No more paving the present with pain from my past,
And I will let you go.
Bare feet, white and silent against the cold stone floors of Acorn Hall's passageways, carried Arya from her own chamber to her mother's, and, failing to find the lady within, from there to the sept. She moved quickly, and with purpose. The too-long skirt of her borrowed nightdress fluttered behind her, sweeping wildly over the floors of the corridors like the train of a pretentious courtier's gown.
Like the violent rush of ice and snow during a Northern blizzard, a winter's storm raging in her wake.
An hour had passed since her bath, or maybe two, and she had detangled her wet hair, and tried to clear her mind so that she might sleep. She found it impossible to do so. The Cat considered visiting the Bear, or Gendry, or even Ser Brynden, so that one of them might distract her with his conversation, crowding out her chaotic thoughts and soothing her mind, but she was seized with the notion that she must see her mother.
Banners and banners and banners, such a great number…
The sight of it in the fire had filled her with unease, this great army marching, a mixed force of Westerosi houses and foreign soldiers. Her mother would want to know, her own plans potentially being affected. Moving through the Riverlands was difficult enough with Freys and Lannisters and those loyal to them advancing towards Riverrun. If another large force were to overrun the land, there might be no safe place for the Brotherhood to maneuver.
Is your mother like to take some imagined vision in your fire grate as actionable intelligence? her little voice sang sweetly.
Arya ignored the thought, but the little voice was not so easily dismissed.
Perhaps it's that you just need an excuse that doesn't sound as weak as your real reason for seeking her out after avoiding her for so long.
Shut up! she commanded herself. Shut up!
Ser Jaime was right, the voice persisted. You are an infant.
The girl set her jaw, a resentful frown marring her face, but still, she could not shake the desire to speak with her mother, try as she might. And so, she had finally given into it.
As she drifted through the passageways, Arya wondered what so often drew Lady Stoneheart to the sept. It could not be belief, she mused. Not anymore, at least. Not with the person her mother was now. Was it habit, some tendency so deeply ingrained it could not be denied? Was it reflexive, like breathing, an unconscious action that did not invite contemplation or require intention? Was it remorse?
For what did she pray? And to whom?
In life, Catelyn Stark had adhered to the teachings of the faith of the Seven, honoring the new gods with her devotions, but in death, she had found her peace in the godswood of Winterfell with her husband and first-born son, if only briefly; she had found her respite in a place which had long revered the old gods.
She had been interred in a river, a fitting grave for a Tully, she had said, and was surely touched by the Drowned God there, for all rivers ran to the sea.
The will of the Lord of Light had drawn her from that serene place and restored her spirit to her own decaying flesh.
Her death had been first gifted to, and then stolen from Him of Many Faces.
Which of the gods now heard Lady Stoneheart's wheezing and choked prayers?
What god guided her withered hands?
Whose creature was she?
Arya wasn't sure why it mattered to her. Perhaps so she would know which god to denounce for her mother's altered state, merciless and cruel and so changed from the woman who had been the staid and stately Lady of Winterfell. Perhaps so she would know which god had busied himself with the perversion of her mother's soul. Perhaps so she would know which god to blame for turning her mother's heart to flint.
Not that the gods cared one whit for any person's ravings or anger. Their ways were mysterious, and capricious, and so indifferent to the suffering of man. How else to explain all that had befallen her family? Even their favor seemed erratically and insensibly bestowed; how much more so was their contempt?
Hadn't she learned that lesson while still a very young girl? Maester Luwin had her translating old Valyrian texts as part of her language lessons as soon as she was old enough to grip a quill properly. Sansa may have recalled with perfect clarity her verses from The Seven-Pointed Star, but Arya had committed full passages of Va Se Maegium Hen Jaesis (On the Wisdom of the Gods) to memory, a philosophical work that predated the Doom of Valyria.
Man may rage at the gods, curse them and revile them. Man may shirk the gods, ignore them and deny them. Man may feel he is powerful, untouchable, and that he has charge of his own life. He may believe all of this until that moment the gods open a chasm beneath his feet and he is swallowed whole.
Capricious, indeed. And vengeful.
Her energies were better spent elsewhere, Arya knew, and she pushed her thoughts of gods and prayers and the mysteries of faith aside as she arrived at the sept of Acorn Hall. She placed one palm flat against the seven-pointed star carved into the wood planks of the door and drew in a breath. Her other hand clutched her black and white jeweled cat comb, her gift from the Kindly Man. Noiselessly, she entered the holy place.
The cloaked and hooded figure of her mother was on the sept's stone dais, bent over a kneeler, her back to her daughter. Arya approached slowly, her steps uncertain as she took in the scene before her. The tapestry depicting the Father should have hung directly in front of her mother, but it was no longer there, moved to another spot in the sept. It had been replaced with the darkest of the seven tapestries depicting the new gods.
The Stranger.
Three large candles were lit on the dais, set beneath the Stranger's feet. They cast the only light in the chamber.
The girl moved forward, coming to rest just before the dais, her knees skimming its stone edge through the fine layers of her white skirt. Her mother had not moved an inch, had not looked at Arya, had not indicated she knew she was no longer alone, but when she spoke, it became obvious that she had been expecting her daughter's visit.
"My… dark child."
