I own nothing.

Thank you for reading

xxx

Chapter 12

Luminous Trail

Where fortune is told to some

Jaime

"When were you going to tell me?" Jaime cornered Brienne just when they were all about to ride in the direction of a place called Heart, and a High one at that.

"Tell you what," she mumbled, avoiding to look at his face as if he was scarred worse than the Hound or had greyscale at best. Jaime was reminded how despite her awkwardness with people she never had any trouble observing his stump. Unlike Cersei, he thought.

He grabbed her right arm with his only hand and shook her harsher than he intended to, with all his might, immediately letting her go and stepping back. "I'm so sorry, my lady," Jaime stuttered. "This was most unthoughtful."

Almost hitting a woman in a fit of temper shocked Jaime profoundly, even if she may have been stronger than him, the disabled knight, and preferred fighting in a melee to needlework. A sting in his chest made him remember the bruises on Cersei's immaculate face when Robert was particularly drunk and rude. Jaime couldn't, wouldn't possible sink that low, even if the desire to make her yield remained strong, simmering in the pit of his stomach. Why was it so important that she should give in to him, he did not know.

"You should have told me about Ser Hyle and Pod and that they were the reason you betrayed me. Instead of keeping your sweet thick lips shut and let them sentence you to die with me as my whore in ungodly silence."

"What difference would it make?" Brienne managed to ask back, no doubt provoked by the return of his insolence. "We would both still die if the Elder Brother did not come."

"To me it would," Jaime said, unforgiving. "You could not allow two innocent people to be hanged. You brought me in for your stupid sense of honour."

"Thank you for the compliment, Lord Commander," Brienne spoke quietly, her voice rang empty, defeated.

"Wench," he said, wondering why his voice broke when he pronounced the word that has become his personal treasure. "You're as honourable as ever. I should have known."

"Brienne," she suggested, somewhat more courageous, as she mounted her horse.

Jaime wore armour again, since Daven's company brought his spare enameled white steel with them, as well as a very talkative Ser Hyle Hunt and young Podrick Payne, whom they had found in the woods. Hunt couldn't shut up about how he would've been hanged dead, as if he'd been an oath-breaking Frey and not an honest knight, if his future betrothed did not accept to bring the Kingslayer to the Lady Stoneheart to pay for his crimes.

The word betrothed shocked Jaime in parts of his being he didn't know existed. He almost had to tell himself aloud, and for all to hear, that Hunt didn't look like a bad match if Brienne wanted to marry. Other words, awful words, hateful words, plummeted from his gorge. He stopped at the last possible moment his tongue about to lash, clenching and unclenching slowly the hiltless Valyrian steel dagger the Hound let him keep. "The shiny metal is nothing to me," Sandor Clegane had commented. "Give it back to the Elder Brother when he wakes."

There was more to Sandor Clegane's scarce and impolite words, Jaime soon realized. The dagger, a masterpiece of smith's work, even without the gems it must have once worn on its handle, was forged to fit a different owner, one that must have been left-handed in battle and in letters, even if he still had use of both arms. As such it fitted Jaime's new condition better than any other weapon. The bastard had always been smarter than we gave him credit for, Jaime thought about Clegane, or he wouldn't have kept his head on his shoulders serving my sister and Joffrey for as long as he did. Maybe he needed to be that way from the very beginning, to survive his own fine household ran by the Mountain, Jaime realised, remembering an overgrown taciturn lad who sought service at the Rock when Jaime was little more than a boy himself.

When Jaime left with Brienne, and did not return, the Lannister soldiers sent fast flying ravens and regrouped. Cousin Daven led a search for him after a day, dividing the host in two. When he returned to Pennytree after a day and a night of unsuccessful tracking, it was only to learn of the adverse fate of the second part of his army, whose funeral pyre was still smouldering. They missed Lord Baelish and the monks by hours. Wanting to know more about the destiny that had befallen their fellow soldiers, and having lost all hope of finding their commander in life, they tracked Baelish south-east, and they too were followed by the evil and the cold in return. They camped two times at night in places that looked safe, and built large fires all around them, but every morning a dozen of men would be gone, including the boy Hos, Blackwood's son, and Jaime's young squires, Piper, Paege and Peck. Pia still rode with the men, and several widowed women from Pennytree joined them, some with children and kettle, so the number of camp followers had a steady chance to grow.

