AUTHOR'S NOTE: It's been a long absence for me, dear friends. I did warn that this story would be much longer in the making than the last, but I didn't anticipate that I would get hit by life mowing me over like a train. I put off posting because I would prefer to wait and deliver a solid chapter than to rush and hand out a steaming pile of horseshit. I also have not been in the right mindset to embody these characters and I absolutely want to do them justice, not just write for the hell of it and make it up as I go along. I have an outline and several drafts of chapters; it's just filling in the in-betweens that I'm having trouble with, as always. Thank you to those of you who are still here. I promise that I will never give up on this story, so no worries about me abandoning it in case of future long-term absences. I just want to give you all the best I can.

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BRONN

More of his life had been spent bedding down in the dirt than on a proper feather mattress, but in recent years his arse had grown accustomed to being pampered and so the last month of travel into increasingly deteriorating weather had made him ever so grateful for a mattress once again. It was only his bad luck that he had to share the room with a hundred other men, mostly Stark soldiers, Stark supporters, and Stark arse-kissers. Rooms for the Lannister well-to-do's were limited in the wing the Starks had provided and so Bronn, with lower ranking than Cersei and Jaime Lannister, the Hand, the Kingsguard, and the queen's handmaidens, was left to find a spare bunk along with a few other Lannister soldiers.

His presence, however, did not garner any distrustful looks from the men who shared the barracks. Perhaps because he was not dressed in Lannister garb or perhaps his reputation preceded him and he held some respect among them as a lowlife who had simply been struck by luck. Or—and he strongly suspected this was the case—the dwarf lord had spoken out on his behalf to the men. If the latter was true, he wasn't one to complain. A good scrap was always welcome, but only when it involved worthy opponents and he knew it would be frowned upon when every individual still panting out breath was invaluable.

He had hardly begun to settle into his bunk when one of the Queensguard—he could never tell which one until they spoke, they all dressed the bloody same—came to escort him to the queen herself.

"Her Grace commands that you attend her immediately," said Ser Preston Greenfield with distaste. As all of his brethren did, the knight despised Bronn for earning a knighthood despite his humble beginnings and weaseling his way into the rank of battlefield commander.

"Does, she now? She can't wait for me to find a decent meal?"

"Now," warned Ser Preston.

Swinging his legs back off his bunk not five seconds after he had put them up, Bronn gave a dramatic sigh for Ser Preston's benefit and followed behind him to wherever Cersei had holed herself up. She was strategically placed in a center room with Ser Jaime's quarters on one side and Qyburn's on the other at the end of the corridor where the nearest escape route was straight out the window and fifty feet down. Her Queensguard stood at attendance outside apart from the big fucker who was undoubtedly inside. Their mouths turned down as one at Bronn's approach, not that he cared.

Ser Preston pounded a chainmailed fist on the door. "Ser Bronn, as requested, Your Grace."

"Enter," came Cersei's bored drawl.

The knight opened the door for Bronn and then slammed it behind him.

Inside, the room had already been stripped of anything that might resemble a Stark or Targaryen and adorned in Lannister colors to give Cersei all the comforts of home. As there was no feast to welcome her—not that she or anyone else had expected one- she had had food brought to her quarters, carried in her private stores from King's Landing and prepared by her handmaidens. She did not trust that her food would go unpoisoned here.

She sat beside the spread, nibbling daintily on a buttered piece of toasted bread with her standard goblet of wine in hand. Privately, Bronn thought that very irresponsible of her to be drinking when her belly was already starting to show. Perhaps that was why her first whelp came out such a cunt—the wine addled his brains in the womb. Behind her stood the giant, stone-still, blood-red eyes watching Bronn hungrily as if he would like nothing more than to crush his skull out of sheer boredom (it wasn't personal; Bronn knew Ser Gregor looked at everyone like that).

"I have no great speech prepared for you on my expectations for the battle, nor do I need to stress the fact that you should know that your duties have not changed since our departure from King's Landing," said Cersei crisply.

Bronn, who was apparently supposed to agree, gave a nod.

"We are in a place of enemies and spies. I do not trust these walls any more than I trust to whom they belong. You will find your orders here."

She held up a piece of parchment to him that was written in her neat, looped hand. He crossed the room to her, wary of the eight foot tall brute standing over her like a bird of prey as she ate, but prepared to cut Bronn in half at the waist if he so much as farted in her direction. Bronn stopped as far away from Cersei as he dared, reached out to take the parchment, and held it up to the firelight. He read it once, read it again, and then Cersei snatched it out of his hands, tossing it into the crackling flames in the hearth.

