"Your sword and your hand are twins turned lovers. One can't live without the other. And one cannot leave the other." Jaime had once lamented when I dropped my wooden sword on snow after he'd beat my wrist black and purple.

I'd scowled every time he'd tried to impart his twisted knowledge, but now that I grew older, I found a grain of truth in every cuss word he spoke. Not that I got any better. Even after a decade of training from one of the best hands in Westeros, I still couldn't unarm Jaime.

Even if I came to terms with Jaime's reckless behavior, there was a sinister part of me that despised his guts. While I had to practice every day in front of the mirror reiterating words and ways to be pleasant and warm, fresh, and beautiful like a flower, even when I found resentment and rage thrown in my way, Jaime always had his way with the world.

He'd never cared what the world thought about him. He hadn't bothered to call a fight, at any lords and lordling, with a snarky remark, jabbing with their partial loyalty to the crown, while I wouldn't even dare to lift my head and meet their eyes.

Did I hate his guts? No… I was madly jealous of the fact that I couldn't express and be free in my own skin like he'd been. And whenever he'd grin, I wanted to slap that out from his face. Somehow, my dumb head had comprehended the conclusion that ripping away his joy would give me satisfaction. If I didn't deserve any joy, what rights did he have to rejoice in it? What rights did the world have to relish in it?

Together we matched, step for step, but I still couldn't make the tip of my sword to grace his porcelain skin. All I managed was to keep my sword in my hand—a fine trick Jaime had taught me.

I grew tired since the day I'd figured out that Lord Stark was hiding a grave truth. I'd sneaked into the Maester's turret, with Arya towed at my side, but only disappointment visited in our mission.

As much as I writhed in agony learning that Lord Stark was hiding things, I was equally desperate to hold on to that hope. To find something that would point out that King Rhaegar had been looking out for me.

I needed to know I was being cared for.

I craved to know there was a place I could call home.

I wickedly wished that I would become the Princess that my King Father was waiting to pass the crown to.

After barely surviving here, I should be worshipping for a meager portion of love, but I was a bastard, and I didn't shy of asking more than what was given.

Nothing went right, though. I couldn't ask my uncle if he was deceiving me. It was a blunt question that would go unanswered or much worse ending up with 'Ice' slicing my neck.

Still, with all my blind courage one fine evening, when my uncle had finished up addressing the Northmen grievances in court, I'd asked, "Do you think the King would have got my missive? "

He'd patted my cheek with sincere love and had said, "I am sure the King received your missive, sweetling. He has Seven Kingdoms to rule. Perhaps he is too occupied to reply." I'd been too shocked that he'd thought me a child who could be deceived by his silly ploys. I'd been even more angered at myself for getting fooled with those simple lies, all these freaking years. Just moments after he'd walked past me, he'd turned around and had said with a fake joy. "In a moon's time, I will be visiting the Manderlys in White Harbour. You can accompany me this time with your harp. They have fine musicians in all of North and you can finally get your harp strings changed."

I'd managed to not let my tears spill, wondering about all the time he'd bribed like this and had made me forget question him of the truth. At that moment though, all the memories I had of my life seemed to be a total foolish lie.

I ended up disliking my cowardly life, where I walked and talked meek as a mouse.

I didn't know which I hated the most. The fact that Ned Stark was hiding things from me about my family or that he hadn't shown any remorse for hiding it from me.

Irritated of being pushed over and over, I swung my blade, throwing all my strength into giving an upward cut to Jaime's head, and he blocked it with a struggle. "Where did that come from?" Jaime was stunned and startled, but he began matching my blade with his blade, countering each step of mine.

His wicked smirk made my blood boil. It reminded me of all the times I was ridiculed and made fun of, and left alone to lick my wounds.

I made him twirl. I made him spin. I made him laugh. I made him grunt. I made him curse when I slapped his knuckles with the flat of my blade.

And he lost his sword!

"First among many?" Jaime chuckled. I should be proud of his first approval. That was how Robb felt when Ser Rodrik would praise. But I couldn't. I remembered all the times Jaime had taken me for granted, and I gathered my bunched up fist and knocked his jaw, and his face slanted down.

