Chapter 14. The Rains Weep O’er His Halls.
**warning** depiction of attempted assault.
The chill between Raya and Sandor had lasted for days, a cold war of averted glances and pointed silence. He was a wall of grim indifference, and she was a fool who couldn’t seem to learn her lesson.
That evening, after putting the final stitches on a new doublet for Joffrey, a thankless task if ever there was one, she was ready to sink into the oblivion of sleep. A knock on her door was too loud, too official to be a servant. A royal guardsman filled the frame.
"My lady, you are summoned by Queen Cersei.”
Raya's heart seized. "What for?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady but he offered nothing more. The blood drained from Raya's face as the possibility filled her mind that Cersei knew. She knew about the blacksmith, about the lie, and about the bastard boy Raya had chosen to protect.
Raya was led to the Queen's bed chamber, the journey through the familiar halls feeling like a walk to the gallows. Cersei was seated at her vanity, brushing her long, golden hair with slow, deliberate strokes. She didn't look at Raya, instead watching her in the mirror's reflection.
"Apparently you were seen the last time I sent you out. I thought I told you to be careful," Cersei said, her voice light and conversational, which made the words land with even greater force. “No matter. A pretty girl with hair like yours... it's not exactly inconspicuous, is it?”
Cersei had an uncanny ability to make Raya’s stomach turn.
"Don’t worry. You’ll just have to try harder this time." She turned on the stool, her eyes cold and appraising. "Come here."
Raya obeyed, her feet feeling leaden. Cersei pointed to a small padded stool in front of her. "Sit."
Raya sat, her back straight as an arrow, facing away from her sister, just as she had a thousand times as a child.
"Let's see if we can't make you less memorable. Hide those pretty curls,” she purred, and began to gather Raya's hair.
The memory came unbidden and sudden.
She was barely six. Small and nervous and just beginning to learn her place in the world. She was sitting in Cersei’s bedroom in front of a vanity not unlike the one she had in the Red Keep. Her hands idly picked at the threads of her dress as she tried to recite the words to the song Cersei had been teaching her.
“And who are you?” The proud lord said
“That I must bow so low?”
Only a cat of a different coat
That’s all the truth I know
The next words wouldn't come. They were scattered in her mind by her sisters castigation. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her reflection in the mirror. “You’re hurting me,” she’d tried to say.
"Focus, Raya," the voice behind her sneered. Thirteen year old Cersei, already tall and imperious, was braiding Raya’s hair. Her fingers worked with merciless efficiency, pulling the strands tight. Much too tight.
"I can't remember," Raya whispered.
The yank on her hair was sharp and punitive. "You can," Cersei corrected. "You must. Father will be so pleased when he hears you've learned it. Don’t you want him to be proud of you?"
The pain in her scalp was nothing compared to the pain in her chest. She sniffled, trying to hold back her tears.
In a coat of gold or a coat of red
And mine are long and sharp, my lord
As long and sharp as yours
And so he spoke, and so he spoke
Another sharp tug. "Quit your mumbling."
But now the rains weep o'er his hall
With no one there to hear
Yes, now the rains weep o'er his hall
She finished the braid and tied it off with the leather cord, giving it a final, tug that made Raya wince.
"I need you to meet with a merchant at the piers," she said, her voice low and instructive. “This is the coin he is owed.”
She placed the purse in Raya's hands.
"You will not speak to him," Cersei commanded, her eyes sharp and unforgiving. "He will be wearing a red cloak, so you'll know who to seek out should there be anyone else around. You will approach him, give him the purse, and take the parcel he gives you. Nothing more. Do you understand?"
“What is in the parcel?” Raya asked as she opened the hefty coin purse in her hand to see a small fortune of silver inside it. Whatever she was playing courier for was of significant cost.
Cersei narrowed her eyes. “Something very important and valuable.”
Raya sighed. “I won’t go unless you tell me what I’m buying,” she tried to sound dignified.
Cersei simply rolled her eyes at her little sister’s attempted boldness.
"After you have procured the package from the merchant you’ll go to the Street of Silk. To the brothel that belongs to our dear friend, Lord Baelish. Go to the back door, tell whoever answers that you have a parcel for Petyr from his cousin. You will not speak to anyone about it. You will turn around, and you will come straight back here. Do you understand me?"
