𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬 || 𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑾𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒓𝒚 𝑶𝒖𝒕

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈: 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐫, 𝐈'𝐥𝐥 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐝

*Author's Notes*

I don't usually put the any notes in the beginning of chapters as in a way it spoils things that happen in the chapter itself before you get there. But I felt the need to for this chapter specifically, so fair warning to everyone, this chapter is DARK. It has themes of extreme gore, not completely explicit SA but it happens, suicidal intentions, and more. I know such topics are very triggering to some readers, and so that is was I've put this warning up. If you wish to not read any of that, do not read the last Sansa POV section in this chapter.

*End of A/N*

꧁ CHAPTER XIV ꧂

" FOR HER, I'll MAKE YOU BLEED "

꧁ BENGET ꧂
293 AFTER CONQUEST

The light that shown off of the pommel of the Dawn was bright, and yet to him, all things had become dull. Winterfell was home, and yet he had become a foreigner in its halls. A foreigner amongst its people, a stranger amongst his family. He felt dull. Like a blade kept unsharpened and uncleaned.

A night like tonight, like the last few, he had spent a considerable time beneath the heart tree in the Godswood. The faces that cried tears of blood had stared at him in silent judgement, judging him, deeming him an interloper. At least that's how he felt.

"It will pass," his father had said to him. "The blood. The stains..it passes." It had sounded like a promise when he had heard it, but he could tell behind the grey eyes of his Lord Father that, that was simply not true. It were not a lie, per say, as Benget was sure his father could never tell one even to save himself, but they were words that the Lord Eddard Stark could not fully get behind, and so the words to him meant very little and did even less in a way of helping get through this chapter in his life.

Benget wanted the chapter to end already. Cut it short, tear it from the book that was his life thus far and cast it away, forget it. But the blood..the blood, the gore and pain of it all..Benget would always remember.

"..for her, I'll make you bleed.."

The lute that rested in his lap had long gone silent. It had been days since the Wolfswood, days since he had played the instrument, and part of him never wanted to again.

Sighing, he put the lute aside the windowsill where he sat and continued looking out over the Godswood, out to the night sky and shown few stars and no moon. So little light was out there that it made his reflection appear more easily in the glass, and yet Benget could not recognize the boy who looked back at him. That boy, the one who had never seen such horrors, the chaos of a true fight, the grit and savagery, was gone. That boy was gone, and someone else looked back at him.

He avoided the look of his own violet eyes, and so had them drift down far below the window the one of the many courtyards of the castle. The mud on the ground devoid of snow, as spring had come earlier in the month and cast it all away. And yet even with that, Benget felt cold.

"It is a light that must never go out," Old Nan's voice bounced around his head as he looked back to the hearth. Its flames had died down, its warmth, still present, did little to dull that cold feeling in his heart or the sores across his body. The pains..