CHAPTER 27: WARMTH

"Close the window," Ramsay told Myranda for the fifth time. "I won't tell you again."

Myranda stuck her head outside and gazed up at the darkening sky, breathing in the cool, damp air. "But it's such a lovely day." She held out her hand and let the cold raindrops patter into her open palm. A pleasant shiver rippled through her. "It's going to storm, I think." She hoped it would.

"All the more reason to close the window."

Frowning, Myranda turned to look at him. Her young master sat slumped in a chair beside the fire, his back to her, expression lost somewhere in the shadows. Myranda sighed. His back was all she ever saw. She'd visited his chamber countless times since the little lady imprisoned him. He never looked at her, not once, and he rarely spoke. Most of the time, he just sat by the fire, watching and listening to the bright red flames so intently, like they were whispering to him in secret. Other times, on very quiet nights, she would find him standing before the open window with the moonlight shining over him.

"Do you see that?" he would sometimes ask, pointing down into the courtyard below.

Myranda never saw anything. "What do you see?"

"Nothing," he would always say, and he would abruptly close the window and walk away. "Just a trick of my mind, I suppose. Think nothing of it."

An unpleasant feeling crept up her back. Myranda closed the window and went to the bed. It was just as she'd left it days ago, not even a pillow out of place. Does he ever sleep? she wondered, as the hearth fire crackled and popped. Violet doesn't think so. She says he doesn't like to sleep.

She moved to the small table, which had been neatly set the night before, for a supper her master had yet to touch. The stench of it was quickly becoming unbearable, so Myranda thought she might clear the table. When she went to lift one of the platters, however, a huge black beetle crawled out of the beef-and-bacon pie. Myranda gasped and pushed the dish away.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her master stir. "My brother," he said suddenly, "how is he?"

She struggled to find the proper words. "Not well, I'm told. The infection is in his blood now. It won't be long before he ..." The rest got stuck in her throat. She sat down on the bed and started wringing her hands. "The gods can be so cruel," she said as she pictured her young lord, lying sick and frail on Death's bed. "Everyone loved him, you know. He was quiet but kind. And always reading, that's what I remember most. My father said he would make a good lord because he liked books so much. Meant he was smart, right? I thought so too, even when I was small and knew nothing. He was just so handsome and so perfect."

"And now he's nothing."

Myranda nodded. "Now he's nothing. And she inherits everything. Fitting, isn't it? In the end, the little lady always gets what she wants."

Without realizing it, Myranda had touched her fingers to her scarred lips, remembering the thread which had once bound them so tightly. Sometimes she could still feel the hot needle digging through her skin, moving in and out so slowly. She would wake suddenly in the night, paralyzed and afraid, and the little lady would be standing over her, smiling with those horrible grey eyes.

But I'm not afraid anymore, she realized, dropping her hand to her side. Then she stood proudly and walked across the room, to where her master sat. I saw the terror in her eyes that night, the terror that you brought when you walked through those doors, and suddenly my monster vanished. She smiled in admiration of the boy sitting by the fire. If she had been more confident, she might have kissed him, but she stopped just short of him and stared at his back. His broad shoulders rose and fell as he breathed. She wondered if he was even listening.

It didn't matter. She went on. "She's sick, you know, the little lady. She's always been that way, at least since I can remember. Always going on about some flayed man, like it's some ghost haunting her every step."

Her master moved. She hadn't noticed, but he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"My father says it's in her blood. That's why she leeches so much, but there aren't enough leeches in the world to suck out all that poison. And Lord Bolton, he tries his best to hide it, but we all see it. His perfect little girl is broken, and now nobody wants her. Do you know how many matches he's tried to make? Hundreds I should think, and they all said no. Even as far as Dorne, they said no." Myranda was grinning, with tears in her eyes. "Poor Drucilla, she always hoped for a wolf, but now she's stuck with half a lion, and she'll have to bear his monster children. It's perfect. Finally, she gets a taste of what she deserves."

And now her master was laughing, his shoulders bouncing, and Myranda couldn't understand why. She gulped. "Master Ramsay?"

Suddenly, he was up from his chair. Myranda gasped and staggered back. For the first time, he was looking right at her, and his eyes were hauntingly cold.

She felt his fingers on her lips, cold as ice. He said, "My sister did this to you, didn't she?" And he traced over her scars, every little brown mark. It was as if he was binding them all over again, following the pattern his sister had made for him.

A familiar terror seized her. Myranda's jaw clenched, her lips clamped together, and her whole body went rigid.

In her panicked brown eyes, she saw the cruelest smile. "My sister is kind," her master said. "If it had been me, I would have cut out your tongue and thrown it to the dogs. Speak ill of her again, even so much as a whisper, and I'll make you wish I had. Do you understand?"

Myranda nodded fiercely. Her master released her. "Now go. Hurry."

He watched her scurry out the door like a little brown mouse. Did she see him yet? he wondered. His eyes flickered to the dark corner of the room, the far corner beside his bed, where the firelight couldn't quite reach. There, in the deepest dark, stood the flayed man, silent and still but always watching with those empty, black eyes. Did she see him standing behind her?

Of course not, he thought helplessly. She never does.

He tried not to look himself. It was always better if he didn't look at him. He turned quickly and went back to his chair, finding shelter in the light.

