Chapter 21: Harbringer

Bran

Something about the way the raven screamed sent a shiver running up Bran's spine. I am almost a man grown, he had to remind himself. I have to be brave now, But the air was sharp and cold and full of fear. Even Summer was afraid. The fur on his neck was bristling. Shadows stretched against the hillside, black and hungry. All the trees were bowed and twisted by the weight of ice they carried. Some hardly looked like trees at all. Buried from root to crown in frozen snow, they huddled on the hill like giants, monstrous and misshapen creatures hunched against the icy wind.

"They are here." The ranger drew his longsword.

"Where?" Meera's voice was hushed.

"Close. I don't know. Somewhere."

The raven shrieked again. "Hodor," whispered Hodor. He had his hands tucked up beneath his armpits. Icicles hung from the brown briar of his beard, and his moustache was a lump of frozen snot, glittering redly in the light of the sunset.

"Those wolves are close as well," Bran warned them. "The ones that have been following us. Summer can smell them whenever we're downwind."

"Wolves are the least of our woes," said Coldhands. "We have to climb. It will be dark soon. You would do well to be inside before night comes. Your warmth will draw them." He glanced to the west, where the light of the setting sun could be seen dimly through the trees, like the glow of a distant fire.

"Is this the only way in?" asked Meera.

"The back door is three leagues north, down a sinkhole."

That was all he had to say. Not even Hodor could climb down into a sinkhole with Bran heavy on his back, and Jojen could no more walk three leagues than walk a thousand.

Meera eyed the hill above. "The way looks clear."

"Looks," the ranger muttered darkly. "Can you feel the cold? There's something here. Where are they?"

"Inside the cave?" suggested Meera.

"The cave is warded. They cannot pass." The ranger used his sword to point. "You can see the entrance there. Halfway up, between the weirwoods, that cleft in the rocks."

"I see it," said Bran. Ravens were flying in and out.

Hodor shifted his weight. "Hodor."

"A fold in the rock, that's all I see." Said Meera.

"There's a passage there. Steep and twisty at first, a runnel through the rock. If you can reach it, you'll be safe."

"What about you?"

"The cave is warded."

Meera studied the cleft in the hillside. "It can't be more than a thousand yards from here to there."

No, thought Bran, but all those yards are upward. The hill was steep and thickly wooded. The snow had stopped three days ago, but none of it had melted. Beneath the trees, the ground was blanketed in white, still pristine and unbroken. "No one's here," said Bran, bravely. "Look at the snow. There are no footprints."

"The white walkers go lightly on the snow," the ranger said. "You'll find no prints to mark their passage." A raven descended from above to settle on his shoulder. Only a dozen of the big black birds remained with them. The rest had vanished along the way; every dawn when they arose, there had been fewer of them. "Come," the bird squawked. "Come, come."

The three eyed crow, thought Bran. The greenseer. "It's not so far," he said. "A little climb and we'll be safe. Maybe we can have a fire." All of them were cold and wet and hungry, except the ranger, and Jojen Reed was too weak to walk unaided.

"You go." Meera bent down beside her brother. He was settled in the bole of an oak, eyes closed, shivering violently. What little of his face could be seen beneath his hood and scarf was colourless as the surrounding snow, but breath still puffed faintly from his nostrils whenever he exhaled. Meera had been carrying him all day. Food and fire will set him right again, Bran tried to tell himself, though he wasn't sure it would. "I can't fight and carry Jojen both, the climb's too steep," Meera was saying. "Hodor, you take Bran up to that cave."

"Hodor." Hodor clapped his hands together.

"Jojen just needs to eat," Bran said, miserably. It had been twelve days since the elk had collapsed for the third and final time, since Coldhands had knelt beside it in the snowbank and murmured a blessing in some strange tongue as he slit its throat. Bran wept like a little girl when the bright blood came rushing out. He had never felt more like a cripple than he did then, watching helplessly as Meera and Coldhands butchered the brave beast who had carried them so far. He told himself he would not eat, that it was better to go hungry than to feast upon a friend, but in the end he'd eaten twice, once in his own skin and once in Summer's. As gaunt and starved as the elk had been, the steaks the ranger had carved from him had sustained them for seven days, until they finished the last of them huddled over a fire in the ruins of an old hillfort.

"He needs to eat," Meera agreed, smoothing her brother's brow. "We all do, but there's no food here. Go."

