With a special thank you to Hazel-3017, my new beta-reader.
"I hate you," she whispers.
Joffrey's face hardens, vitriol spews from his mouth, and Ser Meryn's hand crashes against porcelain skin. It all happens in the blink of an eye and when it is done, Sansa Stark kneels amongst the rushes and splotches of red decorate Trant's white, silk glove.
It is the glove, and not the girl, that draws his attention. Color's wrong, Sandor thinks. He struck her with silver steel, not white silk.
He fights to remain in the present, but the ghosts of his past are a constant shadow, hounding him always, and when he slips (even for a moment), they are relentless in their assault, so the memory takes him.
"I hate you," she whispers. Her voice is laced with fury and her stance utterly fearless. Sandor wants to leap in front of her, shield her from what he knows will come, but he has been abed for over a fortnight now and his body fails him. Gregor raises his mailed fist and smashes it against her nose. Then, suddenly, there is screaming and blood—rivers of it running down the knight's gauntlet, thick and dark and haunting, staining the floorboards beneath. Gregor's laugh cuts through the cacophony as he leaves the girl wailing on the floor and stalks from the room.
Sandor's screams join his sister's and only when Gregor is surely gone does the maester come running. The old man rushes to the girl's side, carrying her off to reset the nose (but it will not work—the bones are shattered beyond repair—and from that day forward, Sandor will not be the only Clegane to forswear reflections). But this does not silence Sandor, and he continues to howl, full of rage and despair, because Gregor struck her and he was still too weak to prevent it and gods above, why does his face still burn?
The servants rush in, desperate to ease him, but their gazes never dare climb higher than his chest and he wishes for them to choke on their useless courtesies. Words are nothing in the face of fire and blood. And they have already consumed him.
His bellowing continues until the beams of first light filter in through his window and his sister returns, face covered in bandages, eyes black from bruising. Her gaze greets him without flinching, taking in the newly acquired savage burns as if they had always been there. As if nothing at all has changed.
She crawls into bed beside him, hands smoothing down what is left of his scorched and brittle hair. Then she begins to sing. Gentle Mother, font of mercy, help your children through this fray. Soothe the wrath and tame the fury, let us know a better day.
His screams finally taper off as her steady voice quells the furious pounding of his heart. She has always kept a fervent faith to the Seven, his sister, has even entertained the idea of committing herself to the Silent Sisters, but never will. She could not abandon her beloved brother in such a manner, not when it'd leave him to face Gregor alone. Sandor is grateful for this decision, for he knows he would resent the gods for taking her from him. And he does not want to hate anyone she so dearly loves.
He holds his sister tightly as she whispers her plans—they must needs run away. It will only get worse if they remain in the Keep. Sandor knows she is right and so begs her to flee now. She refuses, of course; will not leave without him. They have time, she assures him. They will wait until his strength returns and then they will ride as far as they please—to the Free Cities, mayhaps. She is stubborn, his sister, and tough as Valyrian steel. So he acquiesces and takes comfort in the fact that they'll soon be free of this tower and the monster that dwells in it.
In the end, it takes him five moons to recover. His sister is dead in three.
He emerges from the past just in time to watch Joffrey stroll out the exit, Aerys and Meryn trailing just behind. Sandor lingers, eying Sansa, who has yet to rise from the floor. And though her posture is slumped (perhaps the first time he has ever seen it so), her eyes still carry a hint of determination that is all too familiar to him. He scowls—refuses to be drowned by ghosts once more—and roughly yanks her to her feet.
"Save yourself some pain, girl, and give him what he wants."
"What… What is it he wants?"
"He wants you to smile and smell sweet, even when he brings you pain." Especially when he brings you pain. "He wants you to chirp those pretty little words like your Septa taught you. He wants you to love him… and fear him."
His voice is harsher than perhaps it should be, and his fingers dig sharply into her skin. Sandor hopes the words sear deep in her soul, lest she forget. It is a warning she must heed—the same sort of warning he should have given his sister all those years ago. Mayhaps if he had…
Sandor shoves the girl away from him and leaves the room to trudge after his charge. Sansa Stark is nothing but a little bird in a gilded cage and she had best come to terms with that if she's going to live.
He refuses to think of his sister again. He refuses to think that, like her, Sansa may no longer want to.
"And as soon as you've had your blood, I'll put a son in you. Mother says that shouldn't be long."
Joffrey's words crawl across her skin, and in spite of the stifling heat, Sansa finds herself shivering. The beautiful golden-haired children she once longed for become twisted in her mind's eye—they bear the king's wormy lips and beady gaze, with mouths that spew poison and hands that wrought only suffering. Arya was right. I am nothing more than a stupid fool.
