Disclaimer: Thank you so very much for your reviews and your overwhelming love of this narrative! As the new school year approaches, I will be unable to update as frequently as I had during the summer months, but I will try to do my best. Again, thank you. I am so very overwhelmed.

Chapter Eleven: Scorned, Forsaken, and Damned

She had missed him. Oh gods, but she had missed him fiercely. She had missed his intensity, his broodiness, his severity. She missed his smiles, rare as they were, when bestowed upon her. It was not often he smiled, but whenever he did, it felt as though the world fell away and ceased to exist.

For me, Ygritte thought wistfully. All for me.

Most importantly, Ygritte missed his hands. Although only nine and ten, Jon had the hands of a man full grown. Large, strong, and calloused, on those long-ago nights he frequented her hut, those hands had proven gentle and attentive, steady. He was the White Wolf of the North, as vicious and unforgiving as the beast he was named after. Yet, with the encroaching of night, he was generous and careful.

His touches were light and honey-sweet when he loved her. And loved her, he did. Frequently and thoroughly, bringing her to sobbing completion over and over again. Once, when she was five and ten and he, just a year older, they made love in an isolated cave, located on some unknown plain.

The name had been inconsequential, long lost within the dark recesses of her mind, but the memories-a sweet, and all-consuming poison-continued to linger, a balm to soothe the festering, burning agony that continued to plague her at nights. She had told him she loved him, already exposed and vulnerable, she dared to open herself up further, delicate and fragile, like a newly formed butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. Jon smiled at her then, and Ygritte's heart fluttered, the wings of hope beating and slowly ascending from the abyss.

Please, it would whisper fervently. Please.

He did not repeat the words or respond to her declaration, only cupped her cheek in those warm hands of his, and bought her face down to his, kissing her into sweet oblivion. His taste quieting the roaring dissent and unease within her. It was almost enough to make her forget. There, within the encircle of his arms, away from Mance Rayder's disapproving stares and the cruel taunts from other Wildling women, who at one time shared his bed, she could luxuriate in Jon Snow. Yes, given enough time, Ygritte could almost find herself content.

Almost.

Her heart dropped at the realization, the once fluttering bird of hope now heavy and lying dormant like lead. He never said the words back to her, only leaving them suspended in the air of nothingness and oblivion. It hurt. It hurt deeply.

It had been almost three years since their tryst in the cave, since he had last loved her. She had tried to pretend that the slight had not affected her, had not torn her heart asunder into nothing but blood and ash, but it was a lie. Nothing but a damned, fucking lie.

She blamed his father, Ygritte did. Mance had always seen her as unworthy, undeserving of his son. Less than. She was loathed to be in his presence, loathed how his eyes, so sharp and unforgiving, reduced her to that of an insect. Naught but a nuisance that could only be tolerated, if not squashed.

"That girl will lead you to ruin if you do not have care!"

Gods, but Ygritte hated him! Hated him with a passion of a thousand burning suns. And she made sure Mance was aware of her sentiments. At every opportunity.

At nights, sated and exhausted from Jon's latest visits, she would laugh quietly to herself, relishing in the thought that she had defied the King-Beyond-the-Wall and laid with his son, his great pride. Whenever Mance was in earshot, Ygritte made sure to speak loudly of their clandestine encounters. The more lewd and vulgar, the better. In those rare and few times that Jon would acknowledge her, show her a small measurement of devotion, she made sure to be as effusive with her affections as possible.

With every stolen kiss, every forbidden caress, every wet thrust of his hips that lit her body aflame, Jon slowly became part of her. He had marked her, claimed her. She was his woman. Only his.

"You are mine and I am yours," she whispered one night, arms and legs intertwined, a foggy haze of dreams and expectations. "If we die, we die. But first, we will live."

Ygritte held onto that promise, buried it deep within her veins. Even when he discarded their vows so cavalierly, she held onto the whispered words, for it served as her resurrection. Those many nights he failed to come to her, failed to breathe life once more within body, she died in agony and despair. Their words, their memories, the only tether and preservation keeping her afloat.

Ygritte was not stupid; she knew that she was no beauty. Not even the most accomplished and fanciful of imaginations could deem her thus. Slight, petite, and lightly freckled with copper tresses, her features leaned more towards plain than anything. Passable, as the elders would oft say.