Bran blinked back a tear and felt it freeze upon his cheek. Coldhands took Hodor by the arm. "The light is fading. If they're not here now, they will be soon. Come."

Hodor followed Coldhands up the hill, all the while panting heavily from the exhaustion that their journey and having to carry Bran had exerted on him. As they walked up the hill and it got gradually steeper, Bran counted the yards down till they were only sixty yards away from the entrance to the cave, when Hodor fell down into the snow, screaming and rolling around, crushing the crippled boy beneath him. Something has a hold of his leg, Bran thought as he watched Hodor thrash on the ground unable to move, and fearing each moment as if it could be his last.

Wights descended on them from their alcoves on the hill, pulling and grabbing them with an intensity that scared Bran, they mean to kill me now where I am, Bran realised as he slipped into Hodor's skin and felt them pushing and pulling at the stableboy, cutting him and making him bleed. As he felt the light begin to dim, back in his own mind Bran wondered dimly what Meera would think if he were to suddenly tell her he loved her.

Up above them, flaming figures were dancing in the snow.

The wights, Bran realized. Someone has set the wights on fire.

Summer was snarling and snapping as he danced around the closest, a great ruin of a man wreathed in swirling flame. He shouldn't get so close, what is he doing? Then he saw himself sprawled facedown in the snow. Summer was trying to drive the thing away from him. What will happen if it kills me? The boy wondered. Will I be Hodor for once and for all? Will I go back into Summer's skin? Or will I just be dead?

The world moved dizzily around him. White trees, black sky, red flames, everything was whirling, shifting, spinning. He felt himself stumbling. He could hear Hodor screaming. A cloud of ravens was pouring from the cave, and he saw a little girl with a torch in hand darting this way and that. For a moment Bran thought it was his sister Arya... madly for he knew his little sister was a thousand leagues away. And there she was whirling a scrawny thing, ragged, wild, and her hair atangle. Tears filled Hodor's eyes and froze there.

Everything turned inside out and upside down, and Bran found himself back inside his own skin, half buried in the snow. The burning wight loomed over him, etched tall against the trees in their snowy shrouds. It was one of the naked ones, Bran saw, in the instant before the nearest tree shook off the snow that covered it and dropped it all down upon his head.

The next he knew he was lying on a bed of pine needles beneath a dark stone roof. The cave I'm in the cave. His mouth still tasted of blood where he'd bitten his tongue, but a fire was burning to his right, the heat washing over his face and he had never felt something so good. Summer was there, sniffing around him, and Hodor soaking wet. Meera cradled Jojen's head in her lap. And the Arya thing stood over them, clutching her torch.

"The snow," Bran said. "It fell on me. Buried me."

"Hid you. I pulled you out." Meera nodded at the girl. "It was her who saved us though. The torch... fire kills them."

"Fire burns them. Fire is always hungry." That was not Arya's voice, nor any child's. It was a woman's voice, high and sweet, with a strange music in it like none he had ever heard and a sadness that he thought might break his heart. Bran squinted to see her better. It was a girl, but smaller than Arya, her skin dappled like a doe's beneath a cloak of leaves. Her eyes were queer- large and liquid, gold and green, slitted, like cat's eyes. No one has eyes like that. Her hair was a tangle of brown and red and gold, autumn colours, with vines and twigs and withered flowers wove through it.

"Who are you?" Meera Reed was asking.

Bran knew: "She's a child. A child of the forest." He shivered, as much from wonderment as from cold. They had fallen into one of Old Nan's tales.

"The First Men named us children," the little woman said. "The giants called us woh dak nag gran, the squirrel people, because we were small and quick and fond of trees, but we are not squirrels, no children. Our name in the true tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our song, ten thousand years."

Meera said, "You speak the Common Tongue now."

"For him. The Bran boy. I was born in the time of the dragon, and for two hundred years I walked the world of men, to watch and listen and learn. I might be walking still but my legs were sore and my heart was weary, so I turned my feet for home."

"Two hundred years?" said Meera.

The child smiled. "Men, they are the children."

"Do you have a name?" asked Bran.

"When I need one." She waved her torch toward the black crack in the back wall of the cave. "Our way is down. You must come with me now."

Bran shivered again. "The ranger..."

"He cannot come."

"They'll kill him."

"No. They killed him long ago. Come now. It is warmer down deep, and no one will hurt you there. He is waiting for you."

