Domeric Bolton didn’t look like the son of a monster. He was tall, with dark hair cropped close to his head, and eerily pale eyes. His clothing was of good quality but not ostentatious in the way that Robb associated with the South (he thought of Jaime’s ornately-worked armor, his crimson cloak, and flinched away from the memory of blithely teasing him about it, a lifetime ago).

Mostly, the thing that stood out about Domeric Bolton was how obviously terrified he was.

He wasn’t making an embarrassing display of it, no blubbering or whining. He’d arrived at Winterfell along with Lord Redfort, immediately dismounted from his horse and gone to one knee before Robb’s father, head bent low as he’d murmured, “My lord Stark.” It was only when he looked up that Robb could see that he was white to the lips, and his eyes round with terror.

Hardly anyone would have noticed the faint pause before Ned replied, “Arise, Ser Domeric.” He gestured, and Ned’s mother stepped forward with servants carrying the bread and salt, the goblet of wine.

Robb was almost sure that Ser Domeric paled even more at the sight of the ritual that his father had so blatantly disrespected, but he took the bread and salt, and drank the wine.

His hand was trembling the entire time.

“Lord Redfort, welcome to Winterfell,” Robb’s mother was saying now, as Lord Redfort approached. He was a portly man with a bushy beard, and he wore a worried expression.

They should be worried. Every time Robb thought of what had happened at the Dreadfort, his blood started boiling. He had no idea how his father could stand there so calmly, looking at the son of the man who tried to kill him. But Robb had been given his instructions, and so he also stood calmly next to his father, and when Ned gestured for Robb to follow them all into his solar, Robb went without a word.

Tyrion was waiting for them there, his gaze sharp as he greeted them all. Robb would give Domeric this, he didn’t gawk at Tyrion’s lack of height the way that Lord Redfort was gawking.

It was…annoying, having to search out virtues in Domeric Bolton, and all the more annoying that Robb could find them.

Once they were all seated, Robb’s father began unceremoniously. In his calm voice, he said to Domeric, “I know you’ve been made aware, in a general sense, of what happened at your father’s castle, and what we uncovered, but there are some further details that have emerged that you should know about.”

Domeric nodded, face still pale. “Of course, my lord. Anything you have to say, I will hear.”

Ned nodded, and then he began outlining the full scope of the crimes committed by the Boltons over the past twenty years. He didn’t linger on the details, but even the bare facts were horrifying enough. Robb kept his eyes on Domeric the whole time, observing as Domeric’s skin grew even paler (a thing Robb hadn’t been sure was even possible) and his mouth trembled, as he heard the long list of his family’s crimes.

When his father had finally come to an end, Tyrion took up the thread of conversation. “There were human skins found in a tower. Did you have any knowledge of their existence, or that your father was flaying men to death?”

“No,” Domeric said quickly. “I hadn’t—when I was at home, there were certain rooms I wasn’t allowed to enter.”

Tyrion’s eyebrow lifted. “You never asked him why?”

“I never dared to question my father,” Domeric said, then glanced down at his hands, shamed. “Though it is clear now that I should have.”

Lord Redfort stirred at this, saying to Domeric, “You were a boy of seven when you left for the Vale. What child that age is capable of defying their father?”

“Of course,” Tyrion said soothingly. “And to be clear, your father never mentioned the practice of First Night to you? Never indicated he’d brought the tradition back?”

“No, gods no,” Domeric said. “There was never any sign of that at all, I swear it to you.”

“So you never heard of your bastard brother’s conception,” Robb interjected. “How he hung the woman’s husband on the branch of a tree, then raped her underneath her husband’s corpse.”

“Lord Robb, I must protest,” Lord Redfort said faintly, and Robb turned to glare at him.

“We have spent months now investigating the depravities that occurred on his family’s lands,” he said, voice hard. “My father nearly died at Roose Bolton’s hands, my brother spent days burying the bodies of the victims, and my—” His voice stopped, then he went on, calmly, “My own husband and soulmate was wounded, defending my father and his men. Loyal Stark men have died defending my family from Roose Bolton. And now you want to be squeamish when we ask questions?”

“Robb,” his father said, very gently, and Robb sat back in his seat, breathing out heavily through his nose.

“It’s fair,” Domeric said, his own voice small. But he looked to Lord Redfort, and said, more surely, “It’s more than fair that I answer.” He squared his shoulders when he looked at Robb, his voice stronger when he said, “I never knew the story of how my brother was conceived. I barely knew of my brother at all, my father…was very insistent that we be kept apart.”

That matched with the information they’d been able to uncover, and Robb glanced over to Tyrion, who gave him a minute nod.

They kept going, of course, but Domeric Bolton was, in the end, so obviously what everyone said he was—a sixteen year old boy raised on southern traditions of chivalry and honor, who’d been kept carefully away from his family’s darker acts. An innocent. Even if his name was Bolton.

And Robb knew, looking at his father now, that his father’s mind had been made up.

“Lord Stark,” Domeric said, once the questioning had come to a pause, “I know…I know that my father failed you. As a bannerman, as a lord of the North and Westeros, and as a host. I know that his death was…more than justified. And I…I wish to say that, however you demand justice of me and my house, it will be done.” He came out of his seat, and went down to one knee, head bowed. “Even if it means that I make my vows to the Night’s Watch, or if my neck must meet your blade.”

For a moment, the only sound that Robb could hear was the crackling of the fire in the grate.

“Arise, Ser Domeric,” his father said. “I will not be requiring your death, or that you take the black.”

Domeric jerked his head up, shocked, and Lord Renfort stared in disbelief. “You…you won’t?”

Ned shook his head. “No.”

Domeric’s face was a picture of absolute confusion. “Why not?”

“Justice will not be served by executing a boy innocent of all crimes beyond that of having a villian for a father, and a beast for a half-brother,” Ned said, his voice firm, the same way it had been when he’d explained his final decision to Robb and Tyrion, a week earlier.

“Oh, thank the Seven,” Lord Redfort burst out, wiping at his forehead. “Lord Stark, I swear to you, you will not regret this decision. Domeric is a true knight, and he is worthy of the mercy you have shown.”

But his father shook his head. “It’s not mercy I’m offering, but a heavy burden,” he told Domeric heavily. “You will spend the next three years here, as a ward of my house. Following that, you will take your seat as Lord Bolton of the Dreadfort. That is not a gift, given the stain on your House. Your neighbors will distrust you. Many of your smallfolk will leave your lands. News of what has happened has spread throughout the kingdoms, and you will likely find it harder to make a good marriage when the time comes. You will spend your entire life met with suspicion, working to overcome the legacies of your father and brother, and you will die knowing that work will have to go on with the children and grandchildren that will follow you.”

Domeric’s expression was grave as he listened to the future his father painted for him, but his chin was raised high, and when Ned asked, “So, Ser Domeric…are you sure that this is the future you want?” Domeric’s voice was strong and steady as he said, “Absolutely.”

*

“Would Roose Bolton have been caught sooner in the south?” Robb asked Tyrion later that day, in his solar.

Tyrion sat back in his seat, considering. He’d been growing out his beard over the last month or so, and Robb thought it suited him. It certainly made him look like more of a Northman, particularly when he wore his fur cloak. “Possibly.”

“How? Would a septon have reported his crimes?”

Tyrion snorted. “Any local septon likely would’ve been bribed or coerced by Bolton into keeping his mouth shut.”

“But theoretically,” Robb pressed. “A local septon could have reported him to the king, or to the High Septon.”

“If they were brave enough, and weren’t killed outright by Bolton or his men,” Tyrion conceded, then leaned in over the desk, suddenly alarmed. “Robb, please don’t tell me that you’re thinking the solution to all this is bringing the Faith of the Seven to the North.”

Robb scoffed. “Of course not. It’s just…I know my father is working on improving the roads in the North, so that people and news can travel more easily, and I know that having Domeric here as a ward should help, but I hadn’t realized how…vulnerable the North is, to men like Roose Bolton and Ramsey Snow.”

Tyrion was watching him sympathetically. “The lower population and sprawling vastness of the North were a benefit to the Boltons, it’s true. What are you proposing we do about it?”

“I hardly know,” Robb admitted. “I keep thinking…if the maester at the Dreadfort had said something, but of course he wouldn’t have, he was sworn to serve House Bolton. Even if he had reported it to the Citadel, would they have passed the information on?”

“Likely not,” Tyrion said with a grimace. “The entire point of the maesters is that they serve their lords, not any higher authority.”

“And all the servants in House Bolton are meant to do likewise,” Robb said. “And we can’t bring the septons and septas to the North, not without causing a full-scale rebellion—”

“To put it mildly,” Tyrion agreed.

“But what if we had something like the septons? Or like the motherhouses in the south?” Robb said, growing more excited by the idea as he spoke. “We could send out teachers and healers to serve in local holdfasts, nearby major keeps…they would work to help the smallfolk, but they’d be paid by and sworn to House Stark.”

Tyrion was thinking it over, which meant the idea wasn’t totally ridiculous. “It would cost money,” he warned, but added more brightly, “But thanks to Baratheon waiving the tax rolls so that your father can improve the roads at a quicker pace, not to mention the long-term wealth that will come from Moat Cailin and the increase in trade….hmm.”

“I know the North is slow to change, but this would be a good time to bring in change. None of the bannerman can grumble, not when they’re so eager to prove their loyalty and worthiness in the wake of the Boltons’ treachery,” Robb said, and Tyrion grinned at him.

“Clever boy,” he said, approving. “And thanks to your father sparing Domeric, even the Ryswells and Dustins won’t push back. No, you’re right, there is an opportunity here…”

They were deep into the calculations and possible locations when someone knocked on the door; it was Maester Luwin, with a letter from Jon for Robb. Robb took it with a smile and thank you, ignoring Luwin’s carefully inquisitive gaze, and unrolled it once Luwin had left.

(Jaime had yet to write once. Robb told himself he was glad for the silence.)

“What does Jon say?” Tyrion asked.

