Date/Time: Day One — Dawn departure from Winterfell / Day Two — The Vale / Day Three — Return to Winterfell
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Arya Stark — Third Person
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The portal snapped shut behind them like a door slamming on everything warm.
Arya landed in ankle-deep snow, boots finding purchase before the cold registered. It bit immediately — the Vale's mountain air, sharp and dry, carrying the mineral taste of altitude she'd grown up with and spent months half-forgetting in Essos's heat.
Her breath came out white. Around her, the staging point materialized from the predawn grey: a tree-line against a rocky hillside, three Northern soldiers rising from behind a heated supply wagon, horses stamping at the residual portal energy.
Jhogo landed beside her. His shadow-blending cloak pulled close without sound. He didn't scan the soldiers — his dark eyes moved across the tree-line instead, head slightly tilted, nostrils flaring once.
Artoria landed next. Fully outfitted in her white lion knight armor with Excalibur on her hip and her shield on her back. She scans the surrounding with one of her hands resting on Excalibur's hilt, only relaxing slightly when she discovers no immediate presences. Aethon flies through the portal, hovering near her.
Yennefer came through last. The portal collapsed the instant her heel cleared it. Her gaze swept the tree-line, then the mountain horizon. She gave a small nod.
"Three days," Jhogo said. The Northern captain — broad-shouldered, grey direwolf clasp on her cloak — had stepped forward. His attention stayed on the hillside. "Two for approach and contact. One for extraction. We deploy at dusk."
"And the dragon?" the captain asked.
Something displaced the air above them. Legna settled onto the ridge above the tree-line — dark scales, folded wings, shadow-fire burning cold in his eyes. Aethon flies to Legna's position and lands on his head. Legna decides to ignore the audacity. Two of the horses skittered. One stood its ground and snorted. Arya approved of that one.
"He stays high," Yennefer said. She was looking up at him. Her hand moved once — small, deliberate — and his head tilted toward it. "He won't come down unless I ask."
Arya pulled her hood up and touched Needle at her hip. The blade hummed faintly under her palm.
Her eyes caught a reflection in the surface of the nearest horse's eye — the staging fire, and in it, amber slit-pupils looking back from her own face. The Northern captain was working very hard not to stare.
"Brief us," Jhogo said, and the captain stopped working at it and started working.
---
Dawn over the Vale's eastern peaks. The snow went blue, then grey, then pale.
Jhogo spread the rough sketch map across the wagon's tailgate while one of the Northern soldiers talked.
Sansa Stark — Alayne Stone, in the Vale's current accounting — was housed in Lord Nestor Royce's manse three hours south of the Eyrie proper. Littlefinger had arranged it.
"Myranda Royce," Jhogo said when the soldier finished. One finger traced a line on the map. "Bronze Yohn's daughter-in-law. Close to Sansa Stark's age. She's expressed doubts about the girl's identity to her father-in-law — privately, carefully. Lord Royce suspects. He's been waiting for confirmation."
"Littlefinger's Lord Protector now?" Arya said.
"Lysa Arryn named him three months ago before she died." Jhogo looked up. "Official account is a fall."
The silence did the rest.
"Robin Arryn is twelve and unwell. The Lords Declarant want the boy fostered. Littlefinger has been blocking them." The finger stopped on the manse's sketch position. "We give them Sansa's confirmed identity. A Stark girl held under false pretenses by the man who helped bring her father down. That's grounds for removal."
Yennefer had been leaning against the wagon's side, watching the sky go from grey to pale gold. "I'll make contact with Myranda tonight."
Jhogo's eyes shifted to her. "You blend into Westerosi nobility the way a thunderstorm blends into a clear afternoon."
The violet sparks along her scales crackled once. "I'll be back before dawn." She pushed off the wagon.
She walked into the tree-line without looking back. Somewhere above, Legna's head turned to track her until the shadows took her.
---
Yennefer of Vengerberg — Third Person
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The shadow-step deposited her in the servants' garden.
Cold stone underfoot. Frost on the flowerbeds. Firelight through a ground-floor window — and above it, one room whose occupant had cracked the window despite the temperature. Yennefer eased it wider, slipped through, landed without sound.
The knife was already out.
Dark-haired, quick eyes. The girl had the blade up before she'd fully processed what she was looking at.
Good, Yennefer thought.
