𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐗𝐈𝐗: 𝐁𝐲 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐧𝐝: 𝐩𝐭 𝐢

꧁ CHAPTER XIV ꧂

__________

"BY BARE HAND: pt i"
301 AFTER CONQUEST

꧁ Ramsay ꧂

When he dreamed, he dreamed of something burning. When he woke up, he could faintly catch a drift of something charred, he could taste ash in his mouth. Like most days, he awoke almost always in a puddle of his own sweat. Winterfell was boiling to him. The walls had a beating heart, flowing veins of life and a draft in places that made it seem like the castle itself was breathing. It was too alive. Too alive and too aware, he felt. They're watching, Ramsay always thought. The faces. The Starks. They're watching me..

Good had been the answer he had to these worries and thoughts. Good it was that they could all bear witness to his victory, the Bolton rule by right of conquest, the defeat of the wolves and all of it. Good it was that they could watch from hell as their former home was stripped from their hands and their memory cast away. But lately, the answer that was "good," was beginning to sour.

Among his chief problems; the Lords and Ladies of the North. To that, Ramsay thanked his father, the Lord Roose, for having left such civil disputes to his only son. Dustin was up in arms about a group of her men having gone missing, the traitor Manderly was gone completely and none of his spies had reported of him in his home of White Harbor, Arnolf was being Arnolf, and the Smalljon was raking the old Karstark man over hot coals just for fun. All in all, chaos was the Winterfell court he held, and Ramsay was starting to lose it.

"Oh, Myranda darling.."

He muttered to himself absentmindedly from where he sat at the High Table. Among a family of nobody, an empty hall, Ramsay chuckled to himself, shaking his head.

"It would be lovely of you to send a raven or a messenger of sorts. An update would be nice. Oh, well. Can't get everything, right?"

As much as the girl had been on his mind, how he seemingly talked to her on occasions when it was all in his head, Sansa lingered about the most. Sansa, at times, was the one in his bed and in his head when Myranda was gone. And at times, he thought nothing of the old kennel master's daughter at all, and it was the once Lord Eddard's daughter that made him take himself in hand to find relief, to find peace.

"Mm, peace.."

Ramsay mocked the very word, rolling his eyes.

"Peace would be you with perhaps a little less skin. Maybe your ring finger cut and laced around my neck. That would remind you, sweet Sansa. That would remind you that you can run, hide, fight, or whatever the fuck you want.."

Standing sharply, Ramsay smacked his goblet of wine across the table, the cup cracking on the stone floors of the Great Hall as he suddenly seethed.

"..but you will always be mine!"

"My Lord?"

"What?"

Turning sharply, the daggers that was his glare would have frightened off most anybody. Anybody who dared disturb him without so much as a knock on the door, a nice "excuse me," or anything, would have been scared half to death. But not the Smalljon Umber, who stood before him now with his arms crossed, almost unimpressed in the way he looked Ramsay up and down for a moment.