She longs for her wild sister and the arguments they had. And Robb, who'd cut down any man who would dare to lay hands on her. She longs for the comforting embrace of Mother's arms. But instead, her betrothed presents her with Father's head, where it sits atop iron spikes.
Sansa gasps and averts her gaze, begging for mercy. She can almost hear Arya's voice in her ear, growling like a she-wolf should. We're Starks. We don't grovel to the likes of him. But Arya is likely as dead as their father, thanks to Sansa. And as the bile begins to creep up her throat, Sansa realizes she should look upon what remains of her lord father. She deserves no less.
Blue eyes rise to lock on the (nearly unrecognizable) tarred head, and a strange heat begins to pool in her stomach, one Sansa has never felt before. Joffrey continues to torment her, but Sansa remains silent, staring up at her father as the heat is worked into a raging fire, one that threatens to consume her. Her heart is speeding, thumping so loudly she wonders if the others can hear it, and she feels quite not like herself. That is the only explanation she can offer for her retort to Joffrey's proclamation that he'll gift her with Robb's head as well.
"Or maybe he'll give me yours."
Ser Meryn's fist bears a gauntlet this time, and when her lip splits open and blood trickles down her chin, Sansa finds herself bizarrely hoping it will scar. Her heart aches so fiercely that she wonders if she'll ever be well again. She doubts it—her father is dead, her prince is a monster, and she fears that when she returns to Winterfell, it will be as a box of bones. Sansa is broken, her insides shattered into a thousand pieces. The outsides may as well match.
She does not know why, but her eyes seek out the Hound's. His words of warning echo in her mind and her arm aches at the memory. She has not dared meet his gaze since the tourney when he forced her to, but she does so now. He wants you to love him… and fear him. One is easy; the other now impossible. Sweet Sansa, her mother's summer child, would heed his advice. She'd remember her courtesies and recite them now, pledging allegiance and professing love, however false.
But the Hound's grey eyes remind her very much of Father's, and unbidden comes the memory of his last moments. She'd shrieked and begged and strove to be by his side, desperate and disbelieving that her beloved prince could be so cruel. But then Janos Slynt had thrown him onto the block and Ser Ilyn drew Ice, wielding it against its true master, and the horror of watching her father's head roll across the Great Steps of Baelor, his body still warm and twitching, overcame her.
With that memory, the strange fire boils and swells in her stomach and her gaze hardens, as unforgiving as winter itself. And oddly enough, it is the Hound who looks away first, his eyes glazing over and drifting off, as if he is somewhere else entirely.
"Will you obey now?"
Sansa tears her attention back to Joffrey before she lets it stray to her father. Winter is coming, his voice whispers in her mind. But Father was wrong. Winter is not coming. It is already here.
She takes three steps forward and dips into an elegant curtsey. "Your Grace."
Joffrey meets her along the walk, those fat, worm lips smirking down at her in victory. Sansa smiles up at him. She is still smiling when she shoves him off the edge and sends him screaming to the bailey below.
The raven comes at dawn, with the gleam of first light reflecting a ghostly halo around its obsidian wings. Ser Brynden, the Blackfish, Tully does not need to read the missive. He can already tell from the maester's ashen face that the bird has come on the Stranger's errand. Dark wings, dark words, he muses. Truer words there never were.
"Who has died?"
He thinks of his brother, Lord Hoster, and can only pray the old goat still has some fight left in him. Edmure is not yet ready to lead the Riverlands, certainly not in its present state of friction. He is more dog than fish—good-natured, eager to please, and poorly suited for swimming upstream. Despite his years, his nephew is near as green as Robb Stark. In some ways, mayhaps more so.
Brynden wonders for not the first time if he's done Edmure a great disservice, deciding to take leave of Riverrun and make his home in the Vale. It had seemed the prudent choice after Robert's Rebellion, with Hoster unrelenting in his desire to wed him off as he had Cat and Lysa.
The very thought of his youngest niece leaves Brynden with a sour taste in his mouth and the urge to spit upon the ground. He can scarcely believe her petulant treatment of Cat in the Eyrie, or how she stubbornly refused to lend aid to her family when they needed her most.
She's disgraced herself and both houses Tully and Arryn, and deserves the honor of neither name. Brynden has not wanted to admit her a lost cause, has had a difficult time indeed reconciling the shy, delicate girl he helped raise with the volatile, paranoid woman she has become. But he can deny it no longer. When this business is over, when the Riverlands are secure once more and Cat has her husband and daughters returned to her, I'll fetch little Robert. We'll foster him in Riverrun or Winterfell, where he can grow under men and women of honor. I shall not let him meet the same ruin as his mother.
But the maester's response brings all his ruminations to a halt. "Eddard Stark, Ser."
