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Chapter Text

“Goodbye, sweetling,” her mother says, and Sansa steps forwards, lets her mother stamp a kiss against her brow.

Her mother: another in the long line of marriages that have hewn the North and the south together, for all that they refuse to become a single kingdom. Catelyn Tully came North and wed Prince Eddard Stark, and Lady Lyanna Stark went south and wed Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, and now Sansa will go south to wed Lyanna’s son. It is a circle, as these things tend to be; a circle that Sansa has known and accepted for almost as long as she’s been alive.

The only part that she hadn’t expected back in those hazy summer mornings when she dreamt of her golden-haired prince- the only part had been how it would happen.

Bran had fallen, and Uncle Benjen disappeared. Her father was needed in the North to keep the kingdom together, and her mother was needed by Bran, and Robb was to bring the Night’s Watch under closer Stark supervision, and Rickon was far too young-

So Sansa is to go alone. Or, rather, with Arya; but Arya is far too frustrating to truly care for Sansa or protect her as a family member ought to, so Sansa prefers to think that she’s going alone. At least with the number of guards her father’s sending with her, it won’t be terribly difficult to pretend Arya doesn’t exist.

“We will miss you,” Father intones, grey eyes solemn on Sansa’s. The words are formulaic, but the emotion behind them is genuine; that much Sansa’s certain of. “As the wind blows, Sansa: we shall remember, and we shall have you in our hearts.”

“And I you,” Sansa replies. “In the depth of winter and at the height of the storm, I shall remember the warmth of Winterfell’s walls and the warmth of your love.”

She drops into a curtsy and then rises, waving to Beth Cassel to reveal the gift she’s spent the past months crafting: a wooden figure painted in white and grey, kneeling against snow and ice; red hair spills out of the figure’s cloak.

The gift is the next step in the ritual. Every woman who goes south carves a statue of weirwood- there is a collection in Winterfell, of all of the statues, each one different. Sansa’s is more delicate than most, carved with curves and thin enough that it looks translucent under morning sunlight. She’s woven the magic herself as well, learned from long hours in the library.

“A gift freely given,” she says, placing it in her father’s hands, “of weirwood, made by mine own hands from carving to paint. It holds magic, Father, to lighten your mind’s worries: the hair of this shall glow red so long as I am content; when I am in need of assistance- then, my hair shall turn the dark of coal.” Sansa offers the thinnest smile to him. “And you shall know, then, that I am alone, or that I am afraid; and you can help me.”

“A gift indeed,” her mother murmurs, brushing a hand over the curve of the wooden figure’s cloak. “We can only match such a labor of love, my sweet, with a pain of our own.”

She holds it out, then: a silk cloth, embroidered with wolves and fishes, with six red drops staining it.

Her father reaches out, closes her fingers over it. “Our blood,” he says quietly, watching her face. “A talisman, Sansa, to protect you; and a reminder, of the love we bear you.”

Sansa ducks her head and smiles, holding out her wrist so her mother can knot the cloth about it.

“Be careful,” she whispers, stepping forwards, closer, and brushing the hair out of Sansa’s face. “Be wise, my darling, and kind, but careful above all else. The southron court is a dangerous place to be, and King’s Landing all the worse. Your aunt- she went south and never returned. I’ve no desire to see a tragedy made of you, too.”

“I will,” Sansa says, just as soft. “I will make you proud. All of you.”

…

Petyr Baelish is to accompany her.

That’s another thing that Sansa hadn’t ever expected- to not have her parents there beside her when she married; to have only a friend of her mother’s, who knew the Kingsroad well enough to guide them south, and a sister who hates the very idea of leaving home. It’s lonely, those first few nights on the road, even with Beth Cassel sleeping beside her. She’s not certain she likes it all that much; it’s all so terribly new, and all so terribly frightening.

Petyr- he helps, a little.

He talks to her those first few days- small things, soft things; bedtime stories of the south, tales of his travels through Westeros, even histories that are embellished far too fancifully for her to do anything but laugh.

“And the giant asked the prince to combat?” Sansa leans down, grips the neck of her horse tight, laughter gasping from her lips. “That is- oh, gods, what happened next?”

“They duelled,” Petyr replies. He’s smiling, properly smiling; but she thinks that there’s something strained in it nonetheless. “The prince nearly slew the giant- he left him with scars, running ribbon-red down his belly. But the fair lady pled for mercy, her love too great to see the giant’s demise, and the prince spared him.” He lifts his shoulder lightly. “It is a tale, Princess Sansa, of hope.”

She arches a brow. “I don’t quite understand. Whose hope, my lord?”

“The giant’s, of course. He lives to see another day. And once the prince dies, the giant can always approach the lady once more.”

“Living to see another day is not always triumph,” Sansa says, and sighs. “You speak in riddles, my lord, and I fear I’m not wise enough to understand them.”

“‘Tis nothing,” Petyr murmurs. “Not even proper riddles, my lady; just tales. And that is what I am most powerful in, anyhow: words and stories. My family magic, as it were.”

Sansa blinks.

Family magic- every blood has it. There’s elemental magic, there’s geas magic, there’s life magic; both Sansa’s parents come of elemental magic, the Tullys of water and the Starks of wind. Most of the ruling houses are of elemental magic because those are the most powerful, but there are numerous houses from other stock.

“Storytellers?” She asks.

“Hmm?”

“Your family- were they storytellers?”

“Of a sort,” Petyr says, and shrugs. “But my magics are paltry in comparison to your family’s, Lady Sansa- what are words on wind? What are tales before the rage of a river?”

“Ah.” Sansa bites her lip. “That’s- well. You might be better off speaking of such things to my sister, Lord Baelish. I’ve only ever been able to call a breeze, even at my angriest. But Robb- he’s almost ruined the Great Hall, once, made clear skies turn dark as night! And Arya’s got a bigger temper, if that’s possible.”

It’s the only thing in which Sansa’s been a disappointment to her family. It’s why they’ve given her a cloth of blood and silk, as a talisman against those she cannot defend against; it’s why, instead, they’ve offered Arya a steed finer than any else in the North.

It’s why Sansa, the eldest daughter of House Stark, the eldest daughter of the King in the North, is to marry a second son and not a first.

Petyr- he waves it away. “There are other things,” he says. “Such as beauty, or wit, or-” he suddenly heels his horse, slipping off of it with easy grace, and reaches for a bush on the ground. He offers it up to Sansa, a handful of dark purple berries. “-or the sweets of life.”

“I’d enjoy lemoncakes far more, my lord,” Sansa says, gratitude surging through her. There’s only ever been one person who’s treated Sansa without pity upon finding out her weakness: Arya. And that, Sansa’s certain, is entirely because her sister is far too irritating to have any room in her for other emotions; not for any other reason. Petyr’s nonchalant response is kinder than she’d expected. “And not only for the taste- if you were to eat these, you’d die.”

Petyr startles. “Pardon?”

“These are called darkbreath,” Sansa tells him. “They’re far more common closer to Winterfell- they look similar to blackberries, but are far more poisonous.” She lifts her brow. “Within a few hours, you would start to cough, and then you would choke, and at the end you’d breathe out air dark as smoke; and after that you’d die.”

“So simply?”

“It is a horrid death.” She shudders. “I saw it- once. A smallfolk boy, in Wintertown. The maesters said he’d eaten it in the morning, and he was dead of it by sundown.”

Slowly, Petyr mounts his horse once more. “I am sorry, then. Had you not noticed- I would’ve been dead before I saw another dawn.”

“We both would have,” Sansa says.

They settle back into the rhythm of the march, silence overtaking them.

…

They’re past the Riverlands when Arya speaks to her.

They’ve been ignoring each other, the two of them- it makes it easier to live, really. If they interact, they’ll start screaming; so they don’t. Sansa’s content enough to continue this until they reach King’s Landing, but Arya seems to have other ideas.

She’s talking to Beth Cassel when Arya enters. They’re sitting on her bed, hemming Sansa’s dresses; and then, out of nowhere, Arya storms inside. Literally storms- she brings with her a gust of wind cold enough to make Sansa shiver, strong enough to blow out the candles.

“Arya!” Sansa cries, but Arya doesn’t respond; only clenches her fists, fury on her pale, small face.

“I need to talk to you,” she says, and it’s harsh enough that Sansa pauses.

Arya asks so little of her- Sansa bites her lip and stands. She sends Beth an apologetic look, but follows Arya outside nonetheless.

“Now, what is it? And did you have to be so rude-”

“I know you don’t care overmuch about the North,” Arya says, chin lifting, wobbling at the end just a little- “and I know you don’t miss home that much, but you can do all that and not be cruel.”

