DISCLAIMER: Not mine :(

Chapter four is up! I'm very excited for this chapter. I feel like the first three were all just an introduction, but now that the story is picking up, it will be much more like ASoIaF! I hope it's all good, and that you enjoy!

Over and Out xoxo

The Cat couldn't sleep.

This was no new thing, she supposed. As a child, living on the run, she had learned to snatch sleep whenever she had the chance, which was rare enough. As a slave, after a days labour in the mines, hacking at the stone for hours on end, pushing carts of rock, or digging the mass graves, it was all she could do at the end of the day to scarf down her gruel- if there was any going- and find a patch of floor to collapse upon.

No, it was the years prior to that, when sleep had evaded her most nights. In the House of Black and White, she had often lain on her cot and stared into the darkness, willing sleep to come, and with it, the wolf dreams. Then the Kindly Man had had the Waif administer her a tonic each night, to suppress them. She had wept at first, in private, though she had no doubt that the Kindly Man knew anyway. Had mourned the second loss of her wolf. Then she had been relieved. As her master had promised, the lack of dreams, the severing of that connection, made it so much easier to stop being... who she was, and become no one.

Only, after some years, she hadn't been able to resist the temptation. Had wanted to see if she was really no one, if she had succeeded in putting her past life to rest. It had been easy to trick the Waif. After years of compliance, with no complaints or questions asked, she hadn't expected the Cat to not take it. Hadn't checked, as she had in those initial months. And as soon as she shut the door, the Cat had spat it out, washed her hands so there was no lingering trace, and went to bed as normal.

And she had dreamed. She had dreamed she had four strong legs instead of two. Dreamed she had sharp ears and eyes that could see in the dark. Had dreamed she had brothers and sisters again- no, no one could ever replace her real brothers and sisters, who had been taken and skinned and slaughtered. But having a pack at all, when she had for so long been the lone wolf- it had been delicious. And she had spat out the tonic again the next night. And the night after that. It was like an opiate, and she was an addict, like the rich youths in Braavos who frequented underground dens.

Only, then the Kindly Man had found out. How, she did not know, but when he had asked her in the morning, she had told him the truth. She could have lied, or at least, tried to, but she had also been taught to read the truth of something in a man's face, and she had seen the answer in his eyes. So she had told the truth, and taken the punishment without complaint. He had taken her eyes the last time she had defied him. This time, he took her sleep. Made her spar for hours on end, every day, on no sleep, until she could barely stand. That had not stopped the masters and other acolytes from beating her bloody each time.

Lying in the disgustingly comfortable bed after her meeting in the throne room, however, she still couldn't fall asleep, even as she remembered that particular punishment. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't drift off, despite the exhaustion aching in every inch of her body. After being roughly bathed by brutish servants, who had either been too afraid to speak to her or were forbidden from it, the wounds on her back throbbed and her face felt like it had been scrubbed to the bone. It felt good to be clean, though. it was like her body was lighter, somehow. More fluid. But she knew that no matter how much she scrubbed at her skin, even until it was raw and bleeding, she would never be able to wash away the filth of the mines, the salt, the soot, the tang of metal and human suffering. Shifting to lie on her side to ease the pain in her dressed and bound back, she ran her hand down the mattress, and blinked back tears at the freeness of the movement. Before she had gotten into the bath, Gendry had removed her shackles. She'd felt it all- the reverberations of the key turning in the lock of her irons, then again as they loosened and fell to the floor. She could still feel the ghost chains hovering just above her skin. She traced her fingers over the bandages at her wrists. How strange, to feel something clean and soft against her skin!

But it was too strange to lie on a mattress, to have silk caress her skin and a pillow cradle her cheek. To feel and smell clean hair and skin. She had forgotten what food other than soggy oats and hard bread tasted like, what a clean body and clothes could do to a person. Now it was utterly foreign. She had gone without before. Had spent weeks eating bugs and worms and beetles, suspicious roots and berries if she was lucky. She remembered how that little girl, Weasel, had tried to eat mud, and made herself sick. At least soggy oats and hard bread was better than that.

Her dinner had seemed other worldly to her, though. The chicken had been plain and unimpressive, the vegetables over cooked and mushy, but after a few mouthfuls, she'd dashed into the bathroom to toss up the meagre contents of her stomach. It was so unfair. She wanted to eat. Wanted to eat so badly she had almost tried it again, but she couldn't. She wanted to put her hand on a swollen belly, to wish she'd never eaten a morsel and swear that she'd never eat again. Instead, she had contented herself to the hunk of bread that had come with her dinner. She'd eat well enough in Kings Landing. Her stomach would adjust, and she would grow strong again, build muscles.

