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Jaime’s first sight of Winterfell was Petyr Baelish’s head grinning from the ramparts. The cold had preserved it admirably.
Arya Stark greeted him in the courtyard. She stood like a general in front of her troops, and looked at him as though he were a decidedly unimpressive recruit.
“I think you forgot your army,” she said.
It occurred to Jaime that he’d gone off a bit half-cocked, coming here without a plan and not even the faintest idea what to say.
“About that --” he started, clearing his throat, but Arya cut him off.
“You’re not on my list,” she said, gripping the pommel of her sword as if she might draw it at any moment. “Pity you didn’t bring your sister.” She looked him up and down, and when her eyes lighted on his missing hand, she smirked. Then she walked away.
Without meaning to, he said, “I’m glad to see you here, Lady Arya.”
She turned back to him, looking suddenly like a child. Her face hardened quickly, and she said, “I can’t say the same for you.”
***
The King of the North received him in the vast, barren chamber that passed for Winterfell’s great hall. Jaime was relieved to see that it was empty; he’d had the luck to arrive between meals.
Before his courage failed him, he said, “I’ve come to offer myself as a hostage. Use me to force Cersei to give you the army she promised.”
He’d made the decision quickly. One-handed, he wasn’t much good as a foot soldier, and he could hardly expect Jon Snow to make him a commander. The thought of being the Starks’ captive again rankled, but if he’d come to fulfill his promise, this was the best way to do it.
Jon Snow and his advisor offered nothing but stunned silence, so Jaime added, “I’d prefer a tower to a pen in the yard, if possible. I wouldn’t be much good to you as an icicle, in any case.”
Jaime had prepared himself for a variety of reactions to his news, most involving rage and beheading, but Snow didn’t reach for his sword. If anything, he seemed...sad. Nothing changed in his face, but Jaime watched the slow slump of his shoulders, the slight droop in his spine.
“She’s not coming then? The whole thing was just, what, a ploy?” he asked, his voice full of consternation. Jaime felt oddly cheered that there was anyone left in the realm who could be surprised by his sister’s trickery.
“She intends to fight the victor for the Seven Kingdoms, whether that’s you and the Dragon Queen or the...ah, skeleton army.” Jaime only narrowly resisted the urge to laugh. Who could’ve imagined him here, offering himself as a hostage to his family’s sworn enemy in the probably vain hope of delivering an army to fight the undead?
The king’s advisor stepped forward -- an iron-haired man missing a few fingers. Jaime had seen him before but hadn’t bothered to learn his name.
“And you think she’d give up an army for you?” he asked, eying Jaime as if he were a diseased calf for sale at the market.
“I don’t know,” Jaime said. Saying the words stung, even though it shouldn’t have. He shook his head. “I do know I’m your best chance.”
“No,” Snow said with an air of finality that at last made him sound like a king.
Jaime and the advisor both stared.
The advisor found his voice first. “My lord, I’m a humble man, but you ought to at least consider --”
Snow cut off the man with a quick shake of his head. “I’m not risking it. Maybe she’ll come for him, maybe she won’t. Or maybe she’ll send her whole army to sack Winterfell, and then who’s left to fight the Night King?” He shook his head again. “We can’t afford to forget what really matters here. I’m not playing political games.”
Jaime stepped toward the king’s table. “You’re a man of principle, I can see, but you need her army.” He forced himself to close his mouth before he actually begged a bastard king to extort his sister.
Snow nodded sadly. “I do, aye. But I don’t trust an army that’s not willingly given. If you’re here to fight, then fight. I’m not turning down good soldiers. But I’m not blackmailing your snake of a queen.”
Snow stood up to go, but the iron-haired advisor cleared his throat. “With all due respect, sir, are you sure you can trust him to walk free?”
Jaime stared, fascinated in spite himself. Watching someone question their king without risking their head was quite the novelty.
Jon Snow didn’t look the least bit angry. He only turned back to Jaime and said, “If you want me to trust you, you’re going to have to explain why you’re here.”
Jaime swallowed. Three dead children. Hope for the fourth to live. But even now that everyone knew the secret, he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.