A clandestine purchase and a shadowy delivery of a parcel she wasn’t allowed to know the contents of. No questions. Alone.
A wave of nausea rose in her throat. She thought of the blacksmith's boy, his pretty blue eyes and his honest, stoic face. Jon Arryn was asking questions about bastards, and now Cersei was buying poison. The two facts were not separate, they were two sides of the same bloody coin. This was for him. The Hand of the King. Cersei was plotting to murder the King's Hand.
And she wants me to be the one to do it.
Not with her own hands, perhaps, but close enough. Close enough for it to stain her soul. She thought of her husband, the drawn out wasting she had orchestrated, the secret relief of it that mixed with the gnawing guilt. The guilt that had eaten away at her to the point that she felt like she’d forgotten who she was
But here she was, being asked to walk that same path, to be an accessory to premeditated murder.
Why me? The question swirled in her mind.
Cersei had a web of Varys's "little birds" and dozens of willing underlings at her beck and call. She didn't need Raya for this. She only felt inclined to remind her of just how little of her own agency she really had. It was about ownership. It was a test. A reminder that Raya's hands, just like anyone else's, could be bloodied if it served Cersei.
"No," Raya said, the word small but firm. "I won't do it. Have one of your little birds do it, Cersei."
Cersei’s smile was thin and mocking. "I don't want a little bird. I want you. I need my wonderful sister, who is so very helpful, to do this for our family."
"I’m not your doll to play with anymore. I won’t do it," Raya countered with growing strength.
The amusement vanished from Cersei's face, replaced by the cold, hard steel of their father. "You will do as you are told. It’s your duty to serve your queen.”
“This isn’t duty it’s a condemnation and I will not be a part of it.” Raya tried to insist.
She saw it plainly all over Cersei’s face that she was growing annoyed. Each silent second was a drop of blood in the water, and she could feel the moment her sister began to circle.
"I think you have a secret, my little ray of sunshine," Cersei purred. "I think you and I aren't so different after all. You know that sometimes people must die in order for us to thrive. It’s just the way of things."
Raya's heart seized in her chest. The air grew thick, heavy with unspoken accusations. She wouldn't confirm or deny it. She couldn't incriminate herself, but she also knew how easily Cersei could see through her at times.
"I don't want to be involved," she mustered, the words feeling hollow even to her own ears.
"You already are. You're part of this family whether you like it or not," Cersei stated. "Our family is being threatened, and you will do your duty and fight for it."
Raya looked at her sister, at the ice cold queen who was their father's embodiment. She thought of Tywin's words, of the way he had sliced her open and left her to bleed. The bitter taste of her own powerlessness filled her mouth.
Cersei saw the fight drain from Raya's eyes. "Don't be dramatic. Let’s just pretend it’s medicine. For a sick old man who has overstayed his welcome.”
She smirked at Raya and took a long drink from her glass of wine, knowing the argument was over. “Speak of it to nobody, not even our brothers,” she punctuated.
Raya looked to her sister's eyes and saw no way out. There was no argument to be made, no plea that would be heard. She was trapped by fear and love and by the toxic, twisted bond she shared with her sister.
There was only obedience. And the echo of a song about those that refused to bow, a lesson that had been braided into her hair with pain and trepidation.
ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ
Dusk had finished settling over the castle and the sky’s blush began to bruise. The secret was a stone in Raya’s gut, a poison of its own that seeped into her mind. She felt entirely stupid and ashamed for seeking him out but she wasn’t sure who to turn to. She needed to confide in someone, to feel less alone, to be anchored to the ground by remorseless honesty.
Raya found him sharpening his sword in the courtyard outside the guards' chambers, the rhythmic scrape of the whetstone the only sound between them. She didn’t speak, she just watched the way the muscles in his forearms moved with each stroke of the stone, the repetitive motion was almost comforting.
Sandor could feel her watching him, the familiar tugging in his gut making him agitated at being unable to crush it.
"What's wrong with you today?" he grumbled, only briefly glancing up from his work. She looked like that ghost of a woman he saw the day she arrived. Her hair pulled back in severe, tight braids that made her look small and juvenile. She had the same white knuckled clench to her hands as she did then.
