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In hindsight, he should have seen it coming.
The shackles are cold when they clamp down on his wrists, when Sansa calls for the guards to seize him and throw him down into the dungeons—subtly so, a simple nod springing the trap that had been set for him, just as he taught her. He hadn’t expected the celebration of their victory (her coronation, with lords and ladies and knights attending, all coming to pay tribute to their new queen, bowing and simpering as if they hadn’t served another ruler days ago—but who was he to question shifting allegiances), of their finest moment to end with him in irons.
Somehow he had missed the moment when he became just another pawn to be disposed of, strung along by his own deception (he taught himself better than this, he thinks, built his own armor and yet allowed this one chink to remain—he knows better than this).
He remembers Ned Stark, standing here in this very room, his image flashing in his mind like a ghost that still lingered in the hall. He can’t recall his face (Petyr had struck from behind, kept his enemies where he could see him), just holding a knife to his throat, and the way the man had felt when he went still, the realization of his mistake hitting him. He must have cursed himself for his foolishness, Petyr thinks.
Sansa stared at him head-on, meeting his eyes as if to challenge him, but there was no hint of that in her face, no anger or triumph or regret; she gave away nothing, eyes blank, frozen over like a sheet of ice.
Perhaps he’d ought to congratulate her. Betrayal is a bitter taste that Petyr is not unfamiliar with, but he’d always been on the other side.
Petyr doesn’t move, he doesn’t fight or even protest (it’s pointless; once he’s in irons, there’s nothing with all his skill he could do—the point was to avoid this situation, but in a single, simple stroke, Sansa had beaten him). He stands there silently, and watches her, takes the new crown on her head shining like gold, the face he’d taken and forged in porcelain beauty, eyes he’d taught to remain still and impassive.
It’s not resentment in his mouth when he stares into her eyes, simply a sense of plummeting inevitability sinking in his gut.
Sansa is his student, after all.
****
He remembers there had been blood when they took the throne, blood and bodies, the corpses of those who died during the fighting (not everyone died, some ran; some hid—they were smart), the scent of rot and death and charred flesh high in the air. The battle had raged on while Petyr and Sansa stayed safe in their tower, high above the chaos, watching and pulling the strings.
They didn’t speak to each other while they waited, stayed settled in watchful silence, Sansa’s face calm and carefully blank. Petyr had wondered if she was this still during the Battle of Blackwater, or if this calmness is something new (something he did). When the screams and clang of swords died down until there was silence in the castle, they went to take what they’ve came for. He kept an eye on Sansa’s face as they approached, her expression unchanged even as she surveyed the carnage. Perhaps the sight disturbed her, or perhaps she’d grown numb to such violence by now—he could no longer tell for sure. Her eyes used to give her away but now, not even that. If her gaze lingered upon the bodies for a moment longer than his would, she remained composed, perfect like a porcelain doll or a marble statue.
Sometimes, he missed it; he used to be able to read her, when no one else could, used to keep knowledge of that tucked deep inside even as he admonished her for it—sometimes, he still could, despite the niggling thought of even that being an act in his mind. She is no longer Alayne (she shed that guise when she needed to, when it was no longer useful); she was Sansa Stark once more, though sometimes he felt like she was not Sansa Stark either, not truly, but rather some amalgamation of both. There was a strange tug in his gut when he thought about it--but mostly, he is simply proud of the work he has done.
The iron throne filled his line of vision, looming large and dark, deadly spikes threatening as ever, but the seat empty—a prize, waiting to be claimed. Countless times he stood before it, staring and wanting it, in the vaguest sense, simply for the sake of having it, simply to prove he could take it all.
When you imagine yourself up there, how do you look, Varys had asked him once. Does the crown fit? Do the lords and ladies simper and bow, the ones who sneered at you for years?
It’s hard to simper and bow without heads, he replied. A small chuckle escaped his lips, echoing in the hall. Now there are knights and lords and ladies without heads, scattered across the kingdom—in the throne room, the red keep, the streets—and he’s the one who responsible.
Now the iron throne is empty and kingless, waiting for the next man to take it.
