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The bonfire made of Bolton furniture was still bright when Sansa approaches Jeyne, who sat during the entire proceedings with the face of a dead woman.
She doesn’t ask if Jeyne is alright. It’s a stupid question. There were testimonies enough of what she went through without Jeyne ever needing to speak about the matter. Sansa had determined, after a single glance at Jeyne, that it would be best if she didn’t need to revisit it.
Instead, Sansa sat by her side, watched the fire burn. People were cheering - those who suffered under Ramsey especially, glee in their eyes as bright as the summer sun above them -, but Jeyne looked like she was the personification of winter.
“Technically, you’re his widow,” Sansa murmured, voice covered by the crackle of fire. Jeyne’s brown gaze went to glance at her, but Sansa got no more reaction from the girl who once had been her friend. “And that means you’re the last living Bolton.”
Jeyne’s eyes went back to the bonfire, and then to the Dreadfort in the distance. Sansa had visited it twice, maybe, in her entire life, and she never could shake off the impression of it being an open maw, waiting for unsuspecting victims to walk inside, swallowing them whole.
Sansa suppressed a shiver, and looked away.
“I could do anything with the castle, then?” She asks, voice rough with disuse. “I could burn it, and no one would complain?”
She fought a smile. When they had been children, they had dreamed of well-manicured gardens. Now, it was fire permeating their thoughts.
“It is yours to do as you please,” Sansa replied, diplomatic. She itched to reach a hand, to touch the hand on Jeyne’s lap, still as death. Once, before winter had settled too deep within their bones for it ever to be reached by the warmth of spring, Sansa wouldn’t have hesitated.
Now, she just forced her fingers into stillness, grabbing the thick fabric of her own skirts, and pretending the velvet fabric is the skin of Jeyne’s hand.
No one would believe they’d once been childhood friends. Sansa kept her eyes on Jeyne, who still didn’t look at her.
The war had changed them both, and made them the same, in the end.
“And everything inside,” Jeyne said, eyes for once looking at Sansa. “Every single flayed skin, and implement, is in that bonfire?”
“As far as we could find, yes.” Sansa had been there for it, had walked room to room like she’d been a servant instead of a queen. She had to make sure, a wolf searching for even the tiniest fleck of blood.
A pause. Jeyne looked from the fire to Sansa, and then smiled.
“I think I’ll start with cleaning the rafters,” she said, a dreamy look on her face. “And then, I’ll have someone dig every Bolton from its soil and toss the bones into a river.”
Sansa offered her a fraction of a smile.
“I think that’s a wonderful idea,” she said, reaching without thinking to Jeyne’s hand.
Jeyne looked at her surprised for a moment, but clasped Sansa’s hand back, as familiar as it had always been.