The Worth of Ash
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Game of Thrones or any related titles, characters, plots, settings, etc. These rights are the sole property of George R.R Martin, HBO, and their various publishers and distributors. I own only the original elements of this story, the writing and publishing of which earn me no money.
Mini Note - This chapter covers the beginning of Season Four until roughly halfway through, including the Purple Wedding. Lots of time skips here!
Chapter Twenty-Six
"You may find this to be rather uncomfortable at first," Qyburn warned. "In order for the artificial limb to cling to your remaining arm with no place for purchase, it must be tight. Alert me straightaway if you experience any numbness or chill in the end of the stump-"
"He shall survive, Qyburn," Cersei dismissed coldly, continuing in pacing the floor of her chambers. She had glanced at Jaime only once since he entered the room, instead choosing to focus her gaze on the ex-Maester, her ever-emptying goblet of wine, the floor… Anywhere but her twin, perched stiffly on a chair set before the window.
Qyburn made no further comment after the Queen's reprimand, instead approaching Jaime with the golden hand already in position to slide onto his stump. Jaime obliged the silent request, extending his cloth-covered right arm and Qyburn began to push the artificial appendage into place. Jaime tensed as stress was put on the thin skin at the end of his amputated limb. The pressure increased until he grunted, fearing the bone would pierce straight through the scar tissue, but Qyburn stopped just before Jaime would have spoken to order it. Instead, he moved to wrap the attached leather ties around Jaime's forearm, tying them into place with several jerks and tugs to be certain the limb would not shift. As Jaime attempted to suffer through the discomfort without protest, Qyburn murmured praises of the hand, speaking of its well-formed beauty.
Bitterly, Jaime snapped out, "If you like it so much, you are welcome to chop off your own hand and take it."
"Do not be such an ingrate," Cersei chastised. "I spent days with the goldsmith getting the details just right."
Jaime lifted a brow at that. Cersei did not spend days doing anything, especially when the service in question was on behalf of another person, even her twin. "Days," he repeated dryly.
"Better part of an afternoon," she conceded, meeting his gaze for the second time that day. Fleeting as the eye contact was, Jaime still felt a surge of affection for his sister. How was she to be faulted for thinking so little of others when she was perfection itself?
Still, he nodded at the confirmation of his suspicions and refocused his attention on the new hand at the end of his arm. The fingers were molded together, no space between them to allow for him to hook items onto the digits. They were bent in a half-cupped position, not enough to allow him to lift anything onto it - not that he was certain his stump could bear the weight of anything worth lifting.
"A hook would be more practical," he said sourly.
"Elegant, I think," Cersei responded, though whether she was speaking of the new hand or Jaime's idea, he could not be certain.
Before Jaime could loose another scathing comment, Qyburn wrenched the hand another few degrees, forcing a half-stifled grunt from him. The knight glared at the older man, suspicious that he had done it purposefully in order to see Jaime's discomfort. Qyburn took no notice, choosing instead to speak with Cersei.
As he allowed his attention to shift from their conversation, Jaime studied the hand. He had not lied, it was impractical. More importantly, it represented a sort of finality. Something deep in his mind, far from any sense of logic, had been certain that he would return home and find himself suddenly whole - physically and otherwise. Instead, he remained the same broken man and had the additional comfort of his imagined homecoming stripped from him. Tywin wished for him to resign from the Kingsguard, Cersei refused his touch, Joffrey open mocked his new handicap. The golden hand could feed a village for a full season, but Jaime would have gladly traded a hundred of them if it meant he could have his flesh-and-blood appendage returned to him.
Jaime returned to the present in time to hear Qyburn asking about Cersei's condition. Condition? Cersei surely would have told him if something of import had happened while he was away, would she not? Regardless of the fact that she had not spoken to him for the better part of the time since his return to King's Landing…
Before he retired from the chamber, Qyburn turned expectantly toward Jaime, who only gave a stilted wave with the odd new hand. The flash of irritation that crossed Cersei's face at the gesture made him revise his opinion with impish glee; perhaps the golden hand would not be as great an impediment as he had assumed.
Jaime watched Qyburn leave the chamber, as did Cersei. When the non-Maester had left, Jaime commented, "Odd little man."
"I've grown rather fond of him," Cersei refuted. "He's quite talented, you know."
The arch of a golden brow and a glitter in her emerald eyes rose Jaime's hackles. First, she neglected to tell him of a condition of enough import to consult a medicine man, and now she saw fit to imply that he was worth more than Jaime's estimation? It was likely that she was attempting to make him envious, but Jaime could not prevent himself from grinding out, "What symptoms?"
