Chapter Text
It is not by my own will that I suckle the wolf at my own breast,
But the shepherd’s folly compels me to do it.
The beast reared by me will make me his prey,
For gratitude cannot change nature.
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chapter one: where the spirit meets the bone
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SANSA:
Sansa Stark jerked into wakefulness instantly and without a sound.
A dream, she thought, blinking slowly and languidly. Woeful and frightful, but it cannot hurt me.
A heart-wrenching and harrowing thing it was, that fierce howling of the ghost wolf, her dream wolf. Bat-winged and mountain-big and hollow-eyed, its heart as ravenous as its belly, milk-white poison dripped from steel fangs as it wept rivers of blood, enough to drown the realms of men in its boundless grief and sorrow.
Sansa’s gaze swam over the arched wooden frames and stretched canvas of the Queen’s grand pavilion. The midday sun shone through the onion-dome and onto her upturned face, dancing sunbeams tickling her flushed cheeks and setting the Lannister-gold canopy ablaze.
She had been invited to join Queen Cersei and the younger royal children for the noontide meal. The summerwine she drank at the Queen’s behest had made her drowsy and dizzy, and Sansa joined seven-year-old Prince Tommen for a light kip on a bed of velvet feather-cushions gathered atop the ground layered in carpets and curtained off from the rest of the tent with screens of blackened silk.
Clamour woke her.
Yes. Yes, that’s what it was. How could she have heard a wolf’s howl? Lady was back at the inn at the crossroads; the royal pavilion was no place for wolves and Princess Myrcella was afraid of them, so she had to stay behind. Withal, Lady was sweet and well-mannered — she was good, she wouldn’t howl.
Shouting rose to a crescendo and spilled into the pavilion as someone entered, and Sansa creeped over towards the screens and peered into a slit between them. Tall, slender, and fair as a summer day — it was Prince Joffrey and Queen Cersei. Sansa was about to rise to her feet and greet them, when the tent flap was pulled open again, revealing a grey-robbed Maester and the huge figure of the Prince’s swornshield who followed him in, sword drawn.
Sansa smothered a gasp, mouth rounding, eyes riveted on the fresh blood gleaming upon the castle-forged steel.
Her prince had invited her to go riding with him, hours prior, but as Sansa had a prior engagement with the Queen, she had to regretfully decline. Prince Joffrey had been most understanding and most courteous; he’d smiled gallantly and kissed the back of her hand. Then, he and the Hound went riding through the woods. Last Sansa saw him, Joffrey’s spun-gold hair shone in the light, and he looked ever so beautiful in the new cloak she’d painstakingly sewn and embroidered with his personal coat of arms — a gold on red lion and a black on gold crowned stag combatant.
Presently, Joffrey ripped that cloak off, breaking the delicate chain it was fastened with, and disrobed swiftly, pulling off his crimson-red leather doublet and tossing it into a corner, followed by a white shirt; baring his chest and arms, he threw himself into a chair, face twisted into a scowl.
“The wretched beast!” he thundered, the rage with which he seethed kindred his complexion to an overripe aubergine. “I want the foul creature dead, gutted! — left to perish slowly and miserably, while crows peck at its innards!” He paused, seemingly spent, and then his green eyes blazed with newfound fury. “Careful, you fool! That stung!”
“A thousand pardons, my Prince,” tentatively said the beardless Maester, face waxing pale as he tended to Joffrey’s arm.
Were there wounds? Sansa wondered, aghast at whoever would dare to harm the Crown Prince of the Realm. She could not see much from her position and although a familiar voice of Septa Mordane admonished — betrothal or no betrothal, a true lady ought never seek to stare upon a naked man who was not her lord husband — Sansa could not find it in herself to avert her eyes.
The same instinct that kept her silent drove to keep her gaze steady, her fists curling in her skirts as cold dread slithered into her belly.
