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“She hung for you” Hyle rasps while they sit in front of Brienne’s cottage. He doesn’t lift his eyes to look at Jaime Lannister, prefers to stare at his own boots instead, his legs stretched in front of him, but he can hear and feel the man tensing suddenly, becoming as still as stone.
He doesn’t quite know what this feeling is, this anger. He thought it was at Brienne, for almost dying, for almost killing him to save the man that now sits a few feet from him, but now that he had time to breath since fleeing the Brotherhood, now that they are here at the edge of the precipice, waiting to know if she lives or if she dies… he realizes it’s not at her.
It’s The Kingslayer he hates.
“She hung for you” he repeats, trying to make sense of it more than anything else. “She would have died if not for the boy. I would have died if not for the boy.” He wonders what that must feel like. To have Brienne of Tarth’s loyalty. You almost had that once, he reminds himself. “If she wakes… you need to let her go. Release her from this stupid quest, lie to her by telling you’ll fulfill the oath you both took, send her away if you must… I do not care for what words you use, Kingslayer. Just let her go. Let me take her to Tarth. I’ll make her happy. I’ll protect her… but if you care for her in the sightless, you need to let her go, for she won’t unless you tell her so.”
He finally raises his eyes to stare at Jaime Lannister. The Kingslayer eyes are fixed on him, his jaw clenched. There’s something in his eyes that takes Hyle by surprise. Confuses him.
Then a slow wet trail forms. One single tear, rolls down Jaime Lannister’s face, shining under the moonlight, dropping down his chin.
It doesn’t make him look weaker, Hyle realizes. It makes him look terrifying.
That’s when he understands.
“Gods be good… You love her”.
The silence stretches between them, infinite. Hyle feels he can’t look away unless he’ll have the Kingslayer kill him in the blink of an eye if he doesn’t pay attention to his every move.
But he doesn’t move.
Just cocks his head to the side. That something still behind his eyes.
“”Kingslayer”” he says, repeats it in the same tone Hyle has used, the same tone all of them use, when saying it. “Oathbreaker. Shit for honor. How do you think a man such as I love, when it happens?”
“... Selfishly”
Jaime Lannister smiles, sharp, dangerous.
“Would I be a better man, I would have done as you said.” He stands, looming over Hyle. His smile is gone. “I am not”
He turns around, walking towards the door of the cottage where Brienne lies, alive or dead and both.
Hyle is not surprised when hours pass and the brothers seem to have allowed The Kingslayer to stay beside Brienne’s bed
Hyle is not surprised when he learns on the morrow that Jaime Lannister has wed Brienne of Tarth.