Author's Note: Next chapter! (finally) This one moves the plot significantly forward to make up for the long wait.
She should have known that it was too good to be true. The semblance of peace that had been granted to her here at Winterfell wasn't real after all. It couldn't have been, because the gods had apparently deemed Amarah Baratheon unworthy of peace and contentment. The signs had been there all her life, but she had been too stubborn to accept them, always clinging with a desperate hope to the belief that all the heartache in her life would eventually lead to happiness.
Was it little wonder then that she had given into the temptation of believing the constant turmoil that had surrounded her since birth was coming to an end? For nearly a full month, she had stayed at Winterfell, helping Sansa reestablish it as the stronghold of the North. She had given her cousin counsel on which villagers to hire to replenish their staff and how best to renew relations with the other lords of the North.
Sansa had listened to her cousin's council, and, slowly, Winterfell began to take on its former glory. It was a rare pleasure for Amarah to witness her childhood home come to life once more, the dullness that had settled during Ramsay's occupation melting away more with each passing day. And with each day that passed, a feeling of joy settled more deeply into her heart, painting the delusion she had been foolish enough to believe. Little did she know that her happiness was soon to unravel with mind-numbing swiftness.
It had been a long day, and Amarah had lost count of the times she had to order the servants to finish various menial tasks. "It might be tedious work," she had informed Sansa after their evening meal, "but it is necessary to run a well ordered home."
Sansa was sitting by her side, staring at her plate as she pushed around the remnants of her roasted goat. "I enjoy even the tedious tasks," she smiled, looking up from the rejected pieces of goat. "I don't have to pretend or lie any more, afraid for my life if I make one small misstep. I find it very enjoyable to make a simple decision about whether to eat goat or lamb at supper."
"I would have preferred the lamb personally," Gendry offered from his seat across from Amarah. Though the satisfied burp he released after that statement contradicted his words.
Amarah raised a brow in disapproval. "I don't think your contributions toward rebuilding the keep's armory allow for rude behavior."
"It's fine craftsmanship, though; you must admit," Gendry rose from his seat, pointing a finger in the direction of the newly forged dagger hidden beneath the folds of Amarah's skirt as he backed away. "Surely that earns me a moment of rudeness or two."
Amarah rolled her eyes at his retreating back. "How could I possibly argue with such sound reasoning?"
Gendry's departing figure never turned back to reply, but the golden man passing him on his way into the room rewarded her comment with a commiserating smile. "Brotherly troubles, Princess?" Jaime asked, approaching Gendry's vacated seat and motioning one of the servants to bring more food.
"Nothing too dire to handle," she waved off his question. "With a brother as clever as Tyrion, I've no doubt you've encountered your own difficulties in keeping your end of a debate."
The dark look that passed over his face at her mention of Tyrion's name made her wish she had thought better of the comment. She opened her mouth to rectify the situation but felt the press of a golden hand on hers to hold her words at bay. "Let it be."
She was tempted to ignore the order before she saw Jaime's gaze shift quickly to the figure by her side, snapping back to hers with a silent warning. Her muscles tensed when she comprehended his meaning, and she barely suppressed the urge to look at Sansa's face to see how the mention of her husband's name had affected her. The topic of Tyrion had surfaced once, but Sansa had been reluctant to discuss it, insisting that Amarah drop the subject. Now was not the time to revisit that debate.
Sliding her hand from Jaime's golden one, she pasted a false smile of compliance on her lips. "Your training went well today I take it?"
His late appearances at supper always informed her if the day had gone well. Sometimes she wouldn't see him at evening meal at all. Those were the days she knew not to mention his continued sparring with Payne. During the day he worked with Jon and the remaining Lannister soldiers to train the new Stark forces, men that had been sent as a gesture of good will by lords who supported Sansa's retaking of Winterfell. The evenings he reserved for himself as he strove to return to top fighting form.
The nod of confirmation he gave verified her statement. He looked as if he were about to add a comment before the doors at the end of the hall were thrown open and a harried looking Jon strode into the room. The instant Amarah looked up to find a panicked look in her normally composed cousin's eyes, she felt her blood seize in her veins. Something was very wrong.
"A message from Castle Black," Jon spoke quickly, thrusting a scrap of parchment in front of them. He threw it down on the table in disgust and aimed a grim look at the scrawled words.
Amarah waited for him to shed light on the offensive words contained in the message, but he only continued to stand there as if locked in a silent debate with himself. "I assume this message bears some news?" she asked then, prodding him to speak.
His eyes jerked to hers, pinning her securely with the deep-seated panic floating in their dark depths. "The walkers," he answered quietly. "They've gathered an army. They're marching on the Wall even as we speak."
Amarah was tempted for a moment to chuckle at the absurdity of his words, but the quiet conviction coloring his normally even-keeled voice caused the laugh to lodge uncomfortably in her throat. "But how can that be?" she heard herself ask when the rest of the room remained silent. "The stories of the white walkers are myths older than the Targaryens themselves. Perhaps the wildings – "
"It's no mistake, Amarah," Jon cut her off with the wave of an impatient hand. He sat down on the opposite side of the table while his haunted gaze continued to bore into her. "I know them to be real. I've seen them myself."
