7


A more savage man, like those from my past, would have made a holiday out of this bloodshed.

It is easy to imagine the extravagances Joffrey would have joyfully conjured at the prospect of such an event: the savory courses and wines he would have ordered to be passed and poured without end; the jovial, interluding performances of powdered mummers and fools; the sumptuous velvet seating, angled towards a center of turmoil; the retinue of mandatory lords and ladies, most of them contrite but many just as eager to witness horror against a backdrop of elegance. The decadence of comfort and ease, all perfectly aligned for the sole purpose of watching men die.

This is not that gilded vision, thank the accursed gods. Joffrey is long dead, I remind myself for what feels like the hundredth time.

This reality however, this flaming, bitter-cold display that Stannis Baratheon has conjured, is somehow worse.

The world is tinged orange, even as we march into the darkest hours of night. Icicles and snow drifts weep where pyres have been set too close. The castle walls are all aglow, the icy facades reflecting the surrounding turmoil back like huge, warped looking glasses. I am sure the fat snowflakes floating from the sky measure far too few to ever quench so many fires.

As loathe as I am to yearn for such a place as Kings Landing, even if only in a passing, desperate way, it is impossible to deny the lack of pageantry here. There is no music or singers to buffet the screams. Nowhere to divert one's attention to momentarily, or at the very least, to safely turn one's eyes.

Even the ground, all snow-laden and pristine as winter silk, now betrays the proceedings. Flecks of ash and fiery debris have come to pepper the ground at my feet. When I tilt my head up just a bit, towards the hastily constructed gallows platform and beheading block, I can see red blemishes against the white.

This is a dark and dismal affair, becoming more burden than blessing by the hour.

Death is everywhere. But not Ramsay's. Not yet.

I understand now that Stannis Baratheon has explicitly ordered these difficulties; that he intends his followers to closely experience the price of unlawful violence. It also seems a test of fortitude. Many an onlooker accosts and spits venom at the convicted men, though I have also caught harrowed, dismayed looks throughout the yard. Men on the verge of sickness with averted eyes, looking as equally unprepared as I. Sometimes I catch His Grace examining them shrewdly, as if marking the weakest amongst his herd.

His face gives little else away, however, whenever I glance up at him standing beside me. No flickering doubt or fear, even as I consider that he must feel something. Watching men burn alive is far worse than father warned – more a full body experience than a sight to behold. There is a stink, of smoke and metal and meat, that cannot be escaped no matter how hard I try to breathe through my mouth.

Light and shadow dance strangely across the King's focused profile, when I peak up at him again, sometimes smoothing out his features but more often drawing attention to the clench at this bearded jaw and the craggy cliff which has become his brow. Whether he believes allowing the priestess her fanaticism will garner fear from his subjects or will instead revitalize them with some misplaced sense of validation for the god they have chosen, I have yet to decide. I am certain, however, that he is taking no pleasure from these proceedings.

I chance a quicker glance up at Ramsay, bound and chained atop the execution platform beside his bored-looking father. Pleasure in pain is perhaps the expression I am most adept at recognizing now, though it is absent in my bastard Lord husband. Our eyes meet again, as they have earlier this evening in the corridor, and I fight the urge to recoil – to step back and cower and mumble out apologies without end. For the fury in his icy gaze is near blinding. I remain the outlet he seeks to pain, even now, so close to his end.

Soon, please be over soon. The King promised. He said this would end, before the night is out.

Another man's wail billows skyward on a gust, twisting up like a wind-whirl. Cheers and chides follow. A new patch of orange glows off the snow to the right of my boot – another pyre alighting. I close my eyes, tucking my chin further into my hood.

Executions turned to sacrifice. Winterfell is still aflame.

Their fire god is greedy, just as she is greedy. I can see it whenever I look towards the Red Woman; in the almost rapturous way she tilts her head back as she chants. Her figure moves between the pyres which spiral outwards from us. She is enjoying herself, I am certain. Her tongue has turned thick and guttural, her foreign words somehow rising louder above the screams, the choker at her neck reflecting the flames back brightly.

The mystery and allure of her is undeniable, but in the way that I imagine a dragon would seem dazzling. A terrible beauty for men to gape at and covet; a danger which can never truly be mastered, even as men talk themselves into trying.

Is this how she drew the King into her religion, with the woman's weapon Cersei made sure to crudely remind me of, time and time again?

The dutiful severity of Stannis Baratheon disregards the inkling. He does not seem a man vulnerable to seduction or distraction. He has a wife and child, at the wall with Jon. Ser Davos mentioned them.