"Myranda Royce." Hands visible. The Stormbringer well clear of any grip position. "I'm here about Alayne Stone."
The knife didn't move. But the grip on it changed — from slash to hold. Defensive to evaluating.
"Who are you."
"Someone who knows her real name." Yennefer stepped into the firelight. The scales on her arms turned the orange glow violet-black. Myranda Royce's eyes traveled from the scales to the horns at her temples to the electricity arcing at her shoulders.
The knife went to the bedside table. Within reach. Yennefer noted this with approval.
"You're Wyrmborne," Myranda said.
"I am."
"Father said they had people in Westeros." She sat on the bed's edge, pulled her legs beneath her, and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders in a motion that looked casual and kept both hands free. "He didn't say what they looked like."
"Most people don't." Yennefer took the room's single chair, pulled it away from the desk, and sat. The fire between them popped once. "What does Lord Royce have? Specifically — not suspicions. What he can put in front of the Lords Declarant."
Myranda studied her. The firelight caught a scar along her jawline, thin and old. Then: "Sansa's height. Alayne's too tall for the age she was supposed to be. Father-in-law noticed — he didn't say so, but I know when he's filing something away." A pause. "She knew things. About Winterfell, about the Starks, about Northern families that a Vale bastard wouldn't know. Details that pile up if you're paying attention."
"And Petyr Baelish's reaction to any of this?"
Myranda's mouth pressed flat. "He's careful. Always careful. But he watches her." A beat. "The way you watch something you're afraid of losing."
"We move her in two days." Yennefer leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Lord Royce receives documentation of her identity tomorrow. The Lords Declarant convene on that basis. Whatever Littlefinger attempts after she's gone, he does it in a political environment that has already formed against him." She held Myranda's gaze. "What we need is your confirmation in writing tonight, to your father-in-law. So when our documentation arrives, your report is already in his hand."
Myranda was quiet. Outside, a horse moved through snow on the mountain road. Wind pressed against the window she'd left cracked, carrying the iron smell of coming weather.
"She's all right?" Myranda said, quieter. "Sansa. She's all right?"
"She will be. Tomorrow night."
Myranda stood and moved to the writing desk. The blanket fell away from her shoulders and she left it. Her hand found the ink pot by feel, uncorked it, and reached for parchment.
"I'll need an hour."
"I have two," Yennefer said, and settled back to wait.
---
Arya Stark — Third Person
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Day Two.
Arya was on the hillside by first light, three hundred yards out, lying flat in the snow. Artoria also crouched near the snow with her with one hand on the ground. Keeping watch on their nearby surroundings and the guards in the distance. Arya's eyes pulled details from the distance. Guards at the gate, rotating pairs. A steward on a two-hour circuit, same route each time. A kitchen entrance the cook unbolted at dawn and never re-locked.
Three full rotations of the guard timing before she believed it.
And once, in the late morning, a flash of auburn hair in a window on the upper floor. Third from the left. A figure standing with its back to the glass, arms loose at its sides. Waiting. Not trapped.
She's been managing him.
"I'll distract the guards. While I'm sure you don't need it, it will make your infiltration easier with everyone busy with the commotion nearby." Artoria said while staring in the guard's direction.
Arya glance at Artoria and nods.
Artoria cast the Minor Illusion cantrip to muffle her footsteps before she starts approaching the guards in a different direction.
Arya refocus and heads to the back of the gate while still counting the rotation numbers.
By the time the sun hit the western peaks, she had the compound mapped. One unlocked door. One blind spot between the kitchen outbuilding and the upper floor. One section of wall nobody checked in the overlap between the third and fourth guard rotation.
At dusk, she dropped off the hillside.
---
Over the wall at the gap. The stones held without shifting. Across the courtyard like shadow — unremarkable, the way the Faceless Men had drilled into her. Motion that eyes skipped past because it read as nothing worth seeing.
The kitchen door swung open at her touch.
The dark staircase beyond it smelled of tallow and cold stone. She went up without a sound.
---
Artoria Pendragon — Third Person
While Arya is sneaking in, Artoria has already started approaching the guards at the gate. Still fully armored with her helmet covering her face. Her tail hidden inside her armor, wrapped around her waist like a belt, her horns hidden via another Minor Illusion cantrip. Excalibur at her hip and her lion shield on her back. Her link with Aethon still strong and active despite the distance between her and Aethon at Legna's side.
