A huge thanks to TopShelfCrazy for a rather extensive beta work on this chapter :')) It reads so much better now.

This chapter sums up a little bit what happened to the characters in Mummers' Show from Sansa's perspective. It seemed fair to do it now because in this chapter we slowly continue their story. It could also help to any of you who are reading this if you don't want to read the prequel. The characters from the first three chapters never appeared in Mummers' Show.

Thanks a lot to the guest who reviewed. It would make me happy if more of you would review ;-00

Sansa

In Sansa's dreams the trees were talking of late.

It was like that time when Father was still alive. Lord Eddard had taken his daughters, Arya and Sansa, to pray in the godswood of the Red Keep. Sansa had dreamed of her brother Bran then. He wasn't crippled in her dream. He was walking with the old gods in the black halls under the white, weightless vastness of snow. She couldn't bring herself to talk of that dream to either father or Arya. It would have saddened father and made Arya angry.

And now the trees were talking with Bran's voice.

They also spoke in another voice Sansa did not know, although it resembled the voice of King Rhaegar. It sounded like a man already dead or on the verge of dying, She shivered, afraid of the premonitions her confused dreams might contain. The king will not die, he will not die, he can't die... he almost died once on the Trident. The gods had protected him then, surely they would do it now.

Would they?

A white weirwood tree laughed at her in her dream and its cruel mouth swelled with blood.

Sansa stirred and willed her eyes open. As every morning, she was not alone. Sandor was stretched next to her, bodies touching, sunken together on a bedroll under the thick softness of several black and grey wolf pelts.

"I'm truly sorry," Aunt Lyanna had said when she gifted the furs to Sandor and Sansa when they were all about to depart from King's Landing. "Lord Connington is my good friend, but he is also a man of dubious tastes. It has everything to do with how Ned led the forces which defeated him in battle in the Stony Sept. Be as it may, it's what we have, and it is winter. We should not let the past rule us, although we cannot forget it."

Aunt Lyanna had lived in Essos with Lord Jon Connington of Griffin's Roost, while pretending to be a septa; Septa Lemore. She educated Prince Aegon, Sixth of His Name as if he were her own son. Lord Connington as well as Lord Varys who saved Aegon as a baby in the sack of King's Landing believed him to be Rhaegar's son and heir. Rhaegar loved Aegon. He presented him and he regarded him as his son, now and then. Even the Mad King died convinced that Aegon was his grandson, a child of Prince Rhaegar and Princess Elia. But his real parents were Lady Ashara and Ser Arthur Dayne, who had both protected Rhaegar's second wife, Aunt Lyanna, by their deaths.

"My lord husband," Sansa whispered softly under the furs, wishing to forget the sad stories from the past if only for a day. She was older now, a woman grown. She knew that where there was joy, there was always a sorrow to match it. She enjoyed addressing him that way, although he mostly snarled at her for it. This morning, he did not seem to mind.

Sandor Clegane was already awake. His grey eyes were clear and calm, absorbing the scarce light from the wagon. It made them shine with life.

They were not dressed.

The intimacy was too much and too little at the same time. She wished they had a home, a place where she could bear him strong sons and beautiful daughters. What they had was a place to sleep without the company of others, and a ride north to uncertain destiny.

They were never completely alone.

The murmurs of an army waking up were sneaking into the wagon through the walls made of thick cloth. And Sansa could very well be the king's niece for all the good that would do to her if his kingdom was not going to survive winter.

They could all die.

Yet in all honour they had no choice but to travel north. Old Nan's stories had come to life beyond the Wall, with all the monsters her tales contained. White walkers herded forward the hosts of the men and beasts they had slain: dead men, dead horses, giant ice spiders and only the gods knew what else. And Sansa's cousin Jon, who was never her half brother but Rhaegar and Lyanna's only child, he was somewhere there among the monsters. He was fighting a lost war if help would not come on time. Mance Rayder had been adamant on that. Jon could die not knowing that both of his real parents had lived where everyone believed they had died in Robert's Rebellion. It was all so very sad, Sansa thought.