Even so, I watch the priestess for a moment longer, trying to decide if her usefulness extends any further than the console and knowledge she provides the King. The whirling, gracefully movement of her hair and robe matches the dance of her flames so well. She circles a pyre and sings, the fire appearing to climb higher with her encouragement. I examine His Grace in turn, searching with sidelong looks under my hood. But he seems intent on the four men who have unnaturally disappeared amidst smoke and flame, as if wholly consumed.

Perhaps she is a dragon.

It is a marvel my fire-flung shadow appears so still. The heavy furs I've donned must help hide my shaking.

"It will not be long now." The King says quietly, taking me by surprise.

I jerk my head down, afraid he has caught me staring. It is a movement which I am sure cannot go without notice.

"You'll have your justice."

His tone turns begrudging at the end, as if he believes I am some petulant, impatient child in need of a reprimand. Yet I have said nothing to the man since being escorted beside him, even as the night has progressed slowly, with little end in sight and no other company in close proximity. He has made certain we appear a united force, Baratheon and Stark, both standing at the center of this turmoil.

I have made no mention of Ramsay or his Lord father's delayed executions, nor have I chastised him for using me so cruelly in the Great Hall.

The displeasure of being shoved unwillingly before a crowd of onlookers still pricks my conscience. I have long ago abandoned the speaking stone, dropping it as I was guided outdoors though I wished to hurl it. Never meant to be empowering or conciliatory – as Ser Davos and the Priestess were adamant to make me believe before their King – the manipulation which led me here is too apparent now, like a potential scene Petyr Baelish might have tested me with in private.

Where will this decision take you, sweetling? Always you must ask yourself this, while plotting your courses.

I can hear Littlefinger whispering the words, his own self-possessed agenda winding through the subtly of the game he liked to play, acting the teacher while actually meaning to master my own destiny. I somehow feel as if I have failed him, even as it is he who has irrevocably failed me. If Lord Baelish ever slinks back to this castle, to collect the small force he deployed from the Vale, I like to believe I will have the fortitude to dismiss him forever.

But no matter how many scars I may now carry from the trials of Ramsay, thoughts and words are still so separate for me. It feels far safer to keep stores of unsaid things within. I could surely write a long volume of unsaid things.

There is no denying, however, that a spark of gratitude has been building within me since His Grace nodded his grave acceptance – when he allowed my request to have my current tormentor sentenced to death by beheading. Of that long-awaited potential, I am able to readily conjure some regard for the man, even as I am confident the gesture is just a political move meant to garner more northern allegiance.

Ramsay will be gone regardless, and can you truly blame him? He'll be pressed to find ready allies in the north, since father's death and Robb's failed campaign. Not without support from a strong, northern ally.

"It is time. You are aware of the custom?" Stannis Baratheon asks brusquely, startling me from thought. He has so little subtlety, as if speaking out loud is some great labor. Perhaps he feels as if words are wasted on me. I have exchanged so few with him since our first meeting.

The custom? Is there more to a beheading than saying last rites and swinging the sword?

"Well?" He prompts, the impatience in his tone making me all the more nervous.

I chance a hood-hidden glance at his armored torso, still turned towards the platform, but it is the gloved hand which now rests on the pommel of his sword which hitches my breath. The sword that men have sworn to have witnessed aflame; Lightbringer reborn, the Queen's men proclaim.

Is he threatening me? Something akin to indignation flares deep down, despite my instinct to keep quiet. The emotion is too close to the affront that the Sansa Stark of old may have felt.

The slither of steel, a crisp, ringing sound, tells me he has unsheathed it. I can feel him facing me now, leather and mail creaking as he turns. Warning me, testing me, taunting me? I cannot decide.

I realize now that the courtyard noises have dimmed around us. The fires burn on and the moans and wails persist, but the circular crowd has hushed. Even the Red Woman's chanting has disappeared. Again, I feel the weight of attention upon me as I stare at my boots. I cannot bear it.

No, not again. Not so soon.

"So brave before," the King murmurs, not unkindly but still with a measure of roughness, "And now this again, Lady Stark?"

It is the first time he has privately addressed me by my family name, though there is marked hesitation on the moniker. As if he is still unsure himself or, more likely, that he is loath to admit the rightful heir to Winterfell is just a meek and near-mute girl.

"No, Your Grace. I do not know." I whisper, afraid of disappointing this man with my ignorance.

Yet pretending to know is not an option, as I have never witnessed a proper northern execution. Father disobeyed his girls from ever attending and our brothers kept the rites amongst themselves, hushing and scolding Arya whenever she tried to pry the gory details from them.

