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Perhaps if she cried harder, he would return to her. Perhaps if she wailed, if the tears flowed freer, Jaime would halt. Turn back his horse in the icy night and return to the warm bed they shared. But her tears dried in time to the retreat of his horse’s hooves, both muffled by the chill in the air.
Brienne should not feel ashamed that she had begged him to stay. That she had wept. But she did. She was not a lady, hardly a woman, and she could not mourn the way a woman mourned. She was a knight of the Seven Kingdoms now. Knighted on the edge of Widow’s Wail, an added bitterness that would stay. And stay. And stay.
She had no right to a woman’s pain.
Her breath trembled in her chest, clouds of her life flowing from her mouth into the empty courtyard. She would endure, as she always had. Jaime Lannister would not break her, just as Renly’s death had not broken her. All the men she loved, she loved in vain.
In the morning she would examine the pain in her heart like a gemstone. Hold it up and let the light shine through it to see what it was made of. But tonight, she would return to bed, their bed. Now hers. And she would fall asleep, her chest sore from sobbing, her eyes swollen and tender. She would ignore the space at her side that had once been occupied by Jaime. The weight of another body beside hers – she would forget that, too.
*
“Will you follow him?”
Lady Sansa stood just inside Brienne’s chamber, the hammered ring around her neck a collar of her own making. Her dress was spun wool, black as storm clouds, with a corset of boiled leather edged in fur. She was her own kind of knight, Brienne supposed.
“No, My Lady,” she replied. She would not speak his name. Not yet.
Sansa pursed her lips, and Brienne watched the war of emotions play out behind the young woman’s eyes. Songs of romance and knights and glory never ended this way, with the maidens abandoned, broken. There were only ever declarations of love, sweet caresses, honor and triumph. The truth of the world was difficult to acknowledge. It left one feeling empty and lost.
What chance did any of them have to chase after love?
Brienne shared the moment with Sansa in silence—understood the feelings that played out on her pretty face at a deeper level than the lady would ever suppose. Brienne was not much older than Lady Sansa. They had grown up with the same summer songs, knew them all by heart. But winter was no place for young girls with dreams. One by one, they would all learn that lesson.
“And if there is a child?”
Brienne took the question like a strike to the side. It winded her, but did not catch her completely off guard. “A child?” She countered, buying time. She had seen enough of the world to know it only took laying with a man once.
It had not slipped her mind that bedding Jaime meant the possibility of a child. A family, whispered her traitorous heart. But it made Brienne sick to think of, that she could be carrying Jaime’s babe. He already has a child, Brienne scolded her heart—it’s the reason he left. How much would he resent her if he knew she was with child? If he had not one but two innocents to protect in the world? Two innocents on opposite sides of the kingdom, opposite sides of the war.
If Brienne were with child, she would never tell him. Even if he lived. Even if he survived all this.
“Brienne…” Sansa took a step forward, her face softening into the same protective expression Lady Catelyn once wore.
“There is no child, My Lady,” said Brienne quickly, looking away. She wished for a sea to swallow her up whole and spit her out in some new place. She would run from Lady Sansa, if she did not think it would bring her closer to Jaime.
Sansa stopped, twisted her hands together, clearly unsure if she should comfort Brienne. For a moment, she looked so young that Brienne almost let her. But the familiar veil of iron and ice slipped over Sansa’s face, and she was the Lady of Winterfell again. “The lords are waiting, then.”
Brienne nodded, tightening her sword belt around her waist, and followed Sansa out into the hall.
*
There was a comfort in the routine of Winterfell. A comfort in the anonymity of her position at Lady Sansa’s side. She was a bulwark against physical threat, a confidant when her lady needed it, and a silent judge of the lords and lordlings who paid suit to the Lady of Winterfell.
The days crept by like the slow progression of frost across a window pane. The men who survived the Long Night spent their hours at the walls, reinforcing them where the ice dragon had once done so much damage. They repaired the outbuildings and hauled in fuel for fires from the forests not far off. Wheat and other supplies arrived in wagons from the south—proof of Lady Sansa’s gift for negotiation, to part the lords in the Neck from their food stores even when war clung to the capitol with claws.
Day by day, evidence of the Long Night was erased, and Brienne’s heart eased just a little, and ached a little more. Sometimes it felt as if that battle had not happened at all. As if the screaming and dying, the victory and celebration and everything that came after was all just a dream.
Was it a dream, though—something cruel that her mind conjured up in the darkest depths of winter? She could almost feel the heat from the candles on her face as she grinned at Jaime in the great hall. She remembered the knock of his knees against her own beneath the table as Daenerys Targaryen made Gendry a lord. The way Jaime’s eyes smiled and goaded her all evening, even as he teased some other member of their party.
