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The Baseborn Son

Jon Snow

289 AL

It was almost nightfall when Jon’s lord father returned from war. Sat upon his bedroom window, he had been peering out of it for hours, waiting for his lord father to return. Life in Winterfell without Ned Stark had proven torturous for his baseborn son, who at just eight years old understood well what his baseborn status meant.

It meant Catelyn Stark hated him for merely existing. It meant that Rosarra looked at him with thinly veiled distrust in her big, blackish blue eyes, as though he was already plotting to steal Winterfell from her.

I don’t want it! His head would scream as she spoke to him dismissingly and guardedly once more. All he wanted was his sister to be his friend; a friend who was not a cook’s son or a washerman’s daughter. Sure, he enjoyed playing with them, but all Jon wanted was his sister’s approval.

Yes, life in Winterfell had been very different without his father.

Jon raced down the stairs to the courtyard, a grin splitting his face in half. His father was back! All would be so much better now, and he would make sure Rosarra was kind to him.

In the courtyard, Rosarra was hugging her father, her long red hair tied back in a braid as she flung herself on top of her father. Little Sansa, all of four years old, hung back with their mother, the embodiment of ladylike propriety that Rosarra did not think herself beholden too, as she was her father’s heir.

Little Arya, just two and a half years old and curious about everything, asked her father a dozen questions about the war, each one sillier than the last – ‘were there dwagons?’ ‘did you bwing back Gweyjoy’s head?’ ‘can I come with you next time?’

For the first time, Jon noticed the dark-haired boy behind their father. He looked sulky, and his face darkened when he heard Arya’s questions.

Their father shook his head and chuckled, placing his eldest daughter on the ground and ruffling Arya’s hair. “War is no place for little ladies, Arya,” he told her fondly.

“Except for me, when I’m big,” Rosarra declared. “I’ll be leading armies just like Father.”

“Oh, hush now, Rosarra. You’ll be doing no such thing. If it comes to it, you’ll have a fine husband to lead your armies for you,” Lady Stark corrected firmly, as she always did when Rosarra spoke of the less-than ladylike future she wished for herself.

Lady Stark had yet to birth a male heir for House Stark. There had been a boy that died in the cradle, and another that had been born a month too soon. Because of the lack of male heir, Lord Stark had accepted Rosarra as his heir, and taught her the essential lessons of lordship. He included Jon in some of those lessons, though Rosarra made sure he felt unwelcome.

He wondered had Lady Stark put those thoughts in Rosarra’s head, that he wanted to take the North from her. They had been as thick as thieves as children, before Rosarra discovered that baseborn children had a history of stealing their trueborn siblings’ inheritances. It had stung, it still did, and since then only one of Jon’s sisters considered him a friend and a brother, and that was three-year-old Arya – the baby.

Someday she would turn against him too, most likely.

“Whose that?” Rosarra asked, not unkindly, as she gestured towards the dark-haired boy Jon had noticed.

“Come, Theon,” Ned urged the young boy, who did as he was bid. The boy – Theon – barely looked at Lord Stark, and seemed to have a permanent scowl fixed on his face. “This is Theon Greyjoy. He will be living with us for… quite some time. He is to be my ward. You are to all be kind to him, and treat him as you would any other friend.”

“Friend?” Rosarra repeated, tilting her head to the side as she sized him up. “But you said he was a Greyjoy?”

The Greyjoy glared at her, but was intelligent enough to not attack Lord Stark’s eldest daughter in her own keep.

“Yes. But the war is over now. And Theon has come to learn how to be a lord, just like you, Rosarra.”

“A lord?” Theon repeated in shock. “But you’re a girl.”

“Who is going to be a lord someday. And a lady, too.” Rosarra’s face pinched in confusion as she considered it herself before she became all too perplexed by her musings and shook her head. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’m good at lordly things. I can use a sword.”

“My sister Asha fights,” Theon said. “She’s really good. Almost as good as me.”

“Bet I’m better,” Rosarra claimed cockily.

“You are not.”

“Am too!” she insisted, smirking at Greyjoy before she turned to her father.

Jon glanced at his father and saw that he was looking at his daughter fondly. As cold as she was to Jon, Rosarra collected friends as easily as little Arya collected bruises. Sadly, Jon noted that his sister would make sure Theon Greyjoy – Greyjoy! – felt more welcome at Winterfell than he did.

“Rosarra, why don’t you grab two wooden swords and put your claims to test on the training yard, hm?”

Rosarra grinned wickedly and grabbed Theon Greyjoy’s hand, dragging him off away with her.

Jon watched them run away longingly.

After Lord Stark spoke with his wife and daughters, he spotted Jon hanging back in the darkness, just by the door. A sad smile on his face, a smile he often wore when he saw Jon alone and excluded, he approached his only son and ruffled his dark hair with his hand.

“Son,” his father said fondly.

“Lord father,” he greeted, a small smile on his face. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“I’m glad to be back,” his father admitted. “Were you… well-treated, while I was away?”

He was had not been beaten or starved, only ignored and derided, and so Jon Snow nodded mutely.

Lord Stark seemed pleased with that. “Good,” he said, relieved. “The Greyjoy boy is only three years older than you. You should speak with him. You could make a very good friend.”

“But he’s Rosarra’s friend now,” Jon pointed out grimly.

His father’s brows furrowed in confusion in that. “You can both be friends with him, surely,” his father suggested, slight amusement in his tone.

He doesn’t understand, Jon realised. His father never did. Why would anyone want to be friends with the bastard when they could be friends with the pretty heir? The only people wanted to be friends with Jon were the people Rosarra did not want to be friends with.

So, Jon did not respond to that, resigning himself to the fact that his father would never understand, and allowed his father to lead him back inside the keep.

290 AL

Lessons were another area of life in which Rosarra shone.

Well, as long as she was not being distracted by Theon Greyjoy.

She was Luwin’s prized pupil. Of course, Jon was not his most important student, and the maester focused more on the heirs to the North and the Iron Islands, but Jon tried his best to keep up. He was cleverer than Theon, who spent every lesson trying to distract Rosarra and make her giggle.

While his sister did sometimes give in to Theon’s childishness, she also took her lessons seriously. She learned quickly, and loved to learn as well. Her days were split between burying her head in a book and racing her beloved stallion around the godswood with Greyjoy. Never with Jon.

No, Rosarra never even asked him to come, unless their father made her invite him.

The Stark and Greyjoy heirs had become the best of friends in the last year. Jon never saw Rosarra without finding Theon trailing close behind. As such, the hostage son of a traitor became more integrated into the Stark family than Jon himself, who shared Lord Stark’s blood!

“Maester,” Rosarra interrupted the maester’s reading about the Dance of the Dragons and Jon’s thoughts. The maester peered up from the book at his sister. “In the North, is it true that a brother always comes before an older daughter?”

“Yes,” Maester Luwin answered, nodding, and placed the book on the table. “Aegon the Dragonbane was many years younger than his sister Rhaenyra, and most lords of the Seven Kingdoms viewed him as the rightful successor, as is the case in the North. Your grandfather, Lord Rickard, had an older sister Berena, and inherited before her. We practice male-preference primogeniture in the North, as does most of the Seven Kingdoms.”

Unhappy with this answer, Rosarra crossed her arms and huffs. “That’s so stupid.”

“And why is that, Rosarra?” Luwin asked her amusedly, indulging her.

“Because women and men both have brains, don’t we? I know men are stronger. When we are older, Jon and Theon will be stronger than me, but they won’t be cleverer. And men go off to wars and die all the time. Women live longer.”

“You ought to speak with the maesters on this,” Luwin jested. “You present a fine debate.”

“They won’t listen though,” she said sulkily.

Luwin eyed her suspiciously. “Is this about the new babe? Rosarra – ”

“No,” Rosarra declared immediately, a scowl etched on her face. “It is not. Mother can’t have boy children. All of them are weak. This child will be a girl, or it won’t survive like the others.”

“You don’t wish that on the babe, do you?” Luwin asked her cautiously, watching her closely for her answer.

Rosarra’s lips pinched together. Theon glanced at her suspiciously as well. And, despite the thought never popping into his mind before Luwin asked the question, Jon wondered if Rosarra truly would wish a boy child dead so he would not take her place as heir.

“No,” Rosarra insisted, glancing between her maester and the two boys. She stared at the floor, knocking her ankles together and seeming oddly shy. “Of course not,” she all but whispered.

Through means of spectacular irony, Jory Cassel burst through the door at that moment to summon Maester Luwin. Lady Stark had gone into labour.

The maester rushed out of the room to go to Lady Stark’s aid.

Greyjoy stood up quickly. “Free at last!” he declared, but even his boisterousness could not cheer up Rosarra, who stayed sitting glumly on the chair. “Let’s go riding, Rose.”

“I think I’m going to go to the godswood,” she announced, standing up at last.

Wrinkling his nose, Theon asked in disgust, “And do what?”

“Pray, you idiot,” Rosarra told him with a short laugh. “You can come if you want.”

Theon chuckled at that. “Not a chance. I’m going to the training yard.”

“You do that,” Rosarra said to him, and the Greyjoy boy gave a mocking bow before he ran off.

As soon as he was gone, Rosarra’s face became glum again. His sister usually wore a constant smile, which was sometimes kind and innocent and sometimes wicked and teasing. But now, her smile had been replaced with a scowl, as her thoughts seemed to overcome her.

He wanted to comfort her, but did not know how to, or even if he should. Would she want that? Or did she see him as below her? Would she think that he wanted to hurt her if he tried to comfort her? Honestly, Jon did not know what went through her head, as Rosarra thought him capable of treachery and betrayal; two things he would never be capable of.

“Rosarra,” he spoke unsurely. His sister turned to look at him. She looked… small. “Would you… like me to come with you? To the godswood. We could pray for your lady mother and the babe.”

She scoffed disbelievingly at that. “You want to pray for my mother?”

Jon hardened at that, and stiffened defensively. “I do. And for the child, my brother or sister.”

Rosarra looked surprised at that. He was glad to see the shame cross her face. Though she turned away from him for a moment, she nodded her head, “I’d like if you came, then,” she told him, and they walked to the godswood together in silence.

Kneeling before the heart tree, Jon heard naught but the whistling of the tree and bristling of leaves and branches. The quiet noises were somehow loud in the godswood, as though the gods were speaking to them – or so his lord father claimed, and Jon believed everything his father said.

“I hope it’s not a boy,” Rosarra spoke after almost an hour of silent praying. Jon glanced over to look at her. “I pray for it, even. I love my sisters, but a brother… would take everything from me. I’d just be another girl.”

I love my sisters, but a brother… Jon hated and pitied her for that.

“What’s so wrong with that?”

“I thought I would get to be one of the lucky few girls who grow up and grow old in their home, who get to rule over their lands and be important. A girl who is not an heiress gets sold off like a broodmare. I’m too clever to be a broodmare.”

“You wouldn’t just be a broodmare,” Jon told her kindly. “Maester Luwin says lords’ wives do loads of important things, like accounts, organise feasts, share their husbands’ duties.”

“You don’t get it,” Rosarra said frustratedly. “Those duties are going to be mine. If Mother has a boy, he takes that all away. I don’t want to be a wife. I want to stay in Winterfell and rule Father’s lands, like I’ve been raised to do.”

Jon went silent after that, and they did not speak again until Theon ran over to them, red-faced and breathless from sprinting.

“The baby – born – a boy.” He took a deep breath. “Your lady mother had the baby. It’s a boy. Brandon.”

He turned to look at his sister, who had not even turned her head to acknowledge Greyjoy.

But it was clear from the scowl on her face that she too had heard the words.

After an hour of waiting for his sister to speak, Jon could not wait any longer, far too eager to meet his youngest brother.

Little Bran was in the nursery, surrounded by Sansa, Arya and his father. Jon walked in quietly. When his father heard him, he turned around, grinned, and urged him to come meet his little brother. Sansa frowned but greeted him politely, ever the little lady, while Arya chattered enthusiastically about her new baby brother.

“… but Father says I won’t get to play with him for long, long time. Not until he’s big like me. Until then, I make funny faces. I practice. Like this,” Arya showed him one of her funny faces, and Jon grinned at her.

“You’ll be the best big sister, Arya,” Jon told her, then noticed Sansa’s frown. “And you too, Sansa,” Jon added hastily, but Sansa merely gave a ‘hmpf’.

The newest Stark had inherited his mother’s colouring, like all his trueborn siblings save Arya. Whenever Jon got a small glimpse of baby Bran’s pupils, they were a beautiful, bright blue, like Sansa’s and Lady Stark’s. Jon felt the same as he did when Sansa and Arya were born. He would be a good big brother to Bran, as he was to Arya.

As he would be to Sansa, if she let him.

“Jon, where’s your sister?” Lord Stark asked him eventually.

“We were in the godswood. She didn’t want to come,” Jon told him quietly.

Lord Stark frowned. “I see. Sansa, will you tell Jory to go get Rosy? He’s just outside the door.”

Sansa nodded chirpily and skipped outside the door to give Jory the order.

A half an hour passed, filled with play and talk about baby Bran and how Lady Stark was doing, before Jory arrived with a frowning Rosarra.

“Come over and see your baby brother, Rosy,” Lord Stark told her kindly, outstretching an arm to her. Rosarra shook her head and stared at the floor, pouting. “Rosarra, you know what your mother says about pouting,” their father reprimanded sternly, but softly.

“That it’s unbecoming for a young lady,” Rosarra recited word from word, sounding almost like Lady Stark. “I’m just a lady now, aren’t I, Father? I’m no one special.”

“Oh, come here,” Lord Stark said, and sat down on the armchair as he gestured for Rosarra to come over to him. Jon saw Rosarra rush over to him, tears gleaming in her dark blue eyes as she climbed onto her father’s lap. “I do not ever, ever,” he said, accentuating the evers with tickles that made Rosarra giggle, “want to hear you calling yourself not-special, do you hear me, Rosy? You are a Stark of Winterfell. You are my daughter and cleverest little girl in the whole North.”

“In the whole Seven Kingdoms,” Rosarra corrected wetly.

Lord Stark barked a laugh. “Don’t get cocky now, sweetling,” he warned her, and Rosarra smiled a small smile. “Your future might be different now. You may not be my heir.” He heard Rosarra choke on a sob at that. “But you are still my eldest daughter and still very special.”

“I want to keep learning my lord’s lessons,” Rosarra begged him. When she saw Lord Stark’s conflicted expression, her eyes became teary again and she pleaded, “Please, Father. I really like them and if I am to be married off, then I’ll be the cleverest bride.”

Uncertainly, Lord Stark sighed. “Alright. But your mother will want you to focus more on your needlework and dancing.”

Rosarra nodded mutely.

“Now,” their father said finally, “do you want to meet your little brother?”

Jon could see her reluctance, and what seemed like resentment etched on her face, but she nodded her head nonetheless and allowed their father to lead her over to the cradle.

Unlike Jon, Arya and Sansa, she did not fuss over him, or coo, or try to touch him. Jon had seen how excited she was at Sansa’s birth and Arya’s. She had begged to hold them, and he remembered Lady Stark commenting that she would make a fine mother someday. Jon had thought so too. Even now, Rosarra was constantly playing with and minding her little sisters, acting like a little mother to them at the age of ten.

The way she acted with baby Bran did not resemble that Rosarra at all.

“Do you want to hold him?” Lord Stark cautiously asked.

Rosarra continued to stare at the babe, eyes narrowed and gleaming with too much bitterness for a ten-year-old.

“No,” she replied, and stepped away from the cradle. “We should let him sleep. Will I put the girls to bed, Father?”

If she was bothered by the stark displeasure on her father’s face, Rosarra didn’t show it. Lord Stark nodded and turned back around to the new babe, as Rosarra took both her sisters’ hands and began to walk out of the room. Before she left, though, she turned around to Jon and gave him a smile.

