Lady Margaery has invited Sansa to the Maidenvault to spend the evening with her and her cousins.
This isn't the first time Sansa has visited the Tyrells; it's not even the tenth time. Sansa finds herself in Margaery's company more often than not, and despite her initial reservations, she is beginning to remember how nice it is to be in the company of girls her own age. She's spent so long alone, or in the company of Joffrey and the queen. She had almost forgotten how it feels to laugh and smile without fear of being beaten or mocked.
Sansa enters the Maidenvault and immediately sees Margaery and her cousins reclining on silk cushions, a tray of cakes between them. Their needlework lies on the floor, quite forgotten, as the girls laugh and tease each other.
Margaery sees Sansa and stands, smiling her warm smile. Sansa can't help but smile in return. Margaery is always so kind, even though Sansa is the daughter of a confessed traitor and has been set aside by the king. Margaery kisses Sansa on both cheeks and takes her hand, pulling her to where her cousins are sitting.
'Would you like some lemoncakes, Sansa? I had the cook make some especially for you,' Margaery says.
'Thank you,' Sansa replies, taking a lemoncake from the tray. She hates King's Landing, but even she has to admit that the cook makes wonderful lemoncakes.
'We were just teasing Megga about Ser Mark Mullendore,' Margaery says to Sansa. Sansa watches as a blush creeps up Megga's neck and into her plump cheeks.
'He seems very gallant,' Sansa says to Megga reassuringly. Megga smiles sheepishly.
'He is gallant,' she replies. 'And very handsome, besides.'
Alla makes a face. 'I don't find him very handsome at all,' she says.
Margaery laughs. Alla is so young; she hasn't even flowered. 'It seems a good thing that we all have different tastes, otherwise we would all be fighting over the same man,' Margaery says. 'Isn't that right, Sansa?'
Sansa nods, her mouth full of lemoncake. Megga turns to Margaery. 'Your betrothed is certainly handsome, Margaery. No one with eyes could deny that,' Megga says.
Sansa's heart catches in her throat. Even the mention of Joffrey makes her skin crawl; it saddens her to think that Margaery will have to suffer his cruelties in her place, though she is grateful to no longer be his betrothed.
Margaery's smile falters, but then it's back, before anyone but Sansa can notice. 'He is, isn't he? A lion, my father calls him. But we haven't even kissed yet. Sansa, have you ever kissed anyone?'
She changes the subject so quickly that Sansa takes a moment to reply. 'I-' she begins, thinking suddenly of the night of the Blackwater, the night that green fire filled the sky, and the Hound had been in her bed. He had taken a kiss from her, with his dagger at her throat. His lips had been hard and insistent, his face slick with drying blood. Sansa recalls it all so vividly, but she cannot share it, not here. 'King Joffrey kissed me once,' she says instead. 'It was a very long time ago, though; I'm certain he doesn't even remember.'
'How could he forget kissing a pretty thing like you?' Megga asks. Sansa only blushes and says she is being too kind. The conversation quickly turns to boys the other girls have kissed, and then men that they wish they could kiss, and then men that they would never, ever, kiss. Sansa listens, enjoying their company until late in the evening.
When she returns to her chambers, she lets the maids undress her and help her into her sleeping robe. Then she dismisses them. When they leave, she takes one of the candles burning on her dresser and walks over to her cedar chest. She sets the candle down and opens the chest carefully, quietly, as though someone were outside her door, listening.
She takes out her silk dresses, and then her heavier winter dresses, one by one, until she reaches the very bottom of the chest.
Lying there is a stained white cloak. The blood looks almost brown now, she thinks. Like dirt. She lifts the cloak, feeling the coarse, scratchy weave of the fabric. She recalls the day Joffrey had her beaten and stripped in front of the entire court. She had clutched this same cloak so tightly to herself that her knuckles had turned white.
She stands up, shaking out the cloak. It's so big, she thinks. But then, it would have to be big to cloak a man like Sandor Clegane. Though not as massive as his brother, he still stood taller than any other man at court. And he was heavy, too, she thinks. He was so heavy when he was lying on top of me.
She had been so frightened that night. She had been frightened of the wildfire raging outside, and of the sounds of men dying. She had been frightened of the queen, and Ser Ilyn, who had stood there with her father's sword, ready to take her head if the city had fallen. And she had been frightened of the Hound, who had come to her bed reeking of wine and sweat and smoke and blood. He took a kiss from me, and a song. And he left his cloak.
She wonders where the Hound is now. She thinks he must be far away; the king is looking for him, for deserting the battle. He thinks that the Hound left the city as soon as the men started burning, but Sansa knows better. He came to me first.
Sansa carefully folds the cloak and places it back in the chest. She replaces her woolen dresses, and then her light silks. She blows out the candle and crawls into her bed, thinking of the Hound as she falls asleep. She dreams of him; of songs and daggers and kisses that taste of sweat and blood, and a green sky full of smoke.
When she wakes, her hand goes to her throat, as if to push away the dagger that isn't there. Her maids are bustling about her room, preparing her bath and laying out her breakfast. When Sansa looks out the window, the sky is a cloudless blue, and her dreams are already half-forgotten.