Chapter Fifty: Claims on Claims

The Small Council Room

Sansa Stark

It had been many years since she had been in this place. A century ago, perhaps, or a millennium. Long enough that she might have lived through the first Long Night and the second, and survived to tell both tales.

It had only been two days since Arya had been attacked, and it had only taken that long for the rest of the kingdom to hear of it. Worse still, they had heard more. Stories of Arya Stark dead in her Uncle Edmure's arms. Stories of a girl with a face as blue as a frozen corpse, with black fingers engraved around her throat. Stories of the failure of Sansa Stark, Jon Snow, Edmure Tully, and Daenerys Targaryen. Four people entrusted with keeping the Bringer of Dawn safe, and four people who'd failed at it.

No one had spoken yet, but she could see the fury on their faces. The High Priest of the fire god was shaking with rage, and each tremble made red flames dance, wherever they were inked into his flesh. To his side, a man cloaked in monochrome robes watched them with far less anger. His face might have kindly enough, but he stared with an intensity that could have set Sansa shivering, if she had not already faced worse on the battlefield and worse outside of it.

To his side stood the Westerosi: Queen Yara Greyjoy, frowning instead of smiling for once. She had deferred to Daenerys upon entering, but now she had eyes only for Jon and Sansa, and they hated.

Beside her stood Prince Ryndon Martell, toying with a golden dragon as a petty king of the Stormlands looked on. Beside him, Tyrion, King of the Westerlands now, was watching Sansa as much as any. King Farman's chosen vassals, too, looked on, one with his scrawny fists no bigger than pinpoints at his side.

The Braavosi had come last, and it was he Sansa, Jon, and the rest had pretended to wait for. But now that he had come, it was difficult to find the words to address the wolf in the castle.

The war had only just ended, but one false word could start another. It was no different to treating with Joffrey, hiding behind her courtesy like armor, only the stakes were even higher. This time, she was not alone in the path of fire. Jon was there, and Arya, and all the rest of the realm.

It felt like King Robert had died again, and her life was about to fall apart once more. Only, rather than it all starting with Robert, it would start with her bratty little sister. And, instead of a war with five kings, it would have dozens. She couldn't let that happen. She couldn't.

"My lords-"

"Your Grace," one of the Crownland's many petty kings proclaimed.

"Your Graces," Sansa said, careful not to speak through her teeth, "as I am sure you are all aware, my sister was attacked two days ago by her maester."

"'Maester', she calls him," Archmaester Harodon said. Why the Citadel had even bothered to send an archmaester, Sansa could not say. Still, she could not insult him. They would need the support of the maesters as much as the kings.

Thankfully, Jon answered in her stead, "He was the closest we had to one. It was either trust him or let Arya die." He clenched his fists. "That wasn't going to happen." Again, Sansa heard, and she wondered if anyone else might have. Daenerys, certainly, from the frown on her face.

"Regardless, your trust nearly killed the Savior of Westeros," the Archmaester said.

"The gods blessed us with this girl, and the North might have lost her," said a rat-faced septon with hair that hung from his head like strings of webbing, emanating from somewhere beneath his crystal crown. His fine robes cloaked any wounds he might have worn, but when he pressed forward, it was with a limp. "Shame," he said. "Shame and heresy!"

"Heresy?" Daenerys repeated, frowning.

"The Seven gave her to us to free us from the darkness. To lose her is to insult them. If you cannot be trusted with the girl, we must find someone who can. The Faith would be more than happy to-"

"It was not the Faith that foretold her coming," the red priest said. "If anyone has rights to Azor Ahai, the Lord of Light stands tallest."

"No one is taking my little sister," Jon said through his teeth. When Sansa turned to face him, his hand was at his hip, hovering over his sword. Several of the kings seemed to have taken his cue, including her ungainly uncle.

"No? Then I imagine the maester story was a lie."

"Not a maester!" the archmaester shouted, so enraged that his jowls waggled beneath his many chins. "His experiments-"

"Oh, spare the lecture," Prince Ryndon drawled. "As if you would not do the same with the Stark girl."

"Seven-"

"How fares the girl?" Ryndon asked, facing Sansa, instead of the rest.

"Recovering," Sansa answered, before Jon could grow any angrier.