“Would you come with me, Jon?”

He beamed at her and was immediately about to say yes until he realised, he should probably ask his lord father first. His father was already looking at him and gave him a small smile and a firm nod, and Jon followed his sisters eagerly.

It was all going to get better, he knew, as his sister smiled at him again.

291 AL

When Jon was ten and Rose was one-and-ten, the Umbers had come to visit Winterfell. Jon knew what the visit was about, even at ten. The Umbers were not the first house to visit Winterfell to ask for Rose’s hand, but they were the first since Bran’s birth. Rose was now being courted as a daughter, not an heir, so lords were now asking for her hand for their firstborn sons.

“I am like every other lady in the North,” she had proclaimed dramatically to Jon and Theon as she plomped herself on her bed, arms outstretched very dramatically. “A broodmare, to be sold off to the highest bidder!”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, you are the prettiest broodmare I’ve laid my eyes on,” Theon complimented, in a tone tinted with something Jon couldn’t name. He had seen men speak to their wives in such a tone occasionally, when away from all ears but the Bastard of Winterfell.

He did not like it.

Rose did not seem to notice. “A pretty broodmare is still a broodmare. The only difference is that the price is higher.”

Theon snorted at that.

“You know Lord Stark won’t make you marry anyone you don’t want to,” Jon assured her kindly.

“He said as much, but it’s just the principle of the thing. A year ago I was heir to the North, now I am to dress in fine gowns and prance around prettily in the hopes that some lord will deem me worthy enough to be his bride,” Rose explained with a dramatic flourish that made the boys chuckle despite the bitterness behind her words.

“Just the same as any other lady in Westeros,” Theon pointed out, with a tired expression that clearly showed his boredom with Rose’s woes. “Why should you be any different?”

Taken aback by that question, Rose’s surprise soon turned to indignation as she scowled at her friend. She had nothing to say to that though, and merely sulked quietly.

“I, for one, am looking forward to the feast,” Theon informed them with a smirk. “Lord Stark said we could have two cups of wine at this.”

Jon and Rose stared at him blankly.

“I think you are the only one excited by that, Greyjoy,” Jon told him dryly.

Theon scoffed. “Just because you both are babies.”

Rose had thrown a pillow at him then, hard enough to knock him off the side of her bed.

A few days later, and the Umbers were only a day away. Lady Stark was fretting about the keep, ensuring everything was perfectly organised. Rose had been made to follow her around dutifully, even though Jon knew she hated it. Jon and Theon had been allowed to practice on the yard.

That was until Theon came up with a plan.

“We should get Lady Stark to let Rose come practice.”

Jon snorted. “Good luck with that. If Rose’s pouting and whinging has not broken her resolve, what makes you think she will listen to you?”

“She’ll listen to Maester Luwin,” Theon suggested cheekily. Upon seeing the confusion etched on Jon’s face, Theon rolled his eyes. “I’m going to tell her the maester wants Rose.”

“And when Lady Stark asks the maester what he wanted Rose for?”

Theon shrugged. “She’ll likely forget. Come on.”

Frowning, Jon reluctantly agreed, but would not take the fall for his friend’s foolish plan. “Alright. But you are speaking to Lady Stark. I’ll take no blame for this.”

Theon scowled at him, “Craven,” he accused, making Jon bristle.

Jon followed himself inside the keep nonetheless, to the Great Hall where Rose was shadowing Catelyn as she was dishing out orders to the servants. Jon hated how she spoke to them, as though they were dirt beneath her nose. He knew Rose didn’t like it either.

Much to his surprise, he heard Lady Stark’s and Rose’s raising their voice at one another. Not quite shouting – Lady Stark was much too ladylike for that – but nonetheless they seemed enraged at one another. He shared a look with Theon. Instead of leaving as Jon would have liked, Theon settled himself beneath a table and pulled Jon down with him.

“Why should he sit at the back of the Hall? Is he not Father’s son?”

“Not a trueborn son, Rosarra, you know that well,” Catelyn Stark had seethed. Jon realised with a start that they were speaking about him. He flushed. “He will not sit at the high table along with my trueborn children. It would be an insult to our guests.”

Rose scoffed. “I doubt the Umbers would care. And Jon got along with the Smalljon last time he was here! You just don’t like him, you’re being unfair – ”

“Unfair?” Lady Stark repeated with a scoff of her. “I have allowed that boy to live in this keep, to be raised with my children. I pray to all the gods that your future husband does not someday bring home a baseborn child, lest you see how truly unfair I am being.”

“I know what Father… did,” he heard Rose say quietly. “I know how babies are born. I understand why you would be angry mother. But why would you be angry with Jon? He has done nothing wrong. It was Father who – ”

He heard a slap. Theon jumped at the sound, whacking his head off the table. Luckily, Lady Stark did not take note of them.

There was silence for a few moments. Until he heard Lady Stark speak, “Rosarra…” she said in horror, horrified at herself for what she had done. Lady Stark had never struck any of her children, nor had she ever struck Jon, even.

“You are cruel,” they heard Rosarra spit at her mother before running out of the hall.

Jon and Theon stood up quickly to follow her, forgetting about Lady Stark. She looked disgusted with herself, face buried in her hands and seeming close to tears. When she heard them moving, she lowered her hands and looked upon them. Her eyes set on Jon and narrowed, gleaming with unshed tears.

“You,” she all but growled. “Get out.”

He scowled at her, but as always, he did nothing. He followed Theon out of the Great Hall. They looked for Rose and found her climbing the stairs that led to their bedchambers – well, the Stark children’s and Theon’s chambers.

“Rose,” Theon called for her.

When she turned around, Jon got a look at the large, bright mark on her cheek. There were unshed tears in her eyes. Rose bit her lip to keep from shedding them, but when she saw Jon, she started to sob.

“My mother – ” she sobbed, trying to explain, but she only cried harder.

“I know,” Theon said, lowering himself to sit next to her on the step. “We heard.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Jon told her, as touched as he was by her efforts. “Not on my account.”

“You are my brother,” Rose declared, wiping her eyes, though she still sobbed. “I – I could not let her s- say such things. You do not d- deserve it,” she hiccupped, making speech very difficult.

Jon beamed at her. It was all he ever wanted, for his family to see his worth as more than just their bastard brother or son. He would do anything for Rose. And for the first time, he realised she would do anything for him.

294 AL

The next four years of his life were spent happily in a trio – the bastard, the hostage and the lady. Theon once remarked that they sounded like a song. When Rose had asked him coyly what the song would be about, Theon claimed the song would describe all the ways the bastard and hostage, as the dishonourable as they were, debauched their good, innocent lady.

Jon had shifted uncomfortably, focusing on the daisies he was pulling from the ground and not at the fourteen-year-old and sixteen-year-old in front of him.

“And what if the good, innocent lady was just as dishonourable those men?” she had asked Theon cautiously.

“Ned Stark’s daughter? Never,” Theon declared.

“Then Jon is uncapable of any kind of debauchery either,” Rose pointed out, smiling smugly. “But Theon Greyjoy on the other hand… the ironborn, the most decrepit of us all.”

Only Rose could get away with that, Jon knew. He didn’t like the way the hostage looked at her. He had seen lust in Theon’s eyes, more often than he liked, when the Greyjoy hostage laid eyes on a pretty girl or a buxom woman. The gleam in Theon’s eyes was so similar to that, and yet it lacked any lecherousness.

Mayhaps lust would be preferable, Jon mused grimly, a boy can ignore lust. But whatever lurked behind Greyjoy’s eyes was not something that could be ignored.

Greyjoy realised he was staring and covered his faltering with a cough and an easy grin sent Jon’s way. “Do you see how she insults me so, Jon?”

“All deserved,” Jon replied teasingly, a small smile on his lips.

His ironborn friend shook his head in disagreement and turned back to Rose, who smiled innocently at him. “I will get you for this, Stark.”

Rose clambered to her feet dramatically, navigating the layers of her dress awkwardly and laughing to herself. “No, I shall never be your salt wife, Greyjoy!” she declared as she ran away from him, giggling and tripping over her skirts as Greyjoy tore after her.

They ended up rolling on the ground. Jon wanted to leave, but their father had made him promise to never leave them alone, and they weren’t being improper, really. Just messing. Theon may see Rose like that, but his sister didn’t see Theon like that. Rose couldn’t see anyone like that.

“You know you wouldn’t be my salt wife,” Jon heard Theon say quietly.

“No?” Rose replied, sounding almost wounded.

“You’d never be anything but a rock wife to me,” he said, and Rose said nothing to that.

--

Since Jon was three-and-ten and his sister just a year older, Theon had been bringing them to Winter Town. It had been Rose who had begged him to bring her, and Theon never could deny her anything. Late-night hunts or horse-rides, dancing in the godswood even though Theon hated dancing, a game of Conqueror or some other boring strategy card- or board-game Rose was currently infatuated with…

Jon did not think Theon had ever told her no.

She once dared him to steal mead from the kitchens so they could drink it in their rooms and play games. And, as terrified as Theon was of Lord Stark, he had still done as Rosarra bid. When Jon told Rose how terrified he was, Rosarra had almost cried while apologising to Greyjoy, who said that he would forgive her for a favour.

A kiss.

Though he had looked away, and the kiss was short, Jon knew then that nothing was ever going to be the same. Their trio had fractured, and it was, from then on, just Theon and Rose… and Jon, the tagalong. Jon had started to spend more time with Bran and Arya, who welcomed his company eagerly.

Arya was only seven and Bran only four, but Jon found that he enjoyed spending time with them more than he thought he would. He had never sought them out before. For some reason, despite nobody saying as much to him, he assumed he was not allowed to be around the younger trueborn children without Rose there.

Rose never spent much time with Bran, though. When he thought about it, Jon couldn’t remember Rose ever seeking him out, not like she did Arya or Sansa. She would bring Arya horse-riding without their mother’s permission, placing their littlest sister in front of her as she rode through the Stark’s lands. She told her sisters stories and played games with them. She helped Sansa with her needlework, though Jon believed Sansa’s was far better than Rose’s now, and played the high harp with her whenever she wished.

(But never did she spend time with Bran. Not once.)

Jon would follow along, but never went to spend time with them on their own.

That was silly, he realised, and now he spent at least an hour everyday with his younger siblings, riding with Arya or playing games with them. Lady Stark stopped to glare at him occasionally, but she was not going to tear her children away from him, not when they adored him so. Jon hoped his lord father would admonish her for that, at least, if he cared not that she ignored and disregarded him every day, treating him like dirt on her shoe.

“Jon,” Bran’s little voice spoke and broke the silence that had befallen them as they drew pictures together.

“Yes?” Jon answered, doing his best to draw a dragon, and a man on top of it that looked suspiciously like him, though Jon would never admit to it.

“Why does my mother treat you like… like…” Bran did not have the word for it, and eventually changed his question, “Not like us?”

Jon sighed, having expected this question for a long while, as he had with Arya. And yet, he still did not have a good answer for it. “Because Lady Stark, your mother, is not my mother.”

“But my father is your father?” Bran asked, head tilted in confusion.

“Yes, he is,” Jon affirmed with a nod. “You’ll understand more when you’re older, Bran, I promise. But I’m still your brother.”

“You’re the best brother,” Bran declared with a smile that almost made Jon melt. The smile dropped from little Bran’s face just as quickly as Jon’s smile came upon his. “I don’t think Rosarra is my sister.”

Jon couldn’t help the snort that shot out of his nose at that. Bran gave him a cross, admonishing look.

“Don’t laugh at me,” he chastised firmly.

“I’m sorry,” Jon said, unable to hide his smile. “Of course she’s your sister, Bran. She’s your full-blooded sister. She has the same mother and father as you.”

“But she’s not like Arya and Sansa,” he pointed out.

Jon didn’t know what to say to that. How could he explain to Bran the reasons why Rose didn’t spend time with him, when Jon didn’t fully understand them himself? So, he kept quiet, and Bran continued to speak sadly.

“I don’t know why. Because she’s a sister to Sansa and Arya. I see her climbing, just like me. The tree in the godswood, that really big one Mother won’t let me near!” Bran told him excitedly, as though Rose was some great hero from a song. “I think we could be really good friends.”

“I think so too,” Jon agreed, and patted Bran’s shoulder sympathetically. “It’s not your fault, though, you know that? For years when we were younger, Rosarra wasn’t very friendly to me. And that wasn’t my fault. I know that now. Sometimes, people behave strangely, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Bran pouted. “But I want her to my friend!”

“You have lots of friends,” Jon reminded him. “Arya and Sansa, all the other children in Winterfell, me – am I not your best brother?” He grinned at Bran, who grinned back at him shyly. “Don’t worry about Rosarra. She’s not all that great. Sometimes, she smells really bad. Like a horse,” Jon whispered, scrunching his nose for effect.

It worked, and Bran giggled, now in much better form.

“Really? Like a horse?”

Jon nodded, and Bran burst into a fit of giggles once more.

Chapter Text

The Lady Paramount

294 AL

Catelyn Tully

Six months with child, and Catelyn felt the babe kick as though he was trying to claw his way out of her. All her boys had beaten her womb mercilessly with kicks and had fluttered incessantly during the early stages of her pregnancy. So had Arya, come to think of it, Catelyn mused.

Of all her children, Arya was the fiercest. Sansa was mild-mannered; Bran always did as he was bid, save for his incessant need to climb everything and anything; Rosarra… could be reasoned with, and had a good enough head on her shoulders that she never did anything to disgrace the family, though Catelyn had never met a girl more wilful or stubborn.

Four years on and she still had not forgiven Catelyn’s youngest child for being born, and seemed to resent Catelyn for birthing him.

“Was I not good enough, Mother?” Rosarra had asked her mournfully, as though Catelyn had committed some great crime against her. It had been the first time Catelyn had seen her after Bran’s birth, and her daughter was sitting in the chair by Catelyn’s birthing bed, waiting for her mother to wake up to ask her that.

She had not known what to answer, but tried her best to fumble words together nonetheless.

“Of course, my sweet girl,” she had promised her tiredly. “You were – are more than enough. You are so clever, and you will make a very lucky husband out of some great lord someday.”

Tears had gleamed in Rosarra’s ten-year-old eyes’ then, and her daughter succumbed to a rare tantrum. “But I don’t want that! I want Winterfell, like you said – you told me I was heir – ”

“Oh, sweetling, I told you, you were heir until – ”

“A baby boy came along,” Rosarra said, with far too much bitterness for a girl so young. “But you were never meant – you weren’t supposed – you shouldn’t have – ”

Little girls did not understand, Catelyn had told herself in order to calm the anger that had risen in her. She had finally accomplished what she had prayed for for ten years! A son – a healthy son – and her daughter was embittered because of it.

She had seen something in her daughter that day, a glimpse of bitter ambition and entitlement, that she had seen glimpses of for years after, when she ignored her little brother but doted on her sisters as though she was a mother to them, despite being a child herself. Catelyn saw how much that crushed little Bran, and she couldn’t help but feel some disdain – Gods forgive her – for her own daughter because of it.

It was that, and Rosarra’s sudden endearment towards her husband’s baseborn son as soon as Bran was born, now that she no longer saw him as a threat, that caused the relationship between mother and daughter to become strained.

When she ordered Snow to sit at the back at feasts, Rosarra had words to say about that.

When she asked for Snow to not be present when they greeted guests, Rosarra told her mother that she was being unfair and even, could you credit, cruel!

Catelyn, who had allowed her husband to bring his bastard into her home among her trueborn children, had been so enraged at that; she dealt her daughter a slap. She had never slapped one of her children before, never worse than a light tap on the wrist when they were small, but she had truly struck Rosarra, enough to leave bruising. She was ashamed of what she had done, but she had never apologised.