It drew a smile to his face, pleased and proud of what he’s wrought, but Petyr never imagined himself ruling. He pictured himself sitting on it, the spikes digging into his back, the lords either dead or bowing to him, but he wanted the prize in his hands and the world to know he had taken it; to know that a Baelish from the Fingers, from a house no one cared for, with lands no one wanted, a man no one bothered to pay any mind to could swoop under their noses and take their precious throne.
But he never fashioned to make himself a king—only to claim it, to win.
(it was only Cat—but now Catelyn is gone)
“Petyr?” Sansa asked beside him, watching him rather than the throne, waiting for his next move.
He smiled at her, and stepped aside. “It’s yours for the taking, my queen,” he said. He rolled the words over on his tongue, testing how they sounded in his mouth. He found they fit, like a well worn cloak, or a jeweled crown that had just been lying around, waiting for him to place it upon the right person.
Sansa did not move. She stared at him and kept her face impassive, as if to size him up or ask why, but she didn’t respond.
There are no true rightful kings, he told her once, when he explained their plan. Robert Baratheon was not the rightful king, and neither was Aegon the conqueror; simply those with enough power to make the people bow without question. Neither of those men were particularly good rulers, only notable for their skill at war and conquest, but Sansa could be better than them all (he taught her how).
“You shouldn’t refuse such an opportunity when given to you,” he said. “Haven’t I taught you better?”
“You have,” she said carefully, “and you also taught me I should also be suspicious when such things are freely given.”
He laughed, pleased with her answer, and bowed low to kiss her on the hand.
“I prefer more comfortable lounging,” he replied casually, “and you would make a fine queen.”
She would—a brilliant and beloved one, sculpted and molded from his hands, sitting on the throne while he whispered in her ear—that was the far more appealing prospect, playing Lord Protector of the Realm himself.
It took her a moment, but she didn’t hesitate once she made her way to the throne. He watched her ascend and sit upon the iron chair, her posture perfect, running her hands over the seat as if to test its strength. She’d been clad in a simple gown, but she was breathtaking on the throne, made for this (like steel, forged by him, and he thinks that might be the most perfect thing about it all).
He could picture it clearly now, the vision sharp in his mind. He can see the crown on Sansa’s head and the nobles and smallfolk alike rallying around her. He can see her playing the kind but just queen, while he played the master puppeteer behind the scenes, with all the power of the king behind him and none of necessity for the people to love him, simply respect him.
(there’s a cold, regal jut of her chin as she sits on the throne, a chill in her eyes that makes him think of Cat and he thinks this could have been her in some other life, if she hadn’t gone so far north and slipped from his grasp)
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. He did not mean for her to hear, but a smile bloomed across her face, small and remote and for him.
****
She should have killed him where he stood, he thinks to himself. She shouldn’t have let sentiment get in the way of tying up loose ends. He taught her better than that (he knows this, and the idea curls and unfurls in his gut, spreading throughout his spine—he taught her better than that, and perhaps she is not done with him).
Whether it’s due to sentiment or simply not done being useful to her, he thinks he may yet live.
But days pass—or he thinks they do; he is particularly well-fed for a prisoner, but after a point in time, he can’t tell, not even by the visits from the guards with bread and water. Perhaps it is longer. Perhaps it is weeks, or months, but there is no light for him to tell and measure the days—he cannot even see his own hand in front of his face.
(eventually, time becomes meaningless)
Perhaps she means for him to simply rot in here.
****
He had forgotten Ned Stark was her father.
That seems foolish of him. That’s not the sort of detail one should forget, not him, not when it could mean his life, but the thought had just slipped his mind somewhere along the line.
He tells himself it was easy to forget. Sansa didn’t look a Stark. Old Eddard Stark had long and solemn features, his dull brown hair graying. Sansa’s features were lovely and delicate, a refined, sculpted beauty, chiseled from stone (he took her and carved out what she didn’t need, what held her back, until she shined brilliantly, until she was perfect, the brightest jewel of all).
She didn’t act like one either—Sansa wasn’t a headstrong wolf, too brave and too noble to survive, there was nothing of Ned Stark in her, with his lofty ideals of honor (Sansa was smarter than that, like him—she was more of a quiet steel he’d been sharpening and honing for years, until it could slice clean through anything, ready for battle) and she thankfully had none of Brandon Stark’s temperament.
