Here is a nice long chapter I hope my readers enjoy and it marks a few milestones in the fic:

The total word count for the story is over 100,000! It's as long as a real novel. I never thought I would get here . . . and if you've read this far with me, thank you!

This chapter has the third and final "song" for Sansa and Sandor. I've wondered if discerning readers would notice that "A Song for Sansa and Sandor" isn't just the fic itself, but also that every song in the story relates to them? My favorite is still "Prince Aemon the Dragonknight" from Chapter 3 :)

Also there is some fan art for Chapter 34 you can see at instagram dot com /p/By2rcYfAUC-/

CHAPTER 44

SANSA

The snow melted, the ground turned muddy, and snowdrops sprouted and dropped their petals to the changing earth. Throughout the North people rejoiced, singing "Spring has come!" But Sansa cautioned everyone. Winter is not over yet.

She could not say how she knew, but she did—it was a false spring, like the one during the tournament her father and his siblings attended at Harrenhal with the Knight of the Laughing Tree. Somehow the world was warmer, but it was a surface-warmth, like warming your hands in front of a fireplace while snow fell outside. She was certain when she prayed in front of the heart tree—there was still a bones-deep chill in the North, lurking beneath the land's skin with a vengeful mood. The cold would battle whatever-it-was that had stolen a year of winter, end this heatwave, and chill her people's very hearth-fires in retribution.

Yet Sansa could not convince the people about it. The world went on as if spring had come. Winterfell was to be the host of a great fair. It was hardly her own idea—in fact, it was hardly anyone's idea—but with the roads clear of snow people from all over sought to visit her court. Lords she had not seen since defeating the Boltons, and some she had never met, were eager to come and rekindle alliances with House Stark. Safe smallfolk, who had never come to Wintertown, wanted to see for themselves the castle that had provided shelter for friends and relatives near-perished. Traders from all regions were hungry for the profit that could be wrought from meeting one another in a central hub. And everyone was curious to see Sansa—the young princess of winter who had brought her house from ruin to prosperity while much of Westeros buckled under Queen Cersei's incompetence.

Not only to see me… Sansa's eyes fell to the pile of letters on her desk. One had been squatting there unresolved since its arrival, and she picked it up to read it again for what must have been the hundredth time. It caused an unrelenting knot in her stomach.

My dearest Sansa Stark,

It does feel quite strange to address you as such, though I imagine meeting you again will feel stranger still. I never imagined that the beautiful and shy girl I was once betrothed to is the true Princess of the North. You have made a name for yourself that smallfolk breathe with reverence and lords with praise. Despite the time and distance that has passed between us, I hope that you consider me a friend.

Perhaps I should not be so astonished at your true identity, for I was once a bastard myself. I never expected to become Lord of the Eyrie, but so the wheel of fortune turns. You are unique among us nobles for having returned yourself to prominence after fate demeaned you, and I hope you forgive my lapse at formality in this letter. I feel that we already know each other, regardless of our change in station.

As you are well aware the situation in the South is dour, but the Vale maintains autonomy from our region's isolation. Yours has enjoyed the same benefit, but with winter breaking your castle will no longer be protected on all sides by snow. Undoubtedly, we have both enjoyed our freedoms, but perhaps with the dawn of spring we would do well to consider the peace that Westeros might achieve through the union of our kingdoms?

I will not ask such a promise of you through letters, and I am sure you have many other suitors with whom I must compete. I only ask that you receive me during the month of your spring fair. The trading has been good between our kingdoms, and many of my lords and merchants are ardent to attend. If you would grant us safe passage through your kingdom, you and I could discuss our terms in person. Perhaps the wheel of fortune will turn to favor our engagement once again?

Yours,

Harold Hardyng

She crumpled the letter—as she had crumpled it dozens of times before, so that it was now a wrinkled mass that could not be hidden between other papers and stuck out sorely wherever she tried to place it on the desk. As the snow melted and formed swift-running streams, so reality raced to meet her. Highborn ladies married. She had been betrothed to Joffrey since before she even came of age, then forced to marry Tyrion, and now must choose a husband to be Lord of Winterfell.