“Not much,” Robb said, scanning the page. “They’ve reached Flint’s Finger and will be sailing on from there to Pyke.” He smiled a little. “Jon writes that Theon is obviously all nerves and excitement at the thought of seeing his home after so long, and just as determined to hide it.” Robb paused before adding, “He says that Jaime is well.”

“Good,” Tyrion said.

Robb held onto the words as long as he could, but they came out anyway. “Do you know what he’s really doing in the Westerlands?”

“Aside from giving you space?” Tyrion said. “My brother’s a restless man, if you show him a problem, he wants to throw himself at it. He always wants to be doing something. But this is…a problem he can’t solve with a sword. So he’s gone traveling instead.” He looked at Robb more closely. “Unless you think it’s something else.”

Robb stayed quiet, turning it over in his head. “He was…determined, the day he left,” Robb said finally. “Not happy, but…relieved, almost. Like he’d set his course, and was glad the decision was made.”

The feeling had been muted, a thin shadow of what Robb would have felt, in the early days of their bond, when everything was wide-open with possibilities, but it had been there. Had Robb not been holding so closely to his own anger, his own determination to keep Jaime at a distance, he might’ve asked more questions.

But then, that would have meant being willing to hear the answers.

“He’s not going to King’s Landing,” Tyrion said with confidence.

Robb grimaced, unable to deny that he’d been wondering that exact thing for weeks now. “How can you be so sure?”

“For one thing, he can’t take Theon to court, the place would be in an uproar,” Tyrion said drolly, and Robb scoffed but also nodded, acknowledging the point. “For another…Jaime knows now what Cersei is. What she can’t be to him. He won’t forget that, even now that he’s left Winterfell.”

Idly, Robb twirled the quill in his fingers, keeping his grip light with an effort so as not to break it. “Don’t be so sure. He…he loves her. Beyond all reason, for all their lives, he’s loved her and only her. One year in the North is hardly likely to change that.”

“He is married to you. Bonded to you,” Tyrion said, emphatic. “You can’t possibly think that Jaime will betray you now. Putting everything else aside, the simple existence of the soulbond alone prevents all that—infidelity is impossible with a bonded pair.”

"I know that," Robb said, tightly. "It doesn't mean he doesn't want to. It doesn't mean…he didn't pick this. He never chose me, he never chose this life in the North, but he chose her, over and over and over again. Even if I could accept all that he’s done, how can I—"

Never had Robb come so close to understanding his mother's resentment of Jon before now. Robb felt as though he could go mad from the weight of his jealousy and anger, his fury over knowing he was the second-choice, worse, that he was never a choice at all. And that was without the constant presence of one of Jaime's bastards in his home—if Robb had been forced to look upon Princess Myrcella every day, he honestly would not know what to do.

Tyrion said, filled with an assurance that Robb wished he shared, "You are the best thing to happen to my brother in his entire ill-spent life, and he knows it. Robb, I promise you, he's not such a fool that he doesn't know it."

Tyrion Lannister was likely the smartest man that Robb had ever met or was likely to ever meet. And yet…Robb was sure that he was wrong. He had to be. Robb couldn’t dare let himself hope for anything else.

*

Two days later, Robb stood at his father’s side in the Great Hall, watching as his father spoke to all the lords of the North.

“I never thought this needed to be said,” Ned intoned, his cold stare sweeping across the Hall and leaving everyone frozen in its wake. “Rape and murder are crimes that go against the laws of the land, and against the laws of the land. That includes First Night, which is an abominable tradition, one that should be left in the dirt rather than resurrected.”

Robb looked to where the Umbers were sitting. Both the Greatjon and his son looked solemn and angry, but not guilty or afraid. And yet despite everything—the Smalljon’s promises, the oaths the Umbers would take today, House Stark would still have to search the truth out for themselves on his father’s tour of the North.

“Anyone found guilty of such crimes, no matter how highborn, will face the King’s Justice,” Robb’s father continued. “This I swear, on my honor as a Stark. Our ways are harsh, but they must hold for everyone, lords and smallfolk alike.”

“Hear, hear,” old Lord Manderly called out, thumping the table with his fist, and the Hall quickly erupted into cheers and more table-banging, until it felt like the very walls were vibrating with sound.

It was stirring and emotional, and yet…the small, cynical part of Robb thought, let’s see if their smallfolk would cheer for their lords like this.

After that, his father had the lords come up, one House at a time, to renew their vows to House Stark, and through them to the laws and reign of Robert Baratheon.

He saw Ser Rodrick watching from the side, face solemn but the grief obvious if you knew what to look for, and Robb’s stomach lurched at the memory of Jory, who’d taught him how to set a trap and skin a rabbit, who’d died saving Robb’s brother, whose death could not be for nothing.

He saw one or two of the lords, as they approached the high table, glancing at him and looking confused—likely wondering where Jaime was. Robb met each of their gazes squarely, and every time, they looked away first.

Lord Glover looked rather agitated as he came up to make his vows, but that likely had more to do with Carys than anything else—she’d made a point of avoiding both her father and anyone from House Hornwood as much as possible, and Robb knew that both Tyrion and his mother had willingly aided her in doing so. Tonight she was eating her supper in her quarters, and Robb knew there were guards stationed at the door, just in case.

And finally, it was Domeric Bolton’s turn.

There was a low rumble of disconnect as he’d walked up to Robb’s father—even a few hisses, but his father’s glare quickly put a halt to that. Lady Dustin was glaring at people as well, her dark gaze sharp enough to cut stone.

Domeric was white as snow when he stood before Robb’s father, but he placed his sword down without hesitation, and his voice was strong as he said, “To Winterfell I pledge the faith of the Dreadfort. Hearth and heart and harvest I yield up to you, my lord. My sword and spear and arrows are yours to command. Grant mercy to our weak, help to our helpless, and justice to all, and I shall never fail you.”

The words rang out in the silence of the hall.

His father said, with quiet confidence, “And I vow that you shall always have a place by my hearth, and meat and mead at my table. And I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor.”

His father’s choice of mercy had confounded more than a few of the lords, Robb knew. He hadn’t actually been in his father’s solar when the Greatjon had found out, but that hadn’t mattered, half the castle heard Lord Umber’s roaring. There might even be a lord or two that thought his father weak, for not cutting off Domeric’s head or sending him to the Wall, for not destroying the Boltons entirely.

But looking at Domeric and his father now, Robb knew—this was the harder, braver choice. To stick to your convictions even when it made your path more difficult, to save the boy whose father had betrayed you. And for Domeric, what it must have cost him to look into the face of the man his father had failed to destroy, and promise before the whole of the North that he would be a better man and lord than his father had been.

For all of their sakes, Robb wanted his father to be right. And he’d work himself into the ground to prove his father right, if he had to.

After the oaths were made, and everyone had sat down to eat and drink their fill, Barbary Dustin approached Robb. “Lord Robb,” she said coolly. “I hear you and Lord Tyrion have some scheme involving an order of healers for the North.”

Robb watched her with more than a little wariness. He knew of her confrontation with Jaime, before he’d left, and he knew of her reputation. “We do,” he said. “Though it’s in the early stages, yet.”

Lady Dustin hummed. “You should make sure the healers are women. Midwives. The smallfolk are likelier to trust a woman.”

Robb blinked. “I’ll take that under advisement, my lady.”

She nodded sharply. “Anything to weaken the Citadel’s grey rats and their hold over us,” she said with a snort. “Anyway, it’s a decent enough idea, you’ll let me know if I can offer any assistance.”

Robb made very sure that his eyebrows didn’t go up at hearing this. “Thank you, Lady Dustin, we’ll keep that in mind.”

She nodded again, but seemed reluctant to walk away. “He’s a good boy, you know.”

Robb knew that Lady Dustin was known as a hard woman, and that she had little love for his parents or his House, but he couldn’t help but feel sympathy at her obvious worry for her nephew. “He’s made a good showing, these last few weeks,” Robb told her, and meant it. “If he holds to his oaths, we’ll hold to ours. You have my word on it, as well as my father’s.”

Barbary’s posture didn’t relax, but the stiffness to her mouth finally eased. “You have some sense to you, that’s a relief. I look forward to dealing with you in the future, Lord Robb.”

The last time that Jaime had set foot upon the shores of Pyke, it was to go to war and kill every ironborn soldier he saw. Now here he was, looking to hire an entire crew of them for his mad quest. Truly the gods moved in baffling ways.

There was a figure waiting for them as they disembarked from the boat that ferried them from the mainland, a woman wearing trousers and leathers like a man, with a sword at her side. “Yara Greyjoy?” Jaime called out.

“Ser Jaime Lannister,” the woman said, with a smirk on her face that was quite familiar. Yes, that was a Greyjoy all right. “You’re a brave man, to come to these shores after all the blood you spilled here.”

“If it’s a fight you’re looking for, Lady Yara, I assure you I’m more than available,” Jaime replied, smiling broadly at her. “But what I’m looking for is a ship, and a captain and crew to sail her.”

“And will we need to suffer your fine company on my ship?” Yara asked.

“Not in the slightest,” Jaime promised her.

“And you’ll pay what you promised in your letter?”

Jaime nodded. “Half the fee now, the second half to be paid out after you’ve completed your voyage and I hear that the parcel has been delivered.”

“All right, you’ve got a deal,” Yara said, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. Jaime paused for a moment—shaking hands with an ironborn, Father would be shuddering if he could see Jaime now—but then he took her hand in his. Her hand was rough with calluses, and her grip firm but not absurdly so. Not a woman desperate to prove herself then. Good.

Her gaze drifted past Jaime, and her expression grew somber. “Theon.”

Theon steps forward, looking absurdly young and unsure of himself. “Yara.”

The two siblings just stared at each other. Hardly the touching reunion scene. At last Yara said, mouth pursed, “You look well. They must be feeding you decent meals in Ned Stark’s keep.”

“I’m treated well,” Theon promised, swallowing before he lifted up his chin. “I’m the best archer in all of Winterfell, in fact.”

“Good,” Yara said. She turned away from her brother—Jaime watched as Theon’s face fell—and fixed her attention on Jon. “And who is this?”

Jon shifted his feet, unused to being looked over so boldly. “I’m Jon Snow.”