It was the barest whisper, only discernible to Arya because of the heavy silence in the room and her familiarity with her mother's preferred address of her.
Lady Stoneheart rose then, her motion stiff, unnatural, and she tilted her head up slightly, appearing to stare into the veiled face of the Stranger for a long moment. The girl's lips parted, and she drew in a halting breath before casting her eyes down, looking away from the scene. Finally, the grey lady turned, the candles at her back rendering her face as dark as pitch beneath her hood. Her thin hand rose to her throat and she pressed against the ragged wound there. Her voice grew marginally louder with the action.
"Why… have you… come?"
"I…" Arya's words caught in her throat.
Go ahead, her little voice goaded, tell her about the banners you saw in the fire. That is why you're here, isn't it?
She stared up at her mother, the cloaked woman towering over her on the dais, and willed her tongue to work. She could detect no trace of Catelyn there, not in dress or demeanor or features shrouded in shadow. But, it did not matter. Arya's heart felt with it felt and it would not be deterred by the evidence of her eyes; by the evidence of her mother's actions.
I came because I love you and I need to know that you feel the same. I came because I'm angry with you, and I want to know if you regret what you did, and what you did not do for my sake. I came because I'm weak and cannot go on pretending that your rejection does not hurt me. I came to seek your approval, in any form you're willing to give it.
I came because I want my mother.
"I… washed my hair," the girl answered. "Will you…" She held up her comb and some leather ties she had brought with her. "Can you please braid it for me?"
"Your maid," the woman croaked. Arya interrupted her.
"I wanted you to do it."
She would let her mother's touch seep deep into her skin.
The two looked at each other, unmoving, for the space of three breaths. It felt an awfully long time to the girl; so long, Arya began to fear another rejection. Finally, Lady Stoneheart slowly nodded her assent. The woman descended the stairs and rounded the dais, approaching her daughter. When they stood facing each other, mere inches apart, her mother bade her sit with a simple gesture. She obeyed, climbing on the raised platform, not bothering with the stairs, and sat on its floor cross legged, her back to her mother. The girl stared past the kneeler at the flickering candles against the wall straight ahead. The writhing shadows created by the light made the Stranger seem restless; agitated. Arya felt a bit like that herself.
Her mother's bony hand reached over the girl's shoulder and drew the pearl and obsidian comb from her daughter's fingers. The lady began to use it to rake through Arya's still-damp locks. The girl closed her eyes, feeling the tug and pull of the comb's silver teeth, her head swaying slightly back and forth with each pass. The rhythm of the movements lulled her and she could almost believe she was in her own bedchamber in Winterfell, perched on a stool as her mother attempted to make the tangled mess of her daughter's hair presentable.
"Simple braids," Arya murmured when her mother's fingers began to move slowly, methodically, parting the dark chestnut tresses. It was more of a memory than a request.
"The… Northern… style," her mother agreed, so quietly, the girl almost wondered if she'd imagined it.
Sansa would beg for the intricate and fanciful styles favored by Southron ladies while Arya would protest any grooming at all, insisting her hair's natural nest-like state was just fine. Their mother had tried to convince them both that the simple, elegant braids traditionally worn by the daughters of the North were best.
"The state of a lady's hair should not be the most interesting thing about her," Catelyn had admonished them. "It should be neither too ostentatious nor too slovenly."
Neither girl had been convinced.
The lady's fingers worked, pulling at sections of her daughter's hair, plaiting it close to her head, tight, first over one temple, then the other, while Arya sat perfectly still; remained perfectly silent. When the two braids met each other on the back of her head, her mother joined them, drawing more and more of her hair into the larger plait, creating a heavy, unified braid which would trail down the center of her back.
"I looked for you in your chamber, mother," the girl said quietly as Lady Stoneheart twisted and wove her hair. "I thought I might find you sleeping."
Catelyn said nothing, but continued working in silence.
"I wondered what you might be dreaming of."
"I… don't."
"You don't dream?"
The girl felt her mother securing the end of her braid with one of the leather ties. The woman made a hoarse humming sound, indicating approval of her handiwork, before she answered her daughter.
"I don't… sleep." Lady Stoneheart smoothed her daughter's hair with her hands, fingers lightly running over the braids at the girl's temples, tracing the path of the plaits.
No escape from the world at all, Arya thought sadly. No escape from herself, or her grief.
Or her rage.
"Is that why you spend so much time in the sept?" The question was hushed, almost a whisper, and Arya stared up at the Stranger as she asked it.
The girl felt her mother's hands fall away from her hair and the two were quiet for a while. Arya wondered if perhaps her question had offended the lady.
"I come… to… pray," the woman finally said.
The girl's eyes flicked to the candles again, evidence of her mother's faith; offerings to the Seven.
Offerings devoted to one of them in particular.
Arya turned then, facing her mother, hanging her legs over the edge of the dais. If she pointed her toes, they would touch the floor, but the overlong skirt of the shift hid her feet from sight. She looked up into Catelyn's shadowed face.
"And for what do you pray, mother?"
"For… death."
Me too, Arya thought, her malicious little smile beginning to form at the idea that they had something in common (that they had this in common). That petition was one she understood very well. Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, Queen Cersei…
If nothing else, the girl thought this was something they could agree upon. Whether they claimed fidelity to the Stranger, or the Many-Faced god, they both longed to be the instrument of death; to deliver that cold and heavy kiss to those most deserving. Walder Frey. Cersei Lannister. The Kindly Man. The girl leaned forward, staring at her mother keenly, wondering at the three candles. Catelyn obviously had someone in mind when she whispered her pleas to the Stranger.