She did not want to choose Harry. She had only ever loved and chosen Sandor. But the life they had made together, safe inside this winter fortress, was slipping through her fingers like the melting snow. How could she keep her relationship with him on the world stage? She had begun to nurse the delusion of Sandor playing the part of the devoted knight, loyally waiting on his lady despite the presence of her husband, their secret and tortured romance the fodder for songs with themes of temptation and fidelity. After all, if she had married Joffrey, weren't those the parts they were destined to play? But Sandor no longer lived as the man who had been Cersei's kicked dog. He would not stand by as she went to another man's bed. And what of their little ones, safe for now among Winterfell's doting residents? It was one thing for a man to have bastard children—it was something else entirely for a woman. Sansa's heart sank, though her pulse quickened, and she sank to her chair, dizzy.

The door swung open and Jeyne came in holding the baby, Boglarka toddling afore them. Bogie was clearly Sandor's daughter—already big enough to pass for a year or two older, long strong limbs, straight black hair, and cool gray eyes bright and curious. She loved to stack blocks into a tower taller than herself and wrestle in the dirt with puppies. Faolan, though still a babe, looked more like Sansa every day. He had curly red hair and deep blue eyes, but Sansa wondered if he hadn't inherited too much of his father's brooding nature, since he was a quiet baby who looked skeptically at the world around him. The resemblance was sadly unfortunate. While Boglarka could well be Sandor's natural daughter on some unacknowledged woman, brought upstairs to live with her father and the privileges he could afford her, Sansa could not have what appeared to be her own bastard running around Winterfell.

"Mami!" Bogie ran forward and hugged her around the legs, already dressed in a warm fur-lined frock protected by a stained wadmal apron. Sansa cooed over her and then took the baby for the few precious minutes they had in the mornings. I could send him away to my uncle and Val, she considered. He could pass for their child. But she rued the plan as soon as she thought it. That will be a fine day, when a Stark's firstborn son is sent to the Dreadfort.

Sandor came in and Bogie flung herself at him with such a force that Sansa expected her to bounce off, but she stuck, and Sandor lifted her up and kissed her. Then he leaned down to kiss her mother, and Sansa wished that they could stay like this, in these small tower rooms, forever. But they couldn't. After something near to a tantrum, Bogie agreed to go to school if Sandor carried her, and Sansa handed the baby back to its wet nurse. Jeyne dressed Sansa, fastening her regal silver cloak around her shoulders. Dismissed of her family, Sansa could transform into the maiden princess the outside world believed her to be.

Winterfell was bustling and Wintertown, outside its walls, aspired to become a small city. Traders set up impressive stalls and a large stage dominated the yard with the ambition of featuring an elaborate play. Sansa managed to delegate most of the logistical tasks, but her court was overrun with people seeking her help to mitigate disputes, supply favors, grant permissions, and prioritize. Her head was always spinning.

Today, a toothless matriarch with a hodge-podge dozen smallfolk clustered behind her came to beg a request. "Your Grace, the heat has caused the trees' blood to flow, and bottling it brought much wealth to Winterfell. But my family and I want to start a honeybee farm in the forest, if you would let us, near the crofters' village that's home to the sap-drainers."

Sansa pinched herself between the eyes. "I have said it time and again. Winter is not over. You would head into the forest, in winter, to raise bees?"

"We thought you might say that, Your Grace," she motioned to a boy in the group, who shyly approached Sansa with a bouquet of honeysuckle flowers. "If it's still winter, the bees don't know it. They're already marrying themselves to the trees. We brought you a gift," and she motioned to her family again, who rolled forward two carts overflowing with more of the flowers. "Picked from the forest. Since the bees are out there, we thought we might as well go out and farm honey."