Despite the strain in her relationship and her daughter’s determination to see her as the villain in every story, Catelyn still loved her daughter, and wanted the very best for her future. She knew Rosarra wanted to stay in Winterfell, so she laboured to find a northern lord suitable for her daughter. Then, she could stay in the North, and perhaps her lord husband would even stay in Winterfell until it was time for him to take his father’s seat.

Unlikely, but Catelyn could dream.

She had almost jumped with joy when she received a letter from House Umber, asking for Rosarra’s hand for Smalljon Umber, the Greatjon’s heir. The Smalljon had previously been betrothed to a Cerwyn girl who had sadly died last year. As sorry as she was for the Cerwyn’s, she was overjoyed at the opportunity it provided her family.

Catelyn’s head was whirling with ideas and plans. The Greatjon was a good friend of Ned’s. They could give the Smalljon a position at Winterfell, and Rosarra could stay here for a while longer.

Delighted and excitedly, Catelyn rose from her desk and went to tell her daughter the news, walking as quickly as her growing bump allowed her too. She stood outside her daughter’s room, about to open the door, when she heard…

Oh, gods…

She heard a man’s groans and a woman’s – her daughter’s – moans, and the slapping of flesh…

“That’s it, Rose, gods, you take me so well…”

Was that… Greyjoy?

Catelyn almost fainted, until rage coloured her vision and steeled her. She barged into the room, hot with anger.

Greyjoy, lost in pleasure, had not even noticed she had walked in. But Rosarra, as naked as the day she was born with her legs wrapped around Greyjoy, looked at her mother with fright and horror before she pushed Greyjoy off of her.

“What. Is. This.” Catelyn found herself seething.

Theon Greyjoy stood, naked as well and his manhood dangling before her. He stared at her mutely. As enraged as she was with him for dishonouring her daughter, Catelyn knew he was not her responsibility. And, after all, men got away with much more than women did. If word was to get out, it would not be Theon Greyjoy’s reputation in tatters – oh no, it would be her daughter who would bear the brunt of their sins.

“Get out,” she barked at him. “I will deal with you later.”

Her tone was low and threatening, and Theon took heed of it, scurrying out the door in haste. He gave Rosarra a sorry look before he left.

Rosarra had scampered to put on her nightdress and had turned her back to her mother. Catelyn hoped it was out of shame, out of understanding of the severity and foolishness of her actions. The shame, the disgrace… if anyone was to find out. Catelyn shuddered to think of the scandal that would befall her family.

“Turn around and look at me,” Catelyn commanded her daughter lowly, anger simmering beneath her tone. Rosarra turned around slowly. “How long as this been going on for?”

“Not long,” she said quietly.

Catelyn almost hit her, but restrained herself by clenching her fists by her sides. “When did you give your maidenhead to him? You did not sound like a girl experiencing the pain of her first time,” Catelyn had observed. Rosarra was reluctant to answer and glanced away from Catelyn. “Answer me, Rosarra.”

“Two months ago,” she answered in a whisper.

“Two months,” Catelyn repeated slowly, “this has been going on under your father’s roof.”

Rosarra cringed at her mother’s tone and stared upon the floor. Catelyn’s rage did not abate.

“You have allowed a Greyjoy hostage to soil you, to take your virtue and leave you ruined,” Catelyn accused, all restraint and forced calmness having dissipated. “And know this, it will not be the two of you sharing the blame. Oh no, his reputation will not be tarnished, but if word gets out that he took your maidenhead, do you know what they will say of you?”

Her daughter knew. Catelyn said it anyway.

“They will say you are a whore. They will say that Lord Stark’s daughter is a damaged goods. Gods, they will say that your father and I raised a whore,” Catelyn said, and had to sit down at the edge of her daughter’s bed as the severity of the situation hit her again. “Did he tell you he loves you?”

“No. But I know he does,” Rosarra told her confidently.

Catelyn scoffed. “You are so clever, and yet you jumped into bed with a man who could not even promise you love?”

“He never said it, but I know he does,” Rosarra repeated, close to tears. “Please, Mother, don’t tell Father. Or I’ll marry him. I’ll marry Theon.”

“You will not,” Catelyn stated shortly, wishing to end her daughter’s fanciful solution. “You would be shipped off to Pyke, the harshest place in the world with only your husband as your ally. Is that the life you want?” Rosarra pursed her lips together and shook her head. “No, I thought not. You know, I came here to tell you that the Greatjon had asked for your hand for his son. The handsome Smalljon. Your father could have given him a position at Winterfell and you could have stayed here with us for a little while longer.”

“We could still…” Rosarra trailed off, wanting to please her mother.

“No. We will not deceive an honest house into taking you as your bride. And if I have my way, you will be sent far away from that Greyjoy boy.”

“Mother,” Rosarra breathed, her voice shaking from hurt. “That’s cruel.” Anger had bled into her dark eyes, making them narrow and glare at her mother.

It had always struck Catelyn, how her daughter’s pretty, round face could look so innocent one moment, and so wicked the next as a teasing grin split it in two. Her daughter loved to laugh, but she also knew her capable of such kindness.

Cruelty too, she thought, thinking of Bran. If I am cruel, then so are you, daughter, she thought, but would not condemn her daughter with that word.

“I will not tell your father. But this must stop,” Catelyn told her firmly. “Marena Snow will sleep in your bed every night as your bedwarmer, so that this never happens again.”

Rosarra’s glare followed her out of the room, but Catelyn was firmly set in her decision.

Before she left the room, Catelyn turned around and said,

“I have never been so disappointed in a child of mine. Not even when you told me you wished I never birthed a son. Not even when you hated a little boy for being born.”

“I don’t hate Bran,” Rosarra claimed softly, but her words were like wind to Catelyn’s ears, and she left the room without acknowledging them.

295 AL

For four moons, enough time for the babe in Catelyn’s belly to grow to full size, Rosarra had refused to speak with her mother. Catelyn was too ashamed and angry at her to try mend their strained relationship. After all, she had only acted as any mother would, attempting to preserve her daughter’s reputation. Rosarra would thank her for it someday; that she knew.

Ned had noticed the rift between daughter and mother, and had questioned Catelyn on it many times, but Catelyn would tell him nothing. Instead, she worked tirelessly to find a betrothal for her daughter in the Riverlands. She asked Ned if he would consider Edmure – it was not uncommon for niece to wed uncle, after all – but he was horrified at the suggestion.

And so, Catelyn kept looking.

A pain stabbed through her gut, gone as quickly as it came. Though alarmed at first, Catelyn soon forgot about it as her husband entered their bedroom.

“You look troubled,” Catelyn observed, seeing the lines that had etched themselves upon her husband’s forehead, and the way something hung heavy on his shoulders, causing him to slouch.

In response, Ned placed a letter on her desk. As she read it, Ned explained the problem that weighed heavy on his shoulders.

Jaime Lannister – released from the Kingsguard – a betrothal.

“I cannot allow her to marry such a dishonourable man,” Ned declared as he slipped off his boots. “A man who slays his king and then breaks his oath to the Kingsguard.”

“It seems as though he had little choice,” Catelyn pointed out as she reread the letter again. “Robert only released him from the Kingsguard to reduce his debt to Tywin Lannister. I would not hold it against Ser Jaime. A man must obey his king and his father.”

“And Robert has seen fit to drag us into this dishonourable mess,” Ned lamented, undressing to his nightclothes.

“He fears Tywin will seek to use Ser Jaime to make a powerful alliance through marriage, with a Hightower or Tyrell, most likely. A reasonable concern,” Catelyn mused, finally tossing the letter onto her desk. “And we are the only house he trusts with a daughter of marriageable age.”

It was true. House Arryn had no unwed daughters, nor did House Tully. He could propose a house from the Stormlands, but they would probably not be prestigious enough for Lord Tywin’s liking. A Stark of Winterfell, with the upbringing of a lord and one of the most beautiful girls in the Seven Kingdoms, was the only bride good enough for Lord Tywin Lannister’s son.

Catelyn was overjoyed. Her daughter – the wife of the Lord of Casterly Rock; the future Lady of the Westerlands! She could scarcely believe it. Just when she was looking for a match down south for her eldest daughter, the greatest match of all fell into their laps.

Though Rosarra would never see it that way, a life of being Lady of Casterly Rock would be far more prestigious and noble than being the Warden of the North. But Catelyn would have to make her see it that way, and judging by the scowl on Ned’s face, she would have to make him see it that way as well.

“Ned, we are unlikely to find a better match for her,” Catelyn said smoothly, moving to sit beside her husband. “Rosarra is far too brilliant to be wasted on a northern bannerman, or one of my father’s lords. She will make a brilliant Lady of Casterly Rock.”

“She will not like it,” Ned predicted solemnly, “and I will not be the father who forces his children to marry unwillingly.”

And though she loved him for it, Catelyn wished that, just this once, he would not be such a kind, honourable man.

Catelyn took his hand in her own and gave him a smile. “We raised a clever girl, who thought she was going to inherit your lands until Bran came along. We will make her understand, Ned. I will talk to her. But, my lord, that letter does not seem like a request to a friend, but an order from a king.”

“Robert will not force me to give away my eldest daughter.”

“It has been five years since you’ve seen him last,” Catelyn said seriously. “Men change.”

Her husband became even more solemn then. “Speak with her,” he finally relented, and Catelyn tried to hide her relief. “But I will not drag her down the aisle, not like – ”

“My father and Lysa,” Catelyn finished, and Ned nodded. That had been a terrible sight. Lysa had wept all through the ceremony. “You will not have to. She will see that this is a prestigious match. And we’ve raised children who understand their duty.”

Family, duty, honour. Catelyn had been raised with those values as a guiding stone all through her life. She had tried to pass those beliefs onto her children – the importance of family; the value of duty; the desirability of honour. She had thought she had succeeded, until she found Rosarra in bed with the Greyjoy.

But she would not allow that to cloud her perception of her eldest daughter forever. Rosarra was a good daughter, a loving sister to all but Bran, and a kind, dutiful lady. Her children had not gotten their kindness from her, though Catelyn strived to be a good, fair and kind mistress. Their father had instilled in his children a rare respect and kindness for the smallfolk. All her children knew every servant by name, and loved visiting Winter Town to engage with smallfolk. In Riverrun, the servants had been nameless to Catelyn, and she was ashamed to say that she saw them more as workers, not people. That had changed, however, when she came to Winterfell.

Bran and Rosarra had been the most influenced by their father. Rosarra gave out alms more often than Catelyn did, the Lady of Winterfell was ashamed to admit. She seemed to enjoy it, whereas Catelyn bemoaned the sharing of alms as another painstaking duty of a lady. Rosarra would speak with the smallfolk and ask about their families, as though they were no different than a lord. They loved her for it.

As much as they loved Ned. She would have been a brilliant Lady Paramount, if they lived in a world where Lady Paramounts were accepted. But Catelyn had been so relieved when Bran was born. Westeros was not a kind place to be a female ruler, and the North was the worst. It had never seen a female ruler before, and it had kept Catelyn of at night to think her daughter might be the first.

She knocked on Rosarra’s door, entering when she heard her daughter bid her to.

Rosarra sat by her vanity, Sansa standing behind her and braiding her hair.

Her daughters were similar in their colouring, but vastly different in their looks. Rosarra’s hair was brighter; a paler shade of red whereas Sansa’s was a rich auburn, shining like copper in the light. Rosarra’s fell in an abundance of thick curls to her waist, but Sansa’s hair was straight and thick, falling just past her shoulders. Sansa had Catelyn’s eyes, while Rosarra’s eyes reminded Catelyn more of her father’s – dark, deep and intelligent; always thinking, always looking through people as though they were made of glass.

Where Sansa’s features were sharp, Rosarra’s were softer, though they both had inherited Minisa Tully’s cheekbones. Both had fair, soft skin. A beauty at just ten, Catelyn knew Sansa would grow into a great beauty, surpassing both Catelyn and her eldest sister; neither of whom could ever be considered homely.

Catelyn smiled at the sight of Sansa braiding her elder sister’s hair. Though Rosarra insisted on continuing her swordfighting lessons and relished being on horseback more than anything else in the world, Rosarra still embraced her girlishness. She loved songs and stories almost as much as Sansa did, and picked up the high harp as often as the sword during her time for leisure.

“I wish my hair was curly like yours,” Sansa bemoaned as she threaded a strand of hair through the braid, almost done.

“It is the plight of girls. We always want what we cannot have,” Rosarra smiled at Sansa through the mirror. “I wish my hair was as silky as yours.” She reached out to touch Sansa’s long, silky hair. “We could summon a Myrish trademan and sell it to him for silk,” she jested.

“No,” Sansa replied, wide-eyed and horrified, but giggled when she saw her sister’s teasing smile. “Rosy…” she groaned. “Don’t tease me like that.”

Catelyn chuckled from behind her, and Rosarra’s expression soured immediately.

“Sansa, would you go find Arya, please? She was asking to play with you.”

Sansa groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Yes, sweetling,” her mother bid, and Sansa did as she told.

Once Sansa was gone, Catelyn sighed.

 “How long are you going to continue to be cross with me?”

“Until I stop being cross,” Rosarra replied shortly, turning around on her backless vanity chair to face her mother.

“I am your mother. I only want what is best for you. This world is not kind to a woman without her…” she could not finish the sentence, as she had not said the words aloud since she found Rosarra and Theon that night.

“I know I was harsh with you, as any mother would be,” she reminded her daughter. “Many mothers would even be worse. I have not told your father, and I will not,” added Catelyn quickly, seeing the fright on Rosarra’s face. “Because I know how disappointed he will be in you. Do you know what he said of you and Arya?” Catelyn smiled. “You are his pride, and Arya is his joy.”

Her daughter smiled for a moment, then a frown settled on her soft features. “What of Sansa?”

Catelyn frowned too at that. Truthfully, Catelyn did not think he thought of Sansa much. Arya amused him, and he could never deny her anything. It had been much the same with Rosarra when she was little, but as she grew up, Ned had given her more and more responsibility. Cupbearer; advisor; his eyes when they ached and he needed to read more correspondence. He had brought her to all the holdfasts in the North, to show her off and to indulge her, because Rosarra loved nothing more than showing off her cleverness.

“I suppose he sees Sansa as my responsibility. She’s the most ladylike out of all of you. I don’t think your father understands her, really,” Catelyn mused thoughtfully.

Catelyn had Bran and Sansa; Ned had Arya and Rosarra. Even though they claimed to love all their children equally, a parent always had their favourites, despite claiming to not. But Catelyn was an honest woman. She loved the little lady Sansa was becoming, and the sweetness and charm Bran showed to everyone, just as Ned loved the wildness in Arya and Rosarra’s cleverness and passion.

“I don’t think you understand me,” Rosarra admitted quietly. “I don’t think you ever tried to.”

“I understand you better than you think,” Catelyn told her firmly. “Did you know I was my father’s heir for ten years before Edmure came along?” Rosarra shook her head, surprised. “Yes. I was being groomed to follow in my father’s steps. I did not take to it as you did, and I frankly felt some relief when Edmure came along, but I remember the change. Suddenly, all my lessons got easier. Everyone treated me differently. I was a little lady, not an heir to my father’s land. I remember that change. And I was glad for it, but I understand how a different girl might resent it, even fight against it, as you have.”

Catelyn had not approved of Rosarra’s insistence on keeping up her sword lessons, or her desire to follow her father around as though she was still heir. She had approved even less of Ned’s indulgence of her. Ned said he was just being cautious. He said that Rosarra was gifted, and that should he die before his time, as his brother and father had, she could help Catelyn and Bran lead the North.

They were the overly cautious words of someone who had seen far too much death as a young man, but Catelyn had argued with him no more on the topic. What was the harm, she supposed? And it made Rosarra a very valuable bride.