Jaime snorted beside Amarah, entering the conversation for the first time since Jon's entrance into the room. "Perhaps you should consider imbibing less if you plan to protect the realms as the Lord Commander."
An angry flush covered Jon's neck as he turned to the golden knight to defend his claims. "I'd gladly credit what I saw to wine if I could, Kingslayer, but I did not imagine the corpse that rose from its deathbed to kill Lord Mormont." He broke off for a moment to finger the ivory hilt of the sword at his side. "I've stared into the face of ice cold death, and there was nothing imaginary about it."
"If what you say is true," Sansa interjected, having finally abandoned the remnants of her meal, "what can you do to stop this? The legends Septa Mordane used to tell taught that they cannot be killed as they are already dead."
Jon sat down and turned his back to them as he stared into the fire. His eyes followed the flames with an avid interest as he became lost in the memory he had related to them. "There is a way to stop them. I've seen it firsthand. Though it will take more than just the watchers on the Wall to see this through."
With these last words he pinned his ferocious gaze to the golden man by his side. Jaime's brows shot up in surprise, conveying his continued disbelief in Jon's fantastical claims of creatures that walked the earth without the flow of warm life in their veins.
"Let me see if I understand what you're hinting at." He threw one leg over the wooden bench and turned to face Jon fully. All the better to focus his derisive gaze directly on the young Lord Commander. "You expect me to take my forces with you to the forsaken, frozen wilderness beyond the wall in order to fight an army of the undead that you seemed to have conjured up in your fear-fueled, wine-soaked dreams. Do I have that right?"
Jon was saved from replying by his steward, a thin, rather dour-faced individual who stepped behind Jon in defense against Jaime's hostile words. "If you would pardon my interruption, m'lord?" he interjected, though the sarcastic tone of his voice seemed to indicate he sought no pardon at all. "If it were a dream that the Lord Commander had then it's a dream shared by more than one member of the night's watch."
"You mean other men have seen these creatures?" Amarah asked him, her brow wrinkled in confusion.
The rational part of her mind still refused to accept these wild stories as truth, though that part was beginning to rapidly fade away. Neither Jon nor his steward seemed the least bit unbalanced, but the sincerity behind their eyes proved their unflagging belief in the tales of this terror that threatened the kingdoms.
"That is precisely what I mean, m'lady," he answered her with a respectful bow of his gray head. "While the noble folk sit in their castles and plan battles against the neighboring lord to gain more land, the real threat marches towards us, getting closer every day. All that land in the summer green valley obtained by the noble lords won't look so appealing covered in ice and cold corpses."
"Edd," Jon cut off his steward, his gloved hand slicing through the air to silence the man. The steward returned to his place by the wall, but Amarah could see he did not regret his words. He believed all of what he had said.
Turning to glance at Jaime, she noticed he was not as affected by the gruff steward's claims. The light of doubt continued to burn bright in his emerald gaze. Despite that flicker of disbelief, his gaze has softened somewhat, as if he were considering Jon's ludicrous proposition to accompany his men to Castle Black. "If I do take these claims of a dead army to heart, what good could my presence accomplish?" he asked, proving Amarah's suspicions correct. "If these creatures are as difficult to defeat as the stories claim, the swords in my men's hands would not do you much good."
"They would if they wielded the right type of sword," Jon answered in a firm, steady voice. The panic there had now faded away, leaving a grim, determined warrior in its place. "My men know the secret to defeating the walkers. They've done it before."
"Well then," Jaime answered with the bitter smile of a world weary knight. "It seems we have much to discuss."
As the words left his mouth, Amarah felt her heart sink fast and heavy. Though he hadn't admitted as much yet, she knew in his mind he was already entertaining the thought of accompanying the young Commander to the wall, a move that would leave many leagues between him and the princess Baratheon. The thought of another separation from the man she loved was enough to once again break her newly reforged heart. The bone-chilling fear that it was a separation that might never end was enough to shatter that heart into a million pieces she was incapable of putting together again.
With eyes blurred by the sudden threat of bitter tears, she groped for the edge of the table and pushed to her feet without sparing those with her another glance. Holding her head dropped low to her chest to hold the threatening sobs at bay, Amarah walked rapidly across the stones beneath her feet until she was safely away from the curious gazes surrounding her.
Wasting no time, she proceeded to her bedchamber after waving off Brienne who had started to accompany her. She was in no mood for anyone's company but her own. When she finally reached her bedchamber, Amarah walked with labored steps to her bed before throwing herself face down on the furs, letting her burning face connect with the comfortingly cool covering. Without giving herself any chance to dwell on the morbid thoughts floating around her head, she curled up into a tight ball with her knees pulled back to her chest before drifting off into fitful sleep.
She wasn't sure how long she lay there, curled up on the furs and willing away her fears in the land of dreamless sleep, before the cool metal of Jaime's hand rested on her shoulder to shake her awake. "Amarah," he whispered her name, accompanying the call with a gentle kiss to her closed eyes.
