AN: Again, thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and are now following. I really appreciate it. I skipped through a lot in this chapter, so hopefully it doesn't seem too rushed. I just really needed Jon to come aboard the story already! But please let me know what you think.
Every Loyalty
Chapter III:
The King in the North
"He's barely grown enough to squire for you, to speak of fighting!"
Larisa followed Lord Bolton through the main courtyard of Winterfell. Men around her were preparing themselves for war, their armor and weapons strapped before they made their way to the stables.
Ramsay had seen fit to arm Willem as well for the coming battle against Jon Snow and his Wildlings. Likely they were several miles away, but the ground tremored faintly from horses' hooves.
Ramsay walked ahead, largely ignoring her. "I'd love to chat, my lady, but I'm afraid I have a bastard to kill."
"How fitting," Larisa mocked. "They'll call it the Battle of Bastards."
He finally stopped.
So did a few of the men within hearing range. Larisa felt their eyes, and too late did she remember to notice the rotting, bloody severed heads on spikes that stood by the gates. Crows still picked at the remaining flesh.
They were the rest of her traveling party—four knights and two handmaidens, apart from Martha who had been spared. Ser Thane and Ser Thomas were among them.
The sight of it churned her stomach again, along with the gripping fear that rightly chilled her blood when Ramsay turned on his heel.
When he dared to walk towards her though, she recklessly swung her hand at his head. Ramsay caught her before she could make that mistake.
"You are a fierce little lion, I'll give you that." He rotated her wrist again, like he had done days before. Though this time she knew he was considering breaking it, despite his ever-present smile.
"If Lady Bolton is lost to me today, you'll be my consolation prize."
He leaned in close to her neck, until his lips were a ghost's whisper behind her ear.
"And I think we'll have a lot of fun together," he said. "…I know I will."
Then he let go.
Larisa let out a shuddering breath and held her wrist with shaking hands. He tossed her another grin over his shoulder as he joined his men.
"Escort the lady to her chambers."
She had been an idiot to provoke him. This truly was a monster she was dealing with, one that had likely murdered his own father. Perhaps even his step-mother and her unborn child.
Larisa sat on the edge of her bed and considered her situation for what it was.
Tywin Lannister was dead. Her father, Kevan Lannister, was dead, and Queen Cersei clearly didn't give two shits about Larisa or her brother or who would hold Casterly Rock.
Her name would no longer protect her.
Larisa touched the chain that hung from her neck. Her fingers toyed with the tiny latch on the pendant. She considered her mother's gift, the vial of nightshade inside.
She saw now that it wasn't meant for her enemies.
And if…
If Jon Snow fell to Ramsay Bolton's numbers.
If she were to become that man's bride, she would take the alternative and end it before it began.
But she wouldn't make that choice, not unless her brother was lost to her in the battle to come. If not, she would live. No matter what would come ahead.
Larisa refused to leave her only brother alone in this world. Not with Ramsay Bolton.
She gripped the stone pendant tightly in her trembling hand, until the gold scrollwork cut into her palm and drew blood that fell in small drops to the floor.
And for the first time since she was a child, she prayed to the gods, the Old and the New and whatever would hear her and listen.
"Please," she whispered. "Please help me."
Willem had to stand at Ramsay's side and watch when they dragged the boy, Rickon Stark, out of his cell. He looked older than Will, but dirtier and wilder with the threadbare, patchwork clothes he was wearing.
He didn't say a word, not even when they forced him on Ramsay's horse with his hands tied behind his back. Will struggled to stay on his own horse that was much too large for him. Ramsay warned him to stay close, so Will held on as tightly as he could. He didn't want to know what the man would do to him if he fell on accident.
The Bolton army formed ranks once they reached the top of a large, rolling hill that met its end at a rise of old rock and cliffs; Ramsay had told him that the bastard Jon Snow was probably hiding there with his army of savages and traitorous Northern folk. Will could see them now, bunched in front of the tall rocks.
Will stopped his horse at the front lines, close behind Ramsay who by now had let Rickon off of his horse. Ramsay dragged the boy forward by the ropes that bound his wrists together.
In full view of the enemy, about a mile away, he cut those ropes loose with a dagger.
"Do you like games, little man?" Ramsay asked. He grabbed Rickon by the shoulders and pointed ahead, at a man in the far distance. Will thought he was dressed in black.
"Let's play a game," Ramsay continued. "Run to your brother. The sooner you make it to him, the sooner you get to see him again."
Will could tell the older boy was scared; he was breathing heavy, and he was shaking. But he was looking at the man in black who must've been his brother. The man who had to be Jon Snow.
"That's it! That's the game…ready?" Ramsay pushed Rickon forward. "Go."
And he walked, slowly at first, until Ramsay knocked the first arrow.
Run you idiot! Will wanted to shout. His heart was beating too fast, like it was him Ramsay was aiming at.