She had wasted away to nothing, a mere skeleton, a shadow of what she had once been. Beneath the nightgown she had been stuffed into, her ribs jutted out like knives, her collarbones slicing through too thin flesh. She had become weak. Had become ruined. A lump clogged her throat, and she swallowed it down, refusing to give the prickling sensations in her eyes an inch. The softness of the mattress smothered her, and she shifted again, despite the pain it gave her in her back.

Her face had not been much better, when she had glimpsed it in the mirror briefly, before Gendry ordered it away, lest she smash it and make a weapon of the shards. Her reflection had been haggard; her cheekbones were too sharp, like everything else about her, her jaw pronounced, her eyes shadowed and sunken in. She took steadying breaths, savouring the hope that Aegon had perhaps unwittingly given her. She'd eat. She'd exercise. She would make herself strong again. She would win the gods forsaken tournament, serve her sentence, and be free again.

Yet still, she could not sleep. She wondered what Aegon would tell people. She doubted he would let his people know that he had taken a faceless assassin who his father had sent to the mines, as his champion. Especially her. The Dark Heart. The name was a twist in her gut.

Dark Heart. That was what the Ghost of High Heart Hill had called her, all those years ago. Screamed it at her, actually, along with other things. Blood Child. Daughter of Corpses. Oh, the Cat had had plenty of time to think on her words since then. She had known. The dwarf woman had known what was coming for her and her family, and yet did nothing to stop it, to warn her. She had known what would become of her mother, had known the Cat would be an assassin who would come to be known as the Dark Heart. Perhaps when she had won her freedom, she would find the witch, and pay her back in kind. Show her just how dark her heart truly was.

The thought fed her in a place she had long since banished, deep within herself. Her prayer. Her motive, her reason for everything she did, once. For years she had nurtured it, allowed it to swell inside of her like a great tide that crashed against the surf of her iron fisted control. The only thing she truly lived for; vengeance. It seemed she still had a score to settle on that count.

She sat up in bed, hissing at the pain in her back. No. That prayer- that did not belong to her. Not anymore. They had belonged to Arya Stark, not the Cat. The Cat did not know Arya Stark's pain, Arya stark's anger, Arya Stark's fear. Arya Stark was dead.

She forced her mind back to her most recent change in fate, the task now set before the Cat. She could do it. She knew she could. But... what if it was like Aegon had said? What if she wasn't as good as she had once been? She had just been lamenting the ravages on her body. Would she be able to recover and grow strong again in time? She had put on a sure face in that throne room, but now she wasn't so sure. After all, she had a matter of weeks before they would even arrive at Kings Landing, and she doubted very much that Commander Waters would let her anywhere near a sword until she was under constant watch at the Red Keep. She wondered if the other champions had started training yet. She knew that the trip from Kings Landing to Castamere was a good three week journey at this time of year. That meant that by the time she arrived at the Red Keep, at least some of her competition would have had a good six week head start on her. Perhaps more, if it had taken Aegon time to assemble and plan his journey.

She supposed it was entirely likely that some of the other champions would come from much further than her, though. Anyone coming from Dorne, or the North, even the Riverlands, would have to travel further than her. She did not relish the thought of fighting men from her own kingdom, but she supposed there was nothing she could do about that but hope they were eliminated before she ever had to fight them. Suddenly, dread coiled in her gut. What if one of the other sponsors had hired a Faceless Assassin? She wasn't so sure she could handle that, not with her body ruined the way it was. A year ago, yes- she could have taken on any of the acolytes, any of the masters, save for perhaps the Kindly Man, and, of course, there was him but... she would not think about him. It hurt too much.

She tried to dismiss the thought. The Faceless Assassins were expensive. Very, very expensive. She doubted that any member of the court or council could afford one for months on end, let alone the years that followed- besides, this was not what the guild believed in. Death was what they believed in, and death only. She doubted they would ever agree to being a champion like that.

She tried again to calm her thoughts. Tossed and turned. Thought of how good it would be to ride out of the gates of Castamere. How queer it would be to see people, happy and smiling and whole, again. To see the streets of Kings Landing, even Flea Bottom. To hold a sword again. As the memory of it danced through her mind, the Cat finally drifted into a restless sleep.

