It was said that the ghost that haunted the Twins could be heard for miles and miles, and there was nought anyone in the keep could do to get it to quieten when it chose to sing.

That had been proven by their constant tries. In the first few weeks each day a different Frey went down to the cells in an attempt to break her spirit, and each day, the chosen Frey was lucky if he left with his life and health in tact; many did not. In the end, after the first month, they realised that while she was singing, while she screamed and cursed, that was her at her easiest. It was when Eddmina Stark was quiet that they had to truly worry.

She had been quiet when three days after the wedding she had been in tears asking for food. They had been smug, thinking they'd broken the proud woman whose hands were still stained with blood - though none knew if it was her brother's blood or Rose Bolton's that marked her skin. They had presented her with a stew, and five snickering Freys watched as she ate desperately, waiting for the moment where she realised what meat she was eating. Yet, when she got the flavour of horseflesh and realised they were humming the tune of Brave Danny Flint, when she knew with sinking dread and horror that they had fed her horse to her, a childhood nameday present from her father, she didn't show anything. She kept eating, because unknown to the Freys at that point she was not eating to take care of herself, and made sure to not break eye contact with any of them. She forced it down, tried not to retch as she thought of how beautiful Flint had been, and said nothing but a quiet thanks to them. It was only when one of them came close to take the bowl away that she managed to pull him to the ground and strangle him, and when another tried to stop her he found her spoon driven into his eye so deep it might as well have been a knife. The rest fled, and the next day was when they had her hands bound with chains. Still, that did not stop her from further violence when they attempted to take her jewellery from her. She didn't come away unhurt, certain that they had broken her nose, and they succeeded in taking her wedding ring and crown from her, but another Frey lay dead at her feet, two more critically injured, and one so scared he left a messed puddle behind as he fled, all without her saying a word.

When she was singing, the Freys rejoiced, as that meant she wasn't plotting. When she was singing, they knew she was not committing any violent acts of vengeance to whoever ventured close enough. She never hurt the women though, and plenty of Frey women had dared to visit after they discovered her condition. At first it had been to support their brothers or cousins as they tried to force moon tea down her throat, but when she managed to pin one of them down and drown him in it, they dare not try any other acts against her.

The women were scared of her, but not nearly as scared as the men. It was thanks to them that she was moved from the cells and instead locked away in one of the tower rooms. It was the highest room in all of the Twins, and the smallest, but it had a proper bed at least so she no longer had to spend her nights curled on the floor shivering, and it meant her sore and blistered wrists could get a break from the chains. She wasn't sure how long they had kept her down in the cells, daylight a distant memory, but it had been long enough that her belly had swollen into a neat little bump and her babe started kicking at her properly. It was for him that she sung, because it kept him moving, and it was for him that she ate and slept.

In the tower room, the women took better care of her than the men. It was only one meal a day, but it was hearty and warm whenever it came. They did not give her the opportunity to wash or sort her hair, but she was given new dresses, simple woolen garments that itched but were warm enough and compensated her growing stomach - and were not stained with blood. It was still cold, but she was given enough blankets to stay warm. She didn't get to see her uncle anymore, Lord Tully still being banished to the cells unless he was retrieved to visit his wife, but she had a window, and one of the younger Frey girls brought her an embroidery hoop. It was taken away after a week after she was visited by a male Frey and he found her sewing needle in his eye, but it had been nice while it lasted.

Even with the window in her room - it was barred and locked and gave no chance for escape - she found it impossible to track the passage of time. It felt like one long day, one never-ending nightmare, but then it also felt like years. She did not restrict herself to sleep just at night, finding it easier to become nocturnal as it was far easier to wake from a nightmare and see daylight out of the window than stars and know she was still enveloped in darkness. She tried to keep tally of the days, but counting them meant thinking back to the wedding, and that was one kindness she gave herself: she never thought of the wedding. She didn't need to while she was awake, her dreams made her relive it enough, and she found it easier to live with her burning fury and desire to kill every male Frey without remembering why. Not thinking of it proved hard, which was why she sang. If she was singing, she wasn't thinking, and it became therapy to pace the walls of her room in small circles, singing every song she had ever heard. When she didn't know the words, she hummed, or made them up, and when she ran out of songs she'd start again on a loop, or make up her own. It was calming, it kept her mind working as she forced it into the mental exercise of remembering all the songs, and it kept her baby happy too, as she could feel him moving around every time she sang. That feeling almost made her smile.

