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Princess Myrcella offered Sansa the first flower, and sunlight blazed off the crystal window like fire.

It was a lovely, striking thing—slender and long, with velvety petals jagged as daggers, darker than the rubies that kissed Myrcella’s golden throat. Its center mirrored ravished flesh, blooming and puckered, like lips. Bloodied lips.

“A Dornish iris,” Myrcella said. The glint in her green eyes was kind, yet sly. “For the red of your hair.”

Red. Red like her Tully hair. Red like the blood that rained from Father when Ice fell, and cut, and lit in the morning sun, and the crowd rejoiced, and Sansa screamed, and screamed, and screamed.

Red like Lannisters.

“It’s beautiful,” Sansa said. The bile burned just beyond her voice. “I am undeserving of such consideration. My princess is so kind to think of me.”

The slightest smirk played at Myrcella’s lips—cruel or playful, Sansa could not tell, but she saw that mouth, all the same. Saw those full, pink, bow-shaped lips cage words unsaid. “And my lady aunt is far too humble. You deserve this gift, and more, simply by your presence. Your name. We must never forget our names, nor what we are owed because of them.”

Sansa Stark had not forgotten.

“Yes, my princess.” She would never call her niece. Never. Never.

Myrcella’s gaze lingered, that little smirk teasing her lips still. Sansa did not look away. Nor did the sun. It beamed on the princess’ curls, a golden halo, the Martell colors of her silks blending with her golden skin, her eyes glittered emeralds.

Lannister eyes.

“You were always so observant when we were children, Lady Sansa,” Myrcella said. “That could only have improved with age, I think.”

Age. It was a strange thing, to age as a ghost. To walk through time but remain still. But she had done it. Aged. Aged centuries. Years. Years kept prisoner. Years evading her Lannister husband, and her Lannister king, and her Lannister life. Years counting the days, the hours. Years knowing Father’s headless corpse rotted more and more with every breath she took, every tear she did not shed. Not just his—her mother, and brothers, and sister’s, too. All of them, left her. All of them, rotting. Almost as dead as her. Almost.

Yes, Sansa had aged. Had grown into the body of an auburn maid that bore an aching crone for a soul. But Sansa had not been an observant child. She had seen only what she wanted to see.

She saw nothing now.

“As you say, my princess.”

Myrcella grazed the iris' thorny stem with one long, slender finger. “So you recognize it, then.”

Sansa eyed the thing. Bloody and beautiful and foreign. No, she did not know it. “It is unfamiliar to me, I fear.”

The finger stopped just above where Sansa held the stem. Just above her hand. Enough to feel nearness. The threat of a touch.

For eons, Myrcella lingered. Then she pulled away, tilted her head. Golden curls swayed over a jade eye, draped her mutilated cheek. “How not? You’ve an affinity for songs, no? You sang them, before I left for Dorne.” Myrcella’s voice was lower now, whispered, husky. “You, with your lovely songs, and even lovelier voice.”

Spiked heat took Sansa, skittered through her cheeks and belly, burned her. She bit the inside of her cheek, halted hitched breath. “I am so grateful to have pleased the princess.”

“You did,” said Myrcella. “Very much so. But you never sang Her Blade Wilting, to my memory.”

“Her Blade Wilting?”

A twitch of those lips. “But of course. It is a song we sing in Dorne often. This same iris is the primary symbol of that tale, methinks, if not the hero itself.”

A Dornish song, featuring an iris. Sansa may have read the lyrics once or twice. She could have; Mother had given her a songbook for her tenth nameday, and Sansa had… she’d...

Myrcella noticed her silence. “Forgive my being forward. I am more Martell than anything, these days—Dornish husband, Dornish rules. I miss Sunspear so. These irises are native to the lands there, in the sandy grasses. It reminds me of home.”

Home. Sansa had not seen this girl in years, but she remembered that Princess Myrcella was as kind as she was clever. If she’d done this on purpose, then she’d grown to be as cruel as her mother.

“It is quite lovely,” Sansa said. “My thanks, again.”

That smirk. As if there were some victory in gifting a flower. As if Sansa was the unknowing fool, and Myrcella was enjoying her secret jest. As if there were some trick she’d gotten away with.