“You will not like what I have to say,” Catelyn began gingerly, wary of the torrent of disagreement and anger about to be thrown her way. “But know that your father and I only want the best for you.”

“I’m not going to like this at all, am I?” Rosarra stated wryly.

“Most likely not, but promise me you will keep an open mind?” Catelyn pleaded of her, and her daughter reluctantly nodded. “Ser Jaime Lannister has been released from the Kingsguard. His father wishes for him to marry, but the king worries he will use a marriage to forge a powerful alliance. He distrusts Lord Tywin, you see.”

“What has this got to do with me?” her daughter asked. Catelyn could see the wheels already turning in her daughter’s head. Rosarra had already figured it out, of course, but was too horrified to speak the words without confirmation, hoping her assumption was not true, no doubt.

“Your father is undoubtedly loyal to the king. The king trusts him. We are the only house he trusts with an unwed daughter – ”

“No,” Rosarra voiced immediately, and firmly, in a tone that commanded no arguments and was all too authoritative for a girl of four-and-ten.

“It is our duty to serve the crown, Rosarra. This was not a request. This is an order from the king.”

“Father would never make me,” Rosarra declared, knowing her father well. She was right, of course. “And he would most certainly not make me marry a Lannister. He despises them! How could he marry me to a family he despises. No,” she said again, just as firmly, “I will not do it.”

“What of duty?” Catelyn asked her. “Duty to your family, duty to your king. Your father has very little choice in this, neither do you. I bid you to accept your fate and see the benefits of this marriage. House Lannister is a rich and prestigious house. Ser Jaime is handsome – ”

“And Father dislikes him,” Rosarra finished. “He would not force me down the aisle to wed the Kingslayer of all people! No, Mother, I will not do it. Father will not make me; the king cannot make me.”

“But I can,” Catelyn told her softly. How she loathed to do this, but Rosarra gave her no choice. “I pray I never have to tell your father of what transpired between you and Theon under his roof, for his sake more than yours as it would tear him apart. And so, I bid you to look favourably on this marriage.”

“My own mother,” Rosarra said in horror, eyes wide and teary, “is threatening me.”

Catelyn’s heart broke. “It is for your own good, Rosy,” she said, grabbing her daughter’s hand in her own. She had not called her daughter by her childhood nickname in years. “You will be far away from Greyjoy. I know how it pains you to see the boy you care for around Winterfell, yet you are unable to speak with him.”

“Because of you,” Rosarra pointed out darkly, but did not stop holding her mother’s hand.

“I know, I know. But I do this for you. You will shine in the Westerlands. You can show off that wonderful clever head of yours, and that pretty face should not be locked away in some northern holdfast,” Catelyn told her, trying to give her daughter an assuring smile, but Rosarra only frowned in response. Catelyn sighed. “When your father speaks to you about this match, what will your response be?”

Rosarra glared at her. It was a terrifying thing, how a girl so sweet could give a look so sour. “I will agree. But I will hate you for this,” Rosarra bit at her mother and tore her hand away from her mother. She turned her back to her.

“Rosy…”

Her daughter did not respond. With a small but long sigh, Catelyn stood from the chair and left the room, aware that everything had changed.

Chapter Text

The Wolf Maiden

295 AL

Rosarra Stark

Rhaenyra Targaryen, the Half-Year Queen, had been declared heir to the throne by her father, King Viserys I. He had summoned all the high lords and ladies of the realm to swear fealty to his daughter, and even when his second wife, Alicent Hightower, birthed healthy sons, he did not amend this decree.

Rosarra traced her finger around the sketch of Rhaenyra on the page. She was a young girl in the sketch, not much older than Rosarra herself. She wondered if she resented her brothers as Rosarra did Bran, if she had failed as Rosarra had to open her heart to the little brother whose existence threatened to tear her future – one meticulously crafted, planned for and yearned for – into diminutive, tiny shreds.

Bran was five now, having just celebrated his nameday a moon ago. Each year, Rosarra was not reminded of the joyous birth of her baby brother; a birth to celebrate and rejoice. No, Rosarra was reminded of what could have been – a life as an heir, the future Lady Paramount of the North, a lady who would have her own lands and titles and who would not have to rely on her husband to give her scraps of power and authority, even though she would doubtlessly be far cleverer than her.

Had Rhaenyra acted as coldly towards to the birth of her brother as Rosarra had? Had she viewed him as the thorn in all her plans, all her desires? The knife that would carve her role, her identity, into pieces and leave her useless and without purpose? At ten, little Rosarra had been so frightened of the uncertainty that now clouded her future – who would she marry? Would he be kind? Would he be cruel? Would he allow her to help him rule, as she had been raised to?

Her father said that most of the realm had acted without honour during the Dance. The lords had sworn fealty to Rhaenyra Targaryen, and therefore should have supported her ascension to the throne, but Aegon II was the rightful heir, according to the laws and customs of the Andals, the First Men and Old Valyria. If Rhaenyra had been a woman of honour, her father had said, she would have stepped aside and let her brother peacefully take his rightful place on the throne, sparing the realm much bloodshed.

While Rosarra admired her father and desired to be just as honourable as him, she didn’t think he could understand Rhaenyra, not as she could. Rhaenyra saw herself as more than just a dutiful daughter, to be sold off and wedded and bedded. She had desires too, just as all women do, though many men may begrudge women their ambitions. Rosarra had ambitions. Once, she wanted to be her father’s heir. Now, she wanted…

What did she want? Rosarra placed her book upon her lap as she contemplated the question. Not power, specifically – she did not desire to usurp her brother, nor did she desire queenship or anything most men claimed ambitious women would want. Status, yes – she wanted to be able to make some of her own decisions and have a say in her future.

But most of all, Rosarra wanted recognition, for she was not a woman – or a girl, as her father claimed she still was, even though she was to be wedded in four moons turn – to be dismissed or whose thoughts should be ignored.

Her father listened to her. When she suggested a trade deal with Braavos to White Harbour, upon reading that animals with fur were not common in Braavos, nor were stronger woods like ironwood, her father had listened to her patiently. He had supported her suggestions and praised her. He even let her propose the idea to Wyman Manderly.

Rosarra also knew the North boasted large deposits of silver, not as much as the Westerlands, but still enough to earn them a good deal of profit. Rosarra suggested they invite miners from the West to Winterfell to set up camps near their reserves, as well as prospectors to help source new deposits of silver.

Her father had been very pleased with her findings and had done as she had suggested. Rosarra had become his ‘assistant’ these last few years, acting as his cupbearer and his right-hand, brought to all the keeps of the high lords of the North. Her mother had scorned it, but Father had ignored her, only asking Rosarra not to bring up her role around Lady Stark lest she spark an argument.

She was supposed to stay in the North for a lot longer, but instead she was to be cast off to marry some honourless man her father despised.

There was a knock on her door, and Sansa stepped into her room looking sheepish, clad in her nightgown and slippers.

“My room is closer to Mother’s chambers,” Sansa said quietly, looking at the floor. “Can I…?”

“Of course, you can,” Rosarra replied immediately with a kind smile, pulling the covers down on the other side of her bed so Sansa could slip in beside her.

She understood immediately. Their mother was birthing her fifth child, likely to be another boy according to Maester Luwin. But Sansa was supposed to be a boy, and so was Arya. Rosarra was sure that he must have claimed she was a boy as well, because all mothers want to hear that the babes in their bellies were going to be boys. What use was a little girl, after all?

“She did not scream this loud with Bran,” Sansa whispered, voice shaking with fright.

Rosarra froze as well. There were times she could also hear her mother’s screams from her room on the other side of the castle. She had picked up her favourite book The Queens Who Never Were to distract herself.

“You were only five when Bran was born,” Rosarra reminded her with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, though it felt more like a grimace. She smoothed a loose strand of Sansa’s red hair, a shade lighter than Rosarra’s own, behind her hair. “You can’t remember Bran’s birth well enough to compare.”

“I remember Mother’s screams. I don’t remember much else from being five, but I remember those. I didn’t understand… how dangerous it could be, though,” Sansa told her nervously. Rosarra wrapped an arm around her. “Women die in childbirth, don’t they?”

There were tears in Sansa’s eyes. Rosarra felt her eyes well up too, as she had considered that possibility as well. It was made even worse by the strained relationship she had with her mother. Rosarra had refused to speak with her since her lady mother had threatened her, and had no intentions of speaking to Lady Stark before she was carted off to Casterly Rock like the broodmare she was.

“Not our mother,” Rosarra tried to say firmly. “Lady Catelyn Stark will not be taken from childbed fever.”

“Why do women have so many children if it is so dangerous?”

Rosarra thought on that. Because we have to, she thought to herself, but that was not the answer she would give her little sister.

“Because mothers love their children,” was the answer she gave, hoping her small smile hid her lie. “Father says a woman’s battle is in the birthing bed. Men ride off to battle all the time, even though it’s dangerous. There must be a reason both women and men are drawn to their ‘battles’ like that.”

“I hope Mother does not have any more children,” Sansa said quietly. “I love Bran, and Arya too, sometimes. But I don’t want to lose Mother.”

She squeezed Sansa’s arm reassuringly. “She will pull through. She always does.”

“Are you nervous about giving birth?”

Rosarra snorted. “I am not with child, Sansa.”

Sansa scowled at her laughter and amended, “But you will be wed soon. Ser Jaime will want heirs. And you must want children.”

Yes, she did. She really did. She loved taking care of her younger siblings and playing with them. When she was younger, she used to pretend they were her children, and she played the part of the doting mother. She had never done that with Bran though, she realised with a familiar startle of guilt, only her sisters.

“I do,” Rosarra admitted honestly. “I always have. I want as many as Mother.”

“Even though they might make you scream as Mother is?”

Foolishly, Rosarra nodded her affirmation. She was surprised at herself even. “Yes. It’s crazy, isn’t it? That we willingly put ourselves through that.”

“What would you call them?” Sansa asked, becoming girlishly eager to talk about their future as mother and wives. “I’ve picked names. Eddard for Father, Brynden after our uncle because he’s so valiant, there would have to be a Catelyn too, for Mother… but also a Serena, an Alysanne for Good Queen Alysanne and a Jonquil, for the lady in the song.”

“Will your lord husband get to name any of his children?” Rosarra commented in amusement, not having the heart to tell her sister that he would likely be the one choosing the names, unless he had the heart and the respectfulness to allow her some input.

Sansa smirked cheekily. “Only if he has good suggestions.”

Rosarra smiled widely at that.

A fervent knocking disturbed them from their peaceful revelry. Rosarra bid the person to come in, thinking it was going to be Arya or Jon. When she saw it was her father, she sat up immediately, her eyes wide and fearful. She realised with a start the screams had stopped.

“Rosarra, your mother has been asking for you.”

“Is she…” Rosarra asked fearfully, glancing nervously at Sansa who seemed close to tears.

“She’s… this child will not come out as easily as you and your siblings did,” Ned explained cautiously. Rosarra wondered if he would have spoken more plainly to her if Sansa had not been there, or if he would have strived to honey the truth for her as well. “Please, Rose,” he began to plead with her, looking pale and like a ghost of the fierce father she knew. “Put aside whatever grudge you hold against your mother. You may regret it.”

Rosarra paled, understand well what he meant. She would not want her mother to… she could not bear to think nor say the words. But whatever happened, Rosarra would not let her grudge or anger define the last chapter of her relationship with her mother.

So, she nodded, and pulled the furs off her body. She quickly turned around to press a kiss to Sansa’s forehead. “It’ll be alright, Sansi,” she told her, using the nickname that Sansa despised, but it seemed to bring comfort to her sister.

“Can I stay here, Rosy?” Sansa asked hopefully.

“Of course you can,” she said. Rosarra would be relieved to find her sister in her bed for comfort should… things go south. Rosarra gave her a reassuring smile. Once again, it looked more like a grimace. “Try sleep.”

“I won’t be able to.”

She gave her another sad smile, before leaving her room with their father.

They walked in silence, the sounds of her mother’s screams becoming louder and louder as they got nearer. Rosarra smelt… blood. She wanted to turn around and run away, but the fear of what could happen and the regret that would eat at her afterwards forced her legs to move forward.

Her father entered the birthing chamber with her. It was rare for men to attend the births of their children, but Ned Stark was no ordinary man. He loved his wife and would do all he could to comfort her. Rosarra wondered would Ser Jaime attend her births. Though she had never met him, she didn’t think a man branded with the fearsome title Kingslayer would spend hours at her bedside, holding her hand as she birthed him an heir.

Her eyes settled upon her mother. Sweat had glued her beautiful red hair to her forehead and her skin had paled to an awful yellowish white colour. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying from the pain. Rosarra had only seen her mother cry once before, when her father was away fighting Greyjoy’s Rebellion.

All rage for her mother abated in one moment, and she rushed to her mother’s side, all anger forgotten.

“Mother – ” she began, but Catelyn cut her off.

“I am glad you’re here, Rosy,” she said, forcing a small smile on her face though it was laced with pain.

“I should have been here from the beginning,” Rosarra replied, and it was true. Rosarra was of an age to tend to her mother during childbirth. “I had not thought…” she trailed off regretfully, and grabbed her mother’s hand gently to hold. “I am so sorry, Mother.”

“And I, too, daughter. Please forgive me. I only ever – ” She was cut off by a scream and a cry as she writhed and cringing in pain. Rosarra stared at her in alarm, sharing a worried look with her father. “I only ever wanted what was best for you. But I should not have… but it is right, you know that? Promise me, you will… promise me…”

“I will marry him,” Rosarra told her, understanding her mother’s meaning. Her judgement was correct, judging by the relief that had washed over Catelyn’s face, mingled with the pain. “None of that matters now, Mother. You will birth my little brother or sister, and all will be well.”

Catelyn turned away from her and to her husband, looking at him pleadingly. “Why will the child not come, Ned? All the others… even Rosarra did not take this long to come.”

“He will come soon,” her father promised, though they all knew his words were meaningless.

“I feel like he is both trying to tear himself out of me and refusing to come,” Catelyn explained. “I have heard… of men having to make a choice for their wives… Mother or son.”

Her father paled. “Cat…”

“The child, Ned,” Catelyn said firmly. “The child.”

Rosarra held her mother’s hand for hours more. There were a few minutes she was alone with her mother as Maester Luwin and her father spoke outside of the birthing chamber. She had been scared out of her wits. Her mother, her strong, brave mother, seemed to be slipping away from her before her eyes. Every time she closed her eyes, Rosarra bid her to wake.

An hour later, Maester Luwin could finally see the child’s head emerging, and no choices needed to be made.

Their mother’s screams became louder and more pained, her grip on Rosarra’s hand became almost unbearable, her nails digging into Rosarra’s skin deeply enough to draw blood. Rosarra dabbed a cloth on her mother’s forehead.

“You are doing so well, Mother,” she praised, trying to keep calm. “The babe will be here soon.”

Catelyn released another roar of pain in response, throwing back her head back in sheer agony. Rosarra dipped the cloth back into some cold water and dabbed it upon her mother’s head once again, clearing up beads of sweat and hoping to cool her down.

There was so much blood. She glanced down at the sheet, then to her father. They shared a look, but dared not mention their worries as to not alarm Catelyn.

When the babe finally came, her mother’s entire body slacked. Luwin cut the cord, then wrapped the babe in furs.

“A boy,” Maester Luwin said joyously.

“Rickon,” Catelyn said tiredly, a minute smile on her lips as her eyelids drooped heavily. “Just as we agreed, my lord,” she told Father, who smiled broadly at her.

“Rickon,” Father announced.

“Would you like to hold him, my lady?” Maester Luwin asked.

“No,” her mother drawled, head lolling to one side. “Just rest.”

