Chapter Text
BRIENNE
She tossed and turned for hours, but the tendrils of sleep refused to pull her under. Every time she began to drift off, his face would appear before her, a bolt of lightning jarring her awake. Reminding her of what a fool she had been to trust him. At Riverrun, she had given valuable information about Lady Sansa’s plans to him, the enemy, believing his sense of honor would persuade him to do the right thing. Yet as soon as he returned to his sister, he began to do her bidding, just as he always had. Always would.
How could she have been so naive, to think he had changed? To put her faith in someone so devoted to his lover as to attempt to kill a child? Claiming his recent actions had anything to do with his vow to Lady Catelyn simply rubbed salt in the wound, and made Brienne sick. Had the quest he had sent her on to find Sansa been a ruse as well? He had told her he always assumed the girl was dead, after all. How better to rid himself of some big ugly wench than to dispatch her on a fake mission across the continent?
She stared at the ceiling half the night, her thoughts tangling until she felt her skull was like to explode. A headache bloomed along her temple, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force her mind to calm. It was futile. Sleep would not come, and lying restless only allowed the doubts to build.
Eventually the stillness became unbearable, and she threw her furs aside. Donning her boots and cloak, she took the tallow candle from the bedside table and slipped out into the hall.
The wind was fierce when she entered the castle yard, driving sleet and snow against the stone walls of the keep, yet she pushed on, shielding her flickering flame from the brunt of it. When she reached the kennels, however, she hesitated, her hand hovering over the doorknob. Seeing him would only increase her uncertainty tenfold, she knew. But not confronting him somehow seemed worse.
Taking a deep breath, Brienne pulled the handle towards her and stepped inside. Instantly she was hit with the dankness of the space, and as the outside world receded behind the door, she became acutely aware of how dark it was. Even the fires in the sconces along the wall did little to combat the blackness, and she had to squint to make any sense of her surroundings.
“Has Lady Sansa finally decided to execute me?” came Jaime’s voice from somewhere in the void, startling her. “I had hoped to get a last meal, but I suppose I can do without.”
Brienne followed his words until she came upon a cell to her left. A guard sat asleep in front of it, and she nudged his leg to rouse him. “I must needs speak with the prisoner. Alone.” She could hear Jaime’s clothes rustling as he scrambled to his feet. No doubt she was the last person he had expected to see.
“’ow do I know yer not gonna slit his throat? Lady Sansa wants ‘im alive til the king returns.”
“I am unarmed.”
“I’ll be th’ judge o’ that,” said the guard, and proceeded to pat her down from head to toe. The man’s hands began to wander as they traveled over her body, resting too long in certain places and pressing too firm in others. She was of a mind to knee him in the groin, and bent her leg to do so, but she never got the chance. One moment his fingers were on her, and the next his back was slamming into the door of the cell.
“The lady told you she was unarmed,” growled Jaime. He had his left arm looped through the bars and pressed into the guard’s neck, locking him in a chokehold. “Touch her again and I’ll strangle the life from you. That is, of course, unless she beats me to it.”
“Let him go,” Brienne ordered. Jaime obeyed, albeit reluctantly, and the gaoler wheezed as he tried to regain his breath. “The door, if you would.” The man’s eyes were daggers, but he did as she commanded, producing a set of keys from his person and unlocking the cell.
When the door clanged shut behind her, Brienne turned to Jaime. “You needn’t have done that.” Their eyes locked as she spoke, and for a moment neither of them moved. In the candlelight, his irises glowed like a cat’s, emerald burning bright. There was distress in them, and longing, and something else she could not place. Sadness? Remorse?
In the end, however, Jaime merely shrugged, and the tension continued. She could feel the gulf between them, stretching miles wide, a canyon with no end in sight. What was she doing here? Had she lost her wits? The man was a liar and attempted child murderer. Any illusions she had harbored about his honor had dissipated the moment she learned he was planning to sack Winterfell, reneging on his vows to Lady Catelyn, to her. Nothing he said could change that.
So why was she standing in his cell?
“Brienne,” Jaime said finally. The statement was simple, just her name, yet it sent shivers prickling across her body. She closed her eyes, trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart.
Abruptly she felt a hand on her arm, and she was transported back to her dream at the Crossroads, to Jaime’s cloak fastened about her shoulders, the ribbon falling to the floor, his hold keeping her upright.