“And glad I am to hear it,” the princess said. “But I shan’t keep you any longer. Our fair king and queen await us for supper, soon enough.”

The king. Joffrey. Sitting near her, taunting her while her stunted husband defended her fiercely, as if he thought playing the kind Lannister enough times would make her fall into his bed. Beside Queen Mother Cersei, who despised Queen Margaery too much to remember that she loathed Sansa, too. Supper. The weekly suppers, where she was a wolf in a lion’s den, and she sat there lone, and starving, and foaming at the mouth.

The iris’ thorns pricked Sansa’s thumb.

“Of course, my princess.” Of course. Of course. Of course.

It was Myrcella who left first, flowing Martell skirts blooming with each graceful step, her hips swaying in time with the sheen of golden curls that danced at the small of her back.

For the red of your hair, she had said.

Sansa would learn why.

†

The princess came to her again, and the iris was given a sister.

“The first one I gave you will die, soon,” she explained, a hint of sadness in her voice. “In these last years of autumn, a Dornish flower could never survive for long, so far north. I do think he should have a sister to comfort him in his twilight years.”

Sansa eyed her. “He?”

“It is male,” she said. “Your first gift. The thorns make the difference—they are thicker than a female’s, and cruder, as well.” She sighed. “An unkind thing he is. Some would say it is fitting for a sister to replace him. That a woman’s touch is needed after such sharpness. Perhaps they aren’t wrong. Hardened grace oft overshadows senseless cruelty, would you not agree?”

Sansa kept her face blank as Northern snows. “My princess is wise.”

“And my lady aunt is beautiful,” Myrcella said. “Even more so if…” She took the iris, combed the stem through Sansa’s hair, let crimson petals rest in auburn. The red blended. Emerald eyes locked with Sansa’s as she touched, caressed, and golden fingers weaved through her locks, slow. Sansa’s scalp burned.

Myrcella pulled away, left coldness in her wake. “There,” she said, voice low. “I knew something was missing, the first time I gave you this.”

Short, quiet breaths, but Sansa spoke clearly. “I shall wear it proudly, my princess.”

Myrcella eyed her. Then she laughed. She did not look like Cersei Lannister when she did that, Sansa knew, nor Joffrey. Whenever they laughed, an unsettling sharpness took their cat eyes, a glaring reveling in cruelty. An evil. Myrcella’s eyes were only green, mischievous… hinting.

What do you want from me? The question nearly flew past Sansa’s tongue, screaming, but she caught it just in time with a bite.

Tongue. Myrcella’s hid just behind her teeth as she smiled—that slight twinge, again. That smirk.

Sansa’s mouth burst with copper. Somewhere along the way, she’d bitten the inside of her cheek, hard. Oh. She blinked, looked up at the princess. Those lidded eyes had not broken their gaze, had never left her. She watches me as I watch her.

Myrcella laughed again, playfulness in her shrug. “Wear it as you’d like,” she murmured, golden eyelashes fluttering. “I command nothing of you, my lovely dawn; only that you sing.”

Sharpness took her—a slow warmth in Sansa’s belly, twisting. It was too long before she found her words. “Pardon?”

The smirk widened. “Her Blade Wilting,” she explained. “The second verse.”

Heat took Sansa’s cheeks. “I… of course.”

Myrcella chuckled, and it was somehow fond and mocking all at once. “I would see my Trystane before supper,” she said. “In the meantime, you should reacquaint yourself with the songs, lady aunt.”

Sansa did not reacquaint herself, but that night she dreamed of an endless dawn, and music with no voices.

†

The next was pressed between a spine and words.

“To mark your books, my lady,” said the princess. They sat in the gardens she had kept before she’d been sent to Dorne, eons past, when Sansa still lived. Three of Oberyn Martell’s natural daughters were at her side; Elia, Loreza, Tyene.

Harp strings hummed underneath Tyene’s sunkissed fingers, nimble and dextrous. She births poisons with those fingers, Sansa knew. She made music now, though. Light and airy, sung sweetly under her breath. Sansa did not recognize the melody, and yet, she did.