That was the other one, the little runt called Arya. She had a spark of Brandon in her eyes and Ned Stark in her face, when she glared at him fiercely the one time she’d spoken to him. Petyr barely remembers her, and Sansa never mentioned her—she kept Arya hidden away, kept them all hidden away, and he forgets, forgets the girl ever belonged to a family from the north where Catelyn had hidden herself away.
(He tells himself Catelyn never loved Ned Stark, that she had only been doing her duty, that Tully motto drilled into her head. He tells himself that she would have stayed in Riverrun if it weren’t for her father, if it weren’t for the war, if no one ever thought to join Tully and Stark together, that she would have married him when he proved how much he loved her. He tells himself over and over, and tries to block out the images of Catelyn running to embrace Ned in King’s Landing, or the the Stark temper flaring up in Ned when he’d pinned Petyr against a wall, all over a perceived insult to Catelyn’s honor. He tells himself until it becomes the truth.)
She was more his daughter than one of Ned Stark’s wolf pups—the daughter he and Catelyn would have had, should have had, stepping out of his mind and come to life, with Catelyn’s eyes and hair, even hidden under the dye when she had been Alayne.
Alayne was just a role, he tells himself, reminds himself, and he’d fallen for it, just as he taught her to make others fall for it—she wasn’t real and she proved that when she jailed him here.
He just forgot that as well.
(but it wasn’t a guise, it was as real as Littlefinger was to Petyr Baelish—he told her who to be, taught her how to do it, but she crafted the identity, with a bold cock of her head that he wouldn't have found in Sansa Stark, a subtle shift in mannerisms, a coyness in her voice—she breathed a life into Alayne Stone that a name and hair dye alone could never create)
Petyr had never been one to lie to himself—he armored himself in lies, made deception and words his weapons. Why would he turn that against himself? It would be like the driving the knife into his own throat.
But he did, only he put the blade in Sansa’s hands.
(He doesn’t think about the night he bedded Catelyn, and how it had been Lysa in the morning, how he held on to the false memory like it could keep him afloat. Or how he convinced himself that Sansa—Alayne, it’s easy to mix them up in the dark—was truly his daughter, that she wouldn’t retaliate for his role in destroying her family. He doesn’t think about how he’s likely even in the same cell Ned Stark rotted in—except for how he does.)
That’s how fools get themselves killed.
That’s why he’s here.
****
He can’t hear a thing.
He knows it cannot be quiet above—a new queen rising is not an easy affair, no matter how well they planned it out. There are always settling pains, upstarts trying to dispute the claim, those trying to gain favor within the new court, the creation of a new council (he was supposed to be on it).
But he’s too far down to hear, and he sees no one but his silent guards when they bring him food (if you could call it seeing, but that may be too broad a term—the burst of light and sudden movement hurt his eyes, too used to the darkness and by the time he can see, they’re gone—they wouldn’t be worth negotiating with anyway). All he can hear is the scurrying of mice.
Sansa is building her kingdom, but he can’t hear it, can’t see it, shut out entirely when he was supposed to stand by her side.
There is nothing to do but wait, so time began to revolve around whenever they’d bring him food—a new day meant a new piece of bread in his hands, always at a certain interval of the day. Soon he loses track of even that—falls asleep when he didn’t plan on (it happens easily, when he loses any frame of reference, when it’s his only form of distraction) and wakes up to food and water already next to him.
Time becomes this monotonous, torturous thing, acutely aware of every minute that passes by until there’s no more difference between day and night, the days merging into each other. It’s easy to get confused and disoriented, when there’s nothing to tether him to any point of reference. The darkness makes it so easy to lose himself. He can’t see to make scratches on the wall to keep track of the days, existing outside of it. All Petyr has to hold on to is the damp wall against his cheek, dirt on his face, his own stench, his body tight and cramped from sitting in the same position (and Sansa, a blindingly bright spot in his mind).
He’s going to die here, he thinks, a cold truth settling in the pit of his stomach. It spreads throughout his body like a winter chill engulfing him (winter is coming, Petyr thinks, and laughs, loud and booming, even if the sound hurts his throat, it’s not as if there’s anyone around to hear).
Once he used to know everything that went on in Westeros. Now he hears nothing.