"Recovering," Lady Greyjoy mocked. Sansa found herself tensing every time the woman spoke, and it only seemed to make the Greyjoy more pleased with herself. "She's been recovering since the battle. Do forgive me for asking it-" She hardly seemed to care if they did. "-but will she ever be recovered?"

There was an answer to that question, but Sansa did not know how to voice it. Nor did Jon, who clung to Longclaw as if this was a fight, and his blade could offer him some semblance of aid. Nor did her uncle, who kept his gaze affixed to the floor. Nor even Daenerys Targaryen, who looked to Jon the way he looked to Longclaw.

How was one to tell a council of kings that their savior might never recover? How was one to explain magical scars, incurable damage, and a throat that had not recovered even in the fortnight since the battle had come and gone?

It might be a moon, the maester had told them, back when they believed him to truly be a maester. It might never come. I've dealt with cases of this sort before, but never so severe.

But if she told these men, they would laugh at her for daring to listen to that man. They would drone on and on about how foolish the Starks were, how dangerous it was to leave Arya in their custody.

But Arya was Sansa's sister. If they lost her again, Sansa feared they might never find her. Eight years, it had taken, the last time. Not again. Never again.

They were Starks. They could not lose another member of their pack, when it had already shrunken so.

"The girl should be sent to the Citadel," the archmaester said, when they did not answer. "We have the resour-"

"No," Jon said, again through his teeth. Every last inch of his face was drawn with fury, of a sort Sansa had not seen since he was ripping Ramsay to pieces with no more than his fists. It had scared her, then, and it might have scared her now, if Sansa had not faced a thousand things more terrible. But her arm was charcoal, her sister and bastard brother were walking corpses, and Sansa had seen White Walkers roaming Winterfell from her perch on a dragon's back. There were few things that could scare her now, and Jon was not one.

"No?"

"No," he said, again, and it was enough to draw the room to stunned silence.

He looked every bit the King the North had raised him to be. But, for all his regality and all his strength, he had not been enough to save them. Nor had Sansa, playing her game of thrones and toying with the lives of men. Nor had Daenerys, standing beside three grown dragons, enough to topple seven kingdoms.

These kings had not been there to see it all. They had not fought in Winterfell, burned in the Eyrie. They had not lived and loved and lost all in the span of moons. To them, the Long Night had lasted a moon and no longer. Many had not lost lands or food or even very many people. Oh, their armies had gone, but their wives and sons and daughters were safe in their castles.

They had not known fear. They had not known the Night King well enough. And, surely, they did not know Jon Snow enough to know that he, too, might have slain the Ice King, had he only the chance.

Sansa was not often proud of her siblings as a girl. Oh, she liked Robb well enough, and Bran and Rickon, but the two that had survived the war? They were loud, obnoxious, and seemed to only take pleasure in seeing her shriek. They were not bred as she was. Arya had spent more days wandering among the smallfolk than she did sitting in the sewing room. Jon Snow had been a Snow. A bastard boy with a bastard's heart, and Sansa knew well not to disgrace herself with his friendship. No, as a girl, she had never been proud of these siblings.

But now, after Arya had saved the world, and now as Jon stood fierce as a king, she could feel nothing more.

It should have been me, she thought, but the thought did not come as convincing as it might have before. Spare me queendom, she thought instead. I only wish to see Winterfell again, safe and whole. Still, the questioned remained in the back of her mind: what do I have left to do that can rival them?

For the next hour, they would stumble over proposal after proposal, threat after threat. The followers of the Lord of Light insisted that they should take custody of her sister. The Faith of the Seven had argued for a new Great Sept, where Arya could be housed, at least until she recovered (and then, the matter would be revisited, and the Sept would claim a fostering, of course). The Crownlands had put in claims, and the Stormlands, and even her own uncle – though his request had been laughed away when Yara Greyjoy had asked him which army he intended to protect her. The maesters fought on, and all the kings who had sought to be her suitor, and even a few who claimed they had saved her in the field of battle. Claim after claim after claim. And – though Jon, Sansa, and even Daenerys rebuffed their every attempt, each response more aggressive than the last – it might have gone on forever, if not for the man in the black and white cowl.

