A Lions Flower |J.Lannister|

• Chapter 32 •

It had only been a few hours later that Rose woke to noise outside of the tent. 

Her eyes fluttered open only to be met with the cold, empty side of the bed where Jaime had laid peacefully for hours before. She was not entirely convinced as to whether or not she should have expected it to be any different than before, Jaime had always left before the sun had risen. 

Yet it was moments such as that where the cool air wafted from the edges of the tent and the shivers from light sheets brought no comfort when Rose was reminded of the past. Creeping like a ghost in the shadows waiting to spook its unsuspecting victims. 

Rose wrapped the covers around her, sitting up in the bed and ran her eyes over the room before he. She recognized Jaime's armor gone along with him–another casualty of the past. His duty to Cersei; a chokehold of menacing family ties that would always bind as deep as blood but perhaps, in the darkness of night, not as tightly as the strings of love. A juvenile thought, as Rose pondered the scene before her, but something she dearly wished for when there was nothing else to settle.

Sighing to herself, Rose could not help but feel the dread washing over her thoughts. 

Today, she would arrive in King's Landing and face the fear she had dreamt of since she was a young woman. Cersei, with her sword beside her, ready to swing. 

Rose was going to die. 

And accompanying the juvenille thoughts of Jaime's fedility to his sister or herself, Rose compromised that she was ready for the end. She wanted life to go beyond, to meet the seven and for the wretched life Westeros had given her to be over. The moment Cersei murdered her family, then as Jaime took her home and grandmother away, death seemed all but a welcoming end to it all. 

However, in the uneasiness of dawn, Rose felt that somehow, after everything that had happened, Jaime still wanted her. He admitted to her that he did–but she can only trust Jaime to an extent. Those shadows he brought forth with his presence not the only lingering complications of his life. When no one could tell them no, when the night belonged to two lovers bound by an eternal knowledge that in peace, their souls will find one another again. 

Rose was drawn out of her thoughts when Jaime entered the tent, in full armor, just like she thought.

"The army is about ready to leave," Jaime told her, approaching the bed where she was still sitting. 

"I suppose I have to go back in that gold wagon?" She asked him. 

"I told Bronn to get a horse ready for you. You don't need to go in there again."

'How kind,' Rose scoffed in her thoughts. Removing the covers from her body, Rose left the bed and reached for her dirtied dress on the ground. As she clutched the fabric in her fingertips, Jaime's hand covered hers.

"I told you I would protect you. I won't let Cersei hurt you." 

"I wish I could believe you."

Rose knew better than to believe Jaime. Not that he hadn't kept promises before, and not because she didn't trust him, but because whether they liked it or not, Cersei had more power than the two of them combined. There was nothing they could do. Rose dressed and stood at the end of the bed, lacing up her boots. She could feel Jaime's eyes on her but she tried to make not make a larger scene. 

In the solititude of silence, a final memory of Jaime–his eyes watching her as they had a million times before, standing still and observing–would be more placid than a fight over his loyalty. 

If he remained truthful in protection, then a time would arise for him to meet the challenge. 

Once she was done, Rose straightened back up and looked at him with a flat face. It pained him to see the emotion so vacant from her eyes, that death had become an acceptable fate for a woman deserving of a life more than what the Gods had granted her. Jaime loved her, he did, yet his body felt pulled in two.