Jaime gave a feral growl that I thought he would choke on my neck when he looked up at me. After spending more than fourteen fucking years with him, I was definite he was aiming to curl his fist around my pale throat. But he smiled, sucking in his blood-red lips.

"I guess I had it coming!" He answered with a proud smile of seeing me beating him down. "But that would be the last time you will touch my face, Princess!" His smile disappeared into a sinister growl before he picked up his sword. "And stop being an adamant brat! It won't help you."

"You know what he did, but you will hide it from me?" I yelled, my chest still heaving from the fight.

"Ignorance is bliss. It is better that you know fancy lies than the ugly truths." He twitched his jaw, leaving me to suffer inside.

I rotted for days, struggling back and forth to seek and snatch some ray of truth, but life didn't work that way. Offers and prizes would knock on my door in the tattered rag. I might be a Princess, but I was a bastard. I was a dragon with broken wings. I suffered silently, applying salves and pastes to my bruises that Jaime would award me in the courtyard for growing violent day by day.

I should have known better. Even if I consoled myself to be Jaime's odd friend of some sort, a lion was a lion. And it wasn't in any human's nature to tame it. As long as he considered me in his pride, I was safe. If not, he would rip out my heart with his claws to show who was the leader of the pride.

It was one of those sour mornings when scented lilies, with a strange scent of cardamom and anise, awoke me to a delightful morning. Delightful it was… and I wanted to cuddle up to my knees in my fetal position until I heard her clear her throat.

The moment I heard, I jumped up, throwing away my quilts, and adjusted my blood-red eyes to face her, in my elaborate stone chamber with gray walls, where she placed herself more comfortable than I had ever been in my whole life. Like she owned this place. Like she belonged and looked down on me, as though I was a mismatch.

With only a thin white cloth barely covering my modesty and slept through frizzy brown mess of hair and droopy eyes, I clenched my bare toes together, unable to look up and face her perfect red hair, that hadn't got a single thread out of its place.

"I hope a tea would rub away that morning mess out from your face!" She informed casually and poured tea lifting it in the air with perfection. "Would you prefer ginger over cardamom?"

I shook my head, shocked that Lady Stark had arrived at my chamber, where a few of the newly stitched clothes still laid carelessly on the cushion chairs after trying it out at Mya's insistence that last night, and I looked more pauper than a Princess. I stilled, realizing that shouldn't be the first concern for me. I should be worried about why she planned on visiting me.

The last time she'd visited, a hailstorm had precipitated all across the North with the rage she'd shouted and warned me never to get involved with Robb with the plans to seduce him. I hadn't given thoughts to seduce my cousin—not even in my wildest dreams. We'd swim together, naked as kids, in Godswoods's hot pool. It was ridiculous to see him as a man, but that day, I'd learned our childish rivalries in pushing each other into the water, or pouring wine on each other's head, or sneaking up to each other's bed chamber to scream and scare should have to end.

I couldn't gather for the life of me, what crime I'd committed for her to arrive at this early morning to my own chambers.

If her deranged anger had scared me before, the calm demeanor that she was showing me shook my nerves to death.

"Go on!" She pushed a cup, and I sat across her, trying to come up with all the plans she might be plotting to end my life. What if she'd added poison to the tea? Could I refuse to drink until she sipped her cup first? As though catching my thoughts, she smiled shaking her head and lifting her cup to her lips. "Is this assuring?"

I nodded and took mine, but felt childish for letting out my vulnerabilities easily for her to read.

"If killing you would solve all my problems, trust me, I would have smothered you when you were nothing but a wailing child." She whispered with a smile.

Assured that I wasn't going to be killed today, I gave a long sigh. There was no point in reading her head. "What do you want from me?"

"Do you truly think you have anything to give me?"

I winced. Her words went straight to my chest. I didn't really possess anything. "I suppose, then you assume, I have something that you can take from me."