Sansa ignored the performance. Grabbed the iris. Flattened and dried, it was just as red as its siblings that rested in Sansa’s bedchamber. “My princess is thoughtful.”

“And my lady aunt is clever—Uncle Tyrion is always going on about the strength of knowledge, and he has the right of it. Mayhaps next time you read, you will think of me.”

There is only one book you want me to read, and I will not play your game. “Yes, my princess.”

Myrcella said nothing; just smiled, eyes glinting. Sansa did not look away, bit the inside of her cheek. Silence. Silence, and in that silence, the harps found Sansa, soft strings and Tyene’s voice. “My lovely dawn.” Sansa did not see dawn, but green skies, summer grass, wildfire. “Only that you sing.”

Caged birds sing, Sansa knew. She dug her nails into the soil.

Tyene’s song changed, turned more jolly, and Elia Sand saved her. “Dance with me, Cousin,” she said, lacing her fingers with Myrcella’s. Bronze Martell skin blended perfectly with Lannister gold like sunlight on sand. Desert Lion, they called Myrcella, now, and nothing had been truer. The princess had found her family. Had a pack. When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives. The voice came to her, unbidden. Sansa made her face like stone.

Myrcella laughed and let the girl pull her along, and Sansa was alone. Alone, watching them all dance, all make merry. Elia Sand, Loreza Sand, Tyene Sand, Myrcella Waters. Nameless and worthless and born of lies and lust and life. Laughing. Living. Living, and the truth rose within her slow and dull.

They are bastards, Sansa Stark realized, distantly. Tears would have fallen from her Tully eyes, if they had not dried eons before. They are bastards, and they are free.

That night, Sansa dreamed of a golden crown made of lions and dead wolves, choking her trueborn neck.

†

The last iris weaved through sharp and silver.

“My goodcousin Sarella taught me to shoot,” said the princess, lowly through the sighing winds of the Kingswood, the rustle of cradling autumn leaves that draped over them in a glade. “Summer Islanders are masters of archery, you see.” She aimed at the painted tree. Her riding leathers were tight, clung to her curves, pushed at her breasts, yet she moved as free as butterflies in summer.

She loosed another perfect shot, right into the eye of the target. A little arrogant laugh. Golden fingers gripped the bow, stroked the string.

Joffrey loves crossbows, Sansa remembered, dully. Lions, raining death from afar, rather than with their claws or fangs. A bastard’s weapon. Bastards, who were dishonest and aloof by nature. Cowardly.

“My princess is fortunate, to be so embraced by her husband’s family,” Sansa said.

Cat green eyes glittered. “And my lady aunt should be able to say the same.” She raised her bow, a single arrow loose. “Here. Try.”

Sansa stared at the thing. Through the slivers of the glade, sunlight seeped in, shining gold off the wood. Gold as a lion’s mane. Gold as the stolen crown that sat on King Joffrey’s head.

Sansa grabbed the bow and arrow, fingers far from Myrcella’s. Slowly, she put the arrow on the string, awkward, a fool in a maester’s chamber. Does this amuse you, Princess? In a certain light, it was a cruel thing—a prisoner given a weapon by her captor, a lion giving a flightless bird wings. Was this why Myrcella brought her out here, so far from the Keep, the farthest she had been since Father’s murder?

Sansa did not look back, but she felt them all the same. Armed Dornishmen, and one Kingsguard—a new one, to replace Arys Oakheart, who had died protecting Myrcella from Gerold Dayne. He had never hit her, but if Joffrey ordered it, he would. He would. I could shoot her now, before they can stop me. Feel Lannister blood on my hands before I die. That was how Arya would have chosen to die, if she were here. How any good wolf would. A warrior. A beast, refusing to be caged. A Stark.

Sansa aimed at the painted tree.

“Ahh ahh,” a playful whisper, right by her ear. Sansa shivered, but did not turn.

Red velvet bloomed before her eye, sharp and jagged and lovely. Golden hands gently took the arrow, and wrapped the iris’ thorny stem around its body.

“For luck,” she murmured. Sansa felt the smirk, just beyond her ear. The ghost of a tease.

