'Let's practice meeting the queen,' Septa Ruelle said, cautiously eyeing Nymeria, who sat mutinously in a corner of the room.

'But Septa Ruelle, there isn't a queen yet,' Jo helpfully pointed out, 'that's why Mother and Father have gone to King's Landing. Father says that if I'm good, he'll buy me a dagger and – '

' – and I will take away your dagger, directly,' Septa Ruelle replied, with a degree of stuffiness that Jo found strange in a person barely older than her own mother, 'but when King Tommen and Lady Margaery are married, and there is a queen, you'll have to know how to meet her properly. Now, straighten your back.'

Jo stood side-face. Septa Ruelle looked impressed.

'Your posture is impeccable, my lady.'

'Is that good?'

'Yes…' Septa Ruelle placed one hand on both of Jo's shoulders and gently turned her forwards, 'but you must face the front.'

'But Septa, if I face the front –'

'Now put your arms out, like this,' Septa Ruelle interrupted, gesturing elegantly.

' – then I open my body for 'tack,' Jo finished, sticking out her bottom lip and doing as she was told while Septa Ruelle frowned at her.

'Attack, and do you really believe that the queen is going to attack you, little lady?'

'Auntie Queen Cersei 'tacked people all the time.'

'Attack, and how do you know about that?'

'People say anything in front of me. They think I'm stupid 'cause I couldn't talk when I was little.'

'You're still little, no one thinks you're stupid, and Queen Cersei was quite deranged, my lady,' Septa Ruelle remarked, 'true ladies do not seek to end the lives of others.'

'But I don't want to be a lady!'

'You have no choice. Now bend, like this.'

Septa Ruelle curtseyed gracefully, like Mother did when she met boring people in the mornings. Jo bobbed with both knees, like she did when hiding from the kitchen staff.

'No, no, no,' Septa Ruelle said, 'put one leg behind the other, like this –'

'What's deraged, Septa?' Jo asked.

'Deranged, my lady, and it means mad,' Septa Ruelle answered, 'now try bending again.'

'Why was she mad if she was the queen?' Jo asked, bending, 'that sounds shit.'

'It's tradition around here, and do not swear…very good, but don't bend so deeply.'

Jo curtseyed again, though she didn't understand the point of presenting herself before the queen in the same posture she adopted when she needed to take a piss.

'Excellent,' Septa Ruelle declared, 'now, let us continue, and pretend that Nymeria is the queen.'

'Nymeria is the queen,' Jo insisted, 'Nymeria. Here.'

The direwolf rose and loped over, wearing exactly the same expression Father did when about to say 'what the fuck?' and Jo took some satisfaction at the rapidity with which Septa Ruelle leapt backwards. Jo reached up to stroke Nymeria's head. As Jo's hand disappeared into the fur, Nymeria closed her eyes and growled in contentment.

'It's alright, Septa,' Jo said, 'she stopped eating people a long time ago.'

'Why thank you, my lady,' Septa Ruelle replied, 'that is most reassuring.'

Nevertheless, she courageously forced herself to walk forward, and when she reached Nymeria's side, Jo observed that Septa Ruelle was only a head taller than the wolf. The septa forced herself to look Nymeria in the eyes, and above all, not to run. Courage being a virtue admired by all Lannisters, Jo resolved to be obliging for at least the next half hour.

'Now, curtsey to Nymeria, and say, 'Your Grace," Septa Ruelle commanded.

'Your Grace,' Jo piped up, and curtseyed to Nymeria, wobbling slightly.

'Lean onto your front foot,' Septa Ruelle said, 'so that you will not stumble.'

'Your Grace,' Jo repeated, and curtseyed to the direwolf.

Nymeria looked at Jo with an expression of spectacular disdain and began to howl in protest.

There had been a moment, between finding her seat empty and finding her out in the corridor, when he had not known where she was, or how she was. There had only been that small part of her that spoke to him, always, wherever he might be, and the knowledge of how she had been, here, before their marriage. Jaime had seen the memory through the shimmering, sweating veil of pain that had coloured the world after the loss of his hand. He had seen her dragged out of the black cells still covered in blood – his – her face like the face of a ghost. He had seen her eyes when the news of the Red Wedding had come, felt her hand grasp his, and push him away. Then he had seen the waters of the Trident close over her head and had watched her choose not to kick.

