Winter Is Here // Game Of Thrones

Winter fell

The sea was restless, black waves crashing against the hulls of the Dothraki ships as they cut southward. The wind howled through the masts, a ghostly wail that made the sails shudder. Jaime stood at the bow, hands gripping the wood, his stomach twisting as the familiar salt air filled his lungs. He had been here before—sailing toward war, toward death, toward the place he once called home and now wished to never see again.

He hated the South. Hated it more now than ever. It was in his blood, in his bones, and he despised it all the same. He knew its heat, its cruelty, the games men played there with smiles and poisoned words. He knew what it did to men like him—what it had already done.

Behind him, Arya stood with Sandor Clegane, sharpening her dagger with slow, methodical strokes. There was something unsettling about her stillness, her quiet readiness. She had always been a ghost of a girl, slipping between the world of the living and the dead, but now... now she looked as though she belonged more in the latter.

Jon Snow sat further back, muttering quietly with his men, his eyes darker than the waters beneath them. He had not spoken much since they boarded. Perhaps he knew what awaited them. Perhaps he simply did not wish to say it aloud.

Above them, in the sky, Daenerys flew.

Jaime saw her shadow before he saw her—an eclipse against the moon, a beast of legend soaring through the storm-washed clouds. Drogon cut through the night, black wings spread wide, his great body a streak of shadow against the heavens. And atop him, the queen. Divine. Terrible.

Jaime did not need to see her eyes to know she was watching him.

She did not trust him. She never had. And he could not blame her for it.

But trust was not what unsettled him. It was something deeper. Something he could not name.

He had spent his life around Targaryens, both real and imagined. He had watched Aerys burn men alive, had seen the madness in his eyes when he screamed for wildfire. He had seen Rhaegar, his silver hair shining like a halo, his gaze fixed on something beyond mortal men's understanding, something Jaime had never quite grasped.

And now there was Daenerys.

She was a dream, a wonder, a vision that did not belong in this world, and yet—Jaime felt it, deep in his bones, the sinking feeling that she was something else entirely.

She was wrong.

Not in the way her father had been, not in the way the Mad King cackled as he gave his orders. No, she was something more dangerous. More absolute. Aerys had been a man pretending to be a god.

Jaime feared Daenerys had convinced herself she was one.

The men on the ships bowed their heads when she passed overhead, murmuring quiet prayers. He had seen the same reverence in Essos, had heard the stories of how she had been worshipped as a goddess, how men knelt before her, how they called her the Breaker of Chains, the Unburnt, the Queen of all things. And perhaps she believed it now, truly believed that she alone could shape the world as she saw fit. That she alone knew who deserved to burn.

Jaime had killed a king for that once.

His fingers twitched, itching for a sword he had long since lost.

He turned away from the railing, away from the sight of her, and instead looked at Arya. She caught his stare and smirked, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"She's watching you," Arya said, testing the edge of her blade.

"I know."

"She doesn't trust you."