Chapter Text
Sansa stood in her too-thin dress and watched sparks fall from the anvil to sizzle in the early-autumn snow. As a child it had been Arya who was fascinated by the smith and the fletcher and the huntsmen. Now… now Sansa enjoyed her time outside in keep. She enjoyed the cold, stinging air, for it reminded her that she was still alive. She enjoyed being out in public for usually- but not always- Ramsay would leave her alone in the presence of others.
She had a small book in her lap- prayers to the Old Gods, for Ramsay found it funny. He enjoyed thinking that she prayed for deliverance from him. Sometimes, when he had her bent over her parents’ old bed, the bed where she’d been born, he’d make her pray out loud for safety and forgiveness as he worked in her, desperately hoping to plant his seed inside where it would grow.
That would not happen. Sansa would not let it happen.
So today, as the afternoon light grew ever shorter, Sansa pretended to sit in the yard of her childhood home and pray while really she watched the smith. He was turning out swords, for of course he was. No one would allow Ramsay to remain in power uncontested forever: after all, the North remembers. Sansa only hoped that they would remember sooner than later.
Sparks flew again as the smith hammered the red-hot iron, forcing into the shape he willed. Every few minutes it would be reheated in the forge, and, when he was done and declared the blade sturdy enough, he would cool it in a barrel of snowmelt next to the anvil.
Sometimes the blade shattered in the water, the iron too impure or the blade cooled too quickly. Sometimes, though more rarely, the metal would splinter under the smith’s hammer, the red-hot explosion of a dying star.
Sansa thought women had more in common with swords than she’d originally concluded: they were all hammed by this life, beaten down with unwanted husbands and solitude and the terrors of the birthing bed. No woman went though this life unscathed.
Some women went mad with it, mad like Malora Hightower or Lysa Arryn. Others drew into themselves, choosing to live in the safety of their own minds or their own keeps, minimizing the blows that could rain down on them. Some other women- at least a few- turned to steel.
As Ramsa called Sansa back into the keep, she wondered which kind of sword she’d be.
She found out soon enough- she was all of them and none, for Ramsay had found her stash of moon tea. She’d hidden it away, hidden it where she thought he’d never look: inside the little figurine of the Stranger that resided in the small shine of the Seven that Ned had built for his sad southern wife. The Maid had felt too obvious, as had the Mother… but the Stranger- well, she figured she would have the tea or death. Whichever came first.
Ramsay was seated at the center of the high table in the great hall when she entered. His retainers were around him, and here and there on the now-charred reeds lay his dogs: always too thin, always too watchful.
He smiled at her, his eyes sparkling and manic, his dimples deep and boyish. “Wife!” he said, opening his arms wide. “You joined us!”
Sansa nodded her head, kept her eyes focused on the floor before Ramsay’s feet. “You called for me, my lord?”
He liked to be ‘my lorded’. The bastard who no one had loved now lorded his status over all. Sansa had wondered, just for a moment, if Jon would have enjoyed power such as this, but immediately wiped the thought away. Jon wouldn’t have wanted any of this. He’d only ever wanted a family, and she and Catelyn had conspired to keep him from it.
“Guess what I found today?” Ramsay asked, slouching back in his chair.
Sansa knew running would do her no good. “What did you find?” she asked, her voice even and soft.
“Guess!” said Ramsay quickly, that smile still in place. He sounded like a child too excited to contain some wonderful, grand secret.
“Your dog had puppies, perhaps?” asked Sansa. If he was to make her speak, she would speak of nice things.
“No!” said Ramsay.
“More coin?” asked Sansa, keeping her hands clasped in front of her.
“Wrong again,” said Ramsay, and Sansa could hear the pleasure in his voice.
“I give up, my lord,” said Sansa, and she startled when Ramsay stood so quickly that the chair tumbled over behind him.
He was in front of her then, his face inches from her own, and she could smell his breakfast ale on his breath. “You give up?” he asked. “Oh! So you do know what I found!”
His hand shot into his pocket and returned to dangle something in Sansa’s peripheral vision. She wouldn’t turn to look at it. She wouldn’t take her eyes off her supposed-to-be husband.
“Moon tea,” he whispered, so softly that only Sansa would be able to hear it. “Moon tea, hiding in a shrine.”
“Did you know what this was?” he asked, stepping back and letting his men in on the conversation again. “Did you put it there?”
“I know nothing, my lord,” said Sansa, knowing her voice was even and face placid, an untouched and frozen lake. “It is bad luck to manhandle the gods, even such small versions.”