The two guards at the gate notices her and one of them calls out. "Halt! This is the private property of Lord Nestor Royce. Turn back to where you came from."
Artoria doesn't stop and continues walking slowly in their direction.
The guard who called out bristles at being ignored. "Oi! Didn't you hear me? I said to turn back! If you come any closer, we'll be forced to remove you from the property."
Artoria continues slowly walking towards them and starts unsheathing Excalibur with her right hand.
The guards notices her actions and starts drawing their weapons. The one who called out drawing a sword and shield. The other one drawing a spear from his back. "Looks like we got ourselves an brave idiot." He chuckles and turns to his partner. "Go call the others. They'll likely want a shot at this fool."
The other nods and signals one of the guards at the watchtowers to call a few others.
Meanwhile, Artoria has gotten close enough to close the distance and the guard swings at her with his sword. Artoria deflects and shove him with her right shoulder. Sending him flying a few distance, making him cough from the impact.
He gets up slowly and growled "You're gonna pay for that." And charges at her. Most of his moves being deflected and parried while Artoria examines his skills.
Slow. She thought. She parries another attack and lets one sword bounce off her arm harmlessly, surprising the guard before she kicks him back on the ground again. Scratch that, slow, weak and unskilled. I expected at least some skills among them considering who they serve. She soon notices some of the guards approaching and now are about to attack her.
She continues deflecting and parrying the guards. Refraining from killing them since they're only there to rescue Sansa, not to cause too much of a commotion. Along with hiding Wyrmborne's activities in Westeros for now.
As the fights continues, most of the guards are on the ground, slightly injured and exhausted with only a few still standing. The fight —if you can even call it that— only lasting a few minutes. Artoria is not even slightly out of breath.
One of the standing guards ask. "Who are you?" breathlessly.
Artoria doesn't respond and knocks him out with her sword pommel to the head. Then she defeats and knocks out the rest of the guards while noticing a few more arriving, noticing that no alarms has been raised. Likely because it's just one individual so they assume they can win with numbers eventually.
This is going to take a while. Artoria thought. I hope Arya saves Sansa quick because I'm starting to get bored. She readies Excalibur again. Not even having taken her shield out the entire time. They just weren't that skilled against someone like her. Maybe I can participate in a tournament in the future? Though ever since Arthur Dayne's death, there's not many skilled fighters left in Westeros that I know of other than Ser Barristan since he's also from Westeros. So I probably shouldn't expect much. She thought disappointedly.
---
Sansa Stark — Third Person
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Four hundred and twelve days since King's Landing.
The window of her room in Lord Nestor's manse looked north and east into grey-blue distance where mountain met sky. The embroidery in her lap had gone untouched for an hour. Her hands were still. Her face was not.
He knows something is moving.
At breakfast, Petyr's attention had taken on an edge she'd learned to recognize — too casual, too interested in incidental details. He'd asked about the mountain roads. Small talk that felt like fingers at her throat.
Alayne Stone had poured his tea and talked about ice while Sansa Stark counted his tells.
---
King's Landing still came at night. Not the way it used to — not Joffrey's hands or the Sept of Baelor or her father's name read aloud before the blade fell. Those memories had been worked on deliberately, handled and filed and stripped of their worst edges.
What surfaced now were smaller things. The smell of the throne room before petitioners arrived. Margaery Tyrell's laugh — one of the few honest sounds in that court. The Red Keep's towers at sunset from the right angle.
Joffrey had choked at his own wedding feast. The screaming had reached her chambers before the explanation did.
Petyr had been at her door within the hour. The offer of safety. The only door that led anywhere.
The Vale was a smaller board with fewer pieces. Months of watching Petyr manage Lysa — which anxieties to feed, which to soothe — had given Sansa a vocabulary for manipulation that Septa Mordane had never included in her lessons. Every technique catalogued. Knowledge was the only currency available to a girl with a borrowed name.
Lysa's death hadn't surprised her.
You're turning into him, the voice in her head said. It sounded like Arya. Dry and impatient and certain.
The voice could be useful or quiet.
Robin had surprised her. Twelve, unwell, desperately lonely. When the fits were bad, she read to him. When company was all he wanted, she sat with him in silence. Tactical, she'd told herself.
Not only that.
Six weeks ago, intercepting the ravens had become possible. The under-steward was young, eager, responsive to small kindnesses. The messages were fragments — half-conversations — but certain details were clear enough. Her real name spoken in places far from here. Something moving.