Only Sansa's parents had died. The ashes of her lady mother and of her brother Robb's head were sharing the wagon with them, in hope to reach Winterfell. An evil maester had sewn Robb's head to the body of Ser Gregor Clegane, to make him a champion of Queen Cersei at her trial by combat. This way, at least a part of Robb might one day rest in peace: he had been the last Lord of Winterfell and the King in the North, his place was in the crypts. Sansa doubted that the rest of his body, desecrated by the Freys, would ever find its way back home. The deaths of her family were always going to haunt Sansa, despite the wisdom of Aunt Lyanna's counsel about the past. She would always feel guilty for talking to Queen Cersei about her father's plans when she was only a stupid girl.

"My beloved wife," Sandor muttered back with only a slight trace of mocking in his deep voice. "Today we should arrive to the fords of the Trident. If I know Rhaegar, His Grace will turn to melancholy when he faces the ruby ford."

"You know him better than most," Sansa said thoughtfully.

"That's what a life in a male septry will do to you. You get to know the gnats who share your misery. Guess what, I could not even call my horse by his name. There was no wine, no fighting, no women... "

"Stop it, Sandor Clegane," she admonished him, earning a bone breaking hug and a few clumsy kisses on top of the red tangles on her head. She would soon need help to brush it properly.

Of course he didn't mean most of what he said. He was just being awful on purpose. It made her smile. He loved her. The realization always made her smile. Sometimes she was afraid she had only dreamed their love as she had once dreamed about his kiss.

King Rhaegar had survived the battle at the Trident, but he had lost his memory. He believed himself to be the Elder Brother of the Quiet Isle, a famous healer. He had found Sandor Clegane dying on the Trident and he had saved his life. And he had regarded him as a brother ever since.

"His Grace would have done a good deed if he had left me to die instead of trying to fashion a monk out of me," her husband continued being mean.

"Why do you insist on calling my uncle His Grace?" Sansa asked. It was a question which had bothered her for a long time, but a sensitive one, so she hadn't dared to ask it until now. But this morning her husband was talkative so he might be willing to answer her. "He always calls you brother."

"Dogs are not brothers to kings. Dogs are loyal and they serve. That is the way of it. And I got a juicy bone for my service so you won't hear me complaining."

She supposed she was the bone. Sansa sighed. Some things would not change. It pained her.

"I dreamed about my brother Bran again," Sansa said finally, searching for support in her husband's eyes.

"Maybe you should take it up with your aunt or the falcon brat from the Vale before he heads east to his lands. They dream of being animals when they wish. I'm not a warg, only your d-."

"You forget my sister," she reproached him before he could call himself a dog again. Sansa was born a wolf and a fish, but it had never occurred to her to think of herself as either of the sigils. That's because you've never been strong. You are a pretty talking bird and someone will put you in a cage again, sooner or later. She was not going to speak of herself as a little bird either, but Sandor could call her so whenever it pleased him.

"How could I?" he said with scorn. "The little wolf bitch is rarely forgetting me."

Arya made quips about Sandor and Sansa being together more often than not. The last friendly thing she told him two days ago was that she had never dreamed that Sansa would marry a large monkey. Sandor had left the wagon not wearing a tunic despite the chill, in a hurry to find a privy at some tree. "A monkey who makes water like a proper dog," Arya added and Sansa was sorely tempted to throw a steel vambrace at her sister. It wasn't fair. Arya's friend, Gendry, had grown a beard which was thicker and thus looked blacker than any hair Sansa's husband possessed. If there was anyone who looked like a monkey these days, it was Gendry. She didn't tell that to Arya though, because she was intent on never being mean to her sister again. Even if Arya did her best to pretend she didn't care for Gendry.

Arya returned to Westeros from Braavos as an assassin sent to kill Princess Daenerys. And when she refused to carry out her orders, the cruel god she had served in Braavos condemned her to sleep until she died. But unlike Sansa, Arya had always been the strong one. She rose from her sleep when Sansa needed help and tricked the god of death.

