Rewritten version of an old story for those of you who have read it (now erase that memory from your mind).
She had lost track of time, Ygritte realized. She'd been staring at the same black wall for what felt like an eternity and the ache in her shoulder never seemed to stop.
There were no windows in the dungeons. It was relentlessly lonesome and dark and dull. The other few free folk who managed to survive the raid on Castle Black had been sealed off like her. Only a torch kept the hall dim with light, its fire dancing along the stone walls and floors. At times the fire would go out and the cell would blacken further, but when Jon Snow came to visit her, the flames followed.
Ygritte's eyes had adjusted to the darkness and her ears learned to listen for the smallest sounds. Sometimes she heard the rats scurry across the hall before they made it to her cell. In the beginning, when she could scarcely keep her eyes open against the fevers, she'd fallen asleep and rolled over onto the wrong side. The wound in her shoulder had burned when she moved the slightest and stung when she tried to do anything else. But as the days stretched on and nights seemed to last forever, Ygritte grew used to the pain.
The others would wake her sometimes, talking across their cells of escape and of whispers about Mance Rayder and Tormund Giantsbane. Ygritte had scarcely listened. The fevers were long and miserable, but perhaps the gods had pitied her and let her live for the fevers never claimed her life.
Many times she wondered if her delusions had been just that or if Jon Snow truly did bring her salves when she was the only one awake. Ygritte heard his voice in her dreams, quiet but soft, and gentle in her ear. She'd often dream of him and that cave, and of her anger when he left.
There was one night she was near certain he visited her. Ygritte could scarcely keep her eyes open, but she saw him standing at the door, his face long and solemn and guarded.
"Jon Snow," she called to him, nearly losing his surname on her tongue. Her eyes were closed when his thumb brushed along her cheek and his lips kissed that spot near her nose.
"Hush," he told her. "Don't talk."
Had she really been dreaming?
The sound of footsteps kept Ygritte from dwelling on those worse times. Any notion that Jon Snow had come to visit faded when the pair of footsteps turned into pairs, and the crows were pulling her to her feet.
"Mance dies today," they said. "The red woman says it."
"They're goin' to make us watch?" One of the others asked.
The crow frowned. "She's makin' all of us watch."
Stannis' men brought forward Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond the-Wall, in a thin tunic and chains. His face was guarded to his core, concealing all his fears so the free folk who were forced to watch him die could remember him bravely. Ygritte had hoped that they would let Mance keep his cloak, but Stannis is not a man known for showing sympathy to turncloaks, Jon Snow had said.
The men turned Mance roughly towards their king and his red shadow, the Lady Melisandre.
"Mance Rayder," The false king began, his voice breaking the heavy silence. "You've been called the King-Beyond the-Wall. Westeros only has one king." He raised his chin. "Bend the knee and I promise you mercy."
Tormund told her to stay quiet, not a word, and watch. Ygritte always believed that Mance would fight until the crows plunged a sword through his heart. It was Stannis and the priestess from Asshai, not the crows, who would deliver his death. The wargs told stories of how death felt warm near the end, warm and sleepy. Ygritte saddened at the thought that Mance would never see the green lands, the warm lands beyond the Wall that he used to sing about. His death would not feel warm or sleepy, and black will be the last thing he sees beyond the flames.
"Kneel and live."
Mance surveyed the castle. Everyone saw his eyes drift across the structures before him. "This was my home for many years." He said, and Stannis smiled wickedly. "I wish you good fortune in the wars to come."
They tied him to the pyre then, bound his wrists tightly. Lady Melisandre stepped forward next to the wooden scaffold. "We all must choose," she declared. "Man or woman, young or old, lord or peasant, our choices are the same." Her voice reminded Ygritte of the wood's witch, whispering nonsense and false prophecies to no one. "We choose light or we choose darkness. We choose good or we choose evil. We choose the true god or the false."
She reached for the torch. Mance watched the flames as they passed near him. Ygritte saw that he was afraid. He had been afraid from the moment he knew he would die. Mance did not want to die.
"Free folk! There is only one true king, and his name is Stannis. Here stands your king of lies. Behold the fate of those who choose the darkness." The priestess turned to light the pyre as softly as anyone would a candle.