"I should hope you understand perfectly and are not about to bore me with questions or protests," said Cersei, now with full underlying threat in her tone.

"Understood perfectly, Your Grace," said Bronn quickly as his mind reeled and his heart sank. It was an order he had been given many times, something he had been paid once to do, something he excelled at, something he took pleasure in—had it been almost anyone else. This…this would be difficult if damn near impossible and not for the first time, he felt an inkling of a conscience telling him he had better rethink his situation.

"Go, then," the queen ordered, and Bronn bowed himself out, not even stopping to poke fun at the Queensguard outside as he reread the message over and over in his mind.

Fuck her and fuck her twice, grudge-holding, spiteful bitch.

They had not discussed his duties at length before leaving King's Landing, but he knew them to be the same as ever, with some additions considering the enemy they were about to face—the dead one, anyway. Protect Ser Jaime on the field, hold his tongue in the presence of wine and women, inspire the men to die for their queen, fall upon his sword or the swords of the dead to protect Cersei, do not fraternize with Starks and Targaryens. This was not on that list of duties they had discussed and he did not have the time or the means to do such a thing.

What did Cersei expect, that he could casually walk away from the battle to go find his target and make it look like a casualty of war? She was ruthless and wiley, but stupid. She knew that this order would cost Bronn his life, if the battle didn't claim it first—and battle would be the only opportunity to do as instructed, for if he tried before, chaos would erupt within the walls, shouts of treachery, betrayal, utter mayhem as sides clashed before the dead even reached them.

During the battle, she had written, and signed his own death warrant as she flourished the crossing of her "t"s. During the fucking battle.

But, his brain reminded him, no one will ever know if you carried out the order or not because they'll all be fucking dead.

And wasn't that an encouraging note to help him sleep tonight.

His last meal had been a dry heel of bread on horseback early that morning and so he asked a passing maid where he might find the Great Hall as he continued to inwardly sulk over his misfortune and secretly wish he had let Lady Arryn pitch the half-lord through the Moon Door. If he had, Bronn would never have come to this mess of shite.

The Great Hall was not exceptionally large, a smaller hall than the like belonging to lesser lords, but Bronn did not require festive decorations and the luxuries of lengthy space to eat a simple meal. He needed only a mug of ale, a stool for his arse—and company, it would seem, for the Half-Lord Tyrion beckoned to him from the end of a table stretching the length of the hall.

If Bronn didn't know any better, he would have said that Tyrion had been waiting for him, but it was still a bold move when Cersei would most likely be having Bronn followed to listen in on his every conversation. Tyrion could have summoned him as he used to do, but somehow, Bronn suspected that the little lord wanted a public interaction, perhaps to give Cersei's spies nothing but hearty banter to report back to the queen. Still, it was rather impressive that the Hand of the Dragon Queen could sup with commoners instead of taking the High Table as the lords and ladies of Winterfell were. Bronn doubted that the Dragon Queen would have approved of this.

As he went to pull up a bench beside his one-time friend he noted that Lady Sansa Stark and Lord Petyr Baelish were seated at the High Table in muted but nevertheless engaging conversation with the young man in the wheeled chair Bronn had spotted in the courtyard earlier. The young man was dark of hair and eyes, but the shape of his face looked very much like Lady Sansa's and Bronn could see similarities between the two the longer he stared. He did not know much about the Stark line, nor did he care to find out, for in all the time he was charged with protecting Lady Sansa, her family never came into conversation (a painful thing to remember, he supposed). But this boy could well be her brother—her true brother.

The raven eyes snapped upward, settling directly on Bronn with such intensity that he stopped dead in his approach to Tyrion's table, glued where he stood as he felt a stirring in his head. He did not care for the boy's gaze, but he could almost hear that same boy's voice in his head despite not knowing the sound of that voice. He could not make out words, but he did hear a voice that was not his own neutral conscience talking to him.

The eyes continued to bore into him, round, unblinking, penetrating…

A sharp stab in his temple and he saw a figure dressed in black leather with icy, almost transparent skin approaching him with no hurry almost as if it knew he could not run. A frozen jagged crown was engrained in the figure's brow and its eyes—gods, its eyes—were holding Bronn in place. It took an enormous weapon from a scabbard on its back and pointed it at Bronn, marking him. Fire rose on all sides, bodies piled high around him, sweat dripped from his knuckles as he tried to find strength to lift his sword but he was so fucking cold.