Ramsay stayed like that for days, feeding only the flames when they required nourishment. He'd lost all need for it himself.

By then, all the food was spoiled, rotten, and decaying upon a perfectly set table: beef-and-bacon pie, a salad of summer greens, apples, and nuts, and mushrooms roasted in butter and garlic. Everything, wasted, black-and-green with mold. The forks and knives hadn't yet been touched. The pewter cups were still half full with red wine. It would have been a delicious supper, Ramsay thought, as hungry maggots wriggled and burrowed about. Now it was a feast for the flies.

The serving girls had tried to take the dishes away. Day after day, they came knocking on the door, each girl a little more persistent than the last, but Ramsay refused them all.

"This supper," he told them, "is meant for my sister. It would be rude to dine without her."

"But she's not coming," one of them had once dared to say. Maude was her name. She was older, well into her twenties, with a square jaw and squinty blue-green eyes that all but disappeared when she was angry. She was angry now, standing tall with her hand firmly on her hip. "M'lady doesn't wish to see you anymore. She refuses. Of course, you already know that, which is why you so childishly continue to bother her. But that all ends now, bastard. M'lady will not visit you. Not now, not ever. And we will not deliver your invitations. Not written or spoken. We will not visit you again. Not Myranda. Not Violet. They are both forbidden from entering this chamber. Do you understand?"

Ramsay understood. Those were Alison's words, spoken from the blonde bitch's mouth. She was always sneering at him while she followed in her lady's shadow. She and the other girls Sara, Jeyne, Helicent they were always looking down on him like he was nothing. "That's no way for a servant to speak to her master." And I'm a Bolton, in all but name.

She smiled. "You're not my master. You're just a bastard. You can stay here with your rotted food. Rot with it for all I care."

Then the door closed and did not open again, not for a long while. Ramsay tucked himself away in the corner and waited, while the flies around him buzzed.

He chuckled. Dear sister, do you think you've won? You've shut me away because you're afraid, but you and I both know you'll come back. You have to come back because you want to know the truth the truth that only I know.

But what is that truth? a new voice asked, a doubtful one that had emerged from the darkest depths of Ramsay's mind. Even you don't know what you saw in the Dreadwoods that night. Is that why you didn't tell her? Or was it because you knew she wouldn't believe you?

"It doesn't matter," Ramsay muttered as the firelight sent shadows dancing across his face. The shadows had been alive that night too, he remembered, while a dozen flayed men lay asleep on the snow-covered ground. His half-brother had been sleeping as well, until he wasn't. Ramsay saw the young lord sit up and walk into the woods without a word, as if something was guiding him.

Should he have shared that with his worried, sickly sister? And should he have told her what happened after, when he decided to follow Domeric Bolton into the dark heart of the Dreadwoods?

Snow, he remembered, falling all around him in thick flurries of white. And a black tree, twisted and rotted to the root, surrounded by a hundred dead ravens.

No. He shook away the memory. It was nothing, nothing more than a sleepless mind playing tricks on me. Or at least that's what she'll say. After all, what reason does she have to believe me? In her eyes, I'm just the bastard that murdered her brother.

Ramsay touched his left cheek, desperately trying to remember the sweet sting of his sister's touch. "What did you do?" she had screamed, and she hit him so hard he lost all his senses for a moment. His vision blurred and his head spun. He saw his sister standing beside her other brother her true brother and a heavy wooden door was slowly closing behind them, shutting Ramsay out forever and casting him into the darkness.

But you can't do that! He clutched at his head in pain. How it ached with fatigue. He could hardly stand it. You can't just leave me here! I'm your brother too!

Now the last of the light was fading. The fire was dying, and he had no more wood to keep it alive.

"No," he cried, watching the shrinking flames. "No! No! No!"

He got on his hands and knees and desperately tried to breath life back into the glowing red embers, but his attempts were in vain. Little by little, the light dimmed and dimmed until it was gone, and the room went dark.

The cold came next. Somehow, the window had opened and a bitter chill came sweeping through the room. It wrapped around Ramsay, causing all his muscles to tighten and his limbs to stiffen. He could barely even breathe. It was as if the life was being squeezed out of him.

No, he realized as he forced the air through his lungs. Not me. It's Domeric. He's dead. It came back for him, after all, just like he said it would.

In the silence, he heard the creak of a door opening, and a shadow entered the room. Ramsay knew who it was before he even saw her.

"Sister," he said, climbing to his feet. I knew you'd come back. You had to, because now I'm the only brother you have left. You need me to protect you.

"He's dead," she kept whispering, her voice muffled by quiet sobs. "He's dead." Ramsay opened his arms wide to welcome her into his embrace. She came towards him, saying, "He's dead. He's dead. My brother is dead."

She stopped in front of him, tears streaming down her face, and she raised her hand high above her head. Ramsay saw a glimmer of light bouncing off steel.

His eyes widened. "No"

The blade came down and plunged into his left breast. Gasping, Ramsay collapsed against the wall. Drucilla followed and pushed the blade deeper, her eyes white with rage. "He's dead!" she screamed. "You killed him!"

Blood poured down his chest and trickled down his sister's pale white arm. Ramsay grunted, his breathing ragged, and he reached for the dagger's hilt. His fingers wrapped around those of his sister.

Her skin was warm and soft.