"That I do." She sighed, folding her hands over her lap. "But it isn't any assumption. Consider this as a trade. A secret for a secret. A lie for a lie. A promise for—"

"What possible thing is there for me to give you?" I snickered, suddenly feeling so low. I might be angry, not using my head, sometimes, but I knew how the world worked.

"That is the second part of the trade, Princess Visenya. Do you not want to know what I will offer you?"

I liked this game, a little better. Rather than being chewed and spit out, I like being important and powerful enough to be approached for a trade of secrets and promises and lies. Although, I wanted to deny her all pleasures at that moment. "Why would you think I will believe anything you want to offer? Were you not the same aunt who threatened to poison me if I lured your son into my bed and let him put his child in my womb?"

The prudish woman Lady Catelyn was, she hadn't uttered the same words, but the intent was the same. And Lady Stark disapproved of my foul language with a click on her tongue, shaking her head. "The result of bastardy!" She shunned me, but I was above all those ill comments to let myself be bothered. "I wonder how your Royal family will welcome you as their own if you speak like a fisherwoman."

I tried to show her that I was unbothered, but when I began seeing myself with the family I dreamed of belonging, I felt my cheeks redden with an embarrassment of letting them down, even if it was just an imagination. All the more I disliked this woman's hold over my own misgivings and using it against to make me react all the ways she wanted. "I don't care if they are disappointed in me. Do you want to know the truth?" I smirked, feeling so much power that she couldn't predict what I was about to say and eagerly waiting in anticipation. "I don't care what you have to offer. If I could deny anyone anything in this life, then you will be the first among many."

There! When I uttered those words out, my ego surged like a mountain, and I leisurely leaned back in the chair and enjoyed her offer of a freaking tea.

"I am humbled, Princess!" She chuckled with sarcasm. "I guess I am wrong for the first time." Oh, how I loved to hear her tell the things I had only dreamed. She gathered her woolen skirt and moved towards the door, but paused for a moment before pulling it open. "Here I was, assuming that you were desperate to know certain information about your family."

Fate had its way to play a game in my life, or Lady Catelyn knew exactly how to play her game. It didn't even occur to me in the slightest possible way to wonder how she would be privy to Lord Stark's secret life or how much she would be knowing how vulnerable I was in front of her. Or how she would always keep an eye out on me to gather all my movements in this castle.

For a moment I wanted to believe it all a lie, bury down my eagerness, and think she was messing up my head and move on with the current life I owned. That way I could finally win her in her game. I could laugh at her back for losing to me and make this moment a remarkable milestone in sending her away. What then? I would never learn what I had missed. What I had deserved to know. I would never know if I was loved with true sincerity.

"What do you want in exchange?" I replied.

Her auburn long tresses moved in the air when she turned around, and I found her wicked victory smile annoying to an extent that it burned my skin.

There were nights that I had gone wondering and dreaming about a different life. Surrounded by a family that loved. A dinner where I was welcomed as a daughter, and a sister, and a Princess. A court where courtiers smiled, and jousts and tournaments when strong, valiant, chivalrous knights fought for my favor.

In names and titles, I had it all, yet I was nothing but an unwelcomed mouse in North. Over and over again, irrespective of my willingness to earn their goodwill, I was not accepted here. And every time I sobbed, trailing rivers of tears in my bed, I had the questions of what-if?

I had never wanted to simply wonder, so I let my pain and sufferings known to King Rhaegar through letters and missives each year. I had poured down everything that I liked, disliked, enjoyed, suffered, so he would know me for the person I grew up.

I'd written a letter about a pony that I first rode, with words of joys and rejoice. I'd also written about the same pony when it died of sickness, words filled with the agony of my pain. I'd shared my first experience in swimming in a frozen lake, and I'd shared my first visit to the Bear Islands with Robb. Every silly thing that I'd thought would explain what I grew up to be, I'd filled it in several pages of parchment and had asked Lord Stark to send it to my father.

Except for the first two years of letters, all the rest still rested safely in Lord Stark's secret cupboard.

I didn't know how to handle this truth. I knew Lord Stark had done something wrong by not letting me know about my family, so I should be able to handle this heavy confrontation. I had prepared myself for this betrayal. But my hands shivered and several drops of tears kept spilling to drench those parchments, as though I had lost something.