Podrick Payne learned about the fate his cousin, Ser Ilyn Payne, had suffered in Pennytree and had difficulties in accepting what happened. "He'd not want to go down like that," Pod had been repeating for half a day. "He was a King's Justice and all, but he was not such a bad man. He would've liked to go down protecting somebody. Doing his duty as an anointed knight."

All scouts they sent out when Daven found Jaime confirmed what the bare eye could see: the land was divided between the upcoming winter and still autumn. In the golden, orange, brown and lavishly red conquered parts of the modest woods and the broad fields of the Riverlands no grumkin doing had been seen. Men started to call that way the inexplicable evil waiting for them in the cold, since young Lady Stark had called it that way first, Jaime soon learned. Somehow it made it easier to face the unknown if you gave it a name that did not frighten you out or your wits. On the contrary, the winter plagued stretches of the lands looked sinister, with trees and bushes torn apart, as if a violent party of brigands stormed through them at night. They were suspiciously devoid of animals and living things, except for the distant howling of wolves which made the blood of the scouts run cold. What they could not begin to understand was if there was any reason why the winter touched some parts first, and missed other leagues of land in their entirety.

So Ser Daven and Ser Jaime, who have crossed the Riverlands back and forth in the war of the Five Kings, set out to trace the best way to the High Heart. The singer, Mance, had been evilly smirking to Tom Sevenstrings, honing his longsword very close to the unfortunate man, and arranging his peculiar furry-almost-white cloak as if it was his wife and not a piece of clothing. Mance let it slip in front of the rival singer that in all honesty he may have come from the island of Skagos where people ate human flesh. Jaime was nearly certain that Tom told them the truth about where High Heart lay, after listening to that particular tale.

The path was to follow the red and gold of autumn leaves. Lannister crimson will lead us to safety if gods are good at least for a day, thought Jaime, observing the trees around him, before he repeated sheepishly after Brienne, as one waking up from a long chain of dark thoughts: "Brienne..."

"Honor is waiting for you," she told him pointing at his horse.

Jaime suddenly looked forward to a long exhausting ride. The last time he felt equally exhilarated was when he swore to Cersei that he would cherish her forever in the gardens of Casterly Rock. They were children, loved and blessed with easy life, and knew nothing of what life would bring.

But now, now... nothing had happened at all to feel accomplished about. Except that Brienne was still herself and Jaime's world was made whole. He could easily enough have faith again that the sun would rise in the east, and not in the west, without giving it a second thought.

Sansa

"Your mother must have been a very beautiful whore," Littlefinger told to a stunned Gendry on the wagon now reserved for the crippled and the ill. Young Robert Arryn rode a small horse next to Mance, and Ser Shadrich, little lord's sworn shield, was following close behind. Sansa was trying to keep pace with them, fighting to keep her dress properly down and avoiding the ponds of mud made by autumn rains whenever she could. The Hound was nowhere to be seen in a long human trail and it was maybe for the best for she was spared his words, which cut her deeply, and unsettled her most of all. She was going to think about him later, before falling asleep, as she did ever since they met again.

Gendry recovered from Petyr's statement and said, curtly, "A whore she might've been, no doubt a capable one. So were the mothers of many others."

"So innocent! A lesser man would be offended by your words, but I hear the ingenuity in them, aye. I only meant to say that if you inherited the looks only from your father's side, you would not make for such a pretty lad. Tall, strong, beautiful eyes, but with tender feelings as a pliable reed," Petyr's voice was laced with fake admiration and flattering.

"If you seek to hire a male whore, I am not interested," Gendry said with finality that seemed to have shocked Petyr, if only a little bit.

"My dear boy! I know establishments in King's Landing where they could propose you such an employment. And I would be glad to show you to them once we arrive, and the singer, Ser Mance, is quite done with you, as he will be, mind my word. But for now I merely alluded to the fact that you are the bastard son of the late King Robert Baratheon, as clearly as Tommen is now our true king."

"A bastard is a bastard and an orphan an orphan, it matters not who their father was," said Gendry with determination, not giving in to cruel mocking that came his way. "And unless you want to ring my bells free of charge, I beg you to stick your nose in business of m'lords and m'ladies of your standing and leave me be."

