the truth, that her very existence was a crime, had started a war that’d killed hundreds of thousands, that she was a living sin, an abomination, a lie, she had not taken kindly to her newfound uncle-father, and spurned him every chance she got. She had crowned herself Queen of the Rock, though, legitimized herself and took his name, and he had bent the knee to her, and had grown on her, somehow. Had wormed his way in. The day before Trystane was poisoned, he had shown her Lady Joanna’s secret gardens. “She had a beauty mark under her eye, same as yours,” he’d told her as they walked through the small meadows, hands laced together, with the sun on their faces, and a full swell in her belly. He had been her guard, her Jaime. And then Tommen, and the other one, and Cersei, and their curse, and winter.
“Perhaps she would not have liked her choice being robbed of her,” Myrcella said, “but she would not have turned you away. She loved you as much as you did her. I know it.”
For the longest time, he did not respond, and it had never been louder to her then, his grief. A hesitant hand found her hair.
“Aren’t we the most sorry of widows, hmm?” His tone was trying for that sweet, teasing one he’d had only for her when she was still Marci, and everyone they loved still breathed. But it meant nothing, now, and she didn’t know if that was because he was too broken to manage it anymore, or if she was too dead to hear it.
Still, she found herself smiling, if only a little bit. “You are old, but still pretty enough. The snow can hide the greys in your hair. When next we find a settlement, you should find a woman to bed. I’ve seen how they all stare at you. Any one of them in this world would gladly have you.”
“I am not old.”
“You are old.”
“I am not even forty.”
“And yet, old, still. But, as I said, pretty enough. Stop trying to change the subject, and heed my counsel.”
He laughed. “Speak for yourself. What’s stopping you from taking someone to bed?”
“My lone, overprotective, crippled Queensguard, who would kill any man who so much as looked at me.”
He snorted at that, but did not deny it. In truth, they were both in high need of a good fuck, even though they’d never persue it. Both of them, widows, loyal to the dead. How stupid of them.
Jaime’s loyalty didn’t stop him from taking care of himself, however. There were times in the early hours of camp where she would wake and he would emerge from the deep of the woods, looking calmer and slightly less tense. Myrcella knew what he’d done to make him that way, but he always did it far from her sight and earshot, so she never made a fuss of it.
There were times, after being her cruelest, when she wondered if she should free herself of stress as well whenever she was alone, if only to stop the pettiest arguments between her and Jaime. But she knew she would only think of Trystane while doing it, and remember why he wasn’t there to please her. Remember that he was dead. Remember the debt she repaid, for that murder, and Tommen, and Brienne, and Flower. And she couldn’t do that. Couldn’t find out if the thought of repaid debts would make her dry, or wetter. So she’d settle for being a bitch. Jaime deserved far more.
Silence. Jaime’s heart beat steadily against her ear. She closed her eyes.
“If you found someone who cherished you, I would not kill them,” Jaime said.
“I know,” she said as sleep took her, though it mattered not. Nearly everyone was dead, and those that were not would never love a disfigured wretch with a black heart and even blacker unsaid words. Blood on her hands. Blood from her cunt. Bleeding, she was bleeding, still, and her belly was hollow, and so were her arms.
When she woke, the dagger was in her hand, and at his throat.
His eyes opened before she could even think to thrust. He did not grab her, though. Just stared at her with those green eyes. Her eyes, and they were just as dead as hers.
“What is the debt you repay?” he asked, soft, but sharp.
Sudden knives pricked at her eyes. “You know what it is,” she sneered through her teeth, even though she did not even know herself. The Brotherhood? The red hands? Creating her? She did not know. She did not know, but she was bleeding, bleeding even now, pouring from within her, and he needed to bleed, too.
Jaime was unfazed by her pain. Her rage. “So do it,” he said, quiet as death. The clouded moonlight made his eyes glow, his shadow growing, glooming. That same shadow had formed over Cersei Lannister, and she had said nothing. Had given the order by not giving it.
Myrcella’s hand ached from her grip on the hilt. If she cut him a bit, only a bit, she would not stop. She would not stop, and she would drown in red, and she would go mad. No. There was a more fitting payment.
Eyes not leaving his, Myrcella sheathed her dagger, and wrapped her hands around his throat, the warmth, the life there. Winter had taken the golden glow from his skin, and he was white as Cersei’s white throat. She could make it violet, too. She could.
Myrcella squeezed, slow, hard. Gazed into her digging nails, the blooming blue around her thumbs, pressed, and he wasn’t fighting her, just watched, green eyes seeing white and purple and—
Red.
She did not have a man’s hand, or a hand of gold.
Her nails were longer.
Longer, and sharp.
They’d cut him.
Cut him, and it streamed down her thumbs in crimson tears.
Red.
Her hands were red.