"Cersei is sending me on another errand," she said, her voice thinner than she intended.
"Isn't that your job?" He asked.
"I suppose it is to a degree," she rolled her eyes at his indifference.
"When?" he asked with a flat tone.
"In the city. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but you said I should tell someone if I have to do things alone… So I’m telling you." The words felt heavy on her tongue. "I don't want to do it, I’m worried.”
"Then don't," he shrugged.
It was the solution of a man who wasn’t Cersei Lannister’s pathetic and disposable sister.
"It's not that simple. You know that," Raya sounded annoyed, her frayed nerves getting the better of her. "It's what she wants so I have to do it,” she insisted a little too sharply.
He paused his sharpening for a fraction of a second, his eyes flicking to hers, a flash of something strange in their depths. Then he resumed his work, the scrape of the stone against steel once again filling the silence.
"Then be careful," he grunted, and went back to his task.
The dismissal was harsh and cold. She had come here, swallowing her pride, hoping for something. An offer, a kindness, anything. But all she got was indifference. She nodded, a small, deflated motion, and walked away, a fresh wave of loneliness washing over her.
What she didn't see, what he ensured she didn't see, was the way he stopped sharpening the moment she was far enough away to not hear the rhythmic scrape cease. He watched her until she disappeared from sight, his jaw set like stone. The whetstone was laid aside as a new task occupied him.
ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ
The streets of the slums were a different world from the sun dusted avenues she was used to. The respectable merchants and skilled craftsmen were gone, their shops shuttered and dark. The people who remained were shadows flitting at the edge of her vision. A hunched figure rummaging through a pile of refuse, a pair of women leaning in a doorway with their painted faces leering in the torchlight, a cluster of street urchins with eyes like hungry cats tracked her progress with an unnerving intensity.
She had tried to look bland and dull with her ill fitting common girls clothes and the cowl to hide her hair and shade her face, but still it felt like she wore a sign that read ‘Out of Place’ across her chest. It felt like the people roaming the streets could tell she didn’t belong simply by the way she walked.
Her mind wandered, replaying Sandor's cold dismissal.
Then be careful. He had left her with that.
The air grew thick with the smell of the river. Brackish water, fish, and earth. On the pier she could hear the idle chatter of a handful of sailors and their uncommon dialects. The purse of coins swinging against her hip, suddenly heavier now, as they glanced her way.
She paused and looked around, scanning the docks and ship decks. And then she saw him. Standing near a stack of tar barrels, a man apart from the bustle. He wore a heavy, travel stained cloak of a deep red, bright in the clear moonlight.
As she drew closer, her courage began to falter. He was broad shouldered, with a face that looked like it had been carved from old wood and left out in the rain. A thick, greying beard, and his eyes, small and dark, were fixed on the murky water of the river.
She stopped a few feet from him, her mouth suddenly dry. She waited, expecting him to turn, to acknowledge her, but he didn't. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, and she felt a hot flush creep up her neck.
"I believe you have a parcel," she began, trying to sound formal and detached.
He finally looked to her and put out a hand.
"Right, yes, I'm sorry," she stammered, her composure shattering. Her fingers fumbled with the drawstring of the heavy purse, and in her haste, it slipped from her grasp. It hit the damp wood of the pier with a soft, heavy thud.
Raya's face burned. She scrambled to grab it, her shaking hand nearly useless as she snatched it up. She held it out to him.
He snatched it from her with a rough, impatient motion. He undid the drawstring, tilting the purse and letting the coins clatter into his palm. He shook them once, a satisfied grunt his only reply. Then he pulled a small wooden case from beneath his cloak
She took it, examining the box in her palm. The man turned back to his contemplation of the river. Raya promptly left the pier and returned to the somehow less unsettling nightlife of the streets.
Against Cersei’s orders, she ducked into a dark alcove behind a stack of crates, her back pressing against the cool, damp wall. Her hands were trembling as she undid the latch of the box. Inside was a small, leather pouch.
She pulled it open and tipped it into her palm. A single vial of clear liquid. She uncorked it and gently wafted it to her nose. No trace of scent. Tears of Lys, if the strange man was honest. A rare and deadly thing. Colourless, odorless, and swift.
