Hello! Thank you so so so much for reading, following, favourite-ing and reviewing! A huge hello to anyone who has recently joined-please stay with us! Much love!
Unfortunately, I must again apologise for falling well below par-this is half the chapter I wanted to post, and so late in the day that it is practically tomorrow already. I hope that you still enjoy! I will post a longer, better chapter with a bit more action tomorrow at a more usual time so I can get back into one regular chapter a day again! I am so sorry-it was a hell of a day, but hopefully life will be more normal again now and I can post properly for you guys again :)
More tomorrow, thank you! Much love xxx
Joffrey was there. He was right in front of her.
Her feet touching nothing, Cersei hurried forward to her son…but no matter how fast she ran, he was never any nearer. She ran on, like a cheetah, finding that her feet never seemed to hit the floor, as if she was flying. But still, Joffrey was never quite in her reach, his face so distant it was blurred. Still-she could not stop running. It was hopeless, it was hopeless…Joffrey was dead…he was dead…but she could not stop. Even as the flames licked around her ankles, she could not stop, even as the fire scorched her, she ran on, even as she smelled her own flesh burning…
Cersei woke, her entire body soaked in cold sweat. She found she was breathing hard, as if she had truly been running. She kicked the covers off of her, finding that she had wound herself into them far too tightly. The sun was streaming in through a gap in her scarlet curtains, the dream fading faster and faster until she could hardly remember it. Or told herself she couldn't...Desperate for distraction, she looked across to the empty pillow beside her…the last time she should wake up to an empty pillow, she thought. It was easy to imagine Jaime's golden head beside hers again, still asleep, more handsome than ever in the early light…and he would open his beautiful green eyes and smile straight at her once more…
The queen rose, pulling her red robe around her, splashing her face with water. She shook her head to get rid of the last traces of her dream, before bracing herself for the day ahead. By the time the sun set tonight…Jaime would be back beside her, waking next to her, in his rightful place. Everything in the world would fall back into it's rightful place.
Whatever it took.
Jaime had sat awake since the early hours, knelt beside the boarded-over window, staring at the note in his hands. He turned it over and over in his hands, unable to fathom what on earth it could imply. He could not work out whose hand had written the words. A memory had stirred when he had read them…the messenger at Riverrun…She says she, er, has your sword…
Jaime crumpled the paper up in his fist.
But they were just words. They were not in her hand. That was impossible anyway…he wondered whether it was a threat. He knew how many enemies he had, his house had-even his old allies in the North were bound to think him traitorous now. Especially since Cersei was making no attempt to hide her intentions with him from the public eye. He was sure anyone who had ever hated the Lannisters now loathed them tenfold, the crown on Cersei's head and the burned sept making her untouchable. Rebellion was surely in the air…then again, the threat of Wildfire was enough to keep any sane man far away.
So perhaps this note was the best his anonymous enemy could do. If it was a death threat, he found he did not care. He already felt he was living on borrowed time, at complete peace with the idea of the sweet embrace of death when it finally came to him. But the words…they were torture. Jaime pictured Brienne's face, which never left his thoughts, her astonishing eyes, his own scarlet cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. His heart ached unbearably. They were her words. Jaime felt as if someone had stolen them from her mouth, as her life had been taken from her, as everything had been taken from them. How anyone could use words from his dead wife's lips to torment him was inhuman. Jaime felt as though he had been stabbed through the heart.
Then again, the longer he stayed with Cersei, the more he believed that, even from the very depths of rock bottom, as long as you lived, life could always get worse.
A knock.
"Ser Jaime?" A guard had entered. "Her Majesty requests your company."
Jaime half-raised his head, the ghost of a sardonic smile on his face. "Only requests? Does this mean I have the freedom to decline?"
The guard did not look sure whether to laugh, or shout at Jaime for his disrespect. Instead-he coughed. "As quickly as you can."
...
Cersei's arm was locked firmly into Jaime's, wound like a leash on a dog. Her hands were as cold and comfortless as the chains, feeling as if they were cutting into his skin, rubbing it raw. Behind them, he was vaguely aware of the Mountain, his heavy footsteps on the stone as he guarded his queen. As was natural now, Jaime numbed himself to everything to get him through the day, to carry on, to have the woman who was no longer his sister, who had ordered his wife and child's deaths, clutching his arm like a vice. It was a kind of mental armour.
"I trust you have given my words some thought?" Cersei sounded as if she was addressing a small council-but her eyes were sharp.
Jaime looked directly at the ground. He felt physically sick as he remembered what Ceresi had said the previous day. The thought of it…he would kill himself before he would do it…especially since the note. I have your sword…remembering how it felt to hold Brienne, to lie with her, to love her in every way possible…he realised, with a pang, that they had never had their wedding night together. It seemed so stupid and insignificant, compared to everything that had happened…but it was one more thing they should have shared, one more thing that had been taken from them. I have your sword…
"Jaime?" Cersei's prompt was unsettlingly gentle-and dangerous.
What could he do but give a reluctant nod to show that he had understood. There was nothing else he could have-
Suddenly-Cersei stopped dead. The next thing Jaime knew-she had taken his face in his hands, leaned up and kissed him full on the lips. Jaime felt like a rock being violently smashed into by a rough sea, her hands cold, her lips loveless, biting, the seventh hell…
When it was finally over-Cersei turned them both to face the walls of the battlements, overlooking Kings Landing from the ruined the Sept to Blackwater Bay. She held his solid new golden false hand in hers, her other clutching the stone wall as she looked out. "The entire realm is ours, brother. Every man, woman child, every lord and peasant, every castle and farm, every last piece of shit on the ground." She took a deep breath. "It will be ours forever…ours, our children's, their children's…House Lannister finally in its rightful place. And we in ours…I on the throne…and you by my side…"
Jaime hardly listened. It was as if poison was being poured into his ear…But he looked over the wall.
It was such a long way to fall. No wonder Tommen had been smashed to pieces…it would kill a man instantly…
Jaime placed his own true hand on the wall, trying to decide wildly if it might be possible to climb over and jump before Cersei or the Mountain could stop him. He looked down, directly onto the distant cobbles far below…it would take only seconds to fall…he would land on the street, amongst the common people living their lives below, and then there would finally be nothing-
But something else below had caught his eye.
There was a man standing directly below him. Jaime only noticed, because he was exceptionally tall-exceptionally tall. Jaime squinted, looking closer. The man was dressed in a long, simple brown cloak, which cast his face into shadow…but he was looking straight back up at Jaime.
He frowned. Careful not to disturb Cersei, who still looked blissfully out on her world, he looked closer, narrowing his eyes to try to focus them. There was something awfully familiar about this man…it was so bizarre. From the stare that was exchanged between Jaime and the shadowed face, he was sure that this man was no stranger…
Suddenly-the tall man lifted his hood from his face. Beneath it…short grey hair, grey beard, the lined face of a man of six-and-fifty years…even from this height, Jaime could tell that his piercing eyes were as blue as the sapphire sea…
Selwyn.