What she found calming, the Freys watching saw as madness. When they watched through the hole in her door how she paced around the room like a plotting caged animal, her arms wrapped around her stomach like a protective maternal beast, singing loudly whatever came to mind, they did not see a calm woman. They instead saw a wolf, waiting to snap, waiting to attack.

Eddmina didn't know that though. She also didn't know that her singing could be heard for miles around, her voice carrying from the tower and out in the Riverlands. There were two things she had been famed for: her fierceness as an advisor to the King in the North, and her singing voice. For those who lived in surrounding villages, for the travelling mercenaries who moved around the outside of keep, for enemy soldiers who moved through the Riverlands, they all heard her voice and were left with the conclusion that the Twins was haunted. The story of the ghost of the crossing spread throughout the whole of the Riverlands, spread like wildfire until it was a tale that most of the Seven Kingdoms knew. They all knew Robb Stark was dead, his mother and friends with him, and as there had been no word on his sister it was assumed she was dead with him. It was a fate Eddmina longed for, yet instead she paced her cell and was martyred as a ghost.

Her silence certainly would have made things a great deal easier for her enemies, even if she did not know it or intend for that impact. Her voice stirred up trouble, her songs were the reason why Riverrun was yet to surrender to its new wardens, her ghost the fuel to rebellion. It was the last thing her enemies wanted, for her voice to make those they tried to crush unstoppable, furious, and unyielding. The wedding was meant to call for an easier end to the war, yet the voice of one supposedly-dead woman was enough to stir a whole kingdom to greater rebellion.

It was why Tywin Lannister himself had to journey to the Riverlands. His party arrived in the early hours, during a rare hour silence and stillness as the ghost slept, though as soon as he and his accompanying lords and ladies entered the hall, they were met with songs. Lord Tywin was not a man scared by songs, and found it ridiculous how Lord Frey himself grimaced and fidgeted in his seat, and his sons and grandsons that lined the hall seemed to look uneasily at each other. A few of them winced, or flinched, one of them looked like he was going to start crying, and another excused himself from the hall completely.

"There's a storm-a-comin', you better run, there's a storm-a-comin', goodbye to the sun, you'd better run, boy, run, you'd better run," the voice echoed in the hall. If he was a man that cared about that sort of thing, Lord Tywin would have thought it a rather nice voice; were it not that of his enemy. "There's a ship that's sailing, out in the night. There's a heart that's breaking, I think it's mine. There's a storm-a-comin', you'd better run, boy, run, you'd better run."

He would have been happy to ignore her and continue on with business, but his men seemed distracted by the obvious discomfort all the Freys displayed, and he could hear the displeased noises that his travelling companion was making from behind him. She was disgusted, and really, Lord Tywin could hardly blame her. If all of his children's blood was on the hands of a woman who turned out to be singing carefreely, he too would be rather angry.

"Get her to shut up," Lady Westerling demanded, her voice thick as if she was holding back tears. "Make her stop."

"Well thank the gods for the wisdom of the west," Lord Frey sneered impatiently, laughing. "Why hadn't we thought of that?"

"Take a last look at the sky through the hangman's noose, and shaking all the stars so that the foundations break without letting the noise release," the singing persisted, fury in her echoing voice. There was a bang, as if she had thrown her hands against the door of her room. One of the Freys let out a muffled cry. "And the hangman will show you a window to a place where you'll stop. You're a bad man to hurt us all!"

"She sings all day, and screams all night, my lord," one of the Frey boys told him sheepishly. His Lord father grunted and nodded in agreement.

