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“I can draw your soulmate,” a woman outside of Brienne’s stuffy tent read off of the board Brienne had put there. “Come inside and let a psychic discover your true love!” The woman snorted indignantly. “Just another charlatan trying to cheat people out of their hard-earned money.”
Sitting at her blank easel while waiting for customers, Brienne rolled her eyes. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard sentiments like that before. It wasn’t even the first time today.
“Cersei, you’ve never earned money a day in your life,” a male voice said, dry and deep.
“That’s not the point,” the woman, Cersei, Brienne supposed, protested. “This person’s clearly lying. And they’re asking fifty dragons to do it.”
The man made a noise of disagreement. “If it’s real, then it’s a bargain.”
That had been Brienne’s thinking when she’d selected the price. Her talent was priceless, but no one believed it at first, so she’d had to figure out what the market would bear. She started re-arranging her pencils, waiting for the pair to keep moving.
“It’s not real. You’re always so gullible, Jaime.” Cersei sounded downright pitying, and Brienne was offended on this Jaime’s behalf.
“Not gullible—romantic.” She could hear the insistence in his resonant voice.
Cersei scoffed. “Whatever. Either way you’re out fifty bucks with a picture of some woman who’s not real.”
“Ah, but what if she is,” Jaime said just as the tent flap was thrown wide, letting in a burst of sunlight and a wash of fresh air.
Brienne squinted into the light. Her father had been the one to suggest that she should keep the tent flap closed to preserve the seriousness of her work, but it made these transition moments difficult. “Hello?” she said, blinking away the bright spots of the sunlight.
The entrance went dark as a tall figure stooped a little to enter. “Hello.” It was the same voice as Jaime from outside, and as Brienne’s vision righted itself, she wondered if the light had done minor damage to her eyesight, because the man in front of her seemed to be downright glowing. He also had the most symmetrical face she’d ever seen—and she’d seen many. His eyes were catlike and emerald green, his hair was coifed and curling, and his body was long and muscular as he moved to make space for an equally stunning—though much dimmer—woman after him. Brienne could see well enough by then to note the disgust scrunching up her otherwise beautiful face when she looked Brienne’s way.
“Cersei and Jaime,” Brienne said, and they both looked shocked for a moment.
Then Cersei narrowed her eyes. “You heard us talking outside.”
Brienne shrugged a little. “The tent’s not soundproof,” she admitted.
Jaime gave Cersei a disapproving look before turning a thousand-watt smile on Brienne. If he was as put off by her looks as Cersei, he was certainly hiding it well. “You’re the psychic.”
“Of a sort,” Brienne said, trying not to be blinded again. Was his skin actually golden or was it just a trick of the light inside the tent? “I can’t read minds, but as the sign says, I have the ability to draw a person’s soulmate.”
That ability had come to Brienne when she’d turned twelve, along with her period and a growth spurt so intense her knees had ached for weeks. She hadn’t understood what was happening at first, just that sometimes when she was trying to draw a person, as she loved to do for fun, she’d be overwhelmed with the urge to draw someone else instead. It was as if her pencil, her own hand, no longer belonged to her. No matter how she fought to draw the person in front of her, if she didn’t get out the other face first, she couldn’t draw anything.
It had frightened her at first, honestly, but she hadn’t told anyone. What could she say? “Sometimes I get taken over by a very insistent artistic spirit?” She didn’t think that was what was happening anyway, so she would just draw the first face, and then draw the portrait she intended and move on, trying to forget it. It wasn’t a satisfying solution, but it let her keep drawing without getting locked away somewhere.
And it would have stayed that way, until her high school art class, when she’d been assigned to draw a portrait of a family member. Since her dad was all she knew, she’d drawn him. Or rather: she’d tried. What had flowed from her pencil was the face of a woman that looked very familiar, until it became the clearly much younger face of her mother. A face that Brienne had never seen, since the few photos lingering around their house had been from when she’d been older, post-children, but pre-sickness.
When Brienne had stared at the portrait in shock, her father had peered over to see what she’d done, and he’d gasped so loudly that Brienne had dropped all her pencils to the floor.
“Liza,” he’d whispered and then stared, astonished, at Brienne. “Why did you draw her like that?”
Overwhelmed with emotion, Brienne had explained everything, had gotten all of her hidden portraits out from her closet to show him, and they had slowly pieced together what was happening.
