Swallowing, she looked back to the weapon on the table and reached down to pull the sword from the larger scabbard, its gilded hilt somehow still warm.

She had seen Valaryan steel before, but there had always been a plate of glass between herself and the weapon while she stared at them longingly in the museums she'd traveled to around the world. Their power called to her, like recognizing like, and she felt that if she could just hold one, it would feel like an extension of her body, her years of training merging instantly and seamlessly with her inborn skill and raw talent to truly make her the Evenstar foretold.

Taking one finger she slid it along the flat of the blade, feeling the magic simmering underneath, familiar in its tenor and startling in its strength. The rippled crimson veins in the dark blade seemed to glow as she twisted it in her hand to catch the light.

Beautiful. Perfect. And he brought it for you.

"Will it do?"

She whirled around, mindful of the blade, to see Jaime in a haze of steam that curled around the open doorframe. He wore naught but a towel, slung almost indecently low upon his hips, while a few stray drops of water fell from his damp curls to roll down the well-muscled planes of his body.

When the blade slipped from her hold, Brienne tightened her grip and turned away to return it to the scabbard, her cheeks burning.

"Yes," she said, clearing her throat and wincing at the sound. "Of course, it will. Both of them, they're magnificent."

"And the... magic... we need to fight those things... is it in the blades?" Jaime stumbled over the words as if uncertain.

She nodded and turned back to face him. Though some of the odd blankness still remained, he was looking at her now with a piercing sort of curiosity.

"What?" she asked warily when he just continued to stare at her.

Jaime shrugged and turned to walk toward her bedroom.

"Where are you going?" she asked with alarm, her voice edging close to the hysteria that threatened to bubble up within her.

"I need clothes then I need sleep." He glanced over his shoulder but didn't slow his stride. "I'm closer to your size than your father's."

The nonchalance at which he spoke irked her as she followed after him.

Of course, he is unaffected. Why wouldn't he be?

It was strange to see this half-naked man prowling around her bedroom and even more surreal to follow after him, a mummer's farce of the intimacy shared among lovers. The thought set her face burning anew but she was jarred from her stupor when Jaime reached for the drawer that contained her underthings. Lunging forward, she slammed it shut and glared at his raised brow and knowing smirk.

"Relax. I've seen your delicates already, Grace. Blue is not really my color. I'm looking for sweats." His grin widened. "Though I'll settle for yoga pants if you have them."

She did, in fact, have some but would sooner die than have Jaime Lannister parading around her bedroom shirtless and in skin-tight athletic wear. That particular image had her diving into the bottom drawer and shoving her nicest gray sweats into his arms.

He stared at her expectantly and then, with a shrug, reached for the towel at his waist. Brienne spun away just as it started to fall.

"For Gods' sake, Jaime!" she hissed which only invited a mirthful chuckle.

"I'm decent now, Grace," he said once the rustling of cloth ceased.

"That's debatable," she grumbled, disconcerted to see he had decided to forego the shirt she'd offered him, but her discomfort washed away when she saw the trickle of blood running from his elbow down to his wrist.

"Your arm. I forgot..."

"Hmm? Oh," he murmured, following her gaze. "Yes, I'd rather hoped you'd help me with that. Awkward angle to bandage singlehandedly and all."

You absurd, stupid little girl, she berated herself as she retrieved the medical kit. Distracted by something as mundane as a shirtless man... he does look like half a god, though.

He was seated on the right side of her bed when she returned, his back against her headboard and long legs stretched out over her mussed-up sheets. Brienne forced herself not to stumble at the sight though it filled her with that same jittery feeling that had seized her in the library over a year ago. It was difficult to look at him as she climbed onto the mattress, and so instead she stared at his injured arm though she could feel him practically daring her to look up.

He said before that he wanted you to look at him, she thought though she quickly amended. To see Blue. It was only because he missed the color. Just get this done.

Willing her hands not to shake, she gently pressed her fingers to the flesh around the wound and he hissed a sharp inhalation.

"Sorry."

"You didn't hurt me," he laughed, sounding almost breathless.

The coolness of his skin receded from her touch, its already golden hue turning subtly warmer, and she wondered what he made of this connection between them.

Was he repulsed? Intrigued? He knew the Evenstar Prophecy almost as well as she did. Did he wonder if he played a role to come or just consider his involvement as improbable as she did?

He shifted in her peripheral vision and reached out with his free hand, trapping a lock of her hair that had fallen forward between his fingers and wrapped it around one.

"Yellow," he murmured, sounding delighted with his finding. The back of his knuckles grazed against her cheek as they fell away.

His touch, as always, bewildered her. Outside of her family, no one had ever been so casual and unbothered with her and as she grew, even her father withdrew his demonstrative affection, instead replacing it with gruff squeezes of her shoulder and the occasional brief embrace. But Jaime touched her like it was natural, like such interactions were hardly noteworthy, and she like any other girl in the flush of young adulthood. It made her both dread and long for when he would do it again.

Impossible. It is not. It cannot-

"How old were you when they started to fade?" she interrupted her own thoughts and gave her full attention to administering the adhesive strips to bind his wound.

Jaime hummed. "Fourteen...fifteen maybe?"

"And how old are you now?"

"Rude."

She rolled her eyes and scowled, only eliciting another grin.

"Thirty-four."

Her fingers stuttered where they were smoothing out the last strip.

"What? What is it?" he asked, all teasing gone from his tone.

She bit her lip, thinking of how to word her response without sounding presumptuous but there seemed to be no way around it.

"That was nearly twenty years ago. And I... I am nineteen."

He was silent and she dared not look up as she continued to bandage his arm.

"You think," he started slowly, "that I lost the colors because of you?"