His ire soared as Cersei gave an unconcerned chuckle and poured herself another goblet of wine. "Symptoms that are not your concern."
"You let him touch you?" Jaime asked, striving to keep his tone even.
"Are you jealous?"
"I'm surprised," he avoided. "You never let Paecelle near you."
She laughed again, mirthlessly. "Do you think I would ever let that old letch put his hands on me? He smells like a dead cat."
"I don't think I've ever smelled a dead cat."
"They smell like Paecelle."
Abruptly, Jaime tired of their usual banter. "You drink more than you used to."
"Yes," she replied simply.
"Why?"
Despite his intimate knowledge of his twin's temper - naturally mirroring his own - Jaime was unprepared for the tirade she hurled at him. He was left to blink and toss out responses as she blamed everything from Jaime's street brawl with Ned Stark to the siege on King's Landing, ending with her impending marriage as she gave a sarcastic salute with the sloshing goblet of wine.
Settling beside her on the large bed in the middle of the room, Jaime offered, "Father disowned me today."
"He can't disown you; you're all he's got," Cersei dismissed.
"You're forgetting Tyrion," he reminded.
Cersei gave a noise perilously close to a grunt before shifting into discomfort. "You… don't really plan on staying in the Kingsguard, do you?"
A lick of anger touched his belly at the question, but it disappeared when Cersei turned fully, at last fixing him with a direct look at her face. Her features were perfectly symmetrical, the hue of her wide emerald eyes bewitching at this distance, skin smooth as alabaster, lips lush and reddened with a dab of wine she had yet to lick away… She was enchanting, and Jaime fell under her spell as he always did, his anger coursing from him as wine from a broken skin.
He wrapped his large hand around her smaller one, cradling the goblet she still held, and he murmured his answer. "Staying in the Kingsguard means I live right here, in the Red Keep, with you."
Jaime eased forward, attempting to press a kiss to the sensitive hollow above her ear, but she pulled away. "Not now."
A question was tugged from Jaime's lips at her sudden departure - what it was, he was uncertain - but he turned to glare balefully at his twin. "Not now? When? I've been back for weeks."
Though he watched her raptly, Cersei seemed to have returned to avoiding his gaze and his passion cooled. She had never avoided him before his departure from King's Landing. That was one of their rules: they never said no to each other. Growing up with Tywin Lannister, the word 'no' was tossed around so readily that it had all but lost its meaning. The two had sworn that they would never use the word and never had… until Jaime's return.
Feeling as though he had just been hit in the stomach, Jaime said, "Something's changed."
"Everything's changed!" she burst out. "You come back after all this time with no apologies and one hand and expect everything to be the same!"
"What do you want me to apologize for?" Jaime asked, terribly aware of the throbbing stump of his right hand.
"For leaving me."
"You think I wanted to be taken prisoner?"
"I don't know what you wanted. You weren't here. You left me. Alone."
Stunned, Jaime sat for a long moment. All he had suffered, all he had endured, was to help him return to King's Landing and his twin. And now… It was not enough. How could it not be enough? It was all he had. "Every day I was a prisoner, I plotted my escape. Every day. I murdered people so I could be here with you!"
"You took too long."
"I-" Jaime cut himself off. For the first time, icy fear flashed through him, numbing his extremities and fuzzing his mind. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you took too long," she replied, voice taut.
Before Jaime could begin to formulate another reply - lost for words as he was, it would have required quite a bit of time - a knock sounded on the door. "Go away," he commanded immediately.
"Come in," Cersei ordered only a moment after he had begun to speak and the door eased open.
Of course the servants had obeyed her, she was the queen. It was all she had ever wanted. More than Jaime, more than a family, more than anything, Cersei had always wanted to be the queen.
Jaime left her chambers, silently seething as that thought bounced around the inside of his skull until it felt as though his very bones would shatter from its force. Lest he sink into melancholy, he moved for Tyrion's chambers. His brother always had a unique perspective on every matter.
"All right, we're done for the day."
Rather than listen to the burr of Bronn's accent as he had been fool enough to do when the man had made the same announcement in their first training - a full hour before it had ended - Jaime kept his grip on the practice blade and fixed Bronn with a gimlet stare.
The sellsword gave a laugh that rang against the sheer rock of the cliff face beside their fighting arena. "So you do learn. That's disappointing."
He pushed forward to attack Jaime once more. Relying on his slower left hand, Jaime batted away Bronn's attacks as best he could, but it was a scant thing. There was simply no opportunity for anything other than defense. Of course, he was able to ward off the man now where two lessons before, he had been thoroughly bruised from the dull edge of the practice blade.