After that, he’d encouraged her to see it as a gift—and had convinced her to share it. Except, when Brienne had offered to do it for free, people assumed it was just a weird parlor trick and never took her seriously. With her dad’s guidance, she’d set up a small business instead, traveling around to county fairs and farmer’s markets to sell her gift for the least amount that she could afford while still making it seem serious.
And now here she was in King’s Landing at a Saturday morning market, with two of the most beautiful people she’d ever seen in her little tent, staring at her in opposite amounts of distrust and interest from nearly identical green eyes.
“So how does this work?” Jaime asked. “Do I describe what I’m looking for and you sketch up a match?”
Brienne frowned. “No. I just try to draw you, and your soulmate’s face appears.”
Cersei laughed in disbelief. “Are you serious? So it’s just whatever random face you come up with? That’s convenient.”
Brienne’s frown shifted into a glare. She was used to being disbelieved, but it felt especially galling coming from this woman, who clearly had enough money and beauty she could have spent it being kind instead of cruel, or at least more polite about it.
“Don’t be a dick, Cers,” Jaime said, sitting in the chair across from Brienne. “Let’s do this.”
“Oh.” Brienne blinked at him, waiting for the faint halo around his body to dissipate. Was she having a migraine? She’d heard about some of them causing auras before, but her head didn’t hurt. She felt a little flushed, her head floaty, but that was it. Maybe she was getting sick. “Um, you have to pay first.”
“Of course,” Cersei muttered, but Jaime just nodded and pulled a wallet out of his well-tailored slacks. Brienne didn’t know much about fashion, but she’d spent a lifetime studying people as she’d drawn them, so she’d gotten familiar with the clothes they wore as well, and he wore these very well.
She had him tap his credit card on the little charging square and while he was putting his wallet away again, she took a centering breath.
The most difficult part of Brienne’s gift was that, in order for it to work, she had to stare intently at the face of the person whose soulmate she was drawing. It was always a strange intimacy, though the other person always looked away, their eyes unable to stay trained on Brienne’s own unfortunate features in return.
As Brienne readied her pencils, Cersei said to Jaime, “What do you intend to do with this once you have it? Have our brother hire one of his many PIs to go find her?”
“How do you know it’s not someone I already know?” Jaime said, clearly unbothered by his sister’s disdain. Brienne suspected it was a common enough occurrence that he was used to it.
“Because I’ve met the people you know. Don’t you think you would have figured that out already if it was one of them? Although since you’ve been celibate for literal years, I guess you wouldn’t have had a chance,” Cersei mused. Brienne dropped a few of her pencils in surprise at that news and they both glanced her way.
“Sorry,” Brienne mumbled, hurriedly picking them up. It was probably unfair to be so shocked that Jaime didn’t have a new bedmate every night, but looking at him she knew it wasn’t because of lack of opportunities.
Jaime shifted in his chair to look back at Cersei.
“Any other little embarrassing tidbits about me that you’d like to tell a stranger today?” he asked, his voice tight. His hands clenched the tops of his thighs, like he was holding himself in place.
“It’s not embarrassing,” Brienne said, dragging their attention back to her from where they were glaring at each other. She felt her face go hot. “I-I mean… lots of people go years without… that is, it’s not uncommon for someone to not… there’s nothing wrong with being single,” she finished awkwardly.
Cersei raised one thin, sharp brow. “I’m sure you tell yourself that every day,” she said, and this time Jaime rose from his chair before Brienne could snap back.
“Get out,” he ordered.
Cersei’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Take your rude comments out of the tent and let me get my damn sketch in peace.” He folded his arms across his broad chest and Cersei looked like she was going to make one last rude comment, but instead, she only tossed her mane of hair and strode from the tent without speaking, leaving a wake of discontent behind her.
Jaime sighed. “I’m sorry about that,” he said as he turned around again. “It turns out money can’t buy happiness or manners.”
Brienne grunted in agreement and gestured for him to sit, which he did. “She’s not the first person I’ve met like that, and she won’t be the last.”
“That sounds dismal,” he murmured.
She picked up her pencil. “We should get started,” she said, ignoring his sympathy. There was no way he would understand, or care. He was here for a service, and that was it. “This will feel a little strange at first because I have to stare at you as the sketch happens, but you’re free to look wherever you want, even move your head, as long as you don’t turn your face entirely away from me. It will take five to ten minutes to complete. Are you ready?”
