GOT: I Plunder Skills — Chapter 404 - Break His Oath Again?

In the fireplace, the letter from Casterly Rock had burned down to ash , a shapeless, indistinguishable heap.

But every word was still there. Seared into Jaime's mind like a brand.

Break his oath again?

His life was nothing but a joke, playing out on repeat.

He staggered to his feet and shoved the door open. Cold night air flooded in and did nothing. The fire burning in his chest didn't even flicker.

He needed an answer.

Or maybe he just needed someone to tell him he hadn't gone mad.

His feet carried him toward Tyrion's room before he'd made the choice to go there.

In all of Winterfell, perhaps only the dwarf he'd spent a lifetime looking down on could understand how absurd this had all become.

Tyrion's door was ajar. Dim candlelight leaked through the gap, and with it the thick, sour smell of wine.

Jaime pushed it open.

Tyrion sat hunched over a mess of parchment, cup in hand, brow furrowed, studying what looked like a map of the North. He glanced up at the sound.

When he saw who it was, something shifted in those mismatched eyes. A flicker of understanding, quickly contained.

"This late, dear brother." Tyrion swirled his cup. "What wind blows you to my door? Come to share your insights from sparring with the undead? Or have you finally discovered that being a hero isn't quite as entertaining as it looked?"

Jaime didn't answer the mockery. He walked to the table, poured himself a cup, and drank it down in one pull.

The liquor burned his throat. His mind stayed exactly as tangled as before.

Tyrion watched him. The smile faded, slowly, until it was gone.

Not many things put a look like that on Jaime Lannister's face.

"A letter from Father?" Tyrion said carefully.

Jaime's body went rigid. He said nothing.

That was enough.

Tyrion exhaled , a small, quiet sound , and refilled his cup.

"Let me guess. He praised you. Called you the pride of House Lannister, the lion of the Westerlands. And then, almost as an afterthought, asked you to do something... not entirely honorable?"

Jaime's head came up sharply. His eyes were bloodshot, fixed hard on Tyrion.

"You knew."

"I didn't know." Tyrion shook his head and drank. "But I know him."

"We're all his tools. You, me, Cersei. He'll sacrifice any one of us without a second thought, as long as it gets him what he wants in the end." He paused. "But you..."

His expression shifted. Something strange moved through it.

"You've always been different, Jaime. Not an ordinary pawn. He would never sacrifice you."

Jaime felt his heart drop straight through the floor.

Tyrion's words were almost identical to the letter.

"What does he actually want?" His voice came out rough. "What has he ever actually wanted?"

"The same thing. Always the same thing." Tyrion's gaze went distant and dark. "The glory of House Lannister. And for that glory to last a thousand years."

Silence settled over the room.

After a long moment, Tyrion set his cup down. He looked at Jaime, and then , without any warning , asked something completely unrelated.

"Do you remember Tysha?"

Jaime went still.

Tysha.

The name was a thorn buried so deep he'd almost forgotten it was there. No one had spoken it aloud in years.

Tyrion's first wife. A common girl.

He remembered.

He remembered being the one who orchestrated the whole thing , the staged rescue, the gallant brother playing hero , because Tyrion was young and lovesick and too terrified to approach her on his own.

He remembered his father's face when Tywin Lannister found out. Cold didn't begin to describe it.

And he remembered what came after. His father standing over him. The words Jaime had been made to say.

She was a whore.

I paid for her to keep you company.

He had watched his brother's world come apart at the seams. Watched Tywin force him, along with a full squad of guards, to enjoy that poor girl.

A silver stag a turn.

"I remember." Jaime's voice scraped the words out.

"Yes." Tyrion smiled. There was no warmth in it at all. "Of course you do. Because you were the one who told me that lie."

He stood and walked to the window, looking out at the black, frigid night beyond the glass.

"You know what, Jaime? When I learned the truth, I didn't blame you." He was quiet for a moment. "But sometimes I think the reason Father hates me so much goes beyond killing our mother. Beyond what I am." A pause. "He hates me because I had the audacity to want something of my own. To love someone I had no right to love. In his eyes, that was the greatest stain I could put on the Lannister name."

"So he destroyed her. And he destroyed me."

Tyrion turned.

Jaime's face had gone the color of old bone.

"He could do that to me. He sold Cersei off to Robert like a prize mare." Tyrion's voice stayed level, which made it worse. "What makes you think he'll be gentle with you?"

