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Jaime Lannister stepped out of the wedding chamber, all red silk and celebration, feeling like a man pulled from deep water.
He stood in the corridor and breathed. Several long, greedy breaths before the surface finally came up to meet him.
Father.
The word had left Myrcella's lips and unlocked something. A door he hadn't known existed, rusted shut somewhere deep in his chest, swinging open without a sound.
He wasn't Cersei's secret lover anymore. Not Robert's Kingsguard. Not the Kingslayer the world spat at.
He was Jaime Lannister.
Just a father.
He started walking. The Red Keep's corridor stretched ahead of him, endless as ever, the carpet beneath his boots a red so vivid it hurt, like a river of blood that had never stopped flowing.
He'd been drifting in that river his whole life.
For a hollow vow. For a love that was never permitted. He had fed his honor and his soul into it, piece by piece, with his own two hands.
And what had it bought him?
The slap-mark on Cersei's face. The innocence that had gone out of Myrcella's eyes.
And far away in Winterfell, a boy he had broken with those same hands, thrown from a tower, shattered on the ground below.
Bran Stark.
He found, suddenly, that he wanted to see the boy.
Not to ask forgiveness. He wasn't fooling himself about that. Some sins don't get pardoned, and his sat at the top of the list.
He just wanted to look. To see what he'd made, all those years ago, to protect a filthy secret.
Jaime stopped walking.
He didn't go back to his room. He turned, and walked the other way.
The White Sword Tower.
The Kingsguard's sanctuary.
The tower was empty. Cold stone walls, white shields hanging silent in the dark.
Jaime walked to the center of the hall. A table of weirwood stood there, and on it lay a heavy book, left open.
The White Book.
Three hundred years of Kingsguard. Every name, every deed, recorded in gold ink.
Arthur Dayne. Sword of the Morning.
Barristan Selmy. Barristan the Bold.
Every name had blazed once.
He turned to his own page.
A handful of lines. That was all.
Ser Jaime Lannister, eldest son of Lord Tywin, knighted at fifteen, joined the Kingsguard that same year.
Then nothing. A vast, mocking blankness stretching down the page.
And at the bottom of that blankness, the name that had followed him for half his life.
Kingslayer.
Jaime looked at all that empty white space and laughed. A short, quiet laugh that surprised even him.
He would fill it. With his own hands. New words, new deeds.
He didn't reach for a pen. He turned around and walked out of that white cage, the one that had promised him glory and delivered a prison, and didn't look back.
...
Cersei's bedchamber.
She was sitting by the window when he pushed the door open, a cup of wine cradled in both hands.
Drinking again. The way she always did when she needed to empty herself of something.
The swelling on her face had been treated. Someone had pressed a cold cloth to it, applied some salve. But the mark was still there, vivid against her skin. It looked like a bruise in the shape of a flower, and it was ugly.
"You went to see her?"
She didn't turn around. Her voice gave nothing away.
"Yes."
Jaime crossed the room and sat down across from her.
"You told her everything?"
"Yes."
The wine cup shifted in her grip. Just slightly. The scarlet liquid swayed.
"Does she hate you?"
"No." Jaime shook his head. "She said she doesn't hate anymore."
Cersei went quiet.
She drained the cup, set it down hard on the table, and stared at nothing.
"Good."
A strange smile crossed her face. There was something like relief in it. And beneath that, barely visible, something that looked like loss, the kind she probably didn't know she was feeling.
"My daughter saw through all of this before I did."
She stood and walked to where he was sitting, looking down at him.
"So why are you here, Jaime? What do you want?"
Her eyes sharpened the way they always did, a lioness with her kill.
"To show off your fatherly love? Fifteen years late?"
"Or are you planning to take your daughter and her husband and run — leave me here alone to deal with Robert and his madness?"
"I'm going North."
He said it calmly. No hesitation.
Cersei went still.
"To help him?"
"Yes."
"Why?!"
Her voice cracked upward. Those green eyes filled with a fury she couldn't contain, couldn't even name.
"You're leaving me? Because he married your daughter?"
"Jaime, have you lost your mind!"
"Do you know what Robert is trying to do?"
"He wants Lynn dead! Going up there now is no different from dying!"
The 3,000 troops Robert had granted were militia, barely that. No real armor. No proper weapons. Robert wanted to watch 3 sides bleed each other dry, and he had no intention of answering for any of it. Everyone who got pulled into this would come out broken, or not come out at all.
The waters here ran deeper than they looked.
Robert couldn't see it. But then, Robert was a fool.
Cersei could see it perfectly well.
And so could Jaime. He knew exactly what he was walking into.
He was going anyway.
"I know." He raised his head and held her gaze. "I know he wants Lynn dead. I know he wants the Starks, the Arryns, and the Tullys grinding each other to dust. And I know that once they're all crippled, we're next."
During the final days of the War of the Usurper, Princess Elia Martell of Dorne had been married to Prince Rhaegar Targaryen. Her children had been slaughtered in King's Landing by Ser Gregor Clegane. That massacre had bought the Lannisters and House Baratheon an undying enemy in the South, a wound Dorne had never forgiven and never forgotten.
Prince Doran Martell was nothing like his brother Oberyn. He was patient. He was careful. He had accepted the Iron Throne's authority on the surface, had even declared support for Joffrey when it served him. But underneath, he had been gathering strength for years, waiting for the right moment to collect what he was owed.
If the Lannisters bled, Dorne would be pleased. Quietly, deeply pleased.