“Cat?” her father called worriedly. He looked to the maester in alarm. “Is she – ”

“She needs rest,” Luwin said, but his face showed that he was worried to. “If I may, my lord…” he gestured to outside the room.

“Of course,” her father affirmed, but visibly paled.

Rosarra became alarmed at that. If he did not wish to speak in front of her mother, it meant he did not wish to alarm her. She gripped her mother’s hand tighter, and continued to tend to her by making sure she was cool.

“Rosarra, would you take the little lord?” Maester Luwin asked her, smiling kindly.

He did not wait for her answer, and her little brother was shoved into her arms. The maester and her father left, leaving her alone with the newborn babe and her mother. Rosarra realised that she was the first to hold baby Rickon. He had not been fed yet, and curled into Rosarra’s breast, trying to find a nipple to drink from through her dress.

Rosarra chuckled fondly at the babe. “You will not find anything there, baby Rickon,” she told her, rocking him gently in her arms. She had not held a babe since Arya, for she had never held Bran. He felt so fragile in her arms. “You have Mother’s hair,” she commented, running her fingers gently through the short tuffs of red atop Rickon’s head. “I think you’ve her eyes too, just like me. I think you’ll be more like Arya, though, a wild, crazy little thing.”

The babe gurgled at her, barely able to open his eyes fully. Maids piled into the room to change her mother’s sheets, taking away the blood-stained rags and replacing them with clean ones. Once they were gone, Rosarra started muttering to baby Rickon again.

“You will not remember me,” Rosarra said sadly. “The others will tell you about me, I hope, but I won’t be here when you grow older. I have to marry a southern lord. But you’ll love this family. This is your mother,” she propped Rickon up carefully so he could look at Catelyn, fully understanding that he likely did not understand what she meant. “She can be annoying, but she loves us fiercely. You took a lot out of her, but she’s going to be alright. She has to be,” she murmured to herself, trying to reassure herself more than the babe who could not understand her.

“Rose,” her father spoke, and Rosarra blushed when she realised he had heard her, “we must give the babe to the wet nurse.”

“Of course,” Rosarra said, handing the babe over to Father. “Will Mother be alright?”

Her father nodded, giving her a relieved smile. “Maester Luwin seems to think so. If she – when she survives the next few hours, we can be certain she will remain in good health.” With Rickon in one arm, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Rosarra’s brow. “You did well, Rosy. I am proud of you.”

Their mother’s recovery was slow. A month later, and Lady Catelyn Stark had only just found the strength to get out of bed and take a few steps. Rosarra spent most of her time with her mother, and when she was not with her, she was taking care of the younger children – even Bran, though it pained her to do so despite the child’s sweet temperament.

Exactly a moon after Rickon’s birth, Lord Tywin Lannister had arrived at Winterfell. The reason for his visit had bewildered her, until her father had clarified it for Rosarra – it was to inspect Rosarra herself. After all, what man would purchase a broodmare without inspecting it first?

“You must not allow him to intimidate you,” her mother had warned her that morning as she ate her breakfast slowly. “He is lucky to have you marrying his son. Though you must be polite and courteous, make sure he does not forget his luck in securing you for a good-daughter.”

Rosarra allowed her mother’s words to echo through her head as she approached her father’s solar. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Rosarra knocked timidly at the door. You are a Stark of Winterfell, a wolf, she kept repeating to herself, as she often did when she was nervous.

Her father bid her to come in, and Rosarra entered the solar, finding Lord Tywin sitting opposite their father, half a dozen sheets laid out between them. Contracts, trades and dowries, most likely, for Rosarra knew a marriage was as much a trade deal and a business transaction as it was a marriage. Rosarra hoped her father had succeeded to negotiate for Lord Tywin to send his best prospector north for a few months, to search for more silver mines, and that he had not allowed the Old Lion to extort the North.

“Lady Rosarra,” Lord Tywin greeted, standing to address her. “Well met.”

He was trying to size her up, from her looks to how she held herself, and soon he would examine her every word. Rosarra had never disappointed anyone. She held herself confidently, as her lady mother had taught her, and stood tall and proud. She met his examining stare evenly, unperturbed – or hoping to be seen so, as being analysed like this would be a source of discomfort for anyone.

“And you, my lord. It is an honour to meet my future good-father,” Rosarra told him smoothly with a smile. Her life would be much easier if she could charm him, though Lord Tywin was not like other lords, easily endeared by a pretty smile and smooth words.

The look he gave her was one of appraisal though, as he bid her to take a seat as he returned to his.

“Your father tells me you have impressive knowledge of diplomacy and stewardship,” Lord Tywin informed her. “You’ve had an extensive education that is incredibly rare for young ladies who do not stand to inherit their father’s lands.”

Rosarra bristled at that, but attempted to hide the bitterness that rose to the surface at the mention of her inheritance, or lack-thereof. “I was my father’s heir until the age of ten, and given a lord’s education as well as a lady’s. When my little brother was born, my father allowed my education to continue to be as extensive and broad as it had been,” she sent her father a grateful smile. “I hope my education will be a benefit to House Lannister, though I still have much to learn about your lands.”

Lord Tywin seemed pleased by her answer. “As you are just five-and-ten and have another year until you reach the age of majority, you will be completing your education with us. My sister Lady Genna will be seeing to your education and well-being. She is learned woman, like yourself, and the acting Lady of Casterly Rock since the death of my wife. Your willingness to learn is… reassuring,” he admitted, a dark look on his face that Rosarra could not place. He turned to Lord Stark. “I should like to speak with Lady Stark before I leave, on matters of your daughter’s fertility.”

“My wife is still recovering from the birth of our last son,” her father replied quickly, a scowl on his face on the question of Rosarra’s fertility.

“I should like some reassurance that Lady Rosarra is capable of bearing sons for House Lannister,” he said, and turned to her then, as though expected reassurance.

She frowned, unable to hide her displeasure at being branded a broodmare. “I see no reason why I should not be able. I flowered at two-and-ten, and was always tall for my age. I’ve been told my hips are wide.”

She felt heat rise to her cheeks, though she attempted to hide her embarrassment the best she could. She was a wolf; she would not cringe before the lion.

Lord Tywin nodded, satisfied. “Good,” he declared, and rose to stand. Rosarra and her father stood as well. “The wedding will be in three moons. I should like you to arrive at Casterly Rock in two moons. That would give us time to organise a fine wedding gown for your daughter.”

“Yes, Lord Lannister,” he replied, a grim look on his face.

“We will organise the making of the gown and pay for the materials. A Lannister bride should look the part.”

Her father scowled again. Rosarra felt insulted too. House Lannister may be wealthy – wealthier than House Stark, by all accounts – but it was not as though they were paupers!

Lord Tywin continued on without giving her father or Rosarra time to interject. “I will take my leave. I came to see the future Lady Lannister and assess if she was worthy of the title. You have raised a fine daughter, Lord Stark,” Lord Tywin complimented.

“She is a credit to us,” her father said fondly.

The elder lord hummed in agreement before turning to Rosarra, a serious, stern expression on his face that never seemed to go away. “Before your wedding, it would do you good to learn about the lands you will someday help govern,” Lord Tywin told Rosarra. “Winterfell’s library is extensive, I hear, and you do not seem like a person who likes to be unprepared.”

“I am not, my lord,” Rosarra replied, chin held high. “You will find me well-prepared when I come to Casterly Rock to marry your son.”

The corners of Lord Tywin’s mouth curled upwards in a ghost of smile. “It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Rosarra.”

And then the Old Lion left, with the promise of being a permanent fixture in her life very soon. Her father left with him, but not before giving Rosarra’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze and a smile of approval. She had done well, even Rosarra could tell. Perhaps she could be happy in Casterly Rock. At least she would have a place there; lands to help govern and a household to run.

She lowered herself onto her father’s chair, and began to look through the contracts and agreements he had signed.

Two moons passed, and Rosarra was preparing to leave her home to go to Casterly Rock. The girls were accompanying her. Bran and Rickon were too young to travel, and her mother had only just recovered fully and did not want to leave little Rickon. Rosarra did not mind. Though their relationship was more cordial than it had been before Rickon’s birth, Rosarra still resented her mother, and their relationship had always been strained.

She would be glad to have the girls with her, though, even if taking care of Arya would add a great deal of stress on the bride-to-be.

“That gown will be too hot,” Rosarra commented as her handmaiden Marena Snow, the baseborn daughter of Lord Glover, went to pack a grey dress with thick, fur-lined skirts. She was a small girl, half a foot shorter than Rosarra who was of average height for a woman, with dark hair and brilliant green eyes. She was comely and shapely. Rosarra had envied her shape when they were younger; Marena was two years older and had matured quicker, much to Rosarra’s chagrin.

She used to catch boys’ eyes more often than Rosarra had, before Rosarra had grown into a woman as well. When Rosarra was two-and-ten and Marena four-and-ten, she had seen her flirting with Theon at a feast and had spoken to neither of them for a month. She’d been cruel to her friend, who was still acting as her handmaiden at the time. Rosarra had refused to speak to her and cursed her with foul looks at every opportunity. She had assigned foul, unnecessary jobs to Marena, like ordering her to wake early to help the kennelmaster and to assist the Master of Horse with caring for Rosarra’s stallion; duties unbecoming for a young lady.

Marena broke down after a month of foul treatment and ran to Lord Stark. She had never seen her father look so disappointed. He had been enraged with her, and ordered her to perform every duty she had ordered Marena to; no matter how ill-suited they were to a young lady.

Eventually, Rosarra had realised the cruelty of her actions, though she had not apologised. Marena never spoke to Theon again. Their relationship had never returned to that closeness since, and Marena began to act as Rosarra’s inferior and Rosarra had reluctantly accepted the role of mistress instead of friend.

That didn’t mean they no longer got along, though.

“But winter is coming, my lady,” Marena remarked in a serious tone, but gave her mistress a cheeky smirk.

Rosarra snorted. “You sound like my father.” She became thoughtful. “But no, I don’t believe it will ever get cold enough for dress like that. All my dresses are so heavy. I am going to be sweating like a sinner in a Sept once we go south.”

“Lucky for us that we follow the Old Gods then,” Marena said. “Your lady mother made some light gowns for you during her confinement. You’ll just have to wear them until we can get the Lannister’s seamstress to tend to you in Casterly Rock.”

“You know you – ”

“Don’t have to come?” Marena finished with a bemused look. Rosarra nodded mutely, waiting for her friend to respond. Marena rolled her eyes. “As if you would survive a day without me.”

“I would try to, if you wanted to stay with your family,” Rosarra assured her softly. “Casterly Rock is far and…”

“And I have never been south before. I will miss my family, but not many northern ladies get to go past the Neck. Even fewer baseborn ladies. It is an adventure as much as it is a duty of mine as your favourite handmaiden,” Marena said cheekily, bumping Rosarra’s hip with her own and giving her a small smirk.

“My only handmaiden. I looked forward to getting rid of you,” Rosarra teased, unshed tears in her eyes at her handmaiden’s loyalty.

“Oh, hush you,” said the Glover bastard, rolling her eyes again. “You’d be lost without me. What is this?” Marena said, picking up a dress Rosarra had folded and beginning to re-fold it to her satisfaction. “You’d swear a dog folded this. There,” she announced finally. “All done. I’ll have someone come fetch these and put them in the wheelhouse.”

There was a knock on the door. She bid the person to enter, and Jon stepped into her room.

Marena glanced between them. “I will take my leave and let you two talk,” she said, before scurrying out of the room.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” Jon voiced sadly as he picked up a doll she was bringing – Lady Minnie, after her mother’s mother. “You’re bringing Lady Minnie.”

Rosarra smiled at the doll. She had gotten the doll when she was just four, yet she could remember the tears in her mother’s eyes when she asked her what her grandmother’s name had been. She had branded the doll with her nickname. Minisa Tully had been known by Minnie to those who loved her. Rosarra wondered if her husband would let her name a child Minisa. The Riverlands and Westerlands had similar names, so perhaps she could.

“I’m bringing everything so I can be reminded of home,” Rosarra explained. “It is my plan to make my room at Casterly Rock look identical to this one,” she glanced around at her room fondly, though it was now stripped bare of her possessions.

“I imagine your rooms there will be far grander. You’ll be its lady,” Jon reminded her with a weak smile.

“I wish you could come with us for the wedding,” she told him truthfully. She would miss him fiercely. What she would do to have her brother for a little while longer.

“Trust me, I do too,” Jon replied wryly, a bitterness to his tone. “Sharing a keep with just Lady Stark and two little boys does not sound very joyous.”

“Perhaps I could convince the Lannisters to offer you a place in their household, once I am settled and you are a bit older.” It sounded ridiculous to her; when he is a bit older. He was only a year younger than her, and she was to be wed.

Jon frowned thoughtfully. “As much as I’d like to live with you in Casterly Rock, I don’t think I’d like such… dishonourable employment,” he said slowly and carefully, sharing in their father’s disdain of House Lannister.

Rosarra scowled at that. “I see,” she said and took the doll off of him, placing it back into the bag.

There was silence for a few moments, before Jon cleared his throat and spoke again. “I thought you might like to go for one last ride in the godswood before you leave,” Jon suggested. “I’ve asked Hullen to ready Syrax.”

She could do with a ride to ease her nerves and take her mind off her imminent departure. Nodding, she gave her brother a thankful smile and let him lead her to the stables, having already changed into her riding clothes in preparation for the journey to come.

Her mount was black stallion with patches of white and brilliant grey eyes that reminded her of Jon’s. He was a strong courser of just five years, barely an adult, yet Hullen had remarked that he was a strong pony when he was younger. Her mother’s uncle the Blackfish had sent him to Rosarra as a yearling for her eleventh name-day. Rosarra adored the horse then, and she still refused to ever ride another horse. No horse was as fast or as obedient as Syrax, though he gave trouble to the stable boys and was likely to bite a hand if it was too rough.

Once they had reached the wolfswood, Rosarra felt her worries and stress melt as she inhaled the scent of the oak and pine trees and breathed the cold winter air. She would not forget the smell, or the taste of the wolfswood. She had learned how to ride a horse from her lord father in these woods. She remembered the first horse she ever rode – a yearling without a name – threw her off its back. She remembered bawling her eyes out, and her father comforting her.

“The horse does not like me,” Rosarra had complained, sniffling.

Her father had laughed at that. “The horse does not know you, Rosey-posie. But you were pulling at his mane. How would you feel if someone was to pull your hair?”

He had tugged at one of her curls then, and Rosarra had giggled at her father’s antics.

Rosarra smiled at the memory, and the smell and the sight of the openness that was the wolfswood. She shot a small smirk to Jon, which he returned, knowing that her smirk held a challenge. She urged Syrax into a fierce gallop and bid her brother to chase her.

She would win, as she always did. Rosarra was a brilliant rider. Jon could excel at the sword, and he would have been as clever as her if he had her diligence and ambition, but he could never out-ride her. Yet he never complained when she beat him, and never refused her when she asked him to go riding with her. Theon often refused to go riding with her, unless they were hunting, because of his fragile male pride.

“Come, Rose, this way!” Jon beckoned her, shouting from fifty feet behind her.

His horse had stopped. Rosarra turned Syrax around to shoot Jon a suspicious look. “Must you resort to tricks to win against your sister in a race?” she teased him with a small smirk.

Even from this far away, she could see Jon rolling his eyes. “Come on, you,” he called to her, and urged his horse into a trot as he disappeared behind some trees.

Rosarra followed behind him. He led her to a small open area, where they found Theon sitting against a tree.

“I knew you would want to say goodbye,” Jon told her with a smile. “I’ll leave you to it.”