Behind the pair, Sandor Clegane performed an action resembling a temblor of a mountain, though Sansa distantly supposed he had meant to shrug. “Those wolves are the Starks’ pets. I doubt they’d be offering the beastie’s head to you any time soon, Joff.”
A direwolf’s no mere pet, Sansa’s mind whispered, tartly. Then, it dawned on her. Had Nymeria—
The Prince spit feathers. “If you had done your job properly, the wolf’s slaughtered carcass would be at my feet now — not live and fleeing through the woods.”
“The pup had hobbled off, didn’t it? How far can it run with a bleeding stump?”
Joffrey had opened his mouth to retort, but the Queen cut him off, addressing the Hound with a chilling expression. “Was it grey or silver — the wolf’s fur?”
Grimacing, the man considered for a moment. “It was the bigger beast with darker colouring, belonging to the little wolf bitch.”
Joffrey scowled, cradling his bandaged arm as the Maester concluded his machinations and retired with a bow. “Horrid creature belonging to a horrid girl. I want it dead. Her, too.”
The casual delivery of bloody intentions sent Sansa’s heart galloping, a startled cry lodging in her throat. She could hardly believe what she was witnessing, yet numbing shock had rendered her soundless and tearless.
The Queen moved to kneel before her firstborn. They shared a frightful symmetry — mother and son were uncanny reflections of one another. Cersei Lannister ran a gentle hand through Joffrey’s golden hair, as fine and wavy as her own.
“Don’t fret, my sweet. You’ll get your wish. Either way, a wolf will bleed this night. I shall see to it.” She pressed a kiss upon his brow. “After all, the Starks have another wolf, another girl.”
Sansa had begun trembling some time ago. Throughout this exchange, she could no more control her body than the moon could roll off the starry sky. But at the Queen’s words a rush of cold water swept through her heart and lungs.
Surely they could not — Lady hasn’t done anything; she’s good.
“Mayhaps I shall take the pelt for myself,” Prince Joffrey mused, smiling almost shily, “and lay the wolfskin across my marriage bed with Lady Sansa. I should think she would appreciate the gesture.”
No, no, no, no, nononononono no.
Sansa wrenched herself away, and slinked on her knees and elbows past still sleeping Prince Tommen and towards the outer pavilion wall. She squirmed and writhed and wormed her way beneath the bottom edge of the stretched canvas, crawling under it and dirting her fine blue dress with dust and soil.
Once she was on the other side of the tent, Sansa gathered her skirts high at the waist and fled.
She did not look back.
Sansa was not the most physically active Stark child — that dubious honour belonged to baby Rickon, who at mere five-namedays-old, was the energetic terror of the keep — but she had supple limbs, a hearty pair of lungs, and could run for hours through the godswood, chasing her siblings, without earning a stitch in her side.
This had proven to be an unexpectedly useful skill, for Sansa was dashing through the dense Darry woods, Lady fast on her heels.
I want it dead, dead, dead, dead, beat a thunderous drum within her. A remembrance of an ardent voice washed over her and the downy hair on Sansa’s nape rose at the memory of malice in it: Either way, a wolf will bleed this night. I shall see to it.
Sansa hurried, dread and worry ripening in her breast and urging her on. Lady, perennially sensitive to Sansa’s moods, ran low to the ground and stayed as silent as a winter night. Leaves of low-hanging tree limbs tangled in her hair and one branch slapped Sansa’s cheek when she passed it, making her yelp and stumble forwards before Lady caught her by the hem of her dress.
Upon escaping the royal pavilion, Sansa raced towards the inn where the Starks were staying, heedless of men-at-arms and serving girls and noblefolk she passed, to retrieve Lady, who’d been leashed at the stables next to Sansa’s even-tempered golden-fawn horse*. The sweet girl was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at Sansa with bright golden eyes, and Sansa dropped to her knees to wrap her arms around the wolf, burying her face in Lady’s thick and silken silver fur.