Three someones.
She has her list too, the Cat's little voice observed.
"Whose death do you pray for most?" The girl knew it must be the Lord of the Twins, but she wanted to hear her mother say it, to share that secret with her, so that they might join together in their purpose. It felt like her best hope for securing the maternal affection she so craved. "Tell me, and I swear I won't rest until I deliver into your hands what it is you desire."
This was something she could offer her mother, something she alone could do, and she would not disappoint her. This was Sansa's marvelous stitches and perfect recitations; Robb's march south for his father; Bran's patient practice with his wooden sword so that someday, he could man a holdfast for his brother, fulfilling his duty to his house. This was her father's patience, and honor, and fierce, unyielding love. This was Catelyn's courage in her birthing bed, gifting Ned with family; with legacy.
Catelyn stepped closer to her daughter, pushing her hood back so that it fell away from her face. She bent at the waist, lowering her ruined face and bringing it even with Arya's own. The lady's hollow, sunken eyes stared deep into the girl's grey gaze. Still, the woman did not speak.
"Tell me, mother," the girl implored, her voice a hot whisper. "If you want Walder Frey's heart, I'll carve it out for you and place it in your hands. If it's Cersei Lannister's head you need, I'll gladly cut it off and lay it at your feet." Her heart pounded as she spoke, and her fingers tingled, aching to grip steel.
The woman's eyes narrowed and she moved so close to Arya that their noses nearly touched. Catelyn's long, brittle hair hung down and tickled at her daughter's arms.
"If your quarrel is with the Dreadfort, say the word and I'll burn it to the ground," the girl promised, "with Roose Bolton and his bastard son inside. I'll poison every living thing in Casterly Rock if you want. I'll gut any traitor. I'll throw their bones into the sea. You've only to say it."
"Is this… your vow?" Lady Stoneheart pressed her cold lips against Arya's cheek, placing a kiss there.
"Yes." Her answer was adamant; savage. She ignored the chill which seemed to slip down her backbone as her mother spoke.
The woman moved to kiss the girl's other cheek.
"You'll seek… our… vengeance," Catelyn continued, "and kill… those most… deserving?"
"Yes!"
The woman straightened. The meager light of the candle flames made her face appear even more gaunt than it did in the daylight. Lady Stoneheart pulled a blade from the folds of her robe. It was slender, long, and seemed familiar to Arya, somehow. Glancing at the weapon, she recalled it has once been Robb's; a nameday gift, given him when he'd turned nine. Arya had been sorely disappointed, she remembered, when her own ninth nameday came and went, and instead of making her a present of a fine dagger as they had her brother, her parents had gifted her a new grey cloak, trimmed in white fur and embroidered with the sigil of their house.
Catelyn, of course, had chastised her youngest daughter for her lack of gratitude. At the time, Arya hadn't understood why they would even expect her to be grateful for such a boring present, considering she already had a cloak which was perfectly fine, even if it was a bit short and worn, and it wasn't even that cold anyway.
"Ah, my little wolf, you must remember that winter is coming," her father had said, bending to place a gentle kiss on Arya's forehead. "Arrows and knives will not keep you warm when the snows fall heavy and deep. There will be many a fighting man jealous of your warm cloak when those days come."
Lord Stark's words had made her feel silly and selfish for her childish display, and she had apologized and thanked them for the cloak then, but secretly, she still wanted a dagger like her brother's.
Now, it seemed she was getting it.
"I want you… to take this dagger."
Arya held her hands out and her mother laid the knife flat against her daughter's palms. The girl accepted it, studying the bright steel of the blade. Mikken's mark was upon it, just where the blade met the crossguard, and her heart stuttered a bit as her mind was drawn back to the forge at Winterfell. Arya Underfoot. She had learned her first expletives creeping around the forge, eavesdropping on the bawdy banter between Mikken and Fat Tom and Harwin. Now, only Harwin still lived. She wondered if he would recall that moment she had revealed herself in a shadowed corner when she tittered over a story he'd told Fat Tom and Mikken about a girl he'd met in Winter Town.
Probably not, Arya thought a little sadly. It was so very long ago. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the grip of the dagger, as if she could press the memories into her flesh, so fiercely that she would never forget, no matter how much time passed.
"You will… use it," her mother continued, "to send… me back to… your father."
The girl's thoughts of Mikken, and Harwin, and her life in the North fell away. She thought surely she had misheard the lady.
"What?"
"I spoke with… that assassin," the woman continued. "The… Lorathi."
The Lorathi.
Jaqen.
Arya's mouth became very dry.
"He brought news… that you… lived. He said you… had learned… to give the gift." The girl could feel her mother's eyes boring into her. "The gift… of death."
Jaqen had spoken to her mother. She knew that, had known it, yet somehow hearing it from her mother's lips was…
Wondrous.
And ruinous.
The girl's breath hitched. Catelyn did not seem to notice, or, if she did, she ignored it.
"It would be… a gift. To me."
