"Brienne!"
The flat of his fist hammered against the door of the cabin but he barely heard it over the rush of blood pounding in his ears.
Please let her be here. Let this be a mistake.
But something in his core felt turned inside out, a raw nerve that was sending out alarms that something somewhere was horribly wrong.
It had taken him entirely too long to notice the change. That morning he was slow to wake, his head thrumming unpleasantly from the bottle of scotch he and Tyrion managed to put down. The red logo on his toothpaste had looked wane and he had brushed it off as a side effect of his overindulgence and the minimal light he could tolerate as a result.
But that afternoon, when he hadn't a single reply from Brienne to any of his texts and he sought her out, a stoplight revealed the awful truth: the colors were not faded but gone, not even a hint of their tone remaining. The steadily rising terror that nipped at his subconscious surfaced with the certainty that something had happened to Brienne.
He sucked in another breath, ready to pound at the door again when it flew open and any hope he was wrong evaporated when he saw Selwyn Tarth's drawn and tense face.
"She never came home," he said flatly without any preamble and left the door open as he withdrew back into the room.
"Why didn't you go with her? Why aren't you out there looking for her now?" asked Jaime accusingly and slammed the door shut, watching as Selwyn crouched to fiddle with the lock on a cabinet.
There was a pause while the man shoved his arm into the dark space, his hand blindly sweeping along the underside of the cabinet's top. "I can't."
"What do you mean you can't? Are you that craven?"
Mr. Tarth stood abruptly, a package now held in his right hand, and lifted his left up to Jaime's face.
"You don't banish a Goddess from your life without blowback, son," he growled and brandished the amputated ring finger before him. "I can't. Are you going to find her or not?"
Jaime's eyes flicked from the mutilated left hand to the one that now held the package out in offering. Odd it never occurred to him before this moment that Brienne wasn't the only one with a story to tell. For as contentious as his first impression of Selwyn Tarth was, he felt a new grudging respect for a man that had wedded, bedded, and apparently banished a Goddess and lived. Time would tell if it was misplaced, but in the meantime, the man need not know it existed at all.
Scowling he took the package up and ripped off the brown paper and twine to reveal a thin dragon glass dagger.
"I'll find her."
Selwyn sighed and eyed Jaime with a tired, almost resigned expression.
"I know."
Any other time, it would have amused Jaime how similar this was to when he last went looking for Brienne in the woods, though now he had even less of an idea of where to start, where to go, and what to expect.
Forty-five minutes of travel over moderately difficult terrain in the dark put her disappearance somewhere within a two-mile range from the cabin by his estimate. He considered heading in the direction of her old campsite, to the flatter part of the forest that would give him the most visibility, but his feet turned him to face Northwest, to the elevated terrain that fed the waters of the Blue Fork.
Blue, like her eyes.
The thought made him feel exceptionally stupid but it was as much a reason as any other he could conjure, and he flexed his bare fingers over the hilt of the dragon glass tucked behind his forearm, willing to risk the cold for the added dexterity.
An hour later he was regretting his directional decision when twice his boot had slipped on snow slicked rocks and dirt had worked deep under his nails from the climbs navigating the trail necessitated.
"Having trouble?
Jaime looked up from where he had been brushing dirt off his knees to find a woman watching him from higher up on the trail. Her build was slight under thick winter clothing, her loose hair some light to medium shade, with a face that, while quite pleasant, definitely bore the signs of age.
She looks vaguely familiar. A fellow professor, perhaps, from one of the hard sciences, maybe, he wondered before shrugging it away.
"Actually yes," he said and straightened, casually tucking the hand with the dagger into his pocket. "I'm looking for my friend. You can't miss her: Very tall blond woman," he said lifting his free hand an inch or two over his head to indicate her height. The woman's fine brows lifted.
"I saw someone that tall walking earlier today near the caverns though I could not tell from the distance if it were a man or a woman. I can show you where I saw them last."
Relief flooded through Jaime and he nodded, grateful. "Lead the way."
The woman jerked her chin and moved off the trail, deeper into the trees.
"This friend of yours-"
She turned to look at him while lightly stepping up a rock formation in such a way Jaime wondered if it was just him that was in constant battle with the RiverRun Wood.
"Yes?"
