Thank you to everyone who commented last chapter. I really, really appreciate it.

sarah0406: I was trying to think of someone way keep Corlin at least alive and I was really waffling on it for a while but I think that it was necessary. I'm the type of writer who only really likes payoff with equal parts misery.

Dame of the living dead: I'm so glad you liked it.

Jhessill: Hopefully in a good way?

Guest: Hope you like this new chapter as well!

Melmela: You give me some of the BEST compliments, I swear. I'm so happy that even after all this time my story still seems to have real stakes. Sometimes it's nice to have a fluff read but I think it's hard to have a 30 plus chapter fluff read.

Chapter 32: In Which a Woman Becomes a Monster

I didn't look away. I didn't look away when my vines tore through the frost-bitten grass like ravenous dogs finally released from their leash. I didn't look away when they crawled up Ramsay Bolton's legs, curling around his torso, his grin morphing into a scream. I didn't look away when they wound around his throat and pressed their way past his lips, his eyes bulging, face going purple as they made their way down into his chest cavity and tore him to pieces from the inside out.

Later they would write songs about me. They would say that I couldn't look away from my brother and sister, trapped in some macabre theater where only the Freys were truly playing. They would say that I sobbed, that I screamed and rent the earth, sprinkling oil and salt into the slug created by the gore left over from the Bolten men.

But the poets are all liars. They romanticize the vulgar, putting flowers on the depraved.

I didn't cry. I didn't salt the earth - the blood of the Boltons was enough to ruin any crops that would dare to grow on these lands ever again. I didn't feel one human emotion as I stared across the field. I looked upon all the savagery that I had unleashed. I looked on it blankly; my heart shriveled and gray inside my chest.

The mind plays tricks in these moments, the body a willing audience member to its performance. It told me at first that those weren't my siblings, that I was still asleep even though I hadn't felt sleep in nearly two days.

Then it revolted, the information tumbling around inside of me like a wild beast trying to claw its way out. Forget, a desperate, wild part of me screamed, hammering at the walls of my body. Please - get out - make it all be nothing - nothing at all -

I was trapped. Trapped in my own skin and bones, my brother's face - my brother's beautiful eyes - his smile - he had always been so proud of that smile, that hair. He had made brushed it off like he wasn't but I would catch him grinning at himself in mirrors or glass panes, working out just the right angle so that it felt like a sudden strike of lightning whenever he was truly happy. Like a reward that he gave out to all of the worshippers that came before her.

I had - I wanted -

"Willa - fuck - Willa, look at me." A scream rose inside of me, crashing against my organs like waves trapped inside of a mason jar. It heaved, waiting to be released, begging to be unleashed.

I swallowed it, somehow twisting it inside my own mind. I was screaming. I could hear myself in the desperate sobs of the men in front of me, could hear it in the terrified wails of babes and women and innocent men as my vines tore at the once-strong walls of the Dreadfort. Gray slabs splintered, hurled across the field, dirt and mangled meat perfuming the air as the twisting green crushed any sign of resistance.

The battlefield had gone quiet, a devastated hush falling over even Robb's army as we watched the true horror begin.

"Willa, you need to stop now." His words were hot against my temple, his arms tight around me. Like a prayer. Like he was begging me.

Or I could end it, a small, enraged voice whimpered. End them.

I blinked, all of the front exterior walls of the Dreadfort crashing away, brick and mortar turning to dust and crumbs. My vines reared, thick and pulsing with veins of unnatural mulberry. They waited, towering over the small little keep, the streets and stocks looking so… unimpressive now that the front was torn away like a children's toy house. I could see a woman screaming, her feet stumbling and giving away beneath her as she tried to run to some unknown exit. A trembling soldier was ushering some more into the main keep, tears streaming down his face as he was met face-to-face with something otherworldly. Something that he couldn't raise a sword to and cut away.

"This isn't who you are," Robb whispered into my hair. He had pulled me to his horse at some point, forced his men to make a retreat as we were forced to lay witness to my carnage. We cantered at the edge of his army, the men behind us quivering, pale and shivering as they looked from me to the disaster at hand.

"Mother of all," a man whispered, shaken, his eyes darting to the open hills that we had come from before he followed, knocking others aside to get as far away from the Dreadfort as possible. As far away from me.

More followed. More still fell to their knees, praying to the Old Gods like I would turn on them next.

Sansa had rode to the front, her face ashen as she took in what remained of the Dreadfort. Her horse whinnied, eyes rolling wildly as more screams drifted on the cold, Northern winds. Her eyes rounded as she took in the devastation, flicking to me with…fear. Behind her, wary and looking just as scared, were the Lords that had come to Robb's aide, Theon hovering just behind Sansa like an unwilling spector.

Who wouldn't be afraid? Who wouldn't see me as a monster?

Did I care?

I felt the hollowness inside of myself like a well being built around me. I felt the woman who I had been building be pushed aside, kicked and beaten down until all that was left was raw, animal rage.

"Think of what your brother would want," Sansa suddenly whispered, her eyes imploring. At my back, Robb stiffened. "Those are innocents, Willa."

It was the wrong thing to say. Even Theon seemed to realize that, his eyes shuttering as if he knew the choice I was going to make before I even thought it. Even after the words had slipped from her lips, she seemed to want to draw them back. Whatever compassion was still creeping beneath my skin was engulfed, burning away to nothing but bitter ash.

My brother would have wanted me with him. He would have never been here. He would have never stepped foot inside this trough of human waste if not for me. Were these people innocent? That guard currently grabbing up a child, hoisting him up in his arms to dash toward the open keep doors, men and women alike screaming for him to come faster. Like speed would stop me. Like a closed door and a lock would keep me out. How many of them had listened to my brother scream - had watched Ramsay throw my nephew, still dripping with his mother's blood, to a pack of dogs?

Did they know that she had barely gazed upon him before Ramsay shoved a blade in to her? Did they know that she cried made flower crowns for all the new Frey babes on their name days? That she cried whenever Derwa told a sad story meant for our younger siblings, not caring how we teased her?

Did they know of my brother - Corlin - Corlin, my dear, precious brother? DId they know how scared he was? Did they know of how he would come to me at night, always with that smile as if I had been the one to call him. As if he was simply there at a time that we had agreed upon, haggard but grinning in a way that made me think he was hiding things from me. Did they know -

Rage, hot and aching and so raw that I felt my insides tighten, burst inside of me, crashing against the cave of my body until my throat convulsed.

I screamed.

I screamed for the sister and nephew whose lives had been so insignificant and pointless to the people of the Dreadfort that they had been snuffed out for a petty lord's title. I screamed for my brother - my lovely, beautiful brother - the only one who had ever made me feel whole.

I screamed, my whole body curling forward, Robb's arms curling around me as he let out a choked breath. Sansa let out a small cry, her eyes trapped on where my vines tore away at every piece of rock and flesh that they came in contact with.

I screamed until there was no more breath left inside of my body, lips parted in silent agony, fists shaking as the final wails from the Dreadfort turned into nothing more than falling rock and tearing vines.

And somewhere, distantly, I thought I heard an answering laugh like the tinkle of school girls giggling and the quiet sobs of lost love.

As always, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a little review if you liked it and hopefully I'll see you guys in this next chapter!