God-Child-Soldier

III

Jace had absolutely not an inkling what the girl was planning, but he knew that he was both immediately at fault and wanted absolutely no part in it.

The girl—Alder, her name was Alder—wasn't even looking at him, so he just swept the heavy cloak across his shoulders and—at a loss considering he was only wearing his riding gear—stuck the knife in his belt like a child play-acting at being a soldier. The cloak immediately warmed him so well that the sensation of heat dampened the pain and also his ability to process complex thoughts. Once, as a child, he had stood nearby as Aegon threw rotted tomatoes out the window, watched them fall to the stone street below and explode. His head felt a bit like that.

"How are we going to sneak out?" he hissed to Alder, who had swung open the door and was now facing down what could not be less than ten horses and their torch-bearing riders bearing down on the house like a Dothraki horde. She looked back at him like he was the insane one.

"We're not," she said, and strode out with her swords glimmering in the golden firelight. Jace felt his jaw hit the floor, and he had to resist the urge to try and flee again, out through the window this time. The cloak whispered around his feet, heavy on his shoulders, and a flicker of memory passed through his mind, of an armored hand clapped on his shoulder and a baritone encouragement back into the sparring ring.

Stand your ground, Jace. It is yours and no one may take it.

Jace drew the hood of the cloak over his head and stepped out of the house. It would not do to leave a lady alone in the face of something like this.

Alder was waiting patiently at the cairn's side for the horses to stop in front of her, now very clearly dressed for battle with her swords gleaming and wearing what Jace thought the black brothers of the Wall might wear; thinly spun black wool from head to toe. He sidled up to her, tilting his head down so the cloak obscured as much of his face and finely embroidered dragon-riding tunic as possible.

"What now?"

"Follow my lead," she hissed out of the corner of her mouth as she tugged his hood lower, before raising her voice louder. "Rand. You've come back. Should I be worried or flattered?"

The man atop the lead horse looked like a squirrel taken form, with a shrewish mouth and bushy sideburns bursting off the side of his dirty face. His nose twitched angrily as he peered down at the girl.

"You've gained a guest. Before, you swore no man nor dragon had come here."

"I have no control over dragons," Alder replied as if Rand was particularly stupid. Jace assumed that—despite the obvious stupidity of the bandit's cronies—this was not the case. Alder seemed the type to bait others with their insecurities. Living with Aemond Targaryen gave one a good eye for that sort of thing. Rand's scowl deepened.

Alder continued, "And this man has very recently arrived."

"He's the prince," one of the men snarled, "Hand him over!"

"A prince dressed in a pauper's cloak of the North?" Alder laughed, a derisive sound. "No, I assure you, this is the youngest of my brothers, Strickon. He's here to pay his respects," she lay her hand on the cairn sorrowfully. Jace's mouth twisted into a small smile of its own accord. Clever. Either the bandit Rand could disrespect the dead by calling Alder a liar, or let them be. Hope blossomed in his gut. Perhaps he really would get home today.

"You're interrupting my grieving," he announced gruffly, seized by sudden and fleeting bravery, "Piss off."

Alder's carefully neutral expression took on a hint of distressed humor, as if she couldn't decide whether to laugh or elbow him in the gut. Rand peered between the two of them with clear suspicion and disbelief, but he looked at the cairn just as often. He must have cared for whomever lay underneath it.