And there had been a moment, between finding her seat empty and finding her out in the corridor, The Rains of Castamere still ringing in his ears, when he had not known where she was, or how she was.

It was the Hour of the Wolf. The corridors of the Red Keep were dark, and Arya was a diminutive shadow in breeches ahead of him, rushing, incautious, determined; so determined that Jaime could not help but feel that she was afraid. Fear was something quite different from the evasiveness and introspection that he had seen in her over the past two weeks; from the way she had looked at him and then suddenly away from him that he had not seen since the days before their marriage. Her fear scared him.

Jaime had always understood the notion of unfinished business. Some things were better accomplished alone and for one's own reasons, a concept that Arya had fine-tuned to an art form. And so, he had offered no further help in the slaying of the Freys, reasoning that if she desired to collaborate, she would ask him, and that her spiritedness and skill with a blade would preclude the possibility of any major mishaps. He had made the old mistake. In his eagerness to show her that he valued her independence, he had neglected her. He had forgotten how young she was, right up until the moment she had fainted in his arms, the past overwhelming her like a nightmare.

As he had watched her sleep, he had not been able to shake the paralytic fear that she would not wake up; the ghost, no doubt, of those empty, endless months after Jo had been born. He had imagined life, and the world, and what it would be like. And he had seen vast swathes of boundless, agonising nothingness. How strange that the idea of everything should be incarnated into the small, hesitant figure moving soundlessly in front of him, into the steel that she wore at her waist, the scent of her hair and the sound of her voice.

Arya paused, sharply, as hushed voices and laughter rang loudly out from ahead of them. She stepped back, but made no attempt to hide.

'He has more guards than the others,' she murmured, 'six voices that I can identify. I don't think my previous approach is going to work.'

Jaime was curious.

'What previous approach?'

'I would pull up my hood and incapacitate one from behind, the other from the front.'

Jaime snorted.

'Seven hells, Stark.'

'What?'

'It's a miracle you haven't been caught.'

'Fuck yourself, Lannister.'

'If you insist, little wolf, but I'm afraid it'll have to be later.'

Arya, attempting to conceal her blush, began wringing an imaginary neck.

'I suggest that we take the most direct approach,' Jaime proposed.

'Oh, dear,' Arya complained, still pretending to strangle him, 'I was so hoping to make it look like an accident.'

But she followed him around the corner anyway.

Shadows danced across the faces of the guards like candlelight; caution wrinkling the foreheads of the two Freys, annoyance setting the mouths of the four Baratheons in a firm line.

'Good evening, Sers,' Jaime pleasantly greeted, 'cold night, isn't it?'

'We don't really notice up here, Lord Jaime,' a Baratheon guard politely replied.

'I'm sure,' Jaime responded, 'is Lord Walder abed yet?'

'He is, if it please my –'

Blood took the place of speech as Arya's dagger tore a hole in his throat. Jaime drove his sword into the stomach of one and into the eye of another, wincing as they both cried out, and he turned, the smell of entrails, shit and death filling the corridor, to watch Arya move between the remaining men like a wraith; the throat of one, the throat of the next, blood colouring their chins, their clothes, the walls; their lives torn silently out by a creature as beautiful and as insubstantial as the air.

The corridor was still around her. She had not even drawn her sword. She observed her work coldly. Her irises were black.

'Let's get on with it,' she said.

Jaime had expected his wife to come up with a suitably horrible and very time-consuming death for Walder Frey. He had imagined a particularly long and agonising disembowelment during which the old man would be strangled with his own entrails. He had also anticipated the recitation of a protracted speech about death and revenge, conducted as Arya hacked each of Lord Walder's limbs off with a blunt dagger. Instead, Stark marched curtly into Lord Walder's bedchamber, drew her sword and plunged it straight through the old man's shoulder, pinning him to the bed. When the tortuous old carcass awoke and attempted to scream, she pulled a rag from her pocket and stuffed it into his mouth, clutched the hilt of the sword as she would a walking stick and sat down with both legs on either side of his chest, ignoring the muffled screams and the limp, pointless writhing taking place beneath her. She did look at Walder Frey's eyes, however, and when Jaime saw the terror and hatred in them, he realised that all his morbid imaginings of the death of Walder Frey had been coloured by what he wanted Stark to do to the old cunt, not by what she herself might wish to do.

