Chapter Text
— “Cersei… Cersei…” called Jaime as he awoke.
Pain was a bit less present as life, the incredible sensation of breathing. He knew not where he was.
— Hush, hush, be still my love, Cersei wept with joy as she hastened to his bedside.
Jaime had a blurry understanding that he had been saved. He had not believed it possible to ever awaken again, not since he had fallen into unconsciousness — and yet, it was happening.
His sister, though taciturn and more weary still than before his swoon, kept him company with a kind of quiet tenderness. Those first hours were particularly sweet: she asked nothing of him, inquired after his wound, and let her pensive hands pass across his brow. In return, he held her close with adoration and learnt to rise again with but little pain. He managed a few steps by nightfall, and beheld with unexpected gratitude the skin of his chest rid of the hues of death and gangrene. Jaime savoured the utter absence of fever, the swift vanishing of bloodied phlegm. They remained two more days in the hut — or rather, the deserted hovel whose origin Cersei refused to explain. She swore to him that it was not her who adorned the log’s entrance with severed limbs, but Jaime knew better than to believe her. Did she manage to kill those people beforehand, however, was a mystery.
Cersei was more than evasive. She spoke, however, of a woman of healing, whom Jaime for a time wondered if she had only dreamt. Yet the strange woman did pay them a brief visit on the day of their departure, confirming his recovery and offering words to Jaime alone:
— Your sister is an odd woman, said the woman of the woods. Stubborn, bright, capable of good choices, I gather. But she is isolated, more than proud, and as much wise as she is alone. Misunderstood and loathed by most, I assume?
Jaime nodded.
— This is her time to shine and to rule, if we all survive. She bears a gift that serves against the dead — a gift I know not how to explain. Guard her from herself, if you know how.
Jaime smiled inwardly. The woman, for all her brief usefulness, clearly knew nothing of Cersei. No one mastered her. No one made her bow to another’s will.
Still, Jaime found himself pondering her words more than once. The nights afflicted his sister most harshly, and she slept worse than ever — save when her body collapsed into a near-comatose exhaustion from which Jaime sometimes struggled to rouse her come morning. She spent most of the times within her mind. She bore no fever, fortunately.
— I killed them, Cersei sighed one night.
Jaime stopped flaying a depleted rabbit.
— Killed whom? The townsfolk? King’s Landing did not fall because of you…
Cersei sat up with a start, and heaved, as though sick with revulsion. Jaime sought to understand. She said nothing.
The dreams of Myrcella and Joffrey’s deaths endured for them both. Once or twice, he feared she collapsed from sheer fatigue. He dreaded the rare moments she strayed from his side.
— Cersei! he cried one afternoon, as he saw her return with blood near her temple and ear.
— You’re hurt — did you fall?
— Do not speak to me. Let go of me.
After several attempts she dismissed with her very ill temper, Jaime at last learnt she had fainted. She was starving, and reeling from dizziness.
Conversation became more difficult by the day. Jaime found her steeped in sadness — a feeling he could scarcely name, for Cersei also showed real relief that he had survived. This distant melancholy seemed not rooted in the loss of her crown, of which she spoke with anger and bewilderment every so often, but in something far deeper and more elusive. At last, on an afternoon more pallid than the rest, they reached the outskirts of Winterfell.
His sister, proud and wary, halted in her steps. They stood beneath the final line of dense trees before the long-awaited castle.
— Dear sister, please have no fear, he promised her. They shall welcome us. Our truce is true, and it shall hold.
Jaime was not surprised that she concealed what he guessed were tears of fear. She turned from him a moment, then pressed on through the last few yards in utter silence. He offered his arm to aid her in the thick snow that choked the path, but Cersei refused both embrace and assistance. For all its hardships, the journey had not wholly reunited them. Love endured — undeniable, still strong — but it was hampered by countless unsaid things whose weight Jaime could not rightly measure.
They had crossed paths with white walkers, scattered bands, not more than every other day.
Men, for their part, had grown rare: most villages lay butchered, and in their scant exchanges, the Lannisters wondered how many souls remained to be ruled. Once, the Seven Kingdoms held eighty million. Was a third left? A fifth?