Sansa took the iris-arrow, notched it. The string was tight, strong. She grit her teeth. Pain in her arms, pulling, taut—

—and warmth at her back. No. Heat. Fire, and gold.

Myrcella draped her arms over Sansa’s, pillowed them. “Shh,” she said. “Be calm. It won’t fight you unless you force it.”

Thrashing heartbeats. Sansa clutched the bow. Softened her grip. Did not speak. Did not think.

Myrcella reached. Golden hands palmed Sansa’s, sun over moonlight. “Like this.” She raised Sansa’s arms, puppeted her hands in the perfect stance, the perfect aim. Fingers kissed hers. Breath clouded the nape of her neck. Full breasts pushing against her spine. Dornish perfume thrusting inside her throat.

Sansa held her breath, did not feel, did not think. Kept her eye on the silver point. Theon Greyjoy is an archer. A traitor’s weapon. She wondered if he had shot Bran and Rickon, before burning them alive. Wolf pups, skewered and stabbed and slain.

Sansa pulled. The thorns gripped her flesh, cut her open, stung. Archery. Aloof, cowardly, dishonest. Perfect for bastards, and traitors, and defanged wolves.

Sansa looked at the drawn arrow. Pointed and silver, it could pass as the head of a spear. A spear grown from a garden. And if it were a spear, she could grab it. Grab it, wield it, ram it into Joffrey’s neck. His head would tear off, rip off, slice off, and he’d be as headless as Father, just as dead, but cursed, and bleeding from his neck, and red, red, red, red as the iris, red as her Tully hair—

—the pain in her arms was gone.

And so was the arrow.

Sansa blinked. Looked. The arrow had cut the paint, reached its target, but nowhere near the eye—it rested in the middle rings, just beneath the head, above the heart. A spearhead, puncturing a neck.

“And it bloomed, and wilt, and wept,” Myrcella said, and the world grew colder. She had stepped away from Sansa, eyeing the arrow. Sansa fought the urge to grab her arms, warm them again.

Emerald eyes bore into the tree as the princess stood silent. She did not look at Sansa, but Sansa knew what the princess wanted.

“Another verse,” she said, and it was not a question.

A twitch of those full lips. “It was a good shot for a beginner, my lady. You’ve potential.”

Potential. Sansa rubbed her thumb over her cuts. They did not hurt.

That night she dreamed of Myrcella, naked but for Dornish irises shaped into daggers, and bleeding throats.

†

“We’ve cause to celebrate,” Joffrey said, smiling.

Sansa dug her nails into her skirt. That smile had not been beautiful to her in ages—ages, when the soft pull of pink bow-shaped lips only meant feigned sweetness, and she still had been alive enough to remember the kiss of snow on her cheeks, and feel, and hope. Before. Once. Not now. Now, it was only sharp teeth jutting from the wet worms of his maw, twisting and wide and laughing.

“Is that so, my son?” asked the Queen Mother. Her mouth was tilted in a loving curve, but her eyes were on Queen Margaery, stabbing stares, as if they could sever the dainty, royal arm that clung to Joffrey with only their hatred.

“Oh, yes,” said Joffrey, but his eyes were not on his mother. Wild green, like poison, and all for Sansa. “An anniversary approaches.”

Slow knives crept up Sansa’s spine. She stared at her drink—Tyrell rosewater, crystal and red, lilies in a lone pond.

“Surely my aunt knows what it is,” he said.

The rosepetals swam slow and soft in the water, drifting. Catelyn Stark’s corpse drifted in water for days, they said. Had drifted in the river, bled out, swam slow. Softly.

“I do,” she heard someone say. “Your Grace.”

And out the corner of her eye, grinned malice. “Say it.”

Bile, rising. Sansa said nothing, waited for that rich voice that was too deep for one so little, the usual defenses, and screaming, and threats, but nothing. Oh. Yes. Her Lannister husband was not here. She had been summoned alone, alone into the lion’s lair, for this purpose. So that she would say it. Say it, and remember.

“Brother,” Sansa heard, across from her. Princess Myrcella, sunny and russet as Dornish sands. Golden fingers grasped at her crystal of rosewater, light and airy, as if she were holding an instrument. A harp, Sansa somehow knew. “It appears grief has stricken our lady aunt silent.”

