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The maesters still hold some of the Builder's secrets, and walls that once stood warm against the winter will again.
"It's perfect," her Hand whispers. The words are soft as flakes of ash, and her flame-red hair is loose about her as she stares at the plans spread out over the table.
*
"You'll be fine," Dany laughs, her arms about Sansa like the sun's crown. "I promised to show you."
"You promised to show me..." Her voice is soft with hope and sorrow. "But it's winter."
"It's winter here," she points out. Sansa only shakes her head. She doesn't jump down, though.
"He'll keep us warm," Dany promises. Sansa's hand is still in hers, and Dany guides it to press against Drogon's scales. The dragon eyes them both idly, but Sansa doesn't look away.
*
Only in the air, over the sea, when Dany's fingers are numb and she's starting to shiver, does Sansa relax, does her body soften against Dany's. Dany glances back at her once, quickly, but not quick enough.
"What is it?" This close, the wind before them, it can't pull Sansa's words away too quickly for Dany to catch them.
It would take Dany's answer, though, before she could explain the humor of it, how Sansa's arms loosened just as Dany would like them a little tighter. She shakes her head, sky-giddy.
The dragons' cries linger beyond their laughter. The warmth of Sansa's smile against her shoulder lingers on, even as the wind grows colder, and then colder still.
*
In the crypt, Sansa kisses her fingertips, presses them to her father's brow. Even here, at rest, in cool stone in the cool earth, he looks tired, and Sansa is startled to find that she knows his face better than she remembered, from the glass in the morning. She took after Mother, she always thought, they always said; it was Arya who favored Father.
She means to leave, but lingers next to Father, gazing at his sister and thinking of ice-blond hair and violet eyes. It's there Dany finds her, which is as fitting as any story.
*
In truth, they might have waited -- until it was spring, for the maesters think it's only another year and a half away, until more of the work was done -- but Dany hoped that she might understand a little better. Winter, yes, of course, and here, to be sure, she's had a true lesson in it. But along with winter, she wants to make sense of her lover. She knows every fine hair on her own hands; they hold no mysteries, while her Hand is nothing but.
Sansa guides her this time, through the wood she's told her of. Her hands, ungloved, are red already, and so are Dany's. Before the face of the largest tree, she kneels, and her grip on Dany's hand grows only tighter
Her tears are hot, steaming in the cold. Dany tries to warm her, but Sansa keeps on shivering.
*
"But this is my parents' chamber," Sansa begins, stupidly, when Dany opens the door. The foolishness she feels is an extra hot jab in her heart along with the dull old pain that's flared up once more. It's the chamber of the Stark in Winterfell, and, her married name forgotten with the rest of the summer, that's she. She sinks down on the bed and stares at her hands, and only remembers that she's not alone when her queen kneels before her. "No," she protests, but Dany and takes those hands in hers, presses a kiss to the inside of each of her wrists.
Her mouth is warm, but as though she knows what Dany's thinking -- and perhaps she does -- she says, her lips tracing the skin with each word, "Your hands are cold, but your wrists are warm."
"That's just you," Sansa says, for she feels she ought to say something back, before the cold wind that rushes through the open window can fill the room up with noise.
"I'll close the window," Dany whispers, rising, but Sansa pulls her close again, and kisses her mouth.
"Leave it," she answers, as the Northern wind roars past, fierce as any dragon. She spreads her own cloak over the bare bed, and Dany covers them with her own. The air on their flushed faces is colder than anything Dany has ever known, but the fur of the cloaks and the heat of their bodies is enough. She takes Sansa's fingers into her mouth to warm them, and Sansa shudders, with cold, and with something else besides.
*
"It will be finer when winter ends," Dany promises, after they've flown, like birds, back south.
"Winter will come back," Sansa reminds her ruefully, nodding to her banner on the wall, higher than the rest of the court's, if not so high as the Targaryens'.
"And summer will follow it then, as well, and until then, we'll keep warm somehow." But the truth is that for the stillness, if no more than that, Dany thinks she could learn to bear the winter, at least sometimes.
Sansa's laugh is soft as flakes of snow, but her kiss is fierce as high summer.