Chapter 1

It's been almost a year since the Blackwater Battle. Sometimes he wonders why he didn't leave back then. There was fire everywhere, but he didn't hesitate. It was as if something or someone was giving him strength. And now he wants to give some strength to his little bird, for he knows that she has given up.

He enters her chamber uninvited. King Joffrey wants her to break her fast with him and his mother. Sandor doesn't know why. He is merely supposed to wake her, dress her if she refuses and take her to the King. He is a good dog.

He looks at her. She is lying on the bed, her back turned to him. A thin sheet is covering her only from the waist down. He can see all the bruises that cover her back and create a brutal painting on her porcelain skin. They are not of the same color. Some are old, others are recent. He wishes that none of them were there. She doesn't deserve them. She doesn't deserve any of this. Unfortunately, she will be beaten again and again. Pain and misery will be her constant companions…

He clears his throat rather loudly in order to wake her up. But she was awake when he entered, for she just looks at him, not at all surprised, and asks, "What does His Grace want?"

"He wants you to break your fast with him and the Queen", he announces.

"Could you turn around?" she whispers. Her voice sounds weak, the voice of someone dying. There is no emotion in her voice, no light in her blue eyes. She is beginning to become an empty shell. She is slowly dying inside.

He turns around, having nothing to say. Her movements are so soft that he can barely hear anything. He knows that if he looks at her right now, he will see her naked as her nameday. That thought makes him want to turn his head and admire the view. You're sick, he tells himself. She's suffering and all you want to do is fuck her.

So, he stands there, trying to think of something else. He pictures the boy king dead, each time in a different way. Cut in half. Beheaded, his head on a spike. Pierced by a dozen arrows. Gutted. And, of course, burnt. He wants Joffrey to feel the way his dog felt when he was six years old. The fire licking his skin dangerously. The fire melting his face. The heat, the unbearable pain.

"Can you help me?" she asks in that same voice.

He turns around and sees her trying to lace her gown. He knows that her handmaids used to do that for her, but now the Queen has ordered them to come only every two days. He approaches her slowly, and she looks down. He probably looks like a predator approaching his prey. He has scared her. Again. He has fucked it up. Again.

With the gown unlaced, he can still see her bruises. From a closer view they look even worse, as if they will stain her perfect skin forever. He is tempted to touch her, barely stroke the hurt skin. However, he just laces her gown, as quickly as possible, and moves away before doing anything stupid, like comforting her in his arms.