“I suppose I had a taste of the real world, where people have important things taken away from them,” he said. “I’m fighting for more than my sister now.”
Jon Snow nodded once, short and sharp, and that was how Jaime joined his enemy’s army.
***
Apparently, Jon Snow was not his biggest problem. It was Sansa Stark who summoned him to her audience chamber three days later, and Jaime felt certain it wasn’t for a friendly chat.
Without preamble, she said, “Sometimes when I try to understand another person’s motives, I play a little game. I ask myself, what’s the worst reason they could possibly have for saying what they say and doing what they do? Then I ask myself: how well does that reason explain their behavior?”
“Ah, the intrigues of court. Almost makes Winterfell feel like home,” Jaime murmured. He wasn’t even being sarcastic; fighting for his life among shifting alliances did make him feel at home. He inclined his head toward Sansa. “And what do you imagine is the worst possible motive for my presence here?”
Arya was cleaning her fingernails with a dagger that looked to be made from Valyrian steel. She looked up boredly. “She thinks you’re a spy for the queen.”
“Caught,” Jaime said, holding up his hands theatrically. “You have to admit, it is an excellent plan. Send the commander of your army alone to a place that despises him, see if he can get a few useful tidbits of information before someone cuts off his head.” He nodded toward Arya. “You would do the honors, I presume?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said with a shrug.
He might’ve taken it for posturing, but when he looked in her eyes, she didn’t flinch.
He looked back at Sansa. “Of course, a woman of your intelligence knows there are any number of better explanations for my behavior -- or Cersei’s. Send someone you’ve never seen before to slip into your armies, or send me with an army, ready to attack at her word. But if you’re just looking for an excuse to put my head on a spike, I don’t imagine reason will stop you.” He held out his hands in an obvious gesture of surrender. Come get me, I’m yours. It occurred to him that this was the second time he’d made that gesture in as many weeks, and perhaps he shouldn’t make a habit of daring people to kill him.
Sansa smiled tightly. “Actually, I do listen to reason. I’m not Cersei.”
Jaime snorted at that. “Good to know. I take it I’m free to go.”
A voice drifted over from beside the fire. “You pushed me out a window.”
Jaime had been so focused on Sansa and Arya’s little game that he hadn’t noticed the shadowy form seated by the fire. Sloppy of him. Especially since it was Bran Stark, who was apparently alive and most certainly could get him killed.
Arya’s little sword was at his throat before Jaime could even think to draw. It was probably just as well; as much as he’d like to think he could defeat a wispy seventeen-year-old girl, even without his good sword hand, the look in Arya’s eyes suggested he ought not chance it.
“Shall I kill him?” she asked conversationally.
“It wouldn’t bother you to do that, would it?” he asked. Something he didn’t quite understand tugged at his heart. He suspected it was connected to the bargain he’d made with Catelyn Stark, which was better left in the distant past, where it belonged.
Still, he didn’t miss the waver in Arya’s expression before her face went hard again.
“You wouldn’t be the first,” she said.
Jaime thought about the miles she’d covered between Winterfell and King’s Landing, with half the troops in the Seven Kingdoms searching for her. “No,” he said, “I suppose not.”
“It’s alright,” Bran said. “It had to happen the way it did. I had to become the Three-Eyed Raven.” His voice sounded oddly distant, even though he was scarcely ten feet away. “Perhaps I ought to thank you.”
Jaime blinked. Perhaps the boy had hurt his head in the fall. But if he would get the point of Arya’s sword away from his throat....
“You’re welcome,” he managed, sounding more uncertain that he would’ve liked.
He took a step back, but Arya stepped forward at the same time, pressing the point of her sword harder against his throat.
“I didn’t say you could go.” The scariest thing about her, Jaime decided, was the way her voice stayed completely flat. She tilted her head inquisitively. “If you had it to do over again, would you?”
Jaime pressed his lips together, thinking. The silence in the room grew heavy. The obvious answer was no, but that didn’t mean it would save his life. Especially since it wasn’t entirely true.