“Yes,” said Queen Margaery. “My love, perhaps—”

“Perhaps I’ll say it,” said Joffrey. He spoke. Said it.

The rosewater shimmered, red brushing the crystal. In the fading sunlight, it mirrored the sky at dawn. A burning, slow.

Rising like a song.

“You’ll be the guest of honor, dear aunt,” Joffrey said, breathless at the thought of it. “We’ll serve trout as the main course, and you’ll wear a wolf’s head, and…”

“Your Grace is so valiant and clever, to remind our enemies of their losses,” someone said. Margaery, Myrcella, Cersei—it all blended, blurred in one rush of red.

“I’ll do more than remind them. I’ll show them. That big bitch of Tarth has been in her cell long enough. She’ll die a traitor’s death at the feast. Fitting, to end her miserable life on the anniversary of her precious Lady Catelyn.”

Brienne? Brienne. The Maid of Tarth who claimed to love and honor her mother, and was imprisoned for it. Yes. She had come to Sansa many a time, begged her to let her come and steal her away. Come and rescue her. Sansa had spurned her. Spurned her for her lies. Spurned her for allying herself with the Kingslayer, for loving him too, if the rumors about them were true. Spurned her for giving her hope of living, when she had already been dead for years. But she never told. Always kept it close, held on to the mere thought, the possibility, the chance.

Someone heard, though. Heard, and told, and the Kingslayer was exiled to the Rock for his conspiring, the Maid sent to the Black Cells, and any fancies of freedom rotting in the darkness with her. And now. And now.

“This shall be a feast for the ages, Your Grace.”

“Yes, it’s quite a clever plan, darling. I will begin the arrangements, come morn.”

“Nonsense, Mother—Her Grace and I will arrange everything. It will be sisterly bonding time, and a gift to our king. What say you, Sister?”

Sansa clenched her fork. Silver, like her arrow. Where she gripped the silver, her thorn scars ached.

“I would love to, dear sister. Highgarden is known for its bards; I’ll be sure to—”

“No need for bards. Sansa will sing. She’ll sing The Rains of Castamere for all to hear. I command it.”

I command nothing of you, my lovely dawn. Only that you sing.

Joffrey laughed, took another drink of his rosewater. Red petals floating like fleshy leaves. Rosewater. Petals. Slithering down his worm lips.

And sly green eyes, watching.

†

In her dreams, dawn found her again. The music had a voice. Familiar, low, golden, and not a command. Constant. Calling.

Sing.

Sing.

†

The library was quiet like death. Lone, and dark, and empty as Sansa Stark’s soul.

Her slippers padded across the stone floor, echoed. Madly, she rummaged through the books, searched, searched—

And, there. A thick tome, orange and gold, like House Martell's sigil.

Sansa opened it, skimmed, turned. Title after title after title, reading, seeking—

—and then. And then.

The Reachman so cruel, had no warrior’s heart.

Hated those who made flowers and sand and death an art.

The Reachman uprooted a desert rose, hurt her and stings,

"I command nothing of you, my lovely dawn; only that you sing."

Sansa clutched the page.

The rage sent her adrift,

And lo, she bestowed upon the monster a gift.

Thorns weaved through silver;

An iris, her iris!

Desert rose, there she rose!

Right above the heart, so it starts;

And it bloomed,

And wilt,

And wept.

Yes, it bloomed;

It wilt;

It wept.

And he sang, he sang, he sang;

Oh, how he sang!

He sang, and sang,

And vengeance rang.

A desert pure of filth,

A spear with no hilt,

And so her blade wilts,

So her blade wilts.

Sansa’s scars pulsed, right where the thorns filled her.

No command. Only a song.

Sansa Stark would never sing again. Certainly not for lionesses disguised as stags, or speared suns.

And yet.

And yet.

There were no guards at Princess Myrcella’s door. Sansa breached them, made her way past the foyer—

And there she was.

Not asleep.

Sitting on her lounge at the foot of her bed. Glass of rosewater in her hands. Long legs crossed, thin nightsilks golden as her skin, mane free and flowing.

