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The remnants of the north come crawling to the Vale, come crawling to poor Petyr Baelish who had lost his wife, come crawling to the last place the blood of Catelyn Tulley had been seen safe.
They cry like only men can, they want vengeance for their King, for their Lord and Lady, and for the four others who were dead or missing.
(She is both she thinks, neither alive or dead. She has not been a lady for months. She is a bastard, blessed to even be standing.)
Lord Baelish tells the northmen he will think about helping them. He will take a week to think it over.
And then one of the weeping men tells Lord Baelish that he would be King in the North should he help, as he is all that remains of a once great and noble family. He smiles and agrees.
(She stares at him. He is not northern, she thinks, and he is not worthy of any crown. He is not Lord Baelish, he is Littlefinger, and he only thinks of his own skin.)
So she steps forward. She hears him say Alyane and she feels him try to hold her back but she ignores him. She looks out to the people, her people, and breathes. She never had to breathe so deeply before and she feels as if she is going to faint, going to pass out before she speaks. But her blood is good and the Gods both old and new shine down on her and she speaks.
Everything she says seems to be echoed back at her.
“I am Sansa Stark, born of Winterfell, daughter to Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tulley, sister to Robb Stark the King in the North. I have been prisoner here as much as I was when I was a prisoner in King’s Landing. Lord Baelish is no king and he should never be. I am Sansa Stark, true heir of Winterfell and the North. I will bring vengeance on those who have harmed my family and my people. I will take up the helm of my brother. If you will have me I shall be the Queen in the North, as is my birthright. I shall bring winter’s wrath unto my enemies and unto yours.”
She stands and absorbs their cheers, the shouts of her people. Some brave knight hands her a sword and she feels it in her hands; too heavy, not quite balanced.
She swings anyway and Petyr Baelish falls to the floor, his blood staining her dress and her shoes.
Through his blood she is Sansa Stark reborn.
Through his blood the North and the East are hers.
She meets Stannis Baratheon as she goes further north. He greets her with animosity, fearing for his crown should a queen be put in the picture. But she comes to him under white banners of peace so he does not fight her.
She tells him that if the Gods will him to have the Iron Throne he shall have it, but he shall never have the north.
(She can feel him glare daggers into her skin. If he refuses everything will be for nothing. All the deaths, all the suffering she had to endure. There will be no justice if Stannis refuses.)
But he does not refuse, and promises Sansa security in her throne.
Among his men she spots an elderly man shackled in iron, missing some of his fingers. When she asks one of Stannis’ knights he tells her that the elderly man is Theon Greyjoy.
(He is sad, she can see that, he lacks all the vigor he had as a youth back in Winterfell. He is but a ghost of the north traveling south among captors. He was always a captive, even back in those carefree days of long ago.)
Theon weeps when she approaches and shies away from her touch. She instead looks directly in his face and sits in front of him, asking for his story.
She does not cry when he tells his tale, though she certainly wants to. She asks him if he wants to die, and her heart breaks when he gives her a silent nod, a ‘yes’.
He smiles when she stabs the dagger though his heart, his blood staining her dress and her shoes.
She kisses his forehead as they lay him down into the hard dirt.
Through his blood she learns that sometimes death can be merciful.
Through his blood she sees her father’s head, and she relearns that death is not the only form of mercy.
She kills Lord Frey for vengeance against her mother and brother.
His death is quick and unsatisfying. His sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters stand and watch. No one fights for the Late Lord Frey. They let him lay murdered on his own floor in a pool of his own blood.
His blood never makes it onto Sansa’s dress; she walks around the blood so she does not sully her shoes.
The Bolton’s provide much more interesting deaths. They fight to their last breaths and the Bastard even dares to call himself the queen’s brother.
(She lets him die ignorant; it is not what Arya would have done, but it is what Jeyne would have wanted, gentle soul that she was.)
When they are all dead and lying in a row from their execution she can almost feel Theon next to her. His blood is still on her dress, still on her shoes. The stains do not come out. She welcomes Theon but shoos away the rest.
When she heads to the Wall to see her brother and her friend she finds herself in the King’s Quarters of Castle Black. Jon puts her there and often talks to her but they have both changed.
(Jon Snow would never have kissed his half sister on her brow, and Sansa Stark would never have let him. But he is the last of her blood, and when she was a bastard he stood beside her, willing her on along with Robb and their father.)
When she sees Jeyne Poole, stick thin and cold, she is introduced to Arya Stark, her missing sister, her last family. Sansa calls her by her name and the girl nearly weeps and grasps her into a hug. She tells the black brother of the deception and of its meaning.
She asks Jeyne for her story and the girl consents. Sansa asks her if she wants to die and her oldest friend consents.
Jeyne whispers a breathless ‘thank you’ in Sansa’s ear as her heart is pierced.