When Gendry came to fetch her the next morning, he found her sleeping on the floor, wrapped in a blanket. "Cat," he said. She was awake and alert immediately, reaching for a knife that wasn't there. If he recognised the movement for what it was, he didn't say anything, just stared at her with those intent blue eyes. "Why are you sleeping on the floor?"

She didn't bother concealing herself with the blanket as she stood. The yards and yards of fabric they called a nightgown was large enough to be a tent, and covered her more than well. "The bed was too comfortable," she said simply, yanking the nightgown as it slipped over a too thin shoulder, but quickly forgot the captain as she beheld the sunlight.

Pure, fresh, warm sunlight. Sunlight she could bask in day after day, if she won her freedom, sunlight to drown out the endless dark of the mines, where she was escorted to in the grey dark of dawn and from in the pitch of night. When was the last time she had seen sunlight, felt it's kiss on her skin? Before her capture, she was certain. It leaked in through the heavy drapes, smearing itself across the room in thick lines. She stretched out a hand.

Her hand was pale, almost skeletal, but there was something about it, something alive, something beyond the bruises and cuts and scars, something that seemed almost beautiful and new in the morning light.

She crossed the room almost in a daze, and nearly ripped the curtains from their hangings as she opened them to the grey mountains and bleakness of Castamere. The guards positioned beneath the window didn't glance upward, and she gaped as the bluish- grey sky, at the clouds drifting over the horizon, each one so fresh and beautiful and pure after the rocks of the mines.

I will not be afraid, she had told herself every day for the last year. For the first time in a long time, the words felt like they could be true.

Her lips peeled into a small smile. The commander raised a brow, but said nothing. She wondered if he understood how very lucky he was, to have never gone without sunlight. If he understood how much it meant to her. If he understood that she could have died right then and been grateful for this one last gift.

She didn't take her eyes off of it as the servants came into the room and dressed her in a too big riding habit. Gendry stood at the door, painfully staring into the wall behind her as she was stripped and dressed, refusing to look at her for even a second, as he had the night before as she was bathed. She wondered idly if she would care if he looked. She had lived without privacy for so long that she thought at first she wouldn't care, but then remembered how destroyed her body was, and was glad for his refusal to look at her.

It felt strange to wear clothes again. To feel seams moving against her clean skin. The rags she had been wearing had been so filthy and matted to her skin that the servants had required a pair of scissors to cut it away in some places- the only time Gendry's attention had been solely fixated on her- and afterwards they had been burned. She was glad of it. They were what she had been wearing when she walked into Castamere- or at least, were the remnants of what she had been wearing. Her boots had been confiscated straight away, so too her belt and leather jerkin. All that she had been left with were her breeches and shirt. She had ripped the sleeves away within weeks, after they became so ragged that she constantly caught them in her chains. The bottoms of her breeches had long since rotted away, torn and ripped until they fell a few inches beneath her knees, instead of hat her ankles. Even the laces that tied her breeches up had been confiscated on those first days, lest she somehow use them to strangle someone (and she wouldn't lie and pretend she had not considered it, however briefly), and she had resorted to tying them in place with a strip torn off her sleeve. And the back of her shirt... whips cut through cotton as easily as they did skin.

By the time the servants were done with brushing the tangles from her hair and braiding it down her back, they were late, and Gendry dragged her from the room by her elbow. Really, she would have to teach him to stop doing that- treating her like a beast- but not until she was out of here. Not until the gates of Castamere were a mere memory to dwell in the recesses of her mind.

The budding sky made her heart sing as they entered the main yard, but her step faltered as she beheld the mounds of bone coloured rock at the far end of the compound, and the small, hunched figures going in and out of the many mouthlike holes cut into the mountains. It was strange to see slaves in daylight. She had never been allowed out unless it was dark. Whether it was further punishment, because of who she was, or a security factor, she didn't know. Even when she was set to digging the mass graves, it had been at night, so that by the time she was finished, it was time to go back under the mountain again to mine all day.

Work had already began for the day, work that would continue without her when she left them all to this miserable fate. Her stomach clenching with guilt, the Cat averted her eyes from the prisoners, keeping up with the commander as they headed to a caravan of horses near the towering wall.

Barking assaulted her ears, and three black hounds sprinted from the caravan to meet them. It was no hard thing to quiet them, slipping into their minds as easily as she had once done with the stray cats and dogs on the streets of Braavos. They each stopped barking immediately, and sat down, waiting expectantly. They were each sleek as arrows, and huge. She knelt on one knee, her bound wounds protesting as she cupped their heads, and stroked down their smooth fur. If only she could slip into the minds of men as easily as beasts. She had tried a number of times. Had succeeded only twice, in Braavos, and only briefly at that, and it had left her unconscious on the ground. The dogs licked at her fingers and face, tails slashing the ground like the whips the overseers carried, and cracked at slaves whenever they grew bored.