And there was something else. Jaime had heard things. Robert was arranging a marriage between Joffrey and a Tyrell girl. And Stannis and Renly Baratheon were not as toothless as people liked to pretend.
He was thinking through the worst of it. The ideal scenario didn't matter if it never arrived.
Jaime looked at Cersei directly. Eye to eye.
For the first time in longer than he could say, his gaze held no hunger. No possession. No fire pulling him toward her.
It was clear. Still. Like a mirror.
And in that mirror, he could see every line of the madness and fear on her face.
"Cersei. We've already lost." His voice was quiet. "From the moment I pushed that boy from the window for you — we lost. Right then."
"What we have isn't honey. It's poison. It's eaten through us, and it nearly killed our children."
He reached toward her face, the old reflex, the one that had lived in his hands for years.
He stopped. His hand hung in the air for one moment, then pulled back and went into his pocket.
That small motion landed like a stone.
Cersei felt it in her chest before she understood it.
He had been away from her long enough to come back to himself. And this was what he'd become.
"I'm not here as your lover." His voice was barely above a murmur. "I'm here as your brother. To say goodbye."
"Cersei. Be my sister again. Like we were at Casterly Rock, when we were small."
"We're twins. We're lions. We're supposed to stand together, not hide in dark corners like animals."
Cersei's body began to shake.
She looked at him. This man she had loved her whole life. The one person who had ever felt like solid ground beneath her feet.
He was different.
The fire in his eyes, the thing she'd been able to drown in, it was gone. All that was left was gold. Lannister gold, cold and clear.
"You're going to... abandon me?"
Her voice trembled. She didn't hear it.
"I will never abandon you." He shook his head. "I just won't love you that way anymore."
"I'm going North to protect our daughter. To protect what's left for our family."
"And you," he said, looking at her steadily, "stay in King's Landing. Wear your crown. Keep Robert from burning everything down while our father finds his footing."
"You've always wanted power, Cersei."
"Here it is."
"Show me you don't need me to be the most dangerous lion in this family."
She bit down on her lower lip until she tasted blood.
She wanted to scream at him. Wanted to tear him apart with her hands. Wanted to make him understand what he was doing to her.
But she looked at his eyes, that steady, finished look, and everything inside her that had been clawing and raging just collapsed. Fell away into something quiet and bleak.
She knew.
The Jaime who had been hers was gone.
The one standing before her was Myrcella's father. He was the lion of House Lannister.
Those were not the same thing as hers.
A long silence passed. Long enough that she lost track of it.
"Get out."
The words came from somewhere behind her teeth.
"Go to your North."
"But if you let my daughter become a widow, Jaime—"
Something cold and sharp moved through her eyes.
"I will kill you myself. I swear it."
Jaime smiled.
He knew what that meant. She'd said yes.
"Don't worry." He held her gaze one last moment. "I won't let him die."
He turned. He walked out the door. He didn't hesitate, didn't slow, didn't look back.
The door closed.
Cersei's legs gave out. She sank to the floor where she stood, pulled her knees to her chest, and pressed her face against them.
The sound that came out of her was small and broken, pressed down hard to keep it from becoming something worse.
She didn't understand why her life had to be like this.
...
The following morning.
The Small Council chamber.
Robert Baratheon was hungover and furious about it. He sat on the Iron Throne with the expression of a man whose skull was being squeezed from the inside, listening to Varys drone on about things that didn't matter.
Then Jaime Lannister walked in.
No gilded armor. No gilded sword. Just a plain white linen shirt and an ordinary knight's blade at his hip, the kind any common soldier might carry.
He walked to the foot of the Iron Throne and went down on one knee.
"Your Grace."
"What." Robert waved a hand without looking. "Can't you see I'm occupied?"
"I, Jaime Lannister," Jaime said, his voice carrying cleanly through the entire hall, "hereby formally resign my position in the Kingsguard."
The chamber went silent.
Robert straightened on the throne like he'd been struck. He stared down at the kneeling man as though the words hadn't quite reached him yet.
"What did you just say?"
"I quit." Jaime tilted his head up. A light, easy smile on his face. "I've worn this white cloak long enough. I'm done with it."
"You—"
Robert's whole body was shaking. He pointed at Jaime and couldn't seem to find the words.
Cersei. The Lannisters. This had to be Tywin's work. It had to be.
"Where are you going?" he said through his teeth.
"North." Simple. Direct. "I hear there's a war brewing. I'd like to see it."
He paused.
"And lend a hand to my son-in-law, while I'm there."
Robert's face drained and then flooded with color.
He understood now.
This wasn't just Jaime leaving. This was Jaime standing in the middle of his throne room, in front of his entire court, and choosing a side.
Lynn's side.
"Fine!" The laugh that came out of Robert was not a happy one. "Fine! Get out! Get out of my sight!"
"I've been sick of looking at you for years, Kingslayer!"
"I should have let Ned hang you when I had the chance!"
"Go on, then — you ungrateful wretch!"
Jaime rose smoothly to his feet and bowed. Unhurried. Elegant. As if he were leaving a dinner party.
Then he turned and walked out of the throne room, long strides carrying him through the stunned silence of the entire court.
He was going North.
To fight something that actually meant something.
Outside, King's Landing went about its morning. Jaime walked through it, and the sun fell warm on his shoulders.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this light.
He was nearly at the city gate when a figure stepped into his path.
Lynn.
Waiting like he'd been there a while.
"Ready?"
Jaime looked at him and grinned, wide, unguarded, showing teeth.
"Always."
➤ Next: Lysa Rebuffed
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