Chapters three and four now have audio commentaries! This site won't let me post links, but you can find them by Googling "Quotev", then searching for "The Price She Paid" on Quotev.
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Sansa Stark could hear the clack of her bootheels echo off ancient cobble. She could hear the steady ebb and flow of her breath. She swore she could even hear the blood rushing through her ears, although that last part might have been fancy.
She had never been the most imaginative child. Allegory and myth, she could concede, had rarely occupied her thoughts. In the blanketed hush of the dead castle, it was all too easy to feel like she was the last person alive in the world. Of the few inhabitants left, most were either asleep or manning the battlements, and the three feet of solid rock between them and the siege cut them off from the sound of the enemy as effectively as from the enemy itself. She was once again encased in walls of stone and flesh... only these were here to protect her.
At least she would have the practice range to herself. No one would see the spectacle of what she was about to attempt.
The long, narrow courtyard was almost oppressively overshadowed on all sides by precipitous castle walls. Its ivy-crusted surrounds and general forgotten air reminded Sansa of the mysterious secret garden her father had told her stories of when she was small. She had fantasized about this wonderful place, environs painted in every color under the sun rather than hues of brown and gray, until it had literally invaded her dreams.
Her childhood walled garden had been an escape from the dull reality of day to day life in Winterfell. It had been the ultimate safe space. And it still was, only now she was the secret it kept.
Sansa collected a crossbow and a quiverful of bolts from the dank niche used for storing practice weapons. It was somehow even heavier than the one she had held in the Floating Cells' antechamber. She stood it on end and tried to picture how it looked loaded. After much undignified panting and grunting, the bowstring was drawn back and a bolt slotted into place. She held the crossbow straight out in two outstretched arms, lined up the wavering tip with a scrap of burlap in the center of the nearest target and...
The missile whizzed past, missing the target by at least a foot.
She took a few steps forward and began the laborious reloading process. By the time the quiver was depleted, her arms ached and her fingers were sore, but she had managed to hit the target a few times. The weapon slipped from her hand as she wondered why the expected sensation of triumph wasn't coming. What she felt was like an imposter. What could ever have possessed her to think she could do this? In spite of the Stark name, she was no fighter, any more than she was a real leader.
"Looks like great minds think alike," came a familiar voice from behind her.
Brienne displayed her own crossbow as Sansa spun to look at her. "How long have you been watching?"
"Long enough to see you could use a little help."
"Great minds." The left corner of Sansa's mouth curled up as she made a scoffing sound. "You're doing great things. I'm just here for the show."
She looked at the forlorn quiver- all she had to show for her efforts- and headed for the rear of the range.
"Allow me, my lady."
It was a quiet wait for Brienne to collect her spent bolts. When the warrior woman offered a replenished quiver, she stared but made no move to take it. "I was the only one of five children - seven, really- who was kept away from the harder realities. My parents even tolerated it when Arya wanted to play with weapons and horses and boys. Do you think they saw it in me, even then?"
"Saw what?"
Sansa just shot her a chiding look.
"I think you'll never know if you don't try." Brienne disdainfully nudged aside the crude training bow with the toe of her boot. "A good place to start would be with something lighter and more accurate." She pivoted the thin, artisanal curves of her personal crossbow and pulled back a lever, effortlessly hooking the string over the catch before inserting a bolt. "Now let's see you do it."
Raw fingers gripped the lever and pulled back with too much force, not anticipating how easily the string would yield. "Oh! Why don't they all have these?"
"They're more expensive," Brienne answered, moving behind Sansa as she finished loading. Cautiously, she tugged at her new pupil's hips through the linen layers appropriate to a mid-Riverlands autumn. "Move your leg back- not that much- and square up your hips."
When she was satisfied with the stance, Brienne showed Sansa how to brace the stock against her shoulder, support it with her left hand and look down the iron sights.
"Breath in."
Sansa obeyed.
"Now let it out as you gently squeeze-"
The bolt flew over the target and ricocheted off the rear wall of the courtyard with a sharp crack that echoed through the narrow stone enclosure, magnified into a chorus of failure.
The next fared slightly better, clipping the edge of the target and spinning crazily away. "Try imagining it's someone you want to shoot," suggested Brienne.
Instantly, she flashed back to her fantasy of standing on that dais, watching Joffrey squirm between her sights. The staggered targets behind him could become indifferent spectators draped in brocade and satin. She could almost see it, Joffrey's face screwing up tight as he wailed and pleaded. Stillness settled in behind her breastbone and her index finger teased the trigger...
She missed.