****
He sleeps more often than not now—or he thinks he does. There’s hardly any difference between awake and sleep, and there’s no point in trying to distinguish between them anymore. Either way he rests not at all.
He sees Catelyn’s face (it doesn’t matter if he closes his eyes or not, she haunts him, just as she’s always has) in front of him, fifteen years old and sun in her hair and smelling of spring. He chases her through the fields and she let him, let him put flowers in her hair and kiss her (she kissed him back, he swears, smiled at him and stroked his cheek, even if she walked away in the end—that wasn’t her fault, he was supposed to win her favor, give her a reason to stay and he didn’t. He was just a boy from the Fingers; he didn’t know any better, didn’t know anything about duty).
He sees Brandon as well, unbidden, like a nightmare intruder, here to crush all of his well-laid plans and dreams with brute force and a flash of steel and blood. Petyr thought he’d win, he was supposed to win—he may have been smaller and inexperienced, but he was smarter and he loved Catelyn while Brandon Stark cared not at all, and that was what mattered in the stories, that he loved her, that proving it would have touched her heart and she’d see who is the better man (but that’s not what happened at all; she asked for mercy for him and then she never returned).
Brandon stark had cut Petyr Baelish down, all the way to the bone, and from the ashes of a foolish young boy who thought true love could conquer all sprung Littlefinger.
(the mistake here was Petyr Baelish had clung on, even if he was a shadow)
Sansa had believed in the same things, stories of true love and valiant knights. She was well on her way to learning otherwise, but he did his best to dissuade her from this notion. He wanted to show her what Brandon taught him, not with swords and violence, but words and deception (he’s never been a soldier, and he and Sansa weren’t built for combat—their strength lay in their minds). That politics and cleverness could conquer more than love, conquer love itself, and that love was not a beautiful grand gesture, but something you did in the dark and ruined lives.
He kissed Sansa in the dark as well, behind closed doors and when no one was watching, just the two of them, high above the rest of the world in their Vale; he kissed her just to see her respond, just to see her react, just to see what she’d do (to see if she’d be like Catelyn—she was, but in all the wrong ways).
Sometimes she kissed back and he savored it, but like Alayne, it was just a role for her to play (like when they were children with their games in Riverrun—Petyr and Catelyn and Lysa, playing at husband and wife, Lord and Lady, taking turns to see who’d be the best at it—Lysa thought he was sincere, and he in turn thought the same for Catelyn, but they were both wrong), and Petyr should have seen the warning signs when he couldn’t tell it was real or not, when he decided he didn’t care.
When did we stop playing our game, Petyr thinks, or did we never stop?
****
The shadows were moving on the wall, swaying back and forth in time to the flickering of light.
How strange, Petyr thought, squinting his eyes and wondering where the light had come from (it’s been so long since he could blink his eyes, open them and see something different than he did when he closed them). The shadow loomed and grew large, the light with it, warm and bright and white, until it was blinding him. Petyr tried to shy away from it instinctively, but he merely succeeded in cracking his head against the wall, and he shielded himself with his arms instead (they ache when he moves, the way his eyes ache when he’s faced with light, everything aches).
“My dear Lord Baelish, you look dreadful,” the shadow spoke to him.
Petyr waited for the light to fade until a glowing orange (it’s just a torch, he noted, feeling ridiculous for how he could confuse it for anything else) and for his eyes to grow accustomed to the flames. The man was dressed in a black hooded cloak that disguised his shape, with a thick beard that Petyr would have mistaken as real, had he not known who it was. He had not bothered to disguise his voice.
“Lord Varys,” Petyr says, his voice rough and coarse—it felt as if he was speaking through a mouth full of rocks. “How lovely it is to see you as well.” He tries to smile at him, aware of how ghastly the expression on his face must look like. His own stench is inescapable, smelling of rot and piss, his growing beard itchy and unkempt, and he can imagine his pallor has grown wane and sickly. It’s discomfiting for Varys to see him in this position, of all the people that could have—and yet, who else but Varys would bother to come see him.
It’s almost funny, like a bad joke.
“Are you here to spring me from my trap, like you did for the Imp?” he asks.
Varys shakes his head. “That was not my doing, contrary to popular belief—but no, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay down here until they come for you.”
