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The wedding feast was in full swing.
King Robert's bellowing laughter. The hollow pleasantries of the nobility. The bright clink of glasses. All of it churning together into a noise Sansa couldn't block out.
She stood in the shadows at the edge of the hall, a cup of Arbor gold untouched in her hand.
She watched him.
Her Lynn.
He stood at the center of it all, smiling, accepting toasts from the lords and ladies who pressed in around him. His smile was perfectly calibrated. Gracious, warm, utterly without flaw.
That smile drove straight into her chest like a blade.
He was Myrcella Baratheon's husband now.
Every breath she drew came with a faint burning sensation, as if the air itself had turned to smoke.
That kiss in the Sept.
That kiss, all possession, all declaration.
She couldn't stop seeing it. It played on a loop behind her eyes, searing itself deeper each time.
Myrcella had won.
Won this silent war in a way that felt almost like a public humiliation.
Sansa's throat went tight. The hall reeked of roast meat and perfume and sweat, the air thick and close, and her stomach turned. She couldn't stay here a moment longer.
She set down her glass, gathered her skirts, and slipped through the crowd without a sound, out toward the terrace and the gardens beyond.
The night breeze came off the city carrying the faint cold scent of roses. It touched her flushed cheeks and cleared some of the fog from her head.
She gripped the stone balustrade, cold and solid under her palms, and looked out over King's Landing spread below her, bright with torchlight.
One loss.
That's all it was.
She could not fall apart over one loss.
She was Sansa Stark.
A direwolf from the North.
The Master of Coin, trained by Lord Lann himself.
She still had her position. Her power. Her mind. As long as she held this seat, she had a path back. She was certain of it.
"The night air is rather cold, Miss Stark."
The voice came from just behind her. Sweet, clear, and underneath the sweetness, something cool.
Sansa's whole body locked up.
She turned slowly.
Myrcella Baratheon.
No. Myrcella Lann.
She stood in the moonlight in a gown of moon-white silk, golden hair loose over her shoulders. A small, snow-white curly-haired dog was tucked in the crook of her arm, and her free hand stroked its fur with an idle, unhurried rhythm.
Her face wore the same smile it had worn in the Sept.
Sweet. Innocent.
And something else. Something that made Sansa's blood heat with quiet fury.
"Princess." Sansa dipped into a slight curtsy, her voice perfectly level. "You've come out for air as well?"
"I have." Myrcella smiled. "And — please, don't call me Princess. Call me Lady Lann."
She drifted to the balustrade and stood beside Sansa, both of them looking down at the city below.
The little dog whimpered and pressed itself deeper into Myrcella's arms.
"Oh?" Myrcella tilted her head. "How strange. Snowball is usually so well-mannered. Why would she be frightened of you?" She glanced down at the dog with a slight, thoughtful frown. "These little creatures have such good instincts, you know. They can always tell a kind person from a dangerous one..."
She looked back up. "Not that I'm suggesting anything, Sansa. I've only heard that said. It means nothing."
She dipped her head and pressed her cheek gently to the top of the dog's head.
"This is Miss Stark," she murmured to the animal, her voice softening into something almost liquid. "She's my partner in the soap business. She's perfectly safe."
Snowball. What a sweet name.
The dog's eyes were round and dark and wet. It was undeniably adorable.
"Lovely dog," Sansa said, and summoned a smile.
"Isn't she? A wedding gift from my husband." Myrcella lifted her eyes, and the triumph in those green depths was not even slightly concealed. "He picked her out himself. He said he knew I would love her."
She sighed, warm and contented.
"Such a thoughtful man. He gave me a lute as well. He said he loves to hear me play 'The Last Kiss.'" A faint, private smile curved her lips. "He told me it reminds him of sunsets over the Summer Isles."
Sansa's mind went blank.
"The Last Kiss."
She had never heard of it.
Lord Lann liked to hear music? He had always seemed to despise all of it, the songs, the instruments, all the idle pastimes of southern noble ladies. Hadn't he?