It was due to her plainness that she was often overlooked and left wanting in comparison to the statuesque Rowena, with her honey-gold hair and emerald eyes, and ample Bridget, whose dark beauty and lush curves had rendered many a man mute. They were beautiful, both of them, the most desired in all the village. For a while, Jon had courted them, but it was always innocent and fleeting.

"Just sewing his wild oats," They would all laugh, shrugging.

Yet for Ygritte, seeing Jon-her Jon-with one of them was like nettles on her tongue. She oft wondered if running herself through with a dulled knife would bring more relief. She hated them-those pretty girls. Oh gods, how she hated them.

She could never win against a pretty face, they were her competition, her rivals. So she mocked them, belittled them. Masking her jealousy behind a facade of indifference and contempt. At every opportunity presented, Ygritte would berate Rowena and Bridget, berate their beauty and grace, to the point of unrelenting ruthlessness.

When at last the insults had ceased its comfort, ceased its mollification, Ygritte took the game one step further: she eliminated them. The eradication of a rival a euphoric and welcomed catharsis.

Bridget had been the first to meet such an unfortunate demise, poor thing. A pity, really. She had left her stew unattended-an assortment of wild turnips, cabbage, leeks, and carrots-when she took sick and fell ill. Black Iris and mandrake root grew in abundance in the forest and was overlooked to the untrained eye. Once completely dissolved into the clear broth, it became tasteless and odorless; and if consumed in high dosage, death would be imminent and agonizing. Excruciatingly so.

Bridget had been all but recognizable once the poison set in and The Stranger finally seized her. Her once prized beauty reduced to naught save decomposition and waste. Such a pity, indeed.

Then Rowena, the rival Ygritte despised the most. Despite her cherubic looks and statuesque height, Rowena was a formidable huntress, a source of pride among many in the village. There were very few who equaled her skill with a bow…

Yet for all of Rowena's dexterity and talent, she could not match Ygritte's stealth and alacrity. All it took was a well-placed arrow in the back of the neck and the yellow-haired bitch was vanquished. All in one felled swoop. The tears had come freely, thanks to the crushed wild onion and salt rubbed into her eyes; the lies dripped smooth like honey from her venomous lips.

("It had all been but a terrible mistake, a hunting accident gone awry! Oh gods! If only she had not moved so quickly…")

Such duplicity was easy, for no one dared to question her-not even Mance, whose seeming omniscience was often unnerving when proven right. Both Rowena's and Bridget's deaths had been reduced to a horrible mistake, one of the many unfortunate events that had plagued the village that year. This was the North, where life and death ran hand in hand with the other. For a wildling, theirs was an arduous existence.

Besides, Ygritte was loyal to her people, steadfast. She would never think to do something so inconceivable knowing the ramifications. No, surely not.

Yet, when gazing at her new rival-with her luminescent skin, crystalline eyes, and autumn hair, more vivid and crimson than weirwood leaves-that uncomfortable and familiar sensation began to once again ascend and choke her with its intensity. Yet this time, it was stronger, more potent, and dangerous. It crackled and surged, frightening even her with its fury. Something was different, Ygritte could sense it within the depths of her bones.

Not only was the girl beautiful-eclipsing even Rowena and Bridget-but she was not like the rest of them, a cut diamond amongst blackened coal. A Kneeler. Even worse, the look of unconcealed, naked reverence displayed on Jon's face when he gazed upon her. He was gawking on her as though he had never seen the like, as though he dared not to blink should she disappear into shards of light and color.

Ygritte tightly swallowed the acidic bile that began to rise within her throat. Not once, she quickly realized, during their affair had Jon ever gazed on her like that. So openly and unashamedly.

Besotted fool, you have damned us both!

Before she was fully cognizant of her actions, Ygritte began to move forward, pushing and clawing her way to the front. This could not be, not again. Jon could not do this to her again. And yet he had, only this time it was worse. The pain excruciating and searing.

A white-hot rage began to blind her, permeate her consciousness until nothing was left save primal, animalistic instinct and reaction. Ygritte could not remember lifting her hand, nor could she remember striking out. All she could remember in her disorientation and hysteria was the sound-like a whip cracking through the charged air-and the sudden stinging of her palm.

And Jon Snow's deadly and incensed gaze as it leveled on her...