He glanced toward Sansa. She’d been silent for the whole exchange, but he could feel the weight of her attention. Would she call Arya off? Could she? Oddly, Bran seemed the least interested of all of them. So which one did he have to convince?
If the game had made him feel at home before, now he just felt tired. Tired of weighing and measuring, tired of scheming, tired of pitting his life and his family’s reputation against the few things he actually believed in.
He licked his lips. “The truth is, it depends on which man you’re asking. The man in the tower that day, no, he wouldn’t change it. The man here, now, who knows everything that happened afterward, he absolutely would.” There was the honest answer. If Arya Stark killed him for it, so be it.
Arya raised her eyebrows. “So you’re not sorry for Bran, only for the war?”
“If your brother seemed sorry for what happened to him, I would be. But as he seems to have achieved his desire to become the, er, Three-Eyed Raven, I don’t apologize.” The truth was, Jaime was ashamed of the things he’d done for Cersei. At the time, the life of a ten-year-old boy hardly seemed to matter, but that was before his own children had died.
“I don’t need you to kill him,” Bran said, his voice suddenly growing strong, and Arya put down the sword at last. Jaime heaved an involuntary sigh of relief. He hadn’t particularly wanted to die today, and certainly not at the hands of a seventeen-year-old girl who hadn’t given him a chance to properly defend himself.
“It’s been a pleasure, Lady Stark,” he said, inclining his head toward Sansa. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”
He left before anyone else could threaten his life.
***
Jon Snow would take any willing fighter, but Sansa Stark selected their living quarters. She had allotted him a bunk in the barracks. If she had hoped her choice of quarters would bother him, well, she’d succeeded admirably. The stink, the fleas, and the choice of companionship grated on him daily. No, hourly. Really, every moment of every day.
At first, his fellow soldiers called him Oathbreaker and Kingslayer. Once they’d seen those epithets didn’t garner a reaction, they moved on.
A man -- Jaime hadn’t bothered to learn his name -- spat as soon as he entered the barracks. “Sister fucker.”
A drop of spittle landed on the toe of Jaime’s boot. He kept his head up, kept walking. How exactly had Tyrion endured daily insults and slights? Not by ignoring them, and not by fighting either.
Jaime spun around so he was standing face-to-face with the man who’d spat. A low murmur of anticipation drifted through the men lounging in their bunks.
“You got somethin’ to say to say to me, sister fucker?” the man growled.
Jaime smiled. “Only that my sister’s a fair sight prettier than your wife.”
The barracks went silent for a moment, and Jaime kept his hand wrapped around the pommel of his sword. Suddenly the men around him roared with laughter. Someone clapped him on the shoulder, and he let go of his sword at last.
He should’ve known it wouldn’t be that simple. No sooner had he settled at the rough hewn table at the end of the room than a meaty hand tapped his shoulder. The spitter again.
“I heard if you fuck your sister, the kids come out lookin’ funny.”
Jaime’s spine stiffened. A little crowd of soldiers drifted over to the table. Friends of the spitter, Jaime supposed.
“Nah, takes a couple generations,” someone else muttered. “The daughter was right pretty. Saw her once down in King’s Landing. I’d say any man could get his hands on her wouldn’t complain.”
“Yeah, but what about underneath her clothes? Webbed toes and the like, I’ve heard. What d’you think you’d find up under her panties?”
Jaime leapt from the table with a roar, not bothering to unsheath his sword. He got in one blow with his good hand before the jeering crowd closed around him. A fist landed squarely in his stomach, then blows rained down on his back when he doubled over. Lashing out against a crowd so large was pointless, so he set a goal to remain on his feet. If they were going to beat him to death, let him die standing at least.
“Ahem,” someone said. That was all. Just ahem, and the crowd parted. At first, Jaime couldn’t identify the source of the interruption; he was looking up too high. His savior was a girl who looked scarcely twelve years old.
She surveyed the crowd with an imperious glare. “This is not a war of North against South, nor house against house. It is a war of the living against the dead. This man has come as a warrior to fight for our side. You will treat him as such.”
