The sun was high above the turrets when I finally stirred, its pale light dancing through the dust motes of my cold chamber. My head throbbed as if a hive of bees had taken residence within my skull. Sleep had been no sanctuary; it had been a drowning pool of scorched memories—the sight of Tom's broken body in the mire, and the wind howling atop the Broken Tower, whispering of a debt that could only be settled in blood.
"I have bought a miracle with a boy's life," I croaked to the empty room. I plunged my face into the basin. The water was icy enough to crack the skin, yet it could not wash away the filth I felt clinging to my very soul. I dried my face with a rough cloth and caught my reflection in the glass. I looked the part of the handsome knight from some singer's fancy, but my eyes told a different tale—the fractured gaze of a man who was trading his humanity to save a story yet unwritten.
I cinched my belt tight over my black leather jerkin, pulling until it nearly took my breath, as if I could pin my guilt beneath the hide. I thought of Tyrion Lannister and his slaps for Joffrey. I should have laughed, should have savored the thought of the golden cub's humiliation, but the jest died in my throat. What was a slap to a prince, when a stableboy lay cooling in the dirt because of me?
In the side hall, the air was thick with the scent of fried bacon and a tension you could cut with a butter knife. The Lannisters had claimed the right side of the room; their crimson silks and hammered gold sat like a fresh bloodstain against the honest grey wool of the North.
As I entered, I felt their eyes upon me, sharp as daggers. Queen Cersei sat with a spine as stiff as a spear, her emerald eyes cold and unforgiving as she surveyed the room. Beside her, Jaime leaned back, watching my approach with a lazy, predatory curiosity, as if observing a northern pup trying to learn the gait of a wolf. I passed them with a formal, wintry nod. I was not seeking their favor; I was seeking a way out of the furnace raging in my chest.
I broke bread with Robb, Jon, and Theon. Theon prattled on as he always did, and Jon watched me with a heavy silence, as if he could smell the reek of the grave clinging to my boots. I heard none of their words. My mind was a cacophony of the sound I had heard yesterday—the sickening thud of bone hitting earth.
When we moved to the yard, the air was sharp as a razor and the ground was a treacherous soup of mud and half-frozen slush. I did not want to train; I wanted to destroy. I fell upon the wooden quintains with a savagery that lacked all grace, the iron of my blade singing as it splintered the pine.
"Look at the pretty wolf," came a voice from the gallery. It was Vance, a Lannister man-at-arms with a scar that twisted his smile into something serpentine. "Dancing with his sticks while his betters die in the mud. Is there a man in the North who knows the feel of true steel, or did the Stark bastard teach you all the softness of a southern maid?"
In that heartbeat, I did not see Vance. I saw the spy I had butchered in the dark; I saw Tom's twisted limbs; I saw two months of fear and hidden knowledge boiling over.
I did not think. I did not breathe. I lunged. I was a whirlwind of jagged fury, devoid of the "Water Dance" or any mummer's finesse. I collided with him in the center of the yard, the crash of my shield against his plate a thunderclap that rattled my teeth. I did not maneuver; I heaved my entire weight against him, feeling his cold metal press into my chest as the mud flew.
We traded blows that were meant to crush, not to score. My sword hammered against his spaulders, and I fell upon him like a beast, lashing out with the heavy pommel against his visor until my wrist sang with the vibration. Vance caught me with a gauntleted elbow that split my lip. I tasted the salt of my own blood, and the pain was a sweet, hot fuel. I kicked at his knee with a malice that came from the gut, rewarded by the sickening crack of bone giving way.
He went down into the mire, and I went with him. There was no honor in it—it was a struggle in the filth. I tore at his helm with my bare hands, my body trembling with the strain. I hammered his head against the frozen earth. Once. Twice. Thrice. I wanted to break the world with him, or break myself against it. Every strike was a curse I hurled at the gods, at Joffrey, at the Queen, and at the man I had become.
The roar of the yard faded to a dull hum in my ears; there was only the sound of my own scorched lungs. Vance lay beneath me, groaning, his face a mask of northern mud and southern blood. When they finally hauled me back, I felt no pride. My hands shook with a violent tremor, and the slush clung to my eyelashes like a burial shroud.
High above on the balcony, Arya watched with a savage, wide-eyed wonder. Sansa had hidden her face in her hands, as if she had looked upon a demon. And Cersei… the Queen did not smile. She watched me with a terrible stillness, as if re-evaluating a pawn that had suddenly sprouted teeth. Jaime merely raised a golden eyebrow, a faint smirk playing on his lips. He did not see a master swordsman—my style was too raw, too chaotic for that—but he saw the killer's soul, the thing that makes a man more dangerous than the blade he carries.
I retreated to the shadows behind the stables, where the air smelled of manure and wet hay. I spat blood into the dirt and looked up at the weeping grey sky.
"The price is paid, Tom," I whispered.
For the first time since the boy had fallen, the weight in my chest eased. The rage had burned itself out, leaving behind a cold, hard iron. I had made my peace with the truth: I was no hero in a singer's lay. I was the monster trying to change the ending, and from this day on, I would learn to relish the part.