Sansa threw the bow down hard enough to send a plume of fine dust circling her feet. "I'm hopeless!"
"DON'T-" Brienne caught herself, sucking in a whistling breath through her nose. "Please do try not to damage it. I've had it for a long time."
Sansa sheepishly mumbled, "I'm sorry."
She picked it up and dusted it off against her sleeve, as Brienne continued,"You're already improving faster than Pod did when I first met him. It just takes practice, like anything." A sudden inspiration struck her. "Like sewing. You didn't stitch a perfect hem on your first try, did you?"
"No, Mother," came the reply, but it was a gentle poke.
Brienne proffered the quiver so she could withdraw another bolt. "I want to thank you for the trust you've placed in me." Sansa nodded absently, focused on reloading. "But I'm not entirely sure why I have it. You didn't even trust your own uncle enough to tell him everything."
"Don't have a choice, really. People aren't exactly lining up to keep my head sitting on my shoulders." A sly grin. "Besides, you're a woman. At least I know you're not planning to rape me."
"A bit of a backhanded compliment, that."
Sansa's smile briefly reappeared as her bolt lodged in an outer ring of the target. Before the vibrating blur at its visible end could reform into feathers, she was reaching for another. "Believe it or not, I used to think most people had only good intentions. Distrust came after betrayal, and sometimes not even then. I'm a slow learner. It's true. But I learned that trust is a privilege. You've earned it. Many times."
Another thud of wood against much-abused straw. "Of course, so did Roose Bolton." She almost seemed to be talking to herself now. "He served my family faithfully for almost half a century."
"Surely you're not comparing me to... to that man?"
"No. I met him. I don't think you're like him at all."
"It means a lot to hear you say that."
Sansa turned slightly, studying her in a curious manner, then fired the remaining few bolts in silence. Some hit, some did not. She set out to retrieve them with the stiff leather of the quiver trailing along in the wake left by her hem.
"Allow-" Brienne began.
"Not this time. I have to learn these things."
Her fingers drifted over the coarse braid of straw bounding the target, then flowed down to rest on a smooth shaft. Brienne busied herself checking the springs and sights on her bow.
"Who gave it to you?"
Brienne looked up to see the girl wiggling the bolt free, back turned. "What?"
"The bow. It's obviously not just a bow to you."
She opened her mouth, then clamped it shut before deciding on candor. "Renly Baratheon. The one I was sworn to before your mother. He gave it to me the day he appointed me to his Kingsguard."
"You were close?"
"Not really. But he was always kind to me. And it was a great honor, especially for a woman." She traced one of the lines that branched up into an abstracted carving of stag antlers, spreading across the bow's crosspiece. "Actually, it was his greatest kindness. I earned my place on his Kingsguard, that's true. But he was the only one who cared."
Sansa knelt gingerly and pinched the length of a bolt between thumb and forefinger, mumbling, "Sounds close." It doesn't sound like she's talking to Brienne, who can barely make out the words.
"It's a rare and precious thing to serve someone who sees you as a charge, not a subject. Renly was that kind of person. So was your mother."
"What about me?"
"That remains to be seen, my lady. But I've been happy serving you."
That got an ironic smirk. "You have to say that, don't you? I'm your liege lady."
"And my queen."
"What a beggar queen that makes me. Everything I have belongs to someone else."
"But you will be. Queen in the North."
"I don't want to be queen of any place. I just want to go home."
"I fear you won't be able to have one without the other."
"Lord Baelish used to say things like that. I didn't believe him, of course. I wasn't that blind."
"Then why did you go with him instead of with me?"
Sansa approached slowly, pondering. "I thought he loved me." She took the crossbow. "I guess that's what happens when you're raised by sentimental fools."
Brienne was deeply, exquisitely scandalized. "Lady Sansa! Your family were fine people! A noble house."
"A dead house."
"They died fighting for what was right."
"Why does everyone say that like it makes anything better? Nothing is worth dying for, nothing. There are only things worth killing for."
It was a shock to look down and realize that the bow was already loaded. She hadn't spared it a glance and still her hands were already going through the motions faster. After her protector guided her hips, her shoulders, her elbows into compliance, she released a long, pent-up breath and watched her bolt nick the bullseye.
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"I have good news. Tommen let me see him today. It was only for a few minutes, but I think he finds focusing on Myrcella's assassins a welcome distraction from the Faith Militant."
Jaime Lannister gestured for his sister to pour him a drink too. She decanted a second serving. "Has Margaery's pardon helped?" he asked.
Cersei passed his goblet. "It eased his mind. More than when his mother was released. We'd be better off if she and whatever is brewing behind that false innocence were still in the dungeon, though. Our sons have always needed protection from scheming women."