Sansa was determined to love Arya now that she had a second chance. Maybe she could make a lady out of her, in time. It would please their late mother. Even Aunt Lyanna, who was a warg and who could fight with weapons, could be a great lady, a true queen, when she wanted. So there was no reason that Arya couldn't be one as well.

"These dreams of mine are different," Sansa said gravely to her husband. "It's not at all like when I can sometimes sense the thoughts of the animals-"

"-or mine," it pleased him to mock her further, it seemed.

"Or yours," she hastily agreed, eager to press her own concerns further. "I think that Bran is alive. I think he's calling to me. He's trying to tell me something. But that's not possible, isn't it?"

"Well, if it was a lie that Theon Greyjoy burned Winterfell, and our friend Mance is certain of that, it could also be a lie that Theon killed your little brothers. What was the younger one called? Rickard?"

"No, Rickon. Rickard was my grandfather."

The Hound laughed indecently. "Wasn't that the one the Mad King cooked in his armour-"

"Please don't talk like that," she said, sickened.

"Why not?" he complained boyishly, "it's the truth. And you love me for being awful."

Some things did change.

It was the first time he spoke of her love as if he believed he had it. Sansa smiled against her will.

"I love you anyway," she reminded him, lest he forget.

He had the grace to look ugly and abashed at the same time. Seven foot of muscle and ill-concealed rage in her bed. One of the biggest men alive, who could be timid as a little boy. It made her love him even more.

"Come," she said, trying to rise. She only made it halfway. "It's time to don your armour, my love, although I pray for yet another day without seeing an enemy."

"His Grace forced upon me a squire to do that," he frowned.

All Sansa's husbands had the same squire: Podrick Payne. Ofttimes he looked as if he were afraid that the Hound would cut his entrails out and stew them for supper, as Sandor had so eloquently threatened him on one occasion, when Pod could not find his scabbard fast enough. Craven or not, Pod did his chores admirably. Sansa was happy he would be on her husband's side in battle whenever it came to that. Tyrion was a dwarf and yet he had survived on the bridge of ships falling apart during the battle of Blackwater with Pod at his side. Sandor was as fierce as the Warrior, but a precaution could not harm him, Sansa found.

She prayed to all the gods that no battle would come to them soon. Sansa was no fighter. She would never be like her aunt and her sister. A woman's lot was waiting. Selfishly, she wanted to postpone it.

"I like to help you dress," she said. Her cheeks heated slightly when she allowed herself to study her husband. Half-seated, she could see much more than his eyes. Her thoughts turned unladylike. On the contrary, she corrected herself, they're the thoughts of a lady wife. He looked as if dressing was the last thing on his mind.

"No," he denied her. "You come back. They won't miss us for another hour."

The dead wolf hairs came to life under Sansa's fingers, the pelts suddenly as supple and warm to touch as her own skin.

"Only an hour?" she wondered aloud. She would still be very embarrassed if Mance Rayder tried to make her accompany him in singing a Bear and a Maiden Fair, as he did when they made camp on the first night after their departure. But after a few weeks on the kingsroad she found she could now tease her husband in bed...

A little bit.

King Rhaegar's army rode north from King's Landing through the empty land.

There were not as many men as one might have wished for. The king did not stay in the city long enough to call the banners after he had made his claim. Only those lords and ladies who had come to the capital to witness the mummers' show knew that the Seven Kingdoms had a new king. And for every lord who came there were at least two who did not. The War of the Five Kings was followed by winter and travelling was a great risk.

Twenty thousand men were riding north. It was only half the number that Rhaegar had taken to the Trident. And even with forty thousand he had lost to Robert Baratheon, Sansa knew.

