A Vow Without Honor

The Children

Jaime

His father's solar was for his use now, or so everyone told him, but he felt a child again every time he stepped within. It was not just the lingering presence of Lord Tywin Lannister that gave Jaime pause. There were simpler things, small reminders of a life that once was. The gap between bookshelves that Tyrion had managed to wedge himself between. He'd gotten stuck, and was only discovered when their father heard the furniture snoring. Cersei's favorite chair, where she would read while her useless twin played with swords, and where she would pout when told she could not join him. Their mother's portrait...

Lady Joanna commanded the attention of the entire room, with eyes that followed one's every move and a soft smile that spoke of hidden secrets. His father had commissioned a painter from Lys for the wedding. The work was worth more than the keeps of minor lords.

Jaime did not recognize the woman in the frame. There was something brighter about his mother in his mind's eye, hair like the sun, eyes the sea in a storm. But it was the romanticized memory of a young child, so perhaps it was her all the same.

He did not wish for his mother to witness him ruining everything she had helped build, so he would hide in one of the smaller chambers, but this was not a day for being a shy boy of six. The solar contained a large map of the realm, and he needed it if he was to move forward with their plans.

"I wondered how your father got anything done in her presence," Kevan said softly, catching Jaime's wandering gaze. "I found him looking at her more often than not, not that either of us would acknowledge it."

"The great Tywin Lannister doesn't get distracted," Jaime replied, only half joking.

"Perhaps not, but the widower of Lady Joanna certainly does."

Jaime could not bear to look at neither his mother nor his uncle, nor face the idea of his father being anything less than the resolute statue he'd prided himself on being, so his attention turned to the war table.

It was significantly less complicated than when he left the capital. The Riverlands were firmly under Frey control, and the North under the Boltons with only pockets of resistance that belonged to Stannis Baratheon. It felt like a dream seeing Stannis so soundly defeated. Once he had held him captive with no chance of escape and threatened to raze King's Landing back to the sea with one of the most powerful armies in the realm. Now he was an old man freezing to death in the wilderness with only the crows for company. Dragonstone was all but abandoned, the Crownlands collapsed, and Storm's End was the last bastion of his power in the otherwise conquered Stormlands, which Mace Tyrell was set to besiege once again, to regain his dignity if nothing else.

Were it not for his continued desire to run the man through with his sword and blot his name from memory, Stannis might have had his pity.

"Have we any word on the Greyjoys?" Jaime asked, shifting his attention westward. It was his next impossible task after all. Allowing the squid to run amok in the North had been advantageous when Robb Stark still lived, but they were the Crown's problem now. And as history served, once the North held no further interest to them, the rabble would seek richer targets in the Westerlands.

Kevan's sigh told him more than words would.

"Little," his uncle conceded, hovering beside the Iron Islands. Strange how a place so small could be the bane of so many. "Asha Greyjoy fled as soon as her uncle was crowned king. She was last seen south of Oldtown. As for Euron, there has been no word. Pyke is quiet, there have been no raids, and no sign of his ship. It worries me."

Jaime silently agreed. He'd not seen Euron during the rebellion, but he knew of his reputation. Unpredictable and cruel, yet charismatic to a fault, he embodied the best and worst traits of the Ironborn. If they were lucky, uprooting him would only prove to be immensely difficult.