He nodded and she pressed the tip of her drawing pencil to the clean, cream-colored paper. With one last, focusing breath, she lifted her eyes to Jaime’s face, nearly dragging the pencil in a jagged line across the paper when she found him staring intently right at her. His eyes were laser-focused, with no sign of disgust or pity or skepticism in their depths, just a bright curiosity and a gentle amusement. They were a shade of green none of her pencils alone could capture, though her fingers itched to try. She was struck with the desire to draw all of him: the elegant sweep of his cheekbones, the firm line of his jaw, the plush pink of his mouth. She gripped her pencil more tightly, preparing to capture the angles and shadows of his face, already planning out how she’d approach it, the way she’d capture that slight upward tilt of his lips, as though a smile—or a smirk—stood ready at a moment’s notice.
The next second, her hand started to move without her direction.
This was always the strangest part, even having done it dozens and dozens of times before. It was the transfer of her body to whatever force drove her ability, and though she was fully conscious, though she knew she could pull her pencil away from the paper and stop drawing entirely, she also knew that she couldn’t work on Jaime’s portrait until she’d drawn his soulmate’s face first.
His eyes drifted down to the paper and widened slightly as he saw the way her hand was moving so surely, though her gaze was still on him.
“Is it working?” he asked, voice hushed and wondering.
Brienne nodded a little. “It is.”
“You’re not even looking at it.”
She shrugged with her free shoulder. “I don’t have to. I’m not doing it.”
He swallowed, and she tried not to be distracted by the movement of the muscles of his throat. She could spend an hour just detailing the dip at the base of it, the shadowy valley that begged to be revealed.
“Is it a ghost or something controlling you?” He sounded nervous, now.
“It’s not, though I thought it might be at first, too. Whatever it is, it’s not anything anyone has heard of before.” Her pencil scratched away without her direction, tip dancing across the paper. “You don’t have to be frightened.”
Jaime straightened in his seat. “I’m not,” he said confidently. Then: “But if an apparition appears behind you, I’m running.”
Brienne laughed then, her eyes dropping from his face as she did, and her pencil scraped to a halt. A broad outline was starting to take shape, but she couldn’t make out much else yet. When she looked up at Jaime again, the flow returned, her pencil getting back to work.
“Huh. You really do have to be staring at me,” he noted with an amount of surprise that seemed unfair.
“Did you think I was lying about it?” she asked, scowling.
“Well, I am very handsome,” he said, flashing her a charming smile that lightened the arrogance of the statement. And highlighted the truth of it.
Brienne snorted. “Full of yourself, too, I see.”
Jaime waved one hand dismissively. “Why bother with false modesty?”
“What about real modesty?” she asked pointedly.
He grinned. “You’re the artist, you tell me: should I be modest about how I look?”
Brienne rolled her eyes and her pencil paused for a moment before her gaze returned to him. “Maybe not modest, but a little less boasting might help.”
“Noted.” He winked at her and she felt her cheeks redden. She desperately wanted to look away from the smug smile that slipped onto his lips, but then she’d never get this portrait finished. He didn’t seem interested in looking away either, though she didn’t understand why. Brienne knew the shape of her features, the asymmetry and overly large composition of them. Too many times before had people seemed relieved when she’d told them that they could look away. But Jaime just kept staring.
“Why are you doing this?” she blurted out, unnerved by his constant focus on her and unsure what else to say. Usually she and her subjects barely talked at all, unless they nervously started commenting on the weather or the floor of the tent or how they knew it was silly to do this at all with the tone of someone who desperately hoped it wasn’t. Those were the ones that broke her heart a little.
A line formed between Jaime’s brows when he furrowed them. “Doing what?”
Her hand kept right on moving, heedless of her own awkwardness. “Having me draw your soulmate.”
The line on his forehead smoothed. She would have liked to quickly sketch the arch of his golden eyebrows, but her hand was still occupied with his soulmate’s face. “I would think it’s quite obvious.”
“Not really.” Brienne’s gaze darted away and then back, her hand pausing in the same space of time. “Your current… status notwithstanding, I’m sure you have plenty of choices.”
“Ah.” Jaime’s mouth pulled into a rueful grin. “Because of the aforementioned handsomeness.”
She couldn’t help but smile a bit in return. “Exactly.”
“Just because someone else is interested doesn’t mean that I am.” He didn’t look annoyed, just resigned.
Brienne squinted a little at him. “And you think you’ll be interested in whoever your soulmate ends up being?”
He shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. Best case, you draw someone that I vaguely recognize and I take the time to get to know them better and realize what I’ve been missing.”
“And worst case?” she urged.
