For reasons both of practicality and of vanity, Jaime Lannister had developed a near-incurable aversion to mirrors since the day that he had sworn allegiance to the Targaryens. Looking into them reminded him that he had failed; not just himself and his family, but Westeros, and its uncounted multitudes of living and dead. Battle and torture and grief had stripped the gold from his hair, turning it almost entirely silver, and his skin had become a tapestry of scars; old and new, silver and red. His torso and back were by far the worst, and were easily hidden; and the Westerlanders that he worked with every day were far too accustomed to him to give the thin, fragile scars that marked his cheeks and forehead so much as a passing glance. But on the rare occasions that he chose (or was obliged to) appear in the capital, people stared openly at him, and every pair of eyes became a mirror.

For the past week, Queen Daenerys had had most of the court in uproar preparing for the feast that would welcome Jaime's brother Tyrion and the Lady Arya Stark back to Westeros. Jaime hadn't come for the feast itself; indeed he could ill afford to leave Casterly Rock at all under the circumstances, but he was eager to see Tyrion, and to witness first-hand the peace that millions of people had died for.

On the night of the feast, however, he found the great hall packed with lords and ladies from both the Northern and Southron nobilities; all of whom seemed ready to leap across the tables and kill each other at a moment's notice. Lords walked about with their hands on their swords and ladies with daggers in their eyes; two minor scuffles involving squires, young knights and lordlings had already broken out and had been rapidly crushed; and King Aegon and Queen Daenerys, artfully oblivious to the fact, moved easily and elegantly like a single corona of silver light from one end of the hall to the other; taking care to favour each side equally with their presence.

It amused Jaime immensely that he (and everyone else, apparently) still thought in terms of 'sides.'

We are meant to be one realm, after all, he thought, North and South united once again under the munificence of the Dragon Dynasty, just as it was always meant to be; peace and prosperity, understanding and tolerance.

The little understanding or tolerance that remained in the hall was soon dispelled by the arrival of Lady Sansa Baratheon and her retainers; all of whom were dressed in sober Northern grey and wore no jewellery or accoutrements of any kind. Half the courtiers bowed, the other half hissed and spat, and Jaime found his lip curling in disgust as Lady Sansa smiled widely; bowed right and left; acknowledged her friends; ignored her enemies; and came to a graceful stop beside him, as though they were old friends.

'Ser Jaime, how delightful to see you,' she purred, curtseying deeply.

'I wish I could say the feeling was mutual,' Jaime replied, not returning the courtesy.

The lady smirked at him, and looked him up and down.

'You probably don't remember the last time I saw you,' she ventured.

'You're right,' Jaime scoffed, 'I don't.'

'At the siege of Casterly Rock,' she reminded him.

'Ah,' he sneered, 'did you see me before you convinced King Aegon to burn most of it to the ground, or after he miraculously decided to burn Lannisport too? I've always thought it an odd way of expressing his displeasure that you had disobeyed his orders and sacked the place.'

Lady Sansa gave a ladylike shrug, and Jaime could not help but stare at her in disbelief. He had never in his life met a woman so unmoved by casual cruelty, or so naturally inclined to it. Apart from Cersei, of course.

May she dance on coals in hell.

'I cannot bring myself to regret the fate of Lannisport, Ser Jaime,' Lady Sansa said coolly, 'much must be sacrificed in war so that goodness might prevail. I'm sure a seasoned captain like yourself is capable of understanding that.'

'I am,' Jaime acknowledged bitterly, 'I'm only curious as to what I should be the most curious about: why King Aegon felt the need to deploy all three dragons when one would have sufficed, or why he unquestionably obeyed every word that came oozing out of your mouth.'

Lady Sansa's face darkened briefly, then reassumed its habitual insincerity.

'I cannot claim to possess the influence that you suggest,' she remarked, a hint of iron in her voice, 'the king has his own mind, and it is a fine one. But Queen Daenerys was in a merciful mood on that particular day, and her mercy tends to be contagious. Mercy is not a constructive tendency in a conqueror. Aegon needed to be reminded of that – that, and the fact that it is he who rules in Westeros, by right and birth and blood.'