At least five thousand of Rhaegar's new men were members of the Golden Company. Prince Aegon had brought them back home to Westeros from across the narrow sea. They carried skulls of their previous commanders dipped in gold, and they frightened Sansa. The king was reticent toward them too, although some of the company members had forsaken the black dragon of the extinct bastard branch of Blackfyres, and started flying the red one of the trueborn Targaryens. "A dragon is a dragon," some Westerosi soldiers said. The others nodded and predicted trouble. The rest of the company had stayed in King's Landing to help Lord Connington and Lord Varys rule the city while the king was gone.

Three thousand Unsullied marched north as well, more disciplined and calm than any other men at arms Sansa had ever seen. They came west with Princess Daenerys, and there were more of them on her ships, sailing slowly up north.

The remaining men were a mixture of unknown knights and petty lords, freeriders, commoners of King's Landing and sons of the smallfolk. Most of them had nothing better to do and no food to eat this winter if they didn't march in some direction. Many were unblooded soldiers. They had at least that in common with the unfortunate host Rhaegar had taken to the Trident.

"It's more than enough men to man the Wall," Mance Rayder had judged in the presence of the king. "Your son Jon defended it with less than a hundred men against me and I had thousands on the other side."

Sansa fervently hoped that twenty thousand men would be able to defend the realm from the Others. The white walkers fed on human blood. They would come and snatch their victims when it was very cold, springing from the mists; invisible at first and invincible in the end. Some of them had already come south from the Wall. No one knew how they did it while the Wall still stood.

Sansa knew that the king and her husband had encountered them one night, when they were all travelling south from the Quiet Isle to King's Landing as a company of mummers. Since that time, as if with magic, a frontier had appeared. It broke the riverlands in two, passing through a place called the High Heart. No wall stood on it. It was a natural divide between the north where the monsters could roam freely and the protected south. When Rhaegar's army had crossed it, days ago, they no longer saw people on the road, nor in the villages they passed by.

The rearguard of the king's army was made up of the dead. King Rhaegar was no monster, but he still led north a host of at least five thousand slain, under the command of Lord Euron Greyjoy, their maker. Lord Euron was a different kind of wight. He and a few others could talk. The rest hissed or were entirely mute. All blindly obeyed his lordship, even those missing a head. Deep mistrust ran between the king and the dead lord. His kraken lordship had lost his natural life trying to master a sorcerous horn of the dragonlords, which he had found on his many travels over the seas. With it, he had ensnared two dragons, until Sansa's husband found a way to stop him and set the dragons free. The dead carried his longship, Silence, black sails and red hull hovering over the kingsroad.

In the part of the riverlands touched by winter Sansa became glad for the escort of the dead. The woods and the shrubbery rang with terrifying noises at night. Sansa didn't want to know what awaited there, and thankfully the dead never let anyone through. Or maybe the fires Mance Rayder lit around the camp every evening kept the terrors of the night at bay.

The baggage train had more food than servants. It could feed at least half of the living people marching north until they would reach the Wall. There was hope more supplies would be found on the way, in the Vale of Arryn, in the Neck and in the barrowlands. In those places there had been no fighting in recent years of turmoil, so the crops may have been stored. Everyone ate winter rations, but no one complained. For many of those who set forth with the king had previously spent their days in the decaying parts of the capital not eating anything at all.

The crownlands had been deserted. There were fields where crops were rotting because there was no one to reap them. King Rhaegar had men collect what they were able to salvage. Most of the smallfolk who still lingered near the kingsroad started trailing behind the army, taking all their possessions with them. The number of the mouths to feed grew faster than the supply of food. All this had stopped when they crossed the divide. There are no people here, Sansa had thought, they all left or they all died.

The kingsroad was spattered with a hard crust of mud, blown over the stones by the autumn rains and later frozen by the cold. The first winter snows had melted, but the chill pierced skin and bone, icing the breath coming from the mouth of the living. It was only a matter of time before it would snow again. Aunt Lyanna ordered runners and bear-paws to be made for when they would be needing them, overseeing the labours in person every day. King Rhaegar would sometimes ride with his queen, or walk next to her on horse, or march with his army. When he walked, he'd do it barefoot, a habit he gained when he lived a life of service and penitence. He seemed to feel no cold under his feet.