“I- yes,” Sansa says. “Of course. I don’t understand- what cruelty?”

Arya stares at her. “You don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

A moment passes, and then Arya reaches out, grips Sansa’s elbow, and drags her over to the kennels. Inside, Sansa startles at the sight: Nymeria and the other hounds are tearing into the meat in front of them; but Lady is in the back, paws covering her snout.

“Why-” she swallows. “Why’s Lady not eating?”

“I thought you’d know,” Arya replies slowly. “It’s- Petyr. Petyr Baelish. D’you remember? She snapped at him, a couple days ago.”

“Yes,” Sansa says, reaching forwards to run her fingers through Lady’s fur. “I remember that, of course I do.”

“Well. I saw it happen again a few nights after. And I saw him- talking to her.”

“You think Petyr did this,” Sansa says, soft.

Her fingers trip through the smooth fur under Lady’s jaw. Warmth smooths through her, the same feeling as when Petyr had offered her those berries, and Sansa realizes: geas. Petyr’s family magic, woven in words.

How dare he, Sansa thinks, outrage flushing through her. How dare he!

…

She tells Petyr, gently, politely, firmly: place another hand on what is mine, and there will be consequences.

(Sansa is young; naive. She doesn’t know the consequences yet.)

(She learns, though.)

…

The next night, as she eats her supper, she feels her sleeve warm- feels it turn hot, as if a stray ember had slid inside. She flinches and spills the stew down her skirts.

“Oh, my dear,” Petyr says, as he steps forwards, hand coming to rest on her shoulders. He speaks to Beth, beside him: “Bring a rag- we must take care of this immediately.”

Beth brings the rag quickly enough, and Sansa takes it from her; she’s scrubbing at the wool fruitlessly- her skirts are light enough that the stain’s likely permanent- when Petyr reaches out to catch her wrist.

“Let me,” he says, and Sansa frowns at him before giving it up.

He kneels, and she feels his hand bunch the fabric, scrubbing at it himself. A heartbeat later, she feels his other hand reach up- skim over the back of her calf- and Sansa jumps.

“How dare you!”

“You ought to sit down,” he murmurs, just loud enough for her to hear.

Heat sinks into her veins, burrows down her arms, hot and thick and syrupy-

It coalesces in her sleeve. No; not the sleeve. The talisman, hidden and tied away. Sansa feels its blaze against the inside of her forearm, and the geas that Petyr tried to place on her fades as water before stone.

“You dare to place a geas on me?” Sansa demands, high and scornful. She can feel Lady’s presence behind her- watchful, comforting. “You dare to use truth magics on the daughter of the King in the North?”

“I did not-”

“I can feel it,” she hisses.

“My lady,” Petyr tries.

Sansa draws herself up. Petyr yet kneels on the mulch; the rag is clenched in his hand. Firelight plays across their faces, bright and golden, and Sansa lets its warmth- more honest, brighter than Petyr’s magic- offer her strength.

“You dared to touch me,” she says, as contemptuous as Alysanne had ever been against her husband; as magnificently as her mother ever was. “You touched me, and then you tried to place a geas on me. You are an advisor, Lord Baelish, nothing more; and had any other man tried such a thing, I would’ve taken his head. For the love my mother bears for you, your life is spared.” She pauses. “When we arrive at King’s Landing you will leave for the Fingers. I’ve no need of your advice.”

Sansa nods, then, and turns, and leaves in a swirl of leaves and wool and sparks. She looks back when she arrives at her tent, and sees Petyr: still on his knees, head bowed over his fists. He looks up- and Sansa shivers.

It could be the play of the fire, but she thinks there’s something sinister in the curve of his mouth nevertheless.

…

Sansa wakes, the next morning, not to the sound of birds or Arya’s impatience or Beth’s gentle nudges.

Well.

She wakes to one of those, for certain, but not the kind she’s used to.

She wakes to Beth, nearly tipping her out of her bed.

“Up,” Beth says.

“I- what?”

“Up,” Beth repeats, and shoves a gown at Sansa. “Wear this. If you’re not out in five minutes, I’ll drag you out.”

“Beth?” Sansa asks. “Beth- what’s going on? You-”

Beth slaps her.

The pain doesn’t quite hit; it’s more surprise than anything. But the sting is enough to make her bite her lip and draw herself up.

“I am-”

“If you want to keep your head,” Beth says, flatly, “you’ll put on that dress and come out. Quickly.”

And she leaves.

…

When Sansa leaves the tent, her hands are hidden in the skirts of the gown that Beth handed over. They’re trembling, but her head is held high.

As a princess true and noble. Sansa feels Beth fall into step beside her. I am the daughter of kings, and will be the wife of a prince. I will not falter.

Beth leads her to the clearing where Sansa had punished Petyr the previous night- Petyr stands in the same place where she had stood, flanked by soldiers on his back. As soon as she reaches a few yards of him, she feels a warmth sink through the air- and then her talisman flares with heat, and Sansa barely bites back the hiss building in her throat.

“So good of you to join us, my lady,” Petyr says.

The soldiers behind him are glazed-eyed. Sansa looks at him carefully, keeping herself as calm as she can manage.

“Beth woke me up rather rudely.”

“In the future, I shall endeavor to have her be as courteous as a knight.” Petyr’s lip curls. “Now, sit.”

Compulsion is heavy in his voice. He has the soldiers in his grasp, her own handmaiden-

As the wind blows, we shall have you in our hearts. If she is to be worthy of her father’s regard, then how can she be a coward? I love you, she thinks, and hopes her hair is as dark as coal on the weirwood statue.

“I’d prefer to stand,” says Sansa.

Irritation flashes in Petyr’s eyes, but he only shrugs- the same movement he’d offered before, when speaking of Sansa’s weakness in wielding magic. “Very well,” he says, and she sees the flick of his fingers as he casts a spell on her.

“I,” says Sansa, and gasps, as she tries to move but can’t. The talisman under her sleeve blazes, hot enough that she would have twisted from it had she not been immobile. “You’ve- you’ve spoken magic,” Sansa pants. “Geas magic, not- spells. That’s what you said!”

“Spells can be learned,” Petyr tells her. “Family magic is not the only kind, sweetling, even if that’s what you’ve been taught. I am a lord of the south,” he says, smirking. “Do you think there is no power in that?”

“There are only two powers,” she bites back, mind racing furiously. “The power to compel truth, and the power to compel obedience. And I am not of your lands to compel either, Lord Baelish-”

“Ah, but I ask not for truth.” The smirk widens. “I wish only to ensure you will never speak of this. And for that, one needs only power, and a little blood-”

Blood magic, Sansa thinks wildly, and would have thrashed had she the ability to move.

She can move- the tiniest bit, hidden as the wind rustling her skirts- but it’s nowhere near enough to avoid Petyr. His knife slides along her thumb, and redness shines on the finger he uses to wipe it, before he says something too low for her to hear and kisses it.

“I ask for this, of all that is true: that Sansa of the House Stark speaks not of this day to any man, woman, or child,” he says, louder, and she feels that warmth settle against her neck. It’s blood magic, the same as her talisman, which means that she has no protection against it. Sansa swallows, hard, at the thought.

There’s a rustle behind her, and Petyr frowns; he nods to the person there to see what’s going on- Beth, Sansa realizes, and in the attempt to see what’s happening, realizes that she can move even more now.

Magic matches magic. That’s what everyone knows. Blood magic trumps family magic, and it is family magic that protects her with the talisman. But the spell to keep her still wasn’t blood magic. It is a type of family magic, and hers is slowly unwinding his.

“Now,” Petyr says, eyes glittering, “I think you ought to learn to keep that tongue of yours still, don’t you? Obedience shall do nicely, I’m sure.”

“Obedience,” Sansa says. “Obedience.”

“I could not have your mother- but you shall be a prize enough. For now, at the least.” He starts forwards, and Sansa swallows, quailing inwardly. She would strike him, would bludgeon him; but there are soldiers surrounding her with glazed eyes and a handmaiden who’s disappeared and Sansa’s terrified-

Out of the bushes, pale as a vengeful ghost, springs a direwolf.

Sansa sees Petyr turn to face Lady. She sees his knife flick upwards. She sees it catch on Lady’s jaw.

“No,” Sansa screams, twisting forwards, abandoning the pretense of his geas.

A wind starts. It’s loud and howling, cold enough to snap against her cheeks; and then, from the same bush that Lady had leapt out of, Arya emerges.

No, Sansa thinks, arms tightening around Lady, hunching over her.

Petyr looks feral as he screams for his men to attack. They start forwards, and Nymeria is there, besides Arya, fierce and furious and ferocious. But they are two against near twenty.