Jaime was expecting Yara to press further upon hearing Jon’s surname, ask if he really was the Bastard of Winterfell, but perhaps he should have foreseen what she did say instead.

“Well now,” Yara said, looking Jon over with an expression that Jaime could only describe as lascivious. “Aren’t you a pretty thing.”

Jon spluttered. “Excuse me?”

“I didn’t know they made them this pretty in the North,” Yara continued shamelessly, as her brother looked on, aghast, and the guards started to grin. “Think I might have to bring my ship up there more often, if this is the quality of men I can find.”

Jon’s face was slowly turning a shade of red that Jaime associated with cherries, or elderly men suffering from apoplexy. “I—you—” To Jaime’s amusement, as Yara sauntered away to lead them towards the castle, Jon turned to him and hissed, “What is she doing?”

“Propositioning you,” Jaime replied. “I’d take it as a compliment.” As Jon spluttered in outrage, Jaime clapped his hand on Jon’s shoulder and said, “Personally, I’d be more worried about making it across that bridge than whether Yara Greyjoy’s going to steal your virtue.”

Jon looked off towards the distance, where the bridges crossed the ravine, and sighed heavily.

“You could stay back with the ship,” Jaime offered, not for the first time, and Jon wordlessly glared at him. “Or not.”

“Come on,” Jon said, trudging after the Greyjoys. “Let’s try and get through this day without you getting stabbed by an ironborn.”

*

It was a good thing that Jaime was so set on his course, because looking at Balon Greyjoy’s withered, petulant face was hardly a pleasant experience.

It had been a cold welcome, their party rushed through the bread and salt ritual and ushered through the damp corridors of the keep into the main hall, where Balon Greyjoy was waiting.

There was no tender embrace for Theon, who took one hesitant step forward to his father before falling back, his shoulders curling inward anxiously.

“So here is my son after all these years,” Balon Greyjoy said, his sour face not lightening at all, not even when faced with his son who he hadn’t seen for over a decade. “With the spawn of Tywin Lannister and Ned Stark as his companions.”

Theon flinched a little bit, but Jaime gave the old drowned fucker his widest grin. “How lovely it is to see you again, Lord Greyjoy. Last time I saw you, you were on your knees before Robert Baratheon begging for your life.”

“You’re a bold man to come here,” Balon said, glowering. “I could set my men on you, have you run through with a sword, watch all that fine Lannister blood spill over my floors.”

Jaime sensed the Winterfell guards drawing tighter around them, Jon shifting anxiously on his feet, but he didn’t blink. “You could try. You’d fail. And after I was done butchering you and everyone else here, my father and his father—” with a nod at Jon, “—would arrive with their armies to salt and burn this place to the ground. It’d be a reaving the likes of which even the ironborn have never seen, I promise you that, Balon. So let’s stop pretending you have the guts to face me in battle again, and either feast us like the guests we’re meant to be, or let us go on our way.”

Balon’s face turned beet-red, and Jaime smiled in the face of his toothless fury, because Jaime was right, and everyone in the room knew it.

Dinner was a miserable affair, of course, with Theon quiet and shamed, Balon resentful and glowering, and Jaime grimly eating everything that was put on his plate to prove that he could not be made uneasy by these bastards. The only moments of levity were when Jon attempted to fend off Yara’s teasing advances, and when Jon jumped in his seat with a scandalized expression, clearly having just been pinched somewhere, Jaime muffled his snort in his goblet.

“Sure you don’t want to join Lady Yara in her quarters?” Jaime teased at the end of the evening, as Jon grimly followed Jaime into his guest quarters.

Jon sent him a scowling glance. “Don’t be stupid,” he muttered. “I’m staying here tonight, otherwise you absolutely will get stabbed in your sleep.”

“This absurd insistence of yours that I’m a helpless maiden unable to defend myself,” Jaime said, rolling his eyes.

“This absurd insistence of yours on baiting people who already have every reason to want you dead,” Jon retorted, with perhaps more justification. He wouldn’t even take off his boots, and insisted on sleeping in front of the door, his sword unsheathed, no matter how Jaime pointed out the number of guards outside the door, the fact that Jaime had his own sword, or that if Jon were to somehow get stabbed by one of the ironborn, war would break out regardless.

No one could beat the Starks for stubbornness, that was sure.

But all of Jon’s paranoia was for naught, as they made it through the night without anyone being stabbed, and were able to break heir fast in the main hall the following morning and board Yara Greyjoy’s ship without incident.

“So then, Lannister, what is it you’re having us ship to Dorne then? And who are we delivering to?” Yara asked as the ship started to move out of the harbor.

“You’ll be delivering it to House Martell,” Jaime said.

Yara’s eyebrows shot up. “What on earth could the son of Tywin Lannister have for the Martells, aside from…” As her voice trailed off, her eyes grew wider and wider.

Theon was looking between his sister and Jaime, growing more and more alarmed. “No,” he said, a flat denial. “No, there’s no…” He whirled around to stare at a guilty-looking Jon, pointing his finger as he yelled, “Snow! Did you know about this?”

“If you think I’m transporting Gregor Clegane as a prisoner to Dorne,” Yara said, warningly, and Jaime rolled his eyes.

“Well, he’s not going to be alive when you do it, now is he?”

That shut both Greyjoy siblings up in a hurry, both of them now staring at Jaime wordlessly. “You’re going to kill the Mountain,” Theon said at last, voice flat with disbelief, as the noise from the nearby guards and crew started to grow, as more and more people started to pay attention to what they were saying. “That’s the point of our travels? We’re here so you can kill your father’s evil murdering bannerman?”

“Yes,” Jaime confirmed, and behind him, he heard one of the guards mutter, “The fuck did he just say?”

After a moment, Yara Greyjoy started to laugh. “I’ll say this for you, Lannister, you’re not dull.”

Theon stared at his sister. “You can’t possibly still be planning on helping with this…this madness!”

“Of course I am,” Yara said, scoffing. “There’s no way I’m going to miss attending what’s sure to be the most legendary duel of our time.” She turned a sharp smile on Jaime and added, “After all, even if you get killed, you’ve already paid me in gold.”

“Watch your elbow, Bran,” Robb called out, and not for the first time that afternoon.

He’d taken to supervising some of the children’s sword lessons, in the wake of the bannermen finally leaving Winterfell. Ser Rodrick still did the majority of the training, of course, with their mother’s reluctant consent, but at least twice a week, Robb met his siblings and Wylla Manderly in the godswood and watched them poke and prod at each other with wooden swords.

And when the children rested at the roots of the heart tree, Robb would practice grappling with Carys Hornwood, because even though she had her dagger and knew where to stick it if needed, Arya would willingly practice her sewing in the godswood if she was only allowed to watch as Carys learned how to gouge a man’s eye out.

Today though, they’d barely begun when Robb heard footsteps approaching, and held up his hand to signal that they needed to pause. “Who’s there?” It wasn’t exactly a secret that Robb was giving lessons in the godswood, but they didn’t want an audience either.

“It’s me,” Sansa called out as she came into view, puffing a little bit from exertion.

“What are you doing here?” Arya asked.

Sansa opened her mouth to answer, then tilted her head in obvious confusion. “Is that an embroidery hoop?”

“Maybe,” Arya said, even as she moved to hide the hoop from view.

“Is that how your stitches have gotten so much better?” Sansa asked. “Jeyne and I couldn’t understand it!”

“Arya and I agreed a different environment would allow her to focus better,” Carys said mildly, and Sansa’s cheeks went pink. “Did you need something, Lady Sansa?”

Sansa came back to herself, straightening her posture as she said, “I’d…like to learn how to use a dagger.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, before Arya and Bran said in disbelieving unison, “You?” Next to them, Wylla let out a low whistle, tucking her moss-green hair behind her ears.

Robb shared their disbelief. “Really?”

Sansa’s cheeks were nearly as red as her hair. “I can learn if I want to!” she huffed. “Lady Carys has learned, and Arya gets to practice with swords—”

“Of course you can,” Robb said quickly, hoping to head off one of Sansa’s sulks, or another argument between his sisters. “But why do you want to? You’ve never shown any interest before—” An awful thought came to Robb, and he said urgently, “Sansa, is this about Domeric Bolton? Has he tried—”

“No!” Sansa gasped, eyes going wide. “No, I just…I just want to, that’s all.”

Robb wasn’t quite sure that he believed it, something must have spurred this on, but Carys said in her calm way, “If you want to learn, then you can.” She put down the wooden dagger they used for practice, and brought out one of her real daggers, unsheathing it as she did so. (Tyrion kept commissioning daggers for her from Mikken, and Carys was growing quite the collection as a result.)

As she encouraged Sansa to take the dagger in her hand and feel the weight of it, Robb moved closer to Arya to ask, keeping his voice low, “Has Bolton been hanging about?” He couldn’t imagine how, Domeric had been at Winterfell for so short a time and every member of the household watched him like a hawk…and yet, he was a Bolton.

“No,” Arya said, but she was scowling and her hands were curled into fists. “But now I’m going to be watching him—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Robb ordered. “Leave it to me.” Arya scowled up at him, mutinous, and Robb said, warningly, “Arya.”

“Fine,” Arya muttered, but Robb resolved to watch her too, just in case.

Sansa did not take naturally to the dagger, looking squeamish when Robb demonstrated how to stab a man in the kidneys, and looking horrified at the thought of gouging someone’s eyes out. But she stayed, and she learned, and when Robb doubtfully asked if she wanted to join them for the next lesson, Sansa gave a firm nod.

“All right,” Robb agreed, looking to Carys, who just shrugged a little. Robb gestured, and Carys heeded his unspoken request, ushering the others ahead of them and out of the godswood, telling Arya that her stitches were coming along nicely, and that they would be able to show Lady Stark her progress soon, and wouldn’t that be nice? Meanwhile, Wylla and Bran were playing with sticks, the dull clack-clack noises fading as they moved ahead of Robb and Sansa, who were walking at a slower pace.

