I Just Pray For Your Fall ||| Cregan Stark

eight

Sorry, it's a long chapter <3

Amara remembered to close the door, at least. She shut it behind her and marched into the room with the crumpled letter still clutched in her hand, eyes searching for the Lord of Winterfell.

She found him sitting at his desk with a quill in hand. If Amara felt anything else in the world, she might've taken more notice that he was in his casual clothes. A loose shirt and pants. Wholly improper to be meeting with a lady dressed like that, especially alone. If Amara cared at that very moment about honour, she would've turned around and walked out. She did not, didn't even notice before she stood mere steps away from him.

Cregan had turned when he heard his door open and opened his mouth to address the visitor who walked in without announcement or cause. But he'd closed his mouth promptly when he saw it was Amara. He actually has the gall to wear an amused smile on his lips as he pushed away from his desk. Perhaps that had been his plan all along to get her to speak to him.

"I hope you're pleased with yourself. Really. You got what you wanted." Amara did not return the smile Cregan had playing at his lips. "I've now lost any chance to choose what I want for myself because of your little games."

Instead of immediately grasping how serious Amara was, Cregan tilted his head. "Come now, my lady. They are not unrepairable connections. I meant only to weed out those who saw your status and nothing else." Amara cursed her traitor of a stomach for the way it flipped at the way he was looking at her. The eye contact, the admittance of what he was doing.

Anger won, however. A rose was not without its thorns. "You had no right to meddle in the affairs of my life when it no longer affects you. You have a betrothal you chose to agree to waiting for you in Winterfell. I don't have that same luxury, not anymore, and you chose to fuck with my suitors." Amara was breathing heavily by the time she was finished. It was an expression of anger Cregan had never seen of Amara, what with her jaw set and eyebrows pressed together. That was why he finally seemed to realize she was seriously angry with him.

"What do you mean not anymore? Samwell will still send his letter—"

Amara angrily huffed and shook her head. "No, you got what you wanted. Blackwood is inconsequential." She held up the crumpled letter. "I received a letter from Highgarden. I have lost everything I worked my youth to achieve." It was taking every shred of patience Amara possessed not to yell. She tossed the crumpled letter onto the desk Cregan was sitting at and made no move to stop him when, still confused, he looked from her to the letter and made to pick it up. "My choices have been made for me. Perhaps if there had been no meddling in my personal affairs I may have been able to, at the very least, choose who my husband might be. Now that is gone as well. I am a fool. But I am not alone in this blame."

Cregan was silent as he read the letter Amara tossed to him. She gave him the grace of allowing him to read the words in full as she had read them. Her inheritance was gone and given to her brand-new brother and her father had wasted no time selling her to the second son in King's Landing. It irked her to no end that he was impossible to read sometimes. All she noticed was the twitch of his jaw when he ground his teeth but nothing else to indicate how he felt.

"Your father has sold you to the second son cyclops princeling in King's Landing? For what purpose could that ever be an advantageous match for his only daughter?" Seeing Cregan confused, angry, even, was very vindicating to Amara. His confusion more so. He didn't understand how her father worked yet, it seemed.