The vial suddenly felt like it weighed a ton.
The image of the fevered, frail man flashed in her mind. He had been a terror and a burden, he had been deserving of that slow, suffocating death. Hadn’t he? But Jon Arryn, Cersei’s victim, this man she was about to seal the fate of, was he innocent? He was a husband and a father, a man who had served the realm faithfully. Did he even suspect anyone could want him dead?
A hot, sick feeling rose in her throat. She rewrapped the parcel quickly, as if the vial could bite her. She held it tightly at her side beneath her cloak.
The alley leading to the brothel was a mouth of darkness. Her feet felt leaden as she slipped into the shadowed walkway.
She knocked at the back door. It opened almost immediately.
The woman who stood there was a vision of vibrant life. She had deep bronzed skin that gleamed in the dim light, and raven black hair that fell in loose, glossy waves around her shoulders. She was dressed in a mostly sheer pink gown that clung to her curves, adorned with bold, golden jewelry that glinted softly. She was breathtaking, and for a moment, Raya just stood there, feeling like a little brown sparrow next to a peacock.
"Can I help you?" the woman asked, her voice rich and melodic.
Raya blinked, dragging her mind back to the task. "I have a package for Petyr. From his cousin," she said, her voice a little too tight.
The woman smiled. "Come inside, then."
Raya hesitated. She shouldn't. She should turn and leave. But the warmth of the room beckoned her to leave the dark of the alley
The hallway was dim, lit by sconces that cast long, dancing shadows on the walls. The woman led her deeper into the building. The space opened up into a foyer, adorned with colorful silk drapery hanging from the ceiling and fine, polished wood under her boots. The air here was thick, a heady cloud of perfume and incense that was overwhelmingly sweet.
"Lord Baelish," the woman announced softly, gesturing to a man stepping out from a side room.
He was smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles, sneaking his other hand under her cloak and taking the small box from her and slipping it under his surcoat in a smooth and subtle motion, sly as a snake.
"My dear, you are a marvel. I am in your debt,” he beamed.
He turned to a tall, red haired girl standing nearby. "Bring my sweet friend a glass of wine, would you? Are you partial to a particular vintage, my dear?"
Raya uttered a small “surprise me,” and gave a weak smile.
The girl nodded and slipped away. Petyr guided Raya to a small table and pulled out a chair. "Sit," he commanded gently. "Relax. You are safe here. I do apologize I wasn’t able to pick up my parcel myself, I’m so busy lately. Your sister was a true life saver when she said she would have it delivered for me."
Raya nodded in acknowledgment and sat uncomfortably on the plush velvet chair. The girl returned with a goblet of deep red wine. Raya took a sip, the taste usually a welcomed comfort but right now it felt sacrilegious to indulge.
She tried to listen to Petyr's chatter about the weather, financial matters, and some trivial court gossip, but her mind was elsewhere. She could hear the sounds of the brothel through the wall, the murmur of voices, moans, and soft laughter. Her mind wandered to the thought of Sandor in the courtyard, cold and dismissive as if she were nothing.
Petyr leaned in close, personal in a way that made her skin crawl. "Perhaps I could find another use for you. A more permanent position. If you are so inclined."
Raya stiffened, her finger tightening around the wine stem. "A permanent position?" She looked at him potently. "I imagine you don’t mean to suggest I'd be one of your girls?"
Petyr laughed, a low, silken sound. "Of course not. What a thought. More errands, I should have said. I find myself in need of someone I can trust. I would never mean to disrespect a lady of your station." He raised his hands in mock surrender.
"But you are quite the beauty, aren't you? A man would pay anything to have you to themselves for the evening." The pretty girl from the door said from behind her as she came to refill Raya’s glass. The girl leaned down, tucking a stray curl of Raya's hair behind her ear, her eyes flicking over Raya’s face with appreciation. "True beauty, quite a prize," the girl murmured.
Raya scoffed, a sharp, bitter sound.
Bullshit, she thought. I throw myself at a man and he recoils like I'm diseased.
The girl’s touch just highlighted how far away she felt from being wanted, how little control she had over her own life, her own body.
"Thank you," Raya said, standing abruptly. "I should go."
