Wilting ♞ Sandor Clegane

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The doors of her chambers are thrown open behind them. The unannounced and unwelcome visitor wears the golden armor of the Kingsguard. Ser Mandon Moore —Anya recognizes him by his lifeless face and dull eyes. He looks to Sansa, standing behind her aunt. "The king demands your presence," he says in a harsh rasp. Anya looks over her shoulder, but Sansa only lowers her head, smoothes down her skirts, then goes with the Kingsguard knight obediently, and her handmaiden, Shae, follows.

Anya turns to look back out the window. "Rana," she says, glancing at her chambermaid, "you should go to the Queen's Ballroom. It will be safer there." The Queen would host the ladies and their waitstaff in her solar —an expected act of goodwill. Rana wishes to protest. It's her duty to remain with Lady Stark, not forsake her while the city is under siege. "Go." It's no longer a suggestion but an order. "I will be fine," Anya assures the girl, watching the sails of Stannis's fleet sail closer to the city.

She goes to her chambers and binds her hair in a tight braid, changes into a plain pair of britches and tunic, then retrieves her mail and doublet from the hollow back panel of the chestnut wardrobe. Dressed in her coat of mail, Anya tightens her sword belt around her waist and sets off, undeterred.

A flash of green catches her eye from the ramparts, and then a deafening, rumbling thunder. The explosion of Wildfire on the Blackwater shakes the Red Keep's foundation. Anya stares on. She hadn't believed the Imp would go through with his mad plan. Half of Stannis's fleet is ablaze, along with most of Joffrey's —the kiss of wildfire turning the proud ships into funeral pyres and men into living torches. And the air fills with smoke and red-fletched arrows and screams. She grips the hilt of her sword tighter as the screams of the burning rise over the crackling of wood and roar of the flames.

Anya falls into the ranks of marching sellswords —behind the gold and red cloaks, and no one spares a second glance her way. Someone shouts from above on the walls, and the River Gate opens. They will meet the usurper and what remains of his men on the muddy banks of the Blackwater.

Men crawl onto the shore still aflame, unable to douse the green flames —and their skin melts and sloughs off the bone. She curves out of the way of a strike and disarms the man. The soldier slips on the blood-slick earth. You fall, you die. Anya shouts as she drives the point of her sword down into the man's throat, the thrill of battle taking her. When she looks around the muddy shore, it's to see Sandor Clegane cleave a man in two with a single blow.

A barrage of arrows rains down from the battlement walls —the burning arrowheads do not discriminate between Joffrey and Stannis's men. She dashes forward between volleys, pressing the point of her sword through the back of a man near the water line, his skin and armor melted together, wailing in pain and pleading with the gods to end his suffering.

The dead and dying litter the muddy ground —writhing and clawing for breath before being trampled underfoot, but she pushes forward with the rest until something snaps underfoot. She dares spare a second to glance down at the severed arm with white knobs of bone sticking through torn flesh. Anya looks around and feels a sickness stir in her gut. There is no justice or vengeance to be gained from this massacre —no sense of heroism in the slaughter. She turns on heel and lifts her sword. The man running toward her with a flat axe raised impales himself on the blade. Axe slipping from hand, the man falls still, dropping to his knees, and she screams as she pushes the corpse off her blade, unsure if it's rain, blood, or tears running down her cheeks.

She doesn't feel the impact, only her sword slipping from her grasp as her right arm falls limp, but she sees the arrow rising from her shoulder and slips to the muddy ground —screaming. But it isn't from a volley from the walls above or the rowboats trudging toward the shore. By luck, or the mercy of the Mother, she falls near Lancel Lannister, and beneath the filth, he recognizes her. "Lady Anya!" He shouts, trying to bring her back to her senses. She wraps her hand around the shaft, meaning to tear the arrow out, but the Lannister boy stays her hand and pulls her back to her feet before he starts prising her back to the gate. "Clegane!" Anya's never been so glad to hear his name.