Chapter Text
“I’ve brought more wood, ser.”
Jaime Lannister barely lifted his eyes to the urchin carrying a bundle of kindling for the fire guttering weakly through the gloom of his private chamber. Now that the Stark words were made true and the dragons not far from the shores, most of the logs went to feed the blazing fire of the only one who mattered in King’s Landing while the rest froze or nearly at the pleasure of their gracious Queen.
The boy set the sticks by the sooty hearth. “Will you be needin’ anything else, milord?”
“No, thank you, that will be all.” Jaime continued poring over the dusty book on his desk, pages crackling with each turn, wishing to the gods he studied more seriously the histories and follies and triumphs of siege-craft instead of spending all his time at swords. His reading had never been good, the prospect of running out of time and burning in dragonfire making it worse. Jaime looked up from the ancient, thick tome of forgotten Maester Olwyn, willing his eyes to strengthen, read better, faster, find the answer to saving the city from becoming another smoldering ruin, another Valyria, but all he could do was scrub his hand over his beard and look at the snow gathering along the ledge of his closed window. He turned his head. The boy was still there.
“Are you hungry?”
The urchin nodded.
Jaime waved his golden hand to the platter of uneaten food on his dining table. If a good fire was scarce, good food was even harder to find but at least as the Queen’s brother and the Lord of Casterly Rock, he ate better than the rest of King’s Landing. The boy ran to the table, digging his grimy hand inside the pie, scooping up gray strings of meat and clumps of grayer turnips.
“You may use my fork, boy.”
“’Ands are better, milord.”
Jaime chuckled. “Or at least more fun.” He was rewarded with a greasy smile. Tommen’s trusting face swam before his eyes and Jaime nipped his flesh hand, nipping away the memory.
“What you readin’, milord?”
Jamie sighed. “I wish to gods I knew. I’ve read so much these past weeks, I don’t even know what I’m reading anymore. Can you read?”
The boy just looked at him, smacking his lips over the meal in his mouth.
“Well, you will learn one day. It’s good to know how to read.” Maybe you will…if you aren’t fed to a dragon…
“Why?”
“So you can learn things. So no one can trick you.” Oh, Tommen…
“You don’t need readin’ for all that.”
Jaime chuckled again, realizing it was the second time in a minute he’d laughed in what felt like years. “True. You have a wit about you. If there was time enough, I’d make you my squire. What’s your name, boy?”
The boy suddenly looked as serious as The Father in a septon’s hymnal.
“No one.”
Jaime smiled. “Well your secret is safe with me, No One. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with the kitchens.”
The boy returned his smile. “Thank you, ser. And I can tell you the answers you’re lookin’ for, milord.”
Jaime narrowed his eyes, squirming slightly in his seat. “What do you mean?”
“About the dragons.”
“How do you know---“
“That’s what everyone talks about, ser. How will we defeat the dragons.”
Jaime relaxed with another sigh. “Yes. That is the most pressing concern on everyone’s mind still left in this wretched city. So tell me, No One. What is the answer?”
“You don’t. Open the gates. Lay down your sword. Beg for her mercy.”
Tears sprang, unbidden, to Jaime’s eyes at the honesty and trust of the boy’s words. They reminded him of someone so far away, she might as well be dead. For a breath, Jaime and the boy locked eyes and he dashed away a tear with the heel of his calloused hand. “I can’t, son,” Jaime sniffed. “That would be treason.”
If the boy saw the tears, the reddening of his nose, he graciously ignored them.
“For you, maybe, milord. For me that would mean life.”
Jaime smiled and said, “You are wise beyond your small years, No One. How old are you, anyway?”
The boy shrugged his narrow shoulders and munched on the hard crust of black bread.
“So, ser, now that you know the answer to saving the city, will you tell me a story?”
“From these books? You would die from boredom before the dragon queen even landed.”
“No. Another.”
“Well, I have been in many battles. And tourneys. And melees. And I remember stories of brave knights and ladies, children like that sort of story, yes? Have you heard of Ser Antonelle the Elegant? Not very well known but I’ve always loved--“
“Tell me about your dream.”
Jaime sat upright, his spine shocked into lifting. “What dream?”
“The dream you had when you left Harrenhal. The dream about Lady Brienne. You told her you dreamed of her. But you never told her what you saw.”
Fear snaked around Jaime’s throat. He gripped the edge of his desk, feeling the wood bite into his hand, his voice so low he could hear the snow pelting across the window, softly pinging the panes of glass. “How do you know this? Who sent you? Is she… Who are you?”
The boy gave no answer.
“Who are you!"
The boy answered quietly. “I told you. I am The Waif. The Baker. The Old Man. The Old Woman. The Serving Girl. The Stable Boy. The Captain. The Whore. The Urchin. Arya Stark. No One.”
Jaime’s mind grabbed hold of the one name he knew, heard before. “Arya Stark? Of Winterfell?”
The boy nodded.
Jaime Lannister could not believe, would not believe that standing before him, the small boy with an uneven mop of bright red curls, a constellation of brown freckles scattering over his pug nose, was Arya Stark of the Starks of Winterfell.
“No, no, no,” he said shaking his head, his golden hand clanking across his desk, shaking with fear, “it’s not possible. Arya Stark is gone.”
“So are dragons. And yet, here I am.”
