Sansa wasn't entirely sure when she stopped believing in soulmarks. It wasn't after they took Lady from her, she blamed Arya for that. It wasn't after her father was imprisoned and her sister went missing. It wasn't even after she realized how cruel and despicable Joffrey was. She still believed in her soulmark, it was just her own fault for not listening to it. She was so eager to fall in love and find her soulmate she had just assumed the message of "Love" when the King's party had arrived in Winterfell was about the handsome young prince.
No, she was pretty sure she stopped believing when her soulmark went quiet. There were several schools of thought about what it meant when a mark stopped communicating with you. One thought was it was punishment. The mark had tried to tell you something and you had ignored it or misinterpreted it. Most people didn't believe this. The most popular theory is that 'no news is good news'. If your soulmark didn't feel the need to guide you, it meant you were on the correct path. This was the theory Sansa had subscribed to initially, but it was hard for her to believe that being a prisoner of the Lannister's in King's Landing was guiding her to her destiny and the man that would love her for the rest of their days. It was easier to just not believe in them at all
Her soulmark was silent in the weeks following her father's execution. It remained silent as she became a plaything for Joffey to torture. It even became something of an object of her torture. Joffrey would ask what the Gods were telling her now and laugh when she would tell him "Nothing". He would threaten to cut it from her skin, or remove the entire hand. Truth be told, the Lannister's for all their blustering about being happy to not have soulmarks were in fact very, very jealous.
So she waited. Waited for Robb. Waited for her soulmark to guide her and prove her wrong in her failing belief. And she waited and watched and listened. But most of all she cried.
The day that Joffey had her beaten in the throne room, was the day she finally gave up. On soulmarks, on knights, on any decency left in the world. So this was the moment her soulmark came roaring back to life as the word LION blazed in gold letters across her skin. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all as the boy king aimed his crossbow at her. She had been so blind, he was a lion, all lion. Her father had been right, he was a mad product of incest. She collapsed waiting to be its prey just as another lion roared behind her.
"What is the meaning of this?" roared Tyrion Lannister as he strode into the throne room. Fire blazing in his eyes he challenged Ser Meryn "What kind of knight beats a helpless girl?"
Sansa stared in wonder at the small man wearing the pin once worn by her father as he proceeded to chastise everyone present, most of all the King. As he helped her to her feet, she felt her soulmark tingle. The word "LION" is still blazing across her wrist. Maybe her soulmark hadn't abandoned her, and was telling her this lion could help her. But then she remembered he was still a Lannister, and couldn't be trusted. It was best to remember that a lion, no matter how small, could still savage her and perhaps that was what the soulmark was saying. Hadn't he been the one to warn her about trusting too easily?
And once again her soulmark lapsed into silence in the months that followed. Through the riots, through the anticipation of Stannis's attack. Silence. Silence through the battle as war raged around her.
Stannis was defeated, thanks in part to Tyrion's clever trick with the wildfire and the arrival of the combined Lannister and Tyrell army. She had heard that Tyrion had been injured badly in the battle and did feel a bit sad for him. He had never done anything to make her suspicious of him again, and she began to trust that maybe her soulmark had been telling her that he could help her after all. But she soon forgot about that after she was finally free of Joffrey and a new savior was on the horizon, Loras Tyrell.
Loras. The "L" couldn't be a coincidence could it? This was why she was in King's Landing, it must be! Sure she would never be the Queen, but Lady of Highgarden sounded wonderful. She would give anything to leave King's Landing. And Loras was so beautiful and charming. Slowly she began to believe in her soulmark again. It all made sense now.
She even dismissed Little Fingers offer to leave with him. She was sure her soulmark would have told her if she was to follow him, but it didn't. She was exactly where she was meant to be. Happiness filled her heart.
And it was all dashed to pieces in seconds when Tyrion Lannister came to her room announcing her betrothal, not to Loras, but to himself.
Alone in her room later that night after crying herself to sleep yet again, she woke to a tingling from her soulmark. Finally she thought to herself a sign. What do I do now?
But all her soulmark said was Lady Lannister, as it wrapped around her wrist. It looked like a manacle. Apparently even her soulmark would have her in chains.
The next morning Shae found her with a bloody knife trying to cut the soulmark from her skin.
After the angry declaration of WAR from his soulmark, it lapsed into a silence so long and so profound that oftentimes Tyrion forgot it existed. Not a peep during his imprisonment at the Vale or riding in the vanguard against the Stark forces. Not a hint of interfering guidance as he took his father's place as Hand and began to thrive in his new powerful role.
It was freeing to be in charge of his own destiny for a while.
