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In the end, the maesters can't save his arm. The skin has swelled up around the long splash where the oil struck, and the flesh has gone black to the pus-yellow edges of the burn. They give him Dornish brandy, syrup-thick, and the world goes soft-edged enough that he doesn't feel the surgeon's saw until it's grinding on bone.He doesn't feel that, either, really; it's a rough purr against his shoulder, a gout of thick blood that the surgeon pinches off. For a moment it could be someone else's blood, someone else's cold, thick blood on the grass beyond Storm's End--then the world pitches and goes black.He doesn't wake until the fever breaks.
* * *
Through the mullioned windows peers a gargoyle with a twisted face, his lips drawn back over teeth like gravestones and a crest of snow frosting his forelock. Loras has grown to love that ugly face as he can't love his own."Do you want a mirror?" Maester Hanlon had asked, when Loras woke for the first time. "Best to get the worst out of the way. It'll only look better once the skin's gone smooth."If he could choose again, he thinks, he'd have asked for a mirror sooner. Ugly things put him at ease, and nothing is sweeter than the sight of a man with half a nose or a cleft upper lip--nothing but the hundred leering gargoyles of Dragonstone, each one more gnarled and soot-streaked than the last. If he could have seen himself with the left side of his face still livid, hair burned away, skin swollen and cracked and leaking pus until his face twisted into a grimace like a laugh ...He reaches through the window and dusts snow off of the gargoyle's brow. The new skin tightens over his chest as he strains; if he had a left hand, he'd reach up to scratch the healing itch under his collarbone. He has only his sword hand, though, and the snow packs to a cold little knot in his palm. He brings it to his forehead, his cheek, his neck.It doesn't ease the burning, but it doesn't make it worse, either."When will we sail for King's Landing?" he asks Maester Hanlon. "I'm tired of recovering. The king--""The king isn't in any danger at the moment. You can wait until the first rash of storms has passed before you go tearing off to King's Landing."Maester Hanlon is a bluff man with a nose like a strawberry and thick links of black iron and plain iron and and silver in his chain. He advised against storming Dragonstone, Loras remembers. You'll see a damn lot of people killed, he'd said, and at least one of them might be you.Good, Loras had answered. They're Stannis's men. I'd be happy to kill them all."Tearing off," he says, laughing low in his throat. "My sister is standing trial for treason and adultery, and you're telling me not to go tearing off.""What good are you going to do her with only one arm?"Loras shakes off drops of melting snow and wipes his hand on his open doublet; his palm has gone the kind of numb that lances pain from wrist to elbow. "It's the right arm," he says. "Jaime Lannister gets by with less."
* * *
Jaime Lannister comes on the exhalation of the first winter storms, no armor of gold or Kingsguard-white cloak to mark him; there is a barely-healed abrasion around his neck and a sleeve pinned closed over where his right hand used to be. "I thought they made you a gold hand," says Loras, but Jaime only laughs bitterly at that."My sweet sister took my hand when she stripped my cloak," he says. "The duty of the Kingsguard is to defend the king's family, and I told her to go fuck herself when she asked me to fight for her. Apparently that wasn't very dutiful of me.""Margaery--""Acquitted. You knew that; I sent you a raven.""You also said she'd been locked up in the Maidenvault. If they've hurt her--"Jaime cuts him off with a curt gesture, then fixes his teeth in the leather of his glove and pulls it off of his hand. Who put it on him in the first place? wonders Loras; Jaime brought no squire with him, nor any comrades in arms. No one came to Dragonstone with him but accountants and half-starved builders, and they seem to have no purpose but to tear down his gargoyles. "Cersei let you take Dragonstone because she hoped you'd die here. She's disappointed that you haven't obliged her, and Cersei doesn't like being disappointed. You know that.""I know," Loras agrees, after a long moment. "She wanted me away from my sister, so that she could--""Just think for one damn second about something besides your sister--think what this means. You're the last man left on the Kingsguard who isn't in Cersei's pocket, and she'll see her sweet brother when she looks at what's left of your arm." Jaime smirks, catching Loras by the stump of his upper arm; it feels like being burned again, and Loras has his sword at Jaime's throat before he can think.
