Sansa's seat in the Great Hall should have remained empty and unowned. All those who should be sat there were gone—dead. It was Arya's now. The new Lady of Winterfell. But they could have used that fucking chair as kindling for all she cared.

Arya was supposed to be sitting between Jon and Daenerys presiding at the high table while the survivors of the Long Night reveled with laughter and cheers. She waited in Luwin's turret instead, where the kingslayer sat vigil for his brother.

The so-called maester from Dreadfort saved the Imp's arm from amputation at the king slayer's insistence, but even Arya knew Tyrion would never fully regain use of it. Should he survive, he'd be lucky to even take a book off a shelf without agony screaming through his ruined limb.

Ser Brienne also waited in the tower. She watched the kingslayer with an unbroken stare—if only to avoid making eye contact with Arya. If it was shame that turned the knight's gaze whenever Arya looked at her, then Arya thought it shame well-deserved. How many times now had the woman sworn to protect Sansa only to fail at every turn?

Earlier, just after dawn, the Imp had regained consciousness and even spoke a few words before slipping back under poppy-laced slumber. The maester from Dreadfort announced Tyrion would wake again and that is what drew Arya to the Imp's bedside.

Tyrion groaned and stirred late into the night and Jaime Lannister was quick to move to his brother's side.

"Jaime," the Imp said when he opened his eyes. His voice cracked and drowsy.

"Brother."

"I assume we won—else I'd be burning in one of several hells right now."

"We won," the kingslayer assured the Imp.

"Wonderful news."

Tyrion's gaze moved around the room. It glided over then dismissed the maester before it moved to Ser Brienne for a moment and then finally landed on Arya.

"How may I be of service, Lady Stark?"

"You're supposed to be smart. You already know what I want from you."

The Imp's mouth tightened, and Arya saw from the way the muscles around his eyes twitched and how the tendons in his neck tensed Tyrion struggled not to look away.

"So clever I did not think it unwise to shelter unarmed women and children in a bloody crypt."

Arya wasn't interested in Tyrion's lamentations on his failings, which were legion she had no doubt. Arya wanted to know how her sister died, and if the Imp did anything other than spout clever phrases to stop it from happening.

"Save your regrets, tell me how my sister died down there."

The kingslayer turned and glowered at her, his bearded face was gray as ash, bruised and scraped. Most of the Night's survivors had similar injuries, but few managed to survive worse.

"Now is not the time. He's hurt and needs—"

"It's alright, Jaime."

Tyrion winced when he tried to shift his position on the bed, and Arya guessed it was the poppy that kept him from barking as he jostled his wounded arm.

"After the dead punched their way out of the tombs, the slaughter began. It was chaos at first, but everyone who could clutch an obsidian blade began to fight back once the surprise wore off. Your sister and I included. We even managed to beat them back—for a time."

The Imp coughed. It sounded dry as sand and the kingslayer quickly raised a cup of some liquid to his brother's lips. After Tyrion swallowed, he continued.

"The wights had been attacking like wild beasts without rhyme or reason. Simply attacking whatever moved. And whoever screamed. They were without weapons, so it was simple enough to fend them off, only the fear they inspired made them a threat. I… I thought we might survive the night yet.

"Then the wights weren't so mindless. I first took notice when one wight, more dust, bones, and torn cloth than solid flesh, ran past me to reach S-Sansa. I plunged my knife in its back and thought perhaps it ignored me because it saw her as the bigger threat. She'd felled nearly two dozen wights to my six. But soon more and more of them began ignoring the others in Crypt and charged at your sister. I don't think she realized—I shouted to warn her—but she was overwhelmed in moments."

Tears welled in the Imp's eyes and his dry and torn lips began to tremble.

"She screamed and I stabbed, and I stabbed, but for every wight I felled another took its fallen brethren's place. I kept stabbing and screaming, stabbing, and screaming, trying to reach her until my knife fell to the ground. I didn't understand why at first. When I moved to retrieve it, I was knocked to the floor by more wights rushing to join the swarm already around Sansa. When I tried to sit up my arm wouldn't move. Then I saw what was left: A ruin of blood and bone.

"But Sansa was still screaming. Still fighting. I crawled back to where they crowded around her and picked up my fallen blade with my working hand... I had to reach her! To-to save h-her…"

Tyrion closed his eyes and the kingslayer gently placed his good hand on his brother's good shoulder. When the Imp remained still and quiet, Arya felt a wave of irritation at the thought he'd fallen senseless. She'd go over and slap him awake if he did not start talking again.

If the kingslayer got in the way…

Arya still remembered Jory, Fat Tom, Wyl, and Heward. She remembered them all. Should the kingslayer make a nuisance of himself, Arya was more than ready to collect on the debt he and every Lannister still alive owed her family.

"Sansa stopped screaming. So suddenly, as if she'd never made any sound at all," the Imp said, his eyes were closed but tears still flowed down his cheeks and into his thick, wiry bread. "Then the wights stopped too. Some fell to piles of bones and dust—others just fell whole to the ground."

Tyrion opened his eyes and looked at Arya.