With Jon gone, Rosarra did naught but stare at Theon expectantly as he rose from his seat on the ground. She did not know what to say to him. She had considered herself in love with him only a few moons ago. She had given him the part of her that was, according to most lords and ladies in their society, the most important. She had let him ruin her. And he had never told her he loved her.

“I have not spoken to you in half a year,” Rosarra commented bluntly.

Theon looked as though she had struck him. “I was forbidden – we were forbidden. Your lady mother – ”

“It did not seem to pain you as it did me,” she stated, trying to keep her voice steady but pain shook it. “You have not tried to see me. Not even a note. Nothing.”

“You agreed to be married to the Kingslayer,” he spat the word out like it was a curse. For them, it was. “Don’t act like I betrayed you when you’re the one leaving.”

“Betrayal?” she repeated with a scoff. “Oh, how betrayed you must have felt. How great your pain… that you had to fuck the brewer’s wife in the godswood. And the tavern wench from Winter Town you brought to your bed; the bed you took my maidenhead in!”

She had nearly brought herself to tears. How heartbroken she had felt when she heard that story from a reluctant Marena, how the wench’s cries of pleasure had been so loud she woke up everyone in the guests’ wing. Rosarra had let Theon take her maidenhead in that bed. They had been kissing at first, then touching and exploring each other’s bodies as they had for a while before, then things had went further before Rosarra had the mind to stop them, too overcome with want and lust.

Her actions were the stupid, foolish actions of a girl in love. Rosarra was not impulsive in nature, but she could be a slave to strong emotions. She could never hold her tongue when she was angry, nor could she stay her jealousy even when it caused her to act cruelly. She regretted giving her maidenhead to Theon, but she could not go back in time and reconstruct her maidenhead through abstinence, so she found herself back in bed with him many more times until her mother…

Pushing that unwelcome memory aside, Rosarra looked away from Theon and pushed back her tears. No, he would not see her cry. She would not show him how much power he had over her, when she did not seem to matter to him.

When Theon spoke finally, his words were laced with defiance, but she could hear the shame. Good, she thought, for he should feel shame for wronging her. “You hardly expected me to live as a maid for the rest of my life in devotion to you while you go off to wed and fuck the Kingslayer?”

“You could have waited until I left!” she told him hotly, though her voice cracked. “Do you not understand, I could have – this could have ruined me. I really cared for you.”

“Cared?” Theon echoed, hurt.

“Care,” she amended. “I must be some thick fool. For all you have hurt me, I care for you. And will long after I’m wed to Ser Jaime.”

There were tears in his eyes, but he was more determined to suppress them than Rosarra had even been. He grabbed her hands in his and gave her a small smirk, “I doubt you could forget me easily, Stark.”

She rolled her eyes at his cockiness. “How could I? A head as abnormally large as yours will be impossible to forget.”

“May I give you something else that will be impossible to forget?”

“I should – ”

She was about to say that she ought to smack him, so he could remember her ire, her heartbreak, but he silenced her with a kiss. It was slow at first, and sweet. He tasted of pine and saltwater, and smelt like burning wood mingled with fresh air. Rosarra wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly to her and deepening the kiss, devouring him.

A moment’s respite – she forgot just for a moment that she would have to tear herself away from him. Rosarra was the kind of woman who preferred to slap a stinging salve straight onto her wound and get the pain over with, rather than brace herself and slowly experience pain, dragging out the suffering.

And so, she tore herself away from Theon, as she would press a stinging salve onto a wound without hesitation, or rip off a bandage.

“No,” Rosarra said suddenly, stepping away from him as though he had burned her.

Theon’s brows furrowed in confusion. “Rose, what – ”

“Consider that a promise fulfilled,” she said with a small smile and teary eyes, before she whipped around and mounted her Syrax once more.

She urged her horse into a fast gallop, finding Jon at the edge of the godswood. He gave her a worried look. Rosarra realised with a start that she had been crying, and her eyes must have been a blaring red. She attempted to give her brother a reassuring smile and urged Syrax into a canter as they began their return to Winterfell.

“Thank you,” she said to Jon finally, as they neared the gates of Winterfell.

He smiled kindly at her in response.

She rode Syrax through the gates of Winterfell, and braced herself for half a dozen more painful goodbyes.

Chapter Text

The Kingslayer

295 AL

Jaime Lannister

It was strange to call Casterly Rock his home again, Jaime mused as the steel of his sword clambered into the practice dummy mercilessly.

For so long, the treacherous walls of King’s Landing had been his home. He had protected two kings – one loyally, one not so loyally – and made many friends, and enemies. For the last twelve years, his position meant he could be with his sister, his lover, now he was being torn from her for sake of an inheritance he never wanted and a woman-child he would never love.

He had been home for four months now, sent away from King’s Landing in what felt like disgrace. Four months without Cersei. Gods, they had not been apart from her this long since Greyjoy’s Rebellion. At least his wedding in a month would bring them together again.

His days as a lordling, heir to his father’s lands, were spent relearning a lord’s duties from his lord father, walking aimlessly through the gardens, drinking with his brother, and practicing how to fight – and he only enjoyed two of those things.

The only things he enjoyed in life were fighting and fucking – fucking Cersei, in particular, for he doubted he would find much pleasure with the Stark pup.

“What did that poor dummy do to you?” came the drawl of his younger brother, Tyrion, who stood behind him wearing an amused look on his face. Jaime lowered his sword and turned to face his brother. “I do not believe he is responsible for your upcoming nuptials, though I suppose you cannot give our lord father the same treatment.”

“Or the king, lest I become a kingslayer twice over,” Jaime responded quickly, and sat down to sharpen his sword with a whetstone.

Tyrion sat beside him. “A dangerous statement, coming from you,” Tyrion chastised him, though they both knew no harm would ever come to them as the sons of Tywin Lannister. “Our father has returned from Winterfell. He seems pleased with the girl. Said she has ‘wide birthing hips’ and more wits than you and Cersei combined.”

Jaime snorted. “Perhaps he should marry her then, if he is so fond of her.”

“Oh no, it is not Tywin Lannister to do as commands others. You will be commanded to marry against your will, while he remains an unwed widower for the rest of his days.”

Yes, their father was a hypocrite. Jaime loathed him for it. Tywin Lannister loved his mother, loved her before he married her, and he had never married out of duty, yet he would make arranged marriages for his siblings and children without thinking twice, without sparing any thoughts at all for their wants or desires, for the life of misery he was condemning them to.

After taking a long gulp from the wineskin he pulled from his doublet, Tyrion offered Jaime some. Jaime took it gladly and gulped down a mouthful of the very strong wine.

“You are to marry a young, beautiful maiden, and yet you behave as though you are marching into battle,” Tyrion commented.

Jaime scoffed. “I would prefer battle to marriage.”

“I thought as much,” Tyrion said, and Jaime detected some bitterness in his tone.

He supposed he had gotten everything Tyrion ever desired – he was the heir of Casterly Rock, about to marry a woman who was meant to be very comely and father children on her. Most men would be delighted with his lot, but Jaime was not most men.

“Ah, is that my bride-to-be?” Jaime drawled as he saw his father staring at the window at the procession nearing their keep.

The procession was not very large. House Lannister’s parties were far grander and flanked with far more noblemen and noblewomen. He supposed the concept of showing off wealth and grandeur was not as important in the North, or perhaps it was just not important to Ned Stark.

“Yes,” his father replied, turning to give him an approving look. “I am glad to see you’re still with us.”

“I take it from the guards you had stationed at my door that you expected me to make a run for it,” Jaime said in amusement.

“Don’t tell me you did not consider it.”

“Of course I did,” Jaime admitted. More than once, but you would drag me right back, Father. “You know, I’ve heard of brides being dragged down the aisle on their wedding days, but never a bridegroom.”

Tywin barked a sound that almost sounded like a laugh – a chortle, more like. It alarmed Jaime. “Don’t make me disgrace House Lannister by turning you into the first,” he warned sternly, and Jaime was well aware that his father was more than willing to force him to the Sept if it meant he was wed. “I expect you to be courteous to the Starks, especially to the girl.”

“When am I not courteous, Father?”

“When you make witty little jokes like that. Spare me them, and spare our guests them too. A happy wife will be much easier to get with child. Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Tywin squared on him, a stern scowl on his face as though he considered Jaime a young child to be scolded. “Your priority is to father an heir on the girl. She is young and comes from fertile stock, so it should be easy. It won’t be difficult to bed her either.”

“Father,” Jaime said pleadingly, though it sounded more like a whine.

“I know you are eager to get back to your sister. There are vipers at court, you wish to protect her from them. And you may – once you get your wife with child, and not a moment before,” Tywin explained. “Am I understood?”

“Perfectly,” Jaime said, glaring at his father.

Was that all he was to his lord father? A stallion to be bred? And he would be kept from Cersei until he succeeded in getting his wife with child. He would bed the girl every night, if that was what it took – if she was willing; Jaime was no monster, he was no Aerys.

Shuddering, he remembered the Mad King claiming his rights on Queen Rhaella every time he watched a man burn alive. He remembered the screams. No, he would never ‘claim his rights’ like that, even if it meant never getting back to Cersei.

I best pray for a dutiful wife, then. Young ladies were raised to know not to deny their lord husbands, were they not? To desire an heir as much, if not more, than their husbands? He hoped his wife was such a woman.

“Come,” Tywin commanded him. “We will greet them in the courtyard.”

Sighing, Jaime all but dragged himself to the courtyard. Ned Stark was dismounting his horse, before he turned to help his two daughters off a white-spotted, black mare. The youngest was the image of her father, with a long face and brown hair even darker than Stark’s. She protested to being helped off the horse, but Ned Stark merely chuckled and paid her no mind.

Another girl, with hair as red as his bride-to-be’s, stepped out of the wheelhouse. Ned Stark moved to offer her his hand to help her down the steps, giving her a kind smile as he did. It was strange, to see Stark amongst his children.

To Jaime, he had appeared ever the implacable ice monster, infatuated with honour and duty and scorning anyone who did not fit into his stringent notion of what was ‘honourable’. Jaime despised him so, ever since Stark looked at him with those cold, disdainful eyes in the throne room. He had already made up his mind on whether or not Jaime was honourable – he was not, Stark had decreed – he was a foul, treacherous, dishonourable craven who had killed his king when his father entered the city. And yet he was also be disdained for not standing up for Stark’s brother and father, when doing so would mean his own death.

And now, he was to marry Stark’s daughter. He almost snickered at the thought of it. How Stark must loathe the thought; the Kingslayer wed to his precious eldest daughter. He would take joy in mocking Stark over it and looked forward to teasing him relentlessly over the coming month.

Jaime found his gaze moving towards his future wife as she dismounted her horse. He should have probably went to help her down from it – ever the chivalrous knight – but did not out of pure stubbornness. The girl needed no help, he realised appraisingly, as she swung her leg over the horse and dismounted gracefully.

He could look at her truly then. Her hair was the feature that first caught his eye. It was a pale auburn, almost ginger colour, that was braided neatly into a thick braid falling to below her waist. Her face was flushed from riding, but he could tell she was usually very pale. She was not as beautiful as Cersei, that was for certain, but she was incredibly pretty, with high cheekbones, full, healthy cheeks and plump lips. She looked far more innocent than Cersei, but as her dark blue eyes settled on him, he began to rethink that assessment.

Perhaps the little wolf was far cleverer than she looked. His father certainly seemed to think so.

“Lady Rosarra,” his father greeted after sending her sisters inside the keep with their septa and Kevan. The girl glanced after her sisters warily, but calmed as her father moved by her side. “I trust you ran into no trouble on your travels.”

“No, my lord,” she said to him, curtsying politely. “Your lands are well-guarded and safe to travel in, Lord Tywin. Not a bandit in sight.”

His father looked amused at the girl’s attempt at schmoozing. He knew his father could see right through flatterers and sycophants, but he seemed approving of the girl’s attempts at flattery. Jaime should not have been surprised – after all, Lord Tywin always complained that his children were ill-suited to carry on the prestige and glory of House Lannister once he was dead.

How it must kill you, Father, that Ned Stark raised a child who you would hold in higher regard to your own children. Jaime almost laughed at the irony, but did not, due to the company he was still trapped in.

“I am glad,” Lord Tywin replied curtly, before he turned to Jaime, “My son, Ser Jaime,” he introduced,

“A pleasure,” he drawled, nodding briefly at Lady Rosarra, and then turned his attention to Ned Stark. “Lord Stark, what an honour it is to see you again. And for such a wonderful occasion. You are to be my good-father. House Stark and House Lannister, united. How pleased you must be.”

Lord Stark fixed him with an icy glare and a look of loathing. Jaime took great joy in that look. Yes, Stark, you branded me Kingslayer, and now your precious daughter will be the Kingslayer’s wife. How fucking fitting. He revelled in the look of disgust Stark was giving him. Jaime would someday call the man ‘daddy’ just to rile him up and drive home that he was fucking his daughter.

Stark made no attempt to keep his disdain for Jaime from his tone as he shot back, “I will do my duty to the king. Some of us are better at obeying our king than others.”

Jaime bristled at that. Aerys. It always comes down to Aerys.

“It is a strange union His Grace has commanded into being,” Lord Tywin interceded. “But not without its benefits,” he said, eyeing Jaime’s future wife like a prized pig at a market.

Summoning a charming smile onto his lips, one that would make most maidens swoon, Jaime addressed his wife-to-be pointedly. Rosarra Stark, however, merely held his gaze evenly and gave him a courteous smile.

“How thrilled I am to finally meet my bride-to-be. You are as beautiful as they say, my lady.”

There was mocking in his tone. Though he could not say the girl was not comely, he was certainly not looking forward to their nuptials. Rosarra Stark had bristled at his words, and regarded him as though he displeased her. Good, he thought to himself, better she be disappointed now than hold onto a fool’s hope that this marriage will be anything other than miserable.

The lady composed herself, and met his gaze evenly once more, chin held high. “You, as well, ser,” Rosarra replied smoothly, “almost displeasingly so. Imagine my horror, when I laid eyes upon you and realised that it is I who will be the bear to your maiden fair.”

Did she just call me… Jaime froze for a moment, surprised at his bride’s brazen tongue. He glanced at his father briefly, who looked equal parts intrigued and dismayed by the girl’s sharp tongue. Finally, Jaime had to honour her jest with a small laugh.

“My lady, did you just call me pretty?” he asked her, amusement sharp in his tone.

She gave him an amused smile of her own, but before she could respond, his father interjected. “Lord Stark, Lady Rosarra, I will see you to your chambers now. You must be weary from your journey.”

Ned Stark voiced his affirmation, and Tywin Lannister led them out of the courtyard and into the keep. Jaime watched them as they left. If one thing was for certain, his life at Casterly Rock was about to get a lot less dull with Rosarra Stark prancing about.

For the next week, Jaime avoided his wife-to-be like the plague. Everyone was chiding him for it; his father, Genna, Tyrion… On the seventh day of his determined ignorance of Rosarra Stark, his aunt approached him angrily on the training yard and tore his sword from his grasp as though he was a naughty child.

He had regarded her with laughter at first. “Aunt, I am a man of nine and twenty, you cannot take my sword from me and send me to bed without supper when I misbehave.”

“And I may be a woman of fifty,” she replied quickly, pointing his sword at him for emphasis, “but I can still smack that behind of yours like the naughty little boy you are.” She paused for a moment, smiling sadly. “It’s the funniest thing. You would like her, you know. If you got to know her.”

“She’s gotten to you too, as she has Father,” Jaime commented wryly. It seemed the little wolf was turning all the Lannisters against him one-by-one. “Is she really so charming?”

“Not particularly. Not to a Lannister. She’s complained about the dress being too opulent and the wedding feast too decadent. Typical Stark,” Genna commented, amused and rueful. “But she has her wits about her, and a tendency to think herself cleverer than she is. That reminds me of someone I know.”