Robb took a breath, and said, carefully, “Sansa, I’ll teach you anything you want to know about a dagger, I promise. But I must ask, why are you suddenly so interested? If someone’s scared you—”

“No one’s scared me,” Sansa said, exasperated now. “Least of all Ser Domeric, I think he’s more scared of us than I am of him!”

Robb didn’t relent. “So what is it then, if not Bolton?”

Sansa looked down at the ground. “Just…I heard some of the maids talking about the trip that everyone’s taken, to visit Theon’s family on the Iron Islands.”

“Yes,” Robb said slowly.

“They were talking about…about reaving. About how they hoped that Theon wouldn’t come back to Winterfell and bring the iron ways with him, but then one of them said that he’d be a fool to try, with how our father treats rapers, even when they’re highborn.”

“Sansa—“

“And i know about Carys’ husband too, the one who died,” Sansa added quickly. “How…how he was cruel to her, that he hurt her. Old Nan says it was a blessing that he died when he did, because men like that, their wives almost never outlive them.”

“Sansa,” Robb said, taking his sister by the shoulders, looking with worry into her face. Gods, she was already growing so tall, he didn’t have to stoop to meet her gaze the way he did with Arya. “Sansa, none of that will ever happen to you—“

“It wasn’t supposed to happen to Carys either!” Sansa burst out. “She’s highborn, her father’s one of our bannermen! But now she has a scar on her face and they say she’ll never wed again, and what if I’m sent to marry someone who lives far away, like in the Riverlands or the Reach or—“

“You aren’t being sent away from the North!” Robb protested. “Sansa, Father’s planning to marry you to one of our bannermen, not send you off clear across the continent! And wherever you go, we’ll be sending you there with a whole host of attendants, including at least one sworn shield that can get you safely away if need be. Not that we’d ever let you be married off to someone awful,” he said quickly. “But even in the worst case, Father and I would storm the keep to get you back, clap your husband in irons, and then we’d bring Tyrion in for the really nasty part of our revenge.”

Sansa’s face had been on the verge of crumbling, but at this she let out a watery laugh. “Tyrion?”

“You can’t tell me he wouldn’t come up with something truly inventive,” Robb said, relieved to see Sansa’s expression finally brightening a little.

She glanced down, then smiled a little bit. “He would, wouldn’t he?”

“It’d probably involve scorpions,” Robb agreed, putting his arm around her shoulders as they began walking again. “Or boiling hot oil.”

They walked together peaceably for a moment, then Sansa asked, curious, “I’m really going to marry one of Father’s bannermen?”

“One of their heirs, anyway,” Robb confirmed. “We can’t all of us be marrying southerners, the lords will start grumbling.”

Sansa smiled, but asked next, “Is this…is this so you can adopt one of my children for your heir?”

Robb looked at her closely. “That’s part of it, yes.” He paused, but Sansa didn’t seem upset at this turn of their conversation, so he said, “It’s important, with me marrying Jaime, that the next heir to Winterfell be seen as…entirely Northern. Does that make sense?”

Sansa nodded. “Like how Father’s been encouraging us to pray in the godswood more, and how you never go into Mother’s sept now.” She gave Robb a sideslong glance. “I do pay attention to things, you know.”

“Yes, I’m seeing that,” Robb said. “Does it bother you? That you’ll have to stay in the North, that you won’t be able to go down to the South and take part in all those tourneys and wear all those light southern dresses of lace and silk…”

Sansa looked a little wistful, but shook her head. “I like the thought of staying closer to home,” she said. “It’ll be safer that way, won’t it?”

“Yes, it will,” Robb said, fervently.

Sansa nodded in agreement. “I hope Jon and Jaime return soon, from the Westerlands,” she said, looking at Robb.

Robb swallowed, but kept his expression calm. “So do I,” he agreed, and it felt—mostly—true.

*

Robb wasn’t a fool, he knew his family was worrying over him. Tyrion was doing his best to deflect their attention, but even he could only do so much. Robb tried to keep a good face on everything—he attended court, he watched his siblings, he attended his lessons with Maester Luwin, he ate three square meals a day, and on the surface he was the calm, collected, perfect young heir.

Inside, he had gone to ice. Even his Mark felt numb to the touch.

Sleep was hard to come by. He wasn’t plagued by any more gods-sent visions, and he didn’t dream of Jaime with…with the queen. He just had a hard time falling asleep, he kept reaching out in his sleep for a warm body that was never there.

They must have reached the Westerlands by now. Robb didn’t know what they were doing there, how long they planned to stay, or what would happen when they returned.

The dark circles under his eyes never faded, and his mother was dropping increasing hints about how he should visit Luwin for some dreamwine.

Thankfully, conversations around the keep were not focused on Robb, but on the horrifying news coming out of the Riverlands, where House Frey seemed to have descended into absolute anarchy. Old Walder Frey was dead at last, their grandfather wrote to Catelyn in his crabbed handwriting, and Stevron Frey should have succeeded him as the firstborn son, but he’d dropped dead of what was either apoplexy or poison, and then there seemed to have been a brawl that led to three men dying, and after that…rumor after lurid rumor followed, until the Freys’ servants had finally fled the Twins for Riverrun and their Lord Paramount’s protection. And the stories they had to tell…

“Kinslaying?” Robb exclaimed, while Tyrion let out a low whistle of disbelief. “Are you serious?”

His mother shook her head, the scroll from her brother Edmure in her hand. “I only wish that my brother was japing,” she murmured.

“So they were, what, cannibalizing each other like rats trapped in a barrel?” Tyrion asked, looking both fascinated and appalled.

“Well, they haven’t been eating each other—gods, I hope they haven’t been,” Catelyn said, turning a little green at the thought, and glancing back at the letter as if to check. “No, it’s just been stabbings and poisonings and people being found dead with broken necks at the bottom of the stairs—“

“Well, that could’ve been an accident,” Robb said, more to comfort his distressed mother than because he really believed it.

“Another Frey was found with a broken neck at the bottom of a tower,” Catelyn said.

“Oh.”

“And another was found dead at the bottom of a well.”

“Gods be good,” his father muttered, incredulous.

“Edmure writes that he’s had to station guards everywhere, but the place is like a rabbit warren—“

“Appropriate, given how often they procreate,” Tyrion japed.

“There have been two more murders there since my brother arrived!” Catelyn exclaimed. “To think that this madness is happening in the Riverlands…”

“Is Uncle Edmure under any threat?” Robb asked.

“He says no, that so far the Freys seem determined to kill each other and are leaving any non-relatives out of it,” Catelyn said.

“Well at least they’re consistent in their crimes,” Tyrion remarked. At Robb’s mother giving him an exasperated look, Tyrion protested, “It’s an atrocity, I agree, and I don’t envy the task set before your brother in putting things to right, but you have to admit there is more than a touch of the ridiculous about the whole sordid affair.”

“It seems oddly fitting for Walker Frey,” Catelyn admitted. “Even amidst all the horror and the blood, his family looks utterly foolish and absurd as well.” She signed a little. “And Edmure writes that my father’s fallen ill again. Ned, could we—“

Robb’s father shook his head. “I’m sorry, Cat, but with all the unrest in the North, I can’t be away from Winterfell for that long, and I don’t feel right sending you down the Kingsroad with both the North and the Riverlands in such disarray.”

His mother looked disappointed but unsurprised.

“I’ve received a letter from Challon,” his father continued, naming the castellan they’d named to oversee Moat Cailin. “He says they’ve seen an increase in newcomers lately, most of them from the Riverlands.”

“It may be a good idea to travel there to oversee things for a time,” Tyrion suggested. “Robb and I could go there in your name, with the appropriate amount of guards, of course.”

His fainter glanced at Robb, then said mildly, “Perhaps once Jaime and Jon have returned from the Westerlands.”

Robb felt his face going still and blank, even though he knew that was a tell in and of itself. “Perhaps,” he said, and both of his parents were watching him now. Robb had never wanted to flinch beneath the weight of their gazes before.

“Has Jaime written to say when he expects to return?” Catelyn asked.

“My brother has always been a terrible correspondent,” Tyrion said lightly, taking the attention off Robb as best as he could. “Thankfully, Jon is far more dutiful in his letter-writing, and so I understand that their party has managed to leave Pyke without anyone getting stabbed, which was hardly the case the last time my brother visited that charming island.”

His mother’s lips thinned out at the mention of Jon, and Robb watched it with a dull flare of annoyance—Jon wasn’t even here, could she not let even this tiny mention go?

“You’ll forgive me for saying it, Tyrion, but I’m more worried about your father’s welcome than I am about Balon Greyjoy’s,” Ned replied. It had taken Robb some time to realize how disquieted his father was at the idea of Jon and Theon visiting the keep where Tywin Lannister ruled, but then, he’d witnessed firsthand during the rebellion how deep the Lord of Casterly Rock’s ruthlessness ran.

“Understandable,” Tyrion said. “But I assure you, my father is not conducting the Rains of Castamere on a weekly basis. None of them have anything to fear from my father, not even young Greyjoy.”

Robb knew, even before his mother opened her mouth, that she was going to ask yet again why Jaime was even in the Westerlands to begin with, and he didn’t want to hear it, so he got to his feet, offering everyone a brief smile. “It’s getting late, I should be off to bed.”

“Oh, but Robb—” Catelyn began, but Ned cut her off.

“Get your rest, son,” he said, kindly, and shared a look with Robb’s mother that had her subsiding and offering her own good-nights as Robb left.

*

It was easier to look his father in the face than it should have been. Robb had become a party to treason by concealing the true parentage of the royal children, and he knew what his father, Honest Ned, would say to that. His father would have sent the raven to the Red Keep denouncing the queen, her bastard children, and the faithless Kingsguard knight who got them on her the moment that he’d learned the truth, never mind if that same faithless knight was his goodson, or Robb’s husband.

Robb couldn’t do it. And as the weeks went on, the reasons he had for holding his tongue only grew stronger—not just for Tyrion, not just to avoid a war that would split the continent in half, not just to save three innocent children from facing the wrath of an enraged king.