And Oathkeeper piercing his heart.
Brienne jerked from his grasp, moving several paces away, and the candle fell to the floor. Its flame sputtered and died against the cold stone.
“Did you threaten to send Edmure’s son to him in a trebuchet if he did not yield Riverrun?”
The inquiry surprised Brienne even as it left her lips, lingering in the air and echoing throughout the kennels. Whatever had possessed her to ask him vanished in an instant, and regret coursed through her in its stead. I was certain of his answer before I left my bed. Why confirm what I already know to be true?
Jaime’s silence was his only response, and it cut her just as deep as if he had spoken. The admission was a knife twisting in her belly.
“For Cersei,” she said. It was not a question.
The cell was quiet for a time, interrupted occasionally by the drip of water in the corner. Seconds extended into minutes, and finally Brienne decided she had heard enough. She turned to leave.
Then, Jaime said, “For you.”
Brienne froze. As the meaning of his words washed over her, her blood chilled, turning to ice in her veins. Even with her back to him, she could feel his gaze burning through her clothes, smoldering against her skin.
When she faced him once more, his eyes glittered in the darkness.
“Do you think Edmure would have surrendered the castle peacefully if I had offered him comfortable rooms in Casterly Rock? Believe me, I tried, but the man was as stubborn as you are.” Jaime closed the gap between them with tentative steps, stopping when they stood a scant few feet apart. “He imagined me a monster, so I acted as one.”
The implications of his revelation swirled in Brienne’s mind, rendering her speechless. Jaime had been seeking to make good on his promise, intimidating Edmure into yielding the castle without bloodshed. He had given up his most valuable prisoner to keep from having to fight the Tullys. To fight her.
He may be lying, a voice whispered. But what could he hope to gain by doing so? He was a captive of the newly united North, his fate undecided at best. Trying to convince her that he was still worthy of trust would do nothing in his favor.
Suddenly Jaime’s hand found her wrist, as if he anticipated she would bolt at any moment. Brienne flinched, but she did not pull away as she had earlier, did not flee as she had so many times before. Despite the chill of the room, his skin was warm.
“You know me, Brienne,” Jaime said. Unbidden, memories flashed in her mind, of him rescuing her from being raped, jumping into the bear pit empty-handed to save her, swearing to return the Stark girls to their mother. “I would not have gone through with an attack against Winterfell.”
Guilt surged through her for having doubted him, for doubting him still. She wanted nothing more than to believe him, but even now a part of her questioned how far he would go for his twin, the golden queen he had been in an incestuous relationship with since they were children. A love like that could make men do impossible things.
“Come, curse me or kiss me or call me a liar. Something.” There was a tinge of desperation in his tone, making the words sound almost like a plea. Almost like a prayer.
Brienne could do naught but stand there, her body motionless as he moved closer, and all at once she knew why she had come. But you love him, Cersei had told her at the royal wedding, so many years ago. Brienne had tried to put the conversation out of her mind since then, but now it all came rushing back: the queen’s knowing smirk, the feeling of being blindsided, the dawning realization that she was right.
Her declaration had been a thinly veiled threat, but truthful nonetheless.
Jaime’s fingers began to travel up her arm then, ghosting along the thin fabric of the nightshirt under her cloak, pulling her back to reality, back to his cell. Her breath caught in her throat. She was certain he could feel her heartbeat as it thudded in her veins, but she could not bring herself to move. The world narrowed until everything was the touch of his fingertips, the trail of fire they left in their wake. Heat blossomed between her legs.
His hand halted at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, the touch light as butterfly wings, causing her pulse to quicken. Their faces were just inches apart, so close his breath fanned her cheeks. Her stomach flipped as he leaned forward.
The pressure of his lips against her own was slight, barely the suggestion of a kiss, yet it sent tremors down her spine. The sensation was over in an instant when he pulled back away, and she found herself staring at his face, trying to read his expression in the dim torchlight. There was no mockery as she had come to expect in moments like this, when the man doubled over and laughed, calling her a sow, collecting money from some friend in on a bet. His gaze held only confusion, and nervousness, and a trace of something darker.
Lust.
