GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 400 - Lord Commander of the Kingsguard

Everyone knew who the real king was, regardless of whose name they served.

A flicker of understanding passed through Margaery's eyes.

She knew better than anyone that the women around Lynn, each with her different background and identity, were an extension of his power — and his greatest vulnerability.

He couldn't stand watch over all of them, not at every hour. He needed one pair of eyes and hands, no, many pairs, to guard what he couldn't.

Brienne was still somewhere else entirely, lost in the enormity of what had just happened. The knighting. Her mind was still buzzing.

She looked at Lynn. This man had a way of making decisions that should have been shocking, yet somehow landed as though they were obvious.

"Ser Brienne."

His gaze returned to her.

"You are the first member."

"I..."

She opened her mouth. She wanted to say something, but nothing came. No words were equal to the moment.

In the end she simply nodded, once, firmly, and pressed her hand to the armor over her chest.

"I also need the finest warriors in Westeros." Lynn turned, his gaze moving through the godswood's branches toward the high towers of Winterfell's main keep.

"Let's go."

...

Outside Bran's room in the main keep.

Jaime Lannister leaned against the stone wall, staring at nothing, at the gray sky beyond the window.

After Lynn took the Riverlands and the Vale, Jaime had returned to Winterfell and simply stayed. He hadn't gone to see Cersei. He hadn't gone to see Tyrion. He just waited, keeping watch outside the room of the boy he had thrown from a tower.

He wanted to make amends. He didn't know how.

Kingslayer. Oathbreaker.

The words were chains. They had been for years.

Whatever honor his life once held felt like it had reached its end.

Footsteps pulled him back.

Jaime turned.

Lynn. Behind him, Margaery — and a woman of impossible size in a knight's armor.

Jaime's body tensed before he could stop it.

"Relax, Jaime." Lynn's voice was steady.

He crossed the distance between them. His eyes were dark and unhurried, the kind that didn't flinch from what they found.

"I have a proposal." No preamble.

"I'm rebuilding the Kingsguard. I want you to serve as Lord Commander."

Jaime's pupils shrank.

He stared at Lynn. His ears had to be failing him.

Lord Commander of the Kingsguard?

Him. A kingslayer. A knight who had broken his vows twice over.

The absurdity of it rose in his chest and forced its way out before he could stop it.

"Ha. Hahahaha."

Laughter. Bitter, hollow laughter at his own expense.

"Is this how you humiliate me?"

He lifted his head. Those green eyes, which had once been sharp with pride, held nothing now but confusion.

"Me. Jaime Lannister. The man every lord in Westeros spits at. Lord Commander of the Kingsguard."

"I killed my king. I took off that white cloak in front of Robert."

"I don't think I'll ever have the right to wear it again."

"The right?" Lynn said.

"By whose measure? The Seven's? The nobles who point and whisper behind your back?"

Lynn stepped closer, leaned in, his voice dropping to something only the two of them could hear.

"Stop carrying it alone. Ned and I both know why you killed Aerys Targaryen."

"He was going to burn King's Landing to ash. Wildfire, under every street. Half a million people buried alive in flame, just so a madman didn't have to face his defeat."

"You put your sword in him. You saved that city."

"You did the right thing. You've paid for it your entire life."

Jaime's eyes went red.

Lynn stepped back. He looked at him, steady and direct.

"The old Jaime Lannister is dead."

"The man standing in front of me now is a warrior who wants his honor back."

"I'm giving you the chance."

"Put on the white cloak. Pick up your sword."

"Not for a mad king. Not for a drunk one."

"For yourself, Jaime."

Silence held for a long moment.

Then Jaime raised his head slowly. Something had returned to those reddened eyes. A small, fragile spark — but there.

"Alright."

...

In the training yard, Sandor Clegane sat alone in a corner, dragging a whetstone down the length of his greatsword in long, unhurried strokes.

He didn't like it here. He didn't like the way the northerners looked at him. But he had nowhere better to be, because Lynn had told him to watch over Sansa and the others.

Lynn's arrival made him stop.

"Sandor." No pleasantries.

"Starting today, you're Kingsguard."

The Hound raised his half-ruined face and showed his teeth.

"Sounds fine. What do I do?"

"Kill anyone who tries to harm my family."

"Three meals a day, a roof, and as much wine as you want. And if some knight you can't stand happens to give you cause, you can put him in the ground. So long as the reason holds."

The Hound's eyes sharpened.

He'd had his fill of knights with clean reputations and rotten insides.

He stood, slung the greatsword over his shoulder.

"Done. I'm in."

...

That night.

Torches burned along the walls of a low chamber beneath the keep, throwing unsteady light across the stone. Shadows jumped and stretched.

Jaime, Brienne, the Hound , three warriors with nothing in common except that each of them was among the finest fighters in all of Westeros , stood waiting for Lynn.

None of them knew why he had brought them to this particular hole.

The heavy stone door ground open with a CREAK.

Lynn walked in.

Behind him came twenty figures, each covered head to toe in black cloth, their shapes human, their faces hidden.

"The Kingsguard needs twenty more, not counting the three of you." His voice carried in the low space.

His women's safety was not something he intended to gamble on. Even with the protection of ice magic, the risk still sat uneasily with him. Twenty was the number he needed , and every one of them had to be beyond question in their loyalty, while still capable of acting on their own when it mattered.

Wights under Jaime's command fit that requirement perfectly.

"I found your men."

He raised one hand and let it fall.

The black cloth dropped from all twenty figures at once.

The three of them stopped breathing.

Those weren't men.

They were corpses. Twenty of them. Wearing torn, rotting clothes, their skin the flat bluish-gray of the long dead, their limbs rigid.

Then it came.

A cold so deep it had weight, radiating outward from Lynn in a wave that swallowed the entire chamber in an instant.

Twenty pairs of eyelids twitched.

And snapped open.

KK-KK... KK-KK...

Stiff necks turned. The sound of bone grinding against bone scraped through the silence. Then, in perfect unison, all twenty rose from the ground.

Their movements were locked and mechanical. The pressure they put off was something else entirely.

Jaime's hand found his sword hilt on instinct. It wasn't the first time he'd seen them, and his scalp still crawled.

Brienne had gone white as chalk. She was holding herself very still.

Only the Hound watched the blue-eyed things with something that looked, on that scarred and ravaged face, like genuine interest.

Lynn didn't acknowledge any of their reactions.

He produced three white cloaks , fine wool, clean as fresh snow , and held them out.

"Put them on."

Then he turned and threw twenty more, identical, to the wights.

They moved in formation. Each one bent, retrieved a cloak, and pulled it across its shoulders in the same deliberate, jerking motion.

And then they stood still.

Twenty figures in snow-white cloaks, blue light smoldering in their eyes, arranged in the darkness without a sound.

Lynn looked at the three humans, who had not moved.

"Welcome to the Kingsguard."

A beat.

"Go introduce yourselves to your new colleagues."

"You can give them orders. Anything reasonable, they'll do it."

➤ Next: Brienne with a Strong Desire to Explore