They followed the child down the cave and past lines and lines of bones, and skulls of creatures, and once or twice Bran could have sworn he heard the whispering of voices deep within the cave, as well as the sound of a hammer hitting steel. Though whether or not these were actual sounds and not just his imagination he could not be sure.

Eventually they came to a stop and before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child.

His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him and through him. What skin the corpse lord showed was white, save for a bloody blotch that crept up his neck onto his cheek. His white hair was fine and long enough to brush against the earthen floor. Root coiled around his legs like wooden serpents. One burrowed through his breeches into the desiccated flesh of his thigh, to emerge from his skull, and grey mushrooms spotted his brow. A little skin remained, stretched across his face, tight and hard as white leather, but even that was fraying, and here and there the brown and yellow bone beneath was poking through.

"Are you the three eyed crow?" Bran heard himself say. A three eyed crow should have three eyes. He has only one, and that one red. Bran could feel the eye staring at him, shining like a pool of blood in the torchlight. Where his other eye should have been, a thin white root grew from an empty socket, down his cheek and into his neck.

"A...crow?" The pale lord's voice was dry. His lips moved slowly, as if they had forgotten how to form words. "Once, aye. Black of garb and black of blood." The clothes he wore were rotten and faded, spotted with moss and eaten through with worms, but once they had been black. "I have been many things Bran. Now I am as you see me, and now you will understand why I could not come to you...except in dreams. I have watched you for a very long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, and was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell. And now you are come to me at last Brandon Stark, though the hour is late."

"I'm here," Bran said, "only I'm broken. Will you... will you fix me... my legs I mean?"

"No," said the pale lord. "That is beyond my powers."

Bran's eyes filled with tears. We came such a long way.

"You will never walk again, Bran," the pale lips promised, "but you will fly."

Edmure

Edmure cut through yet another bastard wearing the crimson red of the Lannisters, and sighed. They'd been fighting for three days now, ever since word had reached Harrenhal of Lannisters and Tyrells being camped close by, everyone had been extremely nervous, though strangely enough the Lannister- Tyrell force led by Tywin Lannister and Mace Tyrell did not seem keen to push on for whatever reason, and that confused Edmure deeply though he was determined not to let them get away again.

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a big figure running toward him with their sword raised, Edmure managed to avoid their swing, and then managed to quickly jab his sword into the man's chest before pulling back and then raising his sword to block the man's swing. Before managing rather luckily he supposed plunging his sword straight into the man's chest before pulling his sword out again and watched as the man wearing the sigil of House Crakehall on his armour fell to the ground dead.

Edmure's respite however was brief, another bloody Crakehall bastard came running at him swinging his sword like a mad man, it was all mad thrusts and jabs from this Crakehall and it took all Edmure had in him to continue to raise his sword to block the man's swings, even though he could fell his arms jarring each time steel met steel. Eventually the man managed to get a nick on his armour, and Edmure could feel blood coming out of his arm, in retaliation Edmure sent a series of swings at the man connecting a few times to draw a lot of blood, before they were back to swinging and blocking each other again. Then Edmure spotted a gap in the man's armour between his chest and shoulder, managing to knock the man's sword away from him just quick enough to plunge his sword into the gap before pulling out, Edmure moved away from the man as he began to bleed to his death.

Edmure then came across a man with the grape cluster of House Redwyne on his armour. The dance began again Edmure moved on from the man and continued hacking and slashing through the ranks of the Lannister and Tyrell soldiers in his path, before he came face to face with Ser Loras Tyrell the Knight of Flowers.

The two men began exchanging several choice words to each other before circling each other on their horses. Edmure was the first to break the circling bringing his horse closer to Ser Loras and swinging at him and connecting and hitting the exposed flesh of the younger man's leg. Ser Loras managed to do one better and struck Edmure high on his chest. Then they were clashing steel against one another, neither willing to give ground to the other. Before breaking apart and resuming the dance once more steel on steel and it was as if time had come to a standstill for Edmure, all he heard was the sound of steel on steel and occasionally the sound of steel denting armour and the feeling of pain as another wound opened up on his body.

Edmure noted that Ser Loras seemed to be wielding a dark steel blade; he wondered where the man had gotten it from, Edmure couldn't stop to dwell on his thoughts for much longer though for he was soon back in a trance like state as steel clashed with steel, and wounds were opened both fresh and old on both men's bodies but neither man seemed willing to accept defeat and die.