No, Sansa thinks, again.

And then, one last time: no.

She grips Lady’s fur, stumbles backwards, and, when nobody turns to look at her- Sansa flees.

She doesn’t look back.

Chapter Text

They run.

They run long, and hard, and keep each other going far past what each might have managed alone. Lady nudges Sansa onwards when she stumbles; Sansa pushes Lady forwards when Lady whines in protest. If they stop, the consequences-

Do not think on them, Sansa tells herself, time and time again. Do not think on what could happen. Only on what is.

But- gods above-

Arya.

Only the gods know what’s happened to her sister. What Petyr’s done to her. What Petyr’s done to Arya, after Sansa turned and ran like a coward. It was a selfish thing, a petty thing; done mindlessly, in the heat of terror. But now Sansa cannot return- it’s not even that she doesn’t know the way back, not really, rather that she cannot bear to allow Petyr to place his hands over her once more.

He’ll croon songs of honey and light into her ear, and he’ll poison her soul inside and out with it.

I am as cowardly as Robb is brave, Sansa thinks, bitter and tired and worn. I am as selfish as Arya is selfless.

Her skirts are torn, and the tears on her cheeks sting- whipping branches have scraped away the top layer of her skin, so there’s that pain on top of the ache in her thighs and blistered feet. But she doesn’t dare to stop, not until morning turns to night turns to morning once more.

…

For all too brief a time, they rest.

Sansa strips the top layer of her gown off- it’s a good wool, a heavy wool, and with the correct covering it’ll do well as a cloak or a blanket. She uses the cleanest of her underskirts to bandage her and Lady’s wounds, and then draws the remaining cloth together in a knot as to form a pouch, where she can store food.

She has nothing.  Even sleep is dangerous now: too long, and Petyr might catch her. Sansa escaped in a blur of unthinking action; when she did, she left a trail long and easy to see. It’s now that she must be careful and cautious, hiding her presence and forcing him to abandon the chase.

The only person she can trust now is Lady, and Sansa does- she goes where Lady leads, depending on her keener nose and better senses. It’s only when Lady hunts that Sansa lets her be, and even then she takes care to hide in trees so as to keep out of sight.

Time passes strangely. Sansa doesn’t even know how many days she spends running; she loses count past a week.

She does remember the wall, though.

It’s a high wall, made of reddish stone that powders at her touch. It’s covered with vines and crumbling, half-derelict; at one point, it breaks apart into pieces, leaving only a low-sitting ruin as the only evidence of its remains. Wonder and caution war inside of her, but it’s curiosity that wins- Sansa climbs over the stone and emerges into what is either a horribly maintained garden or a miraculously well-kept forest.

Lady follows her inside, and takes off not a breath later. She stays away for the longest time yet, but when she returns she comes with almost five hares: three more than she’s ever been able to find in the rest of the forest; better yet, two of the hares are uneaten, which means that Sansa won’t have to rely on a sketchy memory of poisonous and normal fruit.

…

It takes her longer than she’d like to admit to realize where she is.

It’s the smokeberry vines running over the hearttree that give it away, but still.

King’s Landing- it’s not what she’d once thought it was.

…

There’s not enough food, though. Sansa realizes that after the third day of Lady returning with no food- there’s enough game for Lady, especially if she disappears into the Kingswood, but not near enough for them both.

So she gathers up the pieces of her courage and spends a day readying herself. Her hair is too vivid a color, so Sansa wraps it under a cloth; her face she smears with dust and mud enough to make her look like an urchin; she tries to hem her dress enough to appear less as if she’s stolen some lady’s castoffs and more like the kind she’s seen some smallfolk wear.

And then Sansa dips into the city.

Loud, is her first thought.

Her second: stinking.

It’s not a good impression, but Sansa works through it. There’s a number of orphans running through the streets, begging and stealing, but she’s fairly certain that she won’t be able to join them. She’s on the older side for one; she’s too memorable, for the other.

But she does get a big break.

That afternoon, as she sits on some stone steps, she hears a lady’s voice.

“-quit this afternoon,” the woman exclaims. There’s a man beside her and two servants behind them both. Sansa bites her lip. If she has an opening-

Try, she commands herself, and stands, and faces her.

“Lady,” Sansa calls, before biting her lip. She mustn’t appear too highborn. “M’lady- I- I need work. Please. Anything.”

The woman turns. There’s a look on her face that makes Sansa flush- never has anyone ever looked at her with such disdain before. But hunger is a raw pain in her side, so Sansa waits it out.

“Anything?”

“Yes,” Sansa says. “Anything.”

“Good.” She turns to one of the servants and hands her a coin; then, she looks back at Sansa. “Fine, then. You’ll be sweeping the street in front of my home- all the way to the gutter. You’ll have to do it all day. I’ve no desire for muck anywhere near the gate. A copper a day.”

Sweeping the street. A part of her feels faint, but Sansa shoves it aside. It’s only hunger, it’s been so long since I ate-

“My servant shall give you your broom,” the woman tells her, and Sansa nods, and that’s it- Sansa has it, has a job, has a way to earn coin enough to eat.

…

The lady lives on Coal Street, as Sansa finds out, which is twice the blessing it is a curse- though it’s a long job, sweeping the street in front of her home, the coal is easy enough to gather when nobody’s looking at her; and it provides the best dye she’s found yet for her brows.

She arrives at dawn and leaves past dusk and though her limbs ache on the best of days, there’s food in her belly, and that street’s almost gleaming.

…

She would have continued at it for however long, Sansa thinks, but the weather conspires against her.

If it gets colder, she’ll need a roof above her head; the godswood isn’t safe to rest in during the night, not when frost gathers on the grass and leaves her far too cold to sleep. The coin Sansa makes is enough for either- for either a room or either food; not both. She needs another job.

Which is why it’s another stroke of luck to hear of the open court that King Rhaegar is holding.

It’s in honor of my arrival, she hears- of the Princess Sansa’s, at the least. But she has no idea why or how Petyr will produce the Princess Sansa. Not when she’s sweeping coal in the streets to dye her brows or smearing mud over her cheeks to hide the fairness of her skin.

All people can attend. Sansa arrives almost the night before and loiters, because she cannot cannot cannot allow people to pass her by. She has to get a job. She must, or she’ll die, and that’s not a fate that she can swallow.

Not when Petyr is still alive, and holds power over her.

…

It’s just past dawn when she enters the throne room.

I should be seeing this as a princess, Sansa thinks, but doesn’t dare to say anything more aloud. There’s no way for her to profess her true identity. Not with the geas around her neck, choking the truths that she might want to say. There’s no way for her to prove anything, and hopefully Petyr will hang himself without her; hopefully, there won’t be any need for her to do anything.

There’s the famed Iron Throne high above the rest of the court, but it’s empty. The King sits on a lower seat instead, flanked on two sides by his Kingsguard, a tapestry hanging behind him almost twice as bright as the rest of the room.

“Speak,” he says.

Sansa’s practiced her words for hours now: slurring them under her breath, echoing them in the same rhythm of the people surrounding her in the street.

“I need room, m’lord,” she says. “Room and board. I’m willing to do any work, I swear it- just. I need coin enough for a roof.”

“A roof and food, I presume,” one of the advisors says. He sounds nasty. He sounds disdainful, too, more than anything else, and that’s what knots the muscles in the back of Sansa’s neck. “If we gave such to everyone who came begging, we’d not have a single coin in the treasury.”

Another’s lips twist. “Best to begone, then, girl.”

My name is Sansa Stark. I am the daughter of King Eddard Stark of the North, and I am the price of peace for the next king. I am-

I am a beggar.

One among thousands. Sansa studies the tapestry behind the King so that she can will the tears back: it’s made of four colors, starting with honey-yellow, then blue, then red, then a gold-silver mix that shines as sunlight. She swallows, hard, and tips her head up to face them.

“I am willing to work,” she says, and the words taste acrid on her tongue.

“I said-” the second advisor begins.

The King interrupts.

“Well,” he says, “we’ve work enough in this castle for at least a hundred more hands, have we not? Varys-”

“No,” says the first advisor, flatly. “We’ve none. None that can be filled by a girl with no experience.”

“Then outside,” the King replies. “In the hills. Have we nothing at all?”

There’s silence, and then the second advisor smiles. “We do,” he says. “We do, my lord: with the geese. The boy I assigned has been asking for help. I’m certain he can- assist.”

“Well, then,” the King says, and claps his hands. “That’s finalized.”

It is? Sansa thinks, and bows her head, and nods.

And it is: that’s it, the end of it. Sansa gets up and leaves, and court continues, and the world doesn’t pause for a single breath at all. It makes her insides churn just slightly. It sharpens her teeth until she feels like she might cut open her tongue with it- but she swallows instead, and the injustice rolls off her as water off her back.