She embraced the direwolf, cuddling her close, and peppered Lady’s delicate muzzle with kisses. I won’t let anyone hurt you, sweetling, Sansa avowed. I’ll keep you safe. Now and always.
Presently, the two of them were searching for Arya, needing to find Sansa’s sister before the Queensmen did.
The air was warm and heavy with the scent of flowers, and the greenwoods were tall and in full bloom, but Sansa was blind to all but the fright that gripped her heart. Arya, and Lady, and Nymeria, she chanted in her mind with every step she took deeper into dense thicket. Arya. Lady. Nymeria. Arya. Lady. Nymeria. Ary—
“What are you doing here?!”
Sansa had charged into a glade of white birches and rammed straight into her sister, taking no notice of the long wooden stick she brandished like a club. “You are safe,” she cried, relieved tears spilling, as she scooped Arya into her arms and pulled her close.
“Seven hells, Sansa, ‘et off!”
Arya had to gripe and half-heartedly claw at Sansa’s ribs before Sansa relented and took half-a-step back, milk-white hands fluttering in concern over Arya, calloused fingerpads ghosting over her grime-covered features, bony shoulders, and stained clothes. She cupped her sister’s face, examining it for injuries, palms cool and soft against Arya’s rounded, flushed cheeks.
“What am I doing?” Sansa asked, voice high and breathless. “What are you doing? Where have you been? Joffrey—”
Arya reared back, shaking her sister off. “Did your precious Prince come to you and cry? Did he tell you what happened?”
“He did not, but—”
“But you’re taking his side regardless.” Arya’s scowl was like a steep, jagged cliffside. “Of course, I should have known.”
“Arya—”
“Where’s the Hound; the Queensmen? Are they—”
“He said he wants you dead!”
Sansa could feel a sob welling up in her throat and she pushed it down, harshly. It was hard for her to marry the cruel callousness she’d seen and heard in the Queen’s tent but an hour prior to the gallant, gracious, golden Prince she was betrothed to.
Arya took a step back. “What?”
“I was at the Queen’s tent… she invited me for a meal and I stayed with the younger Prince and the Princess afterwards. I overheard them speak, after the incident. The Crown Prince and the Queen and the Hound… they haven’t noticed I was there, I don’t think, but I heard them say terrible, horrible things.” Sansa looked down at her soiled skirts and wrapped her arms around herself, fingers digging into her sides, scraping at the jutting bones. She had prided herself on her lithesome, sleek figure, but right now it felt like beneath her thin, cold skin she was nothing but dust and dirt and sorrow.
Sansa looked up. “Prin—Prince Joffrey said he wants you dead.”
Arya’s eyes were rounded in shock; they were as grey as frozen winter lakes, as grey as castle wrought steel, and Sansa could see her own shaking reflection in them. “And the Queen promised him Lady in Nymeria’s stead.”
After a moment of prolonged, heavy silence, Sansa took a step forwards. Then another and another, until she was right in front of her little sister. She uncurled her arms and folded Arya’s stiff figure into an embrace. “I’m not going to let them,” she promised, hotly. “Neither of them will get what they want.”
Arya’s shallow breath tickled Sansa’s collarbone. “What can you do?”
“More than they think I can,” Sansa whispered and with a gentle hand, guided Arya’s face up. She swiped tears off her sister’s apple-blossom cheeks and combed stray strands of oak-dark hair back with her fingers. Sansa wished Mother was here — with her unflagging strength and steadfast courage and fierce love for her children. If Catelyn Stark was here, she’d soothe Arya much better than Sansa was trying to, she’d make everything better.
I must be as strong as my lady mother, Sansa thought. I must protect my sister in her stead.
She had to speak to Father. In absence of Mother, Father would know what to do. The King was his long-time friend. Sansa found Robert Baratheon to be fat and ungracious, and not at all bearing what she imagined a kingly countenance would be, but he was once a renowned warrior and now a Father to His People and Protector of the Realms of Men — he wouldn’t let his son and Queen do harm to Ned Stark’s daughter.