Rickon finally started running when that first arrow landed mere feet away from him. Jon Snow was riding to meet him, but Ramsay let arrow after arrow loose, each getting closer and closer to their target.
Will held his breath when Rickon was just a few yards off. He's gunna make it!
His brother held his hand out, ready to catch Rickon and swing him onto his horse.
Will thought their hands would've touched, if not for the final arrow that imbedded itself through Rickon's neck with a sickening squelch. That sound echoed through the clearing, just before the body fell.
Even this far away, Will could see red-hot fury in Jon Snow's eyes when he looked up at Ramsay. And Ramsay was smiling.
Will was more terrified of that smile than he was of the army that poured out from behind those rocks, but only slightly.
Lara…
They really should've never left home.
Larisa had barely finished beating the man unconscious with the iron candleholder from her nightstand when she realized.
She had to move quickly.
She locked her former guard inside her chambers with his own key, and hastened down the stairs with the hood of her cloak drawn over her head. The halls were mostly empty with the battle raging barely half a mile outside the keep, as it had been for some time.
She could hear the distant clang of swords and screaming when she finally made it to the courtyard. If she was fast enough, she could make it to the stables and—
"Hey! You there!"
Larisa didn't stop, not until the black gates opened and shut behind Lord Bolton and two of his men.
The horses surrounded her. Ramsay got down from his horse all too quickly enough to grab hold of her arm.
"Who let the little lion out of her cage?" he whispered with a grin.
"My lord," said the commander who had ridden in with him. Ramsay glanced back over his shoulder.
"Their army's gone," he said.
"Our army's gone."
Larisa blinked in shock. Had Jon Snow done it? Had he forced the Bolton forces to retreat?
Ramsay rolled his shoulders, but didn't let go though she struggled against his grip. "We have Winterfell. They don't have the men for a siege, all we have to do is wait."
There was a great pounding at the gates.
The remaining archers were at the ready when a large fist busted through the wood. Ramsay handed her off to his commander before he turned away.
"Will you run and hide now, my lord?" Larisa mocked. Ramsay spared her a dark look over his shoulder, and it almost chilled her more than his smile.
A beast broke through those gates. A giant, she thought dizzily, and he only fell when the arrows in his back and chest were innumerable. Wildlings and Northerners poured in behind him, killing off the archers two and three men at a time.
Including the commander, who fell behind her with a heavy thud. She stared at his lifeless eyes, once again haunted by the memory of Ser Thane's.
With a shudder that wracked down her spine, Larisa forced herself to regain her wits. She watched the Boltons be overtaken, thrown from the balconies and slain in the courtyard. Finally, one man in black came barreling through the open gates, covered in blood and holding his sword at the ready. With him was a much larger man with a terrible looking sword.
Larisa turned to make her escape to the stables, but once again a firm hand grabbed her by the arm with a bruising grip and turned her around violently.
"I don't think you understand," Ramsay said, "your position."
In his hands were his bow and arrow, and from this distance he couldn't miss.
Larisa really thought he would gut her, right then and there.
Instead, he tossed her roughly to the side. She fell into the mud with a grunt as the air left her lungs, but she looked back up in time to see the man in black overtake Ramsay. He knocked the bastard down into the mud, like the dog he was, and rained down blows across Ramsay's face until he was bloody and unconscious.
She believed the man only stopped when he noticed Sansa Stark, who had come down from her horse and stood to watch her husband be beaten down to nothing.
He stood, and Larisa realized.
This was Jon Snow.
"We don't need them," Sansa said to her brother, but it was for all the lords of their sworn houses to hear as Larisa and Willem stood before the recently hailed King of the North and the rightful Lady of Winterfell. Waiting to be judged.
"Cersei only cared about her own children."
Jon Snow turned his head from his sister to the Lannister siblings. He seemed to be waiting on her to offer her own defense, and she took full advantage.
"It's true. She may be our cousin, but she doesn't care for my family," Larisa admitted. She reached to her side and took hold of Willem's hand. He squeezed hers back and trusted her to speak on behalf of both of them, as they'd agreed.
Willem had managed to survive the battle, escaping with only a dreadful cut that started from his hairline, over his eye (nearly blinded), and down his cheek. Several bruises marked him from where horses had nearly trampled him when he had fallen from his, and managed to crawl out from under the pit of clashing swords and men until a knight of the Vale, that had come to Jon Snow's aid, caught Will.
He had marked himself a Lannister as soon as he pled for his and his sister's lives.
They had spent an hour in a cell, separate from the rest of what remained of the Bolton forces, and Larisa had wept from relief while she held him close.
Now, they had been brought to meet the newly hailed King in the North.
"But I know how she thinks," Larisa said. "Of that, I can be of use to you."
"I believe my experience with the queen is more than enough to advise us," Sansa said dryly.