And then, there were the dragons.

Drogon was the black one. Sansa admired the name, wondering where it came from. Princess Daenerys named Rhaegal and Viserion for her brothers, but Drogon was not a Targaryen name. Daenerys was flying back and forth between the army on the march and the fleet of her ships which sailed north in the direction of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. Aegon and his confidant, Jeyne, were to ride for Shadow Tower with the Golden Company as soon as they reached Winterfell. Mance Rayder would be their guide. He knew those lands well enough to find a way through them in winter, or so it was hoped. King Rhaegar and Queen Lyanna would travel from Winterfell straight to Castle Black where they would conclude a settlement in which Lord Stannis would bend the knee and they would all join forces to defend the realm if the Long Night truly came. That was the plan.

"Plans seldom work in war", Sandor had warned her, when they started dressing after almost two more hours in the wagon.

"Rhaegar's desire to do right by everyone will be his death." Sansa's husband was as ruthless in his judgement as he could be in battle. "His head is full of things that can't be done. He will hesitate and Stannis will use that to kill him. Then he will reclaim the Iron Throne. Since he learned of Cersei's treachery, Stannis has lived for his claim. He will never let go of it. What else would he do? Cook?"

"Stannis will not kill Rhaegar," Sansa argued with conviction.

"And why not? Who will stop him?" the Hound asked as if he was not expecting an answer.

"You will," Sansa said with belief as tall as the mountains. "Rhaegar thinks of you as brother, but you keep acting as his sworn shield."

Sandor snorted and lowered his eyes. "I'll do what I can," he said.

When they emerged out of the wagon to continue their journey, the king was visibly worried. Another day had passed with no sight of dragons. The white and golden dragon, Viserion, had flown away from the capital with his rider, Ser Jaime Lannister and Ser Jaime's wife, Lady Brienne of Tarth. And the king had sent the green and bronze dragon, Rhaegal, to search for Jon on the Wall. Rhaegal never returned and there was no word, no raven, from his son.

"The lord lizard-lion of the Neck will know what's going on," Mance had told the king. "He knows a great many things. He would be called a wizard, in my north."

Sandor was right as usual. When the camp was gone, it took them only a few hours of riding, or driving a wagon, in Sansa's case, to arrive to the Trident. The view of the river didn't improve the king's sullen mood.

They were fortunate that the fords were still crossable. So far, the gods were with them, it seemed, or at least some of them. The river was a mass of dense water, green like a maester's potion, speeding through its wide bed. The stream ran wild, but it was still shallow enough that the horses could walk through it and the wagons trot over. They would only get a little wet.

Young Robert Arryn would leave east at the crossing, charged to return to his lands and be their lord, although he had been ill most of his life and not yet of age. The king had hoped Ser Jaime would accompany him until the Bloody Gate. The Arryn men had no love for the Lannisters, but it would be safer to go through the mountains and meet the clans with Viserion. And a dragon could go very far in convincing any hesitating lord bannermen about which side they should choose. The Vale of Arryn meant a safe supply of food by the sea. In winter, it meant everything.

"He shouldn't have spared Cersei," Aunt Lyanna ranted when they stopped, as she did almost every day outside her husband's hearing. "Mad or not, she's dangerous and evil, even if Tommen locks her in a dungeon in Casterly Rock." Arya nodded, Nymeria growled, Sansa's husband grunted and Sansa didn't know what to think.

"You are right," Sansa said without thinking further, "Cersei deserves to die, but His Grace wishes to believe she could be different because he is convinced that she is his half-sister." There was no proof that Aerys II ever fathered Cersei and Jaime. Rhaegar had merely used the impression from his youth and the well-spread tale of incest between the siblings to spare Ser Jaime's life. He proclaimed him a Targaryen bastard and thus declared he would not be a kinslayer. Sansa thought that not expecting treason coming from one's own family was a sign of having a healthy head. The road to madness, that Aerys II had followed, lay in the other direction, where kings were afraid of everything and everyone, and most of all of their own kin.