It was as if a thousand candles had suddenly flared to life all around her. Her vision went bright, and her head felt somehow both light and very, very heavy. Arya gaped, unconvinced she had truly understood what it was her mother was telling her.
What it was her mother wanted of her.
"No." It was the faintest whisper, and it pushed past her lips without her permission. The girl was not even aware she had spoken aloud. Her brows pinched together and her breath seemed to stutter as she tried to pull the air into her lungs. "No," she repeated, her voice rising, disbelief and panic growing in her quivering tone. Her head was shaking slowly, back and forth, back and forth. "No." Her eyes stung slightly, vision blurring for a moment. Her lips parted and she sucked in as if the air in the sept were thin like that at the peak of a high mountain, and she were starving for it. "No."
"Child…"
Arya continued shaking her head, the movement more vigorous. Her voice became stronger; more resolute.
"No, mother." A plea. "You cannot ask this of me. No."
The girl slipped down off the dais, her feet planted on the floor of the sept, her toes nearly touching Lady Stoneheart's slippers, and she stared up at Catelyn's implacable expression. Arya's eyebrows rose, her mouth shaping itself into a worried line at what she saw. She swallowed hard.
"You would… doom me, then?" The lady's fingers wrapped themselves around her daughter's wrist. Her touch was cold; stiff. Everything about her mother was cold and stiff.
"I would… I…" The girl drew in a shaking breath, trying to steady herself. "You're saying that I am… dooming you?"
"To this… horror. Yes," the woman hissed.
Arya was stricken.
"This horror." The girl's eyes grew wide, and she choked down a cry. "This is a horror for you?" This life. Life in Westeros, leading a band of outlaw knights who seemed to solely exist now to exact a mother's revenge.
Life with her newly-returned daughter. Life with Arya.
A horror.
"Yes. It… is."
The girl squeezed her eyes shut, a roar rising in her ears, making her head pound. Her mother squeezed harder at her wrist and Arya sensed her pulse throbbing there, beating up against the lady's skeletal fingers. She felt hot coals moving from the pit of her stomach and up her chest, burning at the back of her throat after a moment. Bile, she realized and tried to force it down. When Arya trusted her voice again, she answered her mother.
"You would make me a… a kinslayer," the girl accused, incredulity coloring her tone.
"You cannot… slay," Lady Stoneheart rasped, "what is… already… dead."
What is dead may never die.
Arya thought wildly perhaps her mother truly had been touched by the Drowned God while her corpse languished in the Green Fork.
"If you… ever bore me… any love at… all…"
"No!" the girl cried. "No! If you ever bore me any love at all, you wouldn't ask it! You wouldn't ask this of me!"
The woman released her daughter's wrist and stepped back, opening a space between them. To Arya, it felt like a wide gulf; a great chasm that could never be bridged. Slowly, Catelyn sank to the ground, and the sight of it robbed the girl of her breath. She could not recall ever seeing her mother do that, not in the whole of her life. A chair, a bench, the edge of a bed; Arya had seen her mother come to rest on each of these. Even in the godswood, a place her mother did not frequent, the woman would find a raised root or a tree stump on her rare visits, or, she would simply stand for the short time she was there. But never had she seen Catelyn sit on the ground.
Never in her life had Arya towered over her mother as she did now.
Never.
Staring down at the top of her mother's head, Arya's eyes took in the ruin of the lady's hair, tracing the sparse and coarse strands as they trailed from the grey flesh of her scalp, over her drooping shoulders and into her lap. It was a mockery of the beautiful mane Catelyn had once boasted. In the blazing candlelight of Winterfell's great hall, Lady Stark's hair had famously shone like garnets glittering in the noonday sun. Now, though, those brilliant tresses were nowhere to be seen.
The girl squinted, trying to find some evidence to support the memory (memories of her mother's beauty, in better times; in their halcyon days). Instead, what Arya saw was hair the same dull russet of the mud which had ruined her hems when she played with her brothers in Winterfell's bailey yard after a rain (though it was rendered nearly as black as ravens' feathers by the dim light of the sept). It was as if all the fire had bled from her mother's locks when her life's blood had been drained through that jagged wound in her neck, there in Walder Frey's feast hall.
Some of the tresses appeared to have been drained completely of color: there was a large section on each side of her head, framing her face, which was as white as the summer snows in the wolfswood. Her mother's hair now was nothing like the soft, burning auburn waves the girl remembered from her childhood. Instead of glittering garnets, the dark and white of Lady Stoneheart's hair now reminded the girl more of the ebony and weirwood doors which served as the main entrance to the Temple of the Many-Faced god in Braavos.
She could not make sense of the view.
"You… are… the only one," Lady Stoneheart wheezed, pulling the girl from her contemplations. "The only one… I can ask." Her mother was not looking at her now, but staring into her own lap, her posture slumped; tired. She looked…
Broken.
A feeling welled up inside of Arya, unbidden and unwelcome. Pity. She ground her teeth against it, willing it away. She could not allow her heart to soften now; could not permit herself to sympathize. Doing so would lead her down that mad path along which her mother sought to draw her. That was something the girl could not tolerate.
Arya would slit any throat, run anyone through, push anybody over a cliff and into the sea to drown, all at her mother's behest. Had she not told her so already? Had she not vowed? Had she not pledged herself to her mother's cause? But this, this one thing, she could not do.
