Carliene Stark

II Chapter 48

Carliene

"They intend to keep me prisoner!" I told Bran that night, pacing nervously, my feet sinking into the mucky meadow and making sucking noises as I walked. "And force me to marry Willas Tyrell" I don't know why I expected this to be news to him, by now I should have realised that there was probably nothing he didn't know. "How am I supposed to leave if the lock me up?" I demanded of him. I finally wanted him to tell me what to do and tell me so plainly. 

"You will leave the castle sooner than you think, but not with the Tyrell army" he told me. "So calm yourself and let me show you something" he extended his hand. 

I hesitated to take it, thinking back to when I had taken it the last time and ended up in the middle of a battle field, watching my baby brother die. But I knew in the end I had to take it and when I did I found myself in a familiar place. My heart almost jumped as I recognise the smell of the pines and the mist that the hot springs created. As I turned, despite everything I had to smile. The familiar face of the Hearttree of Winterfell was still as distorted and terrifying as I had thought it to be as a child, and yet seeing it was like being reunited with someone I knew from my past. Then I noticed that group of people behind the tree and quickly circled closely followed by Bran. "What is this?" It was night were or when we were. All happiness and feeling of home disappeared from me when I recognised one of the men standing beneath the tree to be Roose Bolton. "What is this?" I demand again and turned to Bran. 

"Just watch" he ordered calmly.

My eyes widened even further when I saw Sansa being lead out by Theon and I realised that it was a wedding ceremony. Sansa#s marriage to Ramsey Bolton the legitimised bastard of Roose and the one I recognised to be the one who had shot the arrow who pierced Rickon's heart. I watched in utter disbelief, the fear and uncertainty on my sister's face breaking my heart. I didn't know what was more distressing, the fact that I knew what a monster Sansa was being bound to by marriage or the fact that I could do nothing to help her. This has all happened already, I tried to remind myself over and over as we followed the newlyweds back to their chambers. "Why are you showing me this?" I demand in distress as I realise that even if I stood still, the scenery around me changed to keep me close to them. Was this his sick way of showing me that the embarrassment I had experienced that day was nothing compared to true violence? But I knew this already, after all I had endured my own wedding night. He did not answer only observed my revolt and distress as I was forced to watch my little sister being defiled by the son of the man who had stuck a dagger into Robb heart. I tried to close my eyes, but that was silly of course. This was happening in my head and i could not shut it out. So I turned away, flinching at the yelps of pain from Sansa and staring at Theon who had been forced to witness the whole thing. I could more than sympathise with him then as I watch the tears drip from his scrawny chin. 

It felt like ages but finally the scene fell away, Theon's sobs seemingly remaining in my ears a moment longer before I was alone with Bran once more. I glared at him angrily. "Why?" I asked again for what felt like the hundredths time. "First Rickon now this, why make me go through this" 

"There is a lesson to be learned in everything" he told me calmly. 

"What lesson could I possibly learn from that?" I snapped, my skin still crawling from the thought of what had been done to my sister. Our sister! How could he remain so calm at the sight of this?

"Forgiveness"

I huffed in bewilderment. "I could never forgive that, if I should ever get my hands in that man, I'll.. I'll" I couldn't even begin to imagine the cruelty I wished to do to him.

"You will do nothing, he is dead already" Bran informed me, much to my relief. "Sansa and Jon already reminded him that the North remembers" 

A shiver went down my back at those words and I felt a certain pride fill my chest but also the regrets that I wasn't there to witness it. "Why not show me that?"