…

She meets with Gendry the next day.

He’s a tall boy, with hair dark as the sky at night, eyes bright as the sky at noon. Too muscled to be a herder, she thinks, but shrugs the thought away. King’s Landing is a city of contradictions, a city where homeless girls can talk to kings and princesses sweep streets. There’s little more that Sansa can be impressed by.

But Gendry doesn’t seem happy for the added help- he snorts, and sneers, and mutters things under his breath that she can’t quite make out but knows to be full of dislike.

That first day, the geese bite at her ankles at least seven times.

Sansa learns, though- she learns to maintain her calm when the ganders charge at her- or at the least, to maintain her balance- and to use the crook of the staff the advisor gives her to the best of her ability. She’s a tall girl, Sansa, and she uses it well.

There are still bruises on her, but she’s got a room in a hut near the geese’s pasture and food that’s warm, and if there’s one thing the past weeks have taught her, it’s that such things are not to be taken for granted.

…

Two weeks after she first starts herding the geese, a man blows by.

He’s on a horse- and he rides, slung low over it, hard enough that the thunder of the horse’s hooves makes the earth shake. The geese scatter out of his way, chattering furiously, and Sansa just barely stops herself from shrieking back.

They’d just settled.

And now it’ll take her another hour- at the least- to calm them down enough to maintain anything approaching order. She’ll have to wrangle them back to the pasture, keep them from fleeing into the woods as they’re wont to do without her staff.

There’s a part of her that’s certain that Gendry takes pleasure in leaving: he always divides the geese evenly, but Sansa’s sure that he takes only the well-behaved ones, leaving her with the hellions. There’s another pasture divided by a hill that Gendry likes, because he doesn’t have to watch Sansa’s incompetency with the geese; that matters little to Sansa, anyhow, so she just leaves him be.

At sundown, there’s that thunderous sound again- hooves, beating against the earth.

Sansa just barely leaps out of the way in time. The geese squawk indignantly, and Sansa considers, despairing, how much longer she’ll have to spend tonight for them to not wake up the entire city. Anger unfurls down her throat; and this time, it’s easier to bear.

Easier to release.

“How dare you!” She snaps, at the man riding away. He’s limned in dusk-light, and though she’s almost blinded by it, she can make out the darkness of his hair. “How dare you do this, how dare you not look at me and see what I am-”

It’s not a sob that catches in her voice. It’s not.

It still tastes of salt.

…

That night, Sansa sits on the dusty ground, braiding her hair.

There’s a small cot, shoved against one side of the room; it takes up half the space. Another fourth is occupied by a firepit, for which she doesn’t have firewood, and the last fourth is just large enough for her to sit comfortably- legs sprawled out, back resting against the bed’s legs.

She’s eaten, a meal of bread and stew that’s expensive enough to be her breakfast the next morning as well. In the coldness of dawn, she’ll surely feel the keen bite of hunger; Sansa refuses to think on that, though, and only on the warmth that she feels now. The warmth and the silence, different to a forest’s gloom; different to a castle’s sleep. She’s alone now, without even Lady, and it’s a feeling that’s- strange, to say the least. Perhaps a better word would be unsettling.

But it’s not, as evinced by how she feels when she hears a knock on the door.

That’s unsettlement right there: prickling under her skin, fear making every nerve ending sing like a storm. No one’s ever visited her when she was here. She’s always up before the requisite time, always there at the pasture at dawn, always before Gendry. Why would anyone-

She palms the knife that she used to cut the bread. It’s blunt, but it’ll do- hopefully- in a pinch. She reaches out for Lady as well, tugs her closer.

Then, she opens the door.

Standing outside is a single man- tall, lean, with dark hair and a straight nose. She can’t see much more in the dim light offered by the stars alone, but she thinks there’s something familiar to the shape anyhow.

“I’m- sorry,” the man says, ignoring her squinting graciously. “But I’m looking for the- the goose girl. The girl who’s herding my- the King’s geese. The woman pointed me your way?”

The woman is another person that Sansa doesn’t know the name of. She’s got wrinkled skin and always smells like cabbages, no matter when or how they meet. She’s stayed on this land for a long time, as far as Sansa can tell; she’s the person who directed her to the hut, who handed her the keys.

“Yes,” Sansa replies slowly. “That’s me.”

“Thank the gods,” the man mutters under his breath. Sansa thinks he likely didn’t mean for her to hear, but he continues before she can do more than twitch her lips. “I came here because I- I think I owe you an apology.” He grimaces. “A large one, I think. I saw how angry those geese were when I left.”

“You still left,” Sansa says.

He lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I was late. For some things. But I’m sorry for that, if you must know.”

“Well,” she says. “That is- thank you, I suppose.” Sansa breathes in, breathes out, and then smiles for him. Even if he can’t see her- even if it is too dark- he can probably hear it in her voice. “So, what do you do around this castle? That you must scare the geese and then flee so urgently?”

“I’m a- guard,” the man says. “Unused to horses, though. And that one’s a beast. Hard to control.”

Arya had a new horse, Sansa thinks, but banishes the thought before it can sink stingers into her heart. “A nice one, though, I hope.”

“Yes,” he says, and they fall silent.

It’s not- not comfortable, Sansa decides, but it is nice. Companionable, of sorts, and the first kind of overture of friendship she’s had since Petyr. She plucks at her courage to say something- do something. But the man nods, decisively, before she can; and then he moves away.

“Good night then,” he says.

“Wait!” Sansa calls, and almost swallows her tongue in her haste to continue: “No- I meant- just- what’s your name? So I can know, you know, who it was who frightened my geese.”

“Jon,” the man says. She thinks he’s smiling, now: there’s a warmth in his voice, not unlike Petyr’s voice; but this is smoother, and lighter. Not honey so much as sunlight. “And yours?”

Not Sansa, a voice blares in her head, moments before she gives the entire game away. Anything but Sansa, you stupid girl-

“Alayne,” Sansa says. It sits on her tongue like an unbalanced stone, but it sits for long enough; Jon leaves before she can mess anything else up.

“Alayne,” she whispers, again, before she sleeps.

…

A lie, a lie, a lie.

Sansa used to play with her brothers in the godswood, once upon a time, and she called herself Alayne- Alayne Arryn, lovely and aching, lady of the Vale twice over. The lie slipped easily on her tongue in front of Jon.

But his is not all truth either: Sansa wakes, trembling, and fists her hands over her mouth to hold back the words clawing to get out.

If you’re just a guardsman, she thinks, sweating, shaking, why, oh, why do you speak as you do?

Why do you speak as I do?

Why do you speak as a Northerner does?

…

She wakes later than usual the next day- it’s almost dawn, and Sansa panics.

The bucket of water she uses to wash her face is empty, though, and there’s not near enough time for her to go to the stream and lug it back. But if she doesn’t wash her hair the frizz will likely escape the rag covering it, and then she’ll be-

Don’t think about it, she orders herself, but can’t stop herself from fidgeting as she slips into her dress.

Hopefully the light’s still too faint for anyone to make out what color her hair actually is.

Gendry doesn’t seem to notice anything at all when they meet up at the pasture; he grunts when she arrives, and then he starts herding his geese away from hers. Sansa flips her staff around, once, and catches one of the geese before they can bite at his calf- but Gendry doesn’t notice, and she doesn’t bother to tell him, either.

“I’ll come back at evening,” Gendry tells her, and leads his herd of geese away as usual.

Sansa sighs. It’s always the same. At least the geese themselves are more welcoming now; they don’t charge at her, and after she freed one of the ganders from a thorned bush they seem to have realized that she’s not going to harm them.

She settles on a flat rock, the staff balanced across her knees. There’s a nice breeze, and the sunlight shines very prettily off of the creek rushing by, and she can see all of the geese-

A creek.

Oh, Sansa thinks.

A creek that’s slightly smaller than the stream near her hut, but a source of water nonetheless. Sansa can wash her face and her hair now. She could- yes, but only if she’s willing to risk being found out.

But if she doesn’t, then she’ll risk it anyhow.

And Gendry won’t return for another few hours.

Sansa reaches up and undoes the rag against her hair. She unwinds the braid, and then she looks over her shoulder- but, yes, she’s alone still, and the geese are calm. The fall of her hair is heavy against her shoulders as she starts to pour water over it.

It’s soothing: repetitive motions, paired with almost-silence.

When she’s done, Sansa leans back, pillows her head on grass, lets the sunlight shine on hair that’s not seen the light of day in months. Freedom, she thinks, warmth stealing over her bones, soft and giving like silk. I am free.

