Author's note: chapter 22 is split in parts a) and b) because each has its own unique focus. Both parts are therefore short. I will post part b) tomorrow, so that my reviewer guestbron can get on with his life.

The girl didn't remember leaving Maegi's hut but somehow she must've done, for she found herself walking back past the orchards and the garden plots, the morning sun glistening on the leaves and everything bright and smelling like wet earth. Then she was skirting the walls of the town and following the creek back to where the trees sloped up into the hills. Putting one foot in front of the other. She had a skinny drawstring bag slung over her shoulder, but she didn't remember paying for the things inside. Nothing seemed quite real any more. One thought repeated itself in her head, to the exclusion of all others:

Jaime is the Kingslayer.

It wasn't as though she didn't believe it, because it was immediately, completely, believable. It all made sense where it hadn't before; the discrepancies in Jaime's story that she'd not wanted to examine too closely, his accent, his education, his worth to the Northmen, his innate sense of superiority. So obvious now, that he was different from herself. Arya and Gendry, the men at the Inn, Brodrick and the outlaws, they'd all talked but she'd refused to listen.

Jaime is the enemy I've spent all the last year hating.

She'd wanted so much to believe he was someone like her. A commoner. A soldier, maybe, but someone on her level. A lowborn, a villager, a guard, a sellsword, a criminal. She realised now that her subconscious had wanted the happy-ever-after fiction so much, that it had ignored any evidence that deviated from it.

There is no such thing as happy ever after stories, she told herself, disgusted. You know that, better than most. You thought you were so wordly. But along comes a charmer with a handsome face and a cock he knows how to use, and suddenly you're as blind as the greenest maiden.

She clamped down on the thoughts, smothered them, lest they destroy her. She still had to get back to Sooty. Sooty was all that mattered now. She had to stay focused, for Sooty.

Still the images crowded into her head. Jaime's green eyes darkening when he looked at her, his fingers entwined in her fingers. Jaime's quirky smile when he said something irreverent. Jaime kissing her softly, his hands touching her face.

Everything is a lie. Remember that. We can't help what we feel; maybe so, but feelings are shields that hide the truth. Your feelings for Jaime are all based on a lie. She told herself this sternly, over and over again, as she trudged up the hill away from Maidenpool. Each step was becoming more of an effort, her boots dragging. Her body was rebelling against taking her any closer to the confrontation she wished to avoid. The thought of Sooty, and the medicine in her drawstring bag, were all that kept her going.

Hoof beats interrupted the girl's thoughts, and she looked up to see the packhorse cantering towards her through the trees. The sight of Jaime on its back made her stomach somersault with alarm, and her first instinct was to run away. I thought I had more time, but here he is, riding towards me. She didn't run but froze instead, and lowered her gaze to the grass in front of her.

'Thank the gods I found you, girl! We need to go. There are Northmen coming this way, they're at the ridge,' Jaime said, urgently, as the horse skidded to a stop in front of her. He had his arm stretched out, his hand reaching for hers to pull her up beside him. 'Quickly.'

The girl almost didn't trust herself to speak. Now that he was actually here, so much hurt and betrayal rose up inside her, she was sick with it. She just wanted him gone. She never wanted to have to look at him again, at his beautiful, lying face.

'I'm not going with you,' she said, through gritted teeth.

Jaime wheeled his horse about as it tried to keep moving, sweat lathering its sides. 'Come on, girl' he said impatiently. 'They're close, maybe only a couple of miles away, on horseback. If we leave now we still are odds to evade them.' When the girl didn't respond, Jaime jumped down and strode briskly towards her, holding the reins of the agitated horse in one hand. 'These men are not villagers. I've encountered them before, and I don't much want to again. And trust me, neither do you.'

'Trust you?' the girl said. 'That's funny.'

Jaime reached her and went to take her arm, maybe to drag her with him. She looked right at him then, and something in her eyes must have startled him, because his hand stopped in mid air. 'What's wrong with you?'

The girl stared at him as if he were a stranger she'd only this moment met. She saw with a new clarity his arrogance and his entitlement, she saw the same hands that held her close at night were also the hands that brought death to so many without care or remorse. 'Was it amusing to you, all this time?' she asked. 'It must have been entertaining.'

'What the fuck are you...? We don't have time for riddles!' Jaime tried to settle the horse as it spun and stamped.

'Was it amusing,' she hissed, 'listening to me talk about my brother, how he died, on that day with the King's party at the Crossroads? You must have had a good laugh to yourself, seeing as you already knew all about it, seeing as unlike me, you were there. With your sister the Queen, and all the rest of your family.'

A brief shock flashed across Jaime's face, then he clenched his jaw and looked down. The girl thought he was going to deny it, but he didn't say anything for a long time. Finally he sighed and ran one hand through his hair. 'Fuck,' he swore, softly. He closed his eyes, at least having the gall to look ashamed.

'I promise you, girl. I didn't kill your brother. I didn't... order him killed.'

'No you were just one of those who rode after him, weren't you? One of those you told me who rather enjoyed that sort of thing.' Despite everything the girl held her breath, her heart thundering, waiting with every last shred of hope she had for him to prove her wrong.

Jaime rubbed his brow, pinched the skin between his fingers. The girl could see he was struggling for words, and her heart sank slowly the longer he didn't speak. At last Jaime dropped his hand to his side and looked skywards, defeated. 'I didn't enjoy it,' he said, under his breath.

It felt to the girl as if a giant hand had reached down and wrapped around her chest, her throat, crushing her insides in an unbearably constricting vice. Mycah I'm sorry, she thought. I've been such a fool.

A wind sprang up and rustled the leaves of the trees, clouds swept across the sun.

'I know you must hate me more than anyone else in the world right now,' Jaime said.

'No,' said the girl, her voice strangled. 'I hate myself more. For being so fucking stupid.'

Jaime looked behind himself, through the trees, listening. He turned back to face her, determined. 'You can hate me as much when we're not in immediate danger. You can hate me the rest of your life, but you do need to have a life. Just... come with me.' There was a pleading tone to his last words which the girl had never heard from him before. She wondered how much it cost him to use it. Here I am a commoner, a no-one, and here a Lord is, begging. She almost could have laughed out loud at the insanity, if she had breath to spare. Not that it mattered any, because after today she didn't intend to speak to him again.

'I'm not coming with you, now or ever,' she choked out. 'And if you come near me, it had best be to kill me, because I'd die before I let you touch me again. Kingslayer.'

A hard change shuttered down over Jaime's expression, he looked cold and distant. He stared at her, then abruptly he turned and vaulted onto the horse. 'As you wish, girl,' he said, not looking her way again, but down the hill, towards his future. Then he gave the excited horse its head and it surged forward with pent-up energy, kicking clods of dirt high into the air.

The girl watched Jaime until the trees closed around him, until the galloping hoof beats were lost in the rising wind. She tried to summon up anger, or hatred, because at least that would be something, but inside she just felt empty, like the chrysalis of a cicada that looked so alive until one fingertip crumbled it to dust.