The men shuffled on their feet. Few could meet her eyes. She inclined her head toward Jaime.
“It does not befit the soldiers of House Mormont to mock a murdered child. I apologize for my men, Ser Jaime, and I am sorry for your loss,” she said.
Jaime muttered a vague thank you through swollen lips, though it was difficult to summon much gratitude for being rescued in such a humiliating way. In just a few days at Winterfell, one child had nearly killed him and another may well have saved his life. How Cersei would laugh if she knew.
***
Brienne found him sitting outside in the snow, pressing a fallen icicle against his swollen eye.
“They wouldn’t treat you this way if they knew you as I do,” she said quietly.
Brienne’s faith warmed something inside him. Sometimes he thought that if he could be worthy of respect, he could die knowing he was a good man, but he pushed the thought aside as foolish.
“Word travels fast,” he murmured, wondering exactly how idiotic he looked holding an icicle on his face. But then, Brienne had seen him with his own rotting hand dangling around his neck. This was nothing in comparison.
Brienne pulled herself up straight. “If you’d like to sleep in my quarters --”
Jaime waved her off with his good hand. “Then what would people say?”
Brienne shook her head. “It hardly matters.”
“It does,” Jaime countered. He knew -- or he could guess, at any rate -- that maintaining her honor required Brienne to balance on a knife’s edge. The gossips would hardly care that he slept on the floor. He looked back toward the barracks. “Anyway, no need for them to think I’m weak.”
“I’m sure they’ll soon see otherwise,” Brienne said. Anyone else would have made it sound pitying, but she only looked sincere.
“Or I’ll die,” Jamie said, thinking of the skeletal beast that had leapt out of the chest in the dragon pit.
“We might all,” Brienne said. She squeezed Jaime’s arm. “But at least we’ll die fighting.”
***
Jaime had hoped he was finished with life-threatening confrontations for the day, but when Arya walked across the courtyard, he called out to her.
He saw the faintest hint of uncertainty as she approached him, and he seized the chance. “Do you enjoy killing, Lady Arya?” he asked, looking at Petyr Baelish’s head on the wall. Unlike the rest of their surroundings, it wasn’t covered by snow; someone had been dusting it off every morning.
She answered without hesitation. “If they’ve wronged me, or the people I love. Don’t you?”
“No,” Jaime said simply. Maybe he should’ve enjoyed poisoning Olenna Tyrell, but even after her confession, the most he could muster was a dull sense of duty.
Arya frowned. “Not even when you were young?”
“I didn’t lose sleep over it,” he admitted. “But no, I couldn’t say I liked it. It was just...doing what had to be done.”
The odd sensation tugged on his heart again, and this time Jaime could place it: worry. She was nothing like Myrcella -- or any of his children, really -- except for her age. Still, the hollow ache in his chest wouldn’t leave.
He waited for Arya to make some kind of attack, something about how he’d prefer to let others kill for him, or how his life had been too easy for him to truly want anyone dead. But maybe some of his feelings had shown on his face because Arya shook her head and asked, “The thing you said when you arrived, about being glad to see me here. Why did you say that?”
“Because I am.” He pulled himself to his feet, the better to stop feeling like an idiot in front of a child. “When your mother released me, I promised I’d send her daughters home. Believe it or not, I intended to. I was sorry that I couldn’t, and I’m glad you made it back another way.”
May Catelyn Stark’s ghost have mercy on his soul.
Arya lifted her chin. “You could’ve sent Sansa back.”
Old words lingered on the tip of his tongue: that he’d been caught in an impossible situation, that his father had been too powerful to resist, that Sansa had run away before he’d had a real chance. But the truth was, he hadn’t really tried.
He forced himself to meet Arya’s eyes. “You’re right,” he said, “I could have.” The rest of the words -- I should have -- didn’t come.
Arya didn’t have anything to say to that.
***
The next few days passed uneventfully, though Jaime made a point of calling out to Arya when he saw her. She rarely answered in more than monosyllables, though Jaime kept trying -- partly because he took a savage pleasure in discomfiting her, and partly because he was too stubborn to give up.