Waiting for her.

“The gifts were never meant for me,” Sansa said.

A little chuckle. “No. All of them were, save one. It would please me if you kept the rest, though I’m certain you care not for my pleasure.” Emerald eyes flitted up and down Sansa’s body, unabashed and glittering. “A shame, but understandable.”

The back of Sansa’s neck burned. She ignored it, walked over to Myrcella, chin raised. “What do you want?”

Myrcella gave her one smiling glance over, before speaking. “To pay my debts,” she said. “We must never forget our names, I told you. Nor what we are owed because of them. If I am to inherit my family’s power, so too must I claim their sins, and redeem them.” A loathsome shadow took her face. “What few sins I can atone for, anyhow.”

“Nothing you do will ever bring them back,” Sansa said, and it numbed her to say it, to speak that truth aloud, but it needed to pass her lips, just once. Once, and no more.

Myrcella looked at her then, eyes fierce, and she was both Cersei and Joffrey and neither of them all at once. “No,” she said, “but I can bring about their vengeance. Save for love, vengeance is one of the few joys we have in this life, Sansa. How do you think my grandfather came to pass? Was it passing coincidence to you that he grew ill soon after Joffrey’s wedding? Joffrey’s wedding, where my Uncle Oberyn and Cousin Tyene attended?”

Sansa could only blink. In truth, she had not considered the how and why of Tywin Lannister’s death, only that the maker of the Red Wedding was dead, dead, dead, and had died slow, died shamefully, with shit clogging his insides. But yes. It made sense. And considering what the man had done to Elia Martell and her children, it was that much more beautiful.

“It is not only vengeance I will bring,” Myrcella said. “There’s restoration, as well. Healing.” Her voice went even softer, so that not even the gods would hear. “Your brother fought for something. And he had it, may have even still had it to this day, had my grandfather not cheated. He took from the Young Wolf, as he took from my Aunt Elia. I can return what is owed—to the sun, and the wolf.”

Restored. Healing. Sansa bit the inside of her cheek to keep the tears inside, could not speak, would not.

At her silence, Myrcella went on. “I’ve the key to both of our ascendance, Sansa. You, and I. Queens of South and North. A Dornish court with Dornish succession law cannot come to pass unless we force it to. That only happens by deflowering the pesky weeds… and slaying the monsters.”

Sansa’s blood went cold, cold as her homeland. Queen. Gods. If she closed her eyes, she could feel it—that crisp, still air, earthy and kind. Misting heat, pooling from hot springs. A white sun glowing in her hair. And just beyond her, a foolish thought, uttered by a ghost.

If I am ever queen, I will make them love me.

“What is the plan?” Sansa Stark asked.

“Your reading should have given you an inkling,” Myrcella said. “If you’re lost, then mayhaps you truly are the singer my mother and brother think you to be.” Her eyes met Sansa’s as she took a long sip from her Tyrell rosewater. Inside the glass, the red petals looked as sharp as daggers.

Sansa Stark watched her, heartbeat still. “And tonight?”

Golden fingers played at the skirt of Sansa’s white silks, and Sansa didn’t move. Didn’t protest. Didn’t breathe.

Myrcella reached, ringed her arms over Sansa’s hips, pulled her closer. She kissed Sansa’s stomach, dug those lion’s claws into her thighs, grabbed a handful of her arse. Sansa bit back a gasp.

“Tonight,” she murmured, lips teasing the silks on Sansa’s belly, “I pay the first debt...” Another kiss, a squeeze, and that smirk, full lips pink and plump and not worms, like Joffrey’s. Lovely and thick and bow-shaped. Those eyes. Emeralds, jade, summer. Lidded and staring and glittering. “...Your Grace.”

Sansa grabbed Myrcella’s face and kissed her. Kissed her hard, sloppy and unknowing and ravenous, and Myrcella’s laughs were muffled through melded mouths.

†

King Joffrey drank his gift, and sunlight blazed off its crystals like fire.

A strangeness, to sit silently in a chair of honor while hordes of her enemies feasted and rejoiced over the murder of her kin, waiting to be called to sing, but she had done it. Had waited, and stood when called.