Eventually Edmure felt as if he was going to pass out from the amount of pain he was in as well as the amount of blood he had lost, and it looked to him as if the mighty Ser Loras Lannister was experiencing the same problems. Using what little remained of his strength Edmure managed to raise his sword with enough force to knock Ser Loras sword out of his hand and swing back up and he felt his sword connect with skin, but he wasn't too sure how that could be, but all doubts were soon wiped from his mind as Edmure slumped on his horse and saw black.

Edmure awoke in his tent some hours later to a feeling of deep pain, wincing he tried to sit up but found himself unable to. Taking note of the darkness in the tent and outside, he supposed that it was night time, and wondered briefly what the outcome of the battle had been, and whether or not Ser Loras had lived or not. He pressed his hands to his sides and winced once more as he felt a sharp jolt of pain shoot up through him, this time his cries brought a maester scurrying into his tent, carrying some foul smelling ointment. The maester lifted the quilt and moved Edmure's hands out of the way and applied the ointment to the wounds on Edmure's sides and chest, all the while Edmure tried to bite back the gasps of pain that kept threatening to escape his lips.

Eventually the maester finished his ministrations and left the tent, but as he left the tent flap was open, and Edmure could here not a single sound from outside and began to deeply worry. What had happened during the course of the battle, when he had found Ser Loras it had been clear that his and Bronze Yohn's men were gaining ground as it were, for the Lannisters and the Tyrell forces seemed deeply reluctant to actually engage in battle for some reason, which ultimately mean that they seemed to be losing far more men than the River or Valemen were. Edmure decided to let it be for the time being and to call upon Lord Royce when in the morning. As he closed his eyes and allowed sleep to take him Edmure found that he was dreaming of his wife, who was far away and relatively safe in the Twins and whom had written to him to tell him that she was with child. He wondered if it would be a boy or a girl.

Morning came, and Edmure forced himself to get out of bed despite the protests of the army maester. As he got out of his tent wearing a shirt and breeches, he saw the snow on the ground and also saw that some patches of it were littered with blood. He made his way over to the command tent, and upon entering it found Lord Royce, Lord Corbray, Lord Blackwood and Lord Bracken deep in discussion, they stopped upon seeing him standing in the entrance. Lord Royce grimaced and said "My Lord of Tully, it is good to see you. But should you not be in bed?"

Edmure grimaced also and replied, "I wish to know what the outcome of the battle was my lords."

He began to worry when he saw them look at each other, unsure looks on each of their faces. Lord Blackwood broke the tension. "Well Ser Loras lies injured in our cells, and you should be in bed my lord, your bandages are staining. But other than that we are not sure. The Lannister- Tyrell forces as you know did not seem willing to commit to full on battle, and at one point the retreated south, we did not give chase for we needed to tend to our wounded. But our scouts report that they made way for Sow's Horn in the south."

Edmure sighed and asked, "Has there been word from Lord Tarly about what happened at the Blue Fork?"

Lord Royce nodded and said, "Lord Dickon Tarly, wrote to us and said that Lord Rowan and his host have been defeated and put to the sword. Lord Randyll was killed as were several other major lords. We do believe that the Lannisters may have retreated back south to plan their next move."

Edmure sighed and said "Very well then, we must write to Riverrun to inform them."

Robb

The journey to Maidenpool had taken them longer than expected. What should have been a comfortable two week journey, had because of war and the weather taken them a full month. It had taken its toll, as he looked into the mirror Robb could see the beginning of a few grey hairs appearing in amongst in auburn curls, and sighed. Along with the war, the constant fighting and the worry over whether or not they would find Sansa alive or not, Robb was surprised that he had not snapped.

It also did not help, he thought to himself that Jon's aunt Danaerys seemed to be hell bent on making the whole purpose of his trip here a living nightmare for him. She had been a courtliest enough hostess when he had first arrived in Maidenpool a week ago, treating him and his companions with food and drink, and allowing them sometime to relax and get rested. But then when it had come to the actual discussion of an alliance she had prove very, very unreliable and had shifted from one position to the next with alarming regularity.