"Margaery Tyrell is not who we should be worried about. The High Sparrow is."
"Are you sure? The High Sparrow couldn't exercise such complete control over his king without her help." She draped herself over a chair in the corner of the room, bare foot dangling over an armrest, seeming to Jaime maddeningly unconcerned. "It may not matter in the end. I think I'm starting to reach him. A boy Tommen's age needs his mother."
"Well, you're not reaching him fast enough! Our son just ordered me to go deal with the Blackfish, and that man was-" His golden hand slashed the air. "-hovering by his side as if he were already on the Iron Throne."
She considered this news for a moment. "Then that is what you'll do."
"It could take monthes, maybe years."
"You'll find a way. You always do."
"He has our boy! He stole our little boy! He's torn our family apart. How do lions treat people who tear us apart?"
"We treat them without mercy, and we will. But they number in the thousands now. If you attack the Sparrows, neither of us will live through the night, and if we die, it will all have been for nothing. Do you understand, Jaime?"
He grunted as his goblet slammed down onto a tabletop, aromatic red liquid sloshing over the rim. Cersei watched intently from behind her own rim. "Maybe we should tell Tommen the Tyrells have threatened to withdraw support," he suggested.
"It would only make him more determined to make an example of the Riverlands. No one can-"
A light rap sounded at the door. She held up a hand to curb her brother and called out, "Who is it?"
"A raven for you, your grace."
"Come in."
The former queen seemed to enjoy making him cross the room to deliver the parcel into her hand, as Jaime impatiently drained half of his wine. One eyebrow arched at the sight of a Riverrun seal holding the bundle together.
The scribe added, "I saw to it that its arrival would stay between us."
"Your loyalty is commendable."
"It's a small favor after what you did for my mother, your grace." He bowed, then left her to crack the wax barrier and unfold the oilcloth in privacy. Two parchments fell out, one wrinkled and stained, the other crisp.
When Jaime's hope could no longer be contained, he blurted, "Has the Blackfish surrendered?"
"No such luck, I'm afraid. But at least you won't have to deal with old Frey while you're there."
"Why is that?"
"Because he betrayed us." She lifted the wrinkled parchment slightly. "He offered the Blackfish not just a truce, but an alliance."
"I imagine that didn't go over well."
"No. This says agents of the Riverlands actually managed to remove Edmure Tully from the Floating Cells. Something certainly emboldened someone." The final sentence was suffused with sarcasm.
"I would have told Father not to trust Walder Frey, if he had bothered to ask. But if we can't count on-"
"I'll handle him."
"How?"
"Even now, I'm not as helpless as you seem to think." A cool breeze rippled the drapes and she extended her leg to catch it, toes arching back appreciatively. "I'll handle him. You handle the Blackfish."
He scoffed. "I don't see how you can be so calm about all this. You'll stand trial soon and you're asking me to leave you alone? I need to be here for you."
"It will be a trial by combat. I have the Mountain."
Jaime had no answer to that, much as he struggled to find one. He had seen enough of... whatever the fuck it was Qyburn had turned their family champion into. A trial by combat against it was better than an official pardon from their son.
Cersei continued, "Once the Faith Militant have no more claim on me, I'll be free to go where I need to go, do what I need to do. Where I need you is at the head of our army, where Father knew you belonged." She rose and stalked slowly toward him. "Show our men where their loyalties belong, show them what Lannisters are. Take back their confidence in our name. And take that stupid little castle back because it's ours and because you can."
Her arms wrapped around his shoulders and his responded by circling her waist. "They have no idea how strong they've made us, all the biting and clawing vermin. They have no idea what we're capable of."
"The pride and the prey," he murmured. For the first time in weeks, he felt confident enough to lean in. She didn't move away. "Fuck everyone who isn't us."
The warmth of her breath puffed into his ear canal, stuttering with the quaver that crept into her voice. "Yes. Believe me, I am anything but calm about all of this. But I promise that when you come back, we will bring a reckoning to everyone, everyone, who's taken our children, our parents, our birthright."
Jaime felt the queasy thrill he always did as his sister's lips touched his. After several seconds, Cersei pulled away and returned to her chair. "You'd best get to bed early. You need your strength."
"Why did they send it to you?"
"Send what?"
"Riverrun sent the letter to you. Not the Hand. Not the King."
"They want to tear us apart, of course, even as they're depriving us of allies. It won't work, though, will it?" She lifted her goblet to him in an intimation of a toast. "You're going to make the walls they hide behind the slab on their tomb."