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Sansa screams and beats her feet against the ground, twisting in the knight’s arms. He holds her wrists so hard her bones whine as if they might break; she does not feel it. “Stop!” she pleads, “Stop him!” But no one is listening, and Joffrey is smiling, and her father says nothing, looking out at the crowd and breathing.
(Her heart leapt when she saw him, so light she thought it might take flight like a bird. His eyes weary, his face thin, but oh, her father, alive and whole--and she nodded when he looked at her. She told him, yes, it’s all right. Yes, Father. He would live, and they would find Arya, and her family would all be safe, she thought.)
Ser Ilyn is pulling on his black hood and the crowd is cheering and she screams until her throat is raw, but the sword swings down--
--and the crowd cheers.
Arya digs her cheek into Yoren’s mail till the metal bites, her heart still, her wide eyes catching the scatter of birds above. She burns inside, cold as winter ice. She wants to stick Needle deep into every one of these people, listen to them scream as loudly as they cheered for her father’s head--Joffrey first. But her hands shake, and Yoren grips her shoulders. When he grabs her chin and forces her head up, she finds she has no will to fight. Too full of grief to speak. Too heavy and weak and small.
As her hair falls in chunks at her feet, she has a moment to think of her sister, who screamed and screamed, and who fell while Arya watched. “Sansa,” she almost says, “I must get Sansa,” but Yoren yanks at her hair, and she knows it would do no good.