She had started off by claiming that she wished to simply help Jon win back the Iron Throne and get Sansa back. And that she too wished to see the Lannisters pay for what they had done, to both their respective families. She said not a word about Jon's claim or who would actually rule the Kingdoms once the fighting was done, she simply stated that she wished to help restore her family to their rightful position as rulers of Westeros. Then she had begun ranting and raving at Robb, about how she seriously doubted the truth of Jon's claim to the throne, and that he was only a pretender to her throne, that he was a "mummer's dragon", and that she Danaerys Targaryen was the only rightful ruler of the Iron Throne and Westeros. She had gone on to say how slighted she felt that her "nephew" had sent her the son of one of the usurper's dogs as an envoy, and questioned why Jon had not come himself. When Robb had tried to point out that Jon had been severly injured during Sansa's kidnapping, Danaerys had laughed and had told him in no uncertain terms that no true dragon would allow a minor wound to stop them from getting what they truly wanted.

Robb had been completely surprised by the sudden change in Danaerys's attitude and approach to their negotiating. It was like he was speaking to two completely different people, and it seemed like the words once spoke by King Jahaerys II about the gods tossing a coin each time a Targaryen was born to see where it would land, was definitely true. For whilst it seemed that the coin had landed on greatness for Jon, the gods were still undecided about Danaerys. He supposed it did not help that Danaerys always listened to the words of advice spoken to her by her "bear" the exile Jorah Mormont, whom Robb vaguely remembered as having fled Westeros when Robb's lord father had come to Bear Island to meet out justice to Jorah for selling slaves. It became apparent very quickly to Robb and his companions that Ser Jorah had his own agenda, and from the way he looked at Danaerys as if she hung the moon, Robb suspected he knew what that agenda was, though he had not openly voiced it to his companions or in Danaerys' company for fear of in sighting her wrath, or more importantly her dragons' wrath.

Her dragons- Rhaegal and Viserion- flew high above the city of Maidenpool, roaring and screeching for all to hear. It was quite an intimidating sight, though of course her dragons were nowhere near as big as Jon's Serrax, a point that Robb had almost let slip out, when Danaerys had been going on about how she with her two dragons would win the throne back for herself, with fire and blood. Robb had been tempted to point out that if it did come to battle between Jon and Danaerys, then it was more than likely that Jon would win, simply because Jon and Serrax had more experience as rider and dragon together in battle, than Danaerys likely did. Plus it was evident that whatever control Danaerys might exercise over her dragons, it was tenuous at best, nothing like the control Jon had over Serrax. And that was something that deeply concerned Robb and his companions, how could they trust Danaerys and her dragons to act with them against the Lannisters, when they did not know whether or not Danaerys' dragons would act with her or against her.

To make matters worse, at least in Robb's opinion, the red priestess who had been Stannis's shadow had now taken up residence with Danaerys and claimed that she was her red god's chosen one, and that she was the one who would lead Westeros from the darkness and into the light. This of course had made things so much more difficult, for now it seemed as if Danaerys would openly challenge Jon's claim to the throne, simply because the red woman who had claimed Stannis as her Lord's chosen was now claiming her as the chosen one. If she did challenge Jon's claim to the throne then it was likely that they would have to fight a war on two fronts, which could turn out to be very costly and just the thing that would make the Lannisters feel right at home.

So Robb was surprised when he heard a knock on his room door, and opened it to find himself staring down at Danaerys Stormborn herself. She was wearing a very revealing lilac dress, and her hair was falling about her face and neck, and as she looked up at him with her violet eyes, Robb felt his breath catch.

He heard her laugh. "My Lord of Stark, are you not even going to invite me in?"

Robb could only wordlessly nod, and beckon her in. She laughed again and sauntered into his room closing the door behind her as she entered. She stood before him once more and then said. "I have made up my mind and have an answer for you to give to your cousin, about our proposed alliance."

Robb nodded dumbly, Danaerys chuckled again and said "I have decided to ally myself with Jon, and shall provide my strength to his as we fight the Lannisters and the Tyrells and march on King's Landing. Once the city is taken I expect the two of us to discuss who shall be ruling the city and the kingdom."

Robb nodded again, Danaerys smiled up at him, then got on her tiptoes and kissed him full on the mouth before, getting down again and making to walk out the room, but just before she left she turned round and said to him. "It is a shame that you are already married Lord Stark. I think the two of us could have got along famously." She walked out the door, closing it behind her and leaving Robb in a dazed and confused state of mind.