"It seems Lord Lann has quite a few secrets you've never learned, Miss Stark."
Myrcella was watching her. Reading the blankness on her face. And smiling wider for it.
Her words were honey on the surface. The blade was underneath.
"Though of course, it makes sense. You have so many accounts to manage, so many figures to keep straight — how could you possibly have time for anything else?"
She exhaled softly, a breath full of delicate, pitying understanding.
"You work so hard. Truly. Everything you do for Lynn, for this kingdom — it's remarkable."
A brief pause.
"I could never do what you do. I'm not capable. All I can do is play for him when he's tired, sing a little — just enough that he can sleep well." Her voice stayed gentle. "Something small. Something restful."
Sansa's fingernails were pressing hard into her palm.
She looked at this girl. This artlessly smiling girl with her little dog and her white silk dress and that expression, sweet on the surface, savagely pleased underneath.
This was not the Myrcella she had known.
The fragile, sheltered girl she had once dismissed, where had she gone?
And suddenly Sansa understood exactly what this was.
Myrcella hadn't come out here to gloat.
She had come to draw a line.
She was telling Sansa, clearly and deliberately: I am the woman who knows him. The woman who can reach places you never will. You manage his ledgers. I manage him.
"You flatter me, my lady." Sansa drew a slow breath and let the mask of the Master of Coin settle back over her face. Composed. Unhurried. "It's my honor to ease Lord Lann's burdens."
She let a faint curve touch the corner of her mouth.
"As for lutes and songs, the Red Keep has no shortage of professional musicians. Far more skilled than I would ever be." The curve sharpened, almost imperceptibly. "Frankly, I've always found those diversions rather frivolous. What keeps my attention is the armory budget for next quarter, and a certain batch of Westerlands tax revenue that still hasn't arrived."
She met Myrcella's eyes.
"Those are not matters you'd be well-positioned to assist with, I'm afraid."
There it was. Bare and deliberate.
You may have his heart. I hold his purse strings. And in this game, that matters more.
Her place in Lynn's world could not be bought or replaced.
Something flickered across Myrcella's face. A brief hesitation in the smile.
One breath. That was all.
Then she laughed, brighter than before.
"You're absolutely right, Miss Stark. Gold dragons matter enormously." She set Snowball down and let the dog pad around her feet. "Armor. Grain. Soldiers' loyalty. Gold buys all of it."
She glanced around the terrace, confirming they were alone.
Then she stepped forward, close, and lowered her voice to a murmur that would carry no further than Sansa's ear.
"But can gold buy a man's heart?"
A pause, quiet and precise.
"Can it buy the words he says in the dark, the ones meant only for you?"
Another pause.
"Can it buy the marks he leaves on your skin?"
Sansa went rigid. The color drained from her face in an instant.
"You—"
"You're a clever woman." Myrcella straightened up and smoothed her skirts with one elegant hand. The smile at the corner of her mouth was small, and cruel, and satisfied. "I think you understand exactly what I mean."
She looked at Sansa directly.
"You manage my husband's finances. That's wonderful. Truly." Her voice was almost warm. "But I manage him. From the crown of his head to the soles of his feet." She held Sansa's gaze for a beat. "Every part of him belongs to me."
She bent, scooped up Snowball, and turned to go.
She was almost past Sansa when she stopped.
"Oh, one more thing." Her voice came over her shoulder, unhurried, soft with a languid, intimate warmth that made the air feel closer. "It's getting late. I should go back. The night ahead is..." She let the thought rest there a moment. "Long. And I certainly don't want to keep my husband waiting."
She took a single step, then paused once more.
"Get some rest, Miss Sansa. I have a feeling tonight will be quite exhausting." A quiet, delicious pause. "For me, at least."
"Goodbye."
She was gone. Light steps, the small dog nestled in her arms, and then the terrace swallowed her, all of it, the white silk, the golden hair, the sway of a woman who had won and knew it.
Sansa stood alone in the night wind.
Enjoy.
Affection.
The words clung to her. Warm, deliberate, impossible to unhear.