She let him go like he’d burned her, and perhaps he had, because her veins were on fire, and hot bile was pushing up her throat. She bit it back, though, bit it back while she stared daggers at him, and he stared back, unflinching, and she hated him. She hated him so much.
Myrcella stood. Went back to her own bedroll. Did not speak, for ages.
Then, “You should have let them kill us.” She did not know who she spoke of—the Brotherhood, or the wights, or Aegon’s soldiers, or Cersei’s wildfire. It did not matter. It was all true.
Silence. The crackling of fire.
But somehow, she heard him.
“I know,” he said.
There were just two of them, now.
Just two.
..
On the anniversary of Marci’s landing in Dorne, the sun had devoured her skin raw and pink, and she’d ruined her hair with makeshift dye.
“Silly girl,” Arianne scolded, after she was put to bed, and the servants had rubbed healing oils in her burned, peeling skin. It did not heal her, though, because she was still pale where she should be brown, and golden underneath the dye, and a stag, and alone. “What were you thinking?”
Marci was in too much pain to keep secrets, so she confessed. “That I’m one of you,” she croaked. How foolish of her, to think she’d found some sort of home, a sunny pride for her to wrap her arms around forever. The only thing missing was Tommen. And the look. She was the visage of Rhaenys and Aegon’s murderer, and it was not fair to them. She had just wanted to show them...
Arianne’s pretty dark eyes softened at that. “Trystane loves you as you are, sweetling,” she said, “and so do I.”
The words rained the strangest feeling over her. Somehow, they were enough, but the absence of it, the generic dismissal of the answer made Marci face the truth more than her burning white skin ever could.
She was not a Martell.
And she never would be.
..
The red hands haunted her, and she knew why.
It was not just red skin gleaming in that twilight. It was gold, too. Flesh and metal, man and lion, and Cersei’s blood shines in the firelight, glows on her father’s false hand of gold. Red and gold, come together again.
Not red.
Crimson.
Crimson, and gold.
Lannisters.
They are Lannisters.
..
When the unnatural mist hazed from nothing and kissed their flesh, she thought good, let them come.
It was her first time seeing them, and she mourned that she hadn’t been blessed by their presence sooner. They were beautiful. Frost made flesh, steaming yet misting, and their eyes were aglow with glaciers and purity made light, and they were watching her. Watching them both.
Jaime unsheathed Ser Fang, its flames as blue as their eyes.
“Stay behind me,” he commanded her.
Myrcella stepped back, hands almost reaching for her dragonglass arrows. Almost. Sarella taught me how to shoot a bow, she remembered, idly. She remembered many things. She remembered the cold that had beckoned her while she held Jaime, and Jaime held Tyrion’s head, and they had refused to leave, retreat to the haven of Winterfell and its warmth, succumb to the frost that had come to caress them. Remembered how beautiful it had been.
Jaime had forgotten, though. He was fighting. Slashing, roaring, and he was magnificent. Killing them, their flesh melting at Ser Fang’s kiss, and he had not bled, no, not nearly enough. She watched, though. Watched the lion warrior rage one last time. This was life, she had decided. Defiance, and strength, and flashing fiery gold in a colorless world. Beautiful, precious things, all of them, and she’d had them, once. But not anymore, and neither did he, not in truth. It was time.
The coldest stabs clutched her spine, and suddenly it was too cold to breathe. Close, one was close, yes. The cold went from her back, to her side, and then, there he was, watching her. Myrcella was too in awe to be afraid, could only blink at him.
The Other locked eyes with hers, gazing. Then he looked at Jaime, who had killed even more of his brothers, now, and was holding his own against the rest.
Together they watched Jaime, silent, still, until he met knowing eyes with her again, and even though neither had said a single word, they had spoken. He understood her. She knew that. She knew. And she watched him leave her, make his way to his brothers, and the lion whose back was turned.
Jaime hadn’t been prepared for the sneak attack. Cried out as winter touched him. Staggered to his knees as the Other gripped him, falling—
But then he elbowed him, and he was defiant once more. Ser Fang swung, flamed blade cutting Myrcella’s friend, melting him and the rest, but—
But another had come, and the pommel of his blade smashed into Jaime’s face, sending them both to the ground.
They wrestled, man and monster, each trying to stab the other, until Ser Fang burned brighter, and the Other’s blade shattered at the touch.
That didn’t stop him though, or his cold. He grabbed Jaime’s good wrist until his frost tore and devoured, and Jaime roared in pain, let go of the sword, and it was done—the Other grabbed Jaime’s neck with both hands, gripped, squeezed, and here it was, the end. The end, and she felt nothing, nothing.
Jaime fought, though. Kept fighting. His hand of flesh clutched at winter’s grasp, tried to tear him away, even though it was futile.
As Jaime struggled, Myrcella wondered if the Other would turn his hand as blue as his neck, and wash the red away. She wondered if the blue would mirror Brienne of Tarth’s eyes. She wondered if Jaime would like that. She wondered if he would understand.
