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She rides forth from the Vale with the brown washed from her hair with Littlefinger’s blood, Sansa Stark rising from the ashes of Alayne Stone in a wave of revolution supported by Yohn Royce who was her father’s friend but not Alayne’s father’s friend.
Sansa Stark rides for home with her cousin’s armies at her back, and the North holds its breath and waits.
*
They reach White Harbour first, and there is a battle - it is nothing like the songs - when the men of the Lannister fleet realise that the Vale has lifted its banners to stand against the Bastard King (Sansa has already done her mourning for sweet Tommen, although it was tinged with bitterness because she remembers him sparring with Bran, her Bran, before everything went wrong).
It is battle, and she sits with her loyal guard (Harry, bless him, stays near her, mayhaps still hoping to be her husband, she cannot be sure).
It is a battle, and she wins, and while Lord Manderly is absent - has been absent for too long, sweet Lady Wynafryd admits later that night when they whisper by candlelight - his family welcome her with open arms, as does Ser Davos Seaworth, Hand to the last Baratheon King.
Rickon, Rickon who looks so like Robb and Mother, so like Bran, watches her with wary eyes and clings to his wildling woman’s hand until Sansa offers him the lemoncake she stole from table.
He remembers sharing lemoncakes with her and Bran, he tells her, and he curls up in her lap with his face tucked against her neck and Shaggydog curls around her, and Sansa weeps into hair the same colour as her own and rocks her baby brother to sleep.
(Mayhaps, mayhaps if Rickon still lives, his stories about Bran surviving are also true?)
*
She is preparing to ride for the Dreadfort, to burn the Boltons’ home as they have desecrated hers (Wynafryd - Fred - gives her the detail that Ser Wylis refuses her, and rather than make her sick or swoon, it makes such blisteringly cold rage coil in her gut that she thinks she might be able to kill the Boltons with the sheer force of her anger), donning the silvered armour with enameled plates of slate grey and ice white (she thinks of Jaime Lannister’s gilded plate and laughs) that Lord Royce had made for her, when the harried-looking maester bursts into her chambers and hands her the letter sealed with a rose.
My lady,
You and your House have been wronged by so many, including my own kin. You may believe that you have no allies left in the South, but I pride myself on being an honourable man, despite my father’s follies, and the Lannisters and their cohorts have not behaved with honour.
While my father is at court, House Tyrell is mine, Lady Stark. For now, what is mine is yours, because I am told you have no desire for further war or the Iron Throne.
Whatever you need to restore the peace, my lady. That is a goal we share, I hope.
Willas of House Tyrell.
*
The Dreadfort burns, but not before Sansa finds Old Nan and the other women, before she holds the old woman so tight she is sure one of them will break, before she sends all the women and hostages from Winterfell back to White Harbour to be tended and healed and helped as best as is possible.
Not before she puts pen to parchment.
My lord,
Your offer is most generous, but I fear it will be of little use in the North.
In the Riverlands, however…
*
The Dreadfort burns, and the Boltons come running.
So do half the other Houses of the North, and the Boltons are caught between the two.
Sansa stays hooded and cloaked, ice-bear fur heavy and shockingly white around her shoulders, but when Roose and Ramsay Bolton are kicked to their knees before her, she throws back her hood and shakes out her hair.
“The man who passes the sentence should wield the sword,” she says, the Ice denied her by the Lannisters reflected in her cold, cold eyes as she looks down on the monsters who broke her home (because home was more than Winterfell, home was Father and Mother and Robb and Arya and Rickon and even Jon Snow, and home was Bran) without any mercy. “My sword was taken from me,” she goes on drawing the one-sided blade Fred gave her for this express purpose before she left White Harbour, a blade like a straight razor but much deadlier and much, much more beautiful, although not as beautiful as the broken greatsword of smoky Valyrian steel that her father wielded so carefully, “and I am no man, but we will make do.”
Her ice-bear fur will need to be cleaned - her women assure her that it will not take much - but it is worth it, she thinks, as she reclines in her bedding furs that night and breaks the seal on the most recent letter sealed with a rose.
My brother has sent word of a victory in the Riverlands, my lady, and has wonderful news - he captured a Lannister officer, and the rumours of your uncle’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. It seems that he is very much alive, and father to a daughter by Lady Roslin, originally of House Frey…
*
She freezes when the snow clears enough for her to see Winterfell, and it is only Lord Royce’s and Harry’s (he has given up on marrying her, she thinks, although he glares ferociously whenever a letter from Highgarden is given to her in his sight) presence at her sides that keeps her from turning tail and fleeing.
No Father.
No Mother.
No Robb or Arya or even Jon Snow.
No Bran.
*
The task of rebuilding Winterfell will be… Daunting, Sansa knows.
