Game of Alchemy 12 - Interlude (Patreon)

Sansa swallowed as she stared at the Twins. The place where her mother and older brother had been murdered, where Robb had been betrayed and killed, was now before her.

Her husband had not said why they were here, but she knew enough of politics to know that the Freys were now firmly allied with House Lannister. It was the price paid for killing her family, and her new husband was taking her there, to the place of their deaths.

He hadn’t said why, only asking her to trust him. His presence had been a bright spot in King's Landing, but here, in the home of the man who had ordered her mother and brother slain, she was terrified.

“I won't leave your side,” he promised her, taking her hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

She gave a nod, forcing a smile. She suspected that it looked as brittle as she was feeling.

“I know,” she replied.

The gates opened, and they rode inside. They were greeted by Lord Walder and his son, Emmon Frey. Both had smiles on their faces, and Sansa knew they were false. Still, she did her best to remain proper and quiet as Nikolas approached the two.

“Lord Frey, I presume?” he asked politely, giving the men each a nod.

“You must be the one that has everyone in an uproar, a tale about creating new valyrian steel,” Walder Frey said, not answering the question. “I’d take you for a particularly skilled mummer, if not for the fact that Lord Tywin seems to believe it.”

“I simply possess the proper skill set required to produce it. However, if I may be so bold, I was led to believe that the proper custom was for the host to provide bread and salt,” Nikolas began.

Sansa watched, standing silently and demure as a ‘proper lady should’. Despite her silence, she watched and observed, taking in the way the two Freys looked at her husband. There was distrust, wariness, but also undisguised greed.

“Of course, of course. Forgive me, I was distracted by the presence of a young and beautiful woman,” Walder Frey said, motioning for someone to bring the requested items.

“Understandable,” Nikolas said, with no particular inflection to his voice. “But I would like to ensure you are well aware that our marriage was ordered by King Joffrey himself. I am afraid that I will be unable to accept any sort of marriage proposal in exchange for use of the bridge or my other request.”

Sansa noticed the way that Walder Frey's gaze sharpened, and his eyes narrowed.

“A shame, truly. I've several daughters who would be suitable wives for a man of your status,” the old lord said.

“While I appreciate the offer, Lord Frey, I must decline. As a loyal subject of the King, I have little choice but to marry whomever he chooses,” Nikolas replied smoothly.

Walder Frey grunted, clearly unhappy, but not willing to argue, “Very well, my lord. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

“If it is alright with you, Lord Frey,” Nikolas said as the bread and salt were brought out. “I would like to request the bones of those from the North who have perished in the vicinity of your resplendent home.”

That drew everyone up short, Frey, Sansa, and Lannister alike. The Lannister men glanced among themselves, clearly wondering what Nikolas's intentions were. Sansa swallowed thickly, wondering if he was intending to bring her family's bones back to Winterfell. He had said he would do what he could, but she hadn’t expected him to be so open about it.

“And what makes you believe that I have anyone’s bones?” Walder Frey snapped, scowling at the much, much younger man.

“I was born far from these shores, Lord Frey. That does not make me a fool. I will be traveling to Winterfell with the bones of Robb Stark and any that you and your kin have not destroyed. The only question will be whether or not I need to decimate your House to do so,” was the calm and unshaking declaration from Sansa’s husband.

“Tywin Lannister-” began Emmon Frey.

“Is not here. Additionally, even a foreigner in King’s Landing knows how the Houses of the North view those who break Guest’s Rights,” Nikolas interrupted, making both Frey men shuffle in place and glance at the still untouched bread and salt. “What will it be, Lord Frey?”

Walder Frey’s face flushed an even deeper red than Sansa’s hair, as he sent a glance towards the Frey guards, most of which were carrying crossbows. The sound of a slightly metallic snap filled the air, moments before there was a roar of flame and a wave of heat. Sansa unconsciously brought her arms up to cover her face, her eyes clamping shut.

When she lowered her arms to look again, the Frey guards that had been raising their crossbows were ablaze, screaming in pain as they tried to put out the fire covering them. Nikolas stood in front of the gaping Walder and Emmon Frey, his face impassive and blank.

“I would recommend against doing that again, Lord Frey,” Nikolas drawled, the flames slowly dying down as the guards succumbed.

Whatever Walder Frey planned to do, Emmon Frey, his face pale and beading with sweat, drew his sword, catching Nikolas’s attention. The heir to the Twins rushed at Nikolas, knocking aside the bread and salt as he did so. Nikolas had apparently been expecting something like that to happen, as he managed to avoid the initial swing before reaching up and touching Emmon on the skin of his face. There was a splashing sound as Emmon Frey was covered in water, the heir collapsing to the ground.

“Boy!” Walder snapped, fear and anger in his voice, as Nikolas rolled his heir onto his back with his foot.

Once again, everyone was shocked by the apparent sorcery that Nikolas had wrought. Emmon Frey looked like one of the frost mummies that Old Nan had told her and Arya about, people lost in the mountains where the wind and snow leeched any and all moisture from their bodies.

“‘Water: thirty five liters, carbon: twenty liters, ammonia: four liters, lime: one and a half kilograms, phosphorus: eight hundred grams, salt: two hundred fifty grams, saltpeter: one hundred grams, sulfur: eighty grams, fluorine: seven and a half grams, iron: five point six grams, silicon three grams, and fifteen other elements in trace amounts,’” Nikolas recited, as if it had been memorized until he could repeat it easily. “That is what makes the average adult human. Your son just experienced having a large majority of the water transmuted out of his body. Do I need to do the same to you, Lord Frey?”

