The Red Woman.
He remembered her face and the way she had looked at him.
He remembered the taste of steel and shadow, black as death, with his brother's face.
Brienne, and Loras' voice when the world had already turned dark.
He had never thought much about death - he was one and twenty, so why bother with things that would need decades to come? He hadn't known what to expect when he lay there, in a puddle of his own blood, life dripping from his body along with joy and happiness, fear and love and all the other things.
You are no king.
It had been Loras' voice, even though he knew that he would never have said such a thing. His voice had never sounded so cold, so bitter, and yet carving the words into his skin like a red-hot iron.
Kings have fought many battles and wear the scars to show.
His brother had been a soldier, he had argued, and the other one, too, if less of a leader, so it was just a matter of time for him to become a soldier as well.
But his limbs were stiff and cold, never to move again, covered by earth and stones. The cold crept into his body, slowly, spreading through his legs and chest.
Darkness had swallowed him, and it was indeed full of terrors.
He remembered to scream with his lips shut tight.
Kings fight.
He had never fought in something more dangerous than a tourney in all of his life.
The cold had reached his chest, spreading its poison through his veines.
He remembered eyes staring at him, eyes as blue as the frozen sea of the north, long since dead, but staring vividly from snowy fields and winter skies.
Fight, the voice had whispered in his ears, a voice like Loras' and Robert's and his father's, even though he had barely a memory of him, blurred faces of both dead and living, ice and fire, flames touching his skin and yet it neither blistered nor blackened at their touch.
So he had grabbed the spark and fought.
He remembered pain and the rich smell of earth, mud filling his nose and mouth while he gasped and struggled for breath, he remembered his head spinning and a sick feeling in his stomach, and cold, but this time it was not the cold of death, but the chilly winds of the autumn nights near Storm's End, and the sky wasn't black but filled with thousands and thousands of stars.
He also remembered stumbling into a peasant's hut, half-naked and covered in dirt and blood, and almost being stabbed again, with a pitchfork this time. That was something to be left out of his biography, for sure.