Stannis Baratheon arrives on the same day as the men from Highgarden. He brings demands for her fealty.
They bring gold and supplies, and another letter from Lord Willas.
Sansa promises men for the fight at the Wall, manages to avoid actually swearing fealty (she hears the talk of a Dragon Queen and knows that to tie House Stark to the Baratheons again would be folly, just as Willas Tyrell knows his father may have doomed their House by siding with the Lannisters) by instead vowing to install Rickon as Lord of Winterfell and to act as regent until he comes of age.
She is glad she did not actually swear fealty quite yet, because Lord Willas’ letter tells of Targaryens in the Stormlands and Dorne.
Princess Arianne writes that her father is not entirely convinced of the truth of Prince Aegon’s claims, but there can be no doubting Queen Daenerys. Write to her sooner rather than later, my lady - she does not strike me as a patient woman.
Apparently, now that she has taken Storm’s End from Aegon’s forces while he is at Sunspear, she intends on visiting Highgarden.
If my fears prove true, and this is to be my last letter to you, then allow me to say that I have thoroughly enjoyed our correspondence, and am glad to have been able to offer you some help.
*
Sansa sends a letter to Highgarden, spares a prayer for her friend.
Sansa sends a letter to the Eyrie, spares a prayer for her cousin.
Sansa sends a letter to Storm’s End, spares a prayer for them all.
Sansa sends a letter to White Harbour, and she welcomes her little brother home (ignores the voice that tells her she’d be happier with a different little brother).
*
Stannis is insistent, demands Rickon’s fealty through Sansa, and she fights with him constantly. She spends her days exhausted, warring with a King who calls himself her ally, trying to find something of the home she and Rickon lost so long ago (can it truly be five, near six years, since she rode out of Winterfell with Arya and Father and Lady and Nymeria?).
He returns to the Wall, leaves his Hand in Winterfell, and Sansa’s days are easier because she thinks Lord Seaworth understands, somehow.
She worries less with Stannis gone, although Rickon still rages at everything, and the rebuilding is harder than she ever could have imagined thanks to the winter snows, but she finds her heart eased when a letter arrives from Highgarden on the day Lord Royce tells her he must return to the Vale.
Her Grace is by far the most reasonable monarch I have dealt with, I must admit - she seems to understand that regardless of my father’s policy on the Lannisters, my continued support of your cause stands as proof that I do not share his feelings.
You said in your last letter that Stannis Baratheon is causing you trouble still, and I must warn you - Daenerys Targaryen is coming north, my lady. Your uncle will receive her first, at Riverrun, and she has already pledged some of her men to scourge the Riverlands of Westermen, but be prepared for her, Sansa.
She is like nobody I have ever met before, and I have lived in Oldtown.
*
Edmure - the uncle Sansa has never met - writes to her during Daenerys Targaryen’s visit to the Riverlands, and tells Sansa that the Dragon Queen has the Lannister Imp with her and they intend to lay waste to the Westerlands before coming north to claim her loyalty. Those Lannisters still in thrall to Cersei will be penned in in the Crownlands, cut off from any possible support.
Sansa sees little beyond Your husband, Lord Tyrion Lannister, is with the Queen as her Hand. Sansa had thought to forget ever being married to Tyrion Lannister, but as usual Fate is not kind to her.
She writes back to her uncle, tells him to assure the Queen that she will be made welcome at Winterfell, and makes no mention of her husband.
*
I am sorry to not have written sooner in thanks for your latest show of support, my lord, but the Queen and her Hand arrived rather sooner than expected.
I am a free woman, now - Lord Lannister agreed to annul our marriage, unhappy and unconsummated as it was, and I am once more simply Sansa Stark of Winterfell.
*
Daenerys and her dragons and army turn north to the Wall to wage a battle that Sansa does not entirely understand.
Daenerys returns from the Wall bearing deep black frost-burns on her ribcage and hailing Jon as her nephew, her heir.
Nobody speaks of Stannis Baratheon except when his daughter is given into Lord Seaworth’s care, and Shireen whispers only loud enough for Sansa to overhear that her father deserved a better death than the one he faced.
*
Sansa dons her silver and grey and ice-white plate and wraps herself once more in her ice-bear pelt and rides forth with Daenerys, leaving Rickon in Fred’s more than capable care (indeed, it sometimes seems as though Rickon prefers everyone in Westeros to her, and that only serves to make her long more sharply for Bran).
Still, before she leaves she sends one last letter to Highgarden, hopes that it reaches Willas in case she falls in the pursuit of Daenerys’ goals, just as he wrote to her when he feared the last Targaryen would cause his own demise.
It has been many years since I had a true friend, she writes, and your words have been my sole comfort many times during this past year. If this is to be my final letter to you, then allow me to thank you, Willas. It is nice to have a friend once more.