'Remember me?' Arya breezily asked, provoking a fresh wave of weak struggling, 'it's alright. I know that you do. I'm more interested in whether you remember my mother and brother.'

Walder Frey was cursing, mumbling, choking around the rag, and when Arya drew Father's dagger, his thrashing became strong enough to be problematic.

'Jaime,' she said, 'if Lord Walder continues to struggle, be a dear and cut his legs off.'

'Gladly, my lady,' Jaime replied, and positioned himself at the foot of the bed as Arya turned unhurriedly back to Lord Walder, who was now lying still and grunting unappreciatively.

'I've always been confused by the sheer brutality of the thing,' Arya remarked, spinning the weapon flippantly between her fingers, 'it was quite spectacular, even by Lannister standards: cutting the throat of a mother of five; making aesthetically questionable statues out of men and wolves. Did you plan it that way, or was it simply one of those things that happens when a man's blood is up, and no cruelty is cruel enough?'

Walder Frey spluttered, and a foul stench filled the room. Arya laughed mirthlessly.

'Why, Lord Walder, I do believe you've shit yourself. Have you realised your mistake yet?'

The old man struggled violently, and roared around the rag. Jaime, losing patience, and reasoning that hacking off limbs would cause the old carcass to bleed to death before Stark was finished, plunged his sword into Walder Frey's leg, taking great pleasure in the resulting muffled scream.

Arya leaned towards Lord Walder, so close that she must have been able to smell his breath.

'You didn't kill me. Or Sansa. Or Jon. You left us well alone and carried on. Were women and bastards no great threat to you, in your learned opinion?'

The speed of Jaime's own heartbeat was intoxicating him, enthralling him; what a grotesque spectacle, how strange, how beautiful.

'I am most anxious that you know this before you die, Lord Walder,' Arya said, 'before I kill you like you did my mother and brother. You should have slaughtered us all. You should have ripped us out, root and stem. Why didn't you do that? Don't you understand? Leave one wolf alive, and the sheep are never safe. Any last words, cunt?'

He was screaming now. Arya observed him with a withered eye and sighed.

'Never mind. I'll imagine something suitable.'

She grasped Father's dagger and carved up his throat, her jaw clenching as his skin turned red; her clothes blood-logged. His eyes and mouth gaped as the life left them and streams of blood and bone took its place.

Arya grasped her sword, stood, pulled it from Walder Frey's shoulder and hopped gracefully onto the floor.

She swung the blade at the corpse's neck. It took three tries.

Jaime's clothes were drenched. He watched her through the red haze. She was smiling, weeping and red. Fever covered her skin. Her eyes blazed like wildfire. The battle fury had her.

No time to worry about that now.

'Time to go, Stark.'

Arya shook her head as if clearing her thoughts, 'Yes…though our clothes are a problem, aren't they?'

'Then let's hope we don't get caught. Come on.'

Her eyes were wide and staring, transfixed by the sight on the bed. Jaime seized her hand and pulled her away. The heat of her skin burned him.

They walked quiet as a shadow back to their chambers, and Jaime knew what the halls looked like to her now; how the light from the torches danced blindingly like rotating suns, how the darkness seemed to yawn, invitingly, how doors were opening in her mind that she had never even known existed, and how the thrill of it was rising in her blood and her skin so that the word 'alive' now had a new, searing meaning.

It couldn't have been her first time in that red mist, but it was the first time that had she made a kill so personal.

Arya's hand slipped from his more than once, but each time, he took hold of her again, and she followed him, without stopping and without question.

When they pushed open the door of their chambers, Tommen was there drinking wine. He took in their appearance with a withered eye.

'Wash yourselves, then come back here,' he said, 'the smell of blood gives me a headache.'