A pair of ebony boots- dragon skin, she thought idly- stopped before her. The Cat lifted her gaze to find the amethyst eyes of the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms studying her face. He smiled at her, and she thought he looked bemused. "How unusual for them to behave like that- especially for a cat," he teased, scratching one of the dogs behind the ears. "Did you give them food?"

She shook her head and stood up, brushing off her knees. He was stood so very close to her. It would take all of two simple movements to disarm him. Three to kill him.

"Are you fond of dogs?" She recalled how she had once wished for a good, mean dog. How she had been sent one, in a way. She shrugged. It felt too hot. "Am I going to have the pleasure of hearing your voice, or have you resolved to be silent for the duration of our journey?"

She frowned. What did he expect of her, when they were stood a scant fifty yards away from the slaves she would be abandoning? "I didn't have anything useful to say," she said, turning her eyes up to his.

Something like confusion flashed across his purple eyes, but he distracted her by bowing low. "I see. I apologise, my Lady. Next time, I'll try to ask a more useful question." With that, he turned on his heel and strode away. The Cat almost forgot to release his dogs, and let them trail after him after a beat.

She scowled as she turned and discovered the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard smirking at her. The smirk did not disappear as they walked into the fray of the readying company. However, the unbearable urge to splatter someone across a wall lessened when a groom brought her a chestnut mare to ride. She stroked the mare's face, almost reverently, wondering at the softness of her coat, the wonderful smell of her, the comfort of her presence. She had missed horses. Once, she would have told herself they were a silly thing to miss, when there were so many other more important things, but the last year had taught her many things, including that even the small things that brought a person joy, like sunlight or horses, were infinitely precious. It was a lesson she vowed never to forget, though she was sure she would.

She mounted. The sky came closer, and it stretched forever above her, away and away to distant lands she had never thought she'd ever see again. The Cat gripped the reins. She was truly leaving Castamere. All those hopeless months, those freezing nights, endless days... gone now. She breathed in deeply. She knew- she just knew- that if she tried, really tried, she could win this tournament, win her freedom back. She could fly right out of the saddle and into the endless blue sky at the thought. That was, until she felt the clamp of iron around her wrists.

It was Gendry, fastening her bandaged wrists into shackles. A long chain led to his horse, where it disappeared beneath the saddlebags. He wrapped one large hand around her wrist, and frowned at how easily his fingers overlapped, thumb hooking over his knuckle. She wanted to rip her hands away, but was so startled by the human contact that she just stared at him.

"Are they too tight?" he asked, squeezing for emphasis. When she didn't answer, he said, "the manacles. Are they too tight? Because if they are, say now, because they'll be no chance to change them once we're on the road."

A lump rose in her throat at the question. When was the last time anyone had asked her opinion on something? He was waiting for an answer. "They're fine," she choked out.

He looked at her strangely and then let go. "They have to be fairly tight so that you can't slip them off," he explained. "But if they hurt your wrists-"

"It's fine," she said, a tad more sharply than she had intended, to cover the emotional quiver in her voice.

He hesitated, and then mounted his black stallion. She looked at the chain between them that tethered her to him. If she stopped paying attention for just a heart beat, and rode just half a step too far away, she would be dragged right off her horse. She pursed her lips, and considered leaping from her horse and using the chain to hang him from the nearest tree. She almost felt guilty when she remembered his brief moment of kindness. Almost.

It was a cumbersome company, thirty all together. Behind two imperial flag-bearing guards rode the prince, silver hair shining in the sun, escorted by two members of the Kingsguard, identified by their white cloaks, which hung regally over the rumps of their horses like a mockery of a maiden's cloak. Then came a band of six royal guards, dull and bland as gruel. But still trained to protect the prince- from her. She clanked her chains against her saddle and flicked her eyes to Gendry. He didn't react. She wondered if it was deliberate, or if he just didn't notice. A second clank and a tick in his jaw pointed towards the former. She smirked.

The sun rose higher in the sky. After one final inspection of their supplies, they left. With most of the slaves working the mines, and only a few toiling inside the ramshackle refining sheds, the giant yard was almost deserted. The wall suddenly loomed, and her blood throbbed in her veins. The last time she had been this close to the wall...