Until they—Sansa, Queen Sansa—execute me, you mean, Petyr thinks. He’s not surprised; it wasn’t as if he truly hoped Varys would help him, not unless he wished to defy his new queen so soon. If he taught Sansa properly, she wouldn’t stand for such a thing and Varys must know that.
“Let me take a guess, freeing me wouldn’t serve the realm?”
Varys nodded. “I’m afraid I’m just here to pay my respects, so to speak, now that you’re out of the game.”
Petyr rolled his eyes. “Oh, please spare me and kill me yourself then. I find that preferable than to listen to you gloat about my inevitable demise.”
He chuckled a bit. “I’m glad your sense of humor remains intact. I had hoped these conditions haven’t eroded away your sharp mind.”
Petyr thinks about Catelyn’s face in the dark, clearer to him than his own palm in front of his face, or the memory of kissing and bedding Alayne in a night that perhaps never occurred, except in the corners of his mind. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? That would make things easier for you, I bet. Simpler, if you didn’t have to compete with me.” Lord Petyr Baelish was never a name of great influence or prestige, but Varys knew he was dangerous, perhaps the only one before Sansa to offer any true respect for it. Varys understood what his imprisonment meant.
“Perhaps,” he says, lowering his torch, tone uncommonly gentle, “but it’s a shame. I did so admire your skill.”
“And I yours,” Petyr says, “though now you have Sansa to contend with.” The thought fills him with a strange swelling of pride. He tries to picture Varys and Sansa working together, if she’d trouble the eunuch as much he troubled him, or if Varys would prefer her to him, or any of the other kings he served.
“Queen Sansa,” Varys corrects, “we call her your grace these days.”
“I know, I put her there,” Petyr spat, even as a shiver runs through him at the idea of calling Sansa by her rightful title, like a dream unfolding, far where he can’t see it.
“And then she put you here.”
“Oh, so you are here to gloat. Let me know when you are done, I may nap.”
“I hope you are aware that this is your doing? If it weren’t your for enduring fondness for the late Catelyn Stark and her girl’s Tully looks, perhaps you wouldn’t have been so blind as to have missed this betrayal coming.”
This is your doing, Petyr thinks, words repeating in his head and perhaps it’s Varys’ voice or simply speaking to another human being in gods know how long, but it’s true. This was his own doing. He armed Sansa with the wisdom and tools to rule, the skill she’d need to play game and she wielded it perfectly, turning it against him was inevitable consequence, something he would have done.
He may as well have masterminded his own demise, for how could the pinnacle of this relationship with Sansa end with anything but betrayal. That was the game.
“Yes, you’re right, I did this, all of this,” Petyr says softly, his mouth splitting open in a wide grin. Varys stared down at with concern and confusion lining his features, but he knows Varys will understand in time, Varys who understood the game as well as he did. “I win.”
****
Catelyn comes to him in the night.
He’d been lying on the floor, the muscles in his back aching and strained tight from his position against the wall. Not that the floor was any more comfortable—the ground was cold and scratching his cheeks, dirt against his face and splayed out on his side was no more good for his body than any other position, bones grinding against the stone.
He’d had been looking straight down at the ground when he felt hands on his cheeks, pulling his head up, before grabbing under his arms. His body was strangely light, weak, like it wasn’t his own, and it was easy to tug him back up into a sitting position. Petyr’s head lolled from side to side, until they steadied him, pulling his head back, fingertips on his cheekbones.
“Petyr,” whispered a soft voice, and it occurs to him to open his eyes, he keeps forgetting they’re not open. What he sees is blurry face against the back drop of faint torch light but what stood out was a pair blue eyes, bright as the sky and bright red hair, glowing even in the faint light.
“Cat,” he murmurs, “you came back.”
She doesn’t say anything return, just takes a damp, cool cloth and washes the dirt off his face in slow, easy movements. Petyr sighs, the tension draining out of his body—he feels like a boy, Petyr Baelish of the Fingers, and he never lost Catelyn Tully to the wolves, never lost a duel.
“Cat, I did it,” he says, I won, and she hushes him like she would a child, running the cloth over his forehead.
She finishes soon enough, puts the cloth down in his lap, but she doesn’t take her hands off his face, fingers stroking his skin. When she kisses him, it’s just a slight thing, pressure against his lips, it doesn’t feel like a game.