“Hey!”

Gendry’s shout startles her out of the reverie. Sansa surges to her feet, hair spilling down her back like a river of flame, and she wonders what sort of a picture she makes- but it matters not, for Gendry must not be able to approach her. Sansa cannot speak the truth, and she is a horrible liar. There must be something she can do-

“Don’t fail me now,” she breathes, and digs deep inside of herself.

The wind follows her bidding- it catches on Gendry’s cap, on his cloak-clasp; draws him away and chases him until he leaves. Until he fades beyond the hill, and Sansa braids her hair away quickly, hastily. She cannot afford to be found. She will not be found.

…

The next day, Gendry doesn’t show up.

Sansa knows, then, that he’s seen her hair- that he knows that she is not all that she seems.

It matters not, she tells herself. Who will he tell? No one shall believe him.

She grips her staff and watches over twice the number of geese, all by herself. It’s not quite as hard as she thought it might be.

…

Days later, Gendry approaches her.

“The geese like you,” he says.

It’s true enough: they don’t bite at her any longer, and they trust her too; when she guides them away from the woods they don’t hiss or snarl. They’ve not charged at her for almost a full sennight.

A kingdom of geese, Sansa thinks, wryly, a kingdom that loves me.

“Perhaps,” she replies. Then, because he’s not carrying his staff: “Where’ve you been? It’s been four days.”

He doesn’t answer her, not directly. “Your hair- why do you cover it?”

“Because I want to.”

He steps forwards. “Your brows are- dark. But your hair was…”

Gendry reaches up, fingers catching on the wool of her hair-cover, and Sansa spins away. The rag falls, baring her hair as if it were a gold-stripped crown. Her heart pounds in her chest like a firefly’s flickers. She’s hot and furious and afraid, all at once, and this time when she calls the wind it comes to her without hesitation, cold and snapping.

“Leave,” she says, hisses, commands; fierce as Arya standing against Petyr and his men, undying as Lyanna’s weirwood statue in Winterfell, tall as her mother. “Leave.”

The wind howls in her ears as a thousand wolves. The geese shriek at Gendry as well, flapping their wings at him until he leaves- and he does, stumbling and startled, but away from her nevertheless.

Sansa’s not sorry to see him go.

...

Thrice more Gendry approaches, and thrice more Sansa deflects him. Each time he turns bullish and furious as any ox; each time, Sansa refuses to let the wind abate, not until he leaves her be.

Her hair is her secret.

Her hair is her life, truly, more than anything; and she won’t give it up. Not for anything that Gendry does or attempts. 

Chapter Text

“Come on, now,” the old woman clicks her tongue at Sansa. “The geese’ll maintain, girl- how often d’you get to see princesses? Come on, I say, they call her one of the prettiest girls in the North. Aren’t you curious at all?”

Sansa exhales, and stomps away. If it were up to her, she’d likely hide in the pastures for the rest of her life. But she’s also certain this woman won’t let her be, and resisting won’t achieve anything at all, so- so she doesn’t.

There’s dust on her face, mud smeared over her boots, and goose-feather in her hair. She won’t be recognized. Sansa’s sure of that much, at the least.

So she stands on the side of the road while Petyr marches into King’s Landing, a smirk on his face that she’d like to strike away, wearing robes far finer than any he’d worn before. It’s the person behind him, though, that punches the breath out of her lungs: Beth.

Beth Cassel, wearing one of Sansa’s own gowns, riding Arya’s horse. She has her hair up in an intricate style, all scarlet braids as she might have done for Sansa, once. She wears a necklace of rubies, all of them shining in the sunlight.

I cannot, Sansa thinks. I cannot- I cannot do this.

She pushes back, sidles around the people, mumbles apologies- until the old woman catches her arm. The stink of cabbage surrounds her, abruptly.

“The latch,” Sansa says, lowly. “I don’t remember- I don’t remember if I closed it. I’m sorry, I have to go.”

Sansa doesn’t look back when she flees. She worries at her lip until it feels raw and swollen, but she doesn’t dare to see the celebrations that were once meant to be hers, that now go to her handmaiden. And then she feels guilt for that, because Beth is as blameless in this entire farce as Sansa is- far less, in some aspects.

She stops at the gate. It’s closed. Sansa places her hands over it: callused hands, now, when they’d been soft all her life before. This wood is rough against her palms, though, and the world feels very cold on her shoulders, very heavy along her spine.

I cannot, she thinks, again, and turns, and leaves.

…

The godswood is quiet, as it always is.

Lady is off in the woods, enjoying herself. Sansa is alone, and the woods are silent, and she lets herself cry- loud, unabashed tears, the kind which start from the belly and rip through the chest and snarl in the throat. She cries for Arya, lost to Petyr’s greed and Sansa’s own cowardice; she cries for Beth, who scarce deserves the way she’s being used; she cries for herself, the princess with blistered hands and a shepherd’s crooked staff.

The crackle of leaves makes her startle into silence, scrubbing hastily at her face.

When she feels steady, she steps out.

Jon- she thinks- stands there, one hand braced on a trunk, head bent over it in thought. His hair catches the leaf-green light, soft and curled against pale skin, and Sansa remembers it from before: him on a horse, backlit by twilight, glowing and golden.

“Jon?”

He startles. He relaxes, though, upon seeing her. “Goose girl,” he says, and smiles, just a little. “Or- Alayne. What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t expect anyone,” Sansa says, slowly. “I thought everyone was busy, you know, for the princess.”

“Yes,” says Jon. “I escaped, though. Needed a few moment’s peace.”

Sansa eyes him, and then shifts, settling against the same tree that he’s leaning on. It’s wide, though, and she can barely look at him- which is good, because she’s too tired, too worn, too- something. It aches, flares, cold and sick in her chest.

“How is she, do you think?”

“Who?” Jon asks.

“The princess,” Sansa says, quietly.

There’s a rag on her head and calluses on her hands and goose-feather on her boots. There’s coal and dust on her face. Sansa’s got lines on her palms from dragging a water bucket to her home. She can feel the bite of hunger still in her belly.

“She is- very quiet,” Jon says. “I always thought princesses spoke more, but I suppose- I suppose the North must be different.”

“Or she might be afraid,” Sansa offers. “Leaving her home as she did. Perhaps she feels-”

Guilty.

Her voice chokes into silence, though, and Sansa almost laughs at it. Petyr’s geas is hot on her throat like a collar; if she doesn’t laugh, she’ll cry. She’ll scream, at the injustice of it all.

“Perhaps she’ll feel...” Jon prods her, when she remains silent.

Sansa tips her head to the side. “I’m not certain,” she says, bitter. “I’m a simple girl, after all. What can I know of royalty?”

“Did- did something happen?”

There’s a long silence, before Sansa can find it in herself to answer. “No,” she says. “Or- yes, of sorts, but it’s to do with- with Gendry. You know, the goose boy? The one I herd geese with? It’s a long story. But he’s infuriating.”

He smiles. A proper one, one that she can see, all teeth and cheeks and dimples. It’s transformative, on his long face. "Mmm. I didn't see him, when I rode through your pasture."

"You rode so quickly," Sansa says, "how could you have seen anything at all?"

“I saw you,” Jon protests.

She sighs, a half-laugh against the roll of her throat, and tips her head back against the tree trunk.

Then Jon turns to her. “You- where are you from, exactly? I thought- the North. That’s what you sound like. But-”

“My father wa- is, is from the North.” Her nails cut into her palm. “My mother’s from the south. I-” she exhales, slowly. “I sound like him, I'm told.”

“How did a girl with a Northern father come all the way to King's Landing?”

Sansa cuts a look sideways. "I trusted the wrong people," she tells him. "I might have had some prospects, if I'd not trusted them. But I was stupid, and- and, I suppose, that's it. Here I am."

Here she is.

A goose girl, with a geas around her throat and a staff in her hands. But Sansa is also alive, and she's doing- if not well, then at least manageably.

“Here I am,” Jon echoes.

“And you?” Sansa asks. “You talk like me, too. Why are you here? How did you get here?”

“A shorter tale,” Jon tells her. “My mother was a Northerner. I speak like her.”

Sansa almost goes to press. She thinks she could do it, too: a few more questions, and she'd likely have all of Jon's life spilled out for her. But she sees the way his shoulders tighten and twist away, the tendons of his neck- and she inhales all of the words, swallows them down into her chest.

“I ought to get back,” she says, instead, softly. Reaches out, and catches Jon's shoulder. “The geese- I need to tend to them. But it was good talking to you, Jon. It's... nice.”

“I,”Jon says, and then: “yes, Alayne. Yes it is. Nice, I mean.”