“Yourself?” Jaime joked, but he knew well who she was referring to.

Genna threw her head back and barked a laugh. “Perhaps,” she allowed. “But I meant you, Jaime. You’d find each other amusing, if nothing else, or bite each other’s heads off. Either way, it would be some entertainment, would it not? You do so often complain of being bored.”

“But that does not mean – ” He caught sight of a lady standing expectantly by the training yard and scowled. He turned to his aunt, his scowl deepening when he saw her smirk. “Why is the Stark girl here waiting for someone, aunt?”

“I think you may have made arrangements to go riding with her. She is ever so excited. The girl is an excellent horsewoman, embarrasses every man she rides against, or so her father boasts,” Genna said to him smugly.

Jaime glared at her.

“Now, go on,” she urged him. “Best not leave a highborn lady waiting. Your lord father would be very displeased if he found out you backed out of your promises to Lady Rosarra.”

His scowl deepened. Reluctantly, he passed his sword to their page, some Crakehall boy who went around with large smile and was always eager to please him. He walked over to his wife-to-be as though he was walking to his death.

The lady picked up on his sour mood and observed him with amusement. “I apologise for disturbing your practice. I take it this was not your idea?”

“No, my lady, it was my aunt’s,” he told her, slight bitterness laced in his tone. He attempted to give her a charming smile. “Shall we?”

He offered her his arm, and the Stark girl took it courteously, slipping her arm into his. Jaime led her to the stables.

When they arrived at the stables, Jaime ordered Rik the stable-boy to bring him his horse, a white, muscular courser that was trained for hunting and battle. Sometimes, he would bring out the brown charger for a ride, especially when he was practicing at the tilt, for he did not want the well-bred charger to grow lazy.

“You should try one of the thoroughbreds,” Jaime suggested to the girl when she asked Rik to fetch her black and white stallion. “That horse looks badly bred. You should try break in another horse of a finer breed.”

“I broke in Syrax myself,” the girl claimed proudly. “I’ve never raced a faster horse than Syrax.”

“Bred by the Bracken’s, I presume?”

“Yes,” the girl answered suspiciously. “How did you – ”

“Know?” he finished. “Their horses are known for having patches of black and white. They’re also known for developing night-time blindness. Give it a few years and your stallion – Syrax, was it? – will be as blind as a bat. Best hope you do not have to run off in the middle of the night, for you would likely run into a tree.”

“He’s only five,” she argued, saddling the horse herself. “I doubt he’ll become blind any time soon.”

Jaime did not reply to that and went to help the girl onto her horse. As he held her hand, Jaime felt the callouses on her fingers and her palm, set in a very particular arrangement, very similar to his own. Once she girl had mounted her stallion gracefully, Jaime glanced up at her in amusement. What sort of bride have the Starks given me?

He went to mount his own horse, and the two trotted out of the stables.

Jaime brought his bride to be to the plains surrounding Casterly Rock. He enjoyed riding through them as a boy with his friend Addam Marbrand and his excess of Lannister and Frey cousins. He enjoyed racing with them and, ever the competitive child, loathed to lose.

True to her word, the Stark girl’s stallion was a quick, obedient mount. Jaime was sure he had ridden faster horses, but the stallion was quite something. He was majestic in his ugliness, mottled with ugly black patches, the worst of which covered his left eye like a scar, yet he moved gracefully, like he was floating on the grass instead of marching on it.

Though he could appreciate and admire a good mount, Jaime had never been a man to adore his horses as though they were prized pets. It was plain to see, however, that the Stark girl adored her mount and would not hear anything said against him.

“Syrax,” he said again once they had urged their horses into an easy canter, “where have I heard that name before?”

“A dragon, ser,” the girl informed him. “Rhaenyra Targaryen’s mount.”

He smirked in amusement. “You named that ugly beast after a dragon? Fitting, I suppose.”

“I’m sure the dragons were magnificent to look upon,” Rosarra Stark commented. “Have you a name for your mount?”

“No. I don’t think it wise to name a horse, when they could so easily fall in battle or from the tilt,” Jaime answered simply.

The girl looked at him curiously for a moment, thoughtful. “You know, my father says the same.”

Unable to help himself, Jaime barked a true and hearty laugh at that. How Stark would loath to be compared to him, by his daughter, nonetheless, whose thoughtfulness was obviously triggered from the strange similarity he shared with Lord Stark.

“You should make sure to tell him how similar he and I are,” Jaime drawled. “He would love to hear it.”

“One similarity does not make you the same,” the girl replied, bristling at Jaime’s mockery of her father.

“Ah,” Jaime said, “I think we might share other commonalities. I, for one, would not be against training my daughter to use the sword.”

Dark blue eyes snapped over to meet his in surprise. He caught himself being taken by them again, not beguiled nor entranced, just… admiring. Even wide and surprised, the girl’s eyes gleamed with cleverness, like she knew more than everyone else. Jaime had been told his green eyes gleamed annoyingly with smugness, like he was privy to knowledge nobody else was.

Her wide eyes narrowed then, “How do you – ”

“Your hands,” he stated simply, “the callouses. I’ve trained with the sword all my life. Only those who used a sword, and have been trained to hold it properly, bear such callouses. Not that I am surprised,” he gave a half-laugh, half-scoff. “I’ve heard the North is known for all sorts of savagery.”

“Is it truly savagery to be able to defend oneself? Men are not always going to be there to be our valiant protectors,” the girl explained simply, and the smirk was wiped off his face. Elia Martell and her gentle laugh, Rhaenys and her little cat, Queen Rhaella and her kind smile… “Besides, hitting things with a sword eases stress. Hitting people… even better. Though I suppose that pastime will not be welcome at Casterly Rock,” she commented ruefully.

“I doubt any man would want a stressed wife,” Jaime remarked dryly, and the girl looked at him in surprise. “Just keep out of my father’s line of sight and be discreet. I will not stand in your way.”

She seemed to look at him a little differently then. Don’t, he wanted to tell her, for she should not think him good or kind, not when he was going to break her heart into a million pieces and had not spared her pain much thought.

“Thank you,” she sincerely said, giving him a grateful smile.

Jaime did not smile back and urged his horse to move faster. They rode back to the stables in silence.

The next morning, six days before his dreaded nuptials, Casterly Rock welcomed the king and his party. The king was to attend the wedding, though Jaime knew that he was eager to attend because Ned Stark would be there.

As the king embraced his old friend fondly, Jaime and Cersei managed to slip away, relatively undetected. His father looked displeased with them, but Jaime had already given his pleasantries to the king, a simple hello and a shallow bow. The king would not receive any more from Jaime, not when he had seen first-hand how the king disgraced his wife.

“He is being good to you?” Jaime asked worriedly as they entered Cersei’s old chambers, still relatively untouched from her girlhood at Casterly Rock.

Cersei scoffed. “When has he ever been good to me? He does not beat me, if that is what you ask. Though without you in King’s Landing…” she trailed off, a dark look coming upon her features before they quickly twisted to anger. How his sister loathed to look weak. “You fool. How could you leave me alone? You should never have – ”

“I should never have what, sister?” Jaime questioned hotly. “That accusation implies I had a choice. I had none. The king and our father decided that I would serve in the Kingsguard no longer.”

“You should have fought harder,” Cersei accused, glaring at him.

“You think I want this life? Prancing about in my decadent lord’s clothes, sharing empty words with the dim-witted and the sycophants, often both at once,” he jested.

“The girl seems pretty enough. I bet you cannot wait to wet your cock inside of her,” Cersei snapped at him, her beautiful features contorting into an ugly scowl. “Father thinks she will be with child by the end of the year should you both do your duty. She has wide-hips, he said. How old is she, I wonder? Three-and-ten?”

“Five-and-ten,” Jaime corrected, the age difference bothering him too, even though most lords would be thrilled to marry such a young, pretty girl. “And much to your surprise, no, I am not looking forward to deflowering my child-bride. I do not wish to wed her at all. It is the king and Father who desire the match. The only woman I have ever wanted is you, Cersei. You know that. I would run away with you if you asked.”

“And leave my children? My crown?” She scoffed at him again.

Jaime’s green eyes narrowed at her. “Therein lies the problem them. We could bring the children, but you would never abandon your crown.”

“We could have had it all. The Seven Kingdoms and each other, if you were man enough to fight against my husband and Father. If I had not seen it, I would doubt that there was even a cock dangling between your legs.”

He forced a laugh at that and moved closer to his sister. “That cock has brought you more pleasure than any man could hope to.”

Cersei cupped his face in her hands. “And I have brought you more pleasure than you will ever find inside your child-bride.” She pressed her lips to his, rough and wanting and fevered. “You will come crawling back to me when you see she is more pup than wolf.”

I do not doubt it, sister, he thought to himself, but did not voice the words. He pulled Cersei to him in feverish want and deepened the kiss, moving his hands to the crooks of her legs, just behind her knees, and wrapping her legs around him.

He placed her on the bed gently, lips never leaving hers, and they became one.

--

Chapter Text

The Stark Girl

295 AL

Rosarra Stark

Sansa had begged to come to Rosarra’s final dress fitting before the wedding. She gushed at the decadence and grandeur of the dress, saying that she hoped her future lord husband’s family would have such a fine dress made for her wedding.

Genna Lannister’s eyes had gleamed at that. The elder woman had been irritated by Rosarra’s insistence that the dress was too wasteful and impractical.

“Perhaps my nephew is marrying the wrong Stark sister,” she had jested, pinching little Sansa’s cheek. Sansa beamed at that. Genna turned to Rosarra and gave her a pointed look. “At least your sister knows how to appreciate a well-made dress, Lady Rosarra.”

“I love a pretty dress as much as any young lady, Lady Genna, as long as I can walk in it.” She would have demonstrated the ridiculous waddling movement the dress forced her to make, but there was a seamstress sewing even more pearls to the dress. “I’ll be waddling down the aisle like a duck.”

Sansa giggled at that, and even Lady Cerenna and Myrielle Lannister – Ser Jaime’s cousins – laughed daintily behind their hands.

Genna waved the seamstress away for a moment. Rosarra disliked how Lady Genna treated the servants and her household. She was the acting Lady of Casterly Rock, yet she treated the household no better than slaves. They seemed shocked when Rosarra and her sisters, having been raised to respect all people regardless of their status, spoke to them like they were people.

Ignoring Rosarra’s scowl, Genna directed her to a mirror. “Look at yourself. You cannot say you look any less like a goddess. They will say Rosarra Lannister looked like the maiden herself on her wedding day.”

And it would be true. The dress was the most extravagant garment Rosarra had ever seen. It was made of the finest silk from Qarth, and bejewelled with over two dozen pears and another two dozen rubies, making the dress rather heavy and difficult to move in. The dress had a square neckline, lined with a pattern of pearls and rubies and Myrish golden lace. The dress and skirt were a beautiful grey for her maiden house, but the cone-shaped kirtle, revealed by a slit in the skirt, was a blazing red for House Lannister, adorned with pearls. There was a girdle wrapped around her waist, trailing onto the floor and ending with a tassle. It was a chain, which was ironically fitting. Her sleeves were trumpet sleeves, large enough to knock over anything she reached for, and were lined by rubies.

Though the grey of her dress honoured her maiden house, the red of the rubies and her kirtle were overwhelming and an obvious tribute to House Lannister. Despite her dislike for the dress, Rosarra could not deny that it was beautiful.

“It is beautiful,” Rosarra allowed, and Genna smiled at her through the mirror, hands on Rosarra’s shoulders as though she was Rosarra’s proud aunt and not Jaime’s. “But wasteful. There are better uses for your house’s gold than a dress.”

“Fear not, Lady Rosarra, my wedding dress was twice as extravagant. Or wasteful, as you put it.” Rosarra flinched as she heard the queen’s voice. She moved into the room like a swan. Rosarra tried to curtsy like everyone else, but the jewels and the constraints of her skirts stopped her from being able to. “There is no need. I remember my own wedding dress. It had three times the jewels as yours does, and a petticoat the size of a small horse.”

“Your Grace,” Rosarra greeted the queen by inclining her head respectfully.

Queen Cersei gave her a dazzling smile and took a seat by Sansa, bidding the seamstresses to continue their work as she sat and watched. Rosarra kept glancing at her, trying to read her expression, but it proved difficult.

“Are you excited for your wedding day, Rosarra?” the queen asked her finally.

It would do no good to tell the queen that she dreaded marrying the queen’s brother, that she found him arrogant and mocking and loathed to spend the rest of her life with such a man. When she first met Ser Jaime, she thought him handsome. How could she not? He had golden hair, vibrant green eyes, a muscular, tall build and a well-structured face. But then, he had opened his mouth, and words of mocking poured out. Rosarra misliked being mocked by anyone, let alone her future husband.

“Very,” she answered instead, with a smile she hoped did not look like a grimace. “Ser Jaime is very handsome and kind. I hope to be a good wife to him.”

Queen Cersei hummed thoughtfully at that and took another sip of wine. “My brother is lucky to have procured such a dutiful wife. If he ever mistreats you, little wolf, do tell me and I shall knock some sense into him.”

“Mistreat me?” Rosarra repeated in shock, and a small laugh despite herself. “I do not think Ser Jaime the type.”

“And you know him so well after, what, two weeks? Three?” Rosarra paled at that, worry setting in. Queen Cersei put down her goblet and shook her head, wearing a small, reassuring smile. “Of course he is not, sweetling. I merely meant that should my brother not appreciate his young, beautiful wife, I should wish to remind him of his luck.”

Rosarra calmed at that and gave the queen a true smile. “Thank you, Your Grace. That is a relief to hear.”

“Of course,” the queen said sympathetically. “How difficult it must be, to leave a life once known for a man one barely knows.”

“But you left your home to marry King Robert?” Rosarra pointed out.

“Yes,” the queen nodded. “But I had my brother. I knew that should the king…” She forced another smile onto her face, but it looked more like a grimace. Rosarra frowned, wondering what the king subjected his beautiful wife to. “My brother was my protector. You have… no one,” she claimed slowly and pitifully.

Seeing the glum look on Rosarra’s face, for she realised she really did have no one, Genna stepped in, “You will make plenty of friends, Lady Rosarra. Why, Stafford’s girls are already taken with her, are you not, girls?” she asked Myrielle and Cerenna pointedly.

“We have plans to go riding on the morrow,” Myrielle said, smiling.

The elder girl, Cerenna, frowned. “And Rosarra – Lady Rosarra,” she corrected when she saw her Aunt Genna frown at her, “is going to join our sewing circles.”

Rosarra smiled. She knew their aunt put the girls up to it. Cerenna and Myrielle had been stuck to her side ever since she got to Casterly Rock. Sansa was mad about the two girls, enjoying the companionship of two girls who loved all the same things she did – songs, needlework, and stories –, but Rosarra had been hesitant to embrace their companionship. She did not want to be used or manipulated, but the girls had made good friends and seemed to be genuinely kind, caring ladies, even if they were ordered to befriend her by their father and aunt.

“I always loathed sewing circles,” Queen Cersei dryly remarked. “All that gossip and small-talk. I would sooner stab my ladies with the needle in my hand.” Seeing the looks of surprise and horror on the girls and women in the room, Queen Cersei gave another dazzling smile. She patted Sansa’s knee beside her, as the girl looked the most horrified. “I jest, of course. Fear not, Lady Sansa, you are safe from my needles. But I do loath gossiping. It is a sin, is it not?”

“The Seven say it is, Your Grace,” Sansa answered dutifully.

The queen gave her a pleased smile. “What a good, pious child you are. You should stay south with your sister, Lady Sansa. You would shine in the South with your beauty and sweet nature.”

“Our father wishes for her to return to the North, Your Grace, as much as I would love my sister’s company,” Rosarra informed her.