The world gave her the answer to one question, the best one, the worst. White flesh darkened with each breath that tore from his crushed, blackening throat. Not blue. Black. Black like death, black like demons, not blue, not violet, not, and Jaime was choking, and squirming, and dying.
The dragonglass arrow thrummed through the air before she could blink, and ice became water.
She was there before the Other fully melted, ran so fast her legs and throat were ablaze, and there was no breath in her, but she knelt before him, eyes seeing every bit of black frostbite on his skin, and sword wounds, the red, he was red, and how could she have—
“Jaime,” she said. “Wake up. It’s daybreak.” It was not daybreak, but it was always the first word she’d heard when she woke, and it would wake him, surely, it would...
He did not answer. Lay there limp, and bleeding, and frozen, and dying, or dead, and she couldn’t—
Myrcella put her hands in his matted hair. “Jaime?”
Nothing.
Shaking, she placed a hand over his open mouth. No heat brushed on her flesh. No. Her fingers touched his black throat. The faintest pulse, fading, faded, or perhaps that was her own heartbeat, dimming in her chest. Perhaps he was already dead. She did not know. She did not know, and she couldn’t breathe.
“I killed him, see?” she told him. “He’s gone. He’s gone.”
He was gone.
The world began to blur. “No,” she said. “You can’t. You can’t. We have not yet made it to the Rock. We have to lay Tyrion’s bones to rest, and Brienne’s sword. I can’t—I can’t carry you to the Rock, too. I’m not strong enough. I wouldn't be able to protect you. I can’t… you can’t.”
He had. Jaime Lannister had never been so still, so quiet, and the silence was maddening.
Myrcella’s eyes burned, and the winter air clawed her wet cheeks. “Papa,” she whimpered, shaking him. “Papa, please, I did not mean to, I swear it. I thought—I just—” The sobs choked her, as he’d been choked, because she’d betrayed him, let it happen, and the truth of it made her break. “It hurts. Everything hurts so much, all the time. I didn’t mean to. I just wanted it to stop. Help me make it stop. Please, Papa.”
Once again, the silence answered her with cold nothingness, and in the distance, she heard a scream eons away, but her throat was tearing, raw, and it was all ringing in her ears. She buried her face in his chest to hide from it, one hand in his hair, the other entwined in his black hand. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “Please don’t leave me. Please.”
But he had. He had left her, and Winter had conquered them, finally. Demanded they bend the knee. And she had knelt.
She closed her eyes, inhaled the frosted air. The cold killed most scents, including his. No lion’s musk, or sweat, or the Westerland soaps he’d still bathed with, because they reminded him of home. Just cold, and coppery blood, haunting her.
Blood.
Blood.
Myrcella opened her eyes.
She had bowed before Winter.
But lions did not bow.
The dagger was in her hands without her summoning it, and flesh split, and blood ran down its blade. Blood ran down, lion’s blood, her blood, Jaime’s blood, their blood, and she prayed. Prayed, and prayed, because there was power in king’s blood, and she was Queen of the Rock, and she would not kneel—
And then, fire. Swarms of it, storming within her, filling, swelling, pooling, and her flesh was summer, and despite the swallowing darkness surrounding them, and the night, and the cold, just beyond the back of her mind, Myrcella Lannister saw the sun. Life, and it blazed. Life, and it drained from her, and her world was blacker than the Long Night could ever be. Blacker than it could ever be, and as she poured the last of her strength into kissing her father’s cheek, she knew she’d been wrong, before.
Life was not defiance, or strength, or color where there was none.
It was this.
It had always been this.
..
When Myrcella woke, it was she who was on the ground, and Jaime above her. Well, and whole, and beautiful.
“We Lannisters are quite greedy,” he said, through a smooth throat with a golden sheen. “When we acquire one title, we hunger for another. We become Queens of the Rock, and suddenly, that is not enough, and we are vying for Witch Queen, as well.” His green eyes stared into hers, and she could not tell if he were furious or not. She knew he sounded tired, though. He’d always been tired, even after Myrcella closed her eyes. Not that she gave a fuck.
“Queen of R’hllor,” she corrected him, voice rasped.
Jaime cupped a lock of her hair with his dragonglass hook. “It appears so."
Myrcella looked at the bit hair he held. There were crimson streaks in it, now, striking against the curling gold.
Lannisters.
They were Lannisters.
“Yours, too,” she said. Your queen. Your Cub. Yours. And you are mine. There were just two of them, now. Only two.
For the longest time, Jaime said nothing, eyes proud and fond and sad and empty, all at once.
He stood. “Come then, Your Grace. It’s daybreak.” He reached out his hand.
Myrcella sat there, gazed at it. A hand. A strong, whole, living thing, one that stroked her hair, and shielded her, and held her.
One that wrapped around her mother-aunt’s throat at dusk, and squeezed.
Myrcella went.