He spoke when the others had all said their peace, his voice like the sweet honey that Sansa had rubbed into her burns for hours in Duskendale. "These are a great many claims," he told them. He spoke so softly, no louder than a cowed child, but his words carried all the same. "But none are enough to overrule a solemn vow."

There were some who ignored his words, and others who rolled their eyes and carried on, and there were some – namely the Braavosi – who backed away from the table as he spoke, but it was the archmaester who silenced them. He fell back, away from the table, and stuttered until every gaze in the chamber was fixed on him.

"A vow?" he sputtered, after what must have been a dozen tries.

The cloaked man nodded. For all that Sansa tried to catch the expression on his face, there was nothing there but that kindly stare. "Valar morghulis," he said, softly, "and valar dohaeris."

Sansa had to pause, for a moment, to recall where she had first heard those words. They were Valyrian, she knew, and old. Maester Lewin had rarely ever worked to teach them the dead languages of Essos, but perhaps he had mentioned them somewhere along the way? But, if he had, why was Daenerys reacting so strongly – every muscle in her body rigid and flaring? Why would Jon have drawn his blade partway from its sheathe, a terrible sneer twisting on his face?

And then she remembered it. In the cave, under the Red Keep, when they had first met Bran again. The words had been in the letter, and Arya had turned as green as wildfire.

All men must die, she'd told them. All men must serve.

Suddenly, Sansa knew who this old man truly was. It scared her more than she ought admit.

"She has fulfilled our oaths quite well," the man told them all. His soft voice had grown more terrifying than Sansa knew a voice could be. Was this truly his true face or some cruel magic masquerading this man as another? Was he even in the room with them, or leagues away across the Narrow Sea, using his strange magics to speak to them all. Sansa didn't much like magic. It had only ever brought her family to ruin.

If the man noticed her discomfort, he did not show it at all. "But the Many-Faced God does not work in half-measures. The oaths in our House are oaths for life." He looked to Jon as he said it, and the once-king grit his teeth as soon as the words touched his ears.

"Out," he ordered, cold and biting like the winter's wind. But not to the cloaked man. Instead, his words were meant for all the rest, and they knew it as Sansa did.

"I beg your pardons?" King Cafferen of Fawnton rose, his pale white fists slamming hard on the table. He wore no armor, and bore no sword, but he seemed to think himself intimidating all the same.

Jon turned to him with his lord's face and their father's eyes. "Out," he said, and no one dared question him again. For all that they were kings and queens, Jon Snow was his father's son, and few men questioned their father when he was playing the lord.

"We can reconvene when this matter is settled," Sansa told them, and that was all it took. Oh, Prince Ryndon took extra urging, and Yara Greyjoy seemed of mind to toss the table across the room, but within minutes, they were gone. Even Lord Edmure had slipped the room to ensure that none would feel affronted.

Now, it was only the four of them: Sansa, Jon, Daenerys, and the Braavosi. Now, they had no one who could save them if the man deemed it their time.

Sansa inched her way to the door, and none seemed to notice.

"Was it you?" Jon snapped, shedding any illusions of preamble.

He needn't clarify. A hint of a smile broke on the Braavosi's face. How he could smile at a moment like this, Sansa would never know. How he could smile at all…

"I assume you refer to the girl's wounds."

"Three," Jon said through the crack in his voice. Daenerys took his arm before he could draw his sword. It seemed that was all that was keeping him from skewering the man.

It seemed strange to Sansa that she was responding so strongly. When Theon had died, Sansa had been devastated for days undying. But Jorah Mormont, Daenerys' closest confidant had succumbed to sickness, and she hardly seemed to respond at all.

"It was not me," the man explained. "The one who did it is at peace." He seemed to take no pleasure in it, and that upset Sansa nearly as much as the scars she'd seen on her sister's stomach.

This was the sort of man who had raised her sister, while Sansa had been playing the Game in the Vale. Building snow castles, scheming, and slapping motherless children. Arya had been with a man who watched others stab children and pitied the assailant when they died. And I was with Littlefinger, Joffrey, and Ramsay, she reminded herself to smother the guilt.

She wondered how her father had angered the gods, that their family had faced so much terror in so few years. She wondered if they even still lived at all, or if all their lives were merely the terrible world they had been given, and there was nothing for them after. Perhaps that was good. Perhaps they would all be at peace when it was all said and done. It is better than being wights.