In his most private thoughts, unacknowledged to even himself, Jaime knew his fervent practices with Bronn were an attempt to regain his skills in order to regain Cersei. Even when he had scarcely been able to stand upright after their first day of training, Jaime had insisted on have a lesson every day.
Bronn began to talk. Jaime was only surprised that he had managed to restrain himself as long as he had. It was one of Bronn's most favored techniques, to speak as rudely and bawdily as possible in order to throw off his opponent. A distracted swordsman was a poor swordsman and all of that.
"Your son is a cunt."
Ah, so that was his chosen topic for this instance. Jaime set his jaw in resignation and feigned the same bored tone he took with everyone who confronted him with the truth of his children's parentage. "Apparently, you need a lesson in familial relations. The correct term is 'nephew', not 'son'."
"I suppose, if anyone is qualified to lecture about family relations, it is you," Bronn taunted. Jaime smirked at the hit, but did not allow himself to become distracted. After a well-executed parry on Jaime's part, Bronn added, "Interesting that you wouldn't defend him against being called a cunt, despite what relation you claim."
Jaime gritted his teeth, forcibly reminded of the meeting between the officers of wedding security and King Joffrey. His son - even if he were unclaimed - had named him an aged knight with one hand and no great deeds. It was the first time he had ever actually hated the boy, despite the flaws in character that had developed even before Joff had taken his first steps.
Between dodging the dulled edge of Bronn's practice blade, Jaime managed a shrug. "Truth is truth."
Bronn barked out a laugh. "Not excited by the impending nuptials, then? A bride means there will be little golden-haired kinglets running all over the place."
"Perish the thought," Jaime grunted out, attempting to block the other man's attack though he could feel that his strength was fading.
With a flick of Bronn's wrist, Jaime was disarmed and at the mercy of the sellsword. "I believe that is enough for one day."
Still attempting to catch his breath, Jaime nodded. All that time in Robb Stark's camp had left his body wasted and his strength far removed from where it had been previously. "Will we meet again tomorrow?"
Bronn surveyed him casually, dark gaze flicking from Jaime's trembling limbs to his sweat-soaked hair. "You aren't doing yourself any favors by pushing this hard."
Jaime smirked to hide his frustrations. "Perhaps you worry that I will best you sooner than you planned and you will have to forfeit your regular installments of gold."
Playing along, Bronn shook his head and grinned. "I haven't been bested since you started making little girls swoon, pretty boy."
"Is that so? How did you get that nasty scar, then?" Jaime asked, gesturing toward an angry red line running the length of Bronn's exposed bicep. "It looks more fresh than my wooing abilities."
Bronn snorted. "I have your brother to thank for that one."
Jaime laughed in disbelief. "You expect me to believe that Tyrion stabbed you? Not likely."
"You're right about that. It was from some girl he had me fetch."
"Tyrion?" Jaime asked, incredulous. That was one of Tyrion's most important stances; he would never force an unwilling female to be with him. Not in any sense. "That does not sound like him."
"Are you always so involved in who your brother is fucking?"
"Only when I believe I'm being lied to by a sellsword," Jaime returned.
Bronn heaved a sigh. "Look, I've been sworn to secrecy and that's all I can say about it."
"You might be sworn to secrecy, but I can hazard a guess or two," Jaime said thoughtfully. "It was in fact a female, one my brother wished to meet with. She must be a fierce thing, if she was brave enough to stab a sellsword. And she must be important if he did not allow you to take revenge for the wound." He turned these facts over in his mind and could come to only one conclusion: "Kyren Asheworth."
With a dry chuckle, Bronn shook his head. "Gonna have to end this conversation, Kingslayer. I need to go beat the piss out of everyone who told me that your brains are lacking."
"So, I am correct? Kyren was here?" Bronn did not answer, but it was of no consequence. "Judging from that wound, perhaps she is not in King's Landing still, but she was. She had to have found some place to stay while here. Answer me one thing, Bronn: where did you find her?"
Bronn shot a glare at him from where he was packing up the practice blades. "You ever heard of a place called Dyser's? In Flea Bottom? Nice place, hard to find."
Jaime watched him for a long moment and realized that this was all Bronn intended to say. He turned to leave their practice area, adding over his shoulder, "Do not bother coming for tomorrow's lesson, Bronn. I believe it's time we took a day to rest."