The girl gripped the hilt of Robb's dagger tight with both of her hands to still the trembling building in her fingers. She backed away from her mother's drained form, finding a bench and dropping heavily onto it. Arya tilted her head with a deep sigh, resting the back of her skull against the crest of the bench's top rail. Her newly braided hair provided her head some cushion as she stared at the shadowed ceiling and tried to call up the words that would convince her mother that what she asked was folly.
"I've… I've only just found you again," the girl murmured. Her eyes flicked down toward Lady Stoneheart. "Please, mother. Please…" The woman did not move, did not answer, and so Arya shut her eyes, blocking out the sight of Catelyn on the floor of the sept, sagging in the puddled skirts of her rough, grey robes. Behind the girl's lids, the darkness gave way to an image: a Pentoshi ship's captain, of all things, his false lips urging her obedience.
A girl must do her duty, whatever is asked.
"No," Arya whispered, refusing her promise this time. "I will not. This is not duty."
"It's mercy," her mother replied, causing her daughter's eyes to spring open, the image of her master's conjured face dissolving into nothing. "It's… compassion."
"Where's your mercy, mother?" the girl demanded, rising from her seat. "Where is your compassion? For me? To ask such a thing…" Arya shook her head, blowing out a sharp breath, her eyes searching her mother's face, unsure what she hoped to find there.
Some evidence that her own disillusionment was ill-placed?
Some proof that her own fears were merely overblown imaginings?
Some hint that her own mother valued her despite all that had passed between them?
And there she was, begging again; beseeching her mother for any scrap of her regard; giving her mother the chance to toss her any crumb of her love that she could spare, no matter how meager.
"My dark… child," her mother replied, "I am… sorry. I have… nothing… left to give… you." The lady's crackling voice carried not even a tinge of remorse. Arya was unsure if the deep wound in her throat would make such a thing impossible under any circumstance, or if her mother was simply incapable of such feelings since her resurrection.
Or maybe it's just me, Arya realized. She can't feel anything for me. The thought pierced the girl's heart and she grimaced with the pain of it. Catelyn bowed her head, and it felt like a gesture of finality.
"Nothing?" Her voice was small and uncertain as she prodded her mother to reconsider her words.
"Too… long," the woman said quietly. "It was… too long."
"What was too long, mother?"
"I was… too long... in the after." Lady Stoneheart lifted her gaze from her lap and found her daughter's eyes, pinning her in place with her hollow stare. "I was… too long… with your father… and returning… was… an agony."
A hard lump formed in Arya's throat. She struggled to keep her composure as she waited for it to melt away.
"I left… all… of it. It remains… with him."
The girl inhaled and exhaled slowly, in and out, in and out. After a moment, she breathed her question.
"All of what?"
"All of… my heart… and… my soul."
I have nothing left to give you.
The walls of the sept felt very close then. The air was heavy against Arya's skin and in her lungs, a weighted burden which threatened to suffocate her. She pressed her knuckles against her breast bone, fingers still wrapped tightly around the grip of Robb's dagger. The girl looked down at the weapon and her brow creased.
Her mother had finally gifted her the blade she had long desired, and then had asked her to use it to kinslay.
The long flat of the blade pressed at Arya's chest and belly. She felt its cold outline against her skin through the gauzy layers of her fine, white shift. The girl pressed harder then, uncomfortably, trying to stifle the excruciating pounding of her heart beneath her breast. She took one step backwards, then another, then another, waiting for her mother to call out to her; to stop her retreat.
Lady Stoneheart sat on the floor, motionless, silent, saying nothing as her daughter backed all the way to the door. Hearing no protest from her mother, Arya pushed her way through it and disappeared into the corridor, the heavy wooden door of the sept closing with a muffled thud as she fled.
Arya flew down passageways and dashed up staircases, uncertain where she was going, and not caring, so long as she put distance between herself and her mother.
And what her mother had asked her to do.
Her fingers began to ache with the effort of gripping Robb's dagger so firmly, and she slipped the blade through the belt of ribbon at her waist, securing it against her side.
I need to think, she told herself, slowing her step. But then she shook her head slightly, her fingertips trailing absently along the rough walls of yet another corridor. No, I need to not think.
She spun around, realizing she was heading in the wrong direction if she wished to seek out the Bear, to unburden herself to him; to seek his counsel and comfort. When she had taken but a few steps, she reconsidered, realizing she did not wish to discuss this with her brother right now, or anyone, for that matter, and turned once again, sweeping in the opposite direction.
The girl rounded a corner and then stopped, deciding she should simply go back to her own chamber, but when she jogged up another set of stairs and into her own corridor, she changed her mind again, concluding that shutting herself up in her room with her thoughts (and the flames in her grate which seemed rather prone to joining in her deliberations) was less than appealing.
She hurried past the door to her chamber, stopped abruptly, turned toward it, and moved her hand to her door handle. There, she hesitated. Finally, dropping her hand, she broke into a run, skirts whipping behind her like a banner in the wind. In a matter of minutes, she burst through a door on the ground level and into the silence of the training yard. The area was lit only by the radiance of the half-moon, a few wavering torches mounted on the wall of the gallery overhead, and the faint glow of a candle in the sill of one of the upper level rooms of the keep.