The living had barricaded themselves in their sparse hamlets, surviving who knew how — perhaps still with chickens and oxen locked indoors. These homes were a sight to behold: mankind’s last redoubt against a creeping, ever-present death.
At first, Jaime had tried to approach one such village. He nearly took an arrow to the thigh, and had to concede: he would not trade with, nor pillage, these peasants.
They subsisted on fare ever more meagre, which Cersei oft vomited from exhaustion. Only the water sources, which they had to inspect for corpses or dormant white walkers, allowed them to endure.
They still kept watch by turns. They had kissed but twice — exhaustion, the unbearable cold, Cersei’s sullen silence and his own recovery left no room for carnal closeness.
The army of the dead often crossed their path, errant and ill-organised. At first, Jaime had feared for his sister’s life — and for that of their unborn child. But soon he realised Cersei, by her very presence, thwarted them utterly. The dried-bone attackers could not touch her.
So, when they failed to flee in time on horseback, they would free the steed — trained by Jaime to return on command — and wait.
Cersei would remain on the ground, upright or seated at the base of a tree. Jaime climbed to the lower branches of the same. Alone, the dead would have scaled it swiftly. But with Cersei nearby, they halted. Her presence alone formed a deadly barrier.
They did not tire, nor relent, nor leave. They howled and clawed the air within inches of her, maddened, unable to touch her. Their shrieks sometimes betrayed pain if she drew too near in anger. One simply had to wait until their master lost hold of them — then, all fell at once to the ground, lifeless once more, heaped about her like a shroud of the dead, which she escaped with a grimace, as Jaime descended.
This ordeal befell them more than ten times. Sometimes, it lasted for hours.
Cersei still knew naught of this power she bore, and her vigil wearied her more than Jaime’s.
Their horse had been devoured by the dead eight moons past, when a release had gone awry. The added walking strained her gravely. Reaching Winterfell was a matter of survival in all respects.
— We beg your hospitality, Jaime claimed to the first Stark sentry who rushed from a watchtower.
Soon came the Lady of Winterfell herself, to whom he repeated the words, as Cersei remained mute, her lips cracked, after a few sparse greetings uttered in a hoarse voice.
Sansa Stark stood in fine health, and the fact she had wed his only brother both intrigued and gave Jaime hope. Arya and Jon were absent — he gathered this quickly, yet dared not ask whether they fought free or languished as captives in King’s Landing.
The sounds of forge and murmured talk reached even this side of the gate — signs of life, of war-time bustle, of stone halls that fed his hope.
Sansa Stark was superbly clad, her eyes nearly as pale as frost. The Lady — now Queen in the North — finally nodded. Jaime felt the air fill Cersei’s lungs as the red-haired woman spoke, her words spare but near warm:
— Of course, said Sansa Stark. We were expecting you, in some fashion. If your offer is honest, Jaime Lannister, Cersei Lannister — proceed. You may enter.
They were joined by a handful of lords who yet held the castle — now sparse in its households.
Behind Samwell Tarly and his young son stood his wife Gilly, visibly with child. Jaime saw, from Cersei’s breath and poise, that the sight of a family eased her.
Last to appear was Ser Brienne, in splendid armour, bearing a gaze of noble hurt.
Cersei met her with a glance of ice — even fury — which stirred in the knight a final vexation. Jaime meant to explain, but she fled like the plague, face hard, toward the far building.
Sansa nodded slowly, thoughtful, offering no rebuke to the fierce but starving lioness who was jealous of her knight. Brienne of Tarth was followed only by Podrick. Jaime pitied her. He owed her a true apology — one long and calm, which the implacable Bran, he knew, had not given her.
Once more, he marvelled at and feared that broken-legged youth.
Cersei and he strode swiftly across the frost-rimed yard, following the mistress of the keep and her brother.
The latter, in his wheeled chair pushed by a servant, finally spoke in a strong voice as they entered the hall.
— Know this: Jon Snow, Lord Tyrion, and Maester Qyburn shall be among us soon. They are near, and I believe they shall find us here.
Cersei dared speak, at last, to the boy she once sentenced to death by defenestration. Her only question for the Three-Eyed Raven concerned her faithful Hand and companion. She asked after Qyburn’s health.
Bran gave a near smile and answered obliquely:
— He lives, secluded in a cell, thinking of you, nearing Daenerys’ madness and staying alive despite moderate mistreatment.
