Chapter 36: Daltis

I was thinking about… chaos.

As I walked among my husband's camp.

As I ate the meal that a poison tester had nervously sipped from.

As I spoke to the soldiers, that still looked at me like I was either cursed or sainted. Even as I sat and talked to them about their children and loves and the lands that they had lost. They stared at me with a horror that was mixed with something more addictive. Something that bordered on worship. Something that would become toxic if not handled correctly.

So I spoke with them. On nights when I wanted to go back to my room and sink into Robb's arms, desperate for his solidness, I would instead go to each fire and sit with the men. I would listen to their bawdy songs and quiet sorrows and I would lull all of us into a false sense of normalcy.

But my mind was forever and always on chaos.

"They're back to calling you the Witch Queen," Theon quipped, throwing me a friendly smile as we skirted around a group of men, a few of them falling to their knees. I paused, hesitating before dipping a curtsy and begging them to get up. Before quickly following it up with some mundane small talk about what their favorite foods were.

Theon was beyond delighted as we finally left them, guiding me with a gentle hand on my forearm to the outskirts of the camp where I would be able to slip back to my tent without another obstacle. "You'll be delighted to know that your endless campaign has gotten you back to only partial isolation."

"Oh goodie," I bit back, rubbing a hand over my tired eyes. A quarter of our group had already split off from us, going back to their own keeps before we got too far that they would have to make their trip twice as long. Some would need to stay, Robb had explained to me, to guard us as we made our final trek to Winterfell, but most would leave us as we neared their lands. I blinked into the fading dark around us, the sound of the fire sinking it's brittle teeth into logs soothing me. "How exactly did you come across that peek into my motivations?"

"Well," Theon started out, his eyes tipping to the sky in thought. He squinted. "Given I'm not completely a buffoon, I made the wild leap that you were smart enough to win back a few congeniality points. The men in the army already desperately wanted to see you as nothing more than a dumb, pretty, little button-nosed Frey so they would be more than susceptible to your brand of charm."

Lovely. I gritted my teeth, glaring at the lanky ironborn man. "I could tear you to shreds with a single thought."

He tsked, rolling his eyes. "I like you far better when you're prattling on about finally seeing the sky after being locked up in that tower your father kept you in. Glorious bit that was - telling all these people with hero complexes that. A quiet ingenious way to make them see you as more of a sacrificial lamb than a man-eating harpy out to drench the earth in the blood of man."

I growled, whirling on him. I didn't entirely know what I would do. My powers - well, they had been decidedly dormant these last few days. Which would have been worrisome if not for the fact that I was grateful not to have the reminder of the Boltons. Maybe I would hit him. I had done it a few times to my brothers but never to someone like Theon.

His hands flew up before I could so much as clench my fist, his eyes wide and baleful like a pup that had been yelled at and chased away from a jar of cookies. "Apologies, my Queen. Apologies." He gave me a crooked smile as I settled back. "Lady Sansa's been doing the same thing since the Battle of Blood."

I stilled, the name striking me. "The Battle of Blood?" I whispered faintly.

Theon's face lost some of it's playfulness, his expression suddenly somber. "The name they've given to… to what happened at the Bolton keep."

I blinked, dazed. "Yes," I murmured, feeling like a basket suddenly upturned, content strewn around. "Yes. I - I see."

It seemed - disgusting. It felt like such a gross underestimation of what had occurred there. It felt - it felt wrong to give it such a name - any name at all, really. I had wanted, somehow for that day to be erased from history completely. To be marked only in black. Now it was being called the Battle of Blood. Blood for the Bolton's massacred there. Blood for the battlefield as I ripped through the very foundations of their keep.

"I could…" He glanced down awkwardly. "Well, I think I might be able to talk them into calling it something else. Perhaps…perhaps the Battle of Corlin?"

My lunges hurt as all the air punched out of me at even the mere mention of his name. It would have been easier if Theon had slapped me.

"No," I blurted out, turning away swiftly. "Thank you, Theon, but I would sooner stick my hand in a fire than allow Corlin's name to be pinned over my sins."