"I came to court at thirteen, years before you arrived at King's Landing, my lady. And if you remember, I was in that holdfast during the siege at Blackwater, same as you. Praying with those pathetic, scared little girls while the queen drank herself into a stupor. Waiting together for either death if Stannis took the capital, or more of the same if he failed."
"Do you have a point, or will this be an ode to our sisterhood at King's Landing?" Sansa's face remained ambivalent, but her words dripped with sarcasm. Larisa finally raised her gaze to the Lady of Winterfell.
It was true, they had only known each other in passing, mostly because her father's mark as a traitor kept her isolated. Larisa remembered well the people who would smile with Sansa Stark to her face, then go on to slander her behind her back.
She remembered Joffrey's cruelty, humiliating the girl before the entire court. Afterwards, for the first time Larisa had found herself wanting to offer Sansa some kindness. To let her know there were those in King's Landing who sympathized…but self-preservation stopped her.
Spies of all kinds lurked in the palace.
"I have endured them all my life. I have seen just how they scheme, and how their friends turn to enemies, destroyed with the slightest misstep. And with all due respect, my lady, I know my cousins. Far better," she said, "than any of you."
Sansa's lips pursed, but she didn't comment further. Jon Snow seemed to take note of it.
"Yes, they're her family," interjected Lyanna Mormont, the Lady of Bear Island. "And she must then be a product of that family."
"Aye, what good will come from keeping Lannisters in the North?" said Lord Robbett Glover. The hall fell silent after his words, and the other lords shifted in their armor as they considered the question.
"My lady," Larisa stilled when Jon Snow addressed her. He was no longer covered in blood, but he still wore dark clothes, and his black hair was tied away from his bearded face.
It suited him.
And he was…older than she expected.
"You claim that you'd break loyalty to your house and pledge allegiance to the North," he said. "But as you said, your family's full of liars."
She bit back a hasty retort. Whatever word he willed, his people would carry it out. He could use that great sword with the direwolf on the pommel, relieve her head from her shoulders before her brother's eyes, and then turn to Willem next. He could send them back to Cersei in pieces, as a message of what he could, and would do to House Lannister.
Even if they spared Will, he would be trained to fight Jon Snow's battles. He would be slaughtered just like Harden at Blackwater. Just like the Freys. Just like Martyn.
Even if she lived, this man, this King in the North could make her a glorified slave—make her pour his wine, serve his food, force her into his bed if he chose.
Larisa nearly shuddered, thinking of how Ramsay Bolton's eyes had raked over her then, his cold, vile hands that had dared to touch her face like he couldn't wait to break it.
She might not be bound anymore. She could hold her head high before these men and Sansa, but she was a Southern girl truly at the mercy of the North.
With that real fear chilling the blood in her veins more than the frigid air already seeping cold into her bones, she took in a small breath and raised her head again. Jon Snow's dark eyes were calm, but he met hers unflinchingly. She knew this man would read her if she tried to appease him, as someone like Lord Baelish would do.
And yes, she had noticed him in command of the Vale as he strode through the gates of Winterfell. He stood and watched the scene from the far corner.
"My father was a Lannister, just as your father was a Stark. I can't forget my name," she began slowly. "But Cersei killed my father, and for all his misguidedness, my older brother too. She will set the world on fire to keep her throne…I would rather see her burnt up."
"Your father gave you to Bolton, didn't he?" Sansa asked. Larisa's jaw clenched.
"He did," she nodded. "When Lord Bolton's wife died so shortly after the Freys, Father faced pressure from Cersei to keep the North under their control."
"By the time I arrived here, Lord Bolton was dead. Ramsay in his place," she added. "If you had not taken Winterfell, I would have been given to that murderous worm."
Sansa's surprise was thinly veiled, before it was quickly swept away with coldness Larisa didn't expect.
"Tywin Lannister orchestrated the Red Wedding, my brother Robb's death. And my mother's," she said, directing it more to the noblemen who nodded and grumbled in agreement. Larisa clenched her hands tighter, her nails digging into the flesh of her palm that didn't hold Will's.
"His grace has just pardoned House Karstark for murdering my younger brother. Martyn," Larisa spoke over the noise, drawing back their attention once more. But it was Jon Snow she addressed.
"He was…he was innocent, barely fourteen." She swallowed past the grief stuck in her throat when she thought of Martyn, who had been so eager to prove himself to their father and uncle. They had armed a boy with a sword and bade him fight for his house.
To this day she thought of how he must have looked, covered in dirt and blood as the Starks' prisoner. How terrified he must have been, to be dragged out in the dead of night by rough hands and be slaughtered alone in the mud, hundreds of miles away from the people who loved him.
"But as you said, your grace," she said to the king. "The price has been paid…would you have my brother and I pay for our uncle's actions? For the crimes of our entire house?"
His dark eyes traveled down to the siblings' joined hands, before they met hers again. They didn't look like the eyes of a cruel man. Not even a dishonest one.
"Not today," he said.