*
They stop at the ruin of the Twins, and Sansa does not sleep that night. Instead, she takes her guard (Harry is still with her, and apparently has not quite given up on having her as his wife) and rides further south for Riverrun.
They arrive at first light, and her uncle is so like Robb that she gets sick.
He nearly does the same, because apparently she is more like Mother than ever.
*
King’s Landing burns, because there is no Queenslayer as once there was a Kingslayer.
Daenerys settles her dragons and stands at Sansa’s side, eyes wide and mouth open in horror as the city burns green and gold and red and orange and white, the smoke silver and slate and black and blue.
Targaryen, Stark, Tully, Tyrell, Martell and Lannister banners flutter in the air behind them, Lannister and Baratheon and Tyrell sway above the Red Keep. Green and gold and red and orange and white, silver and slate and black and blue.
*
They ride through the ruins of the city in silence, the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves muffled by the thick, soft, pale grey ash that lines what once were the streets.
Two of Daenerys’ Unsullied have the remnants of Cersei’s court held captive in the Red Keep, which still stands fearsome atop Aegon’s High Hill, and the only Lannister Tyrion begs pardon for is Tommen, who seems happy to see his uncle.
Sansa begs pardon for the Tyrells, because Garlan is busy chasing down the Lannisters who escaped, and when Daenerys looks at her strangely for the request she shrugs, feels the weight of Willas’ most recent letter, put in her hand by his brother, and knows that this is something she must do.
*
She thought rebuilding Winterfell would be slow, and it was, but it cannot compare with the notion of rebuilding an entire city the size of King’s Landing.
She stays, accepting a place on Daenerys’ small council for the time being, trying not to feel guilty that she does not regret not being home with Rickon, trying not to feel hurt when he does not seem to miss her.
She stays, and so she is in the city when Willas arrives to replace his father as a member of the small council.
*
They are lonely here, both of them, the only Stark and Tyrell in the city (because Jon, not her brother and no longer even a Snow, a legitimised Targaryen and Crown Prince, is no Stark despite his look and his manner and her father’s eyes in his face, because Daenerys will not allow it) and so Sansa comes to know the man behind the letters.
In a twisted sort of way, she is glad that Margaery’s plot to marry her to Willas did not succeed, because Sansa doesn’t think she could have truly appreciated him then, when she was so broken, so afraid.
Harry lingers close by, refusing to allow her to be alone with Willas until Daenerys appoints him to her Queensguard and then he cannot follow in Sansa’s every footstep.
She sits with Willas every evening, both tired from the long days of hard work, and he reads as she sews.
She overhears Tyrion jape to Jon that she is more a wife to Willas than she ever was to him, and she is startled by the truth of it.
She is his friend, and he is hers. She cannot think of another friend aside from dear Fred, and she wishes Fred were here to help her puzzle out the strange twisting in her belly at the thought of being Willas’ wife.
*
He kisses her a week later, and she does not need Fred’s help to understand the twisting.
It is like nothing she has ever experienced before, the sudden rush of warmth from the first, chaste touch of his lips on hers, his fingers threading softly into her hair as he pulled her closer, the firmness of his chest under her hands when she balances against him because her knees have gone to water.
He blushes when he pulls away, and Sansa touches his lips with the tips of her fingers and smiles.
*
Jon worries at her about her attachment to Willas, and she cannot help but compare him to Father and Robb.
Father would have taken her aside and asked in that quietly serious way if she was sure about Willas, if she is sure that she will not regret her decision.
Robb would have teased her and made up rude songs and laughed when she blushed.
Jon worries, and he is so like Father but he is not Father, and her heart hurts to think on it.
*
Jon’s reaction to finding her sitting in Willas’ lap in her solar is precisely what she would have expected from Father, in that he simply stands and stares quietly until Willas blushes and stammers and makes his escape.
She didn’t mean to let it get so far, but since Willas kissed her that first time she hasn’t been able to get enough of him, hasn’t been able to get close enough to him, and she refuses to feel ashamed when Jon looks at her in something dangerously close to disappointment.
Daenerys finds Willas lying half on top of her in his solar two nights later, but she laughs and recommends they behave with appropriate discretion.
*
A further three moons turn, and Sansa is frustrated.
She wonders (hopes) if Willas has any intentions beyond friendship and frenzied kissing towards her.
She wonders (fears) if he has lost interest in her now that he actually has her nearby.
She dares to ask him, and he looks horrified at both possibilities, takes her face in his hands and kisses her so thoroughly that she can’t breathe, and tells her that he has written to Rickon four times already to formally ask for her hand but the snowstorms have meant the ravens are not getting through.
She laughs and laughs and reminds him that, as Rickon’s regent, she has the right to accept an offer for her own hand.
He gives her another of those burning kisses, and suddenly everything is perfect.