"Sing the Rains for us, Lady Sansa," he commanded. "You'll sing, or—"

Sansa did not speak. Barely heard the argument Lord Tyrion had stirred up with Joffrey to defend his lady wife's honor. I was never yours, she wanted to tell him—both of them. She wondered if they would recognize the Dornish perfume that still lingered on her, if they’d bothered to pay attention. But men never do, not unless they believe they control the game. You’ve been losing for some time. And so had she. But no more. No more.

Joffrey's face was red as Lannister crimson, and he screamed at the Imp, screeched and snarled and threatened. Then his green eyes widened, and so came the water.

Joffrey gasped, clutched at his throat. That didn't stop the water. It churned, gushed, thick with spit and weakness.

"He's choking!" said the almost widowed queen, and then it truly began.

Joffrey collapsed, convulsing as water took him. His eyes bulged. Iriswater and sweat drenched his face.

Myrcella's face had been just as clear and wet when she rose from in between Sansa's thighs, she remembered. Just as drenched, drowned. But far more pretty. Wet, and smirking, lidded leonine eyes dark with triumph and lust. Be free, Sansa, she had said, before making her come.

Joffrey choked. Choked, and choked, and begged, and died, and it finally dawned on Sansa. Every gasp, every moan, every ragged, short breath was a lyric, a verse, a litany. This was Joffrey’s voice, his melody, his ode. Sansa Stark was never the singer. Never, and the chaos rising—screaming Tyrells, running Kingsguard, Cersei Lannister on her knees, holding her illborn creature, begging him to stay—that was the music. The symphony. The song of wolves.

And then.

Then.

Then, her flower bloomed. And Joffrey wept.

Blood rose from his throat, his eyes, ears, nose, all of it, all of it sanguine tears, and he was red, red, red.

Red as the iris.

Red as Lannister crimson.

Red as Tullys.

For the red of your hair, Myrcella had said.

Oh, he sang, he sang, and vengeance rang.

Sansa Stark’s fangs bit back her smile.

†

“Do the Tyrells trouble you?” Sansa asked, as they stood on the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms’ balcony.

As planned, the irises had been mistaken for Tyrell roses, laced with poison. No one at court will remember or realize that desert roses exude their own poison, when they become wet, Tyene had told her. It is a Dornish thing, and so, not worth knowing. They've ignored us too long, and that is their undoing.

The narrative that House Tyrell committed regicide to achieve absolute power was one House Martell and Sansa Stark created flawlessly, especially upon discovering Cersei’s idiotic scheme to frame Margaery for adultery. It had been easy enough to find the Queen Mother’s false witnesses, and make them characters in their story. Now, the world believed Margaery Tyrell meant to murder her husband, become pregnant by one of her many lovers, and claim her bastard as the king's heir, using the child to become Queen Regent. Sansa refused to think of the irony of that.

Myrcella scoffed. “They are Reachmen,” she said, as if that excused it. Perhaps for a Martell, it did. “If I’d heard just one more of them make that bloody jest that compares Dornishmen’s skin to cowshit…” She scowled, sighed. “They belong nowhere near a Martell court. And Tyrells are only Lannisters with souls, anyhow. I grow weary of falsehoods and treachery.”

Besides our own, Sansa did not say. Would not think it, either.

Myrcella scowled at the balcony’s stone rails. “If they had not botched that obvious assassination attempt at his wedding, they would be where we are now. But they had, and so they kneel before us, and beg for mercy we're unlikely to give them. It is the way of the world.” Another sigh. “Margaery's continued existence is dangerous. Rotting though she is now, she could be carrying Joff’s spawn as we speak, which would not bode well for us, in spite of our adultery accusations. Regardless, if we're not careful, our enemies could infiltrate the Keep, free her from her cell. She could start another war, then. Steal Tommen away, marry him, and use him to keep her queenship. For all this, I should kill her. I will not. It is enough.”

Perhaps it was. Perhaps roses should yield before the sun, as all flowers did.