"Foul-mouthed as your father, I see, yet another proof of who you are," Littlefinger smiled knowingly.

"Not as my father, as anyone from Flea Bottom."

Sansa suppressed a gasp and finally understood why Gendry looked like late Lord Renly. Petyr observed the boy's face closely for a late reaction, as if he could not tell if the boy knew or suspected about his paternity from earlier. "When you have nowhere to go one day in King's Landing, remember I offered you a helpful hand. If you stay alive that long, that is. His Grace is young, but he may not take it kindly to see a face of his father walking down the Street of Steel again."

The boy looked aside, into the woods, as if he was waiting for someone, or something. "The inn," he said, after some time had passed. "Mance, ser!" he called out.

"What inn?" asked the uncouth man called for.

"Jeyne's. The inn at the crossroads. 'Tis in the lands we're passing now, just a bit over there, where there's winter already come. She had a little sister, Willow, I should like to look for her and take her with us."

Sansa joined the conversation: "Gendry," she said in a warm voice. "We should better not go there. You've seen what happens at night."

"You're lying," Gendry snapped at Sansa. "You lied before and than Arya's friend Mycah was killed. Chopped to pieces and given to his father in a bag."

Sansa's carefully rebuilt world started to spin and was about to crumble. She thanked the gods, the old and the new, that Petyr had already drifted into insignificant conversation with Sweetrobin and Ser Shadrich so hopefully he was not paying attention when Gendry mentioned Arya. It would seem that she did survive the flight from King's Landing, at least, Sansa rejoiced with all her being but she did not let it show.

With her face immobile as a thick layer of ice, she faced Gendry, her eyesight hindered by unshed tears. She drew a finger over her mouth before she told him with the conviction she had used before, to address the Lady Stoneheart in the pit. "We are to read tonight when we make camp, or tomorrow, I believe. Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill, it would please me greatly if you continue to read with us. With me. And discuss such matters as you just brought forth."

The courtesy did what Petyr's words could not. Gendry bowed slightly in acceptance and turned his pleading look back to the King-beyond-the-Wall who said: "Tomorrow in daylight I will look for Willow myself. But night is almost upon us and we will not do much good to anyone if we are all cold and dead." That seemed to have satisfied Gendry, who withdrew to the darkness of the wagon where he was supposed to rest.

xxxxxxxx

"Ride hard!" a scream came from behind. "Don't stop!"

And Sansa did not, but riding hard was difficult in her heavy skirts, on a rather tame horse she was otherwise glad to have. Riders passed by, and so did the wagon until she was among the last ones, the horseless and the unhorsed from Pennytree, the camp followers, the peasants and their cattle. A cold wind came behind them all, and a shrill of dead voices, calling to each other, or wishing to instil despair in the living. She turned to look back where the road wound away, dark blue and inviting. Something possessed her and she guided her horse in that direction, opposite from everyone else, as if there was something there she had to see. A ghost of her Father, her Lady Mother, or her septa, who could tell her how she should live her life and where to go once they reached the capital again.

Sansa was not afraid any more, as her younger self had been. She just didn't know what she was supposed to do.

She rode for an hour or more, until she was swallowed by the dark, and the sunset was no more. The autumn leaves were almost gone from the canopies of the trees. She had seen them then, not the bodies of those she lost, of those she missed dearly, but of unknown men and women, commoners, innocent people. She thought she saw a wight of one of the outlaws who'd been following Lady Stoneheart as well, the one who wielded a bow with arrows and whom the Hound nearly choked to death. The corpses stood on the other side of the seasons' divide and they could not cross.

A knowledge came upon her at that moment. Nymeria will not help me here, she understood. She helped me in the caves in the Vale when Petyr feasted on strongwine and wanted to rape me. Then he would have paid the High Septon to annul my marriage and said that I had lost my maidenhead because of riding, and not in bed to Tyrion. He dared laying his right arm on me and Nymeria came. She would have bitten it off if Ser Shadrich and the other sellswords did not arrive with torches and the clatter of swords.

Nymeria is not allowed in this place because she also is a being of the cold. And even if she was, she is too far away now, hunting near... Harrenhal? Sansa's knowledge of that felt final, stronger than her love for the golden prince Joffrey ever did back in King's Landing, when she still adored Joff and admired his mother, the queen.