Sometimes, as she made her way through the halls of Winterfell, or marched across the yard where he had left her, Brienne halted with the sudden onslaught of memories, strong as a wall made of ice.
She remembered the look in his eyes when she let him into her chamber that first night. The way his hand trembled at his laces, as if, by some unfathomable chance, he felt as nervous as she did. It had been the wine and the thrill of victory that gave her courage to face him before the fire. To tug his laces from his hand and untie them herself. She felt like a true knight as she bared her skin to him, and a true woman when he captured her lips with his own.
Later, they lay side by side in the same bed. Sharing the same furs and the same warmth and same breath. He had held her to him, his arm draped around her waist, his face buried in her neck. She closed her eyes at the sensation of his beard against her skin, his breath. His breath.
It could not be a dream. Dreams never lingered like love did. Dreams were the castles Brienne built in her mind – they never built castles of their own. And the longer she refused to think of them, the higher the turrets grew, the more complex the gardens, until Brienne was trapped in the green of Jaime’s eyes or the turn of his smirk, lost in a fantasy of her own making.
She willed the memories to fade the way battle scars faded from Winterfell, from her own body. One by one the scabs healed, the bruises grew sickly yellow and disappeared. Podrick’s steps grew lighter, his voice breaking into the occassional song. Lady Sansa’s smile returned; thin and aloof, but laced with kindness, like her mother’s.
The memories of the Long Night turned into stories and songs, some more absurd than others. They sang of three ice dragons, not one. Of dead creatures that flew overhead and scurried underfoot. Direwolves that attacked from the north. An ancient witch with a glowing stone at her throat and the dawn trapped inside.
But Jaime. Jaime. Those scars would not fade. Try as Brienne might to forget him. One day marched after the other to the same sad beat of her heart.
*
It should not have hurt as it did to hear the outcome of the Battle for King's Landing. And yet.
“I’m sorry,” said Lady Sansa, holding the scroll out to Brienne, as if she’d want to read the news for herself. The other lords around the council table watched the exchange with interest, wondering what Ser Brienne could possibly find in the space between Tyrion Lannister’s words.
Brienne only stepped back from the table and stared down at her hands. She had nothing to say to the Lady of Winterfell, and she would not give these men any part of her heart.
Later, in the privacy of her own room, Brienne’s wail was long and loud and lost. She let the force of it rip through her lungs and strain her throat. She did not care then who heard her heart breaking. If Podrick beat on her door in concern, she did not answer. If the Lady of Winterfell demanded entrance, she did not obey. She let the sorrow wash over her like a cold rain.
Jaime Lannister dead in the arms of his sister. It should not have hurt as much as it did. Not after so many days of carrying on, of forgetting. But Brienne would never forget. She knew that now.
She would always carry Jaime in her heart. She would always feel his hand on her face and seek the warmth of his smile. She would always feel the loss of him at her side when she swung her blade—Oathkeeper was one of a pair. When they had fought together in the Long Night, when they had danced together, it was as if they thought the same thoughts, breathed the same air. It had saved them, and it had destroyed them. She lived for Jaime and he for her. But in some place deep in her heart, she knew that was the cruelty of their fate. That Brienne lived for one person, and he for two.
Jaime had died by Cersei’s side. Died protecting her and their unborn child. It was his first oath and his last.
“She’s hateful,” he’d told her, “and so am I.”
It was as far from the truth as Jaime had ever been. It was not anger or loss that burned in the air between them that last night – it was the truth of their fate. Brienne had pleaded with him as much as her heart had allowed. And she had wept at the look in his eyes, the decision he faced. There was only death in the south. He knew it as much as she did, and it was a choice they both made. To go south or to stay.
Brienne buried her face in the furs on their bed and sobbed. She was not ashamed of these tears. She had earned them. She would not shy away from this scar, she would wear it proudly. She would love Jaime as long as the sun moved across the sky. She would remember him as he was meant to be remembered. As an oathkeeper. As a true knight. As a protector of what was good and innocent. As an honorable man.
*
They sailed from White Harbor with the spray of salt water a blessing on Brienne’s face. Lady Sansa and her brother stayed below in their cabins. They would meet Arya and the other lords of Westeros in what remained of King’s Landing. Even now, it was said, the city hurried to rebuild after the battle. So many had died that the living tackled each block of destruction brick-by-brick. Disease and famine wrapped tight hands around the city, but there was nothing to do but rebuild. That was the way of war and what came after.
Daenerys Targaryen and her dragon were gone. Jon Snow had driven his blade through the queen’s heart, though Lady Sansa refused to believe it. She would speak to him in person, she’d said, and make no judgment before she saw him face-to-face. Bran looked on with indifference, and Brienne could not tell if the boy cared about the sudden turn of events, or felt anything at all for Jon Snow’s fate. Kingslaying was punishable by death, though Jaime had gained his pardon all those years ago.
