Iron and Blood: a Theon & Sansa Story

Chapter 77

Sansa
Harrag, on occasion, would bring food down to Sansa's cell: a piece of bread or salted meat, along with a cup of water. She hoped it was enough to keep the baby safe. The pain in her back worsened every day, as did the burn of the the gashes upon her chest.

Sansa could tell the passing of the days only from the candles in her cell. One would burn all the way through a whole day and night before it was replaced. Every once in a while, Harrag, Kal, or one of the two other man who held her would come into her cell to give her a new bruise or test her obedience. Every time it happened, Sansa sobbed and begged for mercy.

They made no attempt to bed her—likely on orders from the Lannisters—nor did they seem interested in harming her womb. Still, these men were far worse than Joffrey, and they could not be bothered to keep Sansa pretty.

By the ninth day, Sansa stopped asking for mercy. Instead, she spoke only to herself: "I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell, eldest daughter of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully, and I am as brave and as strong as my brothers and sister."

She still cried when the men abused her—she sobbed hardest when Kal came to refresh the brand on her shoulder. Somehow, though, she did not die. All she did was repeat her prayer over and over again, pausing only to chew her food and sip the water they brought for her.

Theon must have returned to Pyke by then, undoubtedly sick with worry. Some cold nights, Sansa would have killed every one of her captors to see him, to see her sister, to sleep in a bed again. Other days, when she saw one of the men approach, she hoped they would slit her throat and end her suffering. She oftener wondered if the baby suffered, too. Still, she was grateful every day to feel the kicks in her stomach; it was nearly all that gave her hope.

When Harrag came to replace her candle through the bars, he shouted at Sansa to cease her prayer; she refused. And so, he unlocked the cell door and stepped inside to slap her until her lip bled.

The last hit was so strong that Harrag stumbled a little, catching his weight on the stonewall behind Sansa. It gave her only a moment, but it was enough.

She saw a brass key in the pocket of his breeches—different from the one he had used to unlock her cell door. With one swift motion, she slid her fingers around the edge and let the key fall into her hand. By the time Harrag found his footing, Sansa had slipped it beneath her leg. Without a moment of regard, Harrag locked the cell door and left.

When his footsteps had faded, Sansa wiped the blood from her chin and continued her prayer. As she whispered it, she slid the key out from underneath her thigh. There were sores beneath her legs that burned when she grazed them: a testament to the time she had spent immobile on the floor.

She pressed herself to her feet, holding desperately to the wall for balance. The muscles in her legs were weak and achy, but she steadied them long enough to try the key on her shackle. If it did not work, she would find another way; she could not spend another day in darkness.

By some sweet miracle, she felt the lock turn. She sighed through her prayer, so grateful she could have cried. The shackle fell away from her wrist, clattered against the wall, and hung still. There was a ring of blisters where the cuff had been, bloody with pus.

Sansa ran to the cell door, tried her luck with the key that had freed her, but this lock refused her effort. "Please," she whispered to no one. "Please let me out."

The lock did not answer.

Had it not been for her stomach, Sansa might have been able to slip through the bars without unlocking her cell. There would be another way, she was certain. She could bear the nights no longer. On unsteady feet, she relatched the shackle round her wrist, though she did not lock it. Instead, she lowered her body back to the floor and waited for a new chance.

"I am Sansa Stark of Winterfell," she whispered.

Her opportunity came when Harrag returned with a skin of water. Without a moment of consideration, he unlocked the cell door and bent down to take the chamber pot from her cell. There would be no better chance.

Sansa tore her arm from the wall and threw all her weight against Harrag, who was a small enough man to disturb with what little force Sansa could manage. He clamored to the dirt, but when he reached to catch Sansa by the ankle, she had already slipped out the open cell door and into the darkness that lay beyond.

No matter where she turned, though, Sansa seemed reach a dead end; all the while Harrag screamed at her—"You stupid whore!" It was his voice that helped Sansa identify his distance: if he sounded too close, she pressed herself against a wall and waited for the sound to die away.

Eventually, she noticed a sliver of light that began somewhere far away in the darkness. With no other option, Sansa hurried towards it, as fast as her aching and bloodied body would carry her. She was so dazed from the blackness that she forgot the words of her prayer. The light before her was all that she could consider, beckoning her onwards to safety.

Sure enough, it drew ever closer.

By the time she reached it, Sansa felt so feint that she worried she would not stay conscious long enough to escape.

With fervor, she felt for a handle.

Nothing.

"No," she whispered into the darkness. "No, please, no."

The only way out of her captivity, Sansa concluded, was a door with no handle—it could not stop her.

When Harrag's voice rang out from the nothingness, Sansa tried to slam her shoulder against the wood, praying that it would give way beneath her weight. Sure enough, the door opened, though it was not her efforts that did it. A waterfall of light rushed through the frame, revealing a well-lit chamber just beyond it.

Sansa had been there before.

"Lady Alannys!" she screamed, remembering.

But it was Kal of No Name who appeared before her. "Lady Alannys is dead," he laughed, and crushed his hand against Sansa's skull.