We have to go to Harrenhal. Then, maybe, I will know my purpose, she concluded.

The dead approached her, bidding her to go with them, calling her name. She didn't answer the call, pausing to look at the last red leaf in the crown of the tree next to her, delicate and perfect, swaying in the breeze. Had she made another step forward, there would be no more leaves, and she would join the army of the dead as one of them, a creature like her Lady Mother has become, and just like her, not of her own choosing.

The leaf fluttered and started its fall, immaterial, weightless, unreal.

Sansa tried to turn her horse back as the dead closed in on her. The horse would not move, as if he were a land ploughing animal, and not a trained one at all. So she got off it and scurried backwards where she came from, lifting her skirts high, cursing herself for being silly and going against the tide. I have to go to Harenhal, she thought as she ran faster, with her heart in her throat. She sensed or maybe she made it out in her fear that the cold fingers grabbed the hem of her long folds.

Gendry and Arya were together in Harrenhal, Sansa knew as well. It felt almost as if Nymeria summoned her to no man's land to convey her a message, if only direwolves could talk.

She saw the lights before they reached her, tongues of fire, torches, burning oil dripping. The crystals of snow, only a few feet away from where she was getting stranded and pulled back into the dark became, illuminated with unnatural glow. Five men rode towards her, but only four carried fire, the foremost was but a cloud of darkness, an image of Stranger came to take her in a righteous anger. She was swept off her feet and among the thunder of the hooves she could distinguish under the thick robes behind her back a steady beating of a man's heart.

"Your septa didn't teach you how to ride," a voice whispered, not angry, dark, deep, filled with sadness.

"I am a high lord's get, remember," she managed to say, nervously. "I learned how to ride, and I can do it. It doesn't mean that I like it."

"Then what got into you?" he had to know.

"I don't know," she said, sincerely. "Have you ever done anything you just had to do without knowing why you had to do it?"

"Once," he said and she felt cold, irregular, repulsive skin touching her neck where her dress ended under her riding cloak, just before the lips she had tasted in Raventree from under the mask sealed her skin with a cruel hurting kiss.

She instinctively touched her neck with her hand. It was empty, untouched, pristine, alone, despite all her senses telling her mind that he was still kissing her at that very moment. And she just couldn't believe she would find mere touch of the burned part of his face repulsive, especially when she could not see it. Even if she did find it ugly in the merciless light of the day revealing every ridge, and every red and wet looking cavity.

"You didn't kiss me the night of the Blackwater Bay!" she blurted.

"No," he confirmed in earnest, "but I sure as seven hells wanted to. Any men would."

"Please. Please, whatever it is on your mind now, do it. Exactly what is on your mind. I will not take offence, I swear, whatever it is," she pleaded and waited.

A trail of light was cut out before them, and extended far into darkness creeping behind them. Four riders carrying fire opened the way forward, dressed in red which marked them as Lannister soldiers, she supposed. The knights and their horses felled the darkness with the unknowing misplaced courage of the knights of summer. On the sides, framing a forest path they were all taking, a congregation of fireflies spread in straight line, paving their way, making it more obvious to follow than the kingsroad.

A luminous trail, Sansa thought and knew this was important, for later, but then rough warm skin touched her neck, nuzzling it as a hurt animal. When she felt his kiss again, she reached with her hand and it collided with the good part of his face, the burned side buried somewhere in her hair. This is real, she marvelled at her discovery. Not a mummers' farce.

"It's not cold and repulsive if that is what you think," she needed to clarify before letting herself feel fully what was being done to her. "It hurts, but not as you think, either."

He wanted to lift his head at that, but she steadied him with her hand and fought the girlish urge to close her eyes and imagine he was her own mystery knight. Instead she first chose to keep them open and then forced herself to look in front and follow the path of light lying ahead, until a ring of weirwood stumps became visible on a high hill above. Sandor Clegane didn't talk any more and Sansa lost count of a number of kisses raining upon her bare neck and clothed shoulders by the time they were about to join the rest of their party, and his lips finally had to part with her, for the time being.