Arya did not wonder that her legs had carried her here. When her mind was in turmoil, it had always been dancing with steel which had comforted her most. She could give her cares over to her toil and her footwork; to her blade. Boy. Girl. You are a sword. That is all.
The packed dirt beneath her feet was cold against her toes and heels, but she did not care. She stormed toward the barrel where Lord Smallwood's abused training swords were kept and blindly grasped a handle with each hand, yanking the blades from the barrel. She found herself with two blunted broadswords.
I have nothing left to give you.
Her mother's scratchy admission rang in her ears and she sought to stifle the sound of it; to snuff out the memory of it. With a grunt, the girl hoisted the swords high and attacked a hapless training dummy which someone had left out in the yard. Over and over, she struck at the straw-stuffed form, and any one of her blows might've been fatal, had the dummy been made of flesh and her swords been made of sharp steel. Neck, chest, flank, her cuts all landed with a force evidenced by the ringing of her poor steel as it bluntly smashed through the straw and struck the heavy wooden post to which the figure was affixed.
Though the night air was cold, a sheen of sweat began to form on the Arya's forehead with her exertion. Her arms burned, feeling tighter and tighter with each swing of the sword, but she did not flag. She lost track of the time, but it mattered little, so long as she had her relief. The sound of the steel meeting wood and her own grunting cries as she slashed and pounded with her blades crowded out all her mother's rasped exhortations and demands. Or, almost all.
You will use it to send me back to your father.
"No," the girl growled, stabbing at the dummy again. "You can't make me do it."
"What is this training form trying to force you to do, my lady?"
The voice startled Arya, and she gasped, spinning around and instinctively entering her water dancer's dual-blade stance. Standing just beyond the reach of her broadswords stood Ser Jaime, doublet undone, revealing the blouse beneath, half-tucked into his breeches.
"Ser," the girl said in surprise, dropping her arms to her side and relaxing her posture a bit. "You startled me."
"Not nearly as much as you startled me, I'd wager."
"What?"
The Kingslayer pointed toward the lit window high above their heads. "That's my chamber. Imagine my shock when my rest was disturbed by the sound of pandemonium in the yard just below. And then to look out of my window and see a ghost clad in white attacking this unfortunate dummy…" The man's mouth quirked up into a half-smile. "Most alarming, my lady. I had to investigate."
Chagrinned, the girl apologized for disturbing him.
"I'm only japing with you, Stark. I came to see what was the matter."
"Why must anything be the matter?"
Jaime gazed haughtily down his nose at the girl. "Oh, I suppose you'll tell me it's the custom in Braavos for women to run out into the cold, half-dressed mind you, in order to randomly beat things with low-quality steel?"
Arya shrugged. "In Braavos, we use good steel. And it's rarely ever cold. Half-dressed is the custom."
The knight chuckled, saying, "I've always thought I'd rather like Braavos. Now, put away those swords and come back inside before you wake the entire household."
"I'd rather not just now."
"And I'd rather not have to carry you. I only have the one good hand, you know."
"Why do you even care?"
The golden knight tilted his head, his voice soft when he answered, "Someone has to."
"Who assigned you the task?" the girl huffed. "You're not my father."
"Gods, no!" Jaime laughed. "I'm far better looking." He ignored Arya's scowl. "I'm more like… like an uncle. A very attractive uncle." He actually had the nerve to wink at her then. "Now, be a good girl and put the swords back."
When she made no move to obey, he prodded at her with his golden hand, pushing at her shoulder and guiding her toward the barrel which held the training blades. The metal appendage felt surprisingly warm against her bare skin.
"All my uncles are dead, you know," Arya reminded him darkly.
"That's nice, sweetling," he returned in the indulgent tone of a favorite uncle. It was infuriating. She jammed her swords back in the barrel while Jaime looked on. "There's a girl." The amusement in his tone had her reaching for the ribbon sash tied around her middle, where she had stuck Robb's dagger. As she turned to face him, Jaime's next action stayed her hand.
"Here," he said softly, throwing his doublet around her shoulders and pulling the collar together around her neck. She was instantly engulfed in his warmth, still clinging to the inside of the garment. "It's too cold for bare arms." She looked up at him, not knowing quite what to say. Before she had settled on a response, the knight slipped his arm around her and walked her back to the door, gently urging her through the entrance and into the keep.
Once inside, Arya stared up at the Kingslayer, his face lit by a torch mounted on the wall near where they stood. He met her gaze, and she read the concern in his eyes.
Strange, she thought, not for the first time. He reached for her chin, grasping it tenderly.
"What sent you running to the training yard so near to midnight?" Jaime asked.
"Why does it matter to you?" Her question was not borne of defiance, or resentment. It was genuine curiosity. "I don't understand why you care."
"Does it bother you that I do?"
Her eyes flicked to his shoulder as she considered the idea, then shook her head slightly, as much as was allowed by the knight's hand on her chin. Arya could feel the complicated tangle of his thoughts then, much as she had the night she had made such a scene at supper. She didn't understand it any better now than she did then. Neither did Ser Jaime, she suspected.
The knight released her chin and moved to the wall next to her, leaning his shoulder against it and crossing his arms over his chest. He gave her an expectant look. She sighed, then laughed at the absurdity that it should be Ser Jaime who would be the one to hear her troubles.