Walder Frey shook his head, his eyes wide with fear and shock. He looked at the burnt remains of his men, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Nikolas took a step closer, his boot pressing down on the throat of Emmon Frey, his hand reaching out towards Walder. Walder Frey turned and fled.

There were a few moments of silence, before Nikolas let out a long, tired sigh, “That went... better than I had expected, actually.”

That was when the portcullis of the gatehouse slammed to the ground, and the gates behind it were hurriedly pushed closed.

“I stand corrected,” Nikolas muttered to himself as the head of the Lannister men approached him.

“Lord Flamel, what is the meaning of-” he began, onto to trail off as Nikolas turned his gaze to him.

“Consider the state of Lannister power and influence when Lord Tywin inherited his seat. I am in a similar situation: to the rest of the North I am an outsider and potential puppet of the lord that they were fighting mere months ago. I need to assert that I am not such a person, and this is how I will do so. Additionally, while the Stark name is dead, bringing the bones of the last Stark to rule the North will go a long way to appeasing them, to say nothing of the bones of the others who were killed during the Red Wedding,” Nikolas explained calmly.

With that, Nikolas turned back to the Twins, lifting up his hand, and snapping his finger.

[hr][/hr]

Sansa held back the tears that wanted to fall. It had taken time, but her brother’s body had been recovered. But what the Freys had done… it was horrible, how they’d desecrated his remains like that. Then she learned that her mother’s body had been thrown into the river, with no way of knowing where or if it had run ashore.

The Freys, however, had fared worse. The Twins were still standing, and the Lannister soldiers and servants were busy recovering the bodies of their kin, but the Freys were no more. The ones that hadn't been turned into ash or frost mummies by her husband's magic had been put to the sword, and Walder Frey had been turned to ice.

“It is done, Sansa,” her husband said, his voice soft and comforting.

She nodded, swallowing hard. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, but she was glad that her mother and brother could now rest.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Of course,” he replied, kissing the top of her head. “Come, you should rest.”

Sansa didn’t resist as he led her to a bedchamber and helped her out of her traveling dress. Normally she would either have a handmaiden help her or do it herself, but she just felt numb right now.

Her husband gently laid her down on the bed, pulling the covers over her. She looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his own.

“Sleep, Sansa. You've had a trying day,” he murmured, gently stroking her cheek.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Of course,” he said.

He kissed her forehead, before lying down next to her. She snuggled up against him, her head resting on his chest. It was far from the marriage she'd hoped for growing up, her husband was most certainly not a knight to say nothing of who it was that had chosen that they would be wed, but she could easily see how her own mother and father, having wed out of duty despite only meeting on the wedding day, had come to fall in love with each other.

Nikolas was stoic, calm, and seemingly emotionless at first. Yet beneath that was a kindness and warmth that she knew was not present in the capitol. In time, she was sure she could grow to love him, and perhaps he could grow to love her.

She didn’t know how long it would be until she was pregnant with his child, they’d certainly practiced enough. But she didn’t dread the thought of having his children, like she had come to fear the thought of having Joffrey’s until he had loudly and publicly annulled their betrothal.

Sansa barely remembered her mother being pregnant with Bran, but she did remember her pregnancy with Rickon. Particularly the way her mother seemed to glow when she was pregnant, how happy her parents were together.

Perhaps in time, they could be like that, if only a little bit. For the moment, however, she focused on sleeping, safe in her husband's embrace.

She did not wake until morning.

[hr][/hr]

Less than a week after setting out from the Twins, their party was approached by a group of riders coming from the north. They carried no banners, but something told Sansa that they weren’t just some random bandits.

“Ready swords,” the head of the Lannister guard said, his hand falling to the hilt of his sword.

Nikolas, sitting beside her, frowned and gave her a reassuring squeeze, “Stay close to me, and everything will be fine.”

Sansa swallowed thickly and nodded, leaning against him. If things went wrong, she felt confident that he’d be able to handle it.

She saw the man at the head of the riders, and even dressed in clothes too fine to belong to bandits he was ugly. Big boned, sloped shoulders, his skin was pink and blotchy while his eyes were like twin chips of ice.

“Well now, this is a pleasant surprise,” the man said, his voice small and reedy, with what sounded like a hint of madness to Sansa. “We’d been expecting the new Warden of the North to come up along the Kingsroad, not from the Twins.”

“Ramsay Snow, I presume,” Nikolas ventured, his voice as calm and impassive as ever.

“Oh, you’ve heard of me?” the man, Ramsay, asked, seemingly surprised.

“Indeed. As well as your father, Lord Bolton,” Nikolas answered. “Should I expect there to be a number of dogs in the woods surrounding us? Or perhaps you plan on showing us a pet reek?”

Sansa glanced at Nikolas in confusion, but her eyes quickly returned to the visibly shocked Ramsay.

“Tell me Ramsay, what was the goal here? I am not so naive as to assume that your father wasn’t promised the position of Warden of the North in exchange for his part at the Twins. I suppose that if every member of our party except Sansa were to die to ‘brigands’ either yourself or your father would marry her to secure your position,” Nikolas mused, the Lannister guards with them shuffling in place, looking warily at Ramsay’s party.

“You certainly have a fanciful imagination, my lord,” Ramsay tried to deflect, but even Sansa could tell that things were about to turn violent.