“Catelyn,” he whispers, or he thinks he does, but it’s just words in the wind and she pulls away.
I’m sorry, he thinks he hears her say, like some kind of absolution. Or maybe it’s goodbye, or something else entirely—he can’t be sure.
Then she’s gone, disappeared like mist slipping out of his palms, alone in the dark again, and he thinks he might have dreamed it.
****
It’s morning when the guards come for him. They shake him awake instead of leaving him food, put the chains on him (there is no point—he wouldn’t fight, couldn’t fight if he tried, they might as well be decoration) and march him out and up the stairs. He stumbles and nearly falls over several times, like he’s forgotten how to use his legs, and the daylight streaming in through the windows is harsh and painful in his eyes, temporarily blinding him as he walks. He squeezes them shut for most of the way, letting the guards lead him and only opens them when they come to a halt.
He’s expecting to be in the throne room, prepared for execution, but he’s standing out in a deserted hall, outside the throne room entrance. The guardsmen have left his side, taking a step back and Sansa—Queen Sansa now, he shouldn’t forget, he’s the one who had her crowned—stands before him.
Her hair is done up in southron style, but her gown is the grey and white of House Stark, simple but elegant, regal (she’s always been regal---truly, this role was made for her). He wasn’t surprised to see the direwolf sigil embroidered on her cloak.
Dressing in Stark colors should be a blow, a slap in the face, but it isn’t—her dress and appearance is a mixture of Stark and Tully, but he knows she’d need to act like him to keep her claim, to put everything she’s learned into this role.
“Petyr,” she addresses him, voice steady, confident.
“You look magnificent, Your Grace,” he says. He doesn’t think he meant to say it out loud, but the words came anyway in a breathless undertone. “If you’re having any regrets—”
“I’m not,” she replies sharply, though her eyes remain still. He’d been looking for a reaction, but there was barely a flicker in her eyes. He can’t see the slightest crack—and even if he could, he’d question if she wanted him to see it. Just as he intended.
He smiles tightly and nods at her. “Then I suppose congratulations are in order, my queen. You win the game.”
For a moment, she is silent, her eyes staring into his, beautiful and unreadable, carved from ice and stone.
“No,” she says finally, choosing her words carefully and deliberately. “I haven’t. That would imply I’ve stopped playing.”
Petyr laughs then, the sound a little mad and ringing, but he doesn’t care. He wants to kiss her right now. He can see the slightest flicker of something in her eyes—concern or bemusement—but he doesn’t care. I win, I win repeats in his head over and over and he’s not sure he’s ever loved her more.
“Well, then,” he says when he manages to stop, “shall we?” He asks, gesturing towards the doors as best he can.
She nods. “We shall,” she says, a slight smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Sansa signals over to the guardsmen and then the doors open.
The throne room is decorated in Stark Banners, direwolves waving on flags, as well as other houses who’ve declared fealty. There’s more here than the last time he entered this room—flowers and suns amongst the birds, Tyrell and Martell in addition to the lords of the Vale, the Riverrun lords, lastly, her Northmen banners. Soon they’ll be even more, he’d wager—he just wouldn’t be around to see it.
(he thinks Varys must be here as well, even if he couldn’t pick him out of the crowd, too well hidden. The master of whispers wouldn’t miss his death, even if he must come in disguise)
Sansa sits on the Iron Throne as they bring him up before her, surveying her people (the crowd is loud, and jeering, but he hardly notices it) before she lays her eyes on him. A large burly knight in blue armor he’d never seen before stood by her side, his sword unsheathed defensively (gaudy and strange, the blade turning reddish when the sun hit it). Margaery Tyrell stood nearby as well—not beside Sansa like the knight, but closer to her than to her own family. Unlike the rest of the crowd, her eyes were fixated on Sansa rather than him, taking careful pains to mask the expression of open fondness shining out of her face, but Petyr noticed it; he has similar trouble.
(Sansa was the one who’d ensured their alliance with Tyrells in the first place, long ago when he decided to aim for the throne rather than simply Winterfell, and he never knew how she managed to it. It made sense now, if this was the plan, if Margaery held Sansa in such regard, if perhaps Sansa was plotting his demise then.)