Sansa sighed. She buried her nose in the bouquet and sniffed. They smell like lemons. "Very well," she relented, "But you must return to Wintertown at first frost." She instructed the servants to decorate the Great Hall with the flowers and then it was time for the daily feast. Dozens of smallfolk were ushered out as the castle's residents and visiting lords trickled in. They were followed by plates of cold sandwiches, bowls of fiddlehead soup, and pitchers of mead, all accompanied by musical strumming from Winterfell's new bard, Lyrian.

Lyrian had been the first of their Southron visitors, arriving just before the heatwave atop a loaded dogsled. He'd tumbled into Winterfell's yard and recovered himself by rolling into a curtsy, to the smallfolks' giggling delight. Sansa met his introductions coldly—he claimed to be a traveling bard from the south seeking inspiration, and Sansa was to be his new muse—but her heart melted when he brought out his fiddle and played her a lighthearted song she remembered from her days at the court in King's Landing, his fingers purple and frostbitten from the long journey. She gave him a hot bowl of soup and a room, and he'd entertained her ever since.

"He's a spy," Sandor told her that night. "Get rid of him."

"He's not a spy," Sansa scoffed, crossing her arms over the covers in the dark bedroom. But she wondered.

"He is. Hang him tomorrow or there'll be an 'accident' when I see him in the yard."

"Sandor! You'll do no such thing," she huffed. "You're just jealous."

"Hah! What need have I to be jealous of some skinny bard?"

"But I don't want to kill him," Sansa replied quietly. "I like the music."

"Then you'd do well to keep him as close as any prisoner. Watch where he sneaks off to, intercept his letters, be mindful what you say to him."

They spoke no more of it, and Sansa saw with malcontent that the singer was too interested in Winterfell's affairs. He asked pointed questions about the land's management and how many men Winterfell could field in the spring. But she had an easy solution for this recreant traitor—she would never let him leave. To his face, she lied easily—after our fair, before the weather turns cold again, you may take our songs to another kingdom.

Sansa sat the high table with her Maester and the visiting lords, animated in conversation while their retinues feasted below. Sandor joined them and she coyly piled sandwiches onto his plate. Lyrian finished a popular tune and the lords jovially engaged him. "Tell me," Wylis Manderly asked, "Will you sing our northern songs at the next court you visit?"

Lyrian's eyes met Sansa's for a moment, as he tuned his fiddle. "If Her Grace wishes so."

"Of course," Sansa nodded. "It would please me greatly for all the world to sing songs from the North." Their relationship had soured somewhat as Lyrian grew to expect that he was little more than a prisoner, but Sansa had no intention of admitting such to him.

Alys Karstark's black eyes glittered. "Wildling chants and women's laments we've much of, to be sure. But I wonder if this singer drew enough inspiration from his time at Winterfell to gift us with any original songs."

"Surely," Sansa agreed. "Lyrian is quite creative, and has come up with many tunes of his own invention."

He obliged to play one, a pleasant but short melody about ice and snow. When he was done Alys asked again, "I rather meant if he didn't have any about you. Usually a singer finds a muse in the person of his lady."

"Oh," Sansa blushed. "I don't know about that."

"Now that you mention it," Lyrian added, "I have been working on something for Your Grace."

"Really?"

"Naturally," he plucked a few strings and made his way to stand beside Sandor and Sansa. "Your restoration of the North is a tale already widely told. Certainly, it needs its own ballad to memorialize it."

"Let's hear it, then!" Wylis Manderly raised his glass in a toast. When the cheers died down the bard's enthusiastic strumming met his buttery rich voice, and he sang:

I sing a song of winter,
Of magic plots sinister.
The Boltons' reign
O'er northern thanes
Was ended by a killer.

Fair Lady Sansa, she was known,
Born a Stark but became a Stone.
After some years at court
She desired the North
And found a dog to take her home.

The night the Queen's chosen sat Winterfell's hall,
Cold ice and snow outside, a terrible squall,
The witch-princess Stark,
Fain egregious monarch,
Fought them with animals held in her thrall.

