Please note that the rating has changed to M.

Sansa had scarcely read the raven scroll informing her of the Karstarks' betrayal before the black cloaks had broken her door down and seized her; roaring that the king wished to see her and dragging her from her chambers so quickly that her feet had hardly seemed to touch the ground. She had screamed, of course, and she had protested. But then she had seen the bodies of her own guards lying outside her door with their throats cut, and her struggles had ceased while her heart had thundered madly in her chest, and the empty space at her waist where she usually kept her dagger had howled like an abyss.

I will die today.

The knowledge hit her like a hammer to the chest, and covered her body in a thin sheen of sweat that seemed to awaken the red vaults of the corridors above her and place her face-to-face with blood newly-spilled; her blood. And she thought of the events of the past few days, and of Aegon's violet eyes that had grown darker and darker, and madder and madder, and the hammer hit her again, hard.

I will die today.

But she flung the premonition away from her, along with everything else that she could not see, or touch. If her fate was fixed, it was fixed; and screaming and crying about it would achieve nothing.

Not that she wouldn't try her utmost to live, of course. Aegon was transparent, weak and vulnerable, and she would weep, wheedle, flatter, and if necessary, fuck, to assure her continued existence.

The thought almost made Sansa laugh aloud.

Fuck, little bird. Fuck for your life.

She hardly thought a little more would make much difference to her; not after four solid days of opening her legs, closing her eyes and pretending to enjoy herself while Aegon moaned and grunted above her screaming her sister's name. It happened so often now that it wasn't even funny anymore.

Of course fucking hadn't been the only thing that she had done since the wedding; try as Aegon might to keep her on her back day and night. She had also done plenty of seething; unable to believe that her knifeman, whom she had once seen impale a spider at twenty feet, had hit Daenerys in the thigh instead of the throat, that her Northmen hadn't carried out her orders and killed every fucking Frey that had been invited to the wedding, that the ineffectual, bloodthirsty cretins hadn't even managed to kill Ser Jaime; the smallest, least important part of the scheme, but one that she cherished nonetheless. She had also spent rather a lot of time praying; night and day, wherever she went, whatever she did: praying to the old gods and the new that Daenerys would die of her injury; that that at least would be done despite her wretched sister's interference; that Daenerys would die, and the North would be free.

She had only been praying for two days when the ravens had arrived.

The raven scrolls had made several declarations, each more disastrous than the next. They had declared that Aegon was neither a true king nor a true Targaryen, but the son of an overly-ambitious Pentoshi magister and a lady descending directly from the last Blackfyre pretenders. They had declared that the wedding massacre had been orchestrated in order to end the life of the true queen and to rob her of the Northern half of her kingdom. And finally, they had called upon all true men to come to Queen Daenerys at Dragonstone, to declare their loyalty and to pledge troops in the war that was to come.

Aegon had promptly lost his mind, and had wasted a great deal of time and soap beheading every person that failed to posit a reasonable hypothesis as to how Daenerys could possibly have gotten to Dragonstone so quickly, before a declaration of war had arrived from Daenerys herself; declaring herself to be in excellent health, in possession of both Rhaegal and Viserion, and demanding that Aegon give up the throne before she returned to burn the rest of King's Landing to the ground.

The declaration's tedious (if typical) Targaryen raving about fire and blood, as well as its incendiary use of the words 'Blackfyre pretenders' in relation to the king, had caused mass panic and mass chatter, but so few defections that Daenerys' threats had scarcely seemed worthy of the paper they were written on. Until these idiotic, traitorous, mindless Karstarks had gotten it into their heads to entertain delusions of independence.

Everything will fall to pieces after this; no matter what I say. A Northern House declaring for Daenerys will make people think again, and thinking is the last thing that Aegon (or I) wish to encourage.

As the guards knocked on Aegon's chamber door, Arya came to Sansa's mind: awkward, stammering and graceless, as she had appeared on the morning of the wedding. Sansa knew now that at least a part of that awkwardness had been guilt – recognisable only now, only after the fact – and she wondered, briefly, if Arya had really fucked Ser Jaime, as Aegon constantly loved to claim, or if it had been something more innocent than that. And as she was dragged into the chamber, and thrown to her knees before Aegon, Sansa looked up at her king and saw his eyes; saw the spiteful twist in his lip and the face marked by a thousand imagined wrongs, and somehow, she knew it was the latter.

Run, little sister, she thought, wherever you are, run for your life and do not ever come back.

'Why?' Aegon was demanding with a maddening air of offended righteousness, 'why would you betray me in this way? Have I not given you everything you wanted; have I not fucked you well enough; WHY?'

'I knew nothing – '

Sansa screamed in shock and pain as he struck her brutally across the face. Blood began to pour from her torn lip and to dribble down her chin; she turned her head back towards her king and glared defiantly and fearlessly up at him; and in that moment it was not Aegon Targaryen glaring down at her with vicious violet eyes, but Joffrey: the mad child who had become king.

No one will do that to me again, Sansa thought, NO ONE, and as Aegon turned away from her to remove something from the table, she felt wolf blood grip her and her nails digging into her palms; 'calm yourself, sweetling,' Petyr used to whisper, sweet Petyr; his lips brushing her ear as her chest heaved in anger, 'or I shall have to punish you.'