But how could you lose something that you never had?

All those memories rushed back like flood breaching the barriers—when my uncle would visit my chamber and take me out, right after I would ask him to send out a letter. He'd bribed my childhood, and I'd let myself stew in his malevolence.

"These are a few things that we received from the capital." Lady Catelyn dumped small wooden boxes onto the table. "It would come through the ship. Sometimes to the House Manderly, and sometimes—"

I crumpled all those parchments and fell on my knees, blocking out her ramblings, blocking out everything that I could feel through my blood and bones. I needed to break things, and if I stayed here in this chamber, I might as well kill that trout woman, who was going on and on about how I should be careful to not let her husband know of her involvement in this discovery.

I bit my lips hard till I tasted blood, and pulled my knees close to my chest, trying to ease out this suffocation. I couldn't. I needed someone or something, and I didn't know what it was. I wanted to hold on to something strong, but I was afraid there was truly someone worth holding onto. I'd put my trust in him. Was it too much to ask? How could he break my love and trust?

"Listen!" Lady Stark shook my shoulders, kneeling in front of me, her eyes dark and wide. "I will leave all this to you. And when Ned comes—" She paused, warily looking at my destroyed form.

"You wanted to see me like this. Didn't you?" I asked, my throat hiccupping every word out. "You wanted to see me broken down this way."

She didn't cower or hide from my question and I had to give her some credit for never lying what she was. At least she was true to me, even if she disliked me.

"I lost my father. My brother had to swear celibacy for life and take the black. My sister became a widow before she began her life. And I lost my home in which I grew up as a girl. Spare me some courtesies for being kind enough to let you live." Lady Stark straightened up and stood, dusting the creases in her dress. "When you speak with Ned, I want you to remember the promise you gave me."

Once she left, I took all my time to unwrap the boxes, forgetting about the game she was playing. I didn't care for her games. Perhaps I should, but when I opened those boxes and saw my life unfold into pieces of lies and treachery, I forgot my own name.

I twirled the soft ribbon around my fingers and wondered what in the Seven Hells did my father think while sending a sleek, enormous, peculiar ribbon where its frills fell seven inches long. It was special, that much I knew, for it had tiny white pearls encrusted in between the knots, and it must be something peculiar in the South for him to send it to me.

There were other things, more and more peculiar things inside the boxes that had come right after my sixth name day. The same year when I'd sent my first letter and Lord Stark managed to send it to King's Landing.

I wanted to cry seeing the things spread out on the table. It was as though my father grew along with me, choosing things a girl would love to possess. A thin sleeveless gown, small enough for a child of seven years old, that would melt if someone touched. I forgave my father for not remembering that North was cold as dead and I would've frozen to death wearing that gown.

There were a few dolls too, all in pair, fair porcelain, and coffee brown, dressed elaborately in sewn dresses that even the North didn't have the luxury to wear of such silk. There were slim, thin, silver strings for harp, buried in one of the boxes. I wondered if my father thought I would become a good singer like him. Instantly, I wanted to show my talent to him. Of what I learned all these years. Everything beautiful was there on the boxes, but just short of two years back, there weren't any more gifts. It was possible that he got tired of waiting for my reply. Or he believed I didn't want his gifts and stopped sending me anymore.

I wanted to erase that feeling somehow. I wanted to run and hug him, pouring my sincere thanks for thinking about me and looking after me, and begging him to take me back.

When I heard a man's breath, soft and harsh, coming out from the threshold of the chamber, I tentatively picked the silver brooch made of three dragon heads, and each dragon's eyes blinking bright with rubies.

"Lyarra!" My uncle called, but paused before coming closer.

I turned around, clasping the brooch that my father had sent near my heart, patting it twice before looking into his eyes to find humility and embarrassment. Instead, I found him seethe in anger.

"You went through the things that you had no rights touching. Now, remove that thing and hand it over to me."

Was he japing? Or was I dreaming? I clenched my fist tight till my nails dug painfully into my skin, so I could control some sanity. He brought you up; I said to myself. He had put food on your table; I said again and gave a long breath before looking up to his eyes.