Jaime smirked, a twisted slash of bitterness that she filed away to practice drawing later. His mouth was incredibly expressive, though she hoped he didn’t realize she was staring at it. “Worst case you’re the fraud my sister thinks you are and I’ve wasted fifty dragons.”
Brienne grimaced and glanced down at her drawing. The face coming to life under her hand was wide and vaguely masculine, with a crooked line started for the nose. She wrinkled her own crooked nose in sympathy.
“How’s it looking?” Jaime asked, and when she glanced back up at him, she saw he was trying to peer over the top of her paper.
She shooed him back into his seat, her other hand starting to draw again. “It’s coming along. Another few minutes.” As casually as possible she added, “Have you considered your soulmate might be a man?”
He scoffed. “Of course I have. I don’t care either way.” Then, his eyes lit with an appealing curiosity. “Have you ever drawn a same sex soulmate for someone that didn’t realize it?”
“I think they realized,” she said quietly, remembering the young woman’s face when she’d shown her the picture. It hadn’t been shock that Brienne had seen there, but dismay, like a truth she’d been running from had finally confronted her and she could no longer look away, and it was going to cost her dearly. It had been one of the few times Brienne had wondered if her ability was truly a gift.
Jaime hummed softly. “Sometimes people have to be forced to see themselves. That’s not a bad thing,” he added firmly. His certainty was soothing, though his continued focus was not. He was still studying her with the same intensity that she watched him, his eyes glued to her face as though he were the seer. She certainly felt like he was seeing something in her that she wasn’t even aware of, those green eyes probing past defenses she had long since reinforced.
She’d never been on the receiving end of her own unwavering stare, and she wondered now as she forced herself to not look away, whether it was truly her that the others she’d sketched were turning from—or was it really themselves?
“So why are you doing this?” Jaime asked in the weighty silence.
Brienne frowned at him, confused. “You paid me to.”
His chuckle was brief, but the warmth of it heated her. “I meant doing the traveling psychic thing. Shouldn’t you be in college?”
“I was, for a time,” she said. “Art major.”
“Ah, naturally.” The way a smile played about his mouth, how it flashed in his eyes, made her wish for a third and fourth hand so she could draw him while she was forced to draw the future love of his life. Whoever the person ended up being, she envied them the chance they’d have to map the multitudes of his expressions. “But you dropped out because you saw great wealth in your future doing this instead?”
Brienne snorted so loudly that the air rippled. “Hardly.” Her hand was starting to work on fine details now, she could tell by the way her movements grew restrained. The sketch was getting closer to being finished. “I think it’s wrong to charge for this, honestly. Why should I keep it from anyone who wanted to know, whether they could afford it or not?” She shook her head. “But no one wanted it when I offered for free. They thought I was tricking them. I had to charge enough to make people think it was real.”
“Yet not so much you could retire before you’re thirty.” He huffed, sounding impressed. “What a marvel you are,” he murmured.
She flushed and muttered, “It’s not that special.”
“Generations of Lannisters would disagree.” The biting sincerity was written all over his face. Then he inhaled deeply and it was gone again, the calm waters covering the more interesting turbulence underneath.
“Is that what you are?” Brienne asked. “A Lannister?”
“My father would insist that I am in name only. That’s not a bad thing either.” He did look away then, and she felt sorry for him for the disappointment that she had only a moment to see. Whatever history lay behind those words, just based on what Brienne had seen of Cersei, she suspected their father was much more like her than Jaime, and it baffled and angered her that he was apparently being punished for being less cruel.
Her pencil scratched to a halt, and her hand fell into her lap, finally still. “Oh,” Brienne said, startled. She’d been so consumed with understanding Jaime that she’d forgotten entirely what she’d been doing. “It’s done.”
His head lifted immediately and the painful history he’d been fleeing was pushed far away now by an equally painful hope. “Can I see it?”
“Let me just make sure it’s okay first.” She took one last moment to stare at him, knowing that he would soon be leaving her tent forever. Resigned to the loss, she looked down at the soulmate whose arms he’d be flying to.
“Has it ever not been okay?” he wondered, but the words made no sense as Brienne’s mind froze with shock.
There, as well drawn as any sketch she’d ever made, was a portrait of Brienne herself.
She gaped at it in stunned silence.
“Well?” Jaime said. “Is it okay?”
There was her broken nose, her lips that were far too big for her face, the hint of her buck teeth. There was the wide span of her forehead and the absurd clusters of freckles. Brienne had studied herself enough to know how she looked, but she’d never drawn a self-portrait that was so clearly defined.