Aunt Lyanna stomped the ground with both feet like a child, Arya scowled and Sandor spat. "Heartless bitch," he said, "that's all Cersei will ever be."

"Rhaegar doubts all his decisions," Lyanna said. "In his heart he's afraid Jaime has already betrayed him by not coming to join us. Where is he? He can find us if he wishes, the dragons sense each other and their riders hear their thoughts."

Sansa didn't know where Ser Jaime was. She wrapped her arm around her aunt. It was easy because Sansa was so much taller than her. Even Arya was taller already, and likely to grow a bit more, although probably not as much as Sansa. Nymeria gave an affectionate lick to the northern queen who patted her head.

"Does... does Jon have a direwolf as well?" Aunt Lyanna asked timidly.

"Yes," Arya explained, "his wolf is white and his name is Ghost."

Lyanna shivered. "It's better than Stranger," Sansa tried to say something to make her aunt feel better.

"The Seven have no power behind the Wall, it is said," Aunt Lyanna whispered. "And a ghost is a spirit of a dead man."

Their aunt never showed fear except when it came to Jon. Sansa and Arya agreed that it was so because she felt guilty. When she had gotten word of Rhaegar's defeat and passing, Lyanna became mad with grief. She faked her own death and left Jon with their father shortly after his birth. She didn't trust herself with her own son. Prince Aegon, Lord Varys and Lord Connington all believed that Septa Lemore came into being to hide Lady Ashara Dayne. No one ever dreamed that she had been Lyanna Stark.

"Ghost is only a name," Arya said.

"A beautiful name," Sansa had to add.

Aunt Lyanna smiled. "You're both right," she said. "And you both remind me of myself at your age. In different ways."

Sansa felt flattered with the comparison and Arya lowered her head, just like Sandor would do when Sansa would unwittingly embarrass him by complimenting his looks. Can it be that my sister does not know how pretty she has become while we were apart? If it weren't for the fact that she was now one of the royal family, many a young knight or comely soldier would have attempted to woo her. And probably ended up meeting Gendry's hammer. Not that Arya needed any protection. She still had the sword Jon had given her as a parting gift.

The army started crossing the river late in the morning. The party which was to go to the Vale moved aside, preparing to march east with Sweetrobin. Sandor and Arya left to train, perhaps to bleed each other, Sansa feared. The king announced he would cross last with his family, and not first as he had done to face Robert Baratheon.

Rhaegar was restless, pacing up and down the riverfront in his wife's company. When the black wings appeared on the sky, signalling Daenerys's return from the east, he took Aunt Lyanna by the shoulders. "I will send her to the Wall to find Jon and bring him here," he said, staring gloomily in her grey eyes. "No," aunt Lyanna disagreed. "She is your sister and she has your love. But I don't trust her with the life of our son. What if she feeds him to her dragon? It wouldn't be the first time in history one Targaryen did that to another."

"I never knew you took those lessons so much to your heart in Winterfell," Rhaegar said, mildly amused.

"I did not! Arthur had a book about the kings of the Seven Kingdoms. And they were all Targaryens until Robert as you well know. I had to do something when you rode off to your war. I could not ride nor joust with a big belly."

The king kissed her hands. "Sweet wife, it is precious to me that you made yourself digest that bloody history."

"I had to know whom I married."

"I never read a thing about the Kings of Winter," Rhaegar said gravely. "I should."

"Most likely because there isn't a good account available south of the Neck. There were books about it in Winterfell, but they were probably lost when Winterfell was burned. If you seek such knowledge you will have to dig deep in the vaults of Castle Black, sweet husband..."

The bickering between the spouses was like gooseprickles rising in Sansa's ears.

"I am sending my sister," Rhaegar repeated.

"Can't you go?" Lyanna begged.

"A king cannot abandon his army," he said. "I've never done it before and I'll not do it now. Ser Jaime is not here and..."