Cersei nodded in silent thanks, still unable to voice the apologies she and Jaime had agreed she ought to offer the crippled seer.
Winterfell’s halls smelled of dust, warm crackling timber, bitter wind in the corridors, and of enticing food — a promise intoxicating to a stomach slashed the previous month.
Jaime found the keep more welcoming than before — now that she was by his side.
He could not draw his eyes from his sister — stunned, so tired. She looked lost, haggard.
But they would live. And they would eat.
Nothing else mattered.They would survive.
And the struggle to reclaim the realm — as senseless as it still seemed — could, at last, begin.
It was agreed that her brother Bran, Lord Samwell, and Ser Jaime would dine among the men in the hall, that Lady Brienne of Tarth would slip away, and that the two women would sleep in Sansa’s chambers; Cersei’s condition—more than her wrath—legitimized a smaller but warmer room.
At that moment, Sansa was alone with Cersei, save for the sporadic presence of handmaidens who brought the dishes. The lioness gave off a strange presence that evening—not hostile, but well beyond the bounds of propriety. She ate her soup and meat dishes eagerly, in a manner devoid of grace, with the little dignity that remained to her being purely instinctive, entirely unconsidered. Cersei of Casterly Rock ate like a starving pauper, like a dying woman. Sansa had rarely seen such a thing among people of high birth, and she recalled the few weeks she herself had spent in cold and destitution after her flight from Ramsay, alone in the snow with Theon.
Before parting ways for their respective evening activities, Ser Jaime had mentioned in passing that they had encountered nothing but the dead and pillaged inns since their last meeting. The few minutes he had spoken to her before Brienne and Samwell took him aside, it had seemed to Sansa that Ser Jaime was doing well, but she had noticed a wound on his hip or an illness resurfacing—perhaps both. The queen, once a very thin yet healthy figure, was now gaunt, anything but her belly emaciated.
Cersei’s hair barely reached her shoulders, akin to the length Ser Jaime once wore, when Sansa had first met him, eight years past. It remained matted with a trace of grime, and blood along one side. Yet Cersei’s lofty bearing was undiminished. She was not altogether mannish, but she resembled Lord Tywin more than ever — a resemblance that stirred in Sansa a vague, unbidden vexation.
Her skinny guest bore no foul scent; the biting cold had long scoured all bodies of sweat or mud. She had not washed her hair, merely wiped clean her face and hands — and Sansa expected no more, not in time of war, nor from wounded travellers come unlooked-for.
The shoes Sansa had lent her once belonged to Arya — what bitter irony.
It was the first time she and Cersei spoke face to face, in all these many years.
They talked not, for half an hour. Sansa felt a lingering disgust at the proof of incest that Cersei displayed. Her belly, though immoral as she was with child from a man she needed not to lay with, was the sole form that lent her an air of reassurance to the eye. Sansa had seen to it that one of her own gowns be hastily altered to suit her. Cersei beheld the countless gashes upon her fingers, no doubt earned through the menial labours the once-highborn Lannister had never been burdened with before—tending to hearths, horseback travel, long flights on foot. Sansa found herself, to her own astonishment, assailed by the faintest stirrings of compassion. The flesh was not even infected; the bitter cold had spared it thus far, though it did also delay the healing of wounds.
— You look upon me as though you had never beheld me before, Cersei said with a mirthless smile. Am I to beg forgiveness for partaking of victuals at the table to which you did summon me? This bitter, seemingly endless cold outside —many weeks have we wandered with Jaime, and my babe was near unto death. Do I shock you once more, little dove? Know that whatsoever you bestowed upon me this night shall be repaid in gold without delay, once I do regain my throne.
Her voice bore no weakness. Sansa deemed her even more steadfast than in bygone days. She had expected a woman shattered, twice mourning children she brought forth, a mother bowed by sorrow. But Cersei, although deeply hurt, seemed as one reborn at the very brink of destruction—at that precipice where death ought to claim its due. Sansa’s fingers closed gently around the ornate handle of her fork. She swallowed.
— No, I… There shall be no need for you to ever repay me.
A dry laugh.
—Why not? Do you still believe the silver-haired harlot kept her word to me? Cersei asked, half-amused.