"How could you do this to me, uncle?" I asked, and bit my lower lips to make it stop quivering. "All these years, he reached out for me and you hid everything. All these years, you stopped my letters to him!"

He didn't answer, rather; he closed the door behind, sending away the guards. "You weren't supposed to see it. Damn it, Lya! Who allowed you inside? How did you even get to know these things? Jaime Lannister! I knew he would tell something to you."

He paced, still angry at my discovery, not even beginning to realize how hurt I was with this betrayal. And I began gathering the things on the table, as though that was the treasure I possessed. One by one, I piled it into a basket, and when I found a long earring that extending two inches down like a teardrop, but made of soft stone that I couldn't point what it was made of, I began searching for its pair—because that damn exotic thing lacked its pair.

"I should have burned this long ago. I should have buried it when it came. I was a fool. Always a fool!" He screamed, walking long down the chamber.

"Perhaps you wanted me to find these one day," I said, still collecting whatever remained on the long table. "Perhaps you thought you could let me have it after you died, so you will be absolved of your crimes and don't live to face the repercussions of it."

"I did no crime."

For the first time, I saw the kind Lord under whom I grew up, yell out a scream, and spell out the word with anger and fear. He feared. And Gods, I wished his fear wouldn't affect me. Because you only fear when you knew you did a mistake. He had taught me that. And he'd taught me well.

"I was trying to protect you. You of all people should know that I would never do it to harm you."

"But then why does it hurt me, uncle?" I asked, touching that brooch to my chest, under where the heart resided. "Why does it hurt me as I would rather be shredded to several pieces?" I couldn't stop myself to cry, because that was all I owned.

"Oh, Lya! Sweetling, you don't understand his tricks. He fooled us all. He fooled your mother. She was just like you. Trusting and lovely. He used her for his benefits with all his lies and false promises. These…" He pointed to the things I stuffed inside the basket. "These are just things with no value. This doesn't mean a thing for him."

"But these mean everything to me. I wanted to think he was a monster who never cared for me. And I slept all the nights thinking he was one. Now to see he reached out for me, and you stopped all my letters. It seems you are the true monster." He winced, his throat bobbing up and down, hearing my accusations. I didn't want to do it this way. I never wanted to hurt him, but how will he ever learn my pain, without me showing him how hurt I was. "I was so scared here. I thought someone will surely kill me. I was alone and desperate. And you stopped my father to reach out to me. You made him never to be a part of my life." I couldn't see his eyes and tell my secrets. It was agony to live through the trepidation and anxiety once again. I cleared my throat. "Be that as it may, I want your leave. I want to visit my father."

All the sadness in my uncle's face drained, and his teeth ground like rocks before he set on a cold demeanor that might have once made me run and hide beneath the bed. "No." He bellowed, his fists went rigid and tight.

But I was from his blood and I wasn't going to cower anymore. So, I shrilled back. "No?"

"No. You will not take a step out of this castle, young lady. Make no mistake, I love you. I love you so much that I will do anything in my power to keep you rather locked in a dungeon than to send you out there to be butchered."

His arrogance, his power, his authority sent a jolt of anger to spine and I stood straight, grinding my teeth the same as he did. "You cannot make me stay here. I will never stay here."

"Oh, I will! You will not disappoint this family as your mother did. It brought no good to this house. You will listen to my words, and you will do the duty that your mother failed to do."

"You are not my father, nor the King to make me stay here. And I will do anything to run away from you."

"But you are under my supervision. And you will behave as befits for a ward. You will stay where I ask you to stay and eat what I will put on your table. And when you grow up, you will wed my son, and learn your duties."

My nose twitched, breath coming out unevenly in anger that I forgot how to breathe, how to speak, how to be in control, how to be kind and comforting. I walked a few steps close to him, meeting him eye to eyes, and spilled the words that first escaped my tongue. "Make me!"

