GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 403 - A Letter from Tywin
Only a few crimson embers remained in the hearth, flickering in and out of the dark.
Jaime drained the last mouthful of wine and rose to stoke the fire.
Brienne stood as well, pulling her heavy chainmail back on piece by piece.
As the cold metal settled against her skin, she became what she always was: the indomitable knight of Tarth.
"Thank you for the wine."
Her voice was still brusque. But her blue eyes held less wariness than before, and something that might have been warmth.
Jaime said nothing. He leaned back in his chair and watched her tall figure disappear through the door.
The room fell silent.
He stared at the dying sparks in the hearth and felt, for the first time, that this frozen godforsaken place wasn't quite so cold after all.
So this is what it feels like to be understood.
---
A week later.
Winterfell. The ring of steel on steel, constant and relentless.
With only one hand, Jaime was forcing a tall Umber guard back step by step.
His swordsmanship had changed. The old flamboyance was gone. In its place was something harder and leaner , ruthless precision, every strike aimed at a killing point and nothing else.
Brienne stood at the edge of the yard, watching the figure move and pivot through the drill. Her gaze never wandered.
Since that night, something had quietly settled between them. No words needed to name it. Every day, they came here and trained.
Jaime pushed himself the way a man punishes himself , relentlessly, with a kind of fury directed inward.
And Brienne had become his best sparring partner. His witness.
"Hey. Ugly woman."
Jaime kicked his opponent down, braced himself on his sword, and hauled in breath after breath, sweat dripping from the ends of his golden hair.
"You're next."
Brienne said nothing. She drew her sword.
At that moment, a rough blast of horn cut through the noise from the direction of the gate.
A man strode in with a group of Wildlings behind him. Thick beard. Heavy furs. Built like a brown bear that had spent its life being angry about it.
Tormund Giantsbane.
Robb had sent him back from the front to resupply Winterfell — men, food, provisions.
"Hahaha! Ladies of the North, your men are home!"
He bellowed it the moment he crossed the gate, and the Northern soldiers nearby erupted in laughter.
He walked with the ease of a man inspecting his own territory, wild eyes sweeping the yard in every direction.
Then his gaze stopped.
He saw Brienne.
Taller than any man he had ever stood beside. Steel armor. A greatsword that would have made lesser men weep. Sunlight catching her armor and throwing it back hard enough to sting the eyes.
Something hit Tormund like a bolt of lightning.
The grin on his face froze. His mouth fell slightly open. Those eyes, always dancing with cunning and wildness, went still, lit with something close to reverence.
The Wildlings around him noticed. They followed his gaze and burst out laughing.
"Chief, you gone soft on that big woman?"
"She's got two heads on you, easy!"
Tormund didn't hear them. He was staring straight at Brienne. Slowly, he broke into the widest grin he had, the one he privately considered irresistible.
He waggled his eyebrows at her.
Brienne felt the stare. Shameless, unguarded, almost aggressive. She frowned, shot the Wildling chieftain a look of pure disgust, and turned to leave.
She had done this before. Men always flinched when she looked at them like that. Or they laughed. Either way, they left her alone.
She never expected that her glare would make the light in Tormund's eyes burn hotter.
"Hey! Tall beauty!"
He roared it at her back.
"Don't walk away! My name's Tormund! What's yours?"
Brienne's step faltered. Her whole body went rigid. She nearly went down.
Beauty.
She had heard that word her entire life. It had always meant the same thing: a joke at her expense, flung like a stone.
But the way this Wildling had just shouted it across the yard , there was something in it that made her deeply uncomfortable. Something that sounded, impossibly, like he meant it.
She was imagining things. She had to be.
She didn't look back. She walked, quickly, and tried not to make it look like she was fleeing.
In the training yard, Jaime watched the whole thing. He blinked once. Then one corner of his mouth curled up.
---
That night.
Winterfell's main keep. Jaime's room.
He had just finished his combat drills, every muscle aching, mind sharp and restless. He was reaching for the wine when it came. KNOCK. KNOCK.
Soft. Almost careful.
"Who's there?" A flicker of irritation in his voice.
Silence from the corridor.
Jaime frowned, crossed the room, and pulled the door open.
Empty. Just cold night air flooding in.
He looked down. A letter lay on the floor, slipped beneath the door.
No markings on the envelope. Good parchment, the expensive kind.
He picked it up, shut the door, and carried it to the hearth.
By the firelight, he broke the seal.
When he saw the sigil stamped at the bottom of the page , the lion, pressed in blood-red wax, the mark he had known since childhood , his pupils tightened.
A letter from Casterly Rock.
From his father. Tywin Lannister.
He drew a slow breath and unfolded the page.
The handwriting was exactly what he expected. Cold. Precise. Utterly without warmth.
My dear son, Jaime.
I hear you are in the North, playing Kingsguard for a usurper and wearing a white cloak.
How ridiculous.
Have you forgotten that only a king may appoint a Kingsguard?
And the only king in Westeros is Stannis Baratheon.
That white cloak of yours is a child's costume. An insult to everything a knight's honor is supposed to mean.
Every word drove in like a blade. The sense of honor Jaime had only just begun to claw back — fragile, new, still bleeding at the edges — came apart under the weight of those cold lines.
His hand began to shake.
He kept reading.
Still. It makes for a decent disguise.
Since that Northern boy trusts you so completely , even placing you in command of his personal guard , you have endless opportunity to get close to him.
A Lannister always pays his debts.
That boy sent his armies to ravage our Westerlands. He has torn our lands apart. He has humiliated your sister and made Cersei his personal plaything.
The time has come for him to pay the price.
You are the rightful heir to Casterly Rock. You have a duty to this family. To our lands.
I want you to kill him.
With your sword. With poison. With whatever means you can devise.
Prove that Lannister blood still runs in your veins. Not Stark ice.
The letter ended with a single short line. It hit him like stepping through ice into black water.
I know this is difficult. But it should not be unfamiliar to you.
After all, you only need to...
Break your oath once more.
Something detonated inside Jaime's skull.
The letter crumpled in his fist.
Break your oath once more.
Break your oath once more.
Four words. A curse dragged up from the bottom of hell, ringing and ringing and ringing in his ears.
He had crawled out of that mire. Inch by inch, at cost he couldn't name, he had crawled out. He had seen light. Something that looked, for the first time in years, like a way forward.
And his father , his ever-elevated, ever-cold, ever-distant father , was reaching down to shove him back into the dark with both hands.
Do it again. Betray the man you swore to protect. Break the oath. Pick up the blade.
"No."
It came out low. More animal than word. Jaime hurled the crumpled parchment into the hearth.
The flames took it instantly, swallowing the page and all its sins, the way fire swallows everything eventually.
He staggered backward. His shoulders hit the stone wall. He slid down it until he was on the floor.
He pressed his hands over his head and shook , not cold, not fever. Rage and despair, tangled together, shaking him apart.
Why.
Why is it always him?
Why does his life have to run the same track, over and over , betrayal, contempt, betrayal again , like a wheel that never stops?
He stared at the fire.
In his green eyes, what little light remained went out, one flicker at a time, until there was nothing left but darkness and the grinding effort to keep breathing.
What was he supposed to do?
Become the Kingslayer again, despised by all forever, and prove his father right about everything?
Or cut himself free, completely, from the family that had made him, and cursed him, and would never let him go?
➤ Next: Break His Oath Again?