'Hm,' Jaime replied, his voice dripping with innuendo, 'I'm sure that 'Aegon' was only too delighted to be reminded of the fact.'

Lady Sansa gave a charming impression of appearing confused.

'Come now,' Jaime snorted in response, 'you can't say that I'm the first to mention it. And it's your own fault entirely. If you had yielded Winterfell and the Vale with anything resembling a fight, the rumours might have been very different.'

'Many things might have been different,' she murmured ominously, before looking out across the hall at the friction that seemed to stretch taunt over the proceedings; threatening to snap and shower them all in a blaze of fresh blood and mangled flesh.

'Look at you all,' Lady Sansa said in a low, disgusted voice, 'the South. Your opulence and your finery and your pretence. Do you wonder that one look at all of this is sufficient to make me and my men want to murder the lot of you all over again?'

Jaime ignored the question, and said nothing.

'I had not heard that you planned to attend court at all this year,' Lady Sansa continued.

'I hadn't,' Jaime replied, 'but I have come to see my brother Tyrion.'

'Still at odds over that whore he married?' she enquired pleasantly; her face twisting into a spiteful smile.

Jaime once again chose to ignore her. Lady Sansa once again pretended not to notice.

'I myself have come to see my little sister,' she told him, 'I saw very little of her during the conquest, and what I did see was not very promising. I don't know how she does it; standing dutifully outside Daenerys and Aegon's door at all hours of the day and night pretending that the prospect of being a glorified sentry for the rest of her life is a tremendous honour for her. You must be so pleased to be rid of such nonsense.'

'Not half as pleased as you seem to be with widowhood,' Jaime countered, 'it agrees with you.'

'You are cruel, Ser,' Lady Sansa sighed, 'but then the gods were also cruel in their choice of both my husbands,'

'To you?' Jaime asked, 'or to them?'

The lady smiled grimly.

'Harrold was amusing for a while, and not quite a loss in bed,' she observed, 'but he had mutton between his ears. Stannis, on the other hand, had too much between his ears and almost nothing between his legs. He was a dreadful bore.'

'I can't argue with that,' Jaime conceded, 'but you must agree that his death was both sudden and unfortunate. Had he lived, you might have been the queen of Westeros by now.'

'Why would I want to be the queen of Westeros, Ser Jaime?' Lady Sansa ventured, speaking as she would to a stupid child, 'I am already the queen of half of Westeros. The better half, thanks to my lord husbands.'

'And which one of your late lord husbands does your son favour?' Jaime asked, 'Harrold, Stannis…or Lord Baelish?'

'I pray to the gods every morning and night to bless the memory of my late lord husbands,' Lady Sansa professed, her tone suggesting that she did no such thing, 'I will pray that they bless Lady Brienne's too, since we are speaking of the deficient deceased. How long is it now since the Brotherhood Without Banners decided that her head was too ugly for her body?'

'Eight years,' Jaime replied forcefully, hating her.

'And you've never thought of marrying?' Lady Sansa grinned, knowing it.

Jaime paused for a moment, unable to speak. The bile in his throat would not let him.

'I cannot marry,' he said in a low, determined voice.

Lady Sansa smirked at him.

'Come, come, Ser Jaime, you were thrown out of the Kingsguard the moment you refused to bend your stubborn Lannister knees to the dragons,' she tittered, 'such devotion to an order to which you no longer belong makes you seem far more sentimental than is helpful; and after Lady Brienne, well. Anything in the world must seem thrilling in comparison.'

Jaime folded his arms with a mix of amazement, resentment and the desire to slit her stiff Stark throat.

'You show surprisingly little respect, Lady Sansa,' he stated, 'for the memory of a woman who devoted her life to fulfilling the oath she made to find you.'

'But she didn't find me,' Lady Sansa declared bitterly, 'she didn't find me and she didn't save me. The only saving of me that took place was done by me, and by no one else. My own freedom was waiting for me, and I took it, regardless of any oaths that I had sworn. You should do the same thing, Ser Jaime, before you become a bitter old man drowning in your own piss.'