"Are there others out searching for her?"
He mentally frowned at the question but outwardly only shrugged. "I'm the first but her father was concerned enough to send others," he said lightly, thinking there no harm to implying he wasn't alone or wouldn't be for long.
After all, Lannister's lie... or, at the very least, they do not give up information on vulnerabilities without good cause.
He glanced up as the woman passed through a shaft of light and for a moment it seemed as if her edges blurred, her shape distorting and Jaime shook his head as a wave of nausea washed over him.
Shit.
In his hurry to find Brienne he didn't bring any water and his hangover was deciding this was the moment to make an inopportune return. He cursed himself and Tyrion before his thoughts turned back to Brienne.
Stupid, stubborn woman. R'hollr, keep her safe.
"How much further?" he asked as the feeling passed.
"Not much. The entrance is just ahead."
Gritting his teeth, he focused on the heels of her feet. The woman seemed to step in a steady beat, a never faltering rhythm of left then right, left, right, like a metronome. It made him dizzy and the nausea surfaced anew.
"Do you work at the University?" he asked as he broke his gaze away, swearing to never drink with Tyrion again.
"No."
At that, he squinted at the braid that ran down her back. He supposed it could be auburn and she could be a Tully he'd come across at one of the high social events. Either way, she didn't seem inclined to elaborate.
She does look a bit like Catelyn, he conceded as they came before the yawning mouth of a passage that lead down into the rocky hillside. Jaime pulled the flashlight from his pack and quickly shifted it to his off-hand, reluctant to let go of the dagger. The movement sent several small rocks bouncing down to echo endlessly off the walls. It was like staring into an abyss, the only contrast in his black and white world being the smoke that curled from his mouth with every breath.
It reminded him of his dream and the dark foreboding that had wracked him throughout.
"Sapphires," he murmured.
"This way," said the woman cheerfully while moving into the cavern, and her body was swallowed by the all-encompassing dark.
His hand adjusted its grip where it rested on the dragon glass within, this time with intention.
Because Jaime had just become aware of two absolute facts:
One, Brienne was definitely somewhere in that cave.
And two, when the woman spoke, the air had been flat and still around her pretty lips, no wisps of condensation to be seen despite the freezing temperature.
His thumb pressed the switch to the torch, the artificial beam shooting onto the woman where she waited. In the bobbing light, the woman flashed again, distorting for the blink of an eye into a smear of light and pattern before settling into a normal form.
A Nārhēdegon.
In folklore it was known as the Oubliette, a monster that replaced the real world with one inside its victim's head to keep them content and complacent in their fantasies while it slowly devoured their body. But instead of the illustrated clawed shadow in the compendium, Brienne's book had described it as a fungus-like organism that snaked underground and used dark magic to touch its victim's mind, pulling out details to build their non-threatening lures and spin dreamworlds.
The devouring part, however, was consistent amongst all tellings.
The flashes were coming more frequently from the woman now in highly contrasted bursts while she moved unbothered through a passageway.
Colorful. Brienne's book called the lures colorful.
Hedging that his blindness offered some degree of protection from the magical trance the Nārhēdegon was trying to put him under, he kept his eyes locked on her back.
Would I know if I were in its thrall? Could I be already?
His foot slid with his next step and he looked down, his lip curling in disgust to see some sebaceous-like liquid gathered in thick pools over the floor of the cave. Unable to find the source, he directed his beam upward and bile rose in his throat.
Above him, a nest of bone-white vines writhed and pulsed like a den of snakes, and Jaime had to stifle a sound of disgust when a drop of the slime fell onto his hand from above, leaving behind an irritated red mark though he quickly flicked it off.
Definitely not entranced yet, he allowed.
"Come on, she's waiting!" the Lure beckoned and Jaime quickly plastered the most benign unbothered smile on his face and wondered at what type of fantasy the Nārhēdegon was trying to push into his mind.
Let it think it has you.
The placid look was harder to keep up as the passage opened, and he was hit with the stench of loam and decay. The white vines that had thus been only on the ceiling now draped down the walls to twine along the floor, congregating into seven distinct amorphous masses outlined in shadow.
The beam of his light passed over the nearest form and Jaime only just stopped himself from recoiling from the human hair he saw tangled among the vines.