Sansa scowled at that, the hopefulness from the queen’s comment dissipating.

“When you are older, perhaps,” the queen suggested, and patted Sansa’s knee affectionately.

Rosarra glanced between them sharply, wondering what the queen could possibly want with a girl from the North, who would likely never step foot in the South again.

The dress fitting went on for only a few minutes more. Rosarra was helped out of her dress by her new handmaiden, Cerenna, as well as Marena and the seamstresses. Once she was dressed in her own clothes, Rosarra was amazed at the difference in weight between the two garments. She could finally walk again, instead of waddling around.

Once she was free of her blasted wedding gown, Rosarra went looking for Arya, once she realised with a start that she had not seen her sister all day. Her father had spent the day with King Robert, catching up with his old friend. As the eldest daughter, Rosarra was responsible for her sisters. Sansa never got into any trouble, but Arya…

As much as she loved her littlest sister, she hoped she never had a daughter as wild as her, for Rosarra knew she would surely grow grey hairs far before her time.

After two hours of searching, Rosarra found Arya in the Hall of Heroes, where all the Lords of Casterly Rock, their wives and all the Lannisters who died valiantly for their house were buried.

I will be buried here too one day, Rosarra realised as she looked upon the grave closest to the entrance. Joanna Lannister – Jaime’s mother. She eyed the space beside it, a twisting, eerie feeling in her stomach. It was the oddest thing, to lay eyes on where she was to be someday buried.

Her attention was once again called to her sister, who was practicing swordfighting with wooden, tourney swords with a young blonde girl around her age.

“Arya Stark,” Rosarra admonished. Her little sister looked up at her with wide eyes and an innocent look, as though she hadn’t done anything wrong in her life. “I have been looking all over for you! And there you stand, like butter wouldn’t melt,” she scolded.

“Sorry,” Arya said sheepishly, looking at the ground in shame.

Rosarra pinched her lips together firmly to stop herself from smiling at her sister. Gods, if she couldn’t scold her own little sister, what good would she be with her own children?

“Whose this?” she asked instead, looking kindly at the little blonde girl.

“This is Joy,” Arya told her excitedly, a large smile on her face. Little Joy smiled shyly at Arya. “She’s a bastard, like Jon.”

The little girl’s shy smile dissolved at that. Rosarra gave Arya a sharp look, but her sister merely shrugged. Joy Hill… Lady Genna had spoken of her. She was Lord Gerion’s baseborn daughter. Rosarra’s heart bled for the girl. Fatherless and baseborn in a keep like this…

“Arya,” she admonished, before lowering herself on her knees before the girl. She gave the girl a kind smile. “Joy – what a pretty name. I am Rosarra of Winterfell, Arya’s sister.”

“Arya told me about you,” Joy replied in a sweet, quiet voice, rocking on her heels as she spoke. “You’re going to marry Cousin Jaime.”

“I am,” Rosarra affirmed. “So I’ll be staying here for a long time. Do you like to fight?” she asked, nodding to the pretend sword in her hand.

The little girl nodded eagerly. “I love it, but Aunt Genna says that little girls shouldn’t fight. But my father was a great fighter, and Uncle Tyg was really good too – I saw him! And I’m baseborn. Baseborn girls get treated differently.”

Another pang of pity struck Rosarra. “Arya and I have a baseborn brother, Jon. We love him very much.”

Arya nodded fervently in agreement. “Jon’s the best! He spars with me in secret. That’s why he’s my favourite.”

“Not me?” Rosarra exclaimed in a tone of over-exaggerated hurt.

Shrugging, Arya replied, “You’re my favourite sister, but Jon’s the best out of all of you.”

She rolled her eyes at her sister and shook her head fondly, before turning back to Joy. “Do you have any brothers or sisters, Joy?”

“No. Only my father. But he went off in a ship to Essos a few years ago to look for Brightroar. He never came back.”

“What’s ‘Brightroar’?” Arya asked, frowning.

“House Lannister’s ancestral sword,” Rosarra answered, staring at the sad girl before her. Gods, what an awful life for a child to live. “You know, Joy. My sisters are leaving me soon and I’ll be very lonely. I’d like to be your friend, if you’d have me?”

Joy flinched away from her, eyeing her distrustfully. It reminded her of Jon. “You want to be my friend?”

Rosarra nodded, smiling. “Of course. Who wouldn’t want to be friends with such a pretty, clever girl who can even use a sword?”

The little girl beamed at her and nodded wordlessly.

“Joy,” they heard a voice call, and their attention was called to a very large shadow which revealed a very small man.

It was not her first-time seeing Lord Tyrion. She had met him in the library once, drinking and reading a book about King Aegon IV and the preamble to the Blackfyre Rebellions. He had a sharp tongue, and a sharper mind. His dwarfism had turned him cynical, that much was clear, for his witty barbs were as cutting as they were defensive, an attempt to protect himself. Rosarra was well-acquainted with the survival mechanisms of outcasts; after all, she had grown up with a bastard for a brother and a hostage as a… best friend. Far be it from her to scorn someone for being different.

“Big Br – Becca,” he corrected himself. Rosarra snorted. “Wishes for you to go to her. Something about playing with the dogs.” He gave her a wink.

“Yay!” the little girl beamed. “Can I bring Lady Arya with me, uncle?”

“That is up to Lady Arya and Lady Rosarra,” Tyrion explained patiently.

Rosarra turned to Arya who nodded eagerly. “Can I, Rose?”

“Yes, of course, make sure one of our guards goes with you, though,” Rosarra told her, but Arya had run out of the Hall of Heroes before she could finish her sentence.

“A rambunctious girl, that sister of yours,” Tyrion commented as he stepped closer to Rosarra. “I see her befriending kennel girls and blacksmiths’ sons and stable boys.”

“Arya makes friends wherever she goes.”

“A gift and a curse,” Tyrion remarked.

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “How would that be a curse?”

“A gift for her; a curse for you and your lord father. It is a rare thing, a young girl who plays with the servants.”

“Not in Winterfell,” Rosarra said. “We do not look down on the smallfolk as much as your family seems to.”

Lord Tyrion smirked in amusement. “Ah, that famous Stark honour. You will put us all to shame, then. Best be careful, though. Don’t let my father see you treating the smallfolk like actual human beings.”

There was a darkness to his tone, and a pain… Rosarra wanted to ask for the reason behind his bitterness, but quickly reminded herself of her place.

“I’m sure the cook spits in his food,” Rosarra stated wryly.

He looked at her curiously. “And what makes you think that, my lady?”

“My father always says that unhappy servants will find ways to get back at a cruel master or mistress. A cook will spit in food, a serving wench could put piss in your glass instead of wine, a servant might put dung in your pillows…”

“I believe my sense of smell competent enough to smell it if there was shit put in my pillow. And I have drank enough wine to tell the difference between wine and piss,” Tyrion remarked. “That says more about the quality of wine consumed in the North than it does of the importance of a well-treated household. Besides,” he gave her a dark look, “you will find that the household of Casterly Rock is far too afraid of my father to ever move against him.”

“Your father rules through fear,” Rosarra surmised.

“You have heard of the Rains of Castamere?” Rosarra gulped and nodded. How she hated that story, and it was even more horrifying now she was to call the villain in that tale her good-father. “Fear has worked well for my father. There is not a man in Westeros who does not shake in terror at his name.”

“I should hate to be feared. Would you prefer to be feared or loved by your people, Lord Tyrion, should you ever rule over lands?”

Another dark look. There was a bitter twist to his mouth. “My affliction means that I will never receive either, my lady. Who would fear or love a dwarf?”

Rosarra frowned in thoughtfulness, realising the tactlessness of her question. “When you walked in here, you casted a very large shadow, my lord. I will be sure not to underestimate you.”

She gave him a kind smile then, and he looked up to her with surprise in his eyes, and a small smile on his lips.

“And I am beginning to think House Lannister best not underestimate you, Lady Rosarra,” Tyrion commented thoughtfully. “You might be the first Lannister since my lady mother that the people find likeable.”

“How terrible,” she said in mock-horror and with a short laugh.

Tyrion grinned at her, but a frown came upon his face. “I wish you good luck charming my father. I hear he has not smiled since my mother died,” Tyrion told her. “He wishes to see you. He sent me to fetch you.”

She paled at that. “What does he wish to speak to me about?”

“Your upcoming nuptials, I presume,” Tyrion shrugged. His expression became kind when he saw her face contorting in worry. “I am sure you have done nothing wrong. Most likely, he is going to impart on you the importance of keeping up appearances. Lannisters don’t act like fools, he is ever so fond of saying to us,” he explained, doing a very good impression of his father. “Come, I will escort you to his solar.”

They chatted along the way, discussing their love of strategy games and reading books. Tyrion’s books ranged over numerous genres and topics, while Rosarra mainly enjoyed books about wars, and sometimes about Targaryen kings and queens. Tyrion may have been the cleverest person she ever met, other than herself. It pained her to admit someone was cleverer than her. It wounded her pride, even, but no one could deny that Tyrion Lannister was anything less than a genius.

Rosarra entered Tywin Lannister’s solar when she was bid. They were alone. It was the first time Rosarra had to face him on her own. She called to mind her mother’s words. The lion does not intimidate the wolf, she reminded herself. She was a Stark of Winterfell, not some feeble-minded girl who was easy to intimidate and cow into submission.

“Lady Rosarra,” he greeted.

“My lord,” she greeted in return, dipping a curtsy.

“Take a seat,” he bid her, and she did as she was told.

As he continued to write letters and documents, Tywin left her sitting there for… well, Rosarra didn’t know. She had lost track of the time. Did he expect her to speak first? Surely that would be rude, as he was working and of higher standing than her. Rosarra wondered if he did this with his children, or his siblings. Lady Genna would not allow this silence to go on for very long, and Jaime and Cersei would be incensed at their father ignoring them, especially Jaime who Rosarra could see lacked patience.

But Rosarra had been taught patience from her father and courtesy from her mother, so she waited. She took the time to look around the room, taking in the numerous books and records of accounts. There were paintings as well, one of Lord Tywin with his late wife and children. Tyrion was not in the painting; Rosarra presumed he had not been born yet.

In the corner of the room behind his desk, Rosarra noticed a gameboard. Her eyes widened when she noticed what it was – Conqueror! She had intended to have her own board brought down from Winterfell, or use her allowance as Jaime’s wife to buy one.

“Do you partake, Lady Rosarra?” Tywin asked her, having finally looked up from his writing to find her eyeing his gameboard.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Are you any good?”

“Very good, my lord. I have not lost to anyone since I was one-and-ten.”

Her father bet her when she was one-and-ten, and that had been the last time. She had defeated him every time since.

Lord Tywin quirked an eyebrow at that, placing his quill back into the inkpot. “Is that so?” he asked, intrigued. Rosarra nodded. “And how can you be sure that your opponents are not just letting you win, or that you have just been choosing your opponents wisely?”

“I would be greatly displeased if they were, my lord,” Rosarra told him. “As for my opponents… I believe them to be skilled. But if you doubt my claims, then perhaps you ought to challenge me yourself.”

He barked a laugh at that. “I have not lost a game in forty years. King Jaehaerys the Second was the last person I lost to. I have only played against one worthy opponent since him. I doubt you will be another, my lady.”

“I may not be skilled enough yet to score a win against you, but I promise you that I will be a worthy opponent,” she told him confidently.

His eyes narrowed at her, as though sizing her up. Eventually, he relented, “Alright. Best hope you do not waste my time, girl.”

Rosarra merely shot him a small smile as they moved over to the gameboard. Lord Tywin handed her the black pieces – consisting of eight mice, two hawks, two cats, two elephants and Lion King and Lion Queen. In Winterfell, the strongest pieces were the Wolf King and Queen. She wondered if every great house had placed their house’s sigil in the role of king and queen.

The rules of Conqueror were both very simple and very difficult.

A mouse could be taken by a hawk or a cat, but not an elephant or a king or queen.

An elephant could kill a cat, hawk and a queen. An elephant could only be killed by a king or queen.

Only a queen or a dragon could kill a king, and a dragon could only be created by getting a mouse to opposite end of the board.

The only piece that could kill a dragon was a king. Rosarra found that insulting. Queen Visenya was more than capable of killing a dragon.

Rosarra’s game was a defensive one, trying to keep as many of her pieces alive as possible until near the end. All her attacks were strategic, though rare, and well thought-out and planned for. Her game was slow, and required a player who acted quickly and was not skilled in foreseeing potential attacks and identifying areas of vulnerability.

Lord Tywin was a player who sought to dominate the board from the centre, which was a good and often-used tactic. He never sought to turn his mice into dragons, the most powerful piece on the board and the only piece that could move in every direction. Ever the brilliant tactician, he took a long time to make his move, no doubt agonising over every single possibility. It made Rosarra move slower as well, spending even more time scrutinising the board than she usually did.

They played for five hours, until Tywin was left with a king, a queen and an elephant and Rosarra was left with a king, a dragon and a mouse.

When Tywin took her dragon with his king, he looked up at her and tutted, “You lost many pieces to get that dragon then you left him vulnerable.” He had trapped her dragon in the corner with his elephant. Rosarra did not answer him as she moved her mouse to safety. Triumphantly, Tywin took her king and declared, “Conquered.”

Rosarra sat back in defeat, but smiled nonetheless. Though she hated losing more than anything in the world, she had never enjoyed a game as much.

“You play very well, Lord Tywin,” she told him truthfully.

“And you are a worthy opponent, as you claimed,” he responded. “But you make a common mistake.”

“What is that, my lord?”

“You spent most of the game trying to get your mice to ascend to dragons, with only one piece succeeding. How many pieces did you lose? You missed many opportunities to trap and conquer my pieces because of your efforts,” Tywin advised her.

“A dragon is the most valuable piece on the board.”

“And yet he can still be killed,” Tywin reminded her. “The purpose of the mice is too be used as cannon fodder. It is difficult to resist the temptation to create the most powerful piece on the board, but the cost is too great. Sometimes you must see a piece for what it is.”

His words caused a chill to creep down her back. You must a see a piece for what it is. She received the impression that they were not just talking about the boardgame. No doubt, Rosarra was a piece in his game – perhaps his children were too, for he didn’t seem to care for them at all, especially not Lord Tyrion.

“You have potential,” Tywin said to her. “But no one will ever obey that girlish voice. And you are much too eager to please. You will be a Lannister in a few days. Lannisters do not concern themselves with the opinion of the sheep.”

Rosarra went red at his criticism. She hadn’t realised her voice was girlish. That was new thing to be self-conscious of.

“I am not eager to please,” Rosarra argued.

Tywin huffed. “You should aim to please yourself in a duty well-performed and a house well-served. Your wedding will take place soon. There will be a bedding afterwards. You know what that involves, I trust?”

She nodded mutely, going redder.

“You will fulfil your duty and allow my son to bed you. You will do your very best to ensure House Lannister has an heir by the end of the year. It should not be too difficult, given your mother’s fertility and your wide hips, but you will do your duty in the marriage bed. Am I understood?” Tywin asked her, eyes narrowing in an attempt to intimidate her.

Not an attempt. It was working.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Good,” he said, and then his tone became lighter – well, as light as Tywin Lannister’s tone could become, she had quickly realised. “I enjoyed this game. I will send for you again. There is much to be learned from this game, I think. Jaime never had much time for it. He never understood the rules and did not have the patience to learn. I am glad his bride-to-be does.”

Despite the fear Lord Tywin instilled in her, she was excited at the prospect of more games. She wanted to get better at the game and playing with a master was the only way to improve.

“I would like that,” she told him earnestly. She gave him a small smile. “Beware, my lord. Ofttimes the student becomes the master.”

He looked at her appraisingly then. “I am counting on it.”