“Jaime,” she heard herself say, scarcely a whisper. At the sound of her voice, his eyes grew wide, and he swallowed audibly. She could see his mind working through what he had just done, as hers was. He had only ever been with his sister, Brienne knew, and she herself was a maiden still, never having been deflowered in her entire life. How could a man like Jaime Lannister possibly want a woman like her?
Instead of pushing her away in disgust, however, he placed his thumb under her chin, keeping their eyes locked.
“Do you trust me?”
Did she? The question repeated over and over in her head, crowding out every other thought until it consumed her. Do you trust me? She remembered Bran’s crippled legs, and Cersei’s beauty, and her and Jaime’s fight in the woods, and Jaime shouting sapphires, and the weight of Oathkeeper at her hip. Did she trust him?
You need trust to have a truce, Brienne had told him in the bath at Harrenhal, standing above him with water dripping down her body. She had loathed him and his demeaning remarks, and wanted nothing more than to drown him where he sat. But he had looked up at her with genuine honesty on his face, and said that he trusted her. That was when he started to divulge the story of the sack of King’s Landing, explaining how he had slew the Mad King to prevent the loss of thousands of lives. His finest act, reviled by millions.
Finally Brienne gave a nod.
Jaime’s hand caressed her cheek as he brought his mouth to hers again, more forceful than before, but still cautious, hesitant, gentle. For a time she stood rigid, her body unsure of the proper response, and then she opened her lips, slowly parting them for his kiss. He tasted of dirt and blood and salt, and she could feel his fingers moving to the back of her neck, drawing her nearer. His heartbeat thudded against her chest, quick and strong, competing with the one that pounded in her ears. Her whole body began to pulse.
Wrapping his arm round her waist, Jaime guided her to the wall opposite the door, and her back met frigid stone as his kisses traveled to her throat. She could hear her own breath, ragged as if she were in the midst of a swordfight, but it was distant, far off. All that mattered was the feeling of his lips gliding across her skin, sending gooseflesh in every direction, setting her insides ablaze. His knee gingerly spread her legs apart, causing her to shudder.
Jaime’s lips found hers once more, and soon his fingers began to work at removing her cloak. But the ribbon that bound it proved difficult to untie with one hand, and after a few moments of fumbling, he stiffened. Something in the air shifted, and suddenly he was breaking their embrace, moving away from her. She could feel the cold rush in at his absence, and his grip loosened on the knot until his hand went still.
As their breathing slowed in the silence that followed, Brienne’s cheeks began to burn with humiliation. She felt more a fool than she ever had. He has come to his senses, and realized that no amount of darkness could make one forget what a big ugly wench the Maid of Tarth is. She wanted to disappear, to run away, to slink back to her room and never leave.
Before she could do any of those things, however, Jaime spoke.
“You deserve better than to be fucked in some dungeon.”
His words were laced with self-loathing and disdain, and all at once she understood. He thinks himself unworthy of me. The notion was nigh inconceivable, yet there it was, hanging in the space between them. Although she could not see his features, she sensed the confliction in his eyes.
“Dawn should be here soon, my lady. You’d best leave before you’re caught in the lion’s den.”
Brienne must have walked past the sleeping gaoler and through the storm to the Great Keep, because at some point she found herself in her bedchamber, lying beneath the pile of furs once more. I have just awoken from another dream, she thought through the daze. But if it had all been a dream, why were her lips still swollen from Jaime’s kiss?
Her gaze found Oathkeeper in its sheath, leaned against the wall with her armor. She slid from bed and came to her knees before it, removing the sword from its ornate leather scabbard. The blade hissed as it was released from the case, and the ripples shone black and red in the pale moonlight. Beautiful steel, but deadly all the same. A weapon intended to both defend and kill.
Brienne held tight to the lion pommel and said a silent prayer to the Seven, and then to the old gods of the forest as well, imploring them to protect Jaime, to save him. From execution and himself, and those who would judge him guilty the moment they saw him.
Shame choked her as she crawled back below the covers, and her neck ached where Jaime’s lips had pressed. He had bore his soul to her more than once, yet she had believed him an oathbreaker nonetheless. Was she no different from the rest of Westeros, from those who called him Kingslayer behind his back? The thought made her want to weep.
Tears fell from her eyes, and sleep did not find her until the white light of morning brightened the room.