Early the next morning - for even a Lannister thought it unwise to risk being caught in Flea Bottom after dark, especially missing his sword hand - Jaime left the Red Keep in favor of wandering the streets. Occasionally, he would glance around the shabby streets and mutter to himself, "Dyser's…"
Eventually, he asked one of the men minding a stall at a small market where he could find the place, carefully keeping the space which should have been occupied by his right hand out of view. Following the dodgy directions, he arrived at a tavern. Being before noon, it was largely deserted, but the door bore a series of scuff marks and dings, as did the walls and the small sign affixed to the stone exterior. It was most definitely a well-attended tavern.
With a press on the pockmarked door, Jaime entered the tavern. It was, as he had expected, empty. Long, rough-hewn benches were tucked neatly beneath battle scarred wooden tables. Every surface within sight was thoroughly used and scratched but relentlessly clean. The cause of the neatness seemed to be apparent: a woman was scrubbing at a dark stain on the rear wall of the room.
Jaime approached slowly, silently until he could see that the stain appeared to be blood and could hear that the woman was hissing vile curses under her breath. One corner of his wide mouth quirked upward. It appeared that more than the furniture in this place was rough. Entertaining as he found the woman to be, Jaime still would prefer to ask his questions and return to the Red Keep as soon as was practical.
"I hope I am not interrupting your efforts," he said softly.
The woman straightened abruptly, turning with the blood-streaked cloth pressed to her chest. When she saw Jaime, standing back with his least threatening smile, she grew pale and her hazel eyes widened. She attempted a curtsey, but it resulted in such a stagger than Jaime reached to steady her.
"Are- You are Jaime Lannister, are you not? Ser Jaime Lannister?" she croaked out.
"Yes, I am," Jaime admitted freely, adding with his most dashing smile, "Pray do not hold it against me."
"Shana Dyser. But why have you come here?" the woman asked. Jaime was slightly put out to see that she was not knocked off-balance with his flirtation. Rather, her nerves seemed to settle and she faced him with steadily calming determination and a hint of wariness.
"I have come in search of…" Jaime paused for a brief moment, wondering about the wisdom of widely announcing his intentions. Instead, his mind flicked back to the instance in which Kyren had returned to the Red Keep with a rough-spun bowl in her hands, a bowl containing... "Rum cakes."
To his shock, Shana Dyser tossed her head back, curls flying in all directions as she laughed until tears leaked from her eyes. She calmed eventually, wiping her face before saying, "I had doubted her. She seemed off balance at times, but she promised that you would come looking for her. And here you are, the great Ser Jaime himself, searching for Mellina's rum cakes!"
"Mellina?" Jaime repeated, attempting to appear as though he knew exactly what Shana meant. Perhaps it was a false name Kyren had adopted as her own for her stay in Flea Bottom.
"Of course. Mellina made the most delicious rum cakes in Westeros, as I am certain you well remember."
"The most delicious," Jaime agreed before something else occurred to him. "However, she 'made'? Never tell me that Mellina has ceased to bake?"
The impish grin fell from Shana's face as she stared up at him. "But, Ser, did you not know? Mellina is dead."
The twisting in Jaime's gut abruptly disappeared, as did all sensation of his body. For a moment, the room swayed, but he managed to whisper, "Dead? But how?"
"She passed in her sleep some time ago."
Not quite how he had envision Kyren's removal from life. Jaime settled himself somewhat, supplying carefully, "That must have come as quite the shock."
"Ser, she was very old," Shana explained, eyeing him as though he had gone utterly mad. Jaime certainly felt as though he had, his joy bubbling up nearly as strongly as his despair had only moments before. Stronger, even, as Shana added, "Surely Kyren must have told you as much when she delivered the rum cakes?"
Adopting a mournful expression, Jaime nodded. "I believe she may have said something to that effect now that you say it. I had not believed the situation to be as… advanced - as it apparently was. My deepest apologies to Mellina, Seven rest her soul."
His head was brought up from its prayerful slump when Shana snorted a laugh. "Mellina was not so devout as that. Besides, her fondest wish will have been granted with your visit. Mellina always said that you would love her rum cakes enough to search her out, and now her prediction has come true. Rest assured, Ser, Mellina is laughing her triumph wherever she currently resides."
He grinned at her before leaning casually back against the table behind him. "You know, it is the oddest thing. I have not heard from Kyren in rather a long while…"
Shana gave him a suspicious look and he hastily brought up his new hand, tapping it stiffly against the table and producing a hollow clacking noise. "But then, I have been away from King's Landing for quite some time."
As he had hoped, Shana's face softened and she sighed, turning away from the faded spot on the wall. "Kyren is gone from the city and has been for quite some time, but I did know her well when she was still here."