She could see it. She didn't want to, but she could, the bridal chamber, the candlelight, what was already beginning in the room she had no place in.
Jealousy and humiliation hit her at once, burning up through her chest like a lit fuse.
She bit her lip. Hard. Until she tasted blood, copper and salt on her tongue.
Myrcella.
You bitch.
Wait.
I will not lose.
Not ever.
---
Lynn, as it happened, was not waiting anxiously in any bridal chamber.
He had barely pulled free of the wedding feast when someone stopped him.
Ned Stark.
The Warden of the North's face had shed the rigid humiliation it had worn in the Sept. What remained was quieter. The look of a man who wanted to talk, not as a lord, but as something closer.
"Lynn. Can we speak?"
Lynn nodded and brought him to a small, unoccupied study just off the corridor.
"Sit."
He poured water. Not wine.
Ned accepted the cup and didn't drink. He stared into it, watching the water settle.
"Today was..." Lynn began. "I know that wasn't easy for you, my lord."
He meant it. Handing Myrcella over, standing there and watching that ceremony, for a man like Ned, honor-bound to his bones, it would have cost him something real. Right now, Ned probably wanted Robert's head on a spike.
"It isn't your fault." Ned shook his head. He looked up, and his gray eyes were tired. "The king commanded it."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I worry about Sansa. And Arya." A slow exhale. "Sansa most of all. She's dreamed of being a queen since she was small. A handsome prince, a crown, all of it. Watching Myrcella marry you..." He trailed off.
"She has lost a great deal," Lynn said.
Ned looked at him.
"She is the Master of Coin. What she holds now is worth far more than an empty title."
"I hope you're right." Ned gave a short, tired laugh.
He turned the cup in his hands, gathering something. "I'll be honest, when you first proposed making Sansa Master of Coin, I refused. But then I watched what she did with the soap business. Three silver stags into a gold dragon." He paused. "I stopped fighting it. And not only because of what she'd accomplished." His eyes met Lynn's. "Because I trust you. You're like one of my own children."
A brief silence.
"Look after her. Please. She looks even-tempered, but she's as stubborn as I am. She won't ask for help."
Before Lynn could answer, the study door creaked open.
A round figure in a grey robe glided in from the corridor, both hands folded into his sleeves, making no sound at all.
Varys.
His face wore its usual expression, smooth, faintly pleased, giving nothing away.
"Lord Hand. Lord Lann." A small bow. "I do apologize for the intrusion, especially on such a joyous evening."
His eyes moved between them once, quick and quiet.
"But my little birds have just brought word from the Eyrie. News I'm afraid you'll want to hear."
He let the pause do its work.
"Lady Lysa Arryn of the Vale." His voice was low, almost gentle. "She has taken leave of her senses. She's calling the full strength of the Vale to arms. In the name of her late husband, Lord Arryn, she has declared Lord Lann a traitor, the man she holds responsible for Petyr's death."
A look of carefully measured concern settled on his face.
"She is calling on every bannerman loyal to House Arryn to march on the North. She intends, she says, to seek justice from Lord Lann for her Petyr."
Lynn stared.
Robert had killed Petyr. Everyone who'd been in that room knew it.
But Lysa couldn't go after Robert. That road led to open war and her own destruction, with every major house moving to put her down. So instead she was pointing herself at him.
Actually, that made a certain kind of sense. A direct attack on the crown was suicide. But seizing Lynn's Gift, planting herself far from the Seven Kingdoms' center of power, bleeding a newly risen lord with no deep-rooted allies, that was a move she might survive.
And a new man with no old alliances was easy to make into a villain.
Lynn felt something cold settle in his chest, and smiled.
Poor equipment or not, his wildlings were not going to be rolled over by Lysa Arryn.
The door opened again.
Gold plate. A long, easy stride.
Jaime Lannister stepped inside, and his eyes found Lynn immediately.
There was something in his expression that hadn't been there before.
Something harder to name.
➤ Next: Jaime Wants to Join
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