— No. Only that I have no need of your gold, and that it was already agreed upon when Arya spared your life, in exchange for many of your solemn oaths. I will rather you keep them. That shall be enough.
— Was it agreed that you, Sansa, oughted show me kindness? I think not. Methinks it was meant the other way, Cersei replied with a pensive curl of her lip. I was meant to offer you and your kins shelter and recompense, unlimited rule in your northern kingdom, and formal apologies to the memory of Lord Stark—yet here you are, extending an alliance unto me. It is you, Sansa who show me grace, though you are not compelled to.
Sansa stood her ground.
— The future matters to me indeed. I do ponder what course we shall take in the days to come.
Cersei gave one of her dry, knowing laughs.
— Enough in that to rob you of slumber, sweetling. Two pretenders must be cast down—one command dragons mad enough to raze great cities, and she nurtures deep hatred toward u both; the other is a frozen terror, risen from ancient death. These matters will not be unriddled in a single eve of yours.
A long hush settled. Sansa took her meal as well, though with less hunger—grateful nonetheless for the roots and meats the Winterfell stores yet yielded in this mortal cold.
— What moon has been foretold for the birth of your child? she asked softly.
— Why does it matter to you?Cersei shot back.
Sansa made no answer at once. Cersei, it seemed, had not changed—still wild, still alone.
—It is of interest to me, for the babe shall be my niece or nephew. And besides, I have not witnessed a birthing in many a year, Sansa said, with a wistful note for her mother now gone. This is always a beautiful event, a birthing.
Sansa realized as she spoke that Lady Joanna ghost still lingered, especially in Cersei’s dismissive opinion of Tyrion. Her hatred, even. But the lioness did not speak of her begone mother.
— Mine shall not grant you leisure nor knowledge, hissed the lioness. I shall suffer none but Qyburn and Jaime to be present during childbirth.
— For what it may be worth, Sansa ventured, drawing from her childhood memories, I do believe you carry a son.
Her criminal sister-by-law laid a cautious hand upon the swelling beneath her black velvet.
— I think so as well, Cersei murmured, with a wary look. Thank you for allowing him to live.
Sansa knew not what to answer, and thus kept her silence for several minutes. She resumed speaking upon matters of politics, and what seemed akin to sorcery.
—Is it true, then, what has been spoken these many moons? That the dead spare you, Cersei, that they do not touch you, and that they do fear or flee you?
Cersei studied her, near arrogant, yet also bewildered, as one who comprehendeth not the full measure of what befalleth her.
— Do you think that we would have reached Winterfell this eve, had it not been so?
— Perchance. You both might have found some other means. Ser Jaime is mighty with the blade.
— You praise your brother-by-law out of convenience; that is most worthy of Littlefinger, Cersei snarled. Yet even my brother was overwhelmed by the number of the dead throughout our voyage.
Sansa drank wine.
— As soon as the dawn doth break, we must gather and speak further. Thereupon our course shall depend, Sansa added. I heard that you pass through them unscathed. This is a strategy asset, albeit most strange.
Cersei drank a draught of water before she replied.
— Every single thing is ever more strange, in this world.
— I do wonder why the dead do not slay you, ventured Sansa. Why you? Arya and Jon—I might ken that—they are warriors and were raised upon our lands. But your name, the house you grew up in—how does it fit the prophecy Samwell uncovered…
Cersei cut her off, filling with command the goblet of wine that only Sansa might drink.
— Do you think yourself the only one to ask such things? My late sire and my departed lord husband, probably in a hell alongside the boar, must surely shudder. They both must be enraged. I know not what delighteth me more.
Sansa allowed herself a smile, despite all.
— Speaking of things most unforeseen… you have, or so you claim, wed again the richest dwarf in the whole Westeros.
Sansa smiled again, this time with warmth.
— He is more than a dwarf, and you know of that, Cersei. He is my Lord Husband. Please pay respect to Tyrion from now on. I will see to that.
Cersei regarded her warily.
— He enjoyed you, it seemed to me: still. What mad notion did possess you, Sansa Stark, barely free from the Bolton man, to wed once more?
— The answer is easy to give you. I do love Lord Tyrion.
— He is older than you, deemed unsightly by some, once known for his very licentious ways. He is kin to your former foes. Do you love him in truth?