Because the more Robb thought about it, why should he act in defense of Robert Baratheon? The man may have been his father’s closest friend once, but he was also a drunkard and a whoremonger, with at least a dozen bastard children of his own scattered across Westeros, and he kept pulling the kingdom further and further into debt. At least one of his bastards was born to a highborn lady, conceived at his own brother’s wedding (in the marriage bed!) so who was to say that they wouldn’t be facing another Blackfyre rebellion in fifteen years’ time? From that angle, Robert had done nearly as much to threaten the safety of the realm as Cersei had.

But such justifications, valid though many of them were, they all paled before the true reason that Robb kept his silence.

Jaime may have been a traitor, he may have broken all the laws of the gods and men, but the gods had given him to Robb, for good or for ill, and Robb wouldn’t give him up. Not to the executioner’s blade, not to the black cells beneath the Red Keep, not to the Night’s Watch, and certainly not to Cersei Lannister.

And every morning that he woke up to a cold bed and an empty space where his husband had once been, the more his certainty settled in his bones, and the easier it became to meet his father’s gaze without guilt.

Not that any of this lessened Robb’s rage towards his husband. Quite the reverse, in fact.

*

“May I speak with you about something?” Carys asks him one afternoon. She’d approached him at the end of his training session with Ser Rodrick and asked if he would accompany her on a walk. Intrigued, and surprised that Tyrion wasn’t shadowing her, Robb agreed.

It had been drizzling earlier, but the rain had let up until it was a fine mist. “So what did you wish to talk about?”

Carys pursed her mouth, then she said, “The septa is a fool and a poor teacher.”

Robb’s eyebrows flew up, both at the subject matter and the blunt speech; Carys saw it and flushed. “I told Tyrion he should be the one to speak to you, he would have been far more graceful about it all.”

“No, it’s all right,” Robb said, but he asked next, “But you said that Tyrion wouldn’t speak—does he not agree with you, then?” That would have been a surprise, Tyrion and Carys always seemed of one mind, whenever he saw them together.

“Oh, he agrees, he just says he won’t take credit for any more of my good ideas,” Carys said, sounding disgruntled. “Apparently I need to get better at speaking my mind to more people than just him, or some such nonsense.” Despite her words, there was a fond smile playing around her lips, and Robb watched her for a moment, a sudden (yet likely very overdue) thought occurring to him.

“He has an annoying habit of being right,” Robb agreed, and Carys smiled at him, a dimple appearing in her cheek. As if realizing she was perhaps revealing more than she wished to, she shook her head, a flush rising to her face and the tips of her ears.

“But that’s not the point. Robb, I have been observing the girls at their lessons for some time now. Septa Mordane is…well-intentioned, I’m sure…”

Robb had to snort at the late attempt at diplomacy. “She’s just a fool and a poor teacher,” he finished, parroting Carys’ earlier words.

Carys looked harassed, but said, “Well—yes.” And what followed next, for all of her seeming reluctance, was a well-considered argument that Septa Mordane was a poor choice to teach Northern ladies, given her clear ignorance of—and disrespect for—the traditions and religion of the North.

“She plays favorites with the girls,” Carys said. “The more southern the girls behave, the more they are praised, regardless of actual merit. Your sister is a sweet girl, but much more of this, and she’ll be spoiled beyond saving. And Arya wouldn’t be half so willful if the Septa wasn’t constantly picking at her, or was a teacher she could respect—”

“And Arya won’t mind people she disrespects,” Robb said, understanding now.

“Worse still, Septa Mordane is forever comparing her to Sansa, or letting the other girls call Arya names—”

“Wait, what?”

“I’ve put a stop to it,” Carys said, grimly. “And I think things are better now, especially with Arya able to focus on her swordplay and her language lessons, not to mention her friendship with Wylla, but I don’t think it would have—or should have—gotten as bad as it did, had Septa Mordane been a better teacher or simply kept better control of the classroom. Besides—” Carys stopped.

“Carys,” Robb prodded after a moment.

Carys looked apprehensive, but met his gaze squarely. “Before I came to Winterfell, I thought your mother exactly what the rumors painted her to be—a stubborn lady from the South, who held us all in contempt and wished to see the entire North converted to her religion.” As Robb stared, the flush that had faded from Carys’ cheeks came back, redder than before. “I know now how wrong I was, of course, but the fact remains, even if your mother is not like that, Septa Mordane is. And a woman like that should not be teaching the daughters of House Stark.”

She fiddled with her hands before folding them before her, giving a little nod to herself, as if to confirm that she had said her piece and would take whatever came next.

Slightly winded, Robb could only say a faint, “Well.”

“So will you speak to your mother, then?” Carys asked.

Robb said, without thinking, “You could—” And then Carys fixed him with a look, silently asking him if he really thought she was willing to go that far and tell Lady Stark that her beloved septa, the one that had taught her and her sister as a girl, was bad at her job, and Robb sighed a little. “No, fair enough. Yes, I’ll speak to her.”

He went into the discussion with his mother with more than a little trepidation, but to Robb’s surprise, his mother took it better than he’d feared, listening to him calmly before saying with a sigh, “Yes, I’d been starting to wonder the same.”

“Really?”

His mother looked more than a little exasperated. “I am capable of changing my opinion, Robb.” Robb quickly nodded in response, and after giving him a long suspicious look, Catelyn seemed satisfied that he wouldn’t argue, continuing to say, “I thought the problem was that Arya simply wouldn’t work at anything she wasn’t already interested in, but that’s not true. Carys and Tyrion have done wonders with her.”

“They have,” Robb agreed, relieved. “And I think—I think that it would be better for Sansa as well, not to be held to such a strict definition of what a lady should be.”

Privately, Robb was determined that by the time Sansa was of an age to marry, she’d be one of the deadliest ladies in the North with a dagger.

“Especially because she’s going to be marrying in the North,” Catelyn agreed. She sighed again, but said, “I’ll speak to your father. We’ll need time to find a suitable replacement.”

“Good,” Robb said, pleased that their talk had been so painless. He got to his feet, saying, “I’ll leave you to your work,” only to be halted by his mother saying, urgently, “Robb, wait a moment.”

Robb paused, before slowly settling back into his seat. “All right. Is anything wrong?”

His mother fixed him with a searching look. “I rather think I should be asking you that question.”

It felt as though he’d had a bucket of ice water flung in his face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Robb,” Catelyn said, looking at him with such open sympathy. “I’m your mother. You think I can’t see when you’re unhappy?”

Robb shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said, and as his mother’s expression shifted to one of disbelief, he repeated forcefully, “I am. Has anyone said I haven’t been keeping up with my duties, or my training, or—”

“No, no, of course not,” his mother soothed. “Sweetling, it’s just…” Robb held himself stiffly, not letting himself crumble, or reach out to hold his mother’s outstretched hand. “Marriage can be difficult. The gods know with your father….” She stopped, the ghost of Robb’s bastard brother in the words she left unsaid, and murmured instead, “It took time for us to trust each other. To build the marriage we have now. Sometimes I think…if I had had someone here to talk to, here in the beginning, it may have eased my sorrows.”

“I have people to talk to,” Robb said, hot with discomfort. “Tyrion—” He stopped speaking, because the last thing he wanted was for his parents to try and interrogate Tyrion instead; he would hold up to their questioning, Robb was sure of that, but he didn’t want to put Tyrion into an even more awkward position.

His mother smiled sadly. “Yes, I know you’ve been spending a lot of time with Tyrion lately.” She paused, as if to give him the opening to speak further, to share with her what he’d presumably confided in Tyrion, but Robb clenched his teeth and said nothing.

That was the only way to get through this, he’d vowed to himself. He wasn’t a good liar, had never been taught how to be one, and so silence would have to be his defense.

So he held his tongue, and waited his mother out, guilt churning in his stomach all the while. All his life he’d been a dutiful son, and it felt wrong to spurn her now, but what else could he do?

As she realized he wouldn’t speak, a flicker of hurt appeared on Catelyn’s face, before she smiled bravely, putting a good face on it. “Sometimes I wonder how on earth we ever managed here, without Tyrion Lannister wandering about the halls, telling us how to better manage our affairs.”

Robb made the corners of his lips twitch upwards, mimicking a smile. “He has an annoying habit of being right, that’s what I told Carys earlier.”

His mother looked interested at this, pressing, “Carys was speaking to you of Tyrion?” At Robb’s nod, she sat back in her seat, humming. “Your father’s been thinking of granting Tyrion a keep of his own, here in the North.”

Robb blinked at this. “Really?”

“We would miss having him here, but it’s a fitting reward for all he’s done. And it would make it easier for him to marry.”

“Marry?” Robb repeated. “Who—” Then he realized. “You mean to have Tyrion marry Carys?”

“You think they’d make a poor match?” his mother questioned.

“No,” Robb said. “I think they’d make an excellent match, but I doubt very much that Carys is looking to marry anyone now. Or ever.” Though he thought back to the way Carys had never feared Tyrion, even in the beginning when she’d shied away from every other man in Winterfell, and he wondered…

“She’d marry Tyrion,” Catelyn said with total confidence. “But for her father to agree, Tyrion would need to hold a keep in his own right, which is where your father comes in.”

“He is, technically, still the heir to Casterly Rock,” Robb had to point out. “Granting him a holdfast here, no matter how deserved, would not be received well by Tywin Lannister.”

His mother made a face. “You’re not wrong, but I increasingly find it hard to care about what that man thinks.”

Robb’s eyebrows flew up, and he couldn’t help but tease, “To think I’d hear my mother speaking so terribly of the Warden of the West.”

His mother snorted. “I could say much harsher things about Tywin Lannister, believe me. What a cruel beast of a man. By all rights, Tyrion should be named as his heir, and yet he’s here, exiled from his home, with no chance of inheriting what is due to him. It’s outrageous. I can’t imagine being blinded by your hatred like that.”

The words jangled in Robb’s ears, as all of the momentary ease he’d won slipped away. And perhaps because he’d spent all these weeks holding back the most dangerous truth of all, this other truth slipped free of his mouth, almost without thought, and certainly without planning.

“Of course you can imagine it. You hate Jon the same way that Lord Tywin hates Tyrion.”