“Ah yes,” said Ramsay, “And you are so known for piety. Even here in the North we heard how Sansa Stark spent her time hiding in the shrines and gardens of Kings Landing.”
Sansa said nothing.
“Did you know this was there?” he asked again.
“No,” said Sansa.
“I’d forgive you,” said Ramsay, his voice gone sweet. “I’d forgive you if maybe you made this by accident, thinking it to be something that would give you sweet dreams. Of me, of course,” he added as an aside, sending his men into peals of laughter.
“I wouldn’t make tea with an unknown substance,” said Sansa. That, in itself, was true.
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Ramsay. “You’re too stupid to try anything different.”
The men guffawed again, but Sansa was used to this now. It seems that the whole of her life has been filled with cold and hostile halls that echo with laughter.
“No matter!” said Ramsay, joyful again. “For there shan’t be any accidents in the future.” Casually he tossed the little bundle into the fire, and it took all of Sansa’s resolve not to watch it burn with dismay.
“I think…” said Ramsay, “That we should celebrate.”
He turned and faced his men, his arms opened wide once more. “Is my wife not the loveliest thing you have seen?” he asked. His men roared, men that had once been loyal to her father.
“Would you like to see more of her?” asked Ramsay slyly.
Their cheer had dust sifting down from the newly-repaired roof.
“Come here, wife,” said Ramsay, his voice quiet again.
Sansa knew what was coming.
“Take off your cloak,” said Ramsay, his smile carnivous.
With steady fingers, Sansa unclasped her cloak.
~~~
Moon tea was only effective if taken within two weeks of sex or before the woman’s next courses. Sansa had two weeks to get more moon tea, and there wasn’t likely to be any even close to Winterfell.
She finally had the motivation to leave- either Winterfell, or this life all together. And, she thought as she crept through the familiar halls of her home, if she had to leave this life, it may not be the worst option.
Theon found her in the halls as she suspected he would. Ramsay usually left him on night watch.
“Let me go, Theon,” she said as he gripped her wrist with fingers that hadn’t been set after being broken. They’d been here before, but this time Theon seemed to be wavering.
“You saw what happened in the Hall yesterday,” she whispered. “You know that isn’t right.”
“Never abuse a lady, lad,” Theon whispered, and Sansa was relieved to hear her father’s words come from Theon’s tired brain instead of her husband’s.
“No,” said Sansa, more gently that she thought she could sound, for how she hated Theon. “Never abuse a lady.”
“Come on,” said Theon then, and just for the thinnest skin of a second he’d sounded like himself again.
Sansa followed Theon to servants’ stairs and out onto the walls of the Old Keep. “Here,” he said, leading her around to the northeast corner. “The snow will break your fall.”
Sansa looked down at the seemingly infinite drop. It was so dark that she couldn’t make out the ground below. “It’ll be alright,” said Theon, getting agitated. “Go. Go!”
Sansa jumped. She’d already resolved to die, so anything past this moment- this moment of freefall through the stinging winter air- was a bonus.
She landed sideways, and all the air was knocked out of her for a moment long enough to be panic inducing. Finally her lungs expanded again in deep gasps for air, and then she was up and sprinting for the treeline.
Sansa knew that disguising her tracks wouldn’t help at this stage, because Ramsay would happily set his dogs after her as soon as he realized that she was gone. She sprinted through the snow to the treeline and then plunged on, ignoring the branches and thorns that tugged at her dress and hair. She’d worn the warmest clothes she could find, as well as two of her dresses, but Ramsay was in the habit of keeping her warmest clothes- her furs and oilskins- with him, probably for this exact reason.
Sansa had ridden in these woods, at least a little bit, with her family. She’d never been interested in horses or really, anything in the outdoors. She’d seen her future as a southern manor lady, and learning to sit a saddle had felt like a waste of time. Now Sansa was glad that Catelyn had insisted on family outings with little Rickon up before Father.
Their boundary had always been the stream, a spring-fed little rivulet that always ran, even in winter- it flowed under a layer of ice. If she moved quickly enough she could get to the stream before the dogs were released and break through the ice there. Her feet would freeze, but it would hide her footprints and hopefully, if she was lucky, disperse the scent.
It was hard to believe that it was still only autumn, for already there was nearly a foot of snow on the ground, and already the wind blew in from the north. Sansa knew that she risked losing her feet by walking through the stream. It was something all children of the North learned, even the stubborn ones, even the bratty, spoiled ones. They learned not to fall asleep in the cold, and not to ever get wet. They learned that if they had to stop moving, sleeping in the snow was warmer than sleeping on top of it.
