Sansa had been given a dark-purple dress, a heavy thing that pulled her shoulders in. She wondered if it belonged to Stannis' wife. She remembered hearing the maids idly giggle about Lady Selyse in the weeks before Blackwater – that she was more in love with the new faith from across the sea than her husband, that she was mad and raked the walls with her nails and screamed all day long, that she'd slept with their halfwit fool and birthed a fish.

A shiver ran through her again, even though the room was warm. She had been in here all day, a dolorous chamber with dark green curtains and damp rushes on the floor. Something smelt sickly and sweet. It looked down onto a cliff so steep that it made her feel ill all over again and she'd had to lie down on the bed, the room swinging around her. She'd been given a bath though, and food, which she picked at carefully, her stomach still sore. There was no sound here, apart from the boom of the sea – no maid's footsteps, voices of servants or guards. Everything was swallowed up by the black stone.

She wondered how the Hound fared. Less well, she was sure of that. They'd yanked him away, and he'd cursed and spat, not looking at her. A pang of guilt throbbed in her stomach. He'd done this all for her, when he could have still been in King's Landing, with his own room, men to command. And now she was sitting in a warm chamber, too warm, and she would be fed and could sleep on this bed, while he – Gods, where had they put him? He was somewhere beneath her, perhaps in the circular tower she could see from her window, the one that jutted out right into the sea. He was captured, and uncomfortable, and alone.

A bed. She had breathed him in, the leather and sweat of him. He had put his arm round her, and his voice had been the gentlest she'd ever heard from him. She hadn't moved. She'd felt – safe.

It was all her fault.

There was a knock. A maid entered, and Sansa could see the guards at either side of the door. They'd been there the whole time. A guest she may be, but Stannis wasn't planning for her to go anywhere.

'You're invited to supper with his Grace and Lady Selyse.' Sansa sighed and stood up. Time to play the part again.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

I'll go fucking mad down here. There's not a single other man with me, none alive anyway. I've called out enough times, and all I hear is the stone throwing my voice back at me, just once, the word all broken up.

There's another smell down here, too. Shit. Shit and piss. One corner of my cell reeks of it. Someone was down here of late, then. Wonder what happened to him.

Gods.

The candle spits its last. Flame-red hair turning black.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Everything in the castle wore shadows like a cloak. The feasting chamber was no different – its great candelabras dripped fat drops of wax, but the room still brooded oppressively.

'That's a rather more fitting look for a lady.' Stannis was seated at the far end of a long, slim table, his back as straight as a sheet of iron. The table was stone, black again, and there were no furnishings, no cloths on the chairs, no flowers.

Sansa curtsied carefully. 'Thank you, your Grace.'

A lady was seated at the other end by Sansa, and she rose in a sudden movement. Her eyes were bright, too bright, and her face pale but for two pinches of unnatural colour high on her cheeks. She came very close, staring at Sansa as if she were a book in Tyroshi or Braavosi, and put a warm, too warm, hand on her face.

'Welcome to Dragonstone, my dear. It is an honour to have you here.' Her hand pressed further. 'It has been a long while since we have had female guests, but I hope –'

'- That's quite enough, Selyse.' Stannis spoke with a trace of irritability. 'Let the girl eat.'

Supper was served, Sansa sitting at the middle of the long table. There would have been room for twenty more guests between them all. No one spoke as the two servants brought in fish soup, though she could hear the sea on the rocks far below them, like a great door banging in the wind. She was still swaying slightly from seasickness – the table was rocking, just a little.

'It's a pity you're not a boy.'

Sansa looked up.

Stannis was eyeing her inscrutably. 'I'd marry you to my daughter to bring your brother to heel.' He went back to his soup. 'You're a pretty thing, mind. I'd take you myself if I wasn't already married. Perhaps you might even give me a son or two, unlike this one.'

Sansa shot a glance at Selyse, but the lady only gazed back at her glassily, nodding her encouragement.

Stannis mopped at the corner of his mouth with a small black cloth. 'Still, I will have word sent to your brother that you are here. And in the meanwhile decide best who to marry you to.'

Married. That was all they ever wanted to do with her – pass her around like a piece of prize gold, traders measuring her weight in their hands, bargaining over her cost. This was the man she thought would protect her when he won the battle of Blackwater. She'd refused the Hound's offer of escape that night in the hope of his protection. But she knew better than to protest now. Stannis was stonily calm but she sensed a deep, boiling anger in him. She looked down at the plate of quail in wine that had been placed before her, and wondered what they were feeding the Hound.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

My gut's torn up. I've eaten nothing for a day. Is it still day? Fuck me if I know. It's as black as Stranger's haunch down here, and there's been no guard. My bones aren't getting any drier. Hold up – a light's flickering down the way, I think. Is it? My eyes playing tricks already, maybe. Then I hear – seven hells. A chill, a new one, spreads through me.

There's singing. I swear it.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

The next day was the same as the first. Kept to her chamber for the day, brought food to break her fast and to lunch, watching the sea rolling itself into grey, slate-blue, and grey again. Maybe this was a worse prison than the last, though at least no one was beating her yet.

Over supper, Stannis cleared his throat. Sansa looked up. She'd learnt that he did this when he wanted everyone to attend him.

'I've someone who wants to meet you after you've eaten.' He was looking at the table but she knew he was addressing her.

'Of course, your Grace,' she said, wondering who on earth it could be.

After they had finished their meal – in silence again, apart from a strange, nervous laugh from Lady Selyse, seemingly for no reason at all – Sansa followed a maid down a gloomy staircase. For a moment she hoped that it might lead to the cells, but it hardly seemed likely. The maid stopped at a large wooden door, bobbed a curtsey, and dashed back up the stairs. Sansa turned to the guard who had followed them down. He nodded coldly at the door. She took a deep breath, and knocked.