"I pulled their remains off her hoping—praying she yet lived." Tyrion somehow managed to raise his working arm and stared at his hand and the pain in his eyes was raw and manifested. It rolled off the dwarf as heat roiled from a roaring fire.

"I tried to fix her, I did, but she—she was gone." Tyrion squeezed his hand into a fist and looked at Arya once more. "They targeted her. Hunted her. I don't know why, but they did. The dead ignored all else just to kill her."

The Imp lowered his hand and the strength he brought to bear to speak suddenly left him. The tension on his body relaxed and his eyes fluttered closed. Not even ten seconds later, Tyrion was deeply slumbered.

The kingslayer gently brushed his good hand against his brother's pale brow.

"Did you get what you wanted?" the Lannister said softly so as not to wake Tyrion. The tone in his voice made it clear she was done with his brother whatever her answer might be.

Arya did indeed get what she wanted from the Imp. She left the sick and the useless in the turret and went to find the one person in all the world who could answer the questions Tyrion's account of Sansa's death had raised.

Arya found Bran in the godswood. He sat in front of the godswood weirwood, blanketed in furs and a heavy black cloak. The snow on the ground around him was undisturbed, except for the tracks of the wheeled chair and Jon's boots, showing no one had come near him since the last snow.

Her brother was not alone in the wood. Guards stood nearby to protect the Lord of Winterfell, but none of them were from before the war. Arya did not know them and did not trust them, but Sansa took them in and gave them posts. They'd have to do for now.

"Arya," Bran hailed, though there was nothing hearty in the greeting.

He remained ever cold and always distant. He was a stranger now—a stranger wearing Brandon Stark's skin. Arya saw nothing of the little brother she grew up with when she looked into his eyes.

Jon and I are all that's left now.

The loss of Sansa only made that truth a harsher thing to bear.

Arya shrugged away the thought because the ache it brought was useless. Arya won't let herself drown in her loss. She decided long ago death, loss, and vengeance are the only true things in the world and should not be feared.

Everything else is stories and songs meant to comfort children. Arya had no need of such things. Her childhood died with her Father. It was buried beneath the blood and bones of her Mother, brothers… And her sister.

"Tyrion said after the dead rose in the Crypts, they hunted Sansa."

Bran's eyes almost gleam with interest. They almost see her. Then they go flat and far away, and he looks straight through Arya again.

"Yes. That makes sense."

Arya waited for Bran to continue only to see him turn away from her and stare at the trunk of the weirwood. Arya dashed forward and grabbed Bran by his shoulder just before his eyes filmed over white as the weirwood bark. He looked at her without surprise or irritation—his face was blank of any expression Arya's senses could detect.

"How does our sister murdered over everyone else down there make sense?" Arya asked him.

She didn't expect Bran to answer, so strong was the feeling she had that he did not care about what happened in this world anymore. Nor care at all for anyone who ever lived in it. But Bran did answer Arya, to her great surprise.

"There were only two possible futures open to the Night King when Theon did not run: Jon would come to destroy him, or you would. There was no path he could see where he won."

Bran paused and turned his head to look up at the branches of the weirwood still covered in its blood-red leaves despite the winter season.

"So, he chose his demise. One that, at the very least, meant my enduring failure."

"I don't—"

"He commanded his dead dragon to hold Jon and kill him—though there was only a small chance of that happening. He could not have his dragon attack me in the godswood, here I am at my strongest. I would have taken control of it had it come any closer."

Bran looked at Arya and a smile just barely touched his lips.

"But there was nothing he could do to stop you. You are too quick and shrouded dark in the Stranger's cloak."

"What—"

"Life is brightness in the dark, and it walks a lone path. It ever seeks more life, even beyond its ending. Death walks all paths and waits at the end of all paths. The Night King could see you, the instrument to bring about his end, but he saw you everywhere. Everywhen. And thus, saw no one at all."

In all of Bran's riddle of words, only two made any sense to Arya. They made her breath catch and her heart thunder in her chest.

"What are you saying?" she asked as fear thrilled up her spine.

Bran smiled fully.

Her brother's lips were wide and lush and pink. They should have promised happy, generous smiles and warm summer kisses. But the smile he gave Arya now was thin, bloodless, and most of all, cruel.

"I'm saying, you saved the world, Arya."

From what?

The question sat chained on Arya's tongue, but she could not set it free. She, who killed grown men, dangerous men, with stunning ease. She who brought a house to the brink of extinction with a knife and a vial of poison, and then strolled away triumphant without a shred of fear.

Now she hesitated to ask one easy question—too terrified the answer wasn't that she saved the world from the dead and endless winter, but something else she dares not name.

"His defeat assured the Night King found a lesser victory acceptable."

"Your failure."

Bran's smile faded to nothing.

"Yes. Now the future belongs to you. And to Jon. You will see in time. Soon."

"You still have not said why our sister needed to die."

"In part, to still her tongue."

"That is not an answer!"

"Very soon you will have the answers you seek and more. Come tomorrow morn."

Bran turned his blank stare back to the weirwood then his eyes turned milky white, and he was gone. To where, Arya knew not, only that it was not here with her. Arya had begun to think her brother was never here at all.