To prove the words, the boy changed into the daughter of Eddard and Catelyn Stark right before Jaime’s astonished eyes---green eyes melting to gray, russet deepening to dark hair, heart shaped chin lengthening to a long face with less the girl she had been and more the woman she was becoming---then just as quickly, her face shifted once more into that of the ruddy little boy’s, her body shrinking with young age.
Jaime did not know what he wanted more: to pass out, unconscious, into a peace of blackness or retch up the few bites of his supper---or run. Never in his life had he seen such devilry. Never. He stood on wobbling legs, lurched around the heft of his desk and he told the boy so.
“What devilry is this?” he whispered. “Who are you?”
“I told you.”
“It isn’t possible…Arya Stark is…”
“What? Dead?” Green eyes, not unlike his own, peered out at him from the boy’s face.
“Yes. Dead. It was…assumed. She was never found…we all thought…”
“You all thought wrong. And, besides, what do the Ironborn say? ‘What is dead may never die.’ That was always my second favorite saying, after “Winter is coming.’ Both are true, you know. I am dead and yet I live. And winter, Kingslayer, is here.”
Fear lanced through Jaime, nearly sickening him. Never had he felt such fear. Not now, with the threat of doom and ash coming. Not when he was captured by Robb Stark and thought he would hang. Not when he was imprisoned in the dark, dank belly of Riverrun, wrapping his mind in fair memories of Cersei, a ward against the whispering shadows. Not when he heard the bells tolling deeply throughout the Keep, alarming and alerting the sleeping world to awaken, for Tywin Lannister was dead, the Imp fled. Not even when he jumped into that pit to save the wench, the bleeding stump of his missing hand throbbing with searing, burning pain. He was too afraid to even reach for his sword, for in a flash of certainty, like the blade through his wrist, he knew, if this …child… wanted him dead, he would be dead, and nothing could stop it from happening. He swallowed thickly, pushing down his urge to scream.
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
“To cross the last two names off my list.”
Dread pooled around Jaime’s heart and he thought it would stop altogether. “What names?” he forced himself to ask.
“The Mountain. And Cersei Lannister.”
“For what?”
The boy smiled crookedly, all childish innocence bundled into his sweet face. “What we all should want, Kingslayer. To kill them.”
Jaime dropped to one knee, uncertain as to how he still stood. He did not know if the relief flooding through him was because the boy did not say his name---or because he said the names of the two greatest monsters in Westeros. He knew it now, knew it to be true. He looked at the boy. And he looked at Arya Stark. And he looked at The Cobbler. And looked into what for him were the green eyes of The Stranger. And he knew, as he struggled to breathe, his breath coming in shallow huffs to his lungs, that if anyone could kill the Mountain or Cersei, it was this fey creature standing before him now. But...gods, be good...if Arya Stark killed them---killed her---then that meant he wouldn’t have to break yet another oath on his long, lonely road of broken oaths and lives. Yet he was still a knight, still a Lannister. And once, he loved her, loved her with all his heart. Shame flickered through him.
“Please. I beg you...little...Lady…Arya. Cersei is my queen, my sister and---“
“Your lover.”
“Yes.”
“Say it, Kingslayer.” He looks at this boy, this creature.
“My lover. And---“
“The mother of your dead children.” He did not wait for him to tell him to repeat the words.
“The mother of my dead children.”
“And the reason Bran lost his legs.” I am dead. I will die mad as Aerys. That will be my punishment…
“And the reason Bran lost his legs.”
“Is she still your lover? Do you still love her?”
Jaime knew as surely as wildfire burns that this boy would sense any lie. And now at the end of his life, it wasn’t needed anyway.
“No. I have not loved Cersei for a long, long time.”
The child smiled. “Since Harrenhal.” It was not a question. “Since you jumped in that bear pit to save Lady Brienne.” Jaime found he had no words but only the widening of his eyes for his answer. “Do you love her? Lady Brienne?”
Jaime lost the strength of his bent leg, sending his other knee crunching into the rushes on the floor.
“Always.”
“Good. When this is over, make your way to Winterfell. She waits for you there.” The boy turned to leave.
“But she…I…I am a Lannister. Jaime Lannister. I cannot just walk into the North and declare my love for Lady Brienne, before your sister and Jon Snow---and expect to live.”
“You can. And you will. You will bend the knee. You will pledge your sword. The dragons are coming, Kingslayer. And there is nowhere else for you to go.”
Jaime scrambled to get up from the floor, his mind a torrent of fear and questions but his legs failed him. He crawled on his knees toward the small boy, the boy at a height with Tyrion.
“How will you do it?”
“It will be done.”
“How will I know it was you?”
“You won’t and yet you will.”
“I know hidden passages…”
“I know them, too.”
“I could help you escape…”
“I do not need your help, Kingslayer. But you need mine.”
“But why? Why are you helping me?”
The boy had his hand on the door’s brass handle. He released it to turn around, facing Jaime, still on his knees.
“I did not know what I would find when I came for my names, I only knew that I would have them. I hate your family for what you have done to mine. But here you are---trying to save a city, trying to save people like The Boy. You are covered in a love you do not deserve but the Lannisters are not the only ones who pay their debts. And life should pay with life.”
“But---“
“Stay ready, Kingslayer. Go north. And remember: open the gates.”
Jaime lowered his head, trying to steady his fear-tossed thoughts. He closed his eyes, remembering he was a Lion and they only wolves and he snarled to his knees, “Is this some kind of trick, you daemon? Are you in league with the dragons? Would you feed us to your dogs?” Finally, his hand felt for his sword.
But when he raised his eyes, the door was open, the boy gone.