"What will they do to Mance?" Ygritte asked, her eyes pleading.
"They're going to burn him alive."
Her face twisted in horror and her heart sank in her chest. She searched his eyes for any falsehood and found none, hoping that Jon would say something else. Another choice perhaps, any other option, but he had not. Mance brought them all to the Wall so they could live free from the Others, but he wouldn't taste that freedom. Not ever.
"I told him he was making a terrible mistake," Jon reasoned. "He wouldn't listen."
When the fire reached Mance he began to whimper. His boots caught the flames, Ygritte saw, and soon would his flesh. If he did not scream then, he surely would, or he was the one true god Lady Melisandre often preached of. The blood of the dragon.
In the corner of her eye, Ygritte saw someone move away. She did not bother to see for herself. Across the courtyard, the little girl with the stone face closed her eyes. Surely others closed their eyes as well. Ygritte would not close hers, she would watch without blinking. Tormund would know if she didn't. The free folk were no cowards.
One arrow suddenly took Mance in the chest. His restrained cries stopped and everyone below turned to see who let loose the string. The King-Beyond-the-Wall fell forward against the pyre.
Stannis Baratheon scowled. Jon Snow refused to meet his eyes atop the deck above.
His arrow was mercy. A mercy the Lord of Light will not so easily forgive, Ygritte heard the Lady Melisandre say. The night is dark and full of terrors.
The heat from the fire warmed the crows that stood guard at the castle gate. Ygritte's skin dampened beneath her furs. She thought of Jon and the free folk beyond the Wall. Mance's band. The gate would open for them soon.
They came slowly at first, limping or leaning on their fellows, wary of some trap. More followed when they saw that no harm had come to those who went before. Then more, until it was a steady stream. Some men cringed as they neared the flames. Children cried, others fled and others considered fleeing. Behind them was only cold and death. So they came on, clutching their wives and children close. Bowls of hot onion soup awaited them, and chunks of black bread and sausage. Stannis' men gave them clothes to wear and piles of clean straw to sleep on, with fires blazing to keep the cold night at bay.
Jon had told Ygritte how Stannis planned to win the hearts of the free folk so that they may fight for him in the wars to come. He can give them land and mercy, but your lot choose their own kings, and it was Mance they chose, not Stannis. Mance had been bound to a pyre and burned alive. If Stannis thought sausages and onion soup and fresh linens would change their minds, he was a bigger fool than all the other fools in the seven kingdoms.
By the time the last of them passed through, night had fallen and the fire burned low. The giants had passed through the Wall, some with their mammoths, big as they were.
"You are free to go," Stannis told them. "Tell your people what you witnessed. Tell them that you saw the true king, and that they are welcome in his realm, so long as they keep his peace. Else they had best flee or hide. I will brook no further attacks upon my Wall."
When Stannis had gone, the red woman with him, Ygritte saw Jon descend from the deck.
"Lord Steward," he called out to Bowen Marsh. "Break up that stockade for firewood and unchain the prisoners."
"As my lord commands." Marsh barked out orders, and a swarm of his stewards broke from ranks to attack the wooden walls. Ygritte's chains came loose after Tormund's and she turned to catch Jon Snow's eyes before he chattered quietly with Bowen Marsh.
Ygritte drew the cold night air through her nose, free from her black cell and its gloomy black walls. She slipped away from the sight of the crows given the chance, and hid in the room behind the empty armory. Jon resided there, she remembered. The Lord Commander's tower burned down during the raid on Castle Black. The pink scar on Ygritte's shoulder pricked at the memory.
When Jon arrived that night, she kissed him so fiercely that all his breath left his lungs. Ghost curled up on his rug and went to sleep as though the world had never been cruel.
"You spent too much time with us, Jon Snow." Ygritte said when she pulled away, her eyes drifting down to his reddened lips. He stared back at her, dumbfounded, any words he hoped to say had been lost. It was the first time they'd kissed since he'd left her.
"I'm sorry." Jon said finally. He was, she knew. Jon respected Mance and admired his capability to gather all the free folk and march south. Mance had respected Jon the same; else there would be more bodies near the Haunted Forest to stain the snow red.