'I swore an oath and I will not break it,' Jaime quietly declared, 'not even if the King and Queen have given me permission to.'

Lady Sansa smirked mockingly at him.

'We both know that their 'permission' means as little to you as the allegiance you swore them. But I imagine that lying comes naturally to you. You are a Lannister, and a Southerner. Neither recommends you in terms of honesty, or honour.'

'Explain to me how being a Northerner, and a daughter of Eddard Stark, qualifies you to lecture me on either.'

'Careful, Ser.'

Jaime almost spat at her feet.

'I have spent the past year,' he growled, 'attempting to rebuild a city that your precious Aegon burned to the ground for no better reason than proving to the world that he was a Targaryen…and because he wanted to get his cock inside you, of course. A year has passed since the siege, and we still haven't shifted all the ash. We go slowly, a little at a time, quarter by quarter, house by house. Every day we find the corpses of men, women and children huddled together in their homes, hugging, reduced to nothing but ash. They disintegrate when you touch them. They become piles of ash on the floor. My men threw up the first few times it happened. They told me that they couldn't bear it; that they'd sooner die than bear it. Now they work all day without stopping, and at the end of each day, they walk home covered in the ashes of what used to be human beings, entirely unaffected; as though such a violation of life and decency were the most ordinary thing in the world. So don't you fucking tell me to be careful, my lady. Because being careful is the only thing that stops me from killing you where you stand.'

Lady Sansa had not backed up an inch. Her face was twisted into a grimace of bitterness and cold amusement, but no fear; and Jaime stormed away from her and ripped aside one of the balcony curtains that lined the hall; almost gasping aloud at the coolness of the night air on his face; almost growling aloud at the fact that he had chosen the wrong place to be alone.

Lady Sansa's sister was sitting on the balustrade in front of him. She was wearing white Kingsguard leathers, and drinking a flagon of wine.

Seven hells, is there no escaping the fucking Starks tonight?

He was about to turn on his heel and storm back into the hall, knowing full well how foolish it would make him look. But the girl that he had once tried to kill was slowly lowering the flagon of wine and looking at him, and he was gripped, suddenly and immediately, by the curious feeling that he was being stripped to the bone and examined. It was both off-putting and oddly pleasant, and he felt his anger fading to quiet fascination.

She was tall for a woman, and slender, and her face resembled her father's. She sat easily and elegantly on the narrow balustrade; her right heel resting lazily on her left knee; and the sword and dagger at her waist seemed as much a part of her body as her skin and her blood. Her eyes were beautiful, but empty; her gaze intense, but blank; and as Jaime remembered the scrawny, fiery child that had fought and run and scratched and threatened to chop his head off, he saw no trace of her. She looked utterly emotionless and unmoved, but something prevented him from concluding that her look made her so. He already knew the answer to the question, but he could not stop himself from asking it:

What has happened to her?

'May I sit?' he asked.

'No,' she replied.

He approached her anyway.

Lady Arya's eyes met Jaime's, sharply, as he walked slowly and deliberately towards her; a challenge in every stride. Her head turned slowly, like the head of a hunter as her scrutiny followed him; and by the time he had reached her side and seated himself; the piercing, calculating analytic of her initial gaze had widened, and intensified with something that would have resembled hatred had her face been marked by anything that one could call emotion.

Jaime laughed mockingly at her.

'Oh, for fuck's sake,' he drawled, 'you're not still annoyed about your bloody wolf are you?'

Lady Arya glared at him, but did not reply.

'Oh,' he continued, with equal sarcasm, 'is it because I tried to kill you?'

'Forgotten about my brother, have you?' she questioned.

Jaime rolled his eyes at her.

'Don't be so bloody sensitive. It was ten years ago.'

'I'm not being sensitive.'

'Saving your presence, my lady, but you are hiding at your own feast.'

'Putting my name on it doesn't make it mine.'