There is a deep exhale, the King rustling closer until his boots are facing my own. The blade – his wicked blade which may be tainted with dark magic – floats up between us. It gleams queerly, redly, almost like father's Valerian great sword would whenever he polished it before the hearth.

It isn't aflame though, I exhale, grateful to find this story a mere exaggeration. It's surface, however, is like metal turned to water, shifting and rippling enough to make me question if it is a solid thing at all. I am so mesmerized by the deadly instrument before me, I momentarily forget my anxiety.

"Grasp where I hold," he instructs, lifting the blade lightly.

His gloved hands rest on the grip and at the middle of the strange steel.

Over his own hands? I wonder, suddenly apprehensive, feeling all the more a fool. A northerner, who should by rights be the Lady of her great House, and I am unaware of our own ceremonies?

"You must willingly accept it, Lady Stark," he grates low, clearly displeased by my hesitation. "It is your blessing that is required, not your fear."

The reminder of the fake façade we are presenting, of another man deigning to use my title for his own benefit, spurs something within me. His ridicule stings as well, even though it is well-marked. For I am also afraid.

My hands barely shake, as they come under the King's own, his fingers hard like cold stone. They soften only when mine cup his, sliding out and away from view. I am left to palm the mesmerizing blade alone. I've rarely held a sword, I realize, and just as quickly I decide I enjoy the feeling – the small thrill of possessing power, even if I lack the faintest skill to wield it.

"Seal their fates with a kiss and it is done."

My eyes widen then, courage blowing away with the wind, my head tilting up, attention darting to the King's face.

Does he mean? No. No, he cannot...

His intent cannot be for me to kiss him, I decide quickly, a jolt of panic running through me all the same.

Kissing remains another venture I have no knowledge of, though that is a lesser fear entirely. And besides, such a forward, unusual custom would have surely been taught to me at some point. Septa Mordane would have expounded upon it liberally, bestowing another Lady's burden on my ever-expanding duties with a combination of eagerness and whip-like severity. Not even in the moments before her death, when she ordered me to run, did the woman drop the pretense of teaching.

I draw back from the distant, chilling memory, anchoring myself to the present. For the more likely alternative to the King's meaning is just as difficult to contemplate.

It cannot be our way. Not as Joffrey asked me to, before the battle of Blackwater Bay.

It feels like another cruel insult, as if Stannis Baratheon has somehow dug into my past and wishes me to relive a long-suppressed terror. The moment Joffrey ordered me to kiss his new blade, Widow's Wail – that maligned, Lannister-forged remnant of father's own solemn sword – had felt akin to tasting father's blood and beckoning my own demise. I had been so sure Joffrey would behead me himself, as I dipped low and pressed quaking lips to metal.

I had believed the hasty moment to be a personal torment he had devised himself, not a tradition.

There is none of Joffrey's heated excitement in the King before me now, only impatient focus, and in some way this is calming. I can manage another's distance and derision.

His granite-blue gaze measures my stance and greater appearance as if judging a horse at market, before he finally settles his attention on my shadowed face, prompting me with a silent nod. If not for the hundreds of onlookers, such a steady head-to-toe assessment would almost feel inappropriate. But there is none of that sort of impropriety in this man, this self-proclaimed King. He's ice and stone and rumors of sorcery: the Wall made flesh.

I pull my shoulders back taunt under that gaze, the blade in my grip feeling heavier somehow. A breath steams from me, misting the air.

If you are to do this, an older part of me whispers, do not cower. Do it properly. Make father and mother proud.

With eyes on His Grace alone, for I fear I cannot manage this forgery of strength if I glance at Ramsay, I raise the strange sword higher, as if in a toast.

I expect my lips to pucker, to feel the freezing bite of metal, but I am surprised by warmth. Like a tingling, unnerving caress. Dark magic, after all.

I lower the weapon quickly, though I'm somehow hesitant to unhand it. The King reaches to reclaim it all the same, black gloves shifting deftly under my own. His narrowed gaze slides to my mouth, if only for a moment, and then he lifts the sword away, separating me from the rest of the ceremony. I watch him turn, the blade slicing through air as he resheaths it.

How does a man so cold and distant manage to surround himself with heat and flame? I wonder vaguely, careful to track his stiff progress from under the protection of my hood. He ascends the platform with what appears to be deliberate slowness, coming to loom over Roose Bolton. A large fire dances behind the pair, setting them aglow like candle wax.