Ready and waiting. Just not knowing from which direction it would come.
---
The corridor went silent.
That was what woke her — the absence of ordinary sounds. The creak and settle of a stone manse at night, the distant rhythm of a guard's boots on flagstone. All of it gone.
Her hand found the knife under the pillow before she was fully sitting up.
The door opened. No creak. No forced entry.
The figure in the doorway was small, hooded, present where there had been absence.
"Don't scream," it said. "And put the knife down."
The voice.
Older and lower, with an edge that hadn't been there four years ago. But underneath it, unmistakable: the dry impatience. The certainty.
"Arya?"
The figure pushed the hood back.
Sharper, older, the softness of childhood entirely gone. But it was the eyes that stopped Sansa's breath. Amber where they'd been grey. Slit pupils catching the moonlight in a way that nothing human had any business doing.
What did they do to you — the thought showed on her face, and from the slight tightening around Arya's eyes, her sister had read it exactly.
"I'll explain on the way," Arya said. "Get dressed. We're leaving."
---
Arya Stark — Third Person
---
Sansa was dressed and packed inside two minutes. The pack came from under the bed — already assembled, already decided.
"Anything in this room that isn't in that pack?" Arya asked.
"No."
They went.
Dark staircase, Arya's hand on Sansa's elbow. Kitchen. The unlocked door. The courtyard, the guard's blind spot, the section of wall where Arya had cleared the handholds of ice that afternoon.
Sansa went over it without hesitation. Her fingers found the cleared holds by feel, her shoes scraped once on the stone, and she dropped to the far side with more grace than Arya expected from someone who'd spent a year in a lord's manse.
Thirty feet out, Jhogo stepped from empty shadow, his poison-green scales catching the moonlight.
Sansa's breath caught. Her hand went to her knife.
"Lady Stark." Jhogo's voice was unhurried. "Jhogo, Champion of the Wyrmborne. The horses are two hundred yards north." His eyes moved past her to the manse's upper windows. "We move now."
Sansa looked at him, then at Arya.
"On the horses," Arya said.
"Arya—"
"On the horses, Sansa."
Sansa moved.
---
They rode south with three Northern soldiers flanking them and the mountain peaks going from black to deep blue above. The column moved at a trot — fast enough to matter, slow enough that hoofbeats didn't echo off the valley walls. Artoria having rejoined them on a borrowed horse she stole from the stables when she was distracting the guards.
When they'd cleared the first ridge and the manse had disappeared behind the shoulder of the mountain, Arya started talking. The compressed version, because the full shape would take days. The Wyrmborne. Daenerys Targaryen, alive and transformed and ruling in Essos. The Conjunction that had merged worlds — Witcher monsters in the Wolfswood, things from other continents and other ages spilling into territories where people had no names for them. Magic operating openly where it had been forgotten for generations.
And herself. What the Dragon Witcher path had cost and what it had returned. The eyes — she explained those too.
Sansa listened without interrupting. Her hands were steady on the reins and her posture gave nothing away.
"Robb," Sansa said when the pause stretched. "Mother."
"Winterfell. Tonight."
"And the Vale's lords—"
"Already moving." Jhogo, from ahead of the column. "Lord Royce received documentation of your identity two hours ago through Myranda. The Lords Declarant convene tomorrow. Littlefinger starts his morning in a political environment that has already formed against him."
Snow crunched underfoot in steady rhythm. The sky was lightening along the eastern peaks, bands of cold blue separating from the dark.
"He'll know I'm gone," Sansa said.
"He'll know the Wyrmborne took you. That's different from knowing Robb sent for you."
"How is it different."
"Because Robb, he could leverage. Rules he understands." Arya glanced at her. "The Wyrmborne, he can't. He'd have to calculate what it costs to pursue you under Angelus's protection against a Lord Protectorship that's already collapsing under him. The math doesn't work."
A pause. Then, quietly: "You sound like him."
"I sound like someone who paid attention while people tried to kill her."
The mountain road curved, the Vale spreading below them in the predawn grey — terraced fields gone white with frost, thin lines of woodsmoke from farmsteads, the distant silver thread of a river catching the first light. Then Sansa: "He taught me too. I didn't want to learn. But I did."
