The kingsroad was sparsely lit by a bright moon and a carpet of stars like snowflakes in the sky as I rode with Jaime at the head of the column. The wood around us was still loud with life despite the hours. An owl hooted here, a hare scampered on the underbrush there. It would be eerily similar to how we were ambushed, only this time I had the obvious foresight to send scouts ahead and around us, who’d signal their presence every once in a while.

We had left as soon as my little show was done. The men were just awestruck enough that when I left the house with Jaime and gave the order to mount up and ride, they simply followed us like lost ducklings.

I had to come to terms that the more I built up my religious persona, the farthest I would seem to the everyday man. You don’t chat or shake hands with divinity. Sometimes, men respected lords that sat around a campfire late at night during campaign to trade war stories with them more than they feared gods.

That would be something I would have to carefully balance. People may love and look up to the divine, but gods were too good for mundane things such as respect and empathy, and it so happened that I carried the human burden of being fallible. Gods were only gods because every one of their shortcomings could be hand waved aside with a cryptic passage in an old dusty book.

The first time I failed, at a field battle or a city defense, I could as easily be crucified as an idol as I was now being deemed a savior.

We were a good fifteen feet ahead of the men, with Ser Lyle being the closest behind us, as was his due as a kingsguard. I had no idea what he was thinking, but back at the village he had looked at me with a confused mixture of wariness and devotion before moving to follow my order. He didn’t strike me as much of a religious adherent, but seeing your king bring a man back to life will do the strangest things to even the most cynical of knights.

I glanced at the man riding to my side. “Still getting used to the new hand?” I asked. He kept bringing it up to his face and turning it about, clasping it with his left hand, touching his horse and saddle. Like a kid with a new toy.

Good for him. He needed to help himself now that Cersei was dead, and going left-handed was a pain no men deserved.

Jaime startled out of his reverie. “Oh. Yes, I suppose so, Your Grace..” He shot me a strange look that bordered on melancholy. “It… I had just started to come to terms with losing it. Seemed fitting, a good punishment for my crimes. It feels… cheapened now.”

I chuckled. “You got a crazed sorceress in the bargain, ser. I assume having her twisted thoughts squeezed into your own must be a good substitute for a lost hand.”

He laughed. “Aye, perhaps. She does go off on tangents. It’s confusing and mind-opening at the same time.”

“Yes, the world is a bigger place than we all think it is, Ser Jaime. There is more between heaven and earth than the maesters and their narrow quasi-science would have us believe,” I said. “Best get used to it.” I had an earth’s worth of useful quotes I could steal, and I would even be called wise for it.

His horse whinnied beneath him, but Jaime only nodded, looking down as if in deep thought again. We rode in silence for a few minutes, the wind whistling through the branches and the horses trotting on the dirt road the only sounds to be heard. It painted a peaceful image, but it just reminded me of the sad state of my kingdom. Were I at peace, I would be able to do something about it. Paved and cobbled roads, expanding industry, new businesses and investment opportunities. Yet when I poked my head up over the wall of the now, all I saw was war on the horizon.

The realm had been at relative peace for twenty years after the fall of the Targaryens, with Greyjoy's ill-fated rebellion being the only blot in an otherwise good time to be alive. Imagine the lords that heavily invested in their holdings in the Riverlands during that time, counting on the continuous peace of Robert’s rule. It was all ashes now, and the Starks and the Lannisters didn’t even need dragons to burn it all to the ground.

Daenerys had three, and that was just one of the three pretenders for my throne still at large. Dirt roads would have to do for now.

“Tommen,” Jaime said, and I realized he must have been calling me for a while now.

I cleared my throat. “Yes?”

“How… how did you know how to bring me back?” he asked, looking uncomfortably at both sides as he did so. “I saw her memory. You barely knew what you were doing, true, but there was purpose there, knowledge.”

I nodded. There was no use hiding it. “There are a great many things I know, father, and an even greater many things that people don’t know about me. Things I have no intention of divulging.”

Jaime only stared at me for a moment, then a smirk found its way to his lips. “Oh, how mysterious, Your Grace. Very enticing. Does that work on the Tyrell girl?”

Raising an eyebrow, I asked, “You doubt me?”

He shook his head. “I trust you, Tommen. You did bring me back to life after all. But when did you learn all these things? When did you become the man you are now? I watched you grow up, and there wasn’t much there, with all due respect. You were either running from Joffrey or hiding behind Cersei’s skirts—and believe me, there isn’t much to be found there.”

This time, I barked with laughter. “Bold of you to say such things to me, father. But I’m afraid I would like to keep that to myself. A king needs his secrets, and that and many others shall die with me.” Jaime snorted, but nodded all the same. My horse wandered out of the path of a pothole before I steered it back to his side. “I have a question of my own, Ser Jaime. And I expect the answer to be from a kingsguard to his liege.”

His face turned serious. “Anything.”

I almost shook my head. I didn’t think he would be saying that when I spoke the words, but I needed the story from his lips to excuse my knowledge. I’d been wanting to restore the image of the Lannister family, and I’d start with the Kingslayer. “Then tell me the true reason why you killed the mad king, ser.”

Had he been afoot, Jaime would’ve stumbled. He opened his mouth to say something only to choke on the words. It was obvious he didn’t want to speak of that again, as he did with Brienne, but he was still sworn of honor and life to me until he left with Tywin.

And so he told me.

xxxxx

Jaime told his story with more detail and less emotional mumbling this time, and the picture he painted was even worse than I remembered. The vivid retellings of what Queen Rhaella went through nightly with her husband, the burnings at the great hall, the secret killings all over the city.

Those were grim times, and I could see it started to take a toll on Jaime, so I steered the topic back to safe waters, to his time as a young squire where he’d won a tourney melee at the age of thirteen.

Our conversation had turned cheery again when we arrived at a hill overlooking the southern shore of the Blackwater Rush, and further on, the city. Stunned, I reined my horse harshly. For a moment, I just stayed there over the hill, barely believing what I saw.

King’s Landing was afire. The northern part of the city was pocketed with red and orange flames as if an artist had carelessly slashed his dripping brush against the canvas. A great cloud of smoke hung over my capital like a shroud, and even from all the way at the hill I thought I could hear the screams of my people.