“Where is Nymeria?” she asked.
Arya’s watery gaze drifted towards a thicket of trees and Sansa twisted around to follow it. Between two birch saplings, on a bed of moss and grass and fallen leaves, was Nymeria. She laid on her side and breathed heavily, her grey fur matted and caked with mud.
Sansa gasped, the Hound’s brandished, blood-stained sword drifting to the forefront of her mind.
Nymeria’s left paw was a gory, bleeding stump.
Arya had wrapped it in layers of cloth Sansa suspected came from her skirts, but they had long since soaked through. Lady let out a low, mournful whine and trotted up to lick her sister’s muzzle.
“What happened?”
“She tried to protect me,” Arya said, twisting out of Sansa’s grasp. On light feet, she walked up to her wolf and kneeled in front of her. “She paid the price for my mistake.”
Bile rose up Sansa’s throat and she forced it down, feeling lightheaded. “We need to stop the bleeding.”
“You cannot suture a wound like this, stupid.”
Sansa could not find it in herself to bristle at the insult. Nymeria could lose more than a limb to an infection, but they had neither firemilk to pour onto the wound nor milk of the poppy to ease the direwolf’s pain.
Then, once more, the Hound’s face came to Sansa’s mind — terrible and twisted, snarling angrily and burned. There’s more than one way to close a wound, she remembered Maester Luwin teaching her.
“I may know of a solution,” she began, hesitantly, wringing her pale hands, “but you are not going to like it.”
In the end, they had steeled themselves to do it.
Arya had started a fire — though how she had done so without a flintstone, Sansa did not know — while Sansa tore several strips of cloth from her clean underskirts and sturdier dress, and bound a struggling Nymeria’s hind paws and muzzle with the latter. They had no kettle, so Arya used a soldier’s helmet she’d worn to boil water from a nearby river and sterilise the bandages. They’d put the anelace Arya wore at her girdle — the old, blunted one she begged off Alebelly — into the fire until it flushed red and glowed as brightly as the sun at dawn.
Lady laid atop her sister, holding her in place, and bit down on the scuff of Nymeria’s neck with her slender muzzle with uncharacteristic tenaciousness. Nymeria whined and struggled fruitlessly, but Lady held steadfast.
“You ready?” Arya asked with a mullish set to her jaw. She placed her right hand on top of Nymeria’s snout and stroked it gently. Her left held the wolf’s weeping stump in a white-knuckled grip.
“No,” Sansa confessed, voice as thin as her courage, “but even if I don’t think I can — I must and I will.”
Then, she pressed the radiant flat of the blade against the wound, cauterising the tender flesh.
Nymeria howled.
Nightfall found them back at camp.
Drawn faces dirty, hems six-inches deep in mud, and without their wolves. The moon hung heavy in the sky, round and pale like a milk-maid, and turned the sisters’ skin as white as snow with its ethereal light. They drifted towards the inn where Stark retinue resided like two ghosts — silent and haunted.
“Do you think they’ll make it,” Arya finally asked, voice hoarse from crying.
Sansa glanced down at her sister. Arya’s reddened eyes were lined with dark bruises and she looked as ghastly and bone-tired as Sansa herself likely did. She tried to avert her gaze from her covered forearms only for it to snag on the dark stains on her sister’s skirts — soiled with Nymeria’s blood and sick.
“They will,” Sansa said with as much assurance as she could, “they have each other. Lady will take care of Nym.”
Last they saw their wolves, Lady was dragging by the scuff of her neck a half-conscious Nymeria across the narrowest part of the Red Fork they could find. For all her sweet temper and delicacy, she hauled her sibling with fierceness and strength Sansa had not thought Lady capable of.
