The raven informing her of his death comes at dawn. It isn't a surprise; she has been expecting that solemn flap of wing from almost the second she woke to find her bed empty of him. Brienne reads the words handed to her by Podrick in silence, but she does not cry, does not even flinch, just nods stiffly and walks away, her mouth a grim line. Later, when she looks at herself in the glass, dead eyes stare back at her. She feels utterly drained, as though her flesh has been sucked out from beneath her skin, leaving it tight and dry as crepe paper, her bones the finest glass. Touch her and she will crumble and turn to dust, just empty armour clattering to the ground. Only her heart remains full, turgid with loss, pushing hard against her hollowed-out ribs.
In her chamber that night, she allows the tears to fall, gives in to a pain so deep it is physical, something searing in her muscles and her skin. She feels fury too, but her anger melts to nothing in the face of her blazing grief. Grief for what has been lost, and for what could have been. At a life cut short, and for what? He had told her once that we do not get to choose who we love, and she could almost laugh now at how bitter a truth that is.
She wishes she could hate him, wishes there was scorn in place of this phantom, hopeless longing, but all she can see is his face in the firelight, all she can remember is his touch and his mouth, that easy intimacy and those fevered, whispered devotions. The feeling of waking up each morning with his lips on her shoulder blades. All she can think of is that he was hers for the briefest, purest moment. That she wasn't mistaken, cannot be mistaken, not after all of it. All those years he proved himself to her; those years of sacrifice and roaring bears, shrouded truths revealed, and oaths fulfilled again, and again.
For her, he had remembered what honour meant and could be. For him, she had learned to accept the shades of grey in his world. For her he had offered his life, more than once. For him, she had peeled back the curtain usually drawn so tight across that hidden place inside of her, turned over and showed him the soft underside of her soul, laid it bare and put herself at his mercy. And he had gutted her, yes, but he had loved her whole again before he did.
She thinks now that this kind of love is done for her. That she has known it once- in a secret, golden month that seemed to stand outside of time- something so sweet it made her ache, but never will again. She cannot bring herself to regret it, either, not as she watches the spectre of him cross the room, his face soft with easy, uncomplicated desire and affection, at peace for the briefest moment in a life that seemingly never really belonged to him at all.
He wasn't strong enough, in the end, to escape those bloody, poisoned roots that bound him fast and dragged him back into the soil. Those roots were planted long before she knew him, maybe long before he even knew what choice was, before he had even drawn his first breath. He had seemed so happy to be free of them for a time, to let the warmth of her love keep them at bay, but they tangled in him deeper than she could ever reach.
She is not weak like him, she understands that now, even with her chest heaving and face wet. She will not allow those roots to spread and drag her under too. She is a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and she will remember that as his final gift to her. She made her oath to Catelyn Stark here in the North, all those years ago, and she will not break it. She will protect her Lady Sansa, no matter how dark the days ahead are. She will live and she will serve and she will fight, and maybe there will be victory yet. Maybe there will be summer days still to come. Maybe one day, when there are no more battles to be fought, she will return to Tarth and see her father again, put her bare feet in the sapphire waters and feel the sun warm her tired bones. He will ask her of her journey, and she will tell him that it has been long, and full of pain, but of joy too; and of love, somehow fleeting and forever all at once. She will tell him tales that make him flush with pride at what she has done, what she has endured and fought for and won.
Brienne presses the hilt of Oathkeeper to her breast, lets his lion roar into her skin. It's yours. It will always be yours. She will gather the ghost of Jaime, those secrets that she, and only she, knows of him and fold them deep into her heart, where she will keep them safe until she is old and grey. They will still call him the Kingslayer, a man without honour, a fool whose pages are blank of good deeds and whose life was all in vain. And she will know that there is more to his story than that. It isn't much, but she will know.