What had been done to House Tyrell was not unlike what happened to the Starks, Sansa knew. Margaery, kept hostage in King's Landing for politics and power, with her family facing death for a treason they did not commit—that had been her, for years and years. Sansa knew that. She knew. But after remembering how the Tyrells had abandoned her after the Lannisters stole her from Willas... after learning they had planned to frame her for Joffrey’s murder, all those years ago... Sansa couldn’t find it within herself to have sympathy. Couldn’t bring herself to care at all.

The truth of that did not shock her, only wrought sadness. How brokenhearted Father would be, to see what she had become. I must leave the South now, before even more of my soul withers.

“And if Cersei decides to start another war by crowning Tommen?” she asked. Tommen was still young enough to have a Regent. Cersei could use Tommen. She could not use a grown and married Myrcella, with her Martell husband and Martell power and Martell life. Once she gathered the means, she would fight.

Myrcella clenched the rails. Looked away. “Then she dies.”

“It is accursed by the gods,” Sansa reminded her, “to slay your own kin.” A useless thing to say, as it had already been done by a sister to a brother, but still. Still.

Myrcella’s eyes stared down below, far below, where Cersei Lannister stood in her black mourning dress. Golden curls framed her face, raging cat eyes bright as wildfire. Myrcella’s face, twenty summers from now.

The Kingslayer’s face.

“I was born cursed,” she rasped.

Sansa did not kiss her, caress her scarred cheek, stroke the golden curls that should have been Baratheon black; Trystane would do that for her, later, she told herself. She knew how they were with one another. Knew their love was as true as Ned and Catelyn Stark’s. No. She would not do that. Could not.

Instead, Sansa placed a hand on her shoulder. “We are not only our names,” she said, softly.

Myrcella turned her head, just a bit. Let her nose brush against Sansa’s fingers for half a breath. “Spoken like someone who rejects her Lannister name.” A halfhearted smirk. “Your Grace.”

“I never had it,” Sansa said. Myrcella had annulled the false union to Tyrion, but even if she had not, Sansa had never been a Lannister. Never. Never.

“Of course,” Myrcella said. Silence. Then, “I’ve something for you.” She went through her pockets, pulled out a small velvet box.

Sansa took it, opened it. Felt her heart skip a beat.

The thorned arrow. It had been cut in half to where only the metal head and the slightest bit of neck remained. Silver thread kept it in a necklace.

“A reminder,” Myrcella said. “Of the paid debt.”

Sansa watched the arrow necklace. Saw the velvet petals, lined with amber to preserve it. Not so red, anymore. But they had been red, once. Had bled, and wept, because Myrcella made her see.

“Her Grace is kind, to make this for me,” Sansa said.

Myrcella locked eyes with Sansa, Lannister green seeing Tully blue. “And Her Grace is beautiful,” she whispered.

Loveliest knives, prickling her blood, scorching her. Sansa held her breath, did not look away. Nor did the sun. It shined down on Myrcella, loved her, left her golden skin and curls aglow, and her eyes were green, and green, and green.

Silence.

Then, “When spring comes,” Myrcella said.

Spring. Years from now, when they both would be settled into their reigns, North and South would meet again.

Sansa nodded. “When spring comes.”

Staring. Autumn wind blew through Myrcella’s hair, sunlight and gold dancing through her curls.

“I wish you good fortune, Your Grace,” Sansa said.

Myrcella looked down at her. She was tall, Sansa somehow suddenly noticed. Tall and graceful, like all Lannisters. “And I, you,” she said. “Your Grace.”

Sansa turned. Walked away. Walked.

Then, claws, pulling at the red in her hair, and—

And. Kisses, and caresses, and warm breath, blooming. Gods, her lips felt as luscious as they looked, and she tasted of the sweetest of rosewater, the greatest of poisons, the best, and Sansa drank. Drank, and drank, and drank her gift, and did not die. Breathed.

†

The cold was not kind to the irises, as the princess had said. They curled and dulled. It would please me if you kept the rest.

Sansa Stark crossed the Neck. They wilted. The arrow stayed warm beneath her furs.

Sansa met the frost. A petal fluttered, sighed through the wind. Whispered. Sing. Sing.

Be free, Sansa.

It all fell then—petals, thorns, tears.

Fear.

And the first drop of Winterfell snow, kissing the Queen in the North’s cheeks.