Wilting ♞ Sandor Clegane

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ANYA WHENT SLEEPS in the shadow of Harrenhal. Harrentown was put to the torch during the War of Five Kings —wood turned to ash, and only blackened stone remained. Where she lies now used to be an inn. She knew the innkeepers as a child. His name had been Orik. His wife's name was Katrina. They were kind folk and gave her a warm meal and bed the night she ran off pretending to be a dragon terrorizing people in the night. Her father's men at Harrenhal's gates hadn't let her in —not believing she was their lord's daughter. They took her for an orphaned vagabond, barefooted, covered in filth, and wearing a ragged nightshirt. With nowhere else to go, she trudged back to the old inn. The memory still makes her smile, even if it was over two decades past.

The stone floor is cold through her bedroll. She could see the fresh dew turning to frost as the hours crept by —the first signs of the coming winter and storm. Anya rolls onto her back and looks through the half-burnt rafters to a starless sky. The winter is cold, she tells herself, but I must be colder. The morning light breaks through the crumbling inn walls, casting its pale warmth upon her face, and she rises, suddenly feeling decades older than her true age of four-and-thirty. It's enough to make her long for youth, for Winterfell, for home.

Soon after setting off on the road, dark clouds gather, and a cold rain begins to fall. Passerby give her wary glances —like they know who she is, but it seems impossible given her travel-worn clothes and unkempt appearance. Either way, Anya draws the hood of her cloak and shifts her sword to rest underhand, never letting herself feel at ease this far south. Finally, she veers to the east, off the Kingsroad, and toward Castle Stokeworth. There are likely fewer travelers on the path to the seat of House Stokeworth and Duskendale than on the road to the capital.

The path taken scarcely matters now. In two days, she will see the walls of the King's Landing and ride through the Dragon Gate —an almost certain death sentence if the Crown learned of her presence in the city. She rides past Sow's Horn and Ivy Inn before finally stopping at the small tavern in Brindlewood. The room for the night is cheap, the mead cheaper. And while she lays on the lumpy mattress, staring up at the thatch ceiling and listening to the snores of the other patrons, she recalls the layout of the Red Keep and the tunnels leading to the castle in the city. All she can do now is pray Sansa is still there.

Festoons line the narrow road —the summer flowers on them beginning to wither, the green and white ribbons dancing in the breeze. The colors of House Stokeworth. A wedding, Anya thinks, or a funeral. Ahead are two riders on the path to Rosby Road and Duskendale. She recognizes one of them and feels the anger make her blood run hot and her stomach churn. Tyrion's sellsword —Bronn— and if the red leather doublet and gilded sword hilt are anything to go by for who his traveling companion is.

Anya spurs her mount forward until she's close enough to be heard. "Kingslayer!" she calls. There's venom in her voice as she recalls what he did to Ned in the streets of the capital and how he butchered her sweet Jory. Jaime Lannister turns on his white mount. A pallor washes over him as he realizes who the hooded rider is —a honey-haired woman with cold and harsh Stark grey eyes. A ghost. Cersei said she died the night the Blackwater burned, felled by arrows, and burnt beyond recognition. They even mounted a head on a pike next to those who fought for Stannis, naming her a traitor who conspired to kill the king. No one spake their objection or suspicion, and poor Sansa Stark wept for days when they made her look at the heads again.

He motions for Bronn to stay put and rides to meet her. "They say you're a dead woman, Anya Stark," he tells her, gaze flitting over her face. Grief has given her a haunted, vulnerable look; if anything, he thinks it only makes her more beautiful.

She eyes the sellsword. "No thanks to your friend," Anya says in turn, unable to say whether the sellsword is surprised to see her. Jaime glances at Bronn, confused by the claim, but the newly minted knight of the Blackwater will have plenty of time to explain on the way to Dorne. She looks over Jaime then, the knight's charming façade he wore so arrogantly before the war has vanished —along with his right hand.