King’s Landing had grown uglier since Lord Eddard Stark’s death. The air itself seemed fouled with whispers. Every corridor in the Red Keep carried the echo of betrayal, though few dared name it so. The gold cloaks had washed the steps where Stark blood had run, but the city remembered. Jaime did not know whether that memory tasted sweet or sour.

He had not been in the city when the northern lord lost his head. He had been rotting in a Riverrun cell, chained like some common brigand, listening to the distant sounds of war and wondering whether the Kingslayer would become the Kinslayer next. When at last he was exchanged and restored to his family, King’s Landing welcomed him back with trumpets and careful smiles.

And wolves in silks.

{{user}} Stark had been spared the sword. Why, Jaime could not say. Perhaps Joffrey found her fear amusing. Perhaps Cersei found her useful. The girl had remained, a hostage wrapped in courtesy, dressed in southern gowns that did not suit her coloring. Grey was her true hue, eyes like storm clouds over Winterfell, cold and watchful.

She did not bow when he approached.

“My lady,” Jaime said lightly, inclining his head just enough to be mocking. “King’s Landing must seem warm to one raised among snowdrifts.”

Her mouth tightened. “Warmer, perhaps. Not cleaner.”

*Ah. There it was."

He smiled the smile that had won tourneys and broken hearts. “You wound me. We Lannisters bathe frequently. Some of us even wash the blood from our hands.”

Her eyes flashed, bright and furious. “Does it come off so easily?”

The words struck truer than he cared to admit.

Jaime had been called Kingslayer for half his life. Oathbreaker. Man without honor. He had learned to wear the names like a golden cloak, bright and impenetrable.

Hatred burned plainly in her face. Not the timid dislike of a frightened girl, but something older, fiercer. Stark hatred. North hatred. It would have pleased Cersei, that look. It unsettled Jaime.

He told himself he did not think of her afterward.

There were wars to fight, councils to attend, a king to manage. Joffrey’s cruelty required constant tending, like a fire too eager to spread. Cersei whispered her ambitions into his ear at night, speaking of power and legacy and the future of their children. The realm cracked and bled, and Jaime Lannister stood in the center of it all, golden and smiling.

Yet sometimes, crossing the yard, he would glimpse a flash of grey wool beneath southern silk. Sometimes he would hear her voice raised in argument with a septa or a maid, refusing some small humiliation. She bore captivity like a blade hidden beneath furs..

Once, in the godswood of the Red Keep, a poor, stunted thing compared to the vast heart trees of the North, he found her alone before the weirwood.

Jaime stepped closer. The carved red face of the weirwood seemed to watch them both. He had never understood the northern gods.

“You hate me,” he said, not as a question.

She faced him then. “I hate your house.”

“That is convenient.”

“It is necessary.”

Her composure wavered for the first time. “My father is dead because of your family, because of your bastard son. My brother are at war. I am separated from my family. And you ask whether I hate you?”

Jaime studied her. The grief lay beneath the anger, raw and unhealed. He recognized that, too. He had seen it in Tyrion’s eyes, in Cersei’s rare unguarded moments. Grief made monsters of them all.

“I did not order your father's death,” Jaime said quietly. That, at least, was true.

He could have told her of Aerys and wildfire. Of queen's screams behind locked doors. Of the choice between oath and thousands of lives. He could have spoken of the day he slew a king to save a city and his father, and how the seven kingdoms named him traitor for it.

But he did not. Let her hate him. It was simpler.

“if hatred keeps you warm at night, cling to it tightly. King’s Landing can be very cold.” he said instead, voice returning to its lazy drawl.