The figure's name came to him, whispered on the wind with the voice that was not his.

The Night King.

His lungs took in piercingly frigid air and froze. His heart should have been beating within his chest like a drummer upon its instrument as it sounded the rally in battle, but instead it was barely thumping, dying from the inside out like the rest of him.

Help me, his thoughts cried out to anyone, anything that might be listening. The gods he did not believe in left his pleas unanswered. The friends he did not have did not come to his aid.

Alone. As he had lived, so would he die.

And he was afraid.

Then he was amid subdued chatter and clanking goblets and saw those raven eyes looking once more upon him. He didn't wait, but broke the spell that held him in place, not trusting this black magic sort of shite he had just witnessed. In a world of wights, direwolves, and dragons, he could not put the hallucination down to lack of sleep for he had gone days without sleep before and his mind had never conjured such horrifying images as what he had just seen.

Who the fuck was that boy in the wheeled chair and what in seven hells had he done?

"Ser Bronn, have you been sampling the mulled wine already?" asked Tyrion in welcome as Bronn stumbled onto the bench, blinking furiously and trying to form some semblance of normalcy by grasping the empty tankard in front of him. As a man not often unhinged, he needed to uphold that reputation and tried to pass off his drunken staggering as nothing more than a dark-humored jab.

"Got a whiff of you again, my friend. I'd forgotten how bad you smelled again and it near as not took me feet from under me."

"I bathed regularly in all the time you've known me," said Tyrion. "While I've never once seen or smelled a hint of lye soap within fifteen feet of you."

It was here that Bronn discovered that they were a supper company of three, for the enormous woman who now guarded Lady Sansa was seated with them and scowling down at him from across the table.

"Lady Brienne," greeted Bronn. "Keeping well, I see. Serving the Starks?"

"I don't serve the Starks," said Lady Brienne bitingly. "I fulfilled my promise to Ser Jaime to find Sansa Stark and now I serve her as her sworn shield."

"Bit far away from the High Table to be of much good to her if someone rushed her right this moment to make a halfway decent stab at her though, aren't you?" Bronn pointed out, noting the distance between the sworn shield and her charge and he thought fleetingly that Lady Sansa used to be his charge.

"Lady Sansa has dismissed me for the evening, but she is not alone and not unprotected, I do not take my duty lightly, ser," said Lady Brienne.

Bronn leaned sideways to use the woman's form to block the boy in the wheeled chair from view as he saw still only Lady Sansa and Lord Baelish seated at the High Table with no one else in sight or reach.

"Are you suggesting Lord Baelish is her protector in place of you? I believed there were dragons before I saw them but that, I do not believe, not one bit."

Lady Brienne did not elaborate as she helped herself to a portion of the meat pie placed before them by a serving girl. Bronn took a generous helping himself when she had finished, licking gravy from his fingertip as he once more scanned the High Table and wondered who it was that protected Lady Sansa when Lady Brienne did not.

"Mormont," called Tyrion, gesturing for a knight with thinning golden hair to join them. The man had what Bronn might call a permanently saddened expression but at the moment, it was hidden well behind a glare directed at Bronn himself.

He hadn't been mistaken when he thought that he had been accepted by the men who served the Starks in the barracks; he had only misjudged from where the resentment would come from. It was not the lowborns that despised him, but those who found themselves in similar ranks as he.

"Join us," Tyrion invited, but the knight shook his head.

"Another time, perhaps."

"You lot are all lookin' at me like I personally took a shit in your helmets," Bronn goaded. "Is it the face? I know it's not the best to look at it, but it's no cause to look at me the way you have been."

"Your face has nothing to do with it, ser. I dislike you on principle," said the knight, turning to go.

"No, Mormont, come sit. Ser Bronn is an old friend, and the reason I survived long enough to be kidnapped by you."

Tyrion patted the stool beside him and the knight sank into it somewhat reluctantly, still eyeing Bronn distrustfully, not that Bronn gave a rat's arse. Better and more powerful men than this knight looked down on him and they were dead now while Bronn was serving the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. Though he had to remind himself that his association with the Head Bitch was most likely the reason the knight didn't like him on principle. If Bronn had shown up serving Tyrion, he had no doubt that the knight would have disliked him only slightly less.

"Don't be troubled by the glower. Ser Jorah Mormont is not known for his genial company, but a more faithful and loyal sworn shield you could not find," said Tyrion.

"I would wager against that," said Lady Brienne.