We walked a bit farther, a few of the soldiers giving deep, awed bows as we passed. How long had it been? A week? Two? My eyes narrowed on the sky above, the way even the blue seemed to be withering away, the color bleeding out into endless white. As we had moved farther North, the plains had grown a bit more sloping, forests beginning to run in tandem with us between the stretches of open land. But the trees here - I shuddered, reaching out again to feel along those roots. Like ancient, sleeping creatures. Like each of them would bleed if someone cut into. I could hear them now, just on the edge of the wind, their voice long and mournful, lilting on an endless song.

"Your other brother-" Theon drew me back out, his face decidedly blank, his words hesitant. I braced. "Sansa has been working with him. She… she says that he speaks of you often."

I felt the flare of words along my tongue. But what was there to say? I had been avoiding him. At first, because he reminded me of my brother's final moments, and then because of the shame of my own rashness. Now it felt more like I was avoiding the truth. Avoiding seeing further into the hours and days that had ran backward from the moment of Corlin's execution.

"He's doing well?" I asked haltingly.

Theon's eyes slid to me and I couldn't help recognizing the incredulity in them. "He's being fed, if that's what you mean. He has company. Robb even went to speak to him a few times."

"Good," I whispered, unable to think of anything further.

Robb had - he had handled so much for me these last few weeks. It was frightening how much I had begun to lean on him. Not just for daily chores but also for my own sanity. It had made me crave something more - something that felt like an invasion to his privacy in an odd way. I wanted him to lean on me as well. I wanted to be his strength. Was that even possible? Was that something that he wanted?

Theon stopped as we reached the horses, his face going soft with a mixture of emotions that made me gulp down a breath. "He's your brother, Willa. And he wants to be of use to you. He wants to talk to you. We will be arriving at Winterfell within the next week and he will be a permanent fixture whether you like it or not." He stared at my pale, drawn face for another moment before sighing. "You should consider talking to him… My Queen."

He gave me a silly, little grin and bowed low and I felt my lips twitch.

I wanted to say that I marched right over to Daltis and smoothed things over. That I had a plan for his role in my new life. But the thought of having to face him filled me with dread. It felt too much like tearing through a wall that I had just made - one that made me not feel like dying do much after Corlin's death. I felt so fragile still, restless for the hurt to go away but also trapped in an agony that felt right. Like it should hurt. Like if I stopped hurting, then I would stop thinking about him.

So I stalked him. I would shadow his steps around the tents, his work to take down everything when we moved every morning and then his efforts to put it all back together again. He had been so thin when we had first left but now he was slowly packing away muscles, his cheekbones filling out.

"How is he?" The first time I had asked Sansa that question, she had looked at me like I had grown a second head. Now she didn't even look up from brushing out her mare's mane.

"He screams at night and works until his fingers bleed to stop whatever waking nightmares from tearing out the last bit of his sanity. Knives terrify him and laughter is even worse." Her eyes flicked coolly up to mine. I had to force those details out the first time. "You know I don't feel comfortable giving you this information."

"I know," I agreed, biting down on my cuticles until they bled. I tore a chunk away, enjoying the sting. It was a nasty, vile habit. But I couldn't help myself.

"You need to talk to him," she droned, rolling her eyes as I slipped behind one of the tents as Daltis walked a bit too close. I peered out, catching sight of his shadowed eyes, the tightness of his lips. He wasn't sleeping… But he was eating. At least he was eating. "This is entirely unbecoming behavior for a Queen, Willa."

"I know," I agreed again.

"You're not eating." When Robb looked at me with that disapproving stare, he made me want to… Hm. I didn't quite know. But it wasn't entirely bad. No. In fact, I would say that his disapproval tickled at a dormant side of me. A side that made me want to push him a bit more. His brows furrowed even further. "Or sleeping."

I shook my head before he even finished. "I sleep. You should know - you're wrapped around me every single night."

His eyes darkened to a heady sable, an auburn curl slipping forward to play along those disapproving brows. "Yes. I've grown very accustomed to the feel of you in my arms. Which is how I know that you wake up every night around the same time."