Well, why not? her little voice asked. If there's anyone who understands the burden of parental expectations…
"I spoke with my mother," she said, her bitter laughter fading.
"Ah." He smiled sympathetically, watching as the girl's eyes regarded the wall above his head, refusing to meet his gaze. She blinked a few times, chewing her lip as she considered what she should say next.
"She… wants something from me."
"Something you don't know if you can give her?" Jaime's voice was muted, understanding, and Arya swallowed, nodding as she finally looked him in the eye. "My lady, you seem to be someone who knows her mind. A woman of good judgment."
Her eyes cast themselves down and she stared hard at the toes of Ser Jaime's boots, her uncertainty evident in the lines which formed just over her nose, and the downward curl of her lips.
"And you have enough of your father in you, I think," he continued. "Enough of his honor to guide you."
"Life is not a poem or a song," she replied. "You told me that. Too much honor will get you killed."
"And not enough makes the days that stretch out before you a bleak, onerous trial, and turns your memories to shit." His voice was almost grave as he spoke.
"So…"
"So, I think you have enough."
"Enough honor?"
Jaime nodded, saying, "You have enough to know the right thing to do, but not so much you'll do something stupid and get yourself killed for no reason at all."
Like your father, he did not have to add.
"I find your confidence suspect."
The Kingslayer rolled his eyes at that, but then said, "You have something else, too. Call it instinct."
Foolish girl, you haveall the instinct you could ever require. Your task is to learn to heed it.
Arya blinked away images of the training room in the House of Black and White before speaking. "I don't think you know me well enough to say that."
"I think I do." He smiled. "Your history speaks for you. Or are you saying it's a happy accident that you escaped Harrenhal, and the Hound, and any one of a dozen other things that should have killed you between the Red Keep and Braavos and here?"
"What makes you think it wasn't just luck?"
The knight threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, gods, that's hilarious!" he finally snorted. "A Stark, lucky?"
She frowned at him, but she had to concede that the man had a point.
"I could use a little luck right now," she muttered, more to herself than him.
"You don't need it. You'll make the right decision."
Arya shook her head. "You don't even know what it is I have to decide."
Jaime smiled, his look fond. "Doesn't matter," he told her. "You'll figure it out. I have faith."
"You, Lannister? Faith? I'd have never guessed you were a devout man."
He pushed off the wall and stood straight and tall before her. "I told you, Stark. I'm reformed." With a small bow, half mocking, half sincere, he turned on his heel and left her there, calling back to her without turning, "Now, get some sleep, you wretched child, and quit disturbing mine!" He waved his golden hand over his head then, a flippant dismissal, and she laughed in spite of herself, watching him go.
Alone in the corridor, Arya realized she was still wearing Jaime's doublet wrapped around her shoulders. Vaguely, she noted everything she was wearing belonged to someone else, including the dagger cinched in her belt. Fitting, she thought, considering she didn't feel much like herself just then.
She bristled at the unsettling idea. It made her angry to feel so thrown; so full of doubt. Angry at her mother. Angry at herself. Angry at the gods, all of them. For allowing her mother to be taken away. For then allowing her to be brought back.
And for allowing her mother to ask for her own deliverance at her daughter's hand.
I won't. I won't. I won't.
Arya turned and moved down the hallway, fatigue seeping deep into her bones. Her step was slowed by it, and she thought she could simply go to her chamber and lay her head upon her soft pillow and close her eyes.
Ser Jaime had commanded that she get some sleep.
Her mother had revealed that she did not sleep; could not sleep.
It would be a gift to me, the lady had said. It's mercy.
The girl inwardly scoffed, thinking her mother's idea of mercy was to damn her own daughter to the derision of the world and send her straight to the worst of the seven hells for the sin of kinslaying.
And, worse than that, to leave her alone. Again.
Her father had warned her against it; had warned her against withdrawing from her family; from trying to go it alone. Eddard Stark had staunchly believed in the importance of the pack, especially in the winter to come; the winter that was now here. He had wanted his daughter to believe in it, too.
"Let me tell you something about wolves, child," her father had said to her. "When the snows fall and the white wind blows, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Her father had understood the need for family, the need for a pack, very well. Why didn't her mother?
Maybe because her mother was a fish, a leaping trout, and not truly a wolf at all. She had lamented being pulled from the river, her life returned to her through R'hllor's fiery touch, breathed into her as the kiss of Beric Dondarrion. Lady Stoneheart abhorred her life, calling it a horror. That loathing was stronger than any consideration of kinship or respect for the pack.
She would make me lone wolf once again, Arya thought bitterly. A lone wolf, far from home. I can imagine nothing more grievous than that.
Can't you? her little voice asked.
It was the Bear who discovered Arya the next morning. He'd noted her absence at breakfast and the quiet of the training yard told him she was not dancing with her steel. And so, he'd found her maid and interrogated her for information. Sweetly. It had taken very little effort on his part to learn that his sister had not slept in her bed.
"I left her with her tray last night, a bath all ready for her, ser," the servant confided, a breathlessness to her voice. "When I came this morning to bring her fresh clothes, I found the clothes I saw her wearing last night, all piled on the floor, and the nightdress I'd left out for her was gone, so I knew she must've bathed and dressed for bed."
"And?" His fingertips skimmed her face, forehead to ear, tracing her hairline. She shivered.
