Chapter Text
Prelude
They stood on the upper walk like stair-steps, Sansa beside her and Arya beside Sansa. The wind, which had been vicious moments ago, suddenly stilled and a quiet fell over the dooryard. The snow settled into a slow, silent drift. Everyone stilled. From the forge, off in the distance, came one more hammerfall and then everything paused. A snowflake landed on Brienne's glove as it clasped the railing.
"That's Ser Jaime," Sansa said into the hush. "Something's wrong."
Brienne said nothing, continuing to stare at the solitary man, heavy with exhaustion, leading his single horse through the gate.
"Why's he alone?" Arya asked. Her tone was sharper than Sansa's. It cut through the hush with the ring of steel.
"Like I said," Sansa replied, evenly, her impatience showing only in the background of her voice, the old my little sister is a pain sigh. "Something's wrong."
Jaime had seen them. He was looking up, his expression closed, his gaze intense.
"Sansa says you know him," Arya said. "He would trust you."
Arya definitely sounded as if she were interested in using that trust more against Jaime than for their common cause. "Yes, my lady," Brienne said cautiously.
"Did he tell you anything? When you saw him?" Arya pressed.
The real answer was nothing, but then his actions belied the little he'd said - he'd seemed to say there was nothing he could do, but then there'd been a promise from the queen after all. His actions had told her something. Her oaths wouldn't let her lie to the Stark girls, but this wasn't a lie really. He just hadn't said the words. "Only that the Lannister armies would make common cause with us. That he'd come North with them."
Technically, Cersei had said that last part, and also not in words. She'd only said my armies, but her eyes had glanced toward her brother.
"Well," Sansa said. "He's come North."
A fourth figure joined them - on Brienne's other side, she'd ruin the stair-step picture. From deep inside a furred hood Lady Mormont asked, "Is that the Kingslayer? My man said it was."
Brienne swallowed the words don't call him that. "It is Ser Jaime," she said.
"Where's he left his army?"
"That is the question, isn't it," said Sansa.
I. The Maiden
They stood on the upper walk like stair-steps, Brienne on the left, stern and with her hand on the pommel of her sword; a pale, auburn-haired beauty nearly as tall beside her, and beside her, a sharpish waif who looked like a shorter Lyanna Stark. The Hound told true, Jaime thought. She really does have both of them. Of course she did. She was miraculous.
It was very quiet. Moments before, the wind had been whipping ice into his eyes and he'd been half blinded, but as he came through the gate everything had stilled. He suspected it was because everyone in Winterfell's dooryard - the snow itself - was staring at him. Watching.
He was so tired, and so cold, and it was so quiet, that his mind sank into a sort of calm delirium. The snowflakes were warm as they touched his face. The horse's breath was almost as loud as his heartbeat in his ears. An aura of light surrounded Brienne and the Stark girls, up on the walk. The Maiden, he thought, holding his breath to look at them. The Maiden had never looked like this in any statue or any icon he'd ever seen, but this . . . His head was light, reeling, visionary, certain. This was right. Nothing was as simple as the statues in a sept. The Maiden had so many faces.
Brienne glowing almost as white as the snow, fierce, limned in gold, defender of maidens, of maidenhood, her own (though Jaime had helped, he'd helped) and others'; Sansa, though she was twice-married and no longer, strictly speaking, a maiden, she wore her maidenhood proudly as if not even a savage like the Bolton bastard had managed to take it from her; the little one, vicious Arya, her angry eyes simmering in a way completely unlike Brienne's fierceness; Brienne was the Maiden's honor, Arya was her rage.
It was so quiet. So still. He might fall down.
There was another one now, tiny, hooded like the girl from the woods in the tales; someone should protect you from the wolves, child, but that wasn't right, she was standing there with the wolves, as stern and winter-pale as any of them. Barely even a maiden, that one; could you be a maiden if you were too young to bleed? Either yes or no seemed ridiculous.
"Ser Jaime," Sansa called, low, commanding, and the spell broke.
He had to be awake now. There were too many ways to die.
"My lady," he called. My goodsister. My oath. My honor. "I have some bad news."
"Is it you?"
He almost laughed. That voice, yes, that ridiculously shrewish voice in a child's tone, that was definitely Arya Stark.
"Believe it or not, Lady Arya," he said, squinting at her, keeping his focus, "there's worse news than me."
"Your army," Brienne said, breaking her silence if not her stillness. In contrast to the calm sureness of the Stark sisters, she almost stammered. "The Queen's army."
"With the Queen," he replied.
He didn't understand the way all of them tensed, Arya gripping the rail as if she planned to vault it. "Cersei is coming here?" she asked, her voice high, shrill.
Oh, no. Mistake. No.
"No, my lady," he said hastily. "I mean - no. She is not, and neither is the army."
"I don't understand," Arya said.
"She lied," said Sansa, utterly sure, utterly calm, hard as the Stranger. They'd all made her so hard.
"She lied," Jaime confirmed. "She lied . . . to me, she lied - a lot. Anything she said, anything she - I don't think I could identify something she's said that was true." Not since Tommen. Not since . . . He blinked hard. The snow was picking up again. "Perhaps there is a better place - I should speak with -" don't call him Snow - snow, everywhere, blowing into his open mouth - "the king, I should - there's more, there are other things I need to tell him -"
"He's fainting," he heard Brienne say. Bless Brienne. He should be embarrassed, but he couldn't be embarrassed when there was all this snow and the Maidens were talking to him from the heavens. "He must have been riding hard, alone, for days - he'll -"
"Wycken," Sansa said to someone he couldn't see. Drily, she was so dry in all this snow. "Get Ser Jaime into the hall before he swoons. Fetch someone to take his horse."
From the shadows the snow said yes, milady.
Into the hall was good. The doors were opening already, a golden light streaming. He hadn't been indoors in days. It was heavenly in there. The Seven had judged him worthy enough. The Maiden. By her protection, maybe he wouldn't die. Yet.