"Forgive me, my lady, you do the title a great service."

"And what about me?' jested Bronn.

"You never said any vows and were never a sworn shield to anyone. I paid you to protect me and Lady Sansa and that was within the castle walls, not in the wildernesses of Essos or on the roads to Winterfell."

"Being paid to do something takes away the merit of the act," said Mormont.

"Doesn't mean I can't be better at it than you, or anyone else for that matter. You don't have to do somethin' for free to be experienced," Bronn reasoned.

"No rebuttal, just eat," said Tyrion, pressing a bowl of the meat pie on Mormont to cut him off. "It doesn't matter if you were paid or not to protect. To an inexperienced fighter like me, you all have done your jobs well several times over, otherwise Queen Daenerys, Lady Sansa, and I would not be here to form the alliance to fight the dead. It was not chance that brought us together. The wildlings formed a bond with a man who swore to protect their people. The Unsullied fight for the woman who liberated them and gave their lives purpose. Even Sandor Clegane has come to fight for us because of the road he put himself on to return Arya Stark to her mother while Lady Catelyn lived. Granted, Clegane initially sought to use Arya Stark to fetch himself a pretty penny for his efforts, but—"

"You're going to include the fucking Hound in the same category as the rest of us?" asked Bronn. "Big and brutal he may be, but he hasn't got the brains to fill a poor man's teaspoon. A warrior, but one who does what he's told. And a right sullen toerag, he is."

"Leave him be," said Ser Jorah suddenly, setting his wooden spoon down. "An agreeable man he might not be, but he does value human life."

"You must be talking about some other ugly half-faced fucker because the Hound didn't think twice or give two shits about splitting a man in half if it got him home to a flagon of wine faster. I drank with 'im. He's one mean fucker."

"And I fought with him," said the knight. "A man shows you who he truly is, unguarded and unaware when he is in battle. He valued gold once, I'm certain, but beyond the Wall, with nothing and no one to call friend, he placed himself in harm's way to save all of us several times. He could have left us to our fates, but his first instinct was to come to our aid. A man cannot feign concern for his fellow man when the sweat and blood falls heavily on the battlefield and each second is precious."

"Well, I was in a battle with the man meself and I saw 'im shove another poor bastard right into a Baratheon soldier sword at the Blackwater. The blood and sweat fell heavily then and when out came the fire, he left his men to die outside the gates. You and I must know two separate Hounds, Mormont, because the fucker I know only did as he was told with no independent thought unless fire came between him and his orders. He's known in King's Landing as a deserter and there's still a price on his head—five hundred gold dragons last I heard."

"He was pardoned by Lady Sansa and Queen Daenerys," said Lady Brienne. "Pardoned of anything and everything he did whilst serving the Lannisters."

"I wonder, would the Dragon Queen give me a pardon for everything I've done whilst serving the Lannisters?" asked Bronn in mock thought. "I should bloody well think so, considerin' this one would be a splatter on the Eyrie mountainside if I didn't choose right then and there to serve the Lannisters." He clinked his tankard against Tyrion's.

"Not if I have my say," Mormont growled into his bowl.

"Ser Jorah doesn't believe in leniency for any individual who stands against his queen," said Tyrion. "Against our queen."

"Well, that's hardly fair, is it? I found meself in Cersei's company because this little fucker stood up to her cunt son and made a name for 'imself in a bad way, so when he tucked tail and fled to Essos like any smart man would, I couldn't very well follow 'im on account of me not knowing where the fuck he'd gone and I wasn't about to tell Cersei I liked her murderous little brother better, so I kept me mouth shut and got paid for it. Got paid to continue teachin' the one-handed Lannister to fight, got paid to fight Cersei's fights, and had no reason to leave until your queen brought news of the dead—"

"The queen," the knight corrected with an even deeper scowl.

"Fine, the queen."

"He won't fight you on that," Tyrion assured Mormont. "He has no loyalty to kings or queens, only the one who carries the biggest purse."

"Then he will die quickly when the dead come," said Lady Brienne. "A man who has nothing to fight for but himself and the promise of a weighty pocket will not live long."

"I've known men who had naught but themselves in this miserable world and they won every fight because their love of living was greater than their fear of dying. I think of meself as that sort of man."

"You'll die, all the same," said Mormont.

Bronn cocked his head sideways to take in the knight's full appearance once again from the tip of his balding head to the hands grasped around his bowl. He was the sort of man who was quick to defend a woman's honor, and in a damned foolish way. A man who could be goaded into a fight to defend that honor because it was the noble thing to do. And stupid.