The crack of the whip sounded, followed by a scream of agony. The Cat looked over her shoulder, past the guards and the supplies wagon, to the near empty yard. None of these slaves would ever leave here, not even when they died. Each week, they dug new mass graves behind the refining sheds. And each week, those graves filled up. The whip cracked again and she flinched, twisting in her saddle, wishing she could run and yank to whip from the overseers hand and beat him with it until he was just a raw slab of bloody meat, until he begged her for mercy she would not give, because none of them ever showed it to the slaves. She pushed down the fury, pushed down the hate, and let it fester beneath the surface, as she always had. Let it grow and feed and warp into a hideous monster, that one day she would unleash on all those who had ever wronged her.

She turned back around in the saddle. Gendry was watching her. His face was hard, jaw clenched, but there was something in those blue eyes of his. Something that looked an awful lot like pity. She hated it. Hated him.

She became all too aware of the seven long scars down her back, standing out amidst the other countless, smaller ones, that criss-crossed her skin like some absurd cyvasse board. Even if she won her freedom... even if she lived in peace and returned to her home kingdom... those scars would always remind her of what she'd endured. And that even if she was free, others were not.

The Cat faced forward, the movement tossing her long, dark braid over her shoulder, pushing those thoughts from her mind as they entered the passage through the wall. The interior was thick, almost smoky, damp. The sounds of the horses hooves striking stone echoed like roiling thunder. The iron gates opened, and she glimpsed the wicked name of the mine before it split in two and swung wide. Within a few heartbeats, the gates groaned shut behind them. She was out. She was out. She was out.

She shifted her hands in their shackles, watching the chains sway and clank between her and the commander. It was attached to his saddle, which was cinched around his horse, which, when they stopped, could be subtly untacked, just enough so that a fierce tug from her end would rip the saddle off the beast, he'd tumble to the ground, she would-

She sensed Lord Commander Water's attention. He stared at her beneath lowered brows, his lips tightly pursed, and she shrugged as she dropped the chain. He couldn't blame her for thinking about it. It wasn't like she was stupid enough to actually try. She knew exactly why she had been placed at the centre of the party, why the six guards immediately behind them were armed with long bows or crossbows. One wrong move from her, and an arrow would find it's mark right through her throat, or in her heart. Besides, where would she go?

As the morning wore on, the sky became a crisp blue with hardly a cloud. Taking the forest road, they swiftly passed from the mountainous wasteland of Castamere, and into fairer country. If she were to guess, they were heading towards Sarsfield, and from there to the Gold Road. Gold Road. She shuddered. What an ugly, pretentious name for a road that was really little more than a wide track. It was just like the Lannisters.

After hours of silence, the Cat turned to Gendry, who had ridden beside her in stony silence. "Rumour has it that the king has employed a Red Priestess to his service," she said casually. "That she whispers all sorts of mad things in his ears. Can't say I'm surprised. He always did have a proclivity for burning things, so I suppose the Lord of Light makes sense." She said the words simply, easily, as if discussing the weather, but she hoped he would confirm or deny. The more she knew about the king's current position and the climate of the court, the better. The commander surveyed her, frowned, then looked away. Stubborn, infuriating man. "I suppose it must make your job quite difficult, with all the burnings."

His jaw tightened and a muscled feathered near his temple as he clenched his teeth.

"Do you intend to ignore me all the way to Kings Landing?" she asked. "Or are assassin's just too low company for you to keep?"

The commander's brows rose. "I didn't realise I was ignoring you," he said stiffly. "Perhaps I just didn't have anything... useful, to say." He echoed her words from earlier, and she remembered his smirk after she had said them.

She pursed her lips, checking her irritation. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. "How old are you?"

"Four and twenty."

Her guess had been good. "So young!" she said. She was impressed, even if she would never admit it. "It only took a few years to climb the ranks then?" He nodded. "Perhaps there wasn't enough competition," she teased.

He pursed his lips. "And how old are you?" He looked her up and down, as if weighing her. She half wanted to slap him with the chains he had oh so considerately clamped around her wrists. "You look half a girl, but I suppose for someone in your profession, that could mean anything."

She scowled at being called a child. "The face you see is my true face," she said tightly.

"Is it?" he asked. "How do I know you're not lying? After all, that is one your specialties, is it not?"

She nearly snarled at him, even though he was technically right. "Indeed," she said. "But nonetheless, I am telling the truth. I suppose you'll just have to trust my word, won't you?"