Just as it always did, her breath caught at the sudden spark of his name in her thoughts. She tried her best not to think of him, but it was usually futile. Every corner in Winterfell reminded her of Jaime Lannister. The walls where they’d fought together, the yard where they’d practiced. The rooms where they’d kissed. The Great Hall where he’d knighted her.
She should be dreading the trip south, but instead she welcomed it. It felt like forever since she’d been close to the sea, and her blood sang at the sharpness in the air and the call of gulls along the shore. It soothed the burning wound that was her heart, and for a moment, she allowed herself to enjoy it. Podrick joined her on the deck and kept her company. He asked if she was eating and she glared at him. She told him to practice tying knots and he mastered eight of them.
They sailed past Tarth, and Brienne drank in the isle with her eyes. Her father lived, though he had been captured by the Golden Company briefly. Ravens between Tarth and Winterfell assured her that he would survive his wounds, though he was weaker now. Cersei’s death meant the Golden Company had no more claim to Tarth or any other lands in Westeros, and they had quickly moved on to Dorne. Brienne watched her home slip out of sight, and she made a silent vow that she would see her father again one day.
But the sight of King’s Landing as they glided through Blackwater Bay was enough to destroy whatever peace she’d found at sea. The city was a smoking ruin, even weeks after the dragon’s attack. The Red Keep was a skeletal shell, hunkered over the rest of the city that seemed to crumble and collapse further as they docked. There was an eerie silence along the streets as their party made their way toward the Dragon Pit. What a difference only a few months made from the last time Brienne had walked these streets. No fanfare, no crowds. Only ash beneath their boots and a weak sun overhead. An entire kingdom crying out for a little hope.
*
King Brandon the Broken took up his seat in the Red Keep almost immediately. “There is much to learn,” he said, “and much to be remembered.”
Tyrion Lannister was nominated his Hand, and together they set about touring the Keep and speaking with the survivors of King’s Landing. They held council in the Hand’s chambers, the throne room a mess of open sky and crushed stone and melted iron. Jon Snow was sent to the Wall with two men in the garb of the Night’s Watch. They looked like ravens as they road out of the city, all clad in black with their faces toward the horizon.
The Lords of Westeros returned to their holdings, and other courtiers took their place. Soon, the Keep felt alive again, with voices in the hallways and clouds of dust kicked up from all the traffic. Somewhere in the rubble, Jaime’s body had been hauled out and washed clean and loaded on a wagon headed for Casterly Rock. The Lannister twins would be buried together at their family seat.
Brienne did not ask to see them, and refused Tyrion’s request to speak with her about his brother. They existed in different worlds now, in more ways than Brienne wished to dwell on. This Jaime—the one they found beneath the Red Keep, his arms around his sister and his blood crusted and dried – this was not her Jaime, and she would not weep for him. This was Cersei’s Jaime, and she let her have him.
She kept her Jaime in the annals of her memories, in the halls of Winterfell, in the bed they shared. She kept him on the battlements of Riverrun in the gloaming, and in a red tent on a field of a hundred red tents. She kept him in the baths of Harrenhal and even in the woods along the King’s Road.
She kept him in her heart, where his oaths and pledges and good deeds whispered to her still.
*
Brienne knocked on Lady Sansa’s door in a part of the Keep that had not been destroyed. She found Sansa writing letters at a table by the window, her hair free of it’s braids, her armored dress loose at the collar. The lady scribbled furiously at a letter and then folded the sheet and dripped wax along the edge. She pressed her seal into it – a direwolf, as always.
“You asked to see me, My Lady?”
Lady Sansa slid the letter to one side and looked up at Brienne. She gestured to the chair beside her. “Would you sit, Ser Brienne?”
Brienne lowered herself into the seat awkwardly. She was in full armor and the plate scraped and screeched, in need of attention. Oathkeeper swung out to one side, the pommel glinting in the sunlight from the window. It caught Sansa’s eye, and she frowned at it.
“You wear a Lannister sword still,” she accused.
“I wear Valeryian steel,” Brienne replied, “to protect you, My Lady.”
“You wear his sword, Brienne,” said Sansa, softer. “Does it not hurt to be reminded of what he did to you?”
Brienne hesitated and then lifted her chin. “My lady, Ser Jaime rescued me more times than I can count. He gave me this sword to protect you, and I wear it still. It reminds me of my oaths. And his. It does not pain me to swing a sword given in honor and in protection of the innocent.”
Sansa fidgeted at the table, looking younger than her years again. “Brienne, my brother has asked you to join his Kingsguard… As lord commander.”
The offer hung in the air like something heavy and worn. A legacy Brienne had not dared to imagine. Not since Renly. Not since Jaime. She had worn the rainbow cloak of Renly’s guard, and it only served to end in sorrow. Jaime had worn the white cloak for most of his life, and it only served to torment him.