Sansa had a painfully tight stitch in her side by the time she reached the stream. She didn’t hear the dogs yet, and wondered why, but she wasn’t going to question her good fortune, for it would be the first luck to find her in a long, long time.
Sansa paused by the edge of the little stream, her breath filling the air with great clouds of steam. This was where she would find out how badly she wanted to live. Awkwardly Sansa hiked up her dresses and the blanket she’d wrapped around herself like a cloak, holding them up above her knees. The sudden influx of cold sent a spine wracking shiver up her back and then Sansa took a deep breath and jumped with both feet onto the layer of ice covering the stream.
She broke through the ice, which had been her goal, and now she found herself standing in water that came almost up to her knees. It absolutely burned, for that’s the only analog Sansa had for this type of pain. She burned herself curling her hair once, and then again when she was in the Eyrie while adding a log to her fires.
This felt like those little burns but so much worse, like her legs were being torn from her body by millions of vicious ants.
Walk, Sansa told herself as her teeth chattered in her skull. Walk.
She did, each step agony until her feet went numb, and even then her legs felt like lead, and a sickly sweat broke out and froze on her face. She could hear Ramsay’s dogs now, baying far in the distance, but she knew they wouldn’t stay in the distance for long.
Maester Luwin and Old Nan used to quiz the Stark children on the words and families of the other noble houses of Westeros, and in a haze Sansa remembered them now.
“Targaryen,” Maester Luwin asked as he and Sansa quietly ground herbs with a mortar and pestle.
“Sigil: Three headed red dragon on a black field. Descendants of Old Valyria. Former seat in Dragonstone. Words: Fire and Blood,” Sansa recited dutifully.
“And their unofficial words?” asked Maester Luwin, pouring the powdered herb into a vial.
Sansa was back in the stream, her numb legs dragging over the stones in the river bed. “You cannot burn a dragon,” she said out loud, remembering that long-ago summer day.
She thought there must have been great pride in the Targaryens for insist that they couldn’t die by fire. Enough of them had been scorched in the Blackfyre Rebellion for them to have learned the error of their claim. Sansa wished that it was impossible to freeze a Stark. After this long in the north it really ought to be.
Sansa walked in the stream until dawn when she couldn’t stand it anymore and she’d even grown too tired and cold to shiver. She knew that was a bad sign so she climbed out of the stream and dropped her skirts, which warmed her just a little.
It was roughly two hundred miles to the seat of House Hornwood, which was ultimately her goal. They hadn’t declared for House Bolton, and their forces were too small for Roose to truly pursue.Sansa knew Ramsay would assume that she’d gone to Jon at the wall, so instead she was headed east. In good weather it would take two weeks to walk to Hornwood. She wasn’t walking in good weather.
She walked through the day, and even though she could no longer hear the crying of Ramsay’s hounds she knew she wasn’t out of danger yet. She wasn’t out of danger anywhere, but especially here in the north. She didn’t have food, shelter, or dry clothes. She’d likely die of hypothermia before too long. At least the maesters said it was a nearly painless way to die.
As night began to fall again, Sansa had to stop. She used the last bit of light to find a small snow drift that she could build up and hollow out. She had to shimmy into the little hidey-hole on her belly, but once she was inside at least she was out of the wind.
Sansa didn’t pray to any god in particular anymore. If they were out there they were cruel gods, ones that enjoyed the suffering of men. Still, she whispered to herself in the dark, “If any god can hear me, let me live through this. Let me make it to White Harbor. If you must take me, take me, but please: don’t let Ramsay find me.
~~~
Sansa was surprised that she woke up. Everything hurt, and she was still quite cold, but the light had found her a free woman. She shinnied back out of her shelter, crushed it under her frozen boots, and scooped up a handful of snow to eat as she walked. The sun was out, glinting in weak rainbows off the snow, and it was easy for Sansa to know that she was moving the correct direction: she merely had to walk towards the sun.
At midday she came to the Kingsroad, which was only discernible because of the stone mile markers sticking out of the snow. A wagon was approaching, and Sansa hurried away, trying to crest one of the rolling hills and disappear before the traveler could see her.
Her frozen feet weren’t quick enough.
“You!” shouted a man. Sansa tried to run and stumbled when her toes didn’t cooperate. She’d known that she risked not only her toes but losing both feet to the cold, but she needed to try.
“It’s alright!” a woman called to Sansa’s retreating, blanket-bound back.