"He won't. He'll take the thing you care about most — the family's honor, the heir's duty, every chain you've wrapped around yourself — and he'll use it to drag you exactly where he wants you to go." He let that land. "Even if the road ends at the edge of a cliff, you'll walk it."

"That's our good father. Tywin Lannister."

Jaime staggered back a step. His shoulders hit the cold wall.

He couldn't breathe in this room anymore.

He turned and got out , not walking, fleeing , and didn't look back.

He needed to see Cersei.

He needed to hear it from the woman he had loved and hated his entire life. The final answer. From her mouth.

Light showed under Cersei's door.

He didn't knock. He put his boot through the heavy oak and shoved it open.

She was at her vanity. No gown tonight , just a plain sleeping robe, her golden hair loose around her shoulders. At the sound of the door crashing open, she glanced at his reflection in the mirror.

No surprise on her face. None at all.

"So you know," she said. Calm as stone.

"Father sent a letter." Jaime was breathing hard. He crossed the room and braced both hands on the vanity table, leaning over her. His eyes , bloodshot, burning , searched her face. "He wants me to kill Lin En. He wants me to break my oath. Again."

Cersei's mouth curved. It wasn't quite a smile.

"And that surprises you?"

She turned to face him.

"Isn't that what he does?"

"You —" Jaime stared at her. At that calm, nearly empty face. Something hot and formless surged up through him. "Don't you care?! Cersei! He's asking me to be an oath-breaker and a killer. Again. Does that mean nothing to you?"

"Care." She repeated the word like she was turning it over, looking for something she'd lost inside it. Then she laughed. The sound was hollow, scraped clean of anything warm.

"I spent half my life caring, Jaime. What did it get me?" She didn't wait for an answer. "He wrapped me in silk and gave me to that drunken oaf. Sixteen years as queen in a golden cage in King's Landing. Then Robert died, and Father tried to sell me again — to Loras Tyrell, that pretty boy who has no interest in women." She looked at him steadily. "And you. You put on that white cloak, gave up everything, just to stay close to me. And what did any of it cost him? Nothing."

"We both thought we had some say in our own lives."

She rose from the bench and stood in front of him, looking up into his face.

"We were wrong, Jaime. We were always wrong."

"From the beginning, we were only ever tools. I was the one he bartered with. Tyrion is the shame he can't look at. And you ,"

Something complicated moved through her eyes.

"You are his only real hope. The heir he built everything around. The perfect Lannister. For you, he would burn down anything and anyone , me, Tyrion, every soul in the Westerlands."

"Does he love you?" She tilted her head slightly. "Maybe. But what he loves more is the idea of you. The Jaime Lannister who carries his legacy forward, who makes the Lannister name last forever."

She looked away.

"I'm done with it."

The words came out quiet. Exhausted in a way that had nothing left to prove.

"I'm done being his piece on the board."

She met his eyes again.

"So I became Lin En's woman." She said it plainly, without apology. "Without a title. Without any real standing. Just a woman in the shadows." A beat. "But here, I don't have to answer to anyone. I don't have to pretend to be someone else to protect a name I never chose."

"Here, I'm just Cersei."

Jaime stared at her. No words came.

He felt something give way inside him, quietly, completely, like ice breaking in the dark.

Everything he'd told himself. That it was all for her. For them. For the family. He'd believed that. He'd needed to believe it.

And he had been the biggest fool in the room the entire time.

The woman he'd given his life for had already seen through all of it. Had made her peace with it. Had walked away.

Only he was still standing here, frozen in the middle of a story that had moved on without him.

A sound came out of him , ragged, wordless , and he turned and ran.

Out of Cersei's room. Through the corridor. Out of the keep and into the open air, the cold moonlight hitting him like a hand pressed flat against his chest.

He didn't know where he was going. He just ran.

He ended up in the training yard.

And there she was.

Brienne of Tarth.

Alone in the moonlight, working through forms with that massive greatsword. The blade caught the light with each pass, tracing bright arcs through the dark.

She stopped when she saw him.

"What's wrong with you?" The frown was immediate, her eyes sharp on his face.

Jaime didn't answer.

He drew his sword and leveled the point at her.

"Draw your sword."

His voice was barely his own.

"Fight me."

"Now."

➤ Next: Making Your Own Decisions