'If that were true, then you wouldn't have bothered to attend at all.'

'I am here because His Grace commanded me to attend, Ser Jaime.'

'And that angers you?'

'It inconveniences me.'

'Are you on duty?'

'You know that I'm not.'

'You're not on duty, and he still commanded you to attend?'

'Yes.'

'But why –'

Jaime stopped, considered, understood and laughed.

'Ah.'

She cocked her head at him like a cat.

'What do you mean 'ah'?' she demanded; her cold, systematic indifference disappearing so quickly that Jaime almost jumped in surprise.

'I have simply come to the conclusion,' he shrugged, successfully hiding his discomfort, 'that certain scandalous rumours circulating about the court are about the wrong Stark sister; that is all.'

She laughed at him.

'Don't be absurd.'

Jaime smiled broadly.

'A Kingsguard trying to hide from the King is in no position to lecture people on being absurd, my lady.'

'Neither is a Kingsguard who killed one.'

'Are we speaking of honour now, Lady Stark?' he quipped.

'I don't know, are we?' she snapped.

'I've always found the subject rather tedious,' Jaime said, pursing his lips and pretending to look to the skies for inspiration, 'but since you insist on broaching it, I must admit that you do make me wonder what your honourable lord father would have felt if he had lived, and discovered that his own blood was serving the dragon spawn that he fought so very valiantly to depose.'

'And I in my turn wonder what the dishonourable Tywin Lannister would have felt if he had lived,' she heatedly replied, 'and discovered that his own blood had chosen to swear allegiance rather than fight to the death like a good Lannister.'

Jaime shrugged.

'Disappointment, most likely. It was his favourite emotion where his children were concerned.'

Lady Arya stared hard at him; her gaze transforming; becoming weary and retreating, and for a moment, he could have sworn that she was seeing another face, and another pair of eyes in the place of his. She reached out without a trace of reluctance or embarrassment and touched his cheek; her fingers brushing his jaw; and she turned his head slowly to the side as though searching for something; though what, he couldn't say.

She let her hand drop with startling abruptness, and promptly looked away from him.

'I'm leaving now,' she said blandly; not moving.

'Are you?' Jaime questioned, intrigued, 'where to?'

'The place of the Kingsguard is by the king's side.'

'The same king that you've been hiding from all evening?'

'I haven't been hiding from him,' she blandly insisted, and though everything in her demeanour announced that she was telling the truth, Jaime could not bring himself to believe her. Her mask was too perfect; her speech too controlled.

So he thoughtfully drummed his fingers on the balustrade, continued to observe her, and noted with confusion that she was still making no move to rise to her feet.

'I'll take a wild guess, then, Lady Stark,' Jaime said, 'since you're being so very communicative about whom you're hiding from, and why.'

'I am not hiding,' she repeated softly; life beginning to creep back into her voice.

Jaime ignored her, and continued.

'You were King Aegon's sworn shield for most of the Targaryen conquest. I know this because the dragons and their armies trumpeted it from the rooftops at every opportunity. You were at his back for every day of every siege; for every hour and every minute of every battle. Most likely you saved his worthless royal hide half a hundred times, and very often wished him dead yourself if it would only release you from the seemingly impossible duty of protecting the fool from himself. I've been a sworn shield enough times to know that it's the most frustrating fucking thing that exists. Kings will insist on willingly throwing themselves into situations where they're the most likely to die, and if they do die, they get all the glory, and the poor bastard guarding them gets all the dishonour. Now you, Lady Stark – you must have done a passing good job. The King is still alive, after all. But it is in the very nature of kings to be bored, delusional and accustomed to getting what they want. In consequence, our beloved King Aegon very likely thinks that your enthusiasm in protecting him during battle translates to genuine regard; and that your vows of chastity imply a disregard for the existence or non-existence of your maidenhead. And so, because you're conveniently both a Kingsguard and a woman; a protector and a potential source of amusement; he's taken to asking you to 'protect' him in ways that do not involve sword or lance or mace. Am I correct?'

The girl's face was red, and furious.