But her anger was pulsing through her veins and paralysing her, and Petyr's words were dissolving; fading into the fury. And when Aegon turned around once more and approached her; dangling a jar of wildfire before her eyes, her heart stopped in her chest, and her anger was cut off, suddenly and brutally, from its own lifeblood.

'Do you know what this is, Lady Sansa?' Aegon purred.

The very sight of it called up visions of a Southern sky turned green, purple and red by a bridge of burning ships; of the smell of wine and fear as her fingers touched the Hound's face and the Hound's fingers closed around her throat; his grip lessening slightly as he bent slowly over to kiss her.

I should have gone with him, she told herself, herself as she had been then, so much might have been different had I gone with him –

'Drink it,' Aegon commanded, his tongue seeming to lap the words up like wine; his tone forceful, breathless…aroused.

I will die today.

Sansa vainly tried to push the fear and the revulsion away from her.

Just think. Think. THINK.

'The Karstarks will be punished, my king,' Sansa gravely declared, looking deep into Aegon's eyes and willing the truth to shine through hers, stop trembling, stop it, stop, 'on my honour as a Stark, they will be punished –'

'Drink. It,' Aegon spat; his face red with anticipation, his silver hair dishevelled and the eyes that she had gazed into a thousand times bright with excitement, anger, madness –

Reason with him.

'Why would I dare remain at court if I had betrayed my own king?' Sansa scoffed.

'DRINK IT!' Aegon screeched; pressing the jar against her cheek as an involuntary scream of terror escaped her, and made the shame in Sansa's chest burn almost as badly as the fear.

Cry.

Tears began to stream softly down her face and to choke up from the depths of her throat. Some of them were even real as she felt the liquid dance within the jar; the threat licking grotesquely at her face like the tongue of a cat.

Aegon was laughing at her, and spitting.

'Tears will not save you, traitorous whore, now DRINK!'

The tears were hot on her cheeks and the jar was terrifyingly cool, and she was weeping and pleading like a maiden in a song while clutching Aegon's knees like the basest of bed slaves.

'I do not weep to save myself, sweet king,' Sansa whimpered, 'I weep for the dishonour caused to your name. I weep that the Karstarks have betrayed our cause and called your wife the true queen. My son Eddard is their liege lord. Give me leave to bring them to justice in his name. Give me leave to execute such a vengeance that Castamere will be forgotten in the wake of it. And when my work is done – then let me consign myself to fire; with the knowledge that I have done my duty.'

She could only see Aegon's knees now; the rest of her vision obscured by her tears, by her petrifying fear, and by the menacing weight of death against her face; and she thought of Eddard, far away at the Eyrie, and clung to the memory of him like hope; her fierce little warrior who was not Harrold's at all, but Petyr's…and hers.

I will debase myself in far worse ways than this if it means that Eddard will live, she thought desperately; clasping Aegon's knees and remembering her boy's face, his laugh, his frown, if I die, he dies too, I will not die today…

And Aegon's hand was touching her shoulder, softly, gently, and her heart was leaping with hope as he raised her to her feet and kissed her…and sinking again, and racing and limping with fear, with utter desolation at the savagery with which Aegon's lips met hers; as though he meant to hurt her with his mouth rather than give her pleasure with it.

Sansa closed her eyes tightly, buried her hands in Aegon's hair and let him do it, think of Eddard, think of your son, tears aren't a woman's only weapon, I will not die today, and as his teeth gnashed painfully at her cut lip, his tongue greedily lapping up her blood as though it were Dornish red, she tried desperately to fight the pain and the bile rising in her throat; to think of her son and nothing else, if I die, he dies too, I will not die today, I cannot die today; but Aegon's mouth was moving from her lips to her neck and biting her there; his teeth grazing her skin, think of your son, if I die, he dies too, I will not die today… and then blood was erupting from the flesh of her neck, and she was screaming.

Aegon's arms were locking hard around her waist as her blood flowed into his mouth; he was biting deeper and deeper; and she was screaming and lashing out with all her strength as searing, horrific, unnatural pain burned through her think of your son, if I die, he dies too, I will not die today, I cannot die today, I will be damned if I let this son-of-a-whore kill my boy but her struggles were making no difference at all, and neither were her screams; she could feel him swallowing, swallowing, gods save us, what I have done, and Aegon was shrieking with laughter and delight as her blood burst out of her in a jet of crimson agony; drenching both of them in its radiance and wrapping her up in fear and death.

If I die, Eddard dies too, I will die today, I will die, Eddard, EDDARD

Aegon's teeth tore out of her neck. Her blood was red on his lips as he smiled at her. She had no screams left and no voice; her words croaking out of her; her knees failing, as she felt herself beginning to bleed out.

Aegon was standing over her; still smiling his red smile. Blood was staining his silver hair and running down his face like raindrops. He raised the jar of wildfire slowly above her head and upended it.

'Eddard,' Sansa murmured, 'Eddard.'

A grotesque smile was the last thing she saw: a smile, and the flames.