He smiled at her coldly. "Trust the word of an assassin?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You can sit there and judge me all you like, Lord Commander, but don't pretend even for a minute that you aren't the same." Her lips pulled back from her teeth. "You think I don't recognise a killer when I see one? You say you rose through the ranks quickly. That means that you aren't as innocent as you think you are, no matter the colour of your cloak." His jaw tightened. "So don't sit there and condemn me for what I have had to do to survive, when you are just the same."

Her words seemed to stun him into silence for a moment, and idly she remembered the Hound saying a similar thing, once, that night in the Hollow Hill.

"I would never kill someone for money," he said after a moment, words clipped.

She laughed a cold, humourless laugh. One of the guards in front looked over his shoulder for a moment. "But you would for position? For influence? Power, even? Or to save your own life? Tell me, Commander- how do you measure the worth of someone else's life against your own, and decide that you deserve to live more than them?"

He swallowed, the apple of his throat bobbing. His black brows were pulled low over his eyes. Oh, he might infuriate her, but she couldn't deny that it was good to argue, good to debate with someone who had enough spirit to argue right back.

"Because I do it to protect the prince's life," he argued, "so that one day, we might have a better world, with him as it's king." She chuckled. "What?" he asked.

"Hypocrite," she breathed, barely concealed anger tainting the word. "You hypocrite! Yesterday, you called me a traitor for speaking ill of the king," she spat out the word, "yet, here you are doing the exact same thing!" She snorted in disgust.

He frowned. "I am not speaking ill of him," he said, "but... Aegon will be what Aerys is not. I am preserving that future."

"So it's all for the bigger picture, is that it?" she asked, tossing back her braid. It had come loose at the top, and a strand blew across her eyes. She brushed it away with impatient fingers, and had to raise both hands, shackled as they were, to do it, temporarily dropping her tight grip on the reins- a grip that had been tightening along with her restraint. "So can you look me in the eye, and honestly tell me that every kill you have ever made has been for the prince?" He did not meet her gaze, and she chuckled emptily to herself, shaking her head slightly. "We are not so different after all," she said, the words barely above a whisper.

They rode in tense silence for a few minutes.

He was the one to break it first. "Why did you become an assassin? A Faceless Assassin, at that? How old are you, anyway?"

She didn't smile. "Eighteen," she said simply.

She didn't need to look at him to know the shock that would register on his face. "Surely not," he said, brows creased.

She frowned. "You are not the only one here to ascend the ranks so quickly, it seems," she replied tightly.

"But... you must have been a child when you started training," he said, obliviously.

"Yes," was all she said.

He hesitates a moment before speaking again. "How?"

She turned her eyes back towards him for the first time in the last few minutes, having resolutely been watching the road. His face was stricken, beneath the simmering irritation. "War is not kind to children," was all she said.

He did not seem to have a reply to that, and they rode in silence again for the next half hour. The only sounds were the horses hooves on the road, chatter drifting down the column from the front, where she had no doubt the prince was having a good time. Perhaps he had merrier company than Lord Commander Waters. She imagined that was not difficult to do.

After a while, he asked, "how old were you, when you became an assassin?"

She looked at him, weighing him carefully. "Are you asking me the first time I killed, or when I joined the guild?"

"The latter," he said, frowning at her.

"I was twelve," she answered. Or something like that. She had lost track of her namedays on the road. She had been nine when her father was killed. She didn't know quite how long she had been travelling aimlessly through the Riverlands. Well, perhaps not aimlessly- she had aims. She just never reached them in time.

His face paled. "Twelve?" He looked so shocked by her admission that she almost smiled. So open, and easy to read. He ought to work on that.

"Are you truly so shocked?" she asked, arching a brow.

"yes," he admitted. "And you're saying that... you killed before then?"

She swallowed. "Yes," was all she said. He loosed a shaky breath, and she took pity on him. "Why so surprised, Lord Commander?" she asked. "Did you truly think a person resorted to being an assassin without just reason?"

This time, when he didn't reply, the silence held for only a few minutes before the column drew to a halt. The Cat pulled the reins and looked around, at the soldiers stopping and dismounting.

She faced Gendry, who had swung a leg over his mount. "Why are we stopping?"

He stood, and unhooked the chain from his saddle. He gave it a firm yank that made her want to beat him with it, signalling her to dismount. "Lunch."

Ok, I loved writing this chapter! Such a clever little Cat!

Let me know your thoughts- and thank you to the person who gave me a tip for this chapter, concerning Aerys and his priestess! Til next time, folks!

Over and Out xoxo