Sansa stopped and turned, squinting towards the covered wagon as it lumbered along, pulled on sled runners by a northern Snow Horse. The massive beast seemed content to rest and steam when the driver reined it to a stop.
“Are you alright?” asked the woman, a round lady with ruddy cheeks and a greying braid.
“Yes, madam,” said Sansa, and how easy it was to slip back into being Alayne Stone, lonely, common bastard child.
“It’s not safe for a lady to be out on her own,” said the man, Between the beard and his furs, all Sansa could see of him were his eyes.
“I know, ser, but… sometimes one doesn’t have a choice,” said Sansa. “I wish you safe travels.” She tightened her grip on the blanket that was draped over her head like a makeshift hood hoping that her thrice-damned Tulley-red hair didn’t give her away again. Truly her hair wasn’t even Tulley red, at least not when compared to the current batch of Tullys. Their hair was muted, auburn red, a warm and autumn shade.
Sansa’s hair was the color of fire and when wet it was the color of blood. Her hair was the color of life and warmth, and yet she was going to die out here in the cold. Funny, that.
“Where are you headed, miss?” asked the woman, who still hadn’t asked Sansa for her name. Maybe she knew it was better that way.
“Hornwood,” said Sansa warily.
The woman glanced at her husband, who shrugged. “We could head that way,” she said. “We're merchants in Queenscrown, heading home with more supplies for autumn, but we could allow one of the ...nobler houses of the north first pick of our wares.”
Sansa didn’t know what to say. She also didn’t trust this couple, as sweet as they may seem. Handsomeness could cover great evil, and sweetness great malice. In Westeros, Sansa had learned, nobody really was what they seemed.
“I appreciate your kind offer,” she began stiffly, not sure how to rebuff them, when the man interrupted.
‘Get in the cart, you foolish girl. It’s too cold for schemes.”
For whatever reason that did it. His blunt assessment of the situation was just honest enough to put Sansa at ease, and so she slid into the cramped and covered portion of the wagon. The turned east at the next crossroad and quietly plodded along until the sky began to dim.
“We’re stopping,” said the man, the first words anyone had said in hours. Sansa slipped out and stood awkwardly as the horse was umhitched and given a nosebag and a fire was started and snow melted over it. They ate dried meat that had been softened over the steam, and as Sansa sat cross legged in front of the fire her legs began to warm. It hurt like nothing ever had before, worse than walking through the stream. Her toes felt like they were being burned and smashed and removed from her body, and her legs stung and ached.
Sansa thought she was mostly able to keep her face from showing her discomfort, because she was still invited to sleep under the wagon with the kind merchants. She crawled under and sat on one side of the space as heavy pieces of canvas were unrolled from where they’d been neatly lashed to the bottom of the wagon. In seconds the three were inside a dark and warmish tent, the shopkeeper’s wife in the middle, and soon after they were all asleep.
Once more Sansa was surprised to wake up. Once more they traveled east.
It took them four days to reach Hornwood. The walls of this keep were built of Black Northern Pine, massive fir trees that would continue to grow and sap even in the depths of a long winter, even when they went without sunlight for weeks.
“Who seeks entry to Hornwood Keep?” a sentry called from the top of the wall.
“Merchants, ser, and a lady seeking aid,” called the lovely and still-nameless Samaritan. It was as though the couple knew that Sansa would lie or refuse to identify herself, so they didn’t bother with their names, either. They called her ‘miss’, and she called them ‘madam’ and ‘ser’.
“Enter,” said the guard, “And prepare to have your wagon searched.”
They rolled through the gates and into the small keep where torches already flickered. Guards appeared to search the contents of the wagon while Sansa and her saviours stood quietly by. Eventually another retainer appeared, his cloak bearing the black and orange moose of House Hornwood, to take them to see the family.
Lady Hornwood was sitting by the fire in the hall, a small gathering of women and men there with her.
“Greetings,’ she said, and Sansa and her companions bowed and curtsied.
“Thank you, Lady Hornwood, for agreeing to see us,” said Sansa.
The lady shrugged. “Here in the north we know how to behave in winter,’ she said.”After all, it could so easily be you who gets trapped out in the cold.
Sansa nodded, for that was true. As it was unheard of to refuse water in a desert, so was it to refuse warmth in the North.
“What can House Hornwood do for you… miss?” Lady Hornwood asked, raising an eyebrow.
“We were traveling on our way home to Queenscrown with fresh supplies, milady, and we thought you and the other keeps would prefer first pick of the goods,” said the merchant’s wife.