"You're not taking her back there," Sansa said, slowly.

The man only nodded. "Our order is not one for slaves."

"You tried to kill her when she left," Daenerys said. For all the life of her, Sansa could not say why she did. There was no boon to supporting the Starks now that her throne was lost. They had no army to guard her, no crowns to give her, and no castles to offer her. Why, then, did she still offer her aid?

Because she is not playing the game, Sansa realized, uncomfortably, and I have played a fool.

"When a name is chosen, a gift must be given," the man said. "The god called for a name, and death is not to be mocked." He looked to Jon once more, as the once-king surged forward. The faceless did not move a muscle. "Those who sing the song of earth toyed with it. Took corpses from their crypts, tore the peace from flesh, stole the gift from men who earned their rest. It fell to us to restore order."

"You killed my sister," Jon said, cold as a White Walker. And then, he was surging forward, Longclaw slipping from its sheathe and cutting through the stagnant air of the small council's chambers. It was doubtful that this was the first time blood would been shed here in these chambers.

On any other day, she might have stopped him. Dragged him back, shrieking like a child and chastising him for his diplomacy, or his lack thereof. She might have reminded him of Arya's newfound talents, and where else might she have learned it than this- this guild? She might have shared with him everything that she knew of the Faceless Men – their skill, their ruthlessness, their seeming inability to fail. She might have told them that Littlefinger had feared them once, and Littlefinger had feared none but the dragon.

But on this day, Sansa was as hateful as he, and she might have let him tear this faceless fool to pieces, if it meant she would never have to look upon his black eyes again.

Thankfully, Jon was quicker than Daenerys too. Though she reached for his arm, the limb slipped through her fingers. He was surging forward. His sword was too fast to track. There was no one between he and the man. No one to stop him.

And then, the blade was on the floor, and Jon was still. A knife sat at his throat.

The Faceless Man let out a terrible tsk and drove the blade just a bit deeper. Little drops of red slipped down the edge of the steel.

When Sansa looked to her right, Daenerys was just as frozen as she was, halfway through a step and a shout.

"My name has not been called for today," he told them. "Nor hers."

He drew the blade back, and Sansa's heart began to beat again. Wherever he replaced the knife, she could not say. She had not known he had one at all.

Somehow, Jon recovered more quickly than any of them, though bits of blood were still trailing down his throat. He pawed at it, in hopes of sealing the wound, but the Faceless Man had cut too deep, and the blood ran too quick. "Why?" he demanded, as if he could demand a thing at all.

The man only smiled. That, more than anything else, terrified her. "Valar dohaeris," he said, simply. "No servant serves the same. Some bear cups, some cook meals, some claim names, and others faces." He showed them his palms, and his smile grew wider. "Some fulfill prophecy."

"Prophecy?" Daenerys breathed. When Sansa looked to her, her teeth were grit and her skin pale, but she stood stalwart all the same. "What prophecy?"

His face did not move as he turned to look at the Dragon Queen, but his eyes spoke his hate better than anything else could have. He stared at her for a moment, and then to the rest. "It is time my guild takes its leave. By now, my brother will have spoken with her, and we will have her choice. Should she choose to come with us, we expect none to interfere."

Jon, somehow not awed by the blood spilling around his fingers, stepped forward and said, "What do you mean 'spoken with her'?"

The man only raised his brows. "I had known the father's genius and the brother's honest word, but you…" He clicked his tongue. "You may be wiser than any man." Even with his face as kind as Maester Luwin, his sarcasm was as clear as a summer day. "Take care, child. The Many-Faced God will not lose you twice."

And, where Jon failed to react, Daenerys' face said it all. Fear. Utter fear, lined in every last wrinkle of her worn, tired, perfect face. But whatever it was she was afraid of, Sansa did not know.

"What do you want to do with her? My sister?" Sansa asked.

The man tilted his head. His grey hair settled on his neck. "Only what she wishes. Our guild keeps no slaves. Only servants. Should she deem it better to serve in Westeros, just so; it is done. If she wishes to join us again, we sail for Braavos." His eyes narrowed, but his smile stayed steady. "The child has served the god well. She will be treated kindly if she so chooses to come. If not-" He said nothing more, but his silence seemed no more threatening than anything else he had done.