There was no doubt left in Sansa's heart that the Hound loved her, just like he said in his fever, or at least came closer to that notion from the songs of her childhood than any other man she has ever met. That too was a thing in which she would need guidance of someone older and wiser, someone she could trust, to tell her what she should do, if anything. But all she had were hints, half-truths, hopes and her own foolishness, the tricks of bright light, and nothing more than that.

She thought of the fireflies, and for the first time that evening Sansa was terrified of what she might find in Harrenhal, a cursed place in the realm, of which no nice stories were told, and no songs were sung.

Mance

The old dwarf woman would not let them up the hill if Tom Sevenstrings wouldn't pay her a with a song, and he would not, not even when cold steel was pressed under his neck.

Mance regretted he was not from Skagos so he could not eat the man raw, chasing away the fleeting thought of even worse things men did to each other like an annoying raven. He stretched his head and noticed Baelish smirking and talking to both blond Lannisters, convinced that nothing good or useful was to come from that conversation. They could camp on the hill by force, but somehow the King-beyond-the-Wall didn't believe that the old woman would then cure the Elder Brother, which was the reason for their coming to the most special place he had seen so far south of the Wall.

The hill towered above a manse land, surrounded by a circle of thick weirwood stumps. The trees must have been majestic once. Their brothers in size still standing could only be found at rare places north of the Wall. They seemed to watch over the plains and award their protection to the grounds. The air smelled clean and healthy. The winter they were running away from was but a distant thought of someone else in a kingdom far, far away.

"Hey," he called upon the blond kneelers with his battlefield voice and immediately conquered their attention. "Sers, would someone help me lower the Elder Brother from the wagon? Maybe if she sees him, her witch's instincts to meddle with things will prevail!" There was no doubt in Mance's mind about what the woman was. He had seen her kind before.

"I will help you, ser," said the Lady of Tarth behind his back, and Mance felt that from her mouth the kneeler title did not offend him half as much it should. Somehow it was impossible to think that she could talk any other way. They laboured, but the unconscious monk was heavier than he looked when walking and talking, his great length and thinness an obstacle to move him without hurting his wound. The Kingslayer was with them in several long strides, leaving Daven to succumb to the Lord Protector's charms all alone. Soon he was followed by Blackwood who seemed to have a good heart hidden somewhere in his thick chest. Between the four of them they succeeded in laying the Elder Brother in front of the circle of dead wood and the fragile pale figure of an old stooped woman, whose eyes gently centred on Mance, sharp, red, a thousand years old.

She looks as if she had seen the Long Night, Mance thought, unease brewing in him when she addressed him, acknowledging the lute he bore for the first time. "You could sing too," she said greedily. "A song about this man you bring before me, if you please, for the delight of my old eyes and ears."

"It wounds me to tell you there are no songs about him," he replied and waited.

"Then about a prince who was promised, if you have heard of him in the north, of course."

"I am writing a play of late, " Mance proposed his bargain. "It is consuming my mind. I could show you a piece of that work, or sing something common like Dornishman's Wife, as you prefer."

The dwarf woman motioned them to bring the Elder Brother up the hill and the host followed in as they could. There would be not enough place on the top of the hill for everyone, but the whole area appeared to be sheltered by forces stronger than the cold. It felt as if no harm could befall them in the High Heart even if they slept under the open sky without the protection of fire.

Sansa and the Gravedigger where the last ones to arrive, and the black hellish horse found its way to the centre of the hill. The Gravedigger gave a nod to Jaime Lannister who had ordered four of his men to form a search party for the Lady Sansa: she could not keep up the pace when the scouts urged them to rush. Baelish looked less than pleased that she was back and positively furious that she was on a horseback with a man, septon or not.

Mance took in all that and turned back to the woman, overridden by a most unseemly urge to kneel in front of an insignificant old woods witch she appeared to be. He didn't do it, but she gave him a ghost of an all knowing smile. "You have seen things other men were lucky not to," she stated. "Aye," he replied. "Than your show will do for the payment of my favour for your friend."

She came closer and spoke quietly so that the others could not hear: "The first bit with the Sword of the Morning will do. I believe that is the next part you wanted to rehearse. Well met, I say, Mance Rayder, king by the choosing of your people, and against your own wishes in the matter. What do you want from me?"