'I haven't given in to him,' she declared hotly.

'I congratulate you upon your restraint,' Jaime chuckled, delighted by her discomfort, 'he is a handsome man.'

'It's not a matter of restraint,' Lady Arya spat indignantly, 'it's a matter of honour.'

'Ooh, a matter of honour!' Jaime scoffed, 'come now, Lady Stark, don't be such a bore. Why not amuse yourself while you're still young? There are precedents of Kingsguard fucking royalty, though few of them ended well. I can give you a list if you wish.'

'I don't want a stupid list!'

"A stupid list?' How old are you, ten?'

He grinned as her grey eyes expressed the desire to murder him.

'I would never give in to His Grace, even if he commanded me to!' Lady Arya insisted, 'and Ser Barristan says that he will never condone such a –'

'Ser Barristan says what serves his own interests,' Jaime interrupted, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice, 'how else do you think the sanctimonious old shit has managed to serve four different kings and live?'

Lady Arya's eyes blazed like wildfire, and Jaime chuckled to himself as he watched her fight a conscious battle with her own anger. Her breath pulsed violently in her throat, and her face was beautiful in its wrath…but her voice, when she spoke, was perfectly steady, and the rest of her body followed suit.

'Ser Barristan doesn't deserve your disdain, Ser Jaime.'

'I have lived far longer than you, my lady. I've earned the right to disdain whom I please'

'If you dislike him so much, then why did you spare him?'

Jaime's confidence deflated immediately.

'How do you know about that?' he demanded.

'I saw it happen,' she said.

Jaime waited, expecting her to crow over him and call him a coward at the very worst. But she stared down at her hands for a moment, almost shyly, before looking up at him again with something that he would have called respect had he not been speaking to a Stark.

'It was at the siege of Casterly Rock,' she said, 'after the walls collapsed…after the dragons came. I was charging into the breach after His Grace for what felt like the fifteenth time that morning. You were perhaps – ten feet away? It was in a narrow hallway. There was hardly any room to move at all – two men could barely walk abreast. The corpses underfoot didn't help either, of course. You were at the far end…and Ser Barristan came at you. He moved so quickly that I thought the Faceless God had sent him, to take you to the Night Lands. But you were quicker. You chopped Ser Barristan's sword in half like it was made of paper. The force of it knocked him to the ground like a sack of potatoes. He was winded. He was utterly helpless. You could have killed him in a dozen different ways, but you didn't. You just left him there, and walked away from him…I've always wanted to ask you why.'

'Have you?' Jaime snapped, convinced that she was mocking him, 'and why, may I ask, didn't you point His Grace in my direction the moment you saw me?'

'I wanted to kill you myself,' Lady Arya shrugged.

Jaime laughed uproariously.

'Really?' he guffawed, 'is that how they say 'I was too shit scared' in the North?'

'Fuck yourself, Lannister,' Lady Arya sighed.

'It's surprisingly difficult to do when you're missing your good hand,' Jaime sighed in return, surprised, and a little disappointed, that his words hadn't angered her.

'That doesn't seem very likely,' she continued, cocking an eyebrow at him, 'after learning to fight left-handed, fucking left-handed must be a breeze.'

'Not at all. The former was much easier to learn than the latter.'

Lady Arya's gaze flickered from his face, to his stump, and back again, as though she were seeing the lie.

She did not pursue it, and he was grateful for it.

'Why didn't you kill Ser Barristan?' she repeated softly.

Jaime's first instinct was to tell her to mind her own fucking business. His second was to pay his first no mind.

'When I was a boy,' Jaime said, 'we lived through our own Age of Heroes. The days of Ser Gerold Hightower and Prince Lewyn Martell; of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning; of Ser Jonothon Darry and Ser Oswell Whent, and yes, of Ser Barristan fucking Selmy; the days when it didn't matter how many coins you had in your pocket or how many times you'd fucked my sister; only what you could do with your blade and your body; the life you could create in taking life. It was its own kind of beauty; its own kind of…perfection. It was its own way – the only way – of being alive. Wearing white plate meant something, then. It was the foundation of beauty and life and perfection. It was the foundation of everything that was right. So yes, I spared Ser Barristan instead of cutting off his venerable white head, because…because he was a part of that, some part…I spared him because he is all that is left.'

