Chapter Thirty-Three: Found

She had heard the wolf's howl, had heard its sorrowful lament, its haunting lilt and mellifluousness as it crescendoed and dipped across the moors. It yielded comfort, it brought tranquility, and yet it damned her to the deepest pit of the Seven Hells simultaneously. Everything within the small, wooded hut seemed to oscillate and spin, sending her further into vertigo.

Sansa closed her eyes, willing the nausea to abate. Harrold had brewed wild ginger root from his gardens into a tea, maintaining the herb's properties would quell her malady, yet little seemed to help. She was deeply indebted to the kindly man, with his deep blushes and halting speech. Had it not been for him, no doubt the Gods would have hastened her to afterlife sooner.

Along with the riot within her belly, there was a dull ache in her chest, a painful thrumming. She had dreamt of him again, it was becoming a ritual. Dreamt of slate grey eyes so dark they were obsidian, of riotous curls the color of ebony, of full lips that kissed her breathless. She dreamt of his hands, they were the hands of a killer, aye, to be sure, yet when holding her within the encircle of his arms, they were an inferno.

She missed him, Gods damn her, but she did, to her secret shame and guilt. She knew that she had made the right decision-the only decision-in absconding the Wildling village, yet it hurt all the same, as though she were being rent in two. Sansa's stomach jolted and then rolled violently. There was a wooden chamber pot at the far corner of the room and Sansa ran to it, not a second too late.

Under different circumstances, she supposed, she would have been embarrassed. Ladies did not behave so, were more in control of their faculties. Her Lady Mother would have been appalled at the sight, her father concerned; Arya and Robb, no doubt, would have found their sister's discomfiture amusing.

So many, many eons and lifetimes ago, it seemed. She was starting to forget their faces. There was a light rapping at the door. Harrold.

"Milady, do come ousside an' get some fresh air. Issna good to stay cooped up for s'long."

Since her rescue that one rainy morn, a little over a fortnight ago, Sansa had been confined to bed, per Harrold's insistence, out of fear of contracting pneumonia. The horse farmer had been vigilant, praying at the foot of a sapling weirwood tree, entreating the Old Gods for assistance, tears streaming down his scarred visage. Once, in the midst of a fitful sleep, Sansa awoke to the elderly man fashioning a prayer wheel out of dried thistle and rush stems. A peculiar thing, it was, for it was a woman's job and Harrold was a Northman who kept to the old faith. When questioned about his praxis, Harrold blushed profusely, suddenly bashful, telling the girl of his deceased wife, Una, and her multiple miscarriages.

She was a Southrone bride, having been brought up in the Light of the Seven, and upon discovering a recent pregnancy, she would weave a wreath for protection for herself and their babe growing within her belly. While the Gods had not been so kind as to bless them with a living child of their own, each pregnancy resulting in stillbirth, Harrold maintained that the Gods bestowed a small measure of clemency and kindness in sending Sansa to him.

"The Gods arna so cruel as to bring ye this far only to leave ye, now. You are strong, Little Wolf, much stronger than ye know. Ye must get better."

In so, she had started to mend and heal, only starting to venture outside to take fresh air. Harrold would accompany her, insisting that one such as she should not venture out alone.

"It isna safe, milady, to go out alone. Not when there are true horrors lurkin' about."

Sansa remained quiet, demure. She alone was well-versed in the horrors that resided on both sides of the Wall. Ramsay Bolton had taught her that much.

This time, though, Sansa subtly suggested a small respite alone, sweetly hinting of the plethora of chores the horse farmer had so selflessly shirked attending to her needs. "You do not need to concern yourself, Sweet Harrold. I promise I am well."

He meant well, Harrold did, but Sansa was restless. Tired. She had been hidden away for over a fortnight, akin to the winter roses in the glass houses at Winterfell after a frost. She needed sunlight. Besides, fresh air would help settle the biliousness within her belly, would calm her.

The weirwood was a paltry-looking thing, small and squat and not at all majestic as the ones back home and near the Wildling village. Despite its insignificance and underwhelming presence, it represented home and was the last tether Sansa had to keep her buoyant. She did not even know why she prayed anymore, for surely the Gods had turned a deaf ear to all her supplications the moment she had crossed that invisible, yet irrevocable threshold from girl to woman. She was marked now, sullied. A reprobate sinner too far cast down for any hope of atonement or salvation. No, the Old Gods did not lend ear to her, the ruined daughter of Winterfell. But Sansa prayed anyway, her crimson mane bent in diffidence and humility.

Mayhap the Gods would take pity, then. Forgive her folly and transgressions. She had given her heart and her maiden's gift to a man that was not her betrothed, risking shame and ridicule; subjecting her pious Lord Father and Lady Mother to further castigation and cruel whispers. Surely, she has paid in full and the scales have been weighed and measured. What else was left?

Time seemed to elapse and escape her, as it always did whenever she was at prayer. Sansa did not know how long she had been outside. Minutes? Hours? She could not remember, for what did it matter?

All Sansa could remember with distinct clarity was the stillness, all-encompassing and consuming. Once, eons ago, it seemed, the silence was a welcomed respite and yielded tranquility. Now, it was naught save a harbinger for death and ill-intent.

She was not alone in these woods.

There was a pulling, the sound of a bow string drawn taut that gave Sansa pause. Since her abduction, she had been well-acquainted with fear, that loathed friend coming back once more to haunt. Only this time, though, Sansa was able to quell it.

Raising her head slowly, Sansa was met with the silent, glacial stare of the devil himself. Since her abduction, she had feared to behold those frigid, arctic depths once more, had prayed fervently to all the gods-both Old and New-that she would be spared such horror. Alas, another prayer fallen on deaf ears…

The arrow was obsidian-tipped, beautiful yet terrifying at the same time as it glinted and glittered in the evening sun, immediately reminding Sansa of its wielder. Ramsay.

"I have found you at last, Little Dove…"