Damn him. Was I waking up a bit more often than usual? Yes. Perhaps. Most definitely. I brought a finger to my lips, pinching the skin there as I thought about those hours. The darkness beyond our tent doors. The whisper - the whisper of what? I was too afraid to creep out of bed and find out. Too afraid of how thin our tent walls felt around me.

"Willa." Robb's fingers curled around mine, drawing my hand away from my lips, his eyes narrowed on the dribble of blood from my pinkie. "Stop doing this."

"That's what you said last time." I tried to joke, forcing out a weak laugh.

"And I meant it last time as well," he murmured. He was so very handsome in this light, with his hair all mussed from a day of riding and his eyes dark and broody, his leathers still on. His gaze settled on me again, so beautiful that it broke my heart a little bit. "Wake me next time, Willa. Promise me that you'll wake me so that-"

"We can both be tired?" More jokes. See? This was funny.

He didn't think it was funny. His lovely lips pulled down in a grim frown. "So that I can be with my wife when she needs me."

Well, I didn't have anything flippant to say to that. I stared up at him, feeling a bit lost. I wouldn't wake him. He probably knew that I wouldn't. But he didn't know why. Couldn't know that the trees had begun to whisper to me. That here, closer to Winterfell, things felt older. More…primal.

And that the Goddess I had tied my life too felt a bit closer as well.

I lifted my hand, dragging it along the rugged planes of his face, threading them through the scruff of his beard at his jaw. His eyes fluttered shit for a moment, leaning into my touch and I gobbled that small action up.

"Tell me about that problem with House Mormont. Perhaps I can help." I wasn't fooling anyone.

It came to a head the very next day.

"I know you've been following me, Willy-bean."

I grimaced. I had forgotten that my brothers had called me that name for a summer. And that Daltis had been the one to come up with it.

Even looking lean and ready for a nap, Daltis was still an imposing figure. He towered over me, his eyes a keen green, his smirk sharp as ever. I couldn't seen the tips of his ears beneath the mop of dark hair, but I was sure that his ears were still keenly pointed. Our older brothers had teased him mercilessly about it. Dark purple ringed his eyes, a deep, haunted look infused to every curve and dip of his body, even though he tried to disguise it beneath his default of playfulness.

It was painful to look at him.

Painful because he would always be one blink away from a memory. A memory where Corlin was alive.

I gulped, taking an unsteady step back and bumping into a wooden post. He had appeared out of nowhere, halting my hasty escape after I had been sure that he had slipped the other direction.

"I was-" I meant to say I wasn't but the word died exactly where the truth lay. I let it hang there between us for a few seconds more before snapping my lips shut.

A single brow quirked. "Yes. That's what I said."

The pause was so heavy that I nearly sunk to my feet beneath it.

"Are you…" I licked my dry lips. "Do you need anything, Daltis? Can I…"

We both knew what I was really asking. How did I make this better? How did I make it so that he didn't hurt anymore? How? Tell me how to fix this. He gave me a slow, derisive smile.

"Sansa's been giving you reports on my mental health." It wasn't a question. His eyes sparkled as he tilted his head a bit like a cat looking at a particularly fascinating bird. I tipped my head just the same, taking in his mask. I was a bit fascinated. Fascinated how someone could show all their broken pieces so plainly but make it seem like it didn't even really matter. Like all the cracks were meant to be there. "She's been telling me about you as well."

That was fair.

"She says you need to sleep more," I said. I liked this form of conversation better. It didn't hold the same edges that my usual form did. My shoulders slumped.

He took in the motion. "Give me a better bed, and I will."

That was also fair.

"You've been working a lot. A lot of manual labor," I observed.

His face didn't change. "It helps with the-" A slow smile seeped across his face, a hand lazily waving around his head before tapping his ears. "The exercise. The exertion. It helps."

I took that in. "I can… when we get to Winterfell, I can ask Robb to train you. With a sword. Or… or whatever you would like."

I winced, thinking back to what Sansa had said. I was an imbecile-

"I would like that," Daltis said, shocking me. "Maybe not smaller daggers but… but maybe a bow and arrow. Maybe a pike."

I nodded. Perhaps a bit too emphatically.