His mother went sheet-pale, and she stared at him as though she could not believe what he’d just said. Robb couldn’t believe he’d said it either.

When she finally spoke, it was in a voice so quiet and cutting that he barely recognized it as hers. “What did you just say?”

The Robb Stark of a year ago would have quailed before her anger, would have immediately apologized.

“You blame Jon for Father’s betrayal the same way that Lord Lannister blames Tyrion for his wife’s death,” Robb said, remembering Jaime confessing the source of his father’s apathy for Tyrion, late one night in their chambers. “It’s cruel and unfair of you, but you’ve kept on with it anyway. So yes, I do think you have something in common with Tywin Lannister, even though we both wish otherwise.”

His mother’s face had drained of color at this point, except for two angry spots of red on her cheeks. Robb supposed that he ought to feel sorrier about it. “His presence here is an insult and a threat to you and all your siblings,” she began, her voice shaking with anger, but Robb cut her off.

“If there’s an insult in Jon existing, it’s Father who made it, not Jon. And he’s never been a threat. Tyrion and Jaime realized that their first week here, but you still can’t admit it, because—” His voice caught, but Robb pressed on. “Because it suits you, having an excuse to hate a boy who never did you any harm.”

His mother just stared at him wordlessly, a world of hurt and pain in her blue eyes.

Robb didn’t say anything else, he just got up and left the room.

*

His father was, unsurprisingly, furious with him. Had Robb been younger, Ned might have taken a switch to his backside, but Robb was a man grown and married, so the only tools his father had left to use were his words and his disapproval.

Robb had been summoned to meet his father in the godswood rather than within the castle walls, likely to cut down on the servants’ gossip. (Robb was sure that news of his fight with Catelyn had already spread through the keep—Tyrion had taught him how much servants and guards always heard, saw, and therefore knew about the families they served.)

His father was pacing as Robb entered the clearing. He looked up at Robb, and said bluntly, “You owe your mother an apology.”

“I’m sorry I upset her,” Robb conceded. “But what I said was the truth, and we all know it.”

A muscle leapt in his father’s jaw. “Your mother has dealt with Jon’s presence the best that she could. Do I wish their relationship was warmer? Of course, but that hardly means her conduct can be compared to Tywin Lannister—”

“No, because Tywin lost a wife,” Robb said. “What has my mother lost? Nothing.”

Ned looked infuriated at this, his chest swelling as he began to speak, but Robb cut him off. “You were the one to bring Jon here, even in the face of Mother’s anger, because you wanted him to know his family, and for us to know him. So that we could love him as family should. So when I stand up for him, as a brother should, how are you surprised by it?”

His father didn’t have an answer to that. Instead, he took a deep breath, visibly getting his temper back under control. “Robb, the decisions I made were the ones that I thought best for everyone, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a cost. For your mother and for Jon.” His voice firmed as he said next, “And if you want someone to blame, you put the blame on me and not your mother, who deserves your love and respect, and who will have that respect so long as I am lord here. Is that understood.”

Robb nodded.

“Good,” his father said. “So you’ll come with me now and apologize—”

“Was Ashara Dayne Jon’s mother?”

His father actually staggered back a step, his face actually draining of color, much the same way that Catelyn’s had earlier. “What—who gave you that name?”

“She’s apparently the leading candidate, according to the gossips in King’s Landing,” Robb said evenly.

His father’s face was slowly turning red. “Lady Ashara’s name is not something you can be casually tossing about—”

“Are you seriously arguing that your silence is to protect the woman’s reputation?” Robb asked, astounded. “Your silence has led to bored courtiers at the Red Keep openly placing bets on whether or not she was Jon’s mother! It’s the entire reason that Jaime says it almost certainly wasn’t her, those same court gossips dragged up the truth of her stillborn daughter.” His father looked stricken at this news, and Robb pressed on, his eyes narrowed, “So who was she then? It’s not as if anything will change if Jon knows who his mother is. Mother will still hate him, he’ll still have the name Snow, the only thing that would change is that he could finally stop wondering—”

“Robb, that is enough,” his father thundered, and the strange choking fury that had pushed Robb so far couldn’t push him to keep speaking, not when Ned Stark sounded like that.

For a long moment Ned looked at him, then he said, very quietly, “I don’t think this is being driven by your love for your brother. Not all of it. You’ve been angry and unhappy for a long time, and while I am sorry for it, and for whatever caused this rift between you and Jaime—” Robb stiffened at this and his father’s gaze sharpened as he saw it, and he went on, “Neither myself nor your mother is at fault for what’s gone wrong in your marriage. And it’s unfair and unbecoming of you to use that as an excuse to lash out.”

The fury and hurt rose up so swiftly that Robb thought he would choke on it, and he turned away, not wanting his father to see his face, and that was how Robb’s gaze fell on the face of the weirwood tree, forever weeping.

His father waited for Robb to respond. When Robb didn’t speak, he sighed and said, “Take your time out here, if it gives you peace. But when you come inside, you will give your mother an apology.”

Robb wordlessly nodded, not looking away from the tree, not even when he heard his father’s footsteps finally retreating.

As Robb breathed in and out, his righteous anger slowly drained away, leaving him tired and ashamed.

Even though he had been speaking the truth today, to both his parents, that didn’t change the reason for why he’d flung those truths at his parents’ heads. It wasn’t to improve things for Jon (if anything, his mother was likely to resent Jon even more) it was because for weeks now, Robb had all this pain and frustration pent up inside of him, and nowhere to direct it.

So he’d turned his attention to his mother and her unfair treatment of Jon, because Jaime wasn’t here for Robb to be angry at, and because Robb couldn’t talk to anyone about what was truly upsetting him to begin with.

His father had told him to stay out here and try to find some peace, but how could he? Where could he find peace, with the foul memories of Jaime with his sister still haunting him, with the knowledge that if Jaime had the choice, he never would have come North, he never would have picked Robb over—

He couldn’t forget any of it, and he couldn’t bring himself to let Jaime go either. If it was a choice between sending Jaime off to Essos, never to be seen again, and keeping him here in the North, even with this tangled mess of anger and hurt and frustration always between them…Robb knew which he’d choose, and was furious with himself for the choice.

It may have been cowardice, but Robb wished he’d never received that second vision, that he’d never discovered the truth of Jaime’s true relationship to the queen. He would have been living in ignorance, it was true, but he would have been happy and content living in that lie.

Slowly, Robb got to one knee before the heart-tree, the same site where he’d married Jaime Lannister more than a year ago, and he said out loud to the gods, “Take it back. Please.”

He didn’t even know what he should be asking for—to remove the memories of Jaime’s sins? To take away the soulmark? To take away his tangled, hopeless love for a man who would never put him first?

It didn’t matter. There was no reply, of course, nothing but the wind moving through the branches, rustling the blood-red leaves.

The closer they got to Clegane’s Keep, the more feverish their preparations became.

Of course, there wasn’t much to the preparations; either Jaime would kill the Mountain, or the Mountain would kill him. If it was the latter, there was only one thing left to do.

“Just get Jon and Theon out of there alive,” Jaime said to the head of the guard, Theo. “Jon might have some foolish notion of trying to avenge me, don’t let him. Get the boys to Casterly Rock and tell my father what’s happened, he’ll take care of the rest.’

Theo looked a little pale beneath his bushy beard. Well, pale for a Northman, which meant he looked like a damned ghost, even in the bright Westerlands sunshine. “And who will protect them from your father’s wrath?”

“Jon’s the son of Ned Stark,” Jaime said. “Even my father at his worst isn’t fool enough to go against the Warden of the North and the king’s best friend. He’ll be reasonable enough.”

Theo looked unconvinced. “Begging your pardon, m’lord, but we wouldn’t be here in the first place if your father was capable of being reasonable.”

And truthfully, there was little that Jaime could say to that.

But at least the guards weren’t arguing the necessity of what Jaime was doing, only Theon was arguing against it. “Why are you doing this now?” he’d demanded in a huff, the day they’d left Lannisport. “The rebellion happened nearly twenty years ago.”

Jaime had just ignored him, as was his usual wont when it came to the Greyjoy heir, so it fell to Jon to say, “He’s doing this because no else can or will.”

Theon grumbled. “I still say we should’ve brought an army with us. Or at least hired a Faceless Man.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay in Lannisport if you fear for your safety,” Jaime pointed out.

“No, no, I’m committed,” Theon said hastily, with a quick glance at his sister, who was watching him closely. Yara had been doing a lot of that over their journey from Pyke. Observing the brother she barely knew, questioning him about his studies, his training, how often he left Winterfell.

Jaime doubted she was pleased with the answers, and he was proven right when, as they took a break for food and rest, Yara said abruptly, “Theon, you need to know something.”

Theon looked up from where he was resting against the trunk of a tree, mouth stuffed full of dried meat and bread.

“There’s going to be a Kingsmoot, after Father dies,” Yara said.

Theon inhaled, and started to choke on his food, hacking and coughing as he scrambled to his feet.

“Well, fuck,” Jaime said, with a sign. He fucking knew that leaving Balon Greyjoy alive at the end of the Greyjoy Rebellion was a mistake, and now here they were.

Jon looked between them all with confusion. “I don’t understand, what’s a Kingsmoot?”

“The traditional way that the ironborn select a leader after the old one dies,” Jaime said, grimacing. “All the captains gather together and vote for their preferred candidate.”

“It’s part of the Old Ways,” Yara confirmed, glancing over at them, arms folded over her chest. “Our way.”

“Your ways involve raping, pillaging, thieving and murder, I’d hardly count those as traditions to be proud of,” Jaime said waspishly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Fucking hells, what a mess.”

“No,” Theon said in denial, shaking his head. “No, this isn’t—I’m Father’s heir! I’m meant to rule the Iron Islands!” His voice was rising, going shrill, and Jaime watched him with a mix of pity and distaste. He’d never cared for or thought much of the boy beyond his connection to the Starks, to Robb, but this was not a scene he cared to witness, let alone be part of.