No one seemed to notice, except Brienne, who was obnoxiously perceptive in spite of being one of the most awkward people Jaime had met.
“You care about her,” she said one evening when they were patrolling the walls. Arya was in the courtyard below, training with Pod by torchlight.
Jaime huffed noncommittally. He’d had far too much time alone with his thoughts in the past few days, so he knew exactly what drew him to Arya: she reminded him of Joffrey. He could no longer count the number of times he’d wondered if he’d missed some critical turning point when his son’s madness might have been checked. Now he could see Arya teetering on the edge of some invisible cliff, bloodlust vying with humanity. It wasn’t realistic to think he could pull her back all by himself, or that doing so would erase Joffrey’s sins. Still, the space where his children used to be ached more than his missing hand, and it was hard not to want to try.
Not that he planned to admit any of that to Brienne.
“She’s dangerous,” he said, which wasn’t a lie. “She killed whole Frey army, didn’t she?”
Brienne shook her head. “I don’t know how, but yes, I imagine she did.”
“Does that concern Jon or Sansa, do you think?” Jaime asked, watching as Arya knocked Pod’s sword away for the fourth time.
“The King and Lady Stark,” Brienne said reprovingly. Her face darkened. “And no, not as much as it should, at any rate.”
“War takes away children in a lot of ways,” Jaime murmured, feigning indifference as best he could.
It must not have been a very good performance because Brienne only said, “If you’re looking for a way in, Lady Arya rarely turns down a fight.”
Jaime snorted. “I’m sure she’s not lacking for sparring partners.”
Brienne punched him in the shoulder - hard enough that he struggled to contain his wince.
“Then you have no idea what it’s like to be a woman gifted at swordplay,” she said and stalked away.
***
The question was, which did he care about more: the tattered shreds of his dignity, or some slim chance of friendship with Arya Stark?
It was a stupid question. He had no dignity, at least not in the eyes of anyone in Winterfell. And Arya would never see him as anything but an enemy.
Jaime gritted his teeth as he heaved himself out of his bunk. The first rays of light were piercing the winter sky, and there was no use hiding from the truth: he was going to let Arya Stark humiliate him because he was bored and lonely and missed his children
Snow crunched underfoot and his breath hung in the air as he marched toward the practice field. Arya was always there at first light, fighting against an imaginary opponent.
She took stock of him as he approached, her gaze settling once again on the metal hand.
“Really?” she asked, trying to school her features into derision. Still, he didn’t miss the frisson of excitement in her voice. Dueling with Pod must be getting old.
“I need practice,” Jaime said. The admission stung, but it was true.
The most intimidating thing about Arya’s fighting stance was just how comfortable she was: knees slightly bent, shoulders relaxed, fingers deceptively loose around the grip of her sword. She stood lightly on her feet, dancing just outside Jamie’s reach, daring him make the first thrust -- or, slightly less charitably, toying with him.
“Most men won’t fight me,” she said, neatly dodging Jamie’s strike.
“They don’t like to lose to a woman,” he said, and he didn’t miss the sudden surge of pride that lit her eyes. Everyone else still called her a girl, he knew.
“Do you like losing to women?” she asked.
“Not particularly,” Jaime said. “But then, I’m going to lose to most people, so I may as well lose to you.”
He grunted as he stumbled. Fighting left-handed didn’t phase him as much as it used to, not if he kept down the memories of his old glory days. The real problem was that he’d never fought a tiny person wielding a tiny sword. She wove in and out of his reach, dancing too close for his larger weapon to be effective.
The fight ended when he tripped over a fallen beam in the practice yard. In the snow, it was impossible to see, though he could tell from the look of triumph in Arya’s eyes that she’d known it was there. A second later, she was standing over him, the point of her sword pressed against his neck.
“You didn’t really try,” she said, looking down at him with an arched eyebrow. “Did you give up before you’d even started?”
“Losing a hand does make things a bit difficult,” he said. “Will you be letting me up anytime soon?”