She could still feel the comforting warmth of her wolf as she embraced Lady one last time and instructed her to hide in the thickest woods by Riverrun — to stay together with her sister, to take care of her, and to never, never come back. She could still hear the piercing whines Nymeria made as she struggled in vain against her sibling, and the bone-rattling sobs that shook Arya when the two wolves crossed the river and vanished beyond the horizon.
Arya’s cold hand wormed its way into Sansa’s palm and squeezed gently. When she spoke, it was so soft Sansa almost thought she dreamt the words: “Thank you. For everything.”
Before Sansa could reply, a cry rose across the camp: they have been spotted.
Sansa had seen this all before. In a daydream. In a nightmare.
The clamour inside the pavilion rose to a crescendo when Lord Eddard Stark opened the entrance flap and shouldered his way through towards the open centre, where the youngest Stark daughter stood clutching Jory Cassel’s hand, every eye upon her.
“Arya,” their father called loudly, and when she saw him, Arya cried out and began to sob. Jory took some steps back and took vigil by Sansa, who blended into the crowd in the front-middle, her tangled hair and dirtied dress hidden by Jory’s cloak.
“I’m sorry,” Arya sobbed, hiccuping, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Father went to one knee and took her in his arms. Arya was shaking and in their father’s embrace looked even scrawnier than normal — a little girl, in truth. Something twisted in Sansa’s belly — guilt? regret? heartache? it was an odd, sour emotion she could not identify — and she tore her gaze away from them, instead studying the surrounding faces. Some were shadowed by concern, but most were distorted with malicious glee. They derived enjoyment from the troubles of Starks, she realised with mounting disgust.
“What is the meaning of this?” Father demanded in his Lord voice, it rang over the crowd. He straightened up and tucked Arya into his side, her small face hidden in the folds of his tunic. His cool grey eyes swept the room, before resting on the figure of the King. “Why was I not told that my daughter had been found? Why was she not brought to me at once?”
“How dare you—” Cersei Lannister began, but the King snapped at her to quiet down.
“I am sorry, Ned,” the King said, not sounding particularly put out, if not entirely unkind, “I never meant to frighten the girl. It seemed best to bring her here and get the business done with quickly.”
If ice had a sound, it was Father’s voice: “And what business is that?”
The Queen strode forward, her beautiful gown crimson as the blood that had weeped out of Nymeria’s stump. “You know full well, Stark. This girl of yours attacked my son. She—”
“Attacked me with a sword!” The Prince—Joffrey cried out, stepping out from behind his mother. In the flickering candlelight of the pavilion, his blonde hair shone like spun gold. “The little demon and the butcher’s boy both set at me with swords. That wild beast of hers tried to tear my arm off!”
“That’s not true!” Arya cried loudly, close to tears again. “She just bit him a little. He was hurting Mycah.”
“You do not deny you assaulted—” the Queen began.
“I haven’t assaulted him!”
“You did!” Joffrey insisted, green eyes blazing. “They all attacked me, and she threw Lion’s Tooth in the river.”
“Liar!” Arya shrieked, lunging forwards, like an enraged shadowcat, only to be held back by Father’s hand on her shoulder.
“Shut up!” Joffrey screeched back.
“Enough!” the King roared, rising from his seat, his voice thick with irritation.
Silence fell. Sansa could hear her heart beat wildly. Her head felt fuzzy and she swayed a little, and Jory’s arm darted out to keep her steady.
“Now, child,” the King spoke to Arya, “you will tell me what happened. Tell it all, and tell it true. It is a great crime to lie to a king.” Then, he looked over at his son. “When she is done, you will have your turn. Until then, hold your tongue.”
Arya began her story and Sansa watched Joffrey’s handsome face darken, his lips twisting around his teeth. Sansa tried to recall as best she could what she saw and heard in the Queen’s pavilion, but the details were getting muddled. She could not truthfully distinguish between what she saw and what she dreamt. She thought she might have been at the Trident with all of them, watching it all unfold like a ghostly spectre. No, she told herself, she was never by the river. It was all a dream.