"When I came this morning to see if she needed help dressing for the breakfast, her sheets weren't disturbed. I haven't seen her since last night."
The assassin made a sympathetic humming noise, saying he understood how very difficult it must be for the servant to do her duties properly with such an unpredictable and uncooperative lady to look after, but the girl remained diplomatic on that point.
"But I do worry that the lord will be wroth with me. He wanted to know how the new clothes fit her."
"What lord?" the Faceless knight asked, his lips near the girl's earlobe. "What new clothes?"
The maid gave an explanation as best she could between giggling and gasping. Ser Willem thanked her and wondered at what he had learned. He could not fathom the reasoning behind the kindness the maid had related (was not even sure it was kindness rather than some sort of manipulation). The Bear could not suss out what the knight had to gain by gifting the girl anything, much less a doublet and blouse. He was one of the few noble-born men who hadn't pressed his suit and tried to win a marriage contract with Arya Stark, sister to the King in the North, so why should he gift her anything?
No matter, the Bear thought, knowing it was more important to find his sister than to solve this small mystery. But still, the problem of this strange gift sat in the back of his mind.
The false Dornishman paced a bit in his chamber before deciding to check the sept. This, despite Baynard's derisive prediction that they would be most like to find their sister tangled in Ser Gendry's sheets than anywhere else (the larger assassin had clapped the back of the Westerosi boy's head for that, but the Rat had only said, "What? It's true.") The Bear had sent his brother to search the stables, mostly to get the Rat out of his hair. He'd then moved to the lower level of the keep, his long strides bringing him to the door of the sept in short order. Quietly, he pushed inside.
The chamber was dim, but there was enough light from the candles burning low on the dais that the Faceless knight could see his sister there, sitting with her back pressed against a kneeler, cradling her mother in her arms. It was a different tableau than the last time the assassin had found the women together in the sept. This time, instead of his sister's head resting on her mother's knee, it was Lady Stoneheart's head pressed against Arya's chest. From the wall behind them, the Stranger's veiled face seemed to look down upon the women, though in what attitude, the Bear could not say. Arya's own head was bowed, her forehead resting against her mother's lank hair. Neither mother nor daughter made a sound.
The false Dornishman moved down the center aisle, approaching his sister, his apprehension growing. It was only when he was at the foot of the platform that he understood what he was seeing. Lady Stoneheart's face was slack, lifeless, and a large stain had spread over the front of her grey robe; a stain that could only be blood. The woman was not breathing. Did she breathe? Had she ever? He could not recall. But now, the woman lay still as a stone, her legs buckled beneath her, one arm dangling down past her daughter's knee, the back of her skeletal hand resting on the floor of the dais.
Arya's arms were wrapped tightly around the corpse, and in her left hand, she clutched a long dagger, the blade coated with her mother's blood, thick and drying against the steel.
"Oh, Arya," the Bear breathed, his heartache plain in his voice. It was only then that the girl lifted her head and looked at her brother.
"You've never called me that before," she replied hoarsely. Her eyes were sunken, ringed in darkness. She looked as though she hadn't slept in a thousand years.
She released her mother from her embrace and laid her gently out before the Stranger, holding her bloodstained blade all the while. After the girl had straightened her mother's garments and folded her pale, curled hands over her ruined chest, she rose. The Lyseni assassin watched his sister standing straight and still on the dais. Then, in a slow, deliberate motion, she dragged the flat of her dagger blade across her chest, cleaning the steel and marring the pristine white of her garment with dark stripes of red.
"There," she said, and then looked down at him.
It called to mind stories the Bear had heard of less-civilized tribes—Dothraki, Skaagosi, Wildings—marking their faces with war paint before battles or drawing symbols on their bodies with the blood of their slain enemies after their battles were won.
The Cat sank to her knees, and he was by her side in an instant, leaping onto the platform and kneeling before her, his arms encircling her, his hands pressing against her back, pulling her to him.
"What happened?" he asked, tucking her head under his chin.
Her voice was soft, emotionless, as she murmured, "Valar morghulis."
"Oh, my sweet, sweet girl." He clenched his eyes tight and pressed his lips hard against the top of her head. After a moment, he felt the tension leave her muscles and she seemed to almost collapse with exhaustion. He wrapped her tighter against him, sliding off the dais with her and lifting her in his arms. As he carried her toward the door, the Bear caught sight of a dark doublet, too large to be the Cat's, folded neatly and hung over the back of a bench. "Sister, was someone here with you?"
The girl struggled to focus on what he was saying and he repeated his question.
"Oh," she breathed. "Yes."
"Who?" he demanded, an urgency to his inquiry. He needed to understand who had been witness to what had happened, to be sure there was no danger to his sister. To be sure no accusations would be made, and that no harm had befallen her in the night. She did not answer and appeared to be either asleep or unconscious. The assassin shook her in frustration and her eyes fluttered open. The Bear hissed, "Who was here?"
"My father," she sighed softly, and her smile then was so different than anything her brother had ever seen on her face before. She looked... content, he thought, and so young. So very, very young. She looked untroubled. He had never known her but to be troubled. Anguish was part of her makeup; it lived in her bones. "My father," she murmured again, and he could get nothing further from her as she slipped into a strange and deep sleep.
I Will Let You Go—Daniel Ahearn