"I don't want to do this."
The words came out by a voice no longer resembling my own. It was distant, much like the scene around me - my conscience trying to wash away the terror into a familiar calm, but I had never been able to escape his voice.
"That's just it, little Ghost. You don't have to do it. That wouldn't be a very fair game now, would it? Give poor Allys a chance!" Allys sobbed hysterical nonsense into the hand that now firmly clasped her cheeks, but he didn't pause for breath, crazed eyes only burning more furiously into my own. "There is one knife. That knife will take a life tonight. It certainly won't be mine. It is up to you both who walks out of here with their heart still beating." Ramsay were becoming more unhinged by the second, the blade in his hand reluctantly clattering to the floor between us. Allys was thrown to the far corner of the room, but he did not watch to see her fall, fierce gaze still coming down on me like ships battered by the narrow sea; knocking the air from my lungs and into the current with its force.
"Go." He urged hastily, hands clasped together with childlike glee.
I could not stop staring at him in utter disbelief, my head shaking slowly in a silent refusal. My competitor decided she would not be so honourable.
A now unsurprisingly sober Allys moved with rapid precision towards the blade, snatching it from the cold floor and wavering it around clumsily in all directions. A once gentle face now hardening before my eyes, her voice accusing as she curled a lip back in disgust. "Is this your idea of fun, you dog? You force him to bring you gifts to slaughter in return for fucking him? Even whores ask less of men!"
The statement, (though entirely untrue,) had caused some sort of rise in my chest; hackles raising in response. She thought I had asked for this? How Ramsay had shared an evening with such moronic company I could not comprehend. No wonder he had chosen her as a target.
"Come on now, Ghost. Even Allys knows that only one of you is walking out of this room. If the Lady has the belly to hold a dagger to your throat are you really going to just stand there and wait for your demise?" Ramsay's mocking did nothing to calm unsteady nerves. Without thinking about it I caught sight of the iron cup to my right. Not a blade, but heavy enough to knock one out of her hand. Ramsay unsheathed his sword impatiently and prodded encouragingly against my opponent's temple. "I'm bored. If I don't see blood on my furs by the time I count to five one of you is going to pay for it. One."
Allys locked eyes with me. Don't do this.
"Two."
I could visibly see her envisioning the blade running across my throat, sweat-slicked hands shaking as they gripped its handle.
"Three." Steady hands ground the tip of his sword against her ashen face.
Ramsay never made it to five. The sharp steel urging her forward was all it took for Allys to erupt from her stupor and into a frenzied attack. A scream erupted into the air like a war cry and she charged like a knight in battle, one arm driving the knife forward towards my torso. Caught off guard I could only react on impulse; the cup had reached my hand and swang heavily against her temple with a loud thunk.
She stumbled, but did not slow as she grasped at fabric hugging my unprotected shoulders and cast the blade down upon my skin. I cried out and grappled with her for a more powerful position, hands knotting firmly in her hair and ripping it from the scalp. Ramsay had begun to cheer, his delighted shouts only amplifying the chaos erupting from the room. Allys never hesitated or spared my skin from the touch of the blade, seeming to come harder and stronger with every collision of steel to supple flesh. Within moments she was on top of me, two hands driving the blade towards my throat, glistening white teeth gritted angrily in her anguish. Adrenaline fuelled what little strength I had left in my bones and kept the weapon at arms length, calling hopelessly to Ramsay to stop this nightmare.
Ramsay had become as poisonous as the creatures beyond the wall as he foretold what my future may hold. With tone dripping in disdain he hissed about the cell within the walls of the Castle; how it ached for my return and howled longingly in the night like starving wolves at the promise of my arrival.
My lord's words spat with vehement down at my pitiful demise, but vicious threats laced with venom began to pump rapidly into my bloodstream, causing yet another fissure to tear within an already fractured mind. The cloud of hysteria that dispersed from the split distorted every layer of sickness and dread that had previously burrowed its way down to my core; creating something new. Something ungodly. Fury swelled up from my belly and into now corrupted lungs; a foul rage white hot and seething steamed from my pores and trampled out moral high ground to ashes in its wake. I would not return to the abyss; I would not let this already weakening women spit down on me as so many others had done before. I don't doubt she thought any more or killing me than she would swatting a fly at one of her lavish feasts. Yet I had tried to defy him to spare her? Bitter outrage curled at my lip as the unholy fire ravaged the last of my resolve. Mongrel or not - I had suffered enough.
Allys began to waver in her certainty, strength now turning to nothing more than laboured breathing and a once determined gaze becoming hesitant in her near failure. As she faltered in a now meek attack I regained the upper hand with haste, knees grinding her pinned arms into the gravel below as the blade clattered to the floor. I felt depraved in my desperation, once futile attempts to dominate the bloodsport becoming a vicious onslaught as tight fists bore down on her unjaded skin with all of the force of the seven kingdoms and its injustice combined. My assault became heavy and unyielding; the bitter poison in my veins seeping out with every slap, kick and blow I unfoiled against her defeated body. Ramsay was a distant roar in the background as my descent on Allys neared it's end - knuckles split and raw from the impact of her skull. Though my lips moved I no longer recognised the animal that screamed down at it's quarry. Shallow breathing indicated she lived. The blood that gargled in her throat indicated it would not remain that way for long.
The actuality of my assault finally became clear and crisp under the candle light - wild thoughts becoming lucid once more. As if struck by a plank of driftwood in the open sea I floated lazily above girl that lay dying between my shaking arms; wobbling from the force expelled from them mere moments ago. Ramsay had spoke often of the wonders of watching someone fall into deaths embrace. I had never understood until now. The fascination with the blood that steadily streamed to standstill on ashen skin.
Allys' eyes though striking even in her death were now sunken in her unrecognisable face, becoming lost amongst purple bruises that blossomed on no longer rosy cheeks. I tilted my head curiously as a horrified stare became vacant and empty. Death had always been portrayed as peaceful, but this close it was as warring as the events that led you to it. I let the familiar calm pull me under, forcing back a dry heave as my stomach threatened to add to the already rotten scene.
A slow clap broke the silence that had settled in the air, echoed only by the sounds of Allys drowning in her own blood. An arm coated in loose fabric and firm muscle snaked around my waist and I span wildly in his arms. A familiar firm grasp caught my chin and steadied splintered nerves. I didn't want to pull away.
Ramsay loomed above with a rare smile warping usually hostile features that now glowed with pride - an expression that mimicked the same look a mother may bestow upon the miracle that were her offspring. Perhaps Ramsay perceived me as such a creation.
"That was truly beautiful, little Ghost. Bravo."