"I know." Arya kept her eyes on the road. "I watched you through a window all day yesterday. Third floor, north face. Late morning. You were standing at the window with your back to the glass and your arms at your sides." She glanced sideways. "That's not how someone stands when they're trapped. That's how someone stands when they're ready."
Silence. Longer this time. The horses' breath came in white plumes, and the jingling of tack was the only sound beyond hoofbeats.
"I intercepted his ravens," Sansa said.
"I know that too."
"I've known something was coming for six weeks."
"We got there in three days." Arya glanced at her. "Next time I'm in the Vale under false pretenses extracting someone, I'll send word ahead."
Something cracked in Sansa's expression. Brief, quickly sealed, but real.
"You haven't changed," Sansa said.
"I have. But not the parts you'd recognize."
---
Yennefer was at the staging point with the Stormbringer already building the portal's framework. The air bent around the weapon's shadow-forged tip, violet-white light gathering in a haze that warmed the snow beneath it.
She looked at Sansa. "Yennefer of Vengerberg."
"Sansa Stark." Sansa met the violet-sparking gaze without flinching. "You look exactly like they described you."
One of Yennefer's brows rose. "Who described me?"
"Myranda Royce. She said you walked in through her window at midnight, told her father-in-law's entire intelligence assessment back to him in under a minute, and sat in her chair like you owned it until she finished writing."
"That's accurate."
"She liked you," Sansa said.
"She's practical." The Stormbringer's tip flared — the portal snapping open, an oval of violet-white light against the mountain air. Through it, the torchlit interior of Winterfell's great hall. "Practical people make the best allies."
Legna descended to the ridge above them. His wings folded with a leathery snap, shadow-fire eyes finding Yennefer immediately. She didn't look up, but her hand moved in that small deliberate gesture, and his head tilted toward it.
Aethon flew to Artoria's position and chirps at her, sending small electricity at her face harmlessly
Sansa stared at Aethon then at Legna.
"He's ours," Arya said. "He's fine. Don't make sudden movements."
"He's enormous."
"He's medium-sized. Go through."
---
A rider came through twenty minutes before they stepped into the portal.
Arya was moving before the man finished talking. Sansa through. Northern soldiers through. Jhogo watched her, still and waiting. Artoria standing nearby, resting her left hand on Excalibur.
"He's at the Royce estate," she said.
"He cannot reach this side."
"He doesn't need to." She looked at Yennefer. "Close it after I go back."
Yennefer's jaw tightened by two degrees. "Arya."
Arya stepped back through the portal.
---
The Vale side was cold, lightening at the edges, the eastern peaks going from black to deep bruised purple. Frost clung to every surface and the air tasted of iron and altitude.
Littlefinger stood twenty feet away with four guards flanking him. He'd heard the portal. His face was already composing itself — and then he saw Arya, and it stopped.
"Arya Stark." His eyes moved across her: the amber slit-pupils, the Wyrm-Forged leather, the hand resting on Needle's hilt. "The reports from Essos didn't do you justice."
She walked toward him. The guards shifted — one hand to a pommel, another adjusting his grip on a spear shaft.
"You knew my father," Arya said.
"I did. Ned Stark was an honest man." He tilted his head, and the warmth in his expression was flawless. "I tried to help him—"
"She's gone." Arya stopped twelve feet away. "Sansa. She's through. She's going home."
His eyes flickered. "Then I'm glad she's safe. I was always—"
"Don't say my mother's name."
He stopped.
The oldest of his four guards — grey-bearded, scarred hands, calm eyes — took one step backward. Then another. His eyes never left Arya as he moved. He'd seen enough.
The other three watched him retreat and made their own calculations.
"You caused my father's death," Arya said. She kept walking. Twelve feet became eight. "You'd never do anything directly. You never have." Eight became six. "You told him Joffrey's claim was illegitimate. You were there the morning they took his head. You watched."
"There was nothing I could—"
"I know." The amber eyes held his without heat. "You taught my sister things she needed to know. I won't pretend you didn't."
"She's an extraordinary young woman."
"She is." Needle cleared the sheath. The Wyrm-Forged blade caught the first light of dawn along its edge, and the shadow-attunement enchantments drank the glow and gave back something darker. "But you put her in the position where she had to become one. Lysa Arryn. Jon Arryn. The war. The list goes back further than Eddard Stark and you know it."
One of the guards stepped forward — younger, square jaw, more courage than experience.