“Can that even happen?” Jon asked Jaime in an urgent whisper, as Yara continued to talk to an increasingly hysterical Theon. “Theon being disinherited like this—I thought the whole point of him staying at Winterfell was so that the next leader of the Ironborn would be taught our ways and so that there wouldn’t be another rebellion.”

“Yes, and it seems the ironborn object to a leader who will have spent the majority of his life in a landlocked keep,” Jaime muttered. “Honestly, it could go either way—if they elect a sensible leader who’ll keep the peace, the Crown might let it slide. On the other hand, Robert loves waging war, and would jump at any excuse to fight another one.”

Jon frowned as he worked that out. “But…setting Theon up as a puppet on the Salt Throne…would that even work?”

“Probably not,” Jaime said grimly. “At any rate, I wouldn’t bet on him surviving long.”

“Oh, hells,” Jon groaned.

This was absolutely going to be a mess, Jaime thought as Jon went over to speak to Theon and Yara. The Crown would have to be informed, as would Jaime’s father, to see if something could be done, though Jaime doubted it—if Balon Greyjoy wanted to disinherit his son, that was his right. And, as Yara was pointing out to her brother now, Theon was a poor choice to succeed him. He’d been away from the islands for most of his life, he wasn’t a sailor, he’d been raised by the very people who’d quashed the Greyjoy rebellion. Of course the ironborn would resist, it had been ridiculous to assume they’d do anything else. The only option left now, Jaime assumed, would be to evaluate the remaining candidates to see which of them was the least awful and push them forward. He’d have to write to Tyrion so they could start—

But, Jaime realized, with a cold shiver down his spine, he might never get the chance to write his brother, or see this issue with House Greyjoy resolved. Even if he were to write and send a letter to Tyrion right this moment, if the duel with Clegane went poorly, Jaime would be dead long before the raven even reached Winterfell.

Jaime let his breath out slowly. He was here. He was here, and there was no turning back now. Besides, he might be dead soon…but he wasn’t dead yet.

*

It was midday when they finally arrived at Clegane’s Keep. The sun was beating down on Jaime’s head as he told the wizened servant, “Go get your master. Tell him Jaime Lannister is here to see him.”

As the servant bowed and scurried off, glancing back at Jaime curiously, Theon muttered from the back, “I cannot believe this is happening.”

That makes two of us, Jaime thought. The sunny day was taking on an unreal quality to it, like a mirage in the desert. But it had been that way their entire trip, the gently rolling hills of Jaime’s childhood feeling unfamiliar to him now, with Jaime thinking longingly of the thick woods of the North with their plentiful shade. Half of their party had gotten sunburned before they’d even left Lannisport, and even Jaime found himself wilting beneath the hot sun, more days than not.

What the fuck was he even doing here, trying to right a twenty year-old wrong? Elia Martell had been buried in Dorne for almost two decades now, avenging her wouldn’t do anything to fix the wreck that Jaime had made of his own life.

Why was he even here?

But even as he asked himself the question, Jaime did know why. Because he was tired of hating himself, tired of searching for ways to distract himself from his self-loathing, his lost honor.

It had been easy to pretend to be honorable in the North. It was easy to kill a monster like Roose Bolton when the lord he fought for wouldn’t tolerate rape and murder at any price. It was easy to be kind to Jon Snow when the loved one he had to please was Robb instead of Cersei. It was easy to avoid making mistakes when it was Tyrion advising him, instead of Jaime being left to his own devices.

But there was no one left to hide behind, not here. No Cersei to blame for his crimes, no Robb to justify his good deeds. Just him, and the man that he had decided to kill.

And then Clegane emerged through the front door, ducking his head a little as he walked through the doorway—you’d have thought the man would make the doorway bigger to accommodate his ridiculous height, Jaime thought, a little hysterically.

Clegane wasn’t wearing armor. Somehow that made him look more intimidating, not less, because you couldn’t delude yourself into thinking the armor was adding to the man’s bulk. No, the bastard really was that fucking large.

Shit.

“Gods be good,” Jon whispered, looking thunderstruck. The rest of their party looked just as shocked, even Yara Greyjoy was a little pale.

Clegane bowed his head once he caught sight of Jaime. “Ser Jaime,” he rumbled. “I hadn’t received word you were coming.”

Somehow Jaime found his tongue. “Yes, that would be because I didn’t send word that I was coming. Would be rather awkward, considering.”

Clegane’s forehead furrowed. “Considering?”

Jaime dismounted from his horse. Now that the moment was here, finally, a sense of calm was settling over him. This was a battle, and he was a knight, this was what he knew how to do, this was what he was for.

“Considering that I’m here to kill you,” Jaime said, offering him a bright smile, making sure to show all of his teeth.

“What?” Clegane demanded, clearly dumbfounded at the notion of his lord’s son and heir coming to his lands and threatening to kill him.

Jaime squared his shoulders. “Ser Gregor Clegane,” he said, formally, “I accuse you of the rape and murder of Princess Elia Martell, and of the murders of her children, Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen. And I mean to fight you, in a trial by combat, to prove your guilt before gods and men.” As Clegane gaped at him, Jaime finished by saying, “Now go get your sword. I’d prefer not to kill an unarmed man if I don’t have to.”

“Is this a jape?” Clegane asked, his voice rising. “You come here and accuse me of murder, when you know full well—” Jaime raised an eyebrow, and Clegane checked himself, clearly choking on the words he wanted to say, but didn’t dare utter aloud, not even here, in the heart of the Westerlands.

Jaime’s smile broadened, and it didn’t even feel like a lie. “If you have something to confess, Ser Gregor, then by all means, let us hear it. We can even escort you to King’s Landing, you can make a full retelling of it before the entire court.”

His face rapidly darkening with fury, Clegane took a threatening step forward. “You—”

“Yes?” Jaime prodded, eyebrows raised. “Do I need to explain myself again? I’m here to kill you, Clegane. You should take advantage of my generosity and get your armor and sword, before I get impatient and cut you down where you stand.”

Clegane’s eyes darted about, as if any of the guards, Jaime’s companions, would gainsay him. But trust a Northerner to keep their face impassive; even Jon had recovered himself, and his face was set in the hard lines that made him look like an echo of his father.

Gritting his teeth, Clegane spat out. “Fine. Let’s get this farce over with.”

As he turned to storm back into his keep, Jaime called out after him, “Don’t think of holding back, either. I’ll be fighting to kill, Clegane. You should do the same.”

Clegane paused for one moment, his back stiffening, before storming away.

Once he was out of sight, Jon hissed furiously at him, “What are you doing? Are you trying to die?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Jon,” Jaime said, as jauntily as he could. With Clegane not within sight, however, his bravado was starting to falter. “But if I do—”

“I’m not running,” Jon said, in a voice like iron.

Jaime turned to look him square in the face. “If you have ever had any love or respect for me at all,” he said, keeping his voice steady, “—then you will do as I say, and not waste your life on some foolish quest for revenge.”

Jon looked furious. “We’re here in the first place because you’re on a quest for revenge!” he shot back. “I’m not going back to Robb and telling him I ran like a coward while his soulmate was being slaughtered!” He breathed out heavily, and said next, “Not that it matters, because you are going to beat him.”

“Of course I am,” Jaime agreed, swinging his sword in his hand, rotating his wrist.

“Or,” Theon offered in a tone of forced calm as he approached, though staying well clear of Jaime’s blade, “When he comes back out, I could just shoot the big fucker in the head with my bow and arrow, and we could be done with this nonsense!”

Jon scowled, not just because he didn’t like Theon’s suggestion, but because part of him obviously wanted to agree. “That’s not honorable—”

“Fuck honor, the man’s a giant!” Theon retorted. “He’s a monster straight out of Old Nan’s tales, and you want to stand there and talk about rules? If this goes wrong, we really will be standing in front of Robb and explaining how we let him become a widower!”

As Theon continued to rant to anyone who was listening, Jon leaned in closer to Jaime and said, softly, “Don’t make me give Robb that news. You kill him, you stay alive, and then we go home.”

“Aye,” Jaime agreed, as he saw Clegane emerging once more from the darkness of the doorway, armor gleaming in the sunlight. “He dies, I live, and then we go home.”

*

In the years and decades to come, the bards will sing of the day that Jaime Lannister slew Gregor Clegane. There are always a great many references to gold in the ballads, of course, and tortured metaphors about mountains crumbling and whatnot.

The most popular ballad, originating in the Reach, portrays the entire affair as the culmination of one grand redemptive journey, where the purity of the North freed the “tarnished lion” to act according to his truer, better nature. There was an entire verse in the song comparing the clean mountain air of the North to the foul, corrupting miasma of King’s Landing, never mind that Winterfell wasn’t even in the mountains—the lyrics apparently scanned better with the inaccuracy.

Within twenty years, Jaime and Robb had become famous lovers on par with Florian and Jonquil, except according to many a young maiden, they were even better, because they were married and as such, their happy ending was assured.

Two things held true, however. First, the ballads were never performed in Casterly Rock, and only rarely in the Westerlands, so long as Tywin Lannister ruled as Warden of the West.

And secondly, the first bard to popularize the song in King’s Landing had his tongue cut out by sellswords, his lifeless body dumped in the river.

*

Of course, the actual duel was far less heroic and inspiring than any bard would write.

Jaime’s ears were ringing. Clegane had smashed his gauntleted fist into Jaime’s face, breaking his nose, and so now his face was one throbbing mass of pain, with the dripping blood no doubt making him look a fearsome sight. Then there was the aching in his ribs, at least one of them was broken— as Jaime tried to get up onto his hands and knees, he tried to take in a deep breath through his mouth and his ribcage howled in protest. Two broken ribs, then, at least.

“Jaime?” It was Jon who was kneeling next to him now in the dirt, his hand a careful weight on Jaime’s shoulder. His voice was high with worry as he said, “Jaime, we need to go.”

Through eyes streaming with tears from the pain, Jaime looked up to see several of Clegane’s men approaching, all of them armed, even as the Winterfell guards closed in around them protectively.