And thus began a pleasant afternoon passed in the good humor of shared memories. Shanna had indeed known Kyren well and told stories that made Jaime both laugh and miss the odd girl terribly. It was only later that night that Jamie realized Shana had neatly avoided revealing why Kyren had been in King's Landing at all.
"You Lannisters are a cold bunch of bastards."
Jaime glared at Bronn, asking sourly, "Am I meant to simply understand your meaning?"
Bronn did not seem particularly inclined to be delicate about any matter, and this one was no exception. "Your son is dead, the kingdom is in chaos, your brother is locked away, and your sister has not left the crypt since they put the king to rest there. Yet here you are; training with me."
"And which of these things do you intend for me to fix?" Jaime asked with falsely endless patience.
"Well, your sister has always been your top choice," Bronn mused, deliberately misunderstanding the rhetorical nature of Jaime's question.
"She does not wish to see me," Jaime said shortly.
Bronn waited for explanation, but Jaime felt exactly no urge to tell Bronn how he had not allowed his sister to refuse him once again. Cersei may never speak to him again and he would deserve every moment of the silence, but Bronn did not need to know the details. When Jaime did not answer, Bronn said, "I was under the impression that you and little Lord Tyrion were close. Why not see him?"
Glancing away from the other man's searching gaze, Jaime said, "I doubt Tyrion wishes to see me."
"Do you know who he chose to be his champion when he was on trial in the Eyrie?" Bronn asked.
Jaime frowned at the sudden change in subject. "Yes, you. I am well aware of the story."
"Nah, I just offered when Lysa Arryn insisted the trial take place that day. You were his first choice because he knew you would ride day and night to be there for you. And now you won't even go see him."
"I cannot protect him," Jaime snapped. "He is my family, but so is Cersei and my father… Neither of them has ever liked Tyrion. I know they are going to find him guilty. And there is not a thing I can do to stop them."
"Of course there is not, but the least you could do is visit him. He's wasting away in that godsforsaken cell." Jaime did not answer and Bronn sighed. "Very well. But you do have a living son here who needs advice."
"Nephew," Jaime corrected automatically. "What am I meant to tell him about ruling a kingdom? Not exactly my realm of expertise."
"No, but he needs some sort of advice. He has no idea how to be the king, nor the confidence to forge his own way. Not much of Robert Baratheon in him. The boy is a Lannister through and through."
"Children sometimes take after one parent more than the other."
Bronn let out a barking laugh. "Do not try to sell me black sand for gunpowder! That boy is the spitting image of you and his mother. In any case, he don't have much Baratheon in his temper, either."
"Be that as it may, he shall still have to seek advice elsewhere," Jaime responded stiffly.
"Aye, and he shall. Mark my words, he's going to turn to everyone in the Seven bloody Kingdoms before he gets the right set of directions, and it's his poor luck to take after you so strongly. He'll follow the grand Lannister tradition and let your father tell him how to act."
"Mind yourself, sellsword," Jaime growled in warning, but Bronn continued on undaunted.
"The only reason the old lion never got his claws in Joffrey is that the boy was mad as a spotted whore."
"A spotted whore," Jaime repeated tightly, anger bubbling through his body.
"Yeah, happens to all of 'em in the end. They get spots and then they go completely mad. The only thing Joffrey was missing were the spots."
Jaime's temper at last boiled over. "You are talking about my son, you miserable fool!" He stopped himself, realizing he had admitted the truth of his children's parentage aloud, to someone other than Cersei, for the first time.
Rather than gloat, Bronn slapped him on the back and gave a consoling grimace. "Want to go make nice with your siblings or come get drunk with me?"
After a moment's pause, Jaime said, "Give me two hours to see Tyrion and I will go with you."
Bronn nodded. "I'll meet you at Dyser's. I suppose you've found it by now?"
"Yes, and as Shana spoke rather freely about you, I would guess that you knew it already."
With a smirk, Bronn gathered their dull-edged practice blades and moved toward the stone steps winding up the cliff face. "Go talk to your brother and take your time. I intend to be drunk when you get to Dyser's, but I'll buy you a drink to help you catch up."
Author's Note - Remember when I promised to publish this before the final season premiere? Ha, ha, yeah. Sorry about that! I really tried, but it just didn't happen. In any case, I thank you all for your patience!
Special shoutout to my guest reviewer and the awesomely-named lokidoki9 for their kind words! Lokidoki especially, you truly made me smile!
Thank you all for reading! I have decided against promising timelines on any future updates, but rest assured that they will be coming. Have a wonderful day and I hope to see you soon! Wishing you all luck as the Battle of Winterfell approaches.