When Sansa was very little, and suffered from bad dreams, Old Nan would tell her to pray to the old gods for comfort.
"They know, sweet child." Old Nan's voice was high and creaky, but she spoke with an authority that Sansa recognized even at the age of three. "They see deeper and further than any of us. They know more than the crows and the Children of the Forest. They know our ends and our beginnings, and they will guide you."
Old Nan's kiss was dry as parchment on Sansa's brow, but the words worked their way into her mind. Sansa murmured prayers to keep the shadows at bay, and the gods granted her sweet words to lull her to sleep.
Love and beauty.
Safe passage.
Colors and images would come to her too. Knights on horseback, silver lyres and blue roses at her feet.
So when Sansa finds herself wasting away, losing herself drop by drop in Ramsay's keeping, she begs the gods again. They have not heard her for some time. Not in the godswood at King's Landing, nor when Littlefinger whispered in her ear. Thus she expects no answer, and no comfort.
Sansa counts to a thousand after Ramsay shuts the door for what she fervently hopes is the last time until sunrise. She takes a deep, cleansing breath and sends her silent plea the way Old Nan taught her. The gods return a message.
Fire and blood.
Crackling flames and drops of blood on snow. The phrase is brutal, but the tenor is not. Sansa can't fathom why the gods send her the words of House Targaryen. But she feels her own blood sing in response. Where she'd been shivering moments before under the thin and torn sheets, warmth now seeps through her body.
These strange, wild dreams ease her suffering. Sansa finds she has strength enough to withstand Ramsay's fists and cuts with some dignity intact. She lets flames flicker in front of her eyes when Ramsay hisses at her, and the sibilant sound grows fainter. The pain Ramsay inflicts with his knives recedes when Sansa recites fire and blood, fire and blood in a litany that sees her through to a new dawn.
The feeling of heat and safety surges when she throws herself into Jon's arms at Castle Black, and he holds her tight to his chest. She attributes it to kinship. At night, her body tells her something different. She tosses and turns in a pleasant fire of her own, yearning for something she thought she'd lost the ability to feel.
She and Jon fight. They disagree. They snap at one another. But security settles in her stomach when Sansa is near Jon, and it only solidifies when they take Winterfell back. Inch by inch, she draws closer to him and realizes in a rush she wants to burn with him. Like a wife. Like a lover.
She supposes the gods have forsaken her, or that Ramsay's parting words were right. She's twisted inside now, tainted by his cruelty and his sadism. Why else would she lust after her half-brother?
Sansa fights the visions and the whispers with every ounce of her being, even when they're the only soothing sensations in her life. When Jon looks at her – and somewhere in the back of her mind she knows he looks at her differently than a brother should – the urge to go to him, to kiss him, to beg him into her bed becomes overwhelming.
So the day Jon kisses her forehead, the brush of his lips igniting lightning all the way to her toes, she can't stand it any longer. Sansa runs, leaving Winterfell's walls again, blind as to where she's going, hoping only that distance will cool her fever.
Sansa is a strategist. Sansa is a survivor. Yet Sansa is not a wildling, and the only camps she made were with Theon. Soon she's freezing, her teeth chattering as she wanders further into the forest. She blows on her gloved hands in a losing battle to keep warm. She'd donned a thick, fur-lined wool cloak she thought no wind could penetrate. Now she pulls it around her shoulders in vain. She slowly succumbs to the cold gusts of wind and begins to stumble on the frozen ground.
A horse whickers in the distance while Sansa leans against a weirwood tree. Its branches are stripped of leaves, stark against the winter sky. Ramsay told her once that this was how her life would end, after she'd given him sons. There would be a hunt and she would be the prey. Perhaps he was right.
That soothing feeling floods through her again as the horse draws closer. A burning light, a burning knight, appear before her and she catches a glimpse of a crown glinting on his brow before she collapses in the snow. She hears a deep voice call her name.