They part ways, after that, and Sansa tries very hard not to feel unbalanced by the way Alayne falls off of Jon’s tongue.

…

She pours the water into the trough. As she’s scattering feed along the lining- food, for there’s little grass inside the pen- she hears him.

“I’ll leave you alone,” says Gendry.

Sansa turns and looks at him. “Will you,” she says, flatly.

“I will.” He swallows. “For a price.”

“What price?” Sansa asks.

“Three hairs from your head,” he says. “I’ve never seen hair that bright before. Give me three hairs, and I’ll not speak to you ever again.”

Three hairs, Sansa thinks, and sees the mutinous light in Gendry’s eyes, the set of his jaw. For peace, three hairs.

She reaches up and unravels her rag, balls it in one fist, and draws her hand through her hair until three strands catch on her fingers.

“Here,” Sansa tells him, holding it out. “Here, have your price. And don’t ever speak to me of it again.”

…

[Interlude: Gendry]

“Where did you get that?”

Gendry startles. He’s hunched over in front of the fire, twirling Alayne’s hair as he ponders over it. It’s been a long day, what with the princess’ arrival; but he did speak to the prince.

He can’t do this any longer.

It was better when I was herding the geese alone, he thinks sourly, before sighing. It was better when I was smithing.

“Leave me alone,” he grunts at the urchin bothering him, turning away from him.

Lord Baratheon’s known for being a patron to blacksmith’s shops, which is why Gendry can’t work there while all the nobility is in the city for the wedding. It’s why he’s herding geese now.

“Where did you get that hair?” The urchin demands, again, voice honing into something sharp-edged.

A wind starts up, rustling the shavings on the floor of the hut. The rest of the Brotherhood don’t notice, but Gendry does: it snakes around, cold and faint, with the promise of more if he doesn’t answer.

Wind, he thinks, and remembers Alayne, standing on the hill, hair blazing and whipping around her, wind so strong it punched the air right out of him.

He swivels around and faces the urchin.

There’s no similarities between him and Alayne, not in their features. None at all. But the wind…

“Who did you say you were?” Gendry asks, slowly.

…

The next morning, Sansa doesn’t bother to wait for Gendry to arrive. She lets the geese out herself, and she takes them to the pasture alone, and she doesn’t bother to look for him.

The price of peace is silence, she thinks, and I have paid it- in blood, in hair, in tears. I will not look on his face again.

Even as she thinks it, even as she decides it, she sees: Gendry, walking towards her, hands shoved in his pockets, head bowed-

“No,” she says.

The wind never truly obeyed her, not as it did for Arya or Robb. But it comes when she calls it, and it yanks at Gendry’s legs until he trips and falls.

“I told you to leave,” Sansa shouts. “I told you to- you promised! So leave me alone.”

She folds her arms over her chest and looks away, looks towards the geese instead. They’re calm enough. I cannot, Sansa thinks, and then: I will not.

“You can control the wind?”

Sansa squeaks and whirls around, and- and-

There he is.

Jon, one white-knuckled on his sword’s hilt, eyes locked on hers. “You’ve elemental magic,” he says. “You’ve Stark magic.”

“I can explain,” Sansa says.

…

But she can’t.

The words don’t come. Petyr’s geas holds, blood magic binding, and she cannot tell Jon any of this any more than she can speak prophecies. She closes her eyes and lets the despair wash over her once more. I cannot speak of this to a man, woman, or child, she thinks. I am alone, she thinks, and it cuts at her as a sword’s bite.

Wait-

Man, woman, or child.

I know of one who is none of those. She looks at Jon, and then stands. Please, gods above-

“Come with me.” She holds out a hand.

Sansa’s not sure what’s in her face. But Jon looks at it, and he slides his hand into hers, palm rough along her calluses, along her scars.

“Where to?”

“The godswood,” Sansa tells him, and they walk there together.

…

“Why were you there?” Sansa asks, as they pick their way over to the godswood. “Behind me- why were you there at all?”

“Gendry,” he says. Jon’s head is bowed, the dark hair loose around his face, so she can’t see his eyes. “We- we’re friends, of sorts, and he spoke to me. Yesterday. Of the goose girl who chases him away with wind. And there’s only one family I know of that controls the wind: the Starks.”

“I didn’t-” Sansa swallows. “The truth is hard to hear. Is hard to say. I was caught, and I was hurt, and I was compelled-”

“I am asking you to tell me,” Jon says, and Sansa whirls on him.

“Do you think I’ve not tried?” Anger bubbles in her throat, before she forces it back. “I- I hope. I hope this can help. I hope-” she bites down on her tongue. “-let us first reach the godswood.”

...

In the godswood, Lady awaits them.

She looks as a pale ghost, fur bright in the sunlight-shaded darkness, and Sansa leans down, runs a hand over her muzzle.

“I’m going to tell you a story, alright, Lady?” She settles against Lady’s legs, and doesn’t turn to look at Jon at all. “I think you might know it, but- you should listen. It’s important.”

Jon- blessedly- remains silent. Sansa closes her eyes and breathes in, breathes out, finds that part of her that’s always steady, cold as the wind that she calls.

“Once upon a time,” she says, to no one- no one but Lady, who’s not a man or a woman or a child. “Once upon a time, there was a princess who trusted an evil man. And she lost everything to that man: her gowns, her titles, her sister. But she ran before he could take her life, and she arrived at a city with nothing but the clothes on her back. And she lived, that princess- she swept streets, and herded geese, and wept in the night; but she lived.”

Lady whines, low in her throat. “I lost everything,” Sansa tells her. “All save for Mother’s talisman, and my family’s blood-power, and. And-” In, out, steady, breaths whistling in her ear. “And my hair.”

The godswood is dark. Lady shines as a ghost under its leaves. Sansa reaches up and draws the rag covering her hair away, and she glows as well: as a lamp, tall and unbending and brilliant.

“You’re the Stark princess,” Jon breathes, sounding choked. “You’re- you’re Sansa Stark.”

“Yes,” she says, and though she turns to face him, Sansa can’t find it in herself to look at him. “I am.”

“That girl- the one who’s the true princess-”

“She used to be my handmaiden.”

“We must-” he stands, abruptly, and Sansa startles. “We must do something. If we tell the King, we can-”

“No,” Sansa says.

“What?”

“No,” she says. “No, we cannot. We shall not. I’ve held this secret for almost a year. You cannot do this.”

“That false princess cannot marry the true prince!” Jon exclaims.

“Before the wedding, then,” Sansa says. “I shall do something- I shall, I swear to you, Jon, but- but this is dangerous.”

“That girl isn’t dangerous,” he says flatly.

Sansa clenches her jaw. “Beth- that’s her name. And she isn’t, perhaps, but Petyr is. None of this is her fault, and I don’t want her hurt. Not when Petyr’s controlling her mind.” She reaches forwards, just a little, and rests it on his knee. “Please,” she whispers. “Some more time.”

Jon stares at her hand for a long time.

“Very well,” he says finally. Then, slowly: “I think- you ought to know something about me.”

A time to reveal secrets, Sansa thinks, and presses her hand against the knee it was already against.

“I am not a guard. Not alone, at the least.” A smile curves over his lips, thin and wry. “I am- I am a prince. Prince Jon Targaryen.”

“Oh,” Sansa says. “Oh.”

My betrothed. The man I’m supposed to marry. I thought-

“I will not marry her,” Jon tells her. “Not the false princess, no matter how much you plead. If you are the Stark princess, then I shall wed you; as I have sworn. So, you see, I shall trust you: to find a path to convict Petyr Baelish. But I shall not go to the altar with her.” He reaches out, catches the same hand that she’d placed on his knee. “Please,” he says, “no more secrets. As between the two of us- no more. It’s the price I ask of you, for staying my sword today. Please.”

We are to marry.

“Yes,” Sansa replies. It still sounds faint in her ears, but she’s recovering fast. Faster than she expected. “Yes, that seems- fair.”

…

[Interlude II: Arya]

Arya follows the instructions Gendry gave her.

Past the smithy, where everyone in the Brotherhood thinks he’s working- to the pasture. To a field of green, with white fluffy birds clustered along the stream, with no person in sight. Arya waits, though, because she knows the color of the hairs Gendry held that night; she knows that he knows where her sister is. She can be patient, she can, she promises-

And then, as if from a dream, a figure emerges from above a hill. She’s leaner than the Sansa that Arya knew; she’s wearing grubbier skirts, and her hair is covered; but she’s just as tall as Sansa ever was.

Arya would know her profile anywhere.