Ye have never seen such blood and gore
As spilled that night on the Great Hall's floor!
Caught thus unaware,
Not a man did she spare,
That wanton, bloodthirsty whore!

Betrothed once to a great prince,
No lord could now be convinced
To take to bed
This gorgeous redhead
With her vile and treacherous tricks.

But morals mean nothing to monsters,
And dogs know nothing of honor.
She chanted a spell of Northern lore,
Then howled and growled and walked on all fours,
Turned wolf, so her dog could mount her—

Sansa felt herself grow redder throughout the bawdy song, but it was Sandor who was furious. In that moment his hand was around the singer's throat. Lyrian's last syllable came out as pitiful squeak as his windpipe was crushed. His fiddle hit the ground with a resonant twang and the singer's legs kicked out like two fish flopping on a riverbank. Three men—Manderly, the Maester, and Karstark's shield—were on Sandor, but they could not pull him off. Lyrian wet himself, the stain spreading over his crotch and the hot smell of urine rose over the table.

"Stop!" Sansa yelled. Sandor roughly threw the singer to the floor. The room clamored around them—exclamations from ladies shocked by the violence, the men's raucous cursing, and Lyrian's pinched wheezing as he struggled to draw breath. "Maester, see to this man. Sandor, with me!"

They slipped out the back of the Hall and Sansa marched purposefully to the solar, so they could be alone. Sandor easily kept pace with her quick stride and Sansa, doubtless that he had followed her, turned on him as soon as the door shut.

"Sandor, what's wrong with you! You killed that man."

"He'll live."

"He's as good as dead, and you know it!" Anxious, she paced to the end of the hallway before wheeling around again. "What are people going to think of us now?"

"Whatever they like. What they've always thought."

"You're not helping! It was just words—a stupid song. You shouldn't have lashed out at him!"

"And what would you have me do? Listen to it? You, who cares so much about what others think. You want that singer going around with that on his lips? Then what will people think of you?"

"Why does it matter what people say?" Sansa asked, her heart sinking. "I've told you before, the truth is what's between the two of us."

"A fine fairy tale you tell yourself. That we can go on without anyone knowing or telling others. I should have killed that singer the day he got here, like I wanted to, and I'll bash his fucking head in if he isn't dead yet!"

She said nothing before turning her head, away from him, away from his striking anger. He is right. She took a few shuffling steps to the tower window where she could see into the yard. So many people, bustling below. Did they know about her secret life and bastard children? Was it a scandal, or a romance? Did they debate, in hushed tones, what would happen to them if she failed carry on her thousands-year-old bloodline?

"Sansa, forgive how I speak. Know what I mean by it." Sandor crossed the room and pulled her around to face him, caressing her face with his rough, callused hands. "Let me fight for you," he said, pressing his forehead against hers. "I'll protect you always and kill any man who besmirches your honor."

My Dragonknight. She recalled the song she once sang of how Prince Aemon defended his queen, Naerys. Sansa squeezed her eyelids closed, tears filling up behind them.

"And any man who wishes to wed you," he continued, his voice husky, "Ask him to prove his worth against me, and we'll duel. You'll be mine alone, forever."

Opening her eyes, the tears spilled out. "I . . . can't . . ." she whispered, her eyes darting unbidden to the papers on her desk.

Sandor stepped back from her, plainly disappointed. He too has thought on what parts we could play in this world. Too late she realized he was checking where her eyes had landed. He picked up the crumpled letter.

"Sandor—no—!" Sansa threw herself over the desk, but Sandor already had it. He ignored her, holding it over his head and squinting to read it. She jumped up and struggled vainly, but Sandor held it easily out of her reach.

He read much slower than she did, and it seemed an era passed as Sansa wrung her hands before making another wild leap to snatch it from him. But Sandor was so large, he had only to turn a little to avoid her completely. Finally, he came to the end and lowered the paper incredulously.