(Sansa decides she was already a ghost, already dead. Jeyne Poole had haunted the world for long enough.)
Sansa has never had the blood of women on her body before, it stains her dress and shoes. Sansa keeps her with Theon, constantly by her side.
She likes to imagine them holding hands for comfort. The Gods must know, as she did, that all they needed was someone to hold them, to make them feel safe.
Sansa hears of Daenerys Targaryan while Jeyne is still warm in her grave. She knows that the Dragon Queen has taken the Iron Throne, the seat of her fathers. She knows she will not be able to move forward unless she wishes to be burnt. So she stands over her friend’s grave, waiting for dragons to fill the sky. Waiting for the Mother of Dragons.
(She hears the whispers of her men. She hears what they call when they think she can not hear. They already call her the Winter Queen, Sansa the Executioner, Sansa the Undead. As she stands waiting in the northern winds, she adds Sansa the Unmoving onto the list as well.)
The dragons do come, Daenerys Targaryan on the back of the biggest. Sansa does not fight her and the silver haired queen does not attack.
The Unburnt tells that she had heard tales of a northern girl who thought herself a queen. The people in King’s Landing whisper about her, Lord Varys confirms this. Sansa looks into her eyes, blue meeting violet, and tells the SIlver Queen that she is Sansa Stark, the Queen in the North.
Daenerys looks like she is about to murder her when Sansa explains that she does not want the Iron Throne, she only wants the throne that shall sit in Winterfell. The throne that is hers by birthright. The Queen of the South, a conqueror and kingdom rebuilder, looks at her and says that if Sansa makes any attempt on her throne she shall burn the north to the ground in a field of fire.
(Sansa feels herself curtly nod, and extends the hospitality of Winterfell to the Mother of Dragons, and she can hear the courtesy politely returned.)
Daenerys is still there when the Others arrive. Daenerys stands with Sansa in battle as the watch their men fall; the icy hands of the Winter Monsters freezing them, killing them. Sansa stays on the ground when Daenerys takes flight on her Dragon, burning the creatures.
Daenerys watches in both horror and glee when an Other takes a hold of the Winter Queen. Sansa feels her skin warm, she does not turn to ice. Her blade of newly crafted dragonglass cuts swiftly through bodies.
When the battle is finally done many northern soldiers have fallen beside black brothers and unsullied warriors of the south. There is no blood on Sansa’s dress or shoes, but she is instead covered in frost, small icicles hanging from her hair.
(She touched the ice hanging from her and she swore she could feel Bran breathing on her neck.)
She and Daenerys stand next to each other as dual queens, warriors, and as the Unburnt and the Unfrozen.
Sansa decides to go to King’s Landing with Daenerys, sending half her men to Winterfell to begin building.
She does not ride with the other queen on a dragon. She chooses to walk and to ride.
She holds hands with Theon and Jeyne.
Halfway to King’s Landing she is visited by a ghost.
Lady Stoneheart is not her mother, even though she claims to be. Lady Catelyn was kind and stern, not bloodthirsty like the corpse before her.
Yet there is something familiar and sad about the specter before her eyes.
(Lady Stoneheart would kill for her daughters, much like the mother Sansa had once known.)
Sansa hugs the rotting being and kisses her cheek. She whispers in her ear an apology, and stabs her until her protests stop and her body stops writhing. This time the blood gets on her dress and shoes and she is unable to remove the stains.
She does not let Lady Stoneheart walk with her, but Sansa allows her mother to walk behind Theon.
In King’s Landing she sits on the stairs of the Great Sept, a haunted place, an unholy sanctuary. She wears the cold grey stones are blood red, a waterfall of blood down the steps to the ground.
Tyrion stands a world away, looking over her. They had been reunited by Daenerys, and Sansa was not going to let the only man to ever be kind to her walk away. She feels safe with his gaze on her back.
She looks forward. If she turns to her right she sees Joffrey, his evil eyes dancing with childish excitement. If she turns to her left she sees the mangled body of her father, the once noble man now missing his head. If she looks forward she sees him whole, sees what he once was.
Theon and Jeyne sit next to her, her mother watches over the scene. If she thinks hard enough Robb is with her as well. Arya and Rickon flicker throughout her mind, not yet dead not yet alive.
(She knows Bran still lives; she felt his breath against her neck. If she listens hard enough she can hear his heartbeat and his wolf’s howl.)
She sits in the pool of her father’s blood, looking onto his face as she could remember it.
Through his blood she was born. Twice now she has learned to breathe through blood, though she one thought her life half lived as she stood watching as her father lost his.
His blood was noble. He wanted her safe and he wanted her alive. And here she was, safe and alive and very much whole.
He had the blood of a warrior, the blood of a noble man. His blood was true and just and wrongly spilled. He had the blood of a man who fought until the end, who fought for what he believed in, who wanted justice for wrongs that had been done.
And his blood runs through her.