Petyr’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second before returning. "Of course, of course." He walked her to the door. As she passed him, he reached out, pecking her on the cheek. His cheek lingered on hers, the stubble of his beard making her shiver, his breath hot against her ear. "What you have helped me with… it is so incredibly important. It is the very thing that secures your family's safety. Be proud of yourself."
The words hung in the air, heavy and haunting. She knew what she had done and it didn’t feel important or safe or at all like she should be proud. She had done something terrible, and she had done it for a woman who couldn’t care less if she lived or died.
ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ
The cold sharpness of the night air was a welcomed relief after the humid sweetness of the brothel. Raya rounded the corner of the building to a dead ended alley and drank in a lungful of air, her back sliding against the rough stone wall until she was crouched in the shadows.
Raya felt dirty, used, marked by the deed she had just done. She was so lost in her own self loathing that she didn't see them until they were upon her.
"Well now," a voice drawled from the darkness of a nearby doorway. She froze, her blood turning to ice.
A man stepped out, tall and reedy, with a cruel smile. He wasn't alone. Another, bulkier figure emerged behind him.
"Little lady all alone in the dark," the first man continued, circling her slowly. "That's not very wise."
"Maybe she's looking for a good time," the other sneered.
Raya's mind raced, searching for an escape, but the two men had her boxed in. She could feel their eyes crawling over her. "Leave me be," she said, her voice shaky and thin.
The first man laughed, a sound like grinding stones. "I don't think so. We're just getting acquainted." He crouched down, bringing his face uncomfortably close to hers. His breath smelled of ale. "What's a pretty thing like you doing down here, all by your lonesome?"
"Please," she whispered, the word useless against the stone and the shadows.
"Please?" the bulkier man mimicked. "Oh how sweet it is when they have proper manners." He chuckled, a low, unsettling sound. He reached down and grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet.
"Don’t fucking touch me," she hissed, the fear momentarily replaced by a surge of hot anger. She twisted in his grip, kicking back at his shin with he heel. It connected with a dull thud, but he barely grunted.
“A fighter," the tall one said, his smile widening. He stepped forward and grabbed her other arm, his fingers digging into her flesh.
She was held in place with her back against the bulkier man's chest, keeping her between them. The reedy man leaned in, his face hovering over hers. "I like a feisty girl. So much more fun."
Raya's heart felt like it would burst. She was trapped. She struggled, thrashing against their hold, they were so strong. She felt like nothing.
"Let's have a look at what's hiding under here, shall we?" the tall man sneered, his hand moving to the collar of her dress. His knuckles brushed against her skin, and she froze, a sob catching in her throat.
I pray you have the decency to kill me when you’re done.
Suddenly, the bulkier man was gone. Wrenched backward with a choked cry as a massive figure in black slammed him against the wall with enough force to crack teeth. Sandor. The man dropped into a heap and didn’t move.
The tall man's eyes widened in terror. He held up his hands, taking a stumbling step back. "Evening, friend," he stammered. "No need for any of this, right? We were just having a bit of fun. No harm done." He tried to slip past Sandor, his eyes darting toward the street.
Sandor didn't move, just watched him with the cold, dead eyes of a predator. He let the man advance just a few paces, thinking he was clear. Sandor's arm shot out, grabbing the man by the shoulder and spinning him around to block Raya's view, but she heard it.
A wet, tearing sound, followed by a horrible, gurgling gasp.
His face was a storm cloud of fury, a beast unleashed from its cage. He wrenched her into his chest by her arm, his grip a bruising vice. "What the fuck are you doing?" he hissed, his face so close to hers she could feel the heat radiating from his skin.
She was stunned, her mind struggling to process it all. "You just—" she started.
"Hush," he commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument.
The sound of her sob, the raw fear in it, seemed to cut through his rage like a knife. He saw the tears and the way she was trembling like a leaf in a storm. He became aware of how tightly her wrist was clenched in his palm. He dropped his grip as if it were a red hot iron.
"Take me home," Raya whispered, the words tearing from her throat.
He turned her gently by her shoulders in the direction of the Red Keep, his hand on her back, unmoving. Comforting and shamefully possessive at once.