"It could be a coincidence but Melisandre started having visions the day I was born, the same day the glass candles started to burn. A ripple of magic went over the lands the day my Mother brought me forth. So like I said, coincidence..."

"But you don't think so," he finished for her.

Please don't ask me why again, please, she chanted silently to herself when she could practically hear the question forming on his lips. He surprised her by remaining silent, instead choosing to study her in that searching way again.

"How then?" he asked after a long, low sigh.

She shrugged. "Do you remember where you were when you first noticed? The day? Anything? Details matter."

His head dropped back against her headboard and his eyes scrunched up as he sorted through his memories.

"Harrenhal," he said with some disgust though his furrowed brow relaxed. "As his heir, I was allowed to attend a High Function with my Father. Normally I wouldn't have wished to go but I had not seen anyone outside of the Rock in months. It was a gorgeous day and that castle was as hideous as it was massive so I snuck off, intending to return by sundown. But I got lost in the wood and had to bed down in a clearing with my back against a stump to keep my bearings in the pitch-black night." His eyes opened and he looked sidelong at her. "Despite my efforts to keep watch, I fell asleep, and when I woke, the sky had never looked the same again."

"The Godswood at Harenhal was desecrated by the Boltons in Year Three-Oh-Eight. They cut down the Weirwood tree," she whispered, her eyes snapping to his. "Do you recall the season? The month?"

His eyes closed again as he tried to remember. "There were wildflowers but the night was cold. Spring sometime...Rethe of Nine-Eighty, if I had to guess."

"You guess or you know?" she asked, heart pounding.

His gaze narrowed. "It's an informed estimate. Any earlier or any further North and there would have been snow on the ground. Any later in the year and the night wouldn't have been so miserable."

She worried her lip and looked down to where she was twisting her fingers in her own grip. "My name day is the twentieth of Rethe in the year Nine-Eighty, born just after the stroke of midnight... That explains it then."

"How does that explain anything?"

Our connection. It was bad luck rather than divine writ, she thought, ignoring the knot that lodged behind her breastbone and was proud that it didn't show in her voice. "The Weirwood Trees were the link between the Gods and Men before the Veil. The Great Other has pressed his power against the barrier relentlessly since its formation, testing it so that he knew when to start his assault. And you were unfortunate enough to fall asleep in a defiled Godswood on the night magic went out across Westeros, likely re-establishing the link between the Weirwoods and the Gods, however brief. Ready and waiting, that was all it took for him to mark you. It might even have been completely unintentional."

He raised a skeptical brow. "I have never once, ever in my life, been hurt for anything other than intensely personal reasons. Hell of a time for that pattern to break. You genuinely believe my color blindness is just an extreme case of 'wrong place, wrong time'?"

"It's not unreasonable. It explains how it happened, why you, why then, and why my presence banishes its effects for a time. Do you have another theory?"

His handsome face frowned at her until his shoulders slumped and he pressed a thumb and forefinger to his temples before dropping the hand heavily onto the bed.

"As you say," he responded in a flat tone and shifted to settle down further into the pillows. "I'm too tired to think more on it right now regardless."

"So... you're really staying? Here? Right now?"

"Always trying to get rid of me. Can you truly not stand my company?" he groused, eyes closing and words were distorted by a jaw-cracking yawn. "I have been awake for over twenty-four hours. I'll go if you wish it, but I'd prefer to sleep before I attempt to drive again."

The circles under his eyes were more pronounced now that his face had relaxed against her pillow and his jaw was shaded with his morning growth of facial hair.

Your arrival was likely the catalyst that cost him his vision and that man put himself at great risk to save your life, and then drove through the night to bring you back a Valyrian steel blade. The least you could do is show a little gratitude.

"No. No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean... Sleep. Of course, you can."

She moved to rise from her side of the bed when he reached out and grabbed her trailing sleeve. His eyes were averted, his gaze on the fabric between his fingers at her wrist.

"I know you are the Evenstar and I know that you are the best person, if not the only one, who can protect the realm... but you shouldn't go alone. Yesterday proved that."

"Jaime-"

"I'm not sure you appreciate how close we came to losing you." His voice had taken on the hard edge she hadn't heard since their dealings with the Direwolf and he tugged on her sleeve for emphasis. "You weren't moving. You were barely breathing."

"I know, Jaime," she said softly and slid lower down the headboard so their faces were level. "And I am grateful, more than I can say. But this is too much to ask of another."

"Helping is honorable, Brienne." His green eyes flashed. "And need I remind you that this is our World too. We have a right to defend it and not be kept to the side waiting for our fate to play out."

That, she found she couldn't disagree with. She rolled to her back and stared up at the flat white paint of her ceiling. Though it went against her instincts to draw others into the mess that was her life, he was right.

"Fine," she sighed wearily and could feel his grin though she didn't bother to turn to look at him.

"Excellent choice that, accepting the wisdom of those older and more worldly than yourself."

She just restrained herself from pulling the pillow from under his cheek and smacking him with it.

"There are other beds in this house," she settled on as a reply instead.

"You hiding a guest room somewhere I didn't see?" His voice was thick with fatigue as he burrowed his face deeper into her pillow. "Besides, this one suits me fine."

"My father has a room," she countered, hiding her own yawn behind her hand.

His brows shot up though he didn't bother to open his eyes. "I'm not sleeping in your father's bed. Or on that thing you call a sofa."

They laid in silence so long Brienne had thought Jaime had fallen asleep when he spoke.

"I am grateful I got to see colors again, even if it may only ever be temporary. But I don't regret losing them anymore. It was the only reason I was able to reach you. Just so you know."

Seconds later his breaths evened and his mouth started to slack against her pillowcase.

Bienne's own lids felt impossibly heavy.

Just a moment to rest my eyes. Then I'll get up. I need... just... a... moment...