Sansa could hear Renly Baratheon guffaw loudly. There was some noise from the Lannister men and a Kingsguard walked to the front of the crowd. It barely registered for Sansa. The world slowed down, and the surrounding sounds turned dull and reverberated through the air with a thick, hollow quality — she felt as if she was underwater, drowning.
I want it dead, dead, dead, dead.
The words echoed. They fluttered through Sansa like night moths, dark and soft and full of promise. Joffrey began his very different version of events, but she could hardly hear it. These are lies, she thought, dazedly. I know them to be false.
“What in all the seven hells am I supposed to make of this?” The King sighed, dragging his hand down his face. “He says one thing, she says another.”
“They were not the only ones present.” Father said, frowning. “If we find Mycah—”
“You would trust the words of a peasant over your Prince?” The Queen hissed, and the sharp sound of it startled Sansa.
Arya flew into a rage, screaming frighteningly creative obscenities at no-one in particular and everyone at once, much to Father’s exasperation and the King’s roar of laughter, but Sansa’s attention pulled towards Cersei. The older woman’s face was perfectly composed, but she gripped the finely carved wood of her seat with enough force to turn her knuckles white. Slowly, Sansa moved her eyes to look at what the Queen’s stare was directed at.
The Hound.
Specifically, the Hound’s broadsword. The one he’d used to cripple Nymeria.
Queen Cersei looked like she had half a mind to draw a blade herself and slaughter them all.
She’s angry, thought Sansa as a conclusion dawned upon her. These must not be her lies, but Joffrey’s.
The realisation sent Sansa’s mind galloping clean through the strange fog besieging her — her mind felt sharper, truer, more like hers for the first time since Jory Cassel found Arya and her at the edge of the camp. A thought struck her. Sudden and mad, but the only one of those she’d conceived that carried some merit.
Swiftly, she made for the thick of the crowd, carelessly elbowing her way to where her father restrained Arya in his grip. Once she was within reach, Sansa grabbed a familiar forearm and pulled.
A wide-eyed Vayon Poole stumbled towards her, mouth slack from shock. “Lady Sansa, what—!”
“The swords,” she whispered firmly over his weak protestations, drawing his ear close to her mouth. “The Prince carried live steel and averred Arya had, too — she and the butcher’s boy. If that had been the case, why are my sister’s arms bruised and bloody, while his are inferred to bear only a shallow mark of a canid’s bite? If they had steel and he surrendered, then he’s a craven. But if Arya’s sword was wooden—”
“Then the Prince had unjustly bared a weapon at a highborn maid, the younger daughter of the Warden of the North… and he cut her and hurt her.” Jeyne’s father finished, horror-struck. He stared at Sansa a little oddly, looking like he intended to speak more on the subject.
Sansa trampled her swelling vexation; at the moment, she had neither the patience nor the state of mind to indulge in lengthy ruminations. Shoving the poor steward backwards, she hissed a command. “Tell my father. Hurry!”
At once, Vayon extracted himself from her, walked up to her father, and whispered hurriedly in his ear. With a captured breath, Sansa watched as Father’s face transformed from worry into deathly calm.
Straightening his spine, Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North, Hand of the King, calmly deposited Arya into Vayon’s waiting arms. Sansa’s sister had stilled and quieted the instant she glimpsed their father’s face. It bore a frosty expression they rarely saw, but recognised all the same.
While most of her siblings had what their father referred to as ‘the tempestuous wolf’s blood’, only Sansa and Bran had inherited Eddard Stark’s own equable temper — slow to rise, quick to forgive, but perilously cool.
As they say in the North: nothing burns like the cold.
Good, Sansa thought with a viciousness she had not expected of herself, Father is incensed. They all deserve his fury. Let the entirety of the realm tremble before a Stark of Winterfell.
Father’s eyes swept the room, taking note of the courtiers, before resting on the Queen.
“Do you refuse to wait until we find Mycah?”
