He dreaded the nights. One evening, he'd asked his guards to stay in his chamber while he slept, but they claimed they'd seen nothing. When he heard people jesting the Hand of the King was afraid of the dark, he'd taken the guards' heads and replaced them. He did not dare to have anyone stay with him after that.
When he asked Pycelle for dreamwine to help him sleep through the night, it was the Grand Maester who first raised the possibility of hallucinations caused by a poison. But his inquiries into who was poisoning him or how had led nowhere, and if there was poison in his food, his tasters and everyone else seemed immune to its effects.
At some point, he was convinced it had to be the spiced wine he always drank before bed, even though his servants had tried it many times and found nothing wrong with it. But refusing his nightly cup had only made it more difficult for him to fall asleep, and the less he slept, the worse his night terrors seemed to become.
He had even stopped eating completely for a while, but she kept visiting him regardless, torturing him night after night, taunting him with her smiles as he tried in vain to move his limbs and fight her off.
Every morning, he'd find another coin by his bed until there were so many he'd lost count and felt his sanity slipping away like the silver stags between his fingers.
He couldn't say why when she finally stopped, but it had been five nights since he had last felt her iron weight on his chest. He still felt a sense of unease whenever he was in his bedchamber, but slowly, his mind was beginning to recover. He'd even started getting some work done again during the day.
He let his servants draw him a bath. The warm water soothed his anxiety and helped him relax just enough to allow him to fall asleep afterwards. Closing his eyes, he let his mind wander off, away from all the tasks that had accumulated over the past two moons and away from the terrifying nightmares that had plagued him for so long.
He never heard anyone coming, but suddenly, as if out of nowhere, two hands grabbed him from behind, pushing his head under water.
For a moment, he was completely disoriented. His throat clamped shut as water rushed through his mouth and his nose, burning him like fire.
He dug his nails into the arms that held him, his body thrashing in the water, desperately trying to free himself and push himself back up above the surface, but the grip that held him down was too strong.
He couldn't say how long he was under water, but it felt like half an eternity. Just as he thought he was about to pass out, he was jerked back up, coughing and gasping for air.
"How do you like the feeling of drowning?" A woman asked.
He knew that voice; he remembered it from his childhood: that cold, snide tone that always seemed to mock him. "You're... you're dead," he spluttered in between coughs. She's not real. She can't be. "You're dead... I... I watched you die."
"Aye," she said. "You did. And then you drowned my family in their halls. Even my brother's enemies were sickened by your brutality, and they are hard men themselves." She let out a hoarse laugh. "But you, you shocked even them. I bet you're proud of it, too." Without warning, she pushed him back under the water.
He could feel his legs kicking, splashing up water, as his hands grabbed the rim of the brass tub. From below the surface, he could see the contour of her head and upper body through the rippled water. She's not real, he thought as his body went limp and the light above him turned black. She's dead.