The girl's face was wonder and recognition and fear as he spoke.

'Don't you count yourself?' she asked.

'Barristan the Bold never did,' Jaime scoffed.

She was looking intently at him now. Her eyes made him uncomfortable.

'You don't hate him at all,' she said, 'you want to be him.'

Jaime couldn't look at her.

'No, Lady Stark,' he replied, 'I don't hate him.'

Arya smiled at him; transforming yet again, as though hers was the very face of contradiction; pale with indifference one moment and tense with anger the next; constantly saying one thing and constantly meaning another; her heartbeat constant, the rest of her erratic; like a pendulum to a clock that never stopped.

'I'm beginning to think it a great pity that we never crossed swords during the conquest, Ser Jaime,' she told him, 'it would have amused me greatly.'

Jaime smiled back at her.

'It would have pleased me to amuse you greatly before your imminent death.'

She laughed out loud, as though he had lost his mind.

'Before your imminent death, do you mean?' she corrected.

'That is certainly not what I mean,' Jaime clarified breezily.

'Are you saying you could beat me in a fair fight?' she demanded.

'I'm saying that I could annihilate you in a fair fight,' Jaime responded.

'Care to put it to the test?'

'Do you have a death wish, little girl?'

'Noon tomorrow in the practice yard?'

'No.'

'Scared?'

'I cannot fight women.'

She grinned impertinently at him.

'Cannot?' she repeated.

'I will not,' he growled.

He'd only ever fought one woman, Brienne, and that wasn't going to change any time soon.

He felt his stomach lurch at the memory of what her eyes had looked like in death; frozen in horror, like they hadn't belonged to her anymore. And they hadn't, of course. From the moment that she had gone, they had been nothing more than a pair of staring eyes in a fucking severed head.

'Who was she?' Arya asked quietly.

The question was so unexpected that for a moment he was unsure whether or not she was talking to him.

'Who was who?' he replied in a clear voice.

'Don't lie,' she replied, 'there's no point.'

Jaime stared at her with a mix of amazement and horror, before leaning towards her and opening his mouth with every intention of telling her to fuck both herself and the tricks the Faceless Men had taught her. It was only then that he realised that her words had had no malice in them; no mockery and no laughter. In her face he saw calm, gravity…and…was it relief?

Her hands were resting quietly on her knees; her long dark hair was like a river of night against her pale leathers; and she was regarding him with a rare sort of understanding that had no pity in it: with the silent greeting that always ushered in the unspoken, unassuming companionship between speakers of the language of loss. The loss of husbands, and wives…and lovers.

'Who was he?' Jaime asked.

The colour drained suddenly and alarmingly from Arya's face, and for a moment, he thought she was going to faint.

'Who?' she blurted.

Jaime could not help but roll his eyes at her. Why open a door only to close it again?

Arya was staring at him with something like terror; though terror of what, he could not say; and suddenly he remembered what she had looked like as a child; remembered the way that she had ignored the blade at her throat and looked left and right and behind her and in front of her; making sure that her wolf, whose life she valued more than her own, had not returned to save her; because saving her would mean death. That part of her; that capacity for selfless love was still inside her – he could see it in her fear and her compassion – except this time, it was hurting her; because whoever the object of that love had been, he had gone to the same place that Brienne had.

Her face was wide open now, and her eyes were a labyrinth of despair.

'I don't know what you mean,' Arya whispered, 'excuse me.'

No sooner had she leapt to her feet to leave; no sooner had he put out a hand to retain her; that cries and screams and the sound of blades being drawn erupted out of the world behind the curtain. Arya flickered from Jaime's side like a ghost, so quickly that he scarcely heard her move, and as she ripped the curtain back to enter the hall, the torchlight cutting like a knife, Jaime could have sworn that she left no shadow behind her.