“Lady Sansa, I—”
“It’s a great honor, I know,” Sansa interrupted, “but I should like you by my side, Ser Brienne. If you would continue to serve me at Winterfell.”
Brienne watched the lady’s face, looking for the haughty expression of her mother, the demand for an oath that Brienne wasn’t sure she could make. But Sansa’s face was open, her eyes clear and beseeching. Was she afraid?
“My lady, you do me a great honor in turn,” Brienne said. “But you’ll be Queen of the North. You’ll need your own Queensguard now.”
Sansa opened her mouth to reply, but Brienne barreled on, feeling clumsy to give advice that felt almost motherly. She thought of little Lyanna Mormont, so fierce and sure of herself before the Long Night. “You should look to the northern lords for your Queensguard, not a knight from the south.”
Lady Sansa sat back in her chair with a pensive look. “I do not know if I can ask them for their strongest fighters now,” she said. “What right do I have to take more men from their houses?”
“They would fight for you gladly, My Lady. Lay down their lives for you as I would. As they have already. You would do them a great honor to raise them to your house.”
Sansa glanced out to the window at her left. She gave a single sharp nod and pushed her chair back to stand. Brienne stood with her, feeling like she had just trampled something beautiful and delicate, like the first bloom in spring. She had trekked across the Seven Kingdoms to protect Lady Sansa, and she respected her as much as she had Catelyn Stark. It would be another wound to her heart to say goodbye.
“My Lady,” Brienne said, stopping Sansa’s turn to the door. “I would speak plainly, if you’ll allow me.”
“Of course, Ser Brienne, you do not have to ask.”
Brienne took a breath, searching for the kind of courage that did not come naturally to her—it took a new kind of strength to bare one’s soul to the world, one Brienne was trying to uncover day by day. Today it came easier than she thought it would, and the words came to her tongue as if eager to feel the sunlight.
“I made a promise to your mother long ago to deliver you and your sister safely to Winterfell. I thought you needed protection, but I see now that you are more capable than even your mother knew, and brave in all the ways that would have made her proud.” She paused, and Sansa’s chin dimpled as she took Brienne’s hand. “I would stay by your side and protect you, Lady Sansa, but you don’t need me now.”
Brienne thought of the ruined city outside the window, of the thousands of motherless children and crippled smallfolk who wandered the streets in confusion and despair. Of the boy king who would lead them, with his faraway look and no ambition other than to exist. There was not enough food, there was too much violence. Sellswords clung to the coast and circled the walls. It was a city that was scarred and broken and searching for a way forward. As she had been.
“I would stay in King’s Landing,” Brienne said. “I would stay here with your brother and help him rebuild. Lead his Kingsguard and keep him safe.”
Sansa clasped her hand and nodded. “He would call it an honor.”
*
Brienne stood at the bottom of the stairs leading up the White Tower. A colonade at her left opened onto a courtyard with a map of Westeros painted on its floor. A group of swallows flitted in and out of the archways, their wings flashing in the late afternoon sun. The stairs curved up into the tower like a shell and disappeared around a wall that had recently been repaired. The new stone stood out brighter from the rest, marking the tower’s history in pale shades of limestone. Soon the tower would fill with men—her men. Perhaps some women, too.
Brienne touched her hand to the pommel of her sword for comfort, her new golden armor giving easily in the movement. A pristine white cloak swirled around her shoulders. She had said goodbye to Lady Sansa that morning on the docks, wanting to hug the girl, but knowing it would not be fitting for the Queen of the North. Lady Sansa had reached out to admire the filigree on Brienne’s chest plate—a raven in flight – and smiled at the sight of it.
“Take care of my brother, Ser Brienne.”
It had taken all of Brienne’s strength to simply nod and thank her former mistress. “I will do my best, Your Grace.”
Now the Starks were somewhere across Blackwater Bay, heading north past Tarth and around the Fingers toward the pine forests and the broken Wall that was their was their home. Brienne allowed a brief prayer for her isle, for her father and the new wife he’d claimed once the Golden Company left his shores. She hoped for a baby brother, though that was a kindness only the gods could grant and so rarely did. She would write to her father soon, when her words were not so raw and when she felt like she had more to offer him.
But first, she had to climb the steps before her and claim the next oath she had pledged. She glanced up at the tower ceiling, listening for the flap of wings in the rafters or the shift of settling stone. She closed her eyes and listened for his voice, the one she knew lingered in the walls and in her heart.
She felt his eyes on her face now, his hand on her neck and in her hair. His whispered breath in her ear, urging her to fulfill his oaths for them both, to make him proud. Telling her all the things she needed to hear.
“Stay here,” she had begged Jaime that night so long ago. “Stay with me, please.”
And he had.