"-you trust him even less, I know. We agree on that."

Daenerys landed several feet away from the royal couple, black wings flapping, red fire puffing out of Drogon's snout.

"Good sister," Lyanna said coldly, "welcome back." Her expression turned as grim as the faces of the kings of winter in the crypts under Winterfell, long and unforgiving. She tied her beautiful hair, dark brown and shiny silver, into an ugly bun on the top of her head. In Sansa's opinion she had never looked more like a true septa than at that moment.

The princess was a year or two older than Sansa and as pretty as she could be dangerous. Sansa still wasn't sure what to think of her. They had walked together as captive slaves of Euron Greyjoy for a day, helping each other to stay on their feet. But when Drogon returned, the humble, stubborn girl Sansa had met immediately turned into a cold-hearted queen. And that same queen listened to Walder Frey's demand for Sansa's hand without any reaction, except, perhaps, a vague, amused condescension of that atrocity. King Rhaegar had assured Sansa it was all a mummer's farce, but she could never bring herself to believe it.

She shared her aunt's concern. There was no way of telling what Daenerys would do if and when she would meet Jon. Hopefully she would not go as far as to feed him to her dragon. Sansa understood that Jon could also become a dragonrider, but taming a dragon seemed far from simple. Ser Jaime looked as if he was about to fall off and die when Viserion took him up to the sky for the first time, against his rider's will. Sansa had asked Daenerys if it had been any easier for her, hoping that it might be easier for Jon. All she had gotten was an enigmatic smile, stretched thin as a closed jaw of her dragon.

Daenerys and Rhaegar could both ride Drogon as they pleased, in an arrangement unusual for dragonlords. Dragons lived much longer than men so they could have several riders one after another in their lifetime, but a dragon with two riders concurrently was an oddity in Westeros, and there were different and confused stories about Valyria. Sansa's eyes would go wide open when King Rhaegar talked about the greatness of the old freehold, seated next to a campfire. The flames would make his purple eyes glow red like dragonsbreath, the grass that grew under the heart tree in the godswood of the Red Keep.

The only thing Aunt Lyanna had to say about all that was that she had sailed to the Smoking Sea, where Valyria once was, during her exile. If they both lived through the winter, she would take Rhaegar there, be it on a ship, or on the back of a dragon. When she would speak like that, Rhaegar would sigh and kiss her chastely, then take up his harp and play. Sansa's aunt would listen and mop her tears when the music stopped and she thought no one was watching.

Sansa was always watching.

There was entirely too much to see on the march. There was never a moment without a brawl here or a trouble there. Sansa wondered if her royal uncle would give her high harp lessons if his retinue ever gave him a moment of peace. She once dreamed of such as a little girl going south to King's Landing. But the only lessons she received back then were in the cruelty of men. In the end she lacked the courage to ask the king about the harp.

And she also wanted to spend as much time as possible with her husband before he left her to march against the snarks and the grumkins.

"Brother," Daenerys smiled, "good-sister," her smile was less sweet. "Sansa," the princess behaved like Sansa's friend, but Sansa never knew if she should believe her. "I flew far up north ahead of my fleet, all the way to the place called the Last Hearth. I have seen no sign of Rhaegal or of anyone who calls himself Jon Snow. The people are all holed up in the castle and a small town around it. Some say a green shadow hunts in the woods at night. It used to eat sheep but now there are none, so it eats bears and wolves."

Aunt Lyanna gave the princess a hateful look. Sansa could not understand. Why would she give wolf pelts to Sandor and her in cold blood but then object to the eating habits of a dragon? It was probably that or starve. They might all eat wolf meat or worse by the end of winter. Sansa wondered how roasted dragon would taste and she immediately felt sick. She hoped she'd never have to eat that.

"What of the ships?" the king asked.

