Her mind was startlingly clear when she woke, clearer than it had been in...she couldn't remember how long. Only a brief moment later her body caught up with her mind, and pain gripped her in a vice as she spasmed from cough.
"Here now, drink this." Sandor's rough voice soothed her, and she reluctantly sipped at the bitter liquid he brought to her lips.
"Am I going to die?" she asked him weakly, trying to open her eyes against the glare of the snow.
"No."
"Are you lying to me?"
"A hound doesn't lie," he echoed words spoken to her so long ago.
"I thought the Hound was dead," she countered, trying to convey lightness in her damaged, raspy voice. "A hound might never lie, but Sandor Clegane might."
His eyes - his good eye the exact colour of the merciless sky, she noted absently, her thoughts already beginning to slip away with fever - were as tender as his touch on her forehead. "Not to you, little bird. Never to you."