Lady Hornwood’s eyebrows raised even further. “This house is four days out of your way,” she said.
The merchant shot a guilty look at Sansa.
“I’ll have my castellan look through your bounty to see if there is something we need,” said Lady Hornwood, waving her hand towards the door. “Thank you for the honor you do House Hornwood, and please stay the night in our hall.”
With relief clear on their faces, Sansa’s rescuers bowed and curtsied away.
“Lave us, please,” said Lady Hornwood to the others who were still silently gathered around her. They did, filtering away to other parts of the keep, and Lady Hornwood gestured Sansa into a recently abandoned chair by the fire. Once more, inside her thawing boots, Sansa’s feet began to burn.
“I received a raven three days ago from Winterfell,” said Lady Hornwood. “It was a letter from Ramsay Bolton, self-styled Warden of the North. He claimed that his lady wife had gone missing, and anyone who returned her to him in good health would be rewarded with a hundred silver stags. Anyone who aided her would be paid on a cross.”
Sansa swallowed, but didn’t remove her gaze from the lady’s face. That was another lesson learned from Littlefinger.
“Are you Lady Bolton?” asked Lady Hornwood.
“I am not,” said Sansa easily, her voice strong and true. I am not Lady Bolton. I am a Stark, I am a descendant of the first men and the children of the forest, I am winter and I am ice.
“I am glad to hear it, lady,” said Lady Hornwood. “Because then I could not, in good faith, give you what you need. Which is…?”
She left the question dangle there, a rope tossed as either a helpline or a noose.
“Moontea,” said Sansa immediately. “Some tonight, and more to carry with me. Passage to White Harbor as well, and if you can help me find safe passage south once I’m there, that would be all the better.”
“Can you pay?” asked Lady Hornwood, and then she quickly added, “I only have so much money at my discretion, lady, and it is to both of our benefit that my husband is away tonight. I can disguise some spent money because of our merchant friends, but too much…”
“I have some,” said Sansa. She’d sewn coins into her skirts and corsets, one at a time, as the coins came to her. She had some money, but not enough to get her to where she needed to go.
“Good,” said Lady Hornwood, rising. “Then we have much to do.” She stood, and led Sansa away.
Sansa was given a large mug of the bitter and metallic moontea and she chugged it down on the spot, savoring the terrible taste, not minding the way the hot brew scalded her tongue. Something inside her, some tension that she’d been carrying, relaxed when she set the empty mug down.
She was so close to being free of Ramsay.
When she was escorted to a small guest chamber Sansa was finally able to slip off her clothes and boots, and there she met with a sight that she had half-expected and completely dreaded.
On each foot her two smallest toes were a pale but recognizable green and the nail had already hardened and begun to yellow. Her other toes were encased in hard and blistered skin, and the very tip of her third toe on her left foot was green as well.
She couldn’t do anything about it now, she decided practically. Truly, she was only thankful that they didn’t hurt more, for Sansa was practiced at hiding throbbing, persistent pain. It was odd, this detachment from her past self. Once any blemish or scrape or freckle had been enough to make Sansa fret and obsess, worrying that her beauty was beginning to fade.
Now Sansa only worried because she’d finally learned her lesson, the one that the fates had been trying to beat into her ever since Bran fell from the tower window so many years ago: She was a stupid girl with nothing but her beauty, yes, but her beauty was also her weapon. And finally, finally, after so many brutal lessons at the hands of so many brutal men, she was beginning to learn.
She washed and then slid her poor mangled feet into the thick, darned socks that a mad had brought to her. It would be alright, Sansa told herself as she climbed under a musty pile of furs. And if it isn’t alright… I’ll make it so.
Lady Hornwood was as good as her word, and efficient about it as well. Two riders were sent with her at dawn the next day, along with supplies, a few coins, and a warmer cloak.
“It’s a miracle you didn’t freeze, lady,” said Lady Hornwood as she clasped the borrowed cloak around Sansa’s throat.
“It was tempting,” said Sansa with a small smile, “But we northerners are stubborn.”
Lady Hornwood had smiled and wished Sansa well before adding, “I’ll send a raven to White Harbor. There’s a captain there who I think would like to meet you.”
Sansa took Lady Hornwood’s hands in hers. “Thank you, Lady Hornwood,” she said. “Thank you. I’ll remember this.”
Lady Hornwood’s answering smile was small and humorless, but she gently squeezed Sansa’s hand in return. “The north remembers, Lady Stark,” she whispered. “Good luck.”