“Pathetic,” Arya spat. “I learned how to fight when I was blind, and you gave up because of one hand?”
“You went blind?” Jaime asked, momentarily distracted from the cold seeping through his robes and the goose egg growing on the back of his head.
“I --”
The slight hesitation was just enough to tell Jaime that whatever came next would be a lie.
“I hit my head,” she finished.
The point of her sword wavered, and Jaime did something he had never considered doing to a man, much less a woman: he slammed his knee between her legs as hard as he could.
He hadn’t been certain what would happen, but Arya lurched backwards with a yelp. In one motion, he kicked her sword away and swept her feet from under her, and by the time her body had hit the ground, his own sword was at her throat. Maybe he had learned something from Bronn after all.
***
It was Arya who found him the next morning when he was sharpening his sword behind the barracks. She was limping a little, and the sight left him suffused with an odd mixture of shame and pride. He could still win a fight; it just required sacrificing everything he used to be.
The dull edge of her sword came down hard on his shoulder when she said, “Again.”
He moved to gather his things so they could go to the practice yard, but Arya had no intention of waiting. Her advance was relentless. Caught off guard, his instincts were all wrong -- as always, Cersei’s voice purred in his ear -- and she was driving him backwards downhill before he could stop her onslaught.
His saving grace ought to have been that Arya wasn’t as strong as Bronn or the Dornishman he’d fought; she and her tiny sword couldn’t force him to his knees. The problem was, she knew the terrain so much better than he did. He could see her peering over his shoulder, looking pleased, and he could guess she was backing him toward some hidden obstacle, the same way she had yesterday.
Well, he had no intention of falling for that ploy again. He took a step to the side and promptly skidded on a patch of ice. He put his right hand out to catch himself -- another wrong instinct -- and the metal hand shot out from under him, its golden surface providing no traction whatsoever on the ice. In the split second before he tumbled down the hill, he caught a glimpse of Arya’s smirk and knew he’d walked into a trap.
The world was still spinning when he came to a stop. Something gold glinted in the snow halfway up the hill. His hand, he supposed. Arya stood above it, looking satisfied. Bile rose in his throat, reminding him how much he’d lost, and how little of it he could ever reclaim. Self-preservation told him to stay down and let Arya savor her victory; he hardly needed another humiliation so early in the day.
But he gritted his teeth and did something he hadn’t done since he lost his hand: he got up anyway.
“Again,” he said. He drew his sword and started up the hill.
And so a morning ritual was born.
***
Jaime made no friends in the barracks, and his late night conversations with Brienne were his only real interaction besides fighting with Arya. He lost to her almost always. He could only win if he fought dirty, and Arya had no compunctions about fighting dirty right back. Both of them had backhanded each other with his metal hand more than once, and he’d gotten used to the spark in her eyes when she fought and the jagged smile on her face when she won -- and occasionally, even when she lost.
“You’ve gotten better,” Arya said once, grudgingly, as she picked herself up off the ground. A bruise was blooming on her cheek, and there was a tiny spot of blood on her neck where Jaime had pressed the point of his sword. It was the only way to make her capitulate.
“Have I?” Jaime asked, bemused. But it was true: his instincts were less terrible than before, and he no longer feared exposing himself to the other soldiers at the practice ground.
Arya’s lips ticked upward in a faint half smile before she picked up her sword. “Maybe you just whine less,” she said, but she walked with him back toward Winterfell, something she rarely did.
Between Brienne and Arya and watching Jon Snow build an army, an odd sensation had begun to build in Jaime’s chest. He suspected other people called it hope, but he didn’t notice it until it was gone.
An odd pall began to fall over the castle. Jaime saw it in the tired slump of Jon Snow’s shoulders, the tight line in Lady Sansa’s lips when she tried to smile, and most of all, the new spark of rage in Arya’s eyes.
He couldn’t pinpoint the source of the tension until he overheard Ser Davos talking to Jon in the practice yard.
“War or no, you’ll have to do something to honor your father’s passing tomorrow,” Ser Davos was saying. “The men will be expecting it.”