He was cold as ice for a moment, waiting for me to back out of the fight, but I wouldn't cower, not when he was demanding me to be a broodmare. It lasted only a minute before he sighed, appalled by my own coldness or by his own outburst that he sighed and resigned, shaking his head.

He left from the chamber immediately, and I stayed all night, stewing in my own poison, forgetting so many questions that popped into my head. I wrote an elaborate letter to my father, ready to ask Jaime for help—an assistance that I knew he would do, and if Jaime wouldn't, I was ready to threaten him with the secret that he'd shared with me. A day back, I wouldn't have even thought of using Jaime's vulnerabilities to get things done for my benefit, but now, at this moment, I was ready to burn down this castle to get what I wanted—what I deserved.

I wondered how different was I from the woman that I hated—or perhaps I was more like her than I thought I was.

I kept scribbling several times, but none of my explanations and answers felt right. The sob story, the sad story, the betrayal, the love, the pain—it all felt too much to be poured on a piece of parchment to a man, who might be still thinking a thin laced gown was fit to be worn in cold North. I couldn't let out my vulnerabilities in a damned parchment, and I burned them all, before writing a single line, like a proud, headstrong dragon that he had presented, demanding him to wait for my arrival.

I didn't know anything about my father. He hadn't sent a missive in all those trinkets he had presented. I knew nothing about him. But I wanted to. I so wanted to know about my half-siblings, the Queen, and most of all—my father. And I was ready to sacrifice anything to reach that point.

It was in the morning when I was once again woken up with the aroma of burned bacon and cooked egg. And I gathered myself, almost forgetting where I chose to reside that day. Unlike the previous day, as Lady Stark had come, it was Lord Stark who took residence on an old wooden chair, head bent down to stare at his toes, elbows on his knees, and fingers weaved loose.

The moment I saw him, I decided to bolt out from the chamber, but he chuckled, shaking his head. His smile was painfully sad than any merriment I'd known.

"All these days I wanted you to never learn anything that belonged to your father. And I tried so hard. Teaching you every single lesson that I learned from my father. But I forgot it isn't any good to be an adamant Stark woman." He smiled to himself. He seemed weary than I had seen him yesterday. His eyes were red as blood, indicating he hadn't slept an hour. "You are more like your mother and it isn't any compliment. Now have your breakfast. It is the last remaining from the kitchen."

I stared out the window to notice how long the day had gone by and I'd missed the most of it. But I refused to obey him, ready to defy him to prove I could not be tamed by him.

"I will not be a hindrance to let you go if your father is ready to welcome you."

I gleamed, a weight shredding down from my chest, but I wasn't ready to share it with him. I couldn't forgive him for acting a God to remove that precious part of my memory. I wasn't ready to accept him for making me a fool every time. And so, I remained silent, waiting for him to leave.

"I will send Jory and fifty guards from Winterfell. The men who don't have a family. It is your responsibility to provide for them. And if they want to leave—"

"You have taught me well, Lord Stark." I had to cut him, before hearing another word that would make me fall into another invisible layer of protection that he held for me.

"Do you need anything else?" He asked and shook my head, ready to run away. I couldn't cry for finally leaving, and especially not in front of him. He would be more than glad to hug me and tell I was better to be an unlucky Stark who was hated all throughout my life.

Just when he was about to retire, I remembered the promise Lady Catelyn had asked of me. "Is it fine… if… I don't want to be alone, there! I need…" I failed pathetically. "I want to take Sansa with me. She is the sister I grew up with and we will look after each other. Please…" I felt more like a child, ready to cry for a candy.

His eyes shrunk, and I was almost certain he would refuse. Even if Lady Stark didn't ask that of me, it truly was a nice feeling to have someone who could understand me, close by my side. I bit my lips, hoping and praying for him to accept.

He dragged out a long breath, calculating all his mistakes by accepting me to take leave from his safety net. What made him agree I wasn't so sure, but he nodded and patted twice on my head before leaving to do his duties.

Yet, I worried more than the day before, wondering if it was a mistake to plan to leave from the place I grew up. Much more worried if I was making a mistake by seeking a family that most likely had forgotten me.

Who said having the power and freedom to decide was easy? It wasn't.