"They are approaching Gulltown," Daenerys said and dismounted, sliding down one giant black leg of her beast. Rhaegar smiled at Drogon and patted one of his horns. The dragon exhaled some smoke and belched with satisfaction, vomiting black and white feathers. They could have belonged to an eagle similar to the she-eagle whose skin Queen Lyanna could wear, like Arya wore the skin of her wolf. Sansa's aunt paled.

"It's not yours," Daenerys hurried to reassure the queen. "It's just a bird Drogon caught in the Mountains of the Moon."

"We cannot wait for Ser Jaime any longer," Rhaegar concluded. "Lord Arryn has to continue east, and we north and north-west."

"You could sound the horn," Aunt Lyanna said with hesitation.

"No," Rhaegar said. "If they are too far away I could kill the rider or the dragon by the summoning. I will only do that in dire need, not before."

Or you could kill Jon if he is learning to ride the dragon, Sansa thought and kept her thoughts to herself. The king chose his words wisely not to upset his wife.

The king stayed in place and waited. He gazed east, south and west, checking the horizon for white and gold wings swaying in the wind until the sun went down. His sister never left his side. Neither did his wife, the two women glaring at each other. Sansa spent the afternoon with the men and women making bear-paws in place of her aunt. Out of curiosity, she stayed close enough to observe the two ladies and the king.

"A dragon!" Mance Rayder bellowed from the other side of Trident as the sun was setting. The King-beyond-the-Wall was among the first ones to cross the great river, eager to return home. "The white one!" There was indeed a dot of fast moving light on the red sky across the river, growing larger with every moment.

King Rhaegar laughed, for the first time in many days.

"See how my faith was not mislaid," he told his wife. "Will you lend a little bit of yours to my young sister? She is our best choice to find our son fast."

Aunt Lyanna nodded, almost against her will. "Send her out on the morrow," she said as if she hoped her husband would change his mind. "We are all weary today."

"I'll never be weary of flying," Daenerys said with pride, climbing back up the front leg of her dragon. Soon, the black wings soared to meet the white ones, approaching the ruby ford from the distant west.

"I will always listen to you, Lyanna," the king's voice was full of love and her aunt looked embarrassed for enforcing her will.

"I know," she murmured.

Sansa felt superfluous. The bear-paw makers were done for the day and the king and the queen clearly needed to be alone. It meant that Sansa could finally go and find Sandor. There would be some food as well by the fires. She strolled up and down in a simple dark blue cloak with a clean wolf pelt over it. No one paid her any attention. There were many men still busy crossing the river before dark. She walked fast, eager to spot her husband. He trained often since the start of their journey. "To stretch these old bones," he'd say.

The only thing old about him were his many scars. His body was a semi-uncharted land Sansa wished to explore for as long as the gods would allow. Every day she welcomed the moment when it was proper to retire. One more night is all I need, she'd tell herself every evening. I will be brave when he has to leave me. She could say that as much as she wanted. It was no less a lie. She wanted many nights in his arms but only the gods could grant her that wish.

Those same gods who had taken her father, her mother and Robb. The gods who had returned her sister and who may yet return her little brothers.

Everything seemed so exciting when she had travelled south to King's Landing years ago, with Father. She was sure her life was going to be worthy of a song. But the only music Sansa had discovered turned out to be the unstoppable sound of her tears.

Now she was finally going back north and her heart was fuller than it had ever been. She had found love and she had found family. She still had to find home. In Winterfell, or elsewhere.

She wondered whom the gods would take away from her this time and prayed for the strength to withstand it. Maybe they will take me. The notion of her own death was nowhere near as frightening as before.

Sansa was a little girl no longer.

She didn't want to cry.

"You have a squire, but I don't have a maid," she objected when she found her husband. "I need help for brushing my hair."

A knight from the Golden Company laughed. The Hound swung his sword and lopped off a mop of hair hanging above the man's forehead. A tiny stream of blood drizzled down the knight's nose. Sandor grinned with satisfaction. "There's a pretty for you," he said.

The campfires were like fireflies scattered on both sides of the great river, calling the army to the night's rest.

Sandor gave Sansa his arm and walked with her back to the wagon.