Beyond mere curiosity, Sansa perceived the glimmer of interest—rare indeed—from Cersei, about Tyrion. She gave her a reply of plainest truth.
— I do, truly. It is a matter of wisdom, and of affection as well. A long tale it is.
— I wish to hear that tale; but this night shall not be the hour. I must take my leave of you, Lady Sansa.
Cersei rose. Sansa felt her exhaustion, no matter how concealed.
— Please Cersei, you should see Lord Samwell here, he is a very skilled Maester.
— I know full well where to find Lord Samwell, Cersei snarled clearly displeased. And I know he shall do all that I bid him. His kin fly still under the Lannister banners.
Sansa laughed.
— I doubt that old allegiance shall hold, since you come to our side, Cersei. You must yield in part to our customs, and learn to honour our trust and laws.
Sansa’s declaration was met with a soft rustle of black skirts. In this borrowed Stark gown, she who wore it seemed other than what she once had been. The candlelight made her blond hair glimmer. Cersei, older, waned, truly of slighter stature than the Queen of the North, and surely wearied behind her defiance, yet gazed upon her still.
— Was the union sanctified before the gods of the North?
— Aye. A beautiful ceremony, nine weeks ago.
Cersei scrutinized her, wanting to hurt.
— Has your marriage been consummated, this time?
Sansa tensed. So we come to it. Cersei ever had this bluntness, lacking patience or grace, to speak of what men expect from women, of bodily customs she herself scorned, yet never without sowing her fierce rebellion to help others.
— It has been successfully, and blissfully. Lord Tyrion is a worthy husband, Sansa declared with pride. We love each other.
Her genuine confidence surprised her once rival. Sansa was unashamed. Her body, once a battlefield, did feel alive, safe and pure ever since Tyrion first kissed her lips. She would not let this endangered woman assume that she was the only one to know mortal pleasure at her own volition. The lioness tilted her head, indeed surprised to see her this emboldened, and she glanced at Sansa, her thoughts unreadable. Eventually she sighed.
— May it profit you greatly, Sansa, Cersei uttered at last with a collected smile. Perhaps you are even with child by him, then? Am I to be an aunt?
Sansa shook her head no.
— That is not the case yet. We have agreed upon it. We have chosen to wait for the war’s end. It would not have been wise to bear his heir in these troubled times.
Cersei cast her an amused glance.
— Good night, my gentle little dove.
Sansa straightened. The words reminded her of the times Joffrey still breathed and tortured her. The words reminded her of King’s Landing, of all she had lost, Robb, her Lady Mother, everything. She rose, took a few steps, and saw the green eyes before her widen a moment in surprise, ere they reclaimed their cold and haughty sheen. Sansa spoke with firmness.
— I would prefer you cease calling me that. I am no longer a child. I am the Queen in the North, and your sister-by-law. The only one you shall ever have, given your criminal disgusting ways, in the eyes of the world.
Cersei pressed her lips together.
— Your equal—and at this very hour, the mightiest ally you possess, from far afield, Sansa reminded. You need me if you fancy to stay alive. Your unborn child would have starved to death within days or even hours without the food I have from my small folk’s courage. I shall suffer no more jests. Mock me no further.
— It is but a habit, nothing more, replied Cersei. Doves can fly, after all, you’ve never been just a wolf, it seemed. You have grown, that is true, yet you still wear the fair skin of that little bird. I see you have changed—but still you resemble him, a little. And your snowy realm too.
The Lannister queen had spoken without spite. Sansa sensed there was truth in her words—at least, in part. Yet she remained steadfast.
— It still reeks of scorn. Know this: I shall no longer abide it.
— I would never have come here for any other plan than to slay you, in your own hall, if I held you in contempt, Cersei stated. I could have had you cut down tonight, never mind my weariness, nor the lack of armed men to support Jaime. You know I could have done it—and would have done it—had you proven yourself to be one of those creatures that strut through my capital, or have I been truly like the late Lord Tywin. This is true, I once thought you naïve, Sansa Stark. You were. Too pure for this world. But that is no longer the case tonight. There is no more disdain. Not for a very long time.
Cersei departed and closed the heavy oaken door behind her with grace, ere Sansa had even found words to answer her.