To Jorah Mormont, Bronn was scum because when the cards were shuffled in this game of chance, Bronn fell on the opposite side from Mormont's beloved queen, and so Bronn was not a man to be trusted, but to be reviled because of fate, not choice.

"You don't like me," Bronn acknowledged, "But you're being a mite harsh because I served a different queen and I'm not willing to die for 'er. We can't all be as stupid as you and when the dead come, the man who loves living will be the one left standin', not the man who'd rather fuck his queen."

He had found the knight's weak spot and it was not in the insult to his pride, but the fact that others believed fighting and dying for one's queen was a foolhardy and ultimately rewardless thing to do. In the end, though, this man would die for his queen because her life meant more to him than his own. And Bronn would feel only slightly sorry for him as he stood over the man's grave.

He knew he had baited Mormont and expected a tussle in which he would see for himself just how worthy of being this dragon queen's sword shield he actually was, but as luck would have it, the big burnt-faced fucker never let it come to blows. The Hound dug his paws into Mormont's shoulder, rooting him in his seat and giving the knight no option to rise to the bait. He looked down at Mormont and a brief, almost nonexistent moment of understanding passed between the two of them.

That was definitely not the Hound Bronn knew—or had known. His Hound cared for no man other than himself and only had the slightest softness toward the girl who was now the Lady of Winterfell. The Hound did not share any human connection or anything that might be mistaken as friendship with another man. But this Hound was something more.

"Have you seen the dead, sellsword?" asked the Hound with no discernible emotion, no greeting or acknowledgment that he had once shared words and wine with Bronn.

"Can't say that I have," replied Bronn.

"Have you seen the Night King?"

Bronn clutched a hand to his temple as the vision struck him again of the blue-skinned figure stalking toward him on an empty, fiery battlefield. The spiked crown stood out clearer this time, glinting and reflecting the walls of flame around it.

And the disembodied voice warned again, The Night King.

"Have you?" prompted the Hound's voice, pulling Bronn back to the present and temporary safety of the Great Hall.

Yes, I have now.

"No," he said.

"Then you don't know shit. You haven't seen 'em, you don't know what you'll think or feel or do until you actually see 'em with your own eyes. If you've never shit yourself, you will when you see how many there are. If you've never cried for your mother, you will when you smell them. You and every other man who loves life will forget what it's like to live when you hear them coming. Fuck you for thinking you're braver than the rest of us. You're no different, no braver, no better. You'll die, just like the rest of us."

The Hound let go of Mormont's shoulder, causing the latter to wince where there would be a hand-shaped bruise beneath the pauldron, and then with a glance toward the High Table, skulked off as quietly as he had come.

"He's never had a sense of humor," said Bronn to fill the silence, but no one tried to prove the Hound wrong.

"He's right," said Tyrion.

"What would you know? You haven't seen 'em either," Bronn accused, though he had no way of knowing for certain.

"I saw one, the one we showed to Cersei to convince her that the threat is real," said Tyrion somewhat indignantly.

"You saw one, but you didn't see—as the big fucker put it—them."

"But I have," said Mormont. "Jon Snow, Beric Dondarrion, Tormund Giantsbane, the lad Gendry, Queen Daenerys, and myself. We have seen the dead and though perhaps in not as bleak of terms, we have come to the same conclusion as Sandor Clegane: we will all die of the same cause, one way or another. It is only a matter of lasting long enough to take our enemy with us."

Bronn had never known Tyrion to pass up an opportunity to make light of a situation but he did not do so now, nodding gravely almost to himself as if he, too, had accepted his fate. Mormont and Lady Brienne both stared dismally into their tankards and Bronn shook his head, taking his turn to be disgusted by the blatant acceptance.

"A right lot of depressing wankers you are. Given up before the fight's begun, have you?"

"It is far easier to go to one's death expecting to die than hoping to live," said Mormont.

Wondering what shite book he had read that from, Bronn was about to counter that disheartening statement when he saw Lady Sansa take her leave of both Lord Baelish and the young man in the wheeled chair. She left the hall unaccompanied, unprotected.

It could not be that easy. And she would not be that stupid to walk out in full view with Cersei on the prowl.

Bronn did not bother excusing himself from his dreary companions, scoffing at their downcast faces as he crossed the hall and left through the door that he knew would lead down to the courtyard where Lady Sansa would have to cross if she had a mind to return to her quarters or indeed, go almost anywhere else. He felt those raven eyes on the back of his head as he went, but he dared not stop, hurrying out into the light snowfall where the last of the horses were being stabled for the night. Making himself look busy at the well just off the center of the courtyard, he saw her coming, walking deliberately but with her gaze elsewhere, lost in thought.

