Chapter 246 - You Should Cut Off Your Own Ear Too

Reek knelt on the ground, his mind churning through the same loop over and over. No matter how he answered, there was no way out.

Say "yes," and Sansa would hate him to the bone. Whatever shred of pity she might still have left for him, that thinnest possible sliver, would shatter completely.

Say "no," and Lord Ramsay would not let it go. The blade tip wandering across skin again. And maybe something else cut off.

"Yes." His mouth made the choice before his mind could catch up. His voice came out soft and wrecked. "No — no, no. I wouldn't kill them."

It was the best answer he could scramble together in the time he had.

Whatever else he had done, he had lied to Ramsay, lied to everyone. He had not killed Bran and Rickon. Saying now that he would have was pointless. Why give Sansa more reason to hate him?

Even the stupidest person in the room could see what Sansa's position was at Khal Drogo's side.

Ramsay's face went dark. He reached out and grabbed Reek by the ear, knuckles twisting hard, wrenching his gaunt face to one side.

"You dared to deceive me." His voice was almost gentle. "I'll flay the skin off your left foot for that."

Reek's whole body went rigid.

Flaying was worse than cutting. Much worse.

He remembered the last time. A single finger, the skin peeled back, and the pain had been so total that he had bitten the finger off himself just to make it stop. Blood everywhere. And then the Bastard, as punishment for the self-mutilation, had flayed another finger.

That second time, Reek hadn't dared bite. He'd had to watch day after day as the raw, exposed meat rotted in the open air, the pain bad enough to keep him awake through every night.

"Please." A sob was already in his throat. "Please, Lord Ramsay. They escaped. I caught two farmers' sons and burned them instead — I had to, or my hold on the North would have fallen apart. I wasn't trying to deceive you. I swear it."

Sansa stood to the side, her face still as deep water. She let him finish, then spoke slowly.

"So if you had found Bran and Rickon, you would have killed them too."

Reek's ear was nearly off already. A line of bright red had run down from the base of it, tracking along his neck, soaking into the collar of his grey robe.

He turned his head toward her through the pain, voice scraped down to nothing.

"No, Sansa. If it had been Bran and Rickon, I would only have locked them away. I burned those two boys to cover my tracks. That's all it was."

Ramsay stopped listening. He drew the dagger from his belt, hand rising, blade falling. The ear came off clean.

Reek screamed and curled on the floor, both hands pressed over the hole in the side of his head. Blood poured through his fingers and ran down his arm, soaking the sleeve through. His whole body convulsed. The sounds coming out of his throat were low and muffled, like a man screaming with a hand clamped over his mouth.

Ramsay kicked him once, then bent down, reaching for the other ear.

"Stop."

Ramsay turned. The dagger was still dripping.

"This piece of filth betrayed your family and wanted your brothers dead. You're going to stop me from punishing him?"

"House Bolton did the same," Sansa said. "Betrayed my family. Murdered my brother. And."

She paused. Her lips pressed tight, then opened again. She had already heard the news, her mother, brought back by the Lord of Light.

"And my mother. What is the difference between you Boltons and him? If ears need cutting, start with your own."

Ramsay had nothing to say to that.

The words closed around his throat. The muscles at the corner of his mouth twitched, a snake whose tail had been stepped on, head rising to strike and finding no direction to aim. He turned to look at Drogo, searching that Dothraki face for something he could use.

Drogo was smiling.

He tilted his head toward Cohollo and said, in Dothraki, "Look how fierce she has become. It is because she carries my son. It fills her with fire."

Ramsay didn't understand a word. He frowned, eyes moving between Drogo and Sansa.

"What does that mean?" The irritation in his voice had stopped pretending to be anything else.

Drogo looked back at him, relaxed, unhurried.

"Everything House Bolton did before pledging loyalty to me — I won't pursue any of it."

The hand around the dagger slowly loosened. Ramsay's expression reset itself with practiced speed, pulling a mild smile back over his face.

"Of course, Khal. My loyalty is to you. What happened in the North is the past."

He stepped back, looked down at Reek still curled on the floor, and gave his shoulder a light nudge with the toe of his boot.

"Get up, Reek. You're spared today."

Reek got up, hand still pressed against the side of his head.

At that moment, Grey Worm came in at a quick walk.

He was wearing a grey-blue belted tunic, a short sword at his hip. He crossed the floor to Drogo, gave a slight bow, and held out a rolled piece of parchment.

"Khal. A letter from King's Landing."

Drogo took it and scanned it.

Short. The handwriting was sloppy, rushed-looking, some of the letters smeared into blots of ink.

Daenerys looked up at him. "What happened?"

"Barristan wants us to attack King's Landing. Now."

"Now? We agreed on a time."

"Tywin is already moving against the Faith Militant." Drogo gave her the short version. "The High Sparrow took an arrow. The city is fighting itself. If we don't go, Tywin takes it whole. We use this."

Daenerys looked at him and said nothing.

"I'm going to ride." Drogo turned and walked out of the hall.

Ramsay stayed where he was, the bloodied dagger still in his hand. He watched Drogo's back vanish through the side door, then turned and looked at Sansa for a moment.

"I'm coming," Daenerys said, and followed.

They moved through the hall, through the side door, out into the grey-white cold.

The dragons were on the western cliffs of Dragonstone, resting against the rock face. When they saw Drogo coming, they raised their necks, eyelids half-open.

He climbed onto Drogon's back and buckled the saddle straps down. The dragon pushed to its feet, built speed over a short run, spread its wings, and beat them twice. A gust kicked up, snow grains, loose gravel.

Daenerys mounted and came up alongside him.

The two dragons lifted off the cliffs of Dragonstone and flew west.

King's Landing appeared before long. The whole city was smoking.

Even from altitude, the green bursts were visible, flaring up, dying, flaring again in different quarters of the city.

Wildfire, going off across the city in pockets. Some of it punching through gaps in rooftops. Some of it erupting from cracks in the street. The Great Sept of Baelor's spire was still standing, but fires had already spread to the buildings clustered around it. The Street of Steel was burning hardest.

Drogo pulled Drogon back and let him circle once above the city's edge.

He did not rush in.

The city's garrison clearly had the numbers. The Faith Militant came boiling out of alleys and got pushed back by the Gold Cloaks, the line grinding back and forth across the rooftops.

The scorpions on the walls were still manned. On some of the towers, men were already working the winches, swinging the bolts toward the sky.

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