She took the Predator potion as she moved. The world stretched. His weight-shift telegraphed his intention two full beats ahead of his foot. She flowed around him before either resolved, struck the base of his skull with Needle's pommel, caught his weight going down and lowered him to the frost.
The second guard had his sword half-drawn. She broke his grip with a strike to the wrist, stepped inside his reach, brought her elbow across his jaw with the Quen ward burning through the impact. He folded sideways and hit the ground without a sound.
The third guard looked at the first two. Looked at Arya. Sheathed his sword and left.
The fourth looked at Littlefinger. Then turned and followed.
The grey-bearded guard had not moved from where he'd stopped. He watched Arya for a moment — a long, measuring look — then inclined his head once and walked away. Not the direction the others had gone. Just away.
Littlefinger stood alone. The dawn light was touching the peaks above him, turning the snow pink-gold. His breath came in careful, even plumes. He was, Arya noted, working very hard to keep it steady.
"The Lannisters would pay for me," he said.
"They've got enough complications."
"Yohn Royce—"
"Wakes up to a situation that's already resolved itself." She raised Needle. "He'll manage."
"I'm not angry," Arya said. The amber eyes were steady. "I need you to know that."
He looked at her for a long moment. The mountain air moved between them, cold, carrying pine and frost and the faint sound of a river somewhere below the ridge. Something passed across Petyr Baelish's face — calculation first, then charm, then something beneath both that he couldn't sell or spin.
"No," he said. "I can see that you're not."
She gave him a quick death. A slice through the throat before he even saw it, Littlefinger grasping his throat with one hand, choking on his blood until he drops dead.
The grey mountain air absorbed everything. The peaks stood unchanged against the brightening sky. A hawk circled high above the treeline, its cry thin and distant. Arya cleaned Needle on the frozen grass, sheathed it, and walked back to the portal.
---
Winterfell at dawn.
Grey stone and yellow torchlight. Woodsmoke and horses and the cold that had lived in these walls longer than anyone alive.
The great hall's doorway framed the scene like a painting.
Catelyn held Sansa's face in both hands. Sansa's hands were on her mother's wrists, gripping hard enough that her knuckles had gone white. Neither of them was speaking. The firelight turned the tears on Catelyn's cheeks to amber. Sansa's auburn hair fell across her mother's fingers, and Catelyn kept touching it — pushing it back, smoothing it, unable to stop.
Robb stood behind them, Grey Wind pressed against his leg. His crown sat crooked on his head, put on in haste when the portal opened. His eyes were red, and his jaw was locked tight.
Arya's hand found the doorframe.
Joffrey. The Mountain. Walder Frey. Roose Bolton. Littlefinger.
Cersei. Ilyn Payne.
Two left.
Sansa looked up over their mother's shoulder and saw her in the doorway. Four years passed between them in a single look.
We'll talk, the look said. Not tonight. But soon.
The hall smelled of woodsmoke and warm bread and pine resin. Grey Wind crossed the floor and pressed his massive head against Arya's knee, warm and smelling of snow and wolf. She put her hand on his neck. The direwolf exhaled — long and slow — and his tail swept once across the stone.
Jhogo took position near the entrance, back to the wall, dark eyes never still. Yennefer stood just outside the firelight's circle, arms crossed, electricity crackling faintly at her shoulders. Artoria standing near the door, guarding them as befits her knight status. Left hand resting on Excalibur.
Robb crossed to Arya. He didn't speak. He pulled her into a hug that lifted her an inch off the ground and held for three breaths before setting her down and gripping both her shoulders.
"Thank you," he said. His voice cracked on the second word and he didn't try to fix it.
"She was ready when I got there," Arya said. "Pack under the bed. Intercepted ravens. She knew."
Robb laughed — a short, rough sound — and shook his head. "Of course she did."
Catelyn released Sansa long enough to cross the hall and take Arya's face in her hands the way she'd taken Sansa's. Her fingers were cold and her grip was fierce and she kissed Arya's forehead without saying a word.
Then Arya sat on the bench across from her sister. A cup of warm ale was waiting, steam rising in the firelight.
Sansa's eyes were clearer now. The curated composure had cracked, and beneath it Arya could see her sister — the real one, the one she'd missed for four years without knowing how to say so.
"Start from the beginning," Sansa said.
Arya wrapped both hands around the cup, looked at her sister across the firelight, and began.
---
End of Chapter Forty-Five