Sansa had no idea what had happened. He had silently led her down the stairs and whisked her through the near-empty tavern room. The Freys' coursers had still been outside. He'd saddled Stranger and got them mounted and ridden off without a word. The day was still breaking, an unassertive, chilled sun hanging low and a ghost of a moon still in the sky. After a league or two's riding, he slowed Stranger up next to a field of groundsel and long-spiked, purplish flowers, and helped her down.

Sansa stood, looking up at him, and waiting. She didn't understand. He didn't look too dishevelled. There was no blood on him. Sandor seemed to be trying to work out what to say.

'Did you - kill them?' she asked, tentatively.

He put his hands on her cheeks. 'That would have been quick work, even for me.' He didn't say it with his customary slyness. He looked troubled, and couldn't quite make eye contact with her.

'Just tell me.' She steeled herself.

He took a breath in and held it for a moment, letting go of her face and letting his arms hang down, as if defeated. 'Your brothers.'

Sansa's heart pitched. Robb. She tried to picture him lying in a battlefield, an axe in his stomach, but could only see him at home, laughing hysterically as Arya hung onto Bran's back and the two of them fell backwards into the mud. But - he'd said 'brothers'. Jon was so far north, at the Wall. She tried work out what could have happened.

Sandor continued, 'I heard them talking. The Frey men. I don't think they're friends of your family's, Sansa.' He paused, looking at her apprehensively, as if she might hit him. 'Winterfell's been sacked.'

'Winterfell?' she said, not comprehending. 'It can't have been - ' Bran and Rickon. She went cold. 'What's happened to them? Where are they?' She could see from his expression what was coming. She backed away, into Stranger, who crossly harrumphed. 'Are they – are they - '

Sandor swallowed, his eyes falling to the ground, before looking at her again steadfastly. He nodded.

It couldn't be. They were supposed to be safe up there. Bran. Rickon. Sansa pushed past him, stumbling slightly, and threw up. She stood, hunched over, clutching her stomach, looking at her vomit on the ground, hanging on those violet-blue flowers. She could hear him fumbling with something behind her. Her brothers.

His hand was on her back, and a waterskin under her nose. She straightened to drink from it, but could only manage a sip before she retched again. Bran. She began to shiver, violently, her nose running. He was at her feet, rinsing the vomit off her boots, and pouring a little into his hands and smoothing it in the ends of hair. Rickon. She suddenly took in a huge, shuddering breath, the nausea still high in her throat, and sat down, pulling her knees up, and resting her head there. He was there beside her, facing the same way, waiting. Sansa began to cry.

They sat for some time. She suddenly put up her head, and Sandor, who had been staring into the space in front of them, looked at her, patiently.

'Mother?'

'They didn't say. I don't think she's there.'

A crow's laugh rattled in its throat. She tilted her head to look up in the direction of the sound. Her skull felt like it was stretched over a rack. 'I'll kill them.'

'Who?' he asked, quietly.

'The Lannisters.'

He shook his head. 'Not the Lannisters.' She looked at him, red-eyed and weary. 'Theon Greyjoy.'

Theon. Sansa saw him, his sly eyes, often narrowing as they roamed over a serving-girl's chest, or eagerly bright as he tried to impress her father, or, a bit meanly, at her. He was like a brother to Robb and Jon. He would put Rickon on his back and stagger around as if he weighed as much as Hodor. It didn't make sense. Theon couldn't kill them.

'Sansa. We need to decide what to do. There's no point in going – we can't go north. I need to know where to take you.'

She was too tired to even think about it. Her home was gone. She felt like that old yew tree they had slept in, scraped out, soulless. She really wanted her mother.

He could see that she wasn't going to answer him, and continued, softly. 'I – think we should head to Riverrun. Your brother's army is in the Riverlands somewhere, and most likely your mother too.' She nodded mutely. 'Come on then,' he said, rising. He stood over her. She couldn't move. He leant down and gathered her up, and, his arm around her waist, walked her back to Stranger.

Sansa sat side-saddle, clinging onto Sandor with an arm around his back, her head hot and heavy against his chest. She hardly said another word all day, and didn't take notice of their whereabouts. Sandor tried to make her eat, but she just looked at the bread blankly. She couldn't. All she could think of was them. Rickon, always bedraggled no matter how many times his hair was combed, as untamed as Shaggydog, climbing under Sansa's bedcovers and biting her ankles until she kicked him and almost broke his nose. Bran, daydreaming of being a knight and pretending to rescue girls when he thought no one was looking, making heartfelt speeches to silver birch trees. And it made her think of Arya too, her awkward limbs and flyaway hair, the way she folded her arms and screwed her nose up enviously at the boys as they trained with swords under Ser Rodik's beady eye. What had Theon done to them?

She looked up at him then. 'How were they killed?'

'Don't ask me that, Sansa.' He glanced at her, speaking gently, before averting his eyes to the path. Then she knew it was bad, more horrible than she'd dared consider. He would never lie to her. She saw her father's neck split under the axe.

Sandor set up their camp in a copse carpeted with thick, springy moss and lichen. The air was colder than ever. Sandor made her eat a cabbage and apple stew, straight from the pot. Her stomach turned but she did as she was bid, each swallow an effort. She saw Bran spitting out his cabbage back into the soup bowl until Mother clouted him, and gave the pot back to Sandor. He swaddled her up in a blanket, and wrapped himself around her. Sansa nosed into his chest, whimpering. She wanted her mother. She never wanted to face anyone.

She woke up, numb, her nose like ice. They were lying on their sides, facing each other.

'They're dead,' she said. Her voice was small, broken.

He put his fingers in her hair and drew them through it. 'I know.'

She was lying in her own cold grave. 'I want to die.'

'No, you don't.'

He continued stroking her hair. He was so warm. She would huddle there until the next summer, a rabbit in a burrow. Hibernating.

The next day, the paths were more open, and there was a small camp in the distance. A thin plume of smoke merged with the low, slate grey clouds.

They drew a little nearer, and then Sandor slid off Stranger and made her focus on him. 'Wait here.'

Sansa didn't really care if they were friends or enemies, not any more. She watched Sandor walk over to them, almost sauntering, knowing that his fingers were itching to close around the handle of his longsword. Two of the men stood up, their hands moving to their blades. She waited for him to kill them all, but Sandor didn't seem to react. His shoulders were relaxed, and he walked right up to them, the others craning their necks from where they sat. They seemed to be talking. One of the seated men pointed in the direction of the far hills, patterned with scrubby, dark green patches, like rotting brocade. Sandor was strolling back to her, the men all watching him, and looking past him to her.

He swung back on, and pulled her up to his hips, moving Stranger on. She stiffened and tried to look straight ahead as they trotted not a few yards from the camp. They were all watching them pass. One of them suddenly nodded at Sandor, a small, curt movement.

She let herself breathe out slowly after they had passed them. 'Are we still going to Riverrun?'

'We don't need to,' he said at her ear. 'Your brother's camp is a day's ride away.'