Silence.

"I'm sorry," I blurted suddenly, fidgeting. I didn't have the strength to look into his eyes, my own set somewhere to the side. "I was stupid and - and so filled with rage. I could barely-"

"Please." I stilled at the plea; the sound frayed like cloth ripped right down the middle. My eyes snapped up to meet his, flinching back at the anguish there. There was no more mischief. No more of that carefully crafted mask that he always wore so well. Instead, the shadows across his face seemed to jump out harshly. "Please do not apologize to me, Willa. I can't-"

He tried and failed to force more words out, a single tear slipping from his eyes. My muscles tensed, every muscle locking up as I tried to keep my hands at my side. I wanted to reach out and touch him - offer him some kind of comfort. But would he find any relief in that? Would it only cause him more pain? So, I kept my hands at my side, watching as he gulped down a breath and then another, his throat bobbing as he tilted his head back so that he could glare at the night sky.

"I tried to-" he choked, and I felt my throat go tight at the sound.

"Daltis, you don't have to-"

"No," he hissed, anger tightening his face. At what, I wasn't entirely sure. "No. I need to say this. I need to tell you this." He gulped down a breath of cold, night air before visibly steeling himself. "I tried - I need you to know that I tried to get him out. It didn't feel right when we first got there. Something had been so terribly wrong there, Willa. So I… I sort of slipped away. I made myself scarce. I stayed with the kitchen staff - anywhere to keep out of Ramsay's sight. He was like that, you know? If he didn't have your right in his line of vision, he completely forgot about your existence."

I felt sick. I wanted to stop him. I wanted to beg him to stop. I clamped down on that urge, my jaw feeling like a wire was slowly being knit through, sewing me shut.

Daltis' skin had gone an alarmingly pale shade, highlighted by yellows. Sweat dampened his brow as he forced out his next words, his eyes darting this way and that as we spoke, never truly meeting mine. "Then people in our group started just…disappearing. Then people in the actual keep. Walda." He choked, fighting to swallow around his own nausea. "And Cor-Corlin. It was so stupid. So stupid how it all happened. How none of us really questioned anything. Ramsay kept most of them so plyed with alcohol that they could barely blink. And he had women and men who would entertain… distract. Every. It was all just… a distraction.

"When I realized, I tried to get him out. I knocked a guard out and snuck down to him. It all looked… it all seemed like it would be okay. It felt - it felt like it could never happen to us. We could - we could hear it happening to other people - but that was - that was something else. That wasn't something that was in our future-" He looked absolutely haunted, the dazzling color that usually toned his eyes guttered. "They caught us. Easily. Ramsay had dogs… He was expecting - Well, I guess I hadn't made myself as unseen as I thought I had."

I closed my eyes at the image. The strike of joy followed by that terrifying fall into reality and despair. Ramsay liked mind games. He would have liked that one very much.

"I'm sorry." Daltis was crying now, his face twisted all up with such agony that I felt myself shrivel with it. Tears blurred my vision at his stooped form, his shoulders curled in like a wounded animal. "I tried - I tried so fucking hard to get him out. I - I could have done more but I was - I was such a-"

"Don't you dare." I lurched forward, unable to stop myself from touching him any longer. My eyes searched his out, hands curling firmly around his jaw so that he had to look at me. "You are not. You tried. You did more than I was able to. You - you will not apologize for the actions of a beast. You will not take on that burden all by yourself."

He didn't answer me and I didn't expect him to. His long, dark hair hung limply over his face, shielding most of his pain from me. But I could still see how his body shook, the splatter of tears as they fell in the space between us.

Uncertainly, I reached forward, hesitating for the barest moment before curling my arms around his waist. His arms nearly took the breath out of my as he did the same, crushing his body to mine, curling down until her was as small as possible.

"It will be fine, Daltis," I whispered, choking, unsure even as I said them. Because, Gods, did I even believe that? Would it be fine? Would the world ever feel fine again? In my arms, it felt like I was holding together the pieces that once made up my brother, struggling to keep them all upright. "We will be fine. We will make it fine."

He didn't respond, his body just grasping at me harder.

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