Chapter XV

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Act II of Devotion: Endurance

Chapter XV: Burn

'Many maesters wonder why there were so few letters that remain written by mother's hand. It is very rare to find anything written by her, especially correspondence with my father. There is a reason why my mother is quite an enigma, an interesting figure people speak of even today when she no longer walks among us. And I think I shall inform you of the truth of it at this very moment. My mother decided to burn everything. That may surprise you all very much, considering how well my mother and my father look together whenever the small folk and others see them. But at this point, my mother hated my father and wished that she never married him. It was understandable to me how my mother reacted towards my father. She was betrayed, hurt and left alone to face the mad king while worrying about all those around her, including seven children while grieving the loss of a daughter. So my mother watched all those letters burn to remind her that the past was gone and there was no more return. They were way too past that anyway.'

-Maester Maekar, Chapter V of the White Queen.

-Maester Maekar, Chapter V of the White Queen

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King's Landing

282 AC

A few weeks after Harrenhal

JAIME LANNISTER DID NOT LIKE THE SMELL OF THE THRONE ROOM AND HE HAD ONLY BEEN HERE FOR A FEW WEEKS. In great honesty, Jaime hated almost everything in the damn capital. The smell was the worst of it. Great shit in the outside and the smell of burning bodies in the keep. Jaime Lannister perhaps hated the burning bodies more than the horse shit, any day he would choose horse shit smell than burnt flesh. The smell has never been easy to deal with, especially being on duty almost every day. The king had forced the lion to stay by his side much more often than he should. If anything, ser Jaime should be learning from the other members of the kingsguard first. But the king insisted that Jaime do his duty as soon as he arrived back in the capital. And he did learn quick.

His first duty?

Watching a woman burn for speaking against the king's cruelty after her own son got burnt by the king for stealing bread after the taxes got higher.

She shouted and screamed and spat in front of the king when she should have begged for mercy. Jaime doubted that begging for mercy would have saved the woman's life for committing a grave offense and perhaps she knew it too. Instead, she defied everything for the memory of her dead son.

Jaime wondered what his father would have done. What his sister Leila would have done. What would be the woman's punishment in their eyes? Would she receive lashes from whips? Would she be forced to a walk of shame? Would she be arrested and imprisoned instead? Jaime knew he could keep making assumptions, theories, thoughts. But his father nor his sister have not been there. They were not here to give the sentence, the king was.

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