Sansa

She was scared, that much Sansa knew. One minute she had been talking with Arya, the next minute there had been complete chaos for Ser Raynald Westerling, Jeyne's brother had stabbed Jon in the stomach. Everyone had then tried to hurry back into the castle, and had not heard the sounds of oncoming hooves and had not seen the flying Lannister banners. Sansa had though and she had tried to make her way as quickly back to Riverrun's courtyard as possible, she had given Arya to her mother but then had been lost in the rabble as everyone in attendance hurried to get inside and make sure that Jon did not lose too much blood. Before she knew what was happening she had felt strong arms wrap around her waist and hoist her up onto a horse. She had screamed then, screamed and screamed even as the man who had taken her rode away and no help seemed forthcoming. She had screamed until the man holding her had hit her on the head and knocked her out.

When she had woken, she had heard the sound of a river flowing through nearby, and had raised her head tentatively and found herself on the banks of the Red Fork. She had gotten up then and looked around her, to find her bearings and that had been when she had seen the flying crimson red Lannister banners and had felt dread pool up in the pit of her stomach. Her kidnappers had been the Lannisters and they were no doubt about to take her back to King's Landing, back to Joffrey and Cersei and their punishments. She had put her hands protectively around her stomach then, for she was with child, be it a boy or a girl she knew not, but she knew she would protect it with her life if she had to. That same day her captors had ridden further east, continuing past the red fork, and only stopping late that night when they reached the banks of the Trident.

There Sansa had seen the banners of House Rowan flying as well as the banners of House Lannister and Joffrey's own sigil- the lion and the stag combatant- and her feeling of dread had intensified. They were definitely going to be taking her back to King's Landing now, and who knew what sort of punishments she would face, firstly for escaping and secondly for now being with child, Jon's child. Her captors had let her down when they reached camp, and had led her to a tent, not Lord Rowan's tent though, but the tent which had the banner of a goat flying on it. The man she had been presented to had leered at her and had slathered at her when he had spoke, he had talked about how he would get such a reward for delivering the Targaryen boy's wife to the Lannisters.

He had then taken her along with his men- whom he called the brave companions, though they were not brave at all in Sansa's opinion, merely stupid and scary- they had continued their journey east, and had ridden hard and long. They had stopped at various inns on their journey, and often the men of the Brave Companions would get drunk and speak of all the riches and gold that they would get from giving her back to the Lannisters. But there had been one man, the man she had met at the Trident whose banner was that of a goat, who said nothing whilst his men drunkenly talked of what they would do with the Lannister gold, until one night as Sansa was getting ready for bed, he stumbled into her room and held a knife to her throat and told her in his slathering voice "We vis, not voing to Vannisters. Oh no. I am not such a vool as that. No ve vo to the Vale oh yes. Vo vhe vale we vo."

Sansa had not understood that, why would he take her not to the Lannisters but to the Vale, the Vale had declared for Jon, and these men were clearly working for the Lannisters so why would they betray them? It had all become clearer when they had eventually arrived at the gates of the Eyrie seat to House Arryn and home to her aunt Lysa, her cousin Robert and as she learnt as she was forced down from her horse, Lord Baelish. Sansa had felt her heart sink when she saw Lord Baelish standing on the steps of the Eyrie watching her with hungry eyes, and a sly smile on his face. He was a Lannister man, he had been a friend of her mother's but he was a Lannister man he still worked for the Lannisters. She knew it deep down in her bones, she knew that he would give her back to the Lannisters for whatever reward they would give him.

When she had been forced from her horse and made to kneel before him, he had laughed and lifted her up, and she could have sworn she hear him murmur his mother's name before he kissed her full on the mouth. He broke the kiss when a deep threatening roar could be heard echoing throughout the grounds and the surrounding area, and she had known, just known that somehow Serrax- Jon's dragon- was nearby, and judging by the look of absolute terror that crossed the Brave Companions faces as well as the look of mild panic that crossed Lord Baelish's face briefly, she knew that they knew as well what had caused that noise.

Of course Baelish had paid the Brave Companions and sent them on their way. He had then led Sansa into the Eyrie, and had promised to protect her and look after her for the time being, all the while looking at her like she was a piece of meat. It had been a few weeks since that day, and each day she grew more and more worried about what Lord Baelish's intentions towards her were, every time they were together in company or in front of her aunt, he would play the caring man, always asking after her health and such, but in private he stole kisses and sometimes forced her to do more for him, all the while with a sly smile on his face and words of protection and that he was doing what was best for her on his lips.