“Is it someone awful?” He sounded worried. “Who is it?”
Brienne’s mouth opened and closed, trying to figure out how to tell Jaime that his soulmate was… her. She glanced up at him, his perfect features, the concerned wrinkle of his brow. If she showed him this, he would laugh in her face—if he wasn’t furious with her instead.
So she did the only thing she could think of: she ripped the paper off of the pad and tore it in two, crumpling it up and tucking it behind her where he couldn’t reach it.
Jaime gaped at her. “What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded.
“It wasn’t right,” she managed to say, her mind racing for some excuse that would make sense, that would keep him from figuring out the truth. “I think I’m tired. I’ve been here all day. Sometimes it just doesn’t work.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I saw your hand moving, it looked like you had plenty of energy. Who did you draw?”
“No one,” she insisted. “It was a mess. Eyes where the ears should be, mouth for a nose. Let me refund you your money and you can be on your way. I’m sure your sister is anxious to get going.”
Jaime exhaled sharply, a blast of air she could feel from where she sat. “What if you took a break and then drew me another picture later?”
“I can’t. I need a good night’s sleep, and I’m leaving town tonight. I have a fair in Maidenpool in the morning.”
“Then I’ll find you there,” he implored her.
“No.” It sounded pleading even to her own ears, and by the way Jaime’s head snapped back, she knew he’d heard it too. “No,” she tried again less emphatically. “Once I try, that’s it.” So far that had proven true, though she’d never tried to redraw for someone who she’d messed up. As far as she knew, she’d never messed one up, until now.
He slumped back in the chair, defeated. “Cersei was right,” he said darkly. “This was a waste of time.” The light in the tent, and in him, seemed duller, as if Brienne had sucked the hope out of him. That hurt more than anything he could have said.
“I’m sorry,” Brienne said miserably. “If you quickly let me have your card—”
Jaime stood. “Keep the money. It won’t do me any good anyway.” He strode for the exit and when he lifted the flap, the light blinded her again, tears springing to her eyes.
“Jaime,” she called before he could disappear, not wanting him to leave feeling like this. He hesitated, his back to her. “There’s someone out there for you, I know it.” She did, even though she’d known him for so short a time. Whatever his family thought, whatever he tried to brush away with jokes and sarcasm, she had seen kindness and honor in his eyes. “Don’t lose hope.”
He inclined his head and left without a word.
Brienne packed up after that. She avoided the torn pieces of paper that she’d thrown behind her, until the only evidence left was her rolled up tent, her pulley with her drawing materials and fold-up chairs and tables stacked on top, and the papers lying on the ground.
With a sigh, she picked them up, piecing them awkwardly together. She looked no better torn in half than she looked in real life, but she didn’t look much worse either. She couldn’t leave these here though, so she scanned around for the nearest trash can, and quickly shoved them inside. When she straightened and shouldered the strap of her tent, she thought she saw a flash of golden hair disappearing into someone else’s booth a bit away. Heart pounding, she waited a moment to see if they reappeared, but the only person that stepped out was a stooped-over old man clutching a paper bag of goods to his chest.
“Fool,” she hissed to herself, turning away.
The word echoed in head all that long night and the long drive to Maidenpool. Fool fool fool in time with the turning of her wheels.
Brienne had tried to draw her own soulmate once. Had stared at herself in the mirror and willed it to work. But all she’d been left with had been a reckoning of her own face and an empty piece of paper. She had assumed that either her ability didn’t work on herself, or that she didn’t have a soulmate. Time—and life—had suggested that it was more likely the latter than the former.
But as she lay in the uncomfortable motel bed that night, failing to sleep, she stared up at the ceiling and saw only Jaime.
Was it possible she truly was his soulmate? Or had her loneliness played a cruel trick on them both, trying to force a connection that didn’t exist?
Why could she not draw her own soulmate? Why, when she finally gave up trying to sleep and sat down to sketch, could she recall Jaime’s face so perfectly?
The questions haunted her until she finally collapsed from exhaustion just before the sun came up.
Brienne was late to the Maidenpool fair, was sweaty and already dragging her feet before she even sat down for her first sketch. A young couple had come up together with hands clasped, eager and fresh with excitement, even after Brienne warned them that they could not be sure it would be each other’s faces that they would see. They went one at a time, and she was disheartened to find her warning come true. She heard them arguing about it as they walked away, no longer holding hands.