Such a stupid thing to do when Cersei wanted her dead…

During the battle.

Bronn stepped forward, effectively blocking her path and startling her.

"Ser Bronn," said greeted cordially, though he could see with some hesitation. They had known each other once, not well, but well enough for her to trust that he meant her no harm. Too much time had passed since then, though. He knew this woman no more and she trusted him no longer.

"M'lady," said Bronn.

She had grown another inch or two in her absence and now stood high enough that he did not need to tilt his chin down to look at her. There was a fullness to her face of coming into womanhood, but it was still the uncertain eyes of a child that looked back at him. A child who had seen worse things and more and had only aged, not grown.

Yet, she looked to be (and from what he heard, been) a more capable ruler than her former betrothed had ever been. Her time as the Lannister's captive had not stamped out the goodness in her. She had pardoned the Hound despite the part he played in imprisoning her. She had rid herself of not one, but two abusive captors. And she had accepted the viper that knew her scent well back into her home. Either a brave young woman or a foolish one.

"I trust I will see you during the war council meeting on the morrow," she said with some strain.

This was the first Bronn was hearing of a war council. Cersei thought it more important that he receive his shadow work orders than to bring him into the know of strategic meetings.

"She didn't tell you," guessed Lady Sansa with a slight roll to her eyes. "News was sent to her just after her arrival that the war council is to convene tomorrow morning. I would see any and all experienced battlefield commanders there, even if Cersei does not extend the invitation to you."

Most definitely a foolish girl.

"If m'lady summons me, I shall be there," Bronn assured her.

"Very good, ser. Do excuse me, I must attend my evening prayers."

She stepped nimbly around him and headed toward the godswood.

The girl he had known was a quiet, reserved one. Prone to tears and melancholy and little else. But she had stopped praying long before her flight from King's Landing, Bronn remembered that much about her. She was going there alone for reasons unexplained, doing the very thing he wished she would not do so as not to give him an excuse to catch her alone.

Damn the bitch who gave him his orders and damn the girl for making them too easy to carry out.

His hand was on his dirk, preparing, and his heart was beating a speeding cadence in his chest, so different from the dying beat he had felt as he stood alone on the battlefield facing the blue-skinned terror.

The Night King, the voice had said. And something else, something more…

Wait.

Wait.

Seven hells, that boy knew. He knew what Bronn had been charged with and had not sounded the alarm or called for Bronn's arrest or execution. Somehow, that boy knew the words Cersei had written on the parchment she condemned to the flame after to destroy all evidence. The boy knew and had been at the High Table, waiting for Bronn to give him pause so that he would stay his hand at this precise moment.

Wait.

His hand was still on his weapon as he watched the red hair cascading down Lady Sansa's shoulders bounce with every footstep she took away from him.

He had an ill feeling in his stomach at seeing her unarmed despite knowing she most likely had never wielded a weapon in her life. And whatever Lady Brienne had meant when she said that Lady Sansa was not alone, it did not apply now. If Bronn were a crueler man, Lady Sansa's lack of protection could very well have been her undoing this night.

"M'lady," he called after her and slid through the mud to approach her once more. He unbuckled the dirk at his belt and folded the wrapping around the sheath, holding it out to her.

"I would see you arm yourself."

His gesture confused her, he could see, for she lifted her hand to accept the gift, but then seemed to rethink her situation and withdrew. "A thoughtful notion, ser, but this is simply forged steel and of no use to me in the fight against the dead."

"It's not for the dead," said Bronn pointedly in as low of a voice as he could.

The fuck is wrong with you? Might as well tell her what was written on that slip of parchment.

"I know this to be your favored weapon, ser, and so I wish for you to keep it. But to ease your mind and to take your words to heart, I will find a concealable weapon to arm myself with. I thank you for your concern." She pressed the dirk back at him with an uncertain smile and once again left him standing in the snow.

Bronn watched a young woman dressed in the Northern men's style of clothing join Lady Sansa at the entrance to the godswood and took note of a sliver of a blade at the young woman's side. Then he spotted a hulking shadow to the left of the gate shrink away and knew that for the duration of her meal in the Great Hall, her walk down to the courtyard, and during her entire exchange with Bronn, Lady Sansa had never been unprotected.