He's not your Lord Commander anymore. You could kill him; it would be no more difficult than killing Robar Royce, or Emmon Cuy, or--
Jaime releases his arm. Loras lowers his blade. "You'll have to be a good deal harder to provoke, if you want to spring your sister from the Maidenvault," says Jaime, not unkindly. "Cersei's court has more vipers than a Dornish shithole, and she's the worst snake of them all."Sheathing his sword, Loras studies Jaime as he would an opponent in the lists. He's grown thinner since last time they spoke, and there are new hollows around his eyes; beneath his chin, there is a faint gathering of flesh that's too firm yet to be called a wattle. When they met in White Sword Tower, Jaime was an older man, to be sure; now, though, Loras can see the shadow of an old man in him. He knows, in the very pit of his stomach, that neither of them will ever grow to be old. "I can't trust them to keep Margaery safe. They tried to ruin her once; they'll try to ruin her again.""You're part of the Kingsguard," says Jaime. There is something ugly in his smile, and Loras craves it as he craves relief from pain. "Your duty isn't to the queen, even if she is your sister.""Where is my duty, then, if not to the king and his family? What's my purpose, Kingslayer?"Jaime's eyes are ice and iron. "To defend the realm," he says, touching his throat absently. "If your sister has to die, so be it. If your king has to die, so be it. No one will thank you for it. They'll call you Kingslayer and Kinslayer to your face, and they will not thank you.""I'm not you." Loras turns away, going to the window to watch the workmen wrestle a massive gargoyle onto its head. It tips precariously, shedding flakes of ice between its thick lips. In summer, it would sluice away water from the gutters, but in winter it only freezes over at the mouth and ices all the way along its spine. The gutters spill over in the melting days and sheet ice down the sides of the fortress.
Goodbye, you ugly bastard.
Although Jaime doesn't speak, Loras can feel him at his back. On his left side, his bad side, where the flesh has run and cracked. Warmth radiates from Jaime's body, even through their thick clothes, and it makes Loras burn from scalp to shin. "But you want me to be, don't you.""The last time I thought one death could save the realm, you weren't even an itch in your father's balls," says Jaime. "If you think that killing my sister would change a damn thing, you're mistaken.""I'm not you.""No, you aren't. When I was your age, I wouldn't have broken myself on Dragonstone." Jaime reaches up to tilt up Loras's chin; only then does Loras really understand that he is standing on Jaime's bad side, too. There's only a pinned sleeve nudging his jaw, linen over a hard stump of flesh."What do you want from me?" asks Loras. He wants to draw his sword and strike off Jaime's head; he wants to close his one good hand over that stump and twist.He wants to kneel, and to be given his marching orders, and to seal his fealty with a kiss."Ser Loras Tyrell of the Kingsguard, formerly of Highgarden, brother to Queen Margaery," drawls Jaime. "I want you to shut the fuck up."It feels like a test as much as a mockery. Loras sets his jaw and wonders whether Jaime's stump can feel the muscles clenching.Jaime studies him with an expression of faint amusement. "Good. Now, listen. It's clearly not your strong suit, but we must all overcome our limitations." He tilts Loras's face one way, then the other, as though amused at the contrast between the scarred side and the clean.There's less contrast than Loras would like. There are patches of tight skin all across his right cheek, pink sores still only half-healed across his nose. He meets Jaime's eyes, and he braces himself to listen."I've been granted Dragonstone. My sister's idea of adequate humiliation for my failure to protect her--strip me of my white cloak and all the gold of Casterly Rock, and replace it with the soot and sulfur of Dragonstone. A worthless holding; Stannis Baratheon knew that, at least."Loras says nothing."Worthless," Jaime says deliberately, "for anything except mining dragonglass, which the Night's Watch has demanded from my sweet sister. She's rejected their