And there it was. The sickening, heated rush in his chest. The way his blood went hot at the sight of her scared eyes softening just for him. He hated it. Hated the part of him that reveled in it, that took a dark satisfaction in being her saviour. He had hurt her, and she was still looking at him like he was her only refuge. It was a twisted, ugly thing to enjoy, this power she gave him just by being vulnerable. He didn’t want to like it but gods help him, he did.
He could be the thing to scare away anything that would come to harm her. He could be the shelter she came to when the world was too much. His little lion who didn’t know how to keep herself safe. The primal possessiveness of it was the most unsettling and sacred feeling.
As they walked at Sandor’s rushed, ushering pace, the dam inside Raya fully broke. A panicked, torrential rant poured out of her, interspersed with ragged sobs.
"He’s going to give it to him. Petyr, Littlefinger. I bought it for him… I opened it, it was Tears of Lys. For Lord Arryn.” Her voice rose, echoing off the stone walls, a beacon of hysteria in the quiet night.
"Shut up," he growled, his patience worn thin by her panic and his own simmering adrenaline. "You want to tell the whole fucking city?"
But she couldn't stop. The words were a flood, tearing out of her. “I'm a monster, Sandor, I’ve done it again... I'm so sorry, I'm putting you in danger just by telling you, but I can't... I can't..."
He'd had enough of her self incriminating rambling. In one swift, impatient motion, he spun her around to face him and held her against his chest, his arm securely around her. Before she could even manage a word, his hand was clamped over her mouth, his palm rough and calloused, swallowing her terrified sobs. His body held her there, a wall of tense muscle. Safe and warm and utterly formidable.
"Enough," he stated, his face just inches from hers, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through his hand and into her very bones. "It'll be fine," he tried to sound reassuring. "Nobody will know it was you. It's done."
The shock of it silenced her instantly. The overwhelming heat of him against her, the taste of his skin on her lips, the smell of the blood on his chest that stuck to her dress.
She was trapped, completely at his mercy. And yet, as she stared into his furious eyes, she felt the panic begin to recede, replaced by a fragile calmness. He was a shield, and she was safely behind it.
He felt the tension go out of her body, saw the shift in her eyes from wild terror to a dawning, trusting stillness. He held her gaze for a moment longer, then slowly he pulled his hand away.
"I'll know," she whispered.
In that moment he wished he could make it all go away. Carry her burden for her so she didn’t have to live with the weight of it on her shoulders.
When they reached the familiar walls of the Red Keep, she stopped, looking up at him, her face tear streaked and pale. "I need my brother. I need Jaime.”
An unexpected pang went through him, it felt suspiciously like jealousy. Jaime. Not Tyrion, the imp might actually be more bearable. Sandor had been there, her salvation in the dark. But it was her brother that she thought she needed, he was just the guard dog.
He led her to Jaime's quarters and knocked on the door, the sound loud in the quiet corridor. He stepped aside, a looming shadow, and waited with her.
The door opened to reveal Jaime, his blond hair disheveled, his tunic wrinkled from sleep. He blinked, his confusion quickly turning to concern as he took in the sight of his sister in tears and the Hound standing menacingly behind her.
"What in the seven hells is going on?" Jaime demanded, his hand instinctively going to the sword that wasn't there. He glared at Sandor. "What did you do to her?"
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Raya with her brother.
Jaime watched him go, his fury mounting, but Raya's hand on his arm stopped him from saying anything more. He looked down at her, his expression softening instantly. "What is it? What happened?"
He pulled her into his chambers, the door hardly shut behind them, and that was when she told him everything. The errand. The parcel. Littlefinger. The men in the alley and Sandor coming to her. And then, the words she had never spoken to another living soul. She told him about her husband. About the long, slow poisoning. About the nefarious mercy killing she had performed with her own hands.
Jaime listened to every word. His face showing his disbelief that slowly hardened into a cold fury. He could see the girl Raya once was, the one he used to comfort when she had nightmares or if their father was too hard on her. That poor little girl melted into the woman she had become, a pawn carved out of their family's cruelty.
ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ ˚ ཐི⋆♱⋆ཋྀ
this chapter has driven me insane and it has been rewritten a hundred times so I hope you liked it🥲