Brynden Tully can do naught but stare at the maester as a weighty stone settles in his chest. It is a heaviness he has not felt in decades, since he rode with Barristan Selmy to quash the last of the Blackfyre pretenders. He takes a dragging look about the camp, its inhabitants just beginning to mill around, packing up their tents, preparing the wounded for the short journey to Riverrun. High above, Tully and Stark banners dance together in the wind, proud and strong.
Cat loved to dance, he muses. He remembers another Stark man and how the Wild Wolf had spun his niece across Riverrun's Great Hall until her face was flushed and her legs unsteady, clinging to him for support amongst a fit of giggles. She'd wept so sweetly when Brandon Stark died, wearing mourning clothes up until the day she wed his brother.
Brynden takes the missive from the maester. The love she held for Brandon was a child's tenderness. It was not until Eddard took her to wife that Cat learned the depths of a woman's passion. And her pain would match the difference. He thinks of that young girl, sobbing into his arms on the edge of the riverbank, and vows to act as her anchor once more, if that is what she requires. Family, duty, honor.
"I shall deliver this one myself. Declarations of war are better heralded by knights than maesters."
"But Ser," the maester replies, brows furrowing, "are we not already at war?"
The Blackfish laughs, but it is a joyless sound, one marked by experiences that were hard in the earning. "This," he says, indicating the camp, "is not war. This is a failed rescue, an escalated conflict mayhaps." He reaches out, flicks the short chain around the maester's neck that belies his young years better than his beard can hide them. "War is when the rivers run more red than blue, when whole castles burn and men think themselves gods. You've not known war, boy. But you will, soon."
"Surely such war cannot be brought by just one man?" argues the maester.
"Obviously the Citadel must not be the beacon of knowledge and hope we are told it is," Brynden coolly rebuffs, "or perhaps you did not deign to study the history of warfare well enough to earn you a link. Maelys Blackfyre, Rhaegar Targaryan, Balon Greyjoy—all solitary men who nearly brought this land to its knees." The Blackfish pauses, clenching the missive in his fist, praying to the Seven that Cat (dear, sweet Cat who has always been the best of them) is strong enough to survive this. "I've fought wars wrought from madness, lust, and greed, all in the name of duty. But this shall be the first I wage for honor." And for vengeance.
Father is dead. The words echo through his mind and, for the first time since Uncle Brynden brought the news to him at daybreak, Robb thaws from the numbness. A swell of emotions rage inside of him, clawing at his insides, stealing the very breath from his body and, suddenly, he is bent over, gasping for air as a shroud of sorrow and fury threatens to overpower him. Behind him, Grey Wind whines, feeling his master's pain for his own, and Robb buries a shaky hand into his direwolf's fur, as if through Grey Wind he could draw on the strength of the North itself.
He wants to sob and howl and run a sword through every Lannister man in the dungeons below, wants their blood to stain the land and rivers red, wants to tear into the lions until there is nothing left but mangled flesh and bone and the wolves can run free once more. But there are other words that echo through his mind as well, words that stoke his ire. The King in the North.
I did not ask for that burden. I do not want it, the boy within him rages. (The boy that has yet to die, the one that still dreams of dueling with Jon in the practice yard, of running through the wolfswood with Bran and Arya, of dancing with Sansa in the Great Hall, of Father's quiet chuckles and Mother's frequent smiles. The boy he fears he shall lose forever to the title of King.)
There is a quiet knock, and the tempest swirling inside of him has Robb hurling his wine-filled chalice at the door in a fit of emotion. When the goblet shatters and wine stains the richly carved wood, Robb instantly regrets his outburst. It is a poor show of thanks for his grandfather's hospitality, and Mother (no doubt it is she standing on the opposite side of the door) will most certainly be displeased.
"Enter," he calls, and is surprised to find Arwyn stepping into his chambers.
She closes the door behind her, surveys the damage, and declares, "Well, that's not very kingly behavior, now is it?"
Robb offers her a smile and thinks he might have laughed if he had any joy left in him. "Are you in need of something, my lady?" he asks with forced courtesy, praying to the Old Gods that she is not here to offer him physical comfort. He is weak enough tonight that he will not refuse.
Arwyn pulls a wineskin from the depths of her cloak. "This was given to me on the eve of our wedding by an interested party. I may even call him friend, if House Frey knew the meaning of the word."
Robb takes the proffered skin and unstops the cork. His face darkens at the rancorous stench that rises from the liquid within. "Poison?"
His wife laughs for true. "Not in the least. It's called rum. A drink favored by sailors, and thrice as strong as any wine. To ease a maiden's pain, he said."
