Grace of Fire and Fangs

prologue - dread

Kings Landing

My gaze hovers above the flickering candlelight,  and ears search the silence for stirring guards outside my chamber door. I had come to understand that the men chosen to "protect" the castle these days were not of the same quality as before. They were likely unconscious on the floor, liquor burning through their veins. I am not sure whether their incompetency tempered, or increased my unease. 

 The shadows cast by the candle were dancing across the brick, and my body wanted to brace itself for each sudden leap. Sometimes, I tell myself, you must let a shadow be only a shadow. My eyes flutter closed with a sigh, and I guide the quill towards the ink jar.

I swim the quill swim inside the jar for a moment, before drawing it towards the parchment. 

I find myself staring at the blank page, stilled. I have so much to write, so many things to explain or insist, an apology or several, but none were so clear to me. I didn't know how to do it, or if I wanted to do it at all. Maybe these words are not meant to be offered. Maybe they should stay in the chaos of my mind, where they can rot and ruin with the rest of my worries. Maybe I should let Jon go without ever knowing, maybe Arya doesn't need rescuing, and perhaps Sansa is better off, somehow, without the trouble of her bastard sister. Would she even call me that? Even now?

Jumbling together in a web of frustration and regret, an ache presses against my temples. My vision blurs for a moment, and focuses again on a small droplet of ink forming on the end of the quill. The black droplet weighs heavily on the light feather, and the quill droops under the pull. I frown, my fingers trembling ever so slightly.

The ink falls and stains the blank parchment.  I find myself knotting up even tighter. There I've gone and stained it. Perfectly good parchment. And now it is stained with the worries and fears of a young and troubled Finley Snow. It is stained with the things I should have said long ago, but never did. No matter, it was strained and as I draw the quill away to set it down on the wooden table, I decide that there is nothing I could do to remove the stain. Not any of them. There is nothing that can be done to mend what was already ruined.

With another glance towards the dancing shadows, I reach forward and suffocate the flame. The candle blinks out, the room falls into darkness and my eyes adjust to the faint glow of an icy moon. There is one thing, I think, standing silently, but it will take more than a quill. 

                Many moons before - 

                Dreadfort

"Yes, my Lord" Aralyn droned, her tone flat and dull. She was staring out the window, gaze falling over the beige fields rolling out below them. Dreadfort was dark and dank. The banks of the Weeping Water let loose to a current of black river, and grey mist rose from the rapids to cover the sprawling fields of muddied grass. Aralyn blinked into the cloudy mid-afternoon, the unavoidable dreariness settling into her bones. No matter how many nights she'd spent wandering the halls of this great fortress, it never seemed quite livable.

"You would think," Aralyn whispered to herself, too quietly for Lord Bolton to hear her, "that all this rain would make things green"

Roose stood over the long wooden table, his back to her, and as Aralyn figured, he didn't so much as flinch to indicate that he'd heard her remark. He was somberly studying a large map of the North; his gaze focused and severe. He had a plotting look in his eye, one that Aralyn admired. Those cold, moon eyes which never failed to put a room in silence, and that low, serious voice which made skin crawl. But not hers. Roose Bolton was a very unlikeable man, though she found herself liking him very much.