“Sansa!” She shrieks, and tears down the hill, wild and ferocious and incandescently joyous. “Sansa, Sansa, Sansa, oh, gods-”

Sansa turns, and the look of shock on her face could only be outstripped by the relief that follows.

“Arya?” she says. “You’re alive,” Sansa breathes, and catches Arya in her arms, folds her close to her heart. “Oh, gods, Arya, I was certain you were dead. Whatever- where were you?”

“Safe,” Arya says, through the lump in her throat.

It’s all she can say without choking, but she thinks Sansa understands well enough: she’s safe, she was safe, she will be safe. They’re together now, the Stark sisters; and they’ll survive, now, whatever the world throws their way.

…

…

“I escaped,” Arya tells her. “Petyr got me, but before he could use the blood magic or whatever- a bunch of others attacked. The Brotherhood.”

“The Brotherhood,” Sansa says, voice sharp with surprise. “They kept you safe, though?”

“They captured me. Petyr and the others escaped, but I was tied up. But. Yes, they kept me safe enough. Thought I was a boy, but otherwise…” She shrugs. “We came a few weeks ago. There’s a small home we live in, in Flea’s Bottom. Gendry lives there, too, you know, so that’s how I realized.”

“Oh. I’ve a house here, too,” Sansa says. “Near the pasture.”

Arya snorts. “Never thought I’d get to see that. You, herding geese.”

“I swept streets first,” Sansa tells her, and hides the smile that threatens to burst out when Arya starts coughing. “This is a better job by far. I’ve a home, and food, and I’ve even met- Jon.”

“Jon?”

“Yes. The- the prince.” She keeps her eyes steady on Arya. “The prince that I am to marry.”

“Ah,” says Arya, brows lifting almost to her hairline. “How’d you meet him? Did he need some geese for supper? Or-”

“You’re horrid,” Sansa says. “No, he just- I didn’t know he was the prince at the time. But we spoke, and he was kind, and- he told me last week. After I told him who I truly was.”

“So neither of you knew?”

Sansa shakes her head. But her smile fades as she remembers: Jon, waiting to act against Petyr, hand resting on the hilt of his sword-

“You stayed with Petyr for some time,” she says, slowly.

Arya nods.

“You- did you hear something? Anything?” Desperation flows through her, but Sansa hopes Arya cannot hear it. “Of what he planned, or- anything, really, Arya, anything. Something we could use.”

“Nothing much,” Arya frowns, fiddling with her shawl. “Nothing much, but- oh, yes, he’s darkbreath. He said something about using it. And he talked about going North again, but I’m not sure why.”

Sansa sighs, frustrated. But then Arya shifts, bony shoulders digging into her sternum, body warm and alive- and Sansa lets it go.

…

It’s another fortnight before Jon comes to see her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, brushing a hand through his hair. “It’s just- there’s been loads of things going on.”

“Wedding preparations?”

“Yes,” he says. “And- there’s been these murders. These bodies- they just appear out of nowhere. A nobleman from the Reach died just yesterday, and Father’s worried about it.”

“Murders,” Sansa says, slowly.

“Strange ones, too. They end up breathing this sort of purple air. The maesters are quite puzzled, honestly-”

“Darkbreath,” Sansa says. Her hand tightens on the staff. “I- purple air, I know what that is, I told Petyr-”

Jon’s eyes narrow. “You know it?”

“It’s from the North,” she tells him.

“And you think Petyr would,” he says. “But why? Why kill- it was a sweetshop owner, a silk merchant. Nobody of importance.”

It’s nothing, not even something she’s ever remembered before. But Sansa feels something flare inside of her, and she hears it as clearly as if Petyr were standing right next to her: I could not have your mother- but you shall be a prize enough. For now, at the least. And before even that, the day she told him of darkbreath: the giant can always approach the lady once more.

A tale of hope, Sansa thinks.

You were smart, Sansa thinks, but not smart enough.

“Practice,” she says. “If the south doesn’t know what darkbreath is, he can use it without overmuch worry of being found out. And at the end, he can blame the North. He can use your armies to march on the North, and if my father dies in battle, all the better- it’s all he’s ever wanted, Jon, from the very beginning: my mother.”

Jon pauses. Then he turns aside, sharp, and curses loudly.

“Father’s called a war council,” he says. “A war council, for tomorrow, and-”

“-and if I were Petyr,” Sansa whispers, horrified, “I know when I’d reveal my knowledge of darkbreath.”

“We have to do something,” he says.

“Yes,” she replies. “Yes, which means we must stop him. Soon. Before it gets worse.”

Sansa swallows.

“Tomorrow,” she says, decisively.

…

The next morning, Arya and Gendry meet Sansa at the pasture.

“He’s promised to help,” Arya tells her. She shoves him, just a little. “And to apologize.”

Sansa blinks. “Apologize?”

“He was an ass. He’s usually an ass, quite honestly, but- not this much.” Arya reaches out and plants her hand straight between Gendry’s shoulderblades, propelling him forwards. “So he’ll say sorry.”

Gendry’s cheeks are ruddier than they usually are, Sansa thinks; he looks both chagrined and apologetic.

“I am,” he says, coughing into his fist. “I am- I’m sorry. You’ve not been half so unkind as I have, Ala- Sansa. I ought to have been- better.”

“Well,” Sansa says, softly, “I think that’s good enough for me.”

She holds out her staff. Gendry frowns at it, before looking up, into her eyes.

“What’s it for?”

Sansa grins. “We need a distraction,” she tells him. “And, goose-boy, I know the perfect kind.”

Chapter Text

The guards of the Red Keep are trained to watch for armies, for assassins, for traitors.

They’re not quite ready for a legion of geese, though, nor a bastard-smith-turned-goose-boy, nor a princess who looks more like an urchin than anything else.

…

They pause before entering the throne room, Arya and Sansa- they pause, and then Arya turns aside, and Sansa disappears into the corridors.

(Petyr Baelish has a hundred plans to fall back upon, and Sansa must outwit him at every turn. This is only the beginning, Sansa promises herself: only the start of her vengeance.

He will not take anything more from her.)

…

“Petyr Baelish,” Arya says, soft, “I accuse you.”

“Who is this?” One of the advisors demands, but nobody answers them.

“That girl is not my sister,” Arya announces, lifting a hand- no, lifting her sword- to point to Beth. “She is your creature, the handmaiden to Sansa that you used for your own purposes after my sister escaped.”

The sword-point doesn’t waver at all, even as she steps closer to the raised dais where all the men are sitting. “You are a fraud,” Arya says, and keeps her face upturned, eyes affixed to his.

“How dare you!” Petyr snaps. She can see the sheen across his face, though; sweat, and rage, and panic, all put together. “How dare you.” He turns to the King. “Your Majesty! This girl-”

“Yes, Lord Baelish.” Rhaegar lifts a hand, and Petyr’s mouth snaps shut. “This girl. She names the Lady Sansa as her sister, does she not? Which would make her a Stark as well.” He arches a brow. “Prove it.”

The words aren’t even half out of his mouth- his tongue hasn’t even finished closing into the harshness of the -t in it- before Arya summons the wind.

It grows, grows and twists and surges, pounding in her chest. The candles almost blow out, but Arya seems to know enough not to let that happen; she lifts her hands, though, one empty, the other holding naked steel, and the wind rises as well, howling against the windows until glass shatters around them.

“Is that proof enough?” She asks, into the silence. “I am Arya Stark of Winterfell, second daughter of King Eddard Stark, and I swear to all of you before me: that girl is not my sister, and that man is the one who has claimed her to be.”

One step, two steps, three: Sansa watches as Petyr moves away. He slides, sinuous as a snake, and she breathes. He’s at one of the side-doors before anyone notices, and if he goes through, she knows that it’s likely he’ll never be found. Not with a man so good at deceiving as he.

But Jon steps forwards, out of hiding from behind the door, and he, too, holds a sword in his hand- which might not be enough, in the larger scheme of things, but it’s imposing enough for Petyr to stumble back in surprise, startling enough to catch everyone’s attention.

Good, Sansa thinks. Petyr attempting to flee- he’s as like as signed his own confession, as like as proven his guilt.

“Catch him,” the King murmurs to his Kingsguard- but before they can, Petyr reaches up and points to Beth.

“If you know she is not your sister,” Petyr hisses, “then you know that she is an innocent.” Sansa can see the magic coiling around his fingers- pale and shining and ugly.  “Let me go, or I will kill her while all of you watch.”

“You cannot kill someone like that,” Arya declares sharply. “There is no such magic.” She steps forwards, and Petyr smiles.

“Do you see that necklace, sweetling?”

Arya pauses. “Yes.”