"Harold Hardyng is coming here?"

Sansa's body moved of its own accord—now is my chance!—and she ripped the letter from his hands. The victory felt immediately, resoundingly hollow. Sansa clutched the distressed shred of parchment in her thin, shaking fingers. She turned to Sandor and was struck, for a moment, at how different he looked—his eyes lighter than she had ever seen them, wild and somehow glassy. He was searching her face for something, some hint of an expression, but Sansa had nothing to offer him.

"What the fuck is this?" He seemed to her a being transformed by pain. "Were you going to tell me?"

Sansa trembled. "Yes."

"When?"

She looked stupidly down at the letter. Harry was already on his way and would be here within a few days at most. "I just . . . couldn't bring myself to do it."

"Seven bloody Hells." Sandor wiped his face with his hands. He turned and crossed the hallway to his room. Sansa cast the letter aside and scurried after him.

"Sandor, I'm not going to marry him! I promise." He stood in the doorway, seeming to observe his own room. "He's only coming here. It doesn't mean anything. I already planned to say no."

Sandor went to sit on his bed and buried his face in his hands. Then he groaned; a long, low sound like he'd been stabbed in the gut. Strange and unnatural, it caused all the hairs on the back of Sansa's neck to stand up. When he dropped his hands he had a crazed look in his eyes. "What the fuck are you thinking, inviting his whole fucking army up here! We don't have hardly any men, Sansa!"

"He's not bringing an army! Manderly gives him passage for just a token force." She regretted it as soon as she said it, for the explanation sounded like an excuse.

"I didn't bring you from the Eyrie so you could marry fucking Harry!"

Sansa shrank from his anger, unsettled by how enraged he sounded. But then her own anger rose up in response. "You knew I would have to get married! This isn't something I want." But she bit back on her tongue, determined to explain herself. "I can marry someone else. Later. Someone from the North—it would just be political—a boy, maybe—"

Sandor looked aghast, trying to work out what she just said. "Wait. Are there more letters like this?"

"Yes, but they don't mean anything!"

"From who?"

"From—from petty lords, and Littlefinger, and—"

"Gah!" He made another sound like a blade had twisted inside of him. "Ah, I am wroth with you now, Sansa . . . What was the fucking point of it all! You should have stayed at the Eyrie if you were going to do this!"

"I told you, I'm not going to!" She felt desperate and fell to her knees, but Sandor was not keen to it.

"You dragged me through so much bullshit for nothing!"

"No, Sandor. It isn't like that. Please! I—I won't marry, I'll—"

"I can't do this," he said, his throat scratchy and dry like that of a man dying of thirst. He buried his face in his hands and Sansa clung to him. When he brought them down it seemed to her that his whole face was wet. He looked around the room with wild and bright eyes. "I can't be here anymore." He got up and started throwing clothes into a bag.

"What? Sandor, no! What are you doing?"

"I'm leaving."

"You can't!" He took his pack and Sansa pulled against him ineffectually as he headed downstairs and made to cross the yard. Sansa, who had been crying after him all the while, was now aware of all the people that might look at them and see her distress. She steeled herself as best she could, but a few paused at the sight of her. Sandor's stride was always purposed, and no one suspected anything from him. Sansa was torn, trying to hide her feelings at the same time that she wanted to throw herself at his feet.

They made it to the barracks, where he grabbed his sword and armor. "Stop it. You can't do this," she begged, but he pointedly ignored her even though it seemed to take an age for him to equip himself. "Please, don't," she murmured, and continued to whisper to him out of earshot of the others. He headed to the stables to get his horse. She was red-faced and desperate, but anyone who noticed was polite enough to ignore it. "Please," she whispered as Sandor saddled Warrior, the words nothing more than breath on her lips. "Don't leave."

Astride his courser, he finally looked down at her, his expression as plain and cold as she had ever seen it. "Goodbye, Little Bird."

He kicked his black horse into a gallop and Sansa ran after them until the gate, where she stood alone.