The King-beyond-the-Wall grinned at the woman. He remembered other, long forgotten stories, telling she could be a descendant of the lost peoples of Westeros, a womanly child of the forest, one of the last remaining in life after thousands of years. The legends of the North said that the children's life span had been very long, but not even they could live forever, so they dwindled and died. Other tales said that when the Long Night comes and the white walkers wake, the children of the forest will rise again. But Mance learned not to trust a hope long ago. For only the bit of the white walkers waking had proven real enough in his world.

Nevertheless, he implored: "I ask for your protection, such as it may be, for me and my companions-"

"All of them?" she had to know.

"Aye," he released a word as he would an arrow, without thinking.

"Even for those who plot against your life as we speak?"

"It was my choice to let them come with me on my errand, all of them as the gods made them. Please, protect them all."

"It will be as you wish," she said, "now to your play!"

Jaime

"Ser Arthur, please, I have to speak to the Lady Lyanna Stark alone before she leaves for Riverrun, you have to help me."

"My prince, what you plot is high treason," observed Jaime Lannister holding a sword in his left hand, a fickle smile gracing his face at the thought of many unbearably sweet moments when he committed such treason himself with his own sister, the queen. "You know your father, the king."

"Precisely because I do know him better than most. Although I begin to suspect that only his pyromancers know all of his mind of late... She offended him today and she knows it not. I have to warn her. If I take a walk around the castle with my Kingsguard as a witness not even my father will be able to object. He commanded me to travel, to know my kingdoms and their keeps, so that I would not become a captive of any rebels as it happened to him in Duskendale."

"What of Princess Elia, your wife and future queen?" Jaime Lannister said, trying to make his voice sound worried, because such instruction came from the prompter behind. He still wasn't entirely sure why he was taking part in the aurochs' dropping of the play, if not for Clegane's most telling remark that the Elder Brother also did not have to save his golden ass.

"You know that I love Elia with all my heart," the courteous words sounded queer, even if not entirely unpleasing, in a huge man known for his ruthless tongue and even more implacable sword work. The butcher we created and trained, Jaime thought, my father Tywin and I.

"No," said Jaime, "I don't", pondering if Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, ever had such conversation with Prince Rhaegar. The truth of the matter was that Jaime didn't know. He was too young to be taken into confidence of his brothers in the Kingsguard. For him, addressing everyone by their proper titles had been the rule back then.

"Ser, I can and I will command you," the rasp was cold and serious as Jaime never heard it in the Hound he knew. Then maybe I never knew him at all. He wondered if his own voice would change as well, if he stayed in the idiocy of the play long enough.

"Rhaegar," he repeated after Baelish, wondering if Dayne had ever been truly allowed to call the prince they were both sworn to protect only by his first name, like between equals or friends. "How can we possibly hope to find a lady alone out of bed in the evening hours!"

"We walk as high as possible in this castle and we hope. Arthur, I have to try," was the last remark in the scene they had to perform, so that an ugly old woman would try and save the Elder Brother's life.

Jaime gave her a hopeful look when a red gleam from her eyes shot through him like a golden arrow, and he saw them listed and painfully bright in his head, all the dishonours to his name: helping father to end Tyrion's first marriage in a most cruel way, loving Cersei to the point of attempting to kill a child. His other sins, big and small, danced like mad before his eyes. The old woman's face changed shape and Jaime saw clearly the twisted features of King Aerys II Targaryen in the last days of his life, laughing merrily at him before dissolving into flames. And then, finally, the Mad King's face did not melt and burn, but turned into Jaime's own.

The Kingslayer staggered forward. The vision was gone and an old dwarf woman smiled warmly at the players.

"I will tell you of my dreams tomorrow when I dream them," she said and approached the Hound, daring to touch one of his strong arms. "Only for you, I have a warning now, lest I forget it by the morrow. Remember, and remember it well: What is dead may never die! Forget about that it becomes harder and stronger, that part is not for you."

If the Hound saw anything in the old woman's face, his calm demeanour did not let it show. And the Elder Brother's condition remained unchanged. Sprawled in front of the white tree stumps, he looked like a human sacrifice awaiting justice of a bloodthirsty god, not caring in the least about the woes of men.

Jaime wandered aimlessly to see if someone from the men under his command prepared his pallet or if he had to do it on his own. A brief thought of sharing it with a woman taller than himself crossed his mind, but he struck out and murdered it in his spirit before it could fall on fertile ground.