“Good. It’s tuned to me, you know. I might not be able to kill you with a flick of my fingers, but.” He tips his head over to Beth, still standing against the table, placid as if she sees nothing. Maybe she doesn’t, Sansa thinks, and feels sick to her stomach, to see the extent of Petyr’s control over Beth-

“That will explode when I will it. And if her necklace explodes- so does she. So. Let me go, and I promise you that I’ll not hurt you.”

Now, Sansa thinks.

Arya snarls something, and in that same breath, as he’s distracted, Sansa steps forwards, out of the shadows.

She takes the talisman her mother gave her and stuffs it into the collar of Beth’s dress.

“Enough,” she says. Her hair- she hadn’t braided it in the morning, and when she pulls at her rag, all of it tumbles down her back, free and flaming. “Enough, I say, Petyr. Enough dancing. Enough tales.” Sansa fists her hands and doesn’t, doesn’t, look around her. “You cannot hurt Beth; and I am the one you wanted, anyhow.”

His lips twist, and she smiles.

“Or perhaps I am not. It is my mother you wanted, is it not?” Sansa spreads her arms. “Do whatever you want,” she tells him, and stands, proud as a spire of ice, unprotected for the first time since leaving Winterfell, free. “You were smart, and lucky, but not enough.”

The Kingsguard close in on Petyr, but she can see his rage. The rage that translates to cunning in the space of a heartbeat.

“You are a fool,” he says. “A fool to have shown your face today.”

“I am a princess,” Sansa replies.

“You will die,” he hisses, and turns, and lifts his arms to the sky, to the open, shattered windows and the still-howling winds. “I call for the highest court to hear me. The court of the Fae,” says Petyr. “To hear me now, for I have placed judgment on Sansa of House Stark a year previous; and now, I must carry it out.” She can feel it. They all can feel it. A heaviness that curls in their bones, cold and dry and cutting, all at once. “I placed a geas of silence on her, and now I accuse: you have not kept silence.”

There is a tapestry behind Petyr, shining as sunlight. Sansa can see Jon’s fear and she can see the others’ horror, outstripping even their disbelief, but her eyes are affixed to that tapestry: honey-yellow, then blue, then red, then gold-silver.

Honey-yellow for spells. Blue for family magic. Red for blood magic. And gold-silver for the highest magic of them all: truth magic.

Or, the old name for it: honor magic.

“No,” Sansa says, “I have not kept my silence.”

It is an admission of guilt, but she is not yet finished; the heaviness realizes it, and it doesn’t strike her down. She tilts her head up and looks at Petyr. Sansa advances, one step, a half-foot in his direction.

“I have not kept my silence,” she repeats.

There are four types of magic in the world. Family magic is always stronger than spells, and blood magic is always stronger than family, and truth magic is always stronger than them all. The only thing that matters in a world where magic come from fae: the truth, dissembled or not.

And Sansa has not spoken a single untruth.

She is Alayne- she was, at the least, for a time, a girl who played with her brothers in the godswood, who called herself Alayne. Her father is of the North and her mother of the south. Sansa has spoken truth, and truth, and truth, all while under a spell woven to beguile her into lies.

I hope you choke on it, she thinks, savagely, and smiles at Petyr: the same cold-blooded one he’d offered to her before he cut open her thumb and placed a chain around her throat.

“I have not kept my silence,” Sansa says, “but I have spoken the truth. Even when that felt impossible. Even when you made it impossible. And here, I have my own judgment of you, Petyr Baelish: that you care not for truth, and that lies are your home more than honesty.

“I ask the Fae- who is more at fault?” Die, Sansa thinks, and watches the fear split open Petyr’s face. “A woman who speaks truth under even compulsions against it, or the man who places such compulsions against the oldest laws?”

There is silence for the barest breath.

And then, coldness floods her. A wind as howling and furious as any Arya ever called builds, and the flames all gutter, and Sansa feels the very earth under her feet roll.

“Who is at fault?” Sansa demands.

A King’s advisor sneered at her rags. A noblewoman twisted her lips at the same time as she asked for someone to sweep her streets. Geese bit at her ankles. Her palms bled from blisters earned from hard labor. A thin man cut her thumb open and used the blood to bind her to silence. Her sister remained missing for almost a year.

Every injustice. Every bit of anger that had flooded her lungs ever since Petyr attempted to hurt her. Sansa faces the storm that Petyr called, the storm that she challenged, and she lets every ounce of that wrath rise in her to match.

“Who?” She asks, demands, screams-

-and the heavens answer.

…

Light surges around them.

When it fades, Sansa is the person who is still standing- Petyr is hunched, shoulders curved over his knees, and the geas is gone from around her throat.

Beth lets out a long, low noise- not quite a scream, not quite a keen; heartbreaking all the same. Sansa shudders out of her stillness, and Jon steps forwards to catch her. His arms are warm, she thinks, vaguely; warm and comforting, and she feels as if she might just fall asleep in them.

But she’s a princess, a Stark princess, and so Sansa inhales and exhales through her teeth, and finds the strength to rise to her feet.

The advisor- the first one, the fat, bald one- is hissing in the King’s ear. Sansa doesn’t know what he’s saying, but they’re both looking at the map of Westeros, looking at the North. And Sansa’s lost too much to one man’s greed to ever underestimate its importance any longer.

“Honor magic is what Petyr Baelish tried to level against me,” Sansa says, through the rasp of her throat. She wears a gown of cotton and wool, and her hair is tight in braids she plaited with her own two hands that morning. There’s goosefeather caught on her sleeves. And yet- strangely, or perhaps not so strangely at all, she feels more a queen in that moment than she ever has before. “Honor magic- the oldest magic, the truest magic. That is what we Starks are, my lords: honorable, enduring, honest. If you attack the North, I assure you: blood will run as long and deep as the rivers of the Trident. If you attack us, then we shall not stay silent; and that is not a land you can keep. Not when it will defy you down to the last blade. Not when the very earth and air will as like as break itself before kneeling.”

Beth is shivering in the corner like a leaf. Petyr- Sansa bites her tongue on more curses, on more warnings, and looks King Rhaegar in the eye.

“Do not do this,” she says, and wraps her arms around Beth, and guides her away.

…

She’s sitting on the balcony to Beth’s bedroom, sipping tea that some helpful servant brought. It’s not yet sundown, but the sky’s a lovely shade of red and orange, and Sansa can’t quite find it in her to go and be with an ebullient Arya or a still-traumatized Beth.

She’s tired.

“Arya said you were here.”

Sansa turns to see Jon. “Yes,” she says quietly. “I- needed some space.”

“D’you mind?” He gestures to the chair beside hers.

“No,” Sansa says, and Jon moves forwards, sitting. He looks incongruous besides the delicacy of the tea set; all tanned muscle and black leather. But Sansa’s own hands are no longer so elegant or unmarked as they once were, so she simply smiles at him.

“Do you ever think on it?” Jon leans back, staring out into the city he was born inside. “How life could’ve been, if we were as we said, in the beginning?”

“A goose girl and a guard,” Sansa murmurs. “It could’ve been so easy.” Her lips quirk. “But there wouldn’t have been any songs written of us, that much is for certain.”

He laughs, short and barking. “If the price of remembrance is a crown, I’m not sure I want it.”

“It’s what you have, though,” Sansa says, and Jon nods.

“You’re right. Right enough, at the least. And you were right earlier, too. Father-” Jon sighs. “I’ve spoken to him. You’ll meet him soon. Tonight, perhaps- but. We can’t invade the North. We’re not- we’re not going to. I can promise you that much, Sansa.”

“Good,” says Sansa. “Good, Jon.”

She reaches out and catches his hand.

(Somewhere far, far away, north by half-a-hundred leagues, a statue in Winterfell’s weirwood collection starts to glow scarlet once more.)

“When I first saw you, you looked like this.” The words rise in her throat, unbidden. Sansa turns and looks at Jon, at the entirety of him: dark eyes, pale skin, a face too solemn for laughs that still managed to smile at her. The dusk-light frames his face, makes him shine, gilds his hair. “I don’t know overmuch of you, I know. But I know you to be kind enough to visit a goose girl’s home to apologize, and I know you to be honorable enough to hold to a promise sworn to a person who could never offer a consequence for breaking it, and I think- I think that’s enough.”

“As I’ve known your strength and your will,” Jon replies, softly, reaching out to touch the curve of her cheek- “as I think, and hope, that it might be enough.”

“In time, perhaps,” Sansa whispers, heart pounding as his thumb brushes over her skin.

Jon smiles at her: wide, true, brilliant as it once was in the godswood.

“We have it,” he says. “We have time, Sansa.”

So we do. Sansa exhales slowly, contentedly, and tightens her hand on his. So we do.

FIN