His Grace looks down upon his kneeling prisoner with the tightened reserve I have come to recognize as his displeasure. But the Lord of Bolton being brought low is not the sight of humiliation and despair I have long wished for. He does not cower, does not beg. He has somehow maintained a cool indifference throughout the whole of these proceedings, his attention vague, appearing far away from the slow, fiery consumption of his men and House. Even now, he stares up at Stannis Baratheon with that same crystalline, unflinching gaze.

He will somehow die with the honor of displaying bravery at his end, I realize, and my gut twists. The betrayer who led Robb and mother to their dooms should be apologetic and pleading, not indifferent. I ball my fists, seeing now that the cruel closure l seek will never come to pass.

You should have chosen more brutal deaths for them, bitterness argues, even as I know I have done well by my own House and family. A swift beheading is humane; a sentence father would have solemnly agreed upon himself, I am certain.

A lesser man might be unnerved by the disquiet of Roose Bolton, but Stannis Baratheon is apparently not that man. He nods to the guards flanking Roose, and they haul him to the glistening beheading block, forcing him to kneel before pressing his neck into the bloodstained crescent.

Do not look away, I chant in my mind, trying to drown the moment that is rising up from my past. That black, twisted moment which now feels like a warped mirror to this present. It is far too horrible to ever erase from memory, even as I have tried and tried and tried.

He's not father. This is not that day. This is your family's redemption.

The fluttering of unease grows in my belly, and I am surprised to discover I am truly more afraid of looking away than I am of staring. To hide from this feels a betrayal in itself; a distancing from the death I have requested – no matter how minor my role has truly been in its orchestration.

You must watch. You must watch Roose Bolton die.

The snows seem to slow, the noise of a hundred ready breaths fading as well. I force my chin to lift.

There is a magnification of focus, my surroundings sharpening and narrowing: the whisper of wool against wet leathers and mail; the star-like gleam of snowflakes in His Grace's hair and shoulders, the slow, silent appearance of the Red Woman behind him; the haunting, high-pitched whine of his sword as he unsheathes it.

The gust of warm air which buffets my face as the blade alights, brilliant and terrifying.

"Any last words?" The King asks.

Roose Bolton's head turns on the block, a smear of red painting his neck. I cannot see his expression, but there is no shift in his flat tone, as he faces the weapon meant to destroy him.

"May you one day burn within your own fires."

From anyone else it might seem a prayer or a promise, but Roose Bolton has never followed the gods.

Without preamble or hesitation, Stannis Baratheon bids the fiery blade to cut through night and snowfall and then flesh. A searing sound; a spray of red; a heavy thunk; the twitching flail of a body separated from life.

He is dead.

I make my quivering gaze remain. Make myself watch the slick puddle of blood that forms around Roose Bolton's head. Make myself ignore everything and everyone else but the corpse above me.

It is done, mother and Robb. It is done. He cannot hurt us any longer.

Somewhere distant there is movement. There are cheers. The thrumming, riotous swell of the crowd seems a fire itself, so irregular and changeable. The crescendo of noise puts the full-scope of the world back into focus finally.

Now Ramsay, I urge the King silently, grateful and readied and steadied by the reality before me, my pulse all but a gallop.

But there is to be a delay, a sick celebration of sorts. The Red Woman is the one to lift Roose's head, raising the contorted visage for all to see and jeer at, her own face like a solemn victory. Carved and carefully crafted. Almost as if this moment is somehow her victory, and the crowd is solely hers.

The sight fills me with sudden scorn. This moment is mine and my family's, witch.

As if in answer, her red gaze finds my own, her lips curving slightly. She nods gravely, reverently towards me, and it is clear she means to acknowledge my part – that she has somehow heard my silent ridicule and finds it amusing. But her heat and powers are not enough to hold me from this distance, or else she is simply not trying, as she has before. The latter is the worse to contemplate, is the alternative I shudder at.

"Your Grace!"

The voice buffets over the celebration, urgent and in motion. I look to find Ser Davos pushing through the mob and then quickly ascending the platform, ignoring the mess of Roose Bolton entirely.

Where has he been? I cannot remember seeing him outside tonight, or anywhere else throughout the trials for that matter.

A quiet, private moment passes between the advisor and his King, the priestess still conducting her gruesome pageantry for the reveling crowd. The softening of His Grace's face, the way his line-drawn lips part for just a moment as Davos expounds upon his news, tells me he is surprised. Dismayed even, by the distant glaze which washes over his usually sharp eyes.

He raises a hand to his advisor, a request for silence, and then his attention is darting over the platform. Over Roose's crumpled body. Searching, deciding, calculating.

Assessing the flaming sword in his grasp before facing his followers, Stannis Baratheon announces fiercely.

"The remaining execution is postponed. Prepare your horses and arms. We ride north tonight!"