Robb looks away, feels ashamed for what happened between them and how gingerly Arwyn had moved the following day. When he finds the courage to face her once more, she has removed her cloak and sits on the floor by the fire. Unlike so many others this day, her eyes are not brimming with emotions that fester his aggravation. There is no misplaced pity or sorrow or cry for vengeance. Her eyes demand nothing of him. Robb finds that oddly more comforting than any of the empty condolences she could have offered.
He begins to view her differently then. He considers that she is not just another burden to be carried, a young girl he must protect because honor demands he keep his vows. Mayhaps, she is more.
"But I'm glad I saved it," Arwyn continues, and when she bids him join her, Robb finds himself sitting on the floor, with Grey Wind flopping down at their feet. "This seems much more the appropriate occasion."
She passes him the wineskin full of rum and Robb braves a swig. The liquid burns down his throat unlike any wine, throwing him into a coughing fit that leaves him flushed with embarrassment. "Gods. Have you tried this? It tastes like piss."
"And you would know what piss tastes like, would you?" She pulls a hearty drink of the liquid and swallows with a muted wince. "But yes, I have tasted its kind before. Five years ago, when my mother died."
Arwyn hands him the skin and he takes another swill. He's prepared for the fire this time and decides it's not quite so terrible as he'd thought. "I'd forgotten you lost her," Robb admits and Arwyn waves it off.
"Most people do. Frey women are of very little consequence," she says with no emotional intonation, as if the matter had been settled long ago and there was no use in fighting against it.
"Then it's fortunate," he counters, "that you're a Frey no longer."
"No. Now I am a queen. Queen in the North." Her face gives away nothing, and Robb suddenly itches for more, to know if mayhaps she, too, shares his misgivings (and resentment).
"You said nothing in the council. Did you agree with your brother?"
"Half-brother," she corrects. "And hardly. Stevron speaks for Father, after all." She pauses for a moment, a gentle smile softening her otherwise harsh features as Grey Wind curls in to be closer to her. "He's decent enough, though, Stevron. As are Olyvar and Perwyn. For Freys."
His head has already begun to feel light, but Robb takes another drag regardless, for the spirits seem to lighten his burden. Arwyn snatches the skin from his hands and drinks as well, dropping her gaze to the flames before she speaks again. "Why'd you have me there, Robb? Seated to your right, no less."
The question makes little sense to him. "Why wouldn't I? You're my lady wife. It is your right."
Arwyn studies him, eyes wide and unblinking, as if he is some great mystery to be unraveled. "Your father must have been a great man. You were very lucky."
There is a sharp retort on the tip of his tongue, and then Robb remembers Walder Frey's sneering face, the cruel command he'd delivered to his maiden daughter on the night of her wedding, and he thinks twice. "Yes," he chokes out instead, "I was."
"What was he like?"
Memories flood him and Robb scarcely knows where to begin. His quiet strength, his gentle mercy, his unfailing love? There are no words to encompass all that Father was, and so Robb does not try. Instead, he starts at the beginning, his first memory of being naught but four and cowering in his parents' bed, terrified of the thundering storm. Mother sang sweetly to him, cooing words of comfort, but it was Father's arms, warm and sure and strong, that assured him the world was not crashing down around them.
He talks long into the night, of name-days and praying in the godswood and the look of pride on Father's face when he won his first sword fight. By the time he is through, the fire has ebbed to mere embers and his voice is hoarse from use. There are tears welling in his eyes and Robb wonders if the spirits have made them more difficult to control.
"Don't fight them," Arwyn whispers. "There is no need to."
"I'll not give in to weakness," he argues, though he fears it may be a losing battle.
"That is a man's folly, believing tears are a weakness. They do not have to be so. They can lend you strength, if you will them. Believe me. I've shed enough of them to know."
"A king cannot cry," Robb insists, but his voice wobbles, betraying him and he blinks furiously to keep the traitorous tears at bay.
Arwyn cups his face with her hands, and he is surprised to find tears building in her eyes as well. "Then do not be a king. Tonight, be just a boy, and I shall be just a girl."
And that night, with Grey Wind stretched at his back and Arwyn curled up against his front, Robb feels like the boy again for the first time since his father rode south with his sisters and the King. And the boy takes no shame in allowing his tears to carry him away.
A/N: First off, my most sincere apologies that this update took so very long! Unfortunately, I lost both my grandmother and my aunt in the same month this fall and, having grown up so close to them both, it really hit me hard. To be honest, I just didn't have it in me to do much of anything aside from cope. That being said, life moves on and I'm finally starting to as well.
Anywho, I should be updating with much more regularity and I hope you will all continue to tune in and leave such inspiring reviews. Your support and encouragement make writing a true treat.
Next up: Theon heads to Pyke, Sansa faces the consequences of her actions, and it's not Catelyn Stark that Robb sends to treat with Renly.