"Why are you telling us this?" Daenerys said, before Sansa could ask what it meant, before she could ask why Arya would possibly go with them, before she could ask about slaves and servants and his strange god. Daenerys was too quick, and Sansa's questions went unanswered.

"You have all served the god, whether you know it or not. When the gift was stolen, and living corpses of men wandered these lands, you three stood against it. For that, a favor was owed. A favor is given." He stepped away from them, backwards. His bicolored cloak swept the dusted floors. Little bits of grey kicked up into the air, shimmering in the light of the dying sun.

Sansa had hardly even noticed the time pass. It could have only been minutes since she had broken her fast, yet now dusk had come. She wondered how much else she had missed, while they had been in these chambers, tending to a thousand whims and whines, and treating with this assassin who had raised her sister.

Father would be furious, she thought. Then, No, disappointed. Father was never furious. It was what she loved about him, and what she missed the most whenever Meryn Trant drove his fist into her belly.

They waited until the man was gone to take another breath. Jon retrieved his sword, as Daenerys surged over to his side, and Sansa hurried to shut the door behind him. Somewhere on the other side, a dozen kings and queens stood, angry and waiting.

But inside, there was only the three of them. None were much inclined to invite the rest.

Jon collapsed into a chair, hands shaking around the pommel of his blade. He dropped it on the table, and the steel cut slivers from the wood. As a girl, she had always wondered how her lord father's sword could cut clean through a man's throat without even a second swing. She had never seen it herself, and she could not say. When she had finally seen it, she had taken care not to think of it. Now, though, she understood. Valyrian steel was sharper, quicker, and stronger than anything in the world. And Arya's master had sent it flying without even a moment's notice.

She sat beside Jon, her limbs like liquid. When she finally pried her eyes from the table, Daenerys was sat too. Her hand was on his, and she was gripping it with a strength that Sansa had not known she had.

"Seven hells," Jon breathed.

Sansa would never have said it, but she was thinking the same.

"I am thankful," Daenerys said, after a long and painful pause, "that they cost so much."

Whatever that was meant to mean, Sansa would never know. For, before Daenerys had even finished, she was thinking back on what the assassin had done and said. Every last word, every last grin, every last kindly glance.

He could have killed them in an instant, but he hadn't. He could have stolen their faces and left their corpses out to the world, but he hadn't. He could have done anything, but he hadn't.

She shivered a thousand shivers. A shiver for every stare. A shiver for his every step. A shiver for every moment her heart still beat. A shiver for every hour her sister had spent among men like him. She shook until the set rose, and she shook long after.

A/N: Before I start this ridiculously long author's note, let me just say, happy holidays, y'all! Hope you all enjoyed/enjoy them and, if not, hope this helps give you just a little reprieve!

Man, this chapter felt like splitting worlds. Like a crossover in a Disney show, only much darker and with a lot more knives. Never really pictured a Faceless Man hanging out with Jon, Dany, and Sansa. Weird as hell to write. (I really should have finished AFFC before writing this chapter. Whoops)

If anyone's wondering why Dany doesn't say much here, I can't imagine she's having much fun in the company of an assassin. She's got bad experiences with his sort, and I figure she's a bit pissed to be in his company. Her newfound tolerance of Arya is an exception, not the rule. This probably should've been in her POV, but I've got another Dany coming up after the next, and I feel like it's a bit too close for comfort. I still regret doing those two Aryas in a row way back. It's better to keep them spaced out, I think, unless it's an extremely significant moment. This… isn't, really. Not for Dany, at least.

Also, to the guest from the last chapter, have no fears. The sad arc ends after the next chapter (and halfway into the following). Just needed to finish my final retcon before they could move on. Then we move back into politics, because I happen to agree with you. The point was to emphasize the show's failure to show the politics of the situation, but I agree I've probably overdone it some. If this was a novel, I'd probably go back and edit a few chapters shorter, maybe cut one or two, but it isn't, and I don't actually know how to edit on , so I won't. But this is the drawback of the pantsing model I've been using for Prince. I'm usually way more of a planner. Whelp, live and learn. Thanks for the review!

Anyway, who better to close out this 19-chapter overarching… arc than the one who started it?