“Petyr Baelish,” she says, her voice ringing out and he’s taken by how the crowd responds, silencing immediately. Only for a moment, then his attention is fully on her, their eyes meeting. “Do you have anything you’d like to say?”
I win, he thinks. You did well. You’re beautiful.
Catelyn.
He shakes his head, saying nothing and smiles at her instead, small and warm. She understands—even if her expression does not change, he knows she does.
She never looks away from him, never breaking her stare, so he doesn’t either, not when he’s forced on his knees, not when he hears the blade unsheathe. He doesn’t turn his stare from Sansa’s eyes until the sword comes down.
****
Epilogue:
Sansa stays long after everyone else has cleared out. She watches as the Silent Sisters come to take Petyr’s body (she asked for a proper burial for him, even if that wasn’t the appropriate way to treat a traitor, but she won’t be Joffrey and put his head on a spike; Petyr had no one else, so he was hers to do with as she pleased). Her eyes lingered the growing pool of blood underneath his corpse, dark and red and spreading. It was going to stain.
She is told she should leave, her new advisers whispering in her ear (it bothers her, because it’s not him and she wishes it was)—they say it’s not necessary for her to witness this (but it is, they don’t see, they don’t understand), that she’s the queen and above this now, she has other matters to attend to—but she shoos them all away. It may be a ghastly sight, but Sansa will not shy away from it. The body cooling on the floor wasn’t Petyr, not truly—it was just an empty husk where he used to reside in; with his head gone, it hardly resembled him at all, nothing like clever, smug man who could maneuver his way to the highest of platforms with a disarming smile.
(he was so small on the ground, crumpled and broken; he was always bigger than her, or he felt that way, larger than life—he had been a shadow of his former self in the dungeon, grimy and withered, pitiful as he whispered her mother’s name in the dark)
“Come away, Your Grace,” her knight Brienne says, standing behind her (protectively, just as she’d been from the moment they met—how strange they all try to protect her, to shield her, now that she is queen, now that she has learned to protect herself). “You needn’t be here.”
“I’m the one who ordered his death, I may as well see it through.”
“You don’t owe Littlefinger anything,” Margaery spat out (she’d never liked Petyr, not since he cost her family their alliance with Winterfell, not since he cost Margaery Sansa), “there’s no need for you to feel guilty over him, it’s what he deserves.”
“I owe him my life,” Sansa whispered quietly (she knows she could be queen without him—a long time ago, she was a girl who wanted to married to a golden prince and be queen, before Petyr—but he taught her survive, how to thrive in this pit of vipers; that’s what playing the game is). “And I don’t feel guilty.”
Not for this. This wasn’t about guilt. Nor about vengeance or anger. It was simply tying up a loose end she couldn’t leave dangling, just as he would have done, just as he had taught her. Margaery and Brienne may not understand, but Petyr did, gone to his death looking her eye with a smile on his face, and that had been enough. It may have been a spectacle, but his execution was between him and her alone.
The least she owed him was the courtesy not to turn away.
“The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword,” she says softly, to herself, not caring if Margaery and Brienne heard her and thought her mad. That’s what her father would say. It seemed like so long ago, but she still remembered. She’s played so many roles now (and this would be the biggest, the hardest, Queen on the Iron Throne—she would have been pleased to simply go home to Winterfell, but Petyr always had to reach for more). She was lost in Alayne Stone and thought she would never come out, but she was still Sansa Stark, even then, under the guise and hair dye, and she still remembers.
Petyr would say otherwise. Clean hands, Sansa, whatever you do, you must make certain your hands are clean (her mockingbird whispers in her hear, even now—that’s how she’ll remember him, not as a cooling corpse or a half mad man in a dungeon), he said to her, so that’s what she’d given him.
She thinks he was proud, at the end (it wouldn’t bother her if he wasn’t, if he were angry with her, if he went to his grave cursing her name; that would be easier, but that wouldn’t be Petyr). She thinks that is good enough.
The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. Sansa couldn’t swing the sword herself—that wouldn’t be proper, not here in King’s Landing, not for a queen—but she could do this, she can look him in the eye and watch him die, witness the consequences of her work, no matter how ugly.
Sansa watches the servants clean up the blood. She doesn’t leave until there’s not a drop left.