Of course. The seven-year anniversary of Eddard Stark’s death. Jaime hadn’t thought it worth remembering before.
***
A man who valued self-preservation would not have let Arya Stark drive him into the forest on the anniversary of her father’s death. But then, if Jaime were a man who still cared deeply for his own skin, he wouldn’t have come north to begin with.
Anger made Arya sloppy; only a fool couldn’t have seen that she was off her game. Jaime could’ve won, but for once, he didn’t care to try. He smacked her angry slashes away with the minimum effort required, letting her sword bounce dully off his armor from time to time. He knew grief, the kind that didn’t dull no matter who you cried with, and he knew even the long nights when you didn’t let yourself cry for fear that it would make you feel better. If hitting him made Arya him feel better in some small way, it cost nothing to let her.
Well, he thought it cost him nothing. His left arm, still weaker than his right had ever been, was growing weary. The fight ended the predictable way: him on the ground, the point of Arya’s sword pressed against his neck.
This time, though, there was no gleam of triumph in her eyes. She pushed the sword harder against his skin. He fancied he could feel cold steel against his windpipe, though it was probably only his imagination.
“It’s your sister I want,” she said. “But if I can’t get her, you’ll do.”
A rivulet of blood trickled down his neck.
Now was the time to fight. One good kick, and they could start over again. He’d lose, but if she wanted his life, he could make her fight for it.
Instead he looked her in the eye and nodded. Alright. If it will make you feel better.
Her sword pressed harder. In a second, the trickle of blood would be a red river on the white snow. He ought to think of Cersei and their children. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on Arya. No, really, he tried to tell her. I don’t mind. He was a worthless one-handed soldier who’d come without the army he promised. He never was going to get out of this alive. Being executed to avenge Ned Stark’s death was as good a way to go as any.
Arya’s sword wavered, than slid away from his neck. In that instant, every trace of Joffrey that Jaime had ever imagined he’d seen in her vanished. She stared down at him, breathing hard, clearly not wanting to look at him but far too wise to take her eyes off a man she’d almost killed.
That was why she didn’t see the white walker. Jaime felt it before he saw it: a faint crackling of snow, an unnatural cold in the pit of his stomach, the sensation of all the hairs on the back of his neck rising at once. There was no way to warn her. After all the times they’d fought dirty, she’d never believe him.
Arya spun suddenly, sensing danger, but the creature had already raised its blade over her head. She’d die without a single chance to defend herself. With a roar, he kicked her legs out from under her and flung himself beneath the ice blade, catching it with his metal hand. An unholy screech split the silence of the forest, and a cold like none he’d ever known arced along his bones.
“Run!” he yelled, scrabbling for his sword with his good hand. He would never hope to win, but if he could hold it long enough, Arya might get away.
He didn’t dare look behind him, though the sound of feet crunching on snow made him hope that she’d gotten a good start. His left arm ached and sweat beaded along his brow in spite of the unearthly cold. One more thrust, one more parry, he told himself. Just keep going long enough for Arya to get clear of the forest.
The fight ended as it always did: a thrust too wide, a parry too slow, and then his sword flew out of his hand as he collapsed to his knees. Time slowed. Blood rushed in his ears. Strange, how he’d almost let Arya kill him, and now all he could feel was how badly he wanted to live. The creature raised its blade. Like a coward, Jaime closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the white walker lay motionless on the ground. Arya stood above it, eyes ablaze, her Valyrian steel dagger trembling in her hand.
They stared at each other for a moment, their breaths puffing in the frigid air, reminding them they were still alive.
“Why did you throw yourself in front me?” she asked, still breathing hard.
“Lannisters always pay their debts.”
The words tripped off his tongue easily, even though they didn’t feel right anymore. He remembered Arya standing over him, grief in her eyes, sword slack in her hand. Still capable of feeling pain, still capable of showing mercy. Clearly deserving of better than a glib family saying.
He swallowed. “Because you’re worth it.”
Arya stared down at the walker’s corpse. “You’re less awful than I thought you were,” she said gruffly.
She held out her hand, and Jaime let her pull him to his feet.