plea, of course. They didn't even send a hand in a jar this time; she couldn't be expected to listen for anything less than three fingers dancing a Dornish jig. They have coin enough to pay for dragonglass, though, or so I heard from a Braavosi banker--I'll wrest some use out of this place yet."Still Loras says nothing. This, too, is a test of his patience, and no one is better than Jaime Lannister at finding him wanting."Nothing to say, Ser Loras?" Jaime lets his stump fall to his side, laughing light as snowfall. Beyond the window, the workmen have pulled down the gargoyle at last. It wallows in the drifts with its paws broken clean away. "Then you have no opinion on where a young queen might hide, when she's broken free of the Maidenvault. No idea where she might go."Suddenly, Loras laughs; the laugh startles him, tugs at the aching parts of his skin and sets them afire. "The last place she'd go would be Dragonstone," he says. "Her brother broke himself on Dragonstone.""And of course he'd search the rest of the realm for her, but it would be absurd to imagine that she'd go to that desolate rock. There's nothing there--no gold or jewels or dragons' eggs. Certainly no Braavosi gold.""Nothing," agrees Loras. "Only a man I despise, a traitor to the realm. A kingslayer.""Then we understand each other." Jaime claps his good hand on Loras's good shoulder; when he smiles, it makes his cold eyes gleam the green of old copper. "Serve the realm before your king, before your queen, and I'll do what I can for your sister.""Why?"The corner of Jaime's lips quirks. "When the world is going to blazes, you save what you can and let the rest burn."It's nothing remotely like an answer.
* * *
While they wait for the high winds to clear, the two of them cross swords in the hall that was once Stannis Baratheon's. They circle his vast table, Loras forcing Jaime back almost to Casterly Rock, Jaime driving Loras around the Sapphire Isle of Tarth. Jaime's left hand is weak, but Loras's wounds are still tender; Jaime can riposte well enough to hold his own as they duel close to the Neck.He is a beautiful creature, when he has Loras bent back over the Fingers with a sword at his throat and the longest Finger digging against Loras's spine. He is a thing of heat and ice, implacable and tireless and cruel.They mirror each other's movements; they chase each other to the high chair of Dragonstone, panting with each heavy blow. Loras emerges from the Chamber of the Painted Table with every muscle leaden, nearly too weak to stand, and he curses Jaime's arm and his bulk and his smirk.When the storms go screaming south, Loras bids farewell to the gargoyle beyond the mullioned windows, and to Maester Hanlon with his chain of many-colored iron. He salutes the new master of Dragonstone, pressing his lips to Jaime's knuckles."When you reach King's Landing, seek out Brienne of Tarth," says Jaime, withdrawing his hand. "She's been told to expect you; she knows what to do."Loras's gut twists at her name, and again he sees that thick spray of blood over the ground beyond Storm's End--but he swallows down his bile and nods. "Do they still call her the Beauty?""They still call me the Kingslayer," Jaime replies. "Ugly names have a way of sticking--but when my brother led the charge at the Blackwater, the men shouted Halfman all the same. Keep the realm safe, and let history sort out the names.""It was an honor," says Loras, although it sounds like no more than a platitude in his mouth. It was an education would be more true, but no less mealy-mouthed. He glances across the chamber at the far reaches of Westeros, carved in wood so many years ago. Far to the north lies the Wall; far to the south lie the vast, hot reaches of Dorne. Between them, his sister is locked in a painted vault in a painted city. "Go," says Jaime Lannister, and Loras goes.
* * *
In King's Landing, they call him the Gargoyle, and even shorn Queen Cersei recoils from his visage. He only smiles as Jaime had smiled when he'd clutched death between them, all edged steel.
Keep the realm safe, and let history sort out the names. As he adjusts his white cloak with his one good hand, he looks out over the roofs of the Red Keep toward the Maidenvault.