It's Jon. He's found her somehow. The snow is falling thick and fast around them, but he manages to make a fire and pitch a tent. He coaxes her inside. No, she thinks, no, I won't be able to keep myself from reaching for you but she stumbles through the flap all the same.
"Jon, Jon leave, leave now, I can't stop it–" She's pleading with him but he won't listen, he's wrapping her in furs. Jon's distracted, desperate. She's still dull, nearly numb from the frigid air, and can only catch snatches of Jon's speech – "heavy storm" and "die from the cold" and "please, please let me help you, we have to do this, love, I'm sorry but it's the fastest way to warm you–"
Sansa's not sure what she craves more. The contact with his bare skin now that he's taken off their clothes and pulled the furs over both of their heads, or the sound of him saying love again.
"Jon, you have to let me go." Every action she takes belies her words. She laces her fingers with his, inhaling his scent. She breathes in time with the rise and fall of his chest, and feels herself relax.
They're in their own world now. The storm outside is far away and the fire that warms her comes from being entwined with Jon. The voices are louder, assuring her this is right, this is best and she can't trust her own mind. When he tilts her chin so he can look at her, she barely keeps herself from weeping.
"Sansa, why? Why did you run? What's happened? What's wrong?" Jon has calmed a little too, though there's still a note of urgency in his tone, and his grey eyes are wide. He's told her they're out of danger, that he's sent the horse back. He's tried to reassure her that other men will find them in the morning, to rescue both of them. She can't bear to tell Jon that she needs to be rescued from one thing only - her desire to be here, with him. That's why she had to run.
"I can't, Jon, I'm not–" she struggles, using all her skill and strength to skip over how she's mad, how she hears voices telling her Jon's her lover. "H-How did you know to find me?" She'd scarcely been gone an hour, and the white blizzard had come upon her suddenly.
Jon's face contorts. He rests his forehead on hers. "I sense when you're in pain, Sansa. I could feel it, the cold on my skin. Do you...do you hear them too, the gods?" He sounds ragged, wracked with guilt. Sansa feels a flare of hope.
"Yes. They tell me 'fire and blood,' that I'm...I'm to be with you. What do they say to you?"
Jon hesitates, then lets out a long sigh. "Winter's rose." He traces her cheek. "You're – you're my wife, Sansa. My queen. I don't know how but I see you, by my side, with a crown in your shining hair and it's all that makes sense in this world."
Maybe, she thinks, maybe if it's both of them together, then the weight of their shared sin might be less.
She blinks back tears. "For how long?
"Since I saw you at Castle Black." His voice is rough and wrecked. He trails his hand over her braid and it's Sansa who moves closer, until Jon presses his lips to hers.
She thought she'd die in this fire. Instead when Jon kisses her, soft and deep, as if he's asking her a question, it sizzles along her veins and the chorus is louder, yes. She's not sure if she's speaking or they're singing. Sansa opens her mouth to him, cradling his head, feeling bolder each moment. There's no wind, no ice, just Jon's fingers sweeping down her neck and the sweet heat of his tongue, his hand caressing her stomach with feather-light touches.
"I fought this for so long, Sansa." Jon's exhausted and elated at the same time. He kisses her like he's fearful he might not have the chance to again.
There's a spark inside her that grows stronger and she buries her hands in his hair, chasing it, overcome with need. "Jon, please, I–" She's half-panting, half-crying, and he soothes her. Soft and tender, stroking her, stoking the flame. "I'm yours, Sansa, hush, sweet girl, it's all right, I have you, I'm not letting go." His dark gaze never leaves hers. She burns brighter, constricting to a single point. She feels a final pulse of heat before she's blinded by white light, and a cascade of pleasure courses through her.
When Sansa wakes, a faint, warm breeze trickles through the tent flap. As she and Jon emerge, the fragrance of spring is in the air. The weirwood tree has blossomed overnight, with red leaves swaying against a bright blue sky. She kneels, touching springy moss between her fingers. The snow has vanished, leaving green grass and a forest full of birdsong. She and Jon look at each other, entranced, and he takes her hand as the first of their men crest over the top of the hill.