Cersei Lannister regarded him coolly. “Is that what Starks align themselves with? Peasants and lying children?”
Remember, Father’s gaze seemed to tell, I had given you a choice and you had refused This, you have brought upon yourself. Dismissively, he turned away from the Queen, and faced an increasingly uneasy King. “Robert. Tell your boy to bare his arms.”
“The boy is your Prince,” sneered the Queen, voice rising. “You best—”
“Quiet, Cersei,” interposed the King, not looking at his enraged wife. Instead, his eyes flicked between his Hand and the Crown Prince. “What is the meaning of this, Ned?”
“As I held my interchangeably weeping and bellicose daughter,” Father began by way of a reply, some moments later. “I have had a queer thought: I am holding my youngest girl, she is scared and trembling, and she is covered in blood. At first, I had thought it was her wolf’s, but at a closer examination I have found the red stains on her dress to be a result of her own wounds.”
Some in the crowd gasped, others tittered and murmured excitedly.
Sansa wanted to strike them blind. This was a matter of her sister’s blamelessness and honour, not a mummer’s show for their perverse amusement.
Father, however, paid the audience no mind. “My daughter’s arms were—are—covered in cuts, elbow to wrist. Arya,” he commanded, staring down his King, “bare your arms for His Grace.”
Reluctantly, Arya rolled the sleeve of her left arm and gingerly began to unwrap the hasty bandages made out of torn strips of Sansa’s linen underskirts. Arya’s skin was pale as all northerners tended to be and thin enough to see the green-tinged veins beneath. With a hiss, Arya pulled the last of a bandage, revealing seven uneven cuts bisecting her skinny forearm.
Sansa closed her eyes and counted from ten backwards. She would not cry. Her lady mother wouldn’t have, and so Sansa mustn’t either.
Engulfed by a sweltering silence, Arya moved to expose the flesh of her other arm, but without the fuel of her considerably cooled anger, the pain of gashes was harder to withstand and her pinched countenance showed it.
“Enough,” rasped King Robert, seeming twice as weary as he had been when he took the first step into the tent. “Stop, girl. I have seen enough.”
Arya’s arms dropped in relief and Vayon, who kneeled in front of her, began tentatively, cautiously rewrapping the bandages. Father moved to stand beside them, and placed a gentle, solid hand across Arya’s ribs, pulling her close and into his side. He bent low and kissed the crown of her head.
The King turned away from the sight, and grimacing, addressed his son without directly looking at the Prince. “Do as Ned says, boy.”
“Father—”
“Joff shall not—”
“Silence!” King Robert roared, and for the first time since she’d been introduced to him at Winterfell, Sansa could imagine the matchless warrior he had been; once, a lifetime ago. “Joff! You will bloody well roll-up your godsdamn sleeves, or, Seven help me, I will march over there and start ripping clothes off you my damn self!”
The threat seemed to have been enough of an incentive, as Joffrey Baratheon hesitatingly uncuffed the capped sleeves of his fine doublet and rolled the left one up. Exposing skin of the same lovely golden shade as his mother’s; as smooth and unblemished, too.
“The other one,” barked the King. With a wince, the Prince complied, working just as slowly as before. Distantly, Sansa wondered what Joff had hoped to accomplish by drawing out the inevitable.
Joffrey’s right forearm was much like his left one, with the exception of a white bandage the width of his palm not far from the elbow.
This time, he did not wait for the King’s command — Joffrey began to unwrap the linen, studiously looking only at his trembling hands.
Atop the dais, the Queen closed her eyes as the cloth fell away, and there, just as Sansa had suspected, was the oblong, uneven shape of a wolf’s bite.
One could see clearly where the incisors had raked over the slope of the bone and shaved down at an angle, inflicting no more damage than pierced skin and spilled blood.
Instantaneously, the tent swelled with nigh unbearable clamour, none louder than the King’s bellows, but Sansa felt no triumph, only poignant dread.