Too dark. Not hers. Not hers.
"As you can see, she is perfectly fine."
Tearing his eyes away from the corpse, Jaime followed to where the Lure stood over the largest mass.
Brienne.
Her blond hair was in disarray, the strands fanned over her cheeks and eyes. Her long limbs were anchored to the floor by the light-colored roots, each of which undulated slowly to express the liquid from their flesh. Underneath, patches of her clothing had dissolved away and the surrounding skin inflamed. And she was still. Far too still.
For one horrifying second, he just stared at her, a sick rush of fear, devastation, and rage nearly swallowing him whole.
Go away inside, he urged himself and tightened his grip on the knife. Go away and do what needs to be done.
It was a skill he'd learned and perfected in the dark years of his adolescence. Obsessed with maintaining absolute control over every aspect of his children's lives, his father would often lock them away in their respective rooms for weeks on end, their only interactions being with their tutors and the maid who brought their meals. during these confinements, it kept him from going mad and, on the occasions his father's cold rage turned violent, allowed him the only bit of respite he could find.
But then she breathed and it was like being thrown back into his body, sensory awareness rushing in like the air into her lungs
The creature flashed again and in his periphery, Jaime could see roots emerging from the ground to slither against his boot. He stepped towards the Lure and away from the vines, extending his left hand out for her to shake.
"Thank you for helping me find her."
When her cold clammy hand met his, he lashed out with the dragon glass he held in a reverse grip, running the entire length of the blade along its exposed throat. He doubted it mattered where he stabbed a creature such as this, just as long as he did it with a magical blade.
But if it mattered, he did not wish to be wrong.
Liquid bubbled from the cut and the Lure collapsed, its strobing distortions setting his nausea upon him again and he kicked the body to the side before crouching to hack at the roots restraining Brienne, starting with the one that bound her neck.
"Fuck," he breathed when he saw the raw, burned skin underneath and wiped at the caustic slime with his shirt sleeve, debating a course of action.
Get her out of here first, then get this shit off.
"Brienne?" he hissed and shifted to work at the bindings over her shoulders and arms but she only twitched
"Brienne!" he tried, more forcefully this time and she startled.
"Jaime," she rasped just as he threw the last vine off and with great effort hauled her to her feet.
"Brienne, I need you to walk."
Her eyes were glassy and unfocused (and so blue, he could cry in relief at the sight) but she managed to find her feet to bear most of her weight. "It wasn't him. How can it be you? You wouldn't. You can't."
Jaime gripped her chin in his hand, his face close and he was unsettled at how cool her skin felt against his fingertips. "Brienne, I need you to focus. Can you see me?"
Her face crumpled with some unfathomable sadness. "I always see you."
Aye, he wanted to say but his tongue stuck in his mouth, we have that in common.
Instead, he slung her arm over his shoulder and pulled her out of the cave though she resisted once they were again under the open sky.
"We have to destroy it."
"Later. You're not well."
Brienne wrenched her arm free and staggered only a few steps before falling to her knees.
"Burn it."
"I don't have..." Jaime tugged at his hair in frustration and cursed silently up to the sky before he crouched before her. "We'd need fuel to burn out a cavern that size. Tons of it-."
But she was already shaking her head. "I am the sword of R'hollr, the Lord of Fire and Light. I don't need fuel. But magic has a price."
Twisting her torso, Brienne pulled her dagger from her boot with a shaking hand and held the blade to her forearm.
Jaime lunged, knocking the blade away from her. Her reaction was slow, like a dancer underwater and she crawled to retrieve it from a pile of dirty snow but he beat her to it.
"I have to, Jaime! It killed those people. It is my duty." She rocked back on her heels, her skin diaphoretic and ashen against her burns, and held her palm out. "I will take it from you if I must."
Jaime was used to battles of wills, trained well by his family to stake out a claim and not budge one fraction of even one percent if it mattered.
And this, he decided, mattered.
With a quick rotation of his wrist, he slashed the dagger against his upper inner arm, the fine blade making short work of his layers of clothing, and his blood darkened the sleeve.
"All the Great Houses descend from the Kings of Old. I know the stories well."
He felt a little guilty smiling at Brienne's look of absolutely horrified astonishment but... well, he did love to win.
"Best get to it, your Grace."