Amarah's lashes fluttered open to find him looking down at her, a mixture of pain, sympathy, and regret in his eyes. "You're leaving," she spoke the words in a flat voice, having already resigned herself to the knowledge of his departure.
"It seems my presence is needed to spare the kingdoms," he spoke jokingly, though a hint of seriousness underlain his mocking words.
Suddenly angry at him for making light of the situation, Amarah rose, pushing his hand away in her haste to rise. "When do you leave?" she bit out the question, making no effort to mask her irritation with him.
Jaime sarcasm dissipated completely with his reply. "Snow thinks it best if we leave at first light. Every second lost is precious."
Amarah looked past Jaime's shoulder to the window beyond, where the first rays of the morning sun were already beginning to peek over the distant horizon. At the disheartening sight, the anger left her as tears she had been holding back all evening finally began to fall. "Then you should go," she whispered, moving past him to take a closer look at the dawning day beyond the walls of the keep.
"Don't look at me like that," Jaime told her, adopting her irritated tone from before.
She whirled back to face him. "How would you prefer I look?" she asked incredulous. "You might not give much credence to Jon's walkers, but I have known him long enough to know him both sane and cautious. He would never panic about a threat conjured up by his own imagination. Whatever you are walking into is something the seven kingdoms haven't seen the like of since dragons roamed the skies over a thousand years ago. When you go with Jon, it could be the last I ever see of you. And you want me to give you a smile of farewell? Well, forgive me, but I cannot."
"Then you will give me this instead." Jaime approached her with a swiftness that unbalanced her enough to allow him time to jerk her into his arms before they both landed against the opposite wall. Amarah was too stunned to speak, but Jaime had more than enough to say for the both of them.
"It pains me to leave your side," he bit out, before sealing his mouth tightly to hers. Breaking away momentarily, he pulled back to pin her with his feverish gaze. "Whether Snow's story is true or not, I need to see for myself what it's about. If it's true, he'll need whatever help he can conjure up or there won't be a Westeros left for us. I'd rather cut my heart out than break this one." He paused for a moment to lay his hand over her heart. "I must do this, but understand that it gives me no pleasure. Don't ever think I prefer the company of criminals, rapers, and thieves to my princess."
Amarah managed a smile through her tears. "I certainly hope you would find me preferable."
"I'll come back to you, Princess," Jaime kissed the trail of her tears down one cheek before moving to the other.
Amarah squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to block out the pain his words cause her. "Don't make promises you can't keep."
"I never do." He accompanied his fiercely spoken words with an even fiercer kiss, licking deeply into her mouth as if he could mold them into one being with his kiss. There was an urgency in their kiss that had never been present before, an urgency born of the fear they might never see each other again.
With hands clumsy from want and need, Amarah moved to part his breeches while Jaime jerked up fistfuls of her skirt in an effort to take her as swiftly as possible. Before she had even fully registered his movements, Amarah felt him there at her slick entrance before he sank deep inside her with one swift thrust. Her mouth opened in a silent scream at the equal feelings of pleasure and pain. He stilled at her gasp, but she shook her head to urge him on. "Don't stop," she begged, her tears from before still falling freely down her face even as he continued to lick them away.
With a grunt of effort, Jaime held her still for his pleasurable assault. With every determined thrust, it felt as if he sank further and further into her depths, reaching as far as he could in an effort to make her whole with him. It was as if he thought he could forge them together into one complete being, neither one complete without the other.
"Amarah," he panted her name in her ear as he continued pounding in and out of her. She was too far gone to make any type of reply. Her body continued to tighten at the feel of him so deep within her, the exquisite friction becoming too much to bear. Finally, she felt it all peak, a flash of white lights sparking beneath her closed lids as she shook and trembled around him.
Even as she reached her peak, he continued to move through the height of her pleasure, drawing out every last drop of ecstasy until she felt her heartbeat slowing. Only then did he find his own release, filling her womb with his seed and her heart with the love he offered.
When it was over, she felt him disentangle them, putting himself to rights as he gently pulled her skirts back into place. While he was doing this, Amarah couldn't find it in herself to speak, not trusting her voice to break on yet another betraying sob. Eventually, when he was satisfied that she was covered sufficiently Jaime tipped her mouth to his again to press one last kiss there. This one infinitely more gentle than their desperate coupling from moments before.
"I love you." At first she thought the words had come from her, spilling from her heart one last time. By the time she realized he had whispered them across her lips, she opened her eyes to find the sight of his retreating back just before the solid oak door slammed shut behind him.
Eyes closing in anguish, Amarah sank to the cold, stone floor. With no one there to see her pain, she felt the grief finally overwhelm her. Her frame wracked with violent, shuddering sobs, Amarah Baratheon buried her face in her hands and wept for herself and the man she loved.
Until next time... (I will post more chapters. I'm not mean enough to leave things there) Thank you to everyone who continues to read this story. If you like it, please leave a comment. Reviews are always a good kick start to my creativity. Thanks again!