“This gift is a curse,” she said to her empty tent, her shoulders sagging. Whatever joy her ability had brought her in the past, it was all burden now, and she couldn’t bear it today. Brienne put her pencils away and stood.
The tent flap flew open, letting in light and a tall figure.
“I’m sorry, I’m closing up for the day,” she said, blinking frantically. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“I think we should talk now,” Jaime unexpectedly said, and Brienne went rigid when he held up torn pieces of paper that had been taped together.
Her eye adjusted and tracked immediately to his face, already so familiar to her. He looked serious, his mouth pulled down slightly in a frown.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered, though it was clear from the paper in his hand.
He waved it at her. “You left a drawing behind last night.”
“Did you dig that out of the trash?” It was a silly question—of course he did, it was where she’d left it—but asking anything else felt too terrifying.
“I did.” He took a step nearer, holding it in front of him with both hands, and she was compelled to look at her own face covered in haphazard tape, staring back at her. “You drew yourself.”
Brienne’s stomach rolled, but all she could do was nod in acquiescence.
“Your hand moved of its own volition, and this was the face that came out.” He waved the paper at her like she wasn’t already captured by it. “You said you’d failed.”
“I did,” she snapped. “You can see for yourself.”
He furrowed his brow, looking angry. “You lied to me. All of the parts are where they’re supposed to be. This is a face. This is your face.”
“I know!” she shouted. She shut her eyes, not wanting to see anything for once, and sighed. “I know.”
“Brienne,” he said softly, and her eyes flew open again at the tenderness in that one word. She didn’t know he even knew her name. “I looked you up,” he explained as though she’d asked the question. “After I pulled this out of the garbage and cleaned off the bits of corndog,” he made a face and she felt a beam of fragile light poke through the despair. “I pieced it together on the ground where your tent had been and found the person who runs the market and asked them your name. Cersei thought I was crazy. I’m not sure she’s wrong.”
Brienne huffed. “I’m not sure she is either,” she said, in a tremulous voice.
His lips curled in a brief smile of acknowledgement. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he continued intently. She felt the electric arc of it down her spine and shivered at the words. “About why you’d lie to me about this.”
“Would you have believed me if I’d just given it to you?” she asked quietly. “If I’d said that I was your soulmate?”
He lowered the paper and held it out to her to take. “Why don’t you try it and see?”
The beam of light expanded inside her, and suddenly the glow was all around them again, reflecting in Jaime’s eyes. She took an unsteady breath and reached for the paper with a trembling hand, taking it back.
Brienne looked down at the portrait and noticed for the first time that she’d drawn herself smiling, a look of contentment that she had never seen on her actual face. It was her face, but in this light, transformed by love, she almost looked beautiful. The trembling ceased.
She met Jaime’s eyes, and this time didn’t feel any urge to look away. “Your portrait is done,” she said formally, turning it to face him. “This is your soulmate.”
His eyes drifted down to study the picture she’d drawn, to soak in every last awkward and ugly piece of her, and then he did the same to her actual features. A brilliant smile creased his face, in a look of joy so pure that Brienne knew she would spend the rest of her life trying to capture it.
“My soulmate,” he said, taking the paper and letting it flutter to the floor. Her heart fluttered in response when he took her hands instead. They were warm and dry and comfortable, and hers felt safe in their clasp. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”
“You believe me?” she gasped.
Jaime leaned towards her. “When you said that you wished you could do this for free, I’d hoped it would be you.” Then he tugged his head back again. “Although that does mean I’m also your soulmate. I think you got the worst part of the deal there.”
She shook her head. “You saw the picture and came looking for me anyway. You could have walked away and I never would have known.”
“How tragic that would be,” he said softly, gently tugging her a step towards him. She went willingly. “So what happens now usually, once people find out who their soulmates are? Champagne? Fireworks?” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she laughed a little.
“Now they get to decide what to do about it,” Brienne said. “Just knowing it doesn’t mean anything, really. They have to get to know each other.”
“The fun part.” Jaime’s voice was rich and sincere, and she found herself nodding.
“Hopefully.”
“You said you were closing down for the day,” he said hopefully. “Does that mean you might be free to wander the fair this afternoon?”
Brienne’s fingers curled tighter around his. “I’d like that.”
Jaime brought her hands to his lips and kissed the wide knuckles tenderly. “Then let’s get started. We have so much to learn.”
They walked hand and hand out of her tent, leaving the flap open wide, the light they left behind caressing the drawing of herself, still smiling.