But it was all an illusion, because as the Battle of Blackwater showed him, it wasn't the Gods he needed to worry about controlling his life. It was his family. It had always been his family. A murderous nephew, a conniving sister, a father. All of who hated him, and all of who had the power to destroy him.
He missed Jaime. Bronn was amusing and Pod a better squire than he deserved. But they weren't his big brother.
He never knew what possessed him to finally confront his father, to ask for his birthright, to ask for the Rock. Maybe it was seeing death come as close as the sword did to chopping off his nose. He would like to pretend he wasn't surprised by his father's response. But he was. It wasn't just the denial of his birthright after he had worked so hard to prove himself to him, it was the vitriol with which it was delivered. He knew his father hated him, but he didn't know the sheer depth of it until that day.
So instead of Lord of the Rock, he became Master of Coin. As he became immersed in Littefinger's bookkeeping he could only laugh at his father's brilliance. This was a punishment dressed up as a reward for the work he had done as Hand. His father had also promised a suitable bride in time. He had no idea he would stoop so low as to betroth him to Joffrey's castoff.
Not that Sansa wasn't beautiful, sweet, and charming. She was in a word stunning. But she was also an innocent, a child and shouldn't be marrying anybody, let alone a lecherous little imp like himself. Tywin was right about that, she was a far greater match than he deserved in a wife.
Wife. He traced his fingers over his soulmark and thought of Tysha. Wife. A steely resolve overtook him. I don't know why you've sent me that word twice, but I swear on my life that I will not let anything happen to that girl as long as she is under my protection. I will take care of Sansa. I WILL take care of my WIFE.
His first order of business would be to get her out of King's Landing. Joffrey would never let her be even if it damaged his own relationship with the Tyrell girl. After the royal wedding he would take her to Casterly Rock. He would write Aunt Genna and hope between the both of them, they could convince his father it would be best if Sansa was removed from the capitol. If he could leave too, all the better.
He had just finished his missive to his Aunt when Shae burst into the room. He sighed audibly. Shae hadn't spoken to him since he announced his betrothal to Sansa yesterday. "We've talked about this, you can't be here," he said firmly.
"Lady Sansa just tried to remove her soulmark with a knife. I got it away from her, but she won't show me how bad it is. As her future husband, I thought you should know." Shae said in a biting tone.
"Did you tell anybody else?" Tyrion said, leaping to his feet and hurrying into the hall.
"Who would I tell? Your family, the guards, the perverted old maester? They would think she was mad."
"And you believe she's not?" Tyrion asked. Trying to remove one's soulmark was often considered a sign of madness.
Shae gave him a look that cut him to the bone. "Sansa is sad, not mad. The kind of sadness that kills all hope for the future and leaves you numb. She is not the first girl to hurt themselves just so they could feel something."
Alarmed even more Tyrion rushed into Sansa's room where she sat dry eyed at the table with a hastily made bandage wrapped around her wrist. If she registered his presence she didn't acknowledge it. He approached her slowly using a calm voice as he would a wounded animal and she held out her wrist to him to examine without protest when he asked. There were several small hesitation cuts around the "L" and one deep one. There was also a mess of blood going across the entirety of the wrist that was just starting to clot.
Shae left to fetch some more bandages while Tyrion started cleaning the wound with some diluted wine. The sting of the alcohol on her cuts brought her out of the trance like state and she regarded his attention to her wound coolly while remaining silent.
Panicked that she would harm herself in this way he started rambling. "I promise you one thing my Lady, I won't ever hurt you and I'll be damn sure to make sure nobody else will too when we are married. I know you don't want it, I don't want it either. But don't you see, this is a way for you to not be a prisoner anymore. You will be my wife and I will get you out of this place. I'll send you to the Rock. My Aunt is a character to be sure, but her heart is as big as Casterly and she will care for you. Hopefully we can both go and will wait out the war there. Then I will take you back to your family when this is done where you can continue your quest to find your soulmate."
She stared at him blankly before replying in a flat voice, "Do you know you can't remove your own soulmark?" she whispered. "No matter how much you cut around it, you can't cut into it. Something just holds you back. So instead I made it tell the truth." she said as a bit of hysteria crept into her voice. "That's all I can do now, is look the truth in the face."
With a growing horror at her words, Tyrion pulled the bandage away from her wrist. Now that the blood was wiped away and the bleeding almost stopped he could see that she had carved some letters into her wrist. She had added an IAR so that her soulmark now permanently said LIAR.
Tyrion's stomach turned violently and he felt ill. The scars across her wrist would heal in time but he was afraid that the scars in her soul would fester. What he did know was that the girl that he had met in Winterfell so full of hopes and dreams was gone forever now because of his family.