Teeth clenched against the rising nausea, Jaime looked to Clegane’s lifeless corpse, blood still oozing from his slit throat. That hadn’t been the death blow, but Jaime had not been willing to risk anything by that point. “The head, the hands,” he said hoarsely. “We take them with us. His household can bury the rest. Or throw it on a midden heap, fuck if I care.”

“All right,” Jon agreed. “Let’s get you up, and then I’ll take care of it, aye?”

“Aye, aye,” Jaime agreed, hissing through his teeth as he slowly moved to his feet, bracing his weight on Jon’s arm. Jon quickly transferred the keeping of Jaime to Theon, who seemed to be stunned speechless, and went to fulfill his assigned task, unsheathing his sword and making quick work of it.

The gathered crowd was silent. All of the household had come to watch, by the end. Jaime didn’t see many signs of grief, just the same speechless astonishment.

Yara had come over with the chest that she would be using to carry her grisly parcel to Dorne, and Jon quickly transferred the parts into it, his own hands coated in blood.

Jaime closed his eyes against the sight. It was done. It was done and he was alive and still standing—well, mostly standing, he was having to brace rather a lot of his weight on Theon, but it was either that or fall over.

“You all right, then?” Theon asked in a low murmur. “Will you be able to ride?”

“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Jaime replied, the blood from his broken nose slipping into his mouth, warm and metallic on his tongue.

He then promptly emptied the contents of his stomach all over Theon’s boots, which settled the question.

*

“Surely this can wait,” Jon protested in the manse.

Jaime tried his best to focus on Jon’s face. The healer that had just left had promised that the blurry vision would resolve itself (and Jaime’s early attempts at jousting in his youth bore that out) but it was damned inconvenient right now. “No, it can’t. Sooner rather than later my father will come looking for me, even if news of my arrival somehow hasn’t reached his ears by now. And Greyjoy needs to be on her way by then. Now, are you going to write this for me, or must I ask Theon to do it?”

Jon grumbled but sat down to the table, dipping his quill in the inkwell.

Jaime kept it simple, at least at first. He confirmed for Prince Doran who he was sending to their shores, and what was in the trunk for them. He’d originally meant to leave it there, but somehow his mouth kept going anyway, as he explained that during Aerys’ reign, he had not been allowed to write to his family at all, and thus had been unable to know what his father planned, when he’d sacked the city. He couldn’t actually admit that his father had given the order to murder Doran’s sister and her children, but they all knew.

“I was chasing the last of the pyromancers in the tunnels when Clegane and his men stormed the Keep,” Jaime said out loud, staring up at the ceiling. “War is a brutal business, but that…it’s no excuse for what happened to her. To the children.”

He breathed for a moment, in and out. Elia Martell’s face appeared before her, not as it was at the last, bloodied and ruined, but as it was when she was alive, the princess of Dorne and Westeros, and the future queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

“She’d have made a good queen,” Jaime said. “I don’t…I can’t say what Rhaegar would have been as king, but she would have been a good queen. Better than the Targaryens deserved. I liked her. I’ve regretted her death, and the deaths of her children, every day since. I thought…that there was nothing to be done, about what happened. I was wrong. I’m sorry it took me this long to realize it.”

He fell quiet, and then waved a hand irritably in Jon’s direction. “Leave that last part out, that’s just rambling.”

“I don’t have another piece of parchment here,” Jon pointed out.

Jaime huffed. “All right, fine. Use my seal, and get it off to Yara.”

Jon nodded, bowing his head low over the parchment as he scribbled the last line, and then Jaime felt him slipping the signet ring off Jaime’s finger to seal the letter.

Time moved oddly after that. Jon finally convinced him to drink the milk of the poppy that the healer had left behind, and in the absence of pain, Jaime was finally able to go to sleep.

He dreamed of Robb, sitting on the roots of the great weirwood tree, watching him with grave eyes. Jaime was kneeling before him, saying, pleading, “I did my best.”

Robb lifted an eyebrow as the wind whistled through the branches, stirring his dark curls. “Did you?”

“I have,” Jaime promised, reaching out to touch him. “I will. Robb—”

Someone approached him from behind and shook his shoulder, and Jaime lashed out in irritation and alarm, but the hand didn’t go away, and Jaime blinked his eyes open to realize he was in Lannisport, not the godswood at Winterfell, and he was lying down in bed, rather than kneeling before Robb and begging for forgiveness.

And it was Jon who was shaking his shoulder now, Jon’s worried face in the candlelight as he said, “Jaime, you have to wake up, the guards say your father is here—”

“Oh, hells,” Jaime groaned. The milk of the poppy was still having its effect on him, as the swoop of dismay he felt at hearing of his father’s appearance was far more muted than it would be, normally. “You’ll have to let him in.”

He made Jon help him up into a sitting position, and with not a moment to spare, because those were his father’s quick, heavy footsteps outside the door, his father’s irritated voice saying, “Step aside, young Greyjoy, or I will not be responsible for what happens next.”

And then the door opened, and there his father was. Grim-faced, mouth thin with displeasure, Tywin Lannister strode into the room as though he owned it, which since they were in the Westerlands, he basically did.

Theon was hovering in the doorway, looking worried, and his alarm visibly grew as Jaime’s father snapped out, not bothering to look back over his shoulder, “Leave us.”

Greyjoy immediately left, because say what you would about the squid, he had good self-preservation instincts. Jon, of course, didn’t, which is why he didn’t move from Jaime’s side, the reckless fool.

“With all due respect, Lord Lannister,” Jon said, “Ser Jaime has just been dosed with milk of the poppy, he may not be able to answer your questions clearly. I can certainly answer them, however, as I witnessed the entire duel.”

Jaime’s eyebrows lifted up at this, and he surveyed Jon with admiration. That was some quick thinking, and he would’ve said as much had Jon not turned to give him a stern glare, and so he subsided.

It was futile, of course, there would be no pacifying Tywin. With that bitter knowledge in mind, Jaime titled his head back and asked, as insolently as possible, “Lost any bannerman lately, Father?”

Jon stiffened, and his father’s face only grew more rigid. Had Jon not been standing there, bearing witness, Tywin would’ve struck him, Jaime knew. One of those heavy blows to the face, open-handed, because Tywin Lannister would never be so crass as to use a closed fist when disciplining his children.

But Jon was there, and his father ground his teeth before demanding, “You will explain yourself. Now.”

He’d just dictated a long, rambling letter to Doran Martell, attempting to do just that—but here he didn’t need to hunt for the right words, for an apology that was so long overdue. Only the brutal truth would do here.

“Clegane was overdue for his meeting with the Stranger,” Jaime said. “And I got tired of carrying the weight of your crimes on my back.”

His father’s eyes glittered with rage. “You dare—”

“I should have dared twenty years ago,” Jaime said over him, recklessly, and Tywin looked shocked at the interruption. “I should have denounced you all right there in the throne room, but I didn’t, and I’ve carried the shame of that ever since.”

His father was going to hit him now. Jaime knew it, even before he saw his father’s arm rising up—

And then, Jon stepped between them, and took the blow meant for Jaime, full across the face. He stumbled a little from the force of it, falling back into Jaime’s side, and Jaime’s mind went blank both from the pain of his injuries being jostled, and the white-hot shock of what had happened, at realizing that his father had hurt Jon.

“Jon,” he found himself saying, suddenly as furious as his father was, “Jon, get out of the way, let me deal with this—”

But Jon didn’t move. Instead he straightened, and said, his voice shaking only a little, “My lord, your son is unwell and recovering from his injuries. I beg you to excuse us, so that he is given a chance to rest and recover.”

His father had regained his control, and was surveying Jon closely, eyes hard.

“Yes,” his father said at last, slowly. “It’s clear that my son needs rest, which he will get plenty of. At Casterly Rock.”

Jon was quiet for a moment, and for a moment, Jaime wondered in alarm if he would try and protest—

“Of course,” Jon said finally. “We’ll all be glad of your hospitality. I’ve been curious to see my goodbrother’s childhood home.”

As warnings went, it was hardly subtle, but then it didn’t need to be. Not with half of Jon’s face bright red from the slap, and Jaime’s blood started boiling all over again, looking at it, at the thin trickle of blood at the corner of Jon’s mouth.

“You should,” he started hotly, but Jon’s boot trod on his bare foot, not hard enough to hurt, but firm. Another non-subtle warning.

Tywin didn’t speak for a while, looking at Jon with narrowed eyes as the silence stretched out horribly. “I’ll expect you and your party to be ready to leave within half an hour,” Tywin snapped out finally, turning his glare upon Jaime.

“Certainly, my lord,” Jon said deferentially, and Tywin strode out with a sweep of his golden cape, still obviously seething.

Once the door was shut behind him, Jon slumped in obvious relief. “Gods,” he said, heartfelt. “Thankfully we already know Yara’s ship left the harbor, I’d hate to see what your father would do to her.”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Jaime told him, frowning up at Jon as Jon reached out to grab Jaime’s tunic and help pull it over his head.

Jon looked at him incredulously. “What, was I supposed to let him hit you? As injured as you are? No, don’t answer that, you’ll say something idiotic. Again.”

“It was the truth,” Jaime said, his voice only a little muffled by the tunic.

“Yes, and your father clearly doesn’t care to hear it!” Jon retorted, but he was starting to shake a little.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime said, looking at where Tywin’s blow had done the most damage. “He’s a brute, you didn’t deserve—”

“Neither do you,” Jon said, looking stricken. “Jaime…” But whatever he would have said, Jon didn’t, just letting out a huff of breath as he shook his head.

There wasn’t much talking after that. Jon quickly hustled Jaime into looking somewhat presentable, and Jaime was hustled out of the manse and into the waiting wheelhouse, as ornate and gaudy as anything else Lannister-owned. Perhaps it was his year in the North that had him looking at it with fresh eyes, the same fresh eyes that had led him to travel to the Westerlands to kill his father’s favorite monster, all in the futile hope of…

Jaime turned away from his father’s coldly infuriated face, and looked out the window instead, the glass fogging from his breath, blurring his view.

And somewhere buried deep in his brain, something flickered, like an ember that hadn’t quite blown out—but then his temples throbbed again with pain, and whatever was there was lost, as if it had never been there at all.