The boy sounded as if he was afraid of the girl. Even worse, he sounded as if he thought he should be afraid too. Lord Tywin was not afraid of singing girls, no matter how fierce they were meant to be, and so regarded the Freys coldly.

"Have you not thought of gagging her?" he asked, as if it was the most simple solution in the world. The Freys looked amongst each other uneasily.

"We tried, my lord," one of them spoke up, glancing to his father.

"There's a storm-a-coming, you'd better run!"

"She bit Willard so hard he had to have stitches, and Loren lost two fingers," another told him. Tywin kept his surprise and disgust well hidden. "We broke her nose trying to take her wedding ring, but-"

"There's a storm-a-comin', goodbye to the sun!"

"But it only made her madder," another finished. He at least had the confidence to look Lord Tywin in the eye, though he hid his hands behind his back to hide the heavy bandaging; he supposed this one was Loren.

"Be glad for her singing is what I say," Lord Walder concluded boredly. "I much prefer my women quiet, but this one... She'll quieten up once she's gone, her condition won't let her live for long."

That was right, that was another one of their failings that had brought him to the Riverlands. Not only had the Freys broken their agreement to let the Westerling boys live, not only had they failed in keeping Eddmina Stark quiet, but they'd also not put an end to her condition. The realisation made him scowl coldly, and it made Lady Westerling let out yet another disgusted noise.

"You'd better run! You're a bad man to hurt us all!"

Was that what they were hoping, that she would die in labour, or of childbed fever? It was sickening that they would leave so much to chance, that they would allow her to continue on the assumption that her health would wain when she so far seemed to be thriving. Her condition clearly wasn't weakening her, it was driving her, and rather than put it to an end and let her be reminded that she was at their mercy, they allowed her to walk all over them... just because she could sing.

"I want to see her," Lady Westerling announced, and clearly wouldn't take no for an answer.

Lord Tywin didn't care. It was the whole reason he'd allowed her to attend the visit with him. He regretted their plan had repeatedly been foiled by the singing woman up in the tower, he regretted the wasteful impact it had on House Westerling, and he knew Lady Westerling cared not for Riverlands politics. All she cared for was revenge and her grief. Perhaps she would be able to get the girl to stop singing, and so he nodded, letting her be led to the tower by one of Lord Frey's reluctant sons.

"You'd better run boy run! Run!"

"This one is coming to an end," Lord Walder remarked after another slam, as if he'd heard the routine a thousand times before. "Another will follow. Any bets on which one, boys?"

"She hasn't sung Brave Danny Flint for a while," one suggested after a long silence.

"Nor will she, not after what you did to her horse!" The Lord laughed, turning his old gaze onto his honoured guest. "I must admit that one had been my idea. I didn't know it would cost me two sons, but oh well."

"I was on the brink, how could you think, darlin' I'd scare so easily? My life was a storm since I was born, how could I fear any hurricane?"

"I do not think I've ever heard this one before," his brother Ser Kevan observed with a frown, earning another bark of a laugh from Lord Frey.

"No, you won't have, it's one of her own nonsense songs," Lord Frey explained. "I think she makes them up as she goes, not that I care. If she's inventing songs then she's not biting my sons like the wildling she is. Now then, down to business, when is it? When have you planned her execution for?"

The notion of keeping the girl alive after the wedding only to kill her afterwards was a disgrace, a wasteful one at that. What was the point of traumatising her, forcing her to watch as her loved ones were slaughtered, holding firm in keeping her prisoner no matter who she killed or hurt, only to take her head four months later? It would have been a great statement to take her to King's Landing, parade her through the streets as a traitor, then have her meet her end in the same way and place as her father. It would have been poetic, meaningful, and it was what King Joffrey so desperately wanted, but the King's wants were of no importance. Eddmina Stark had far greater uses than to simply be a message to the persisting traitors.

"I will be doing no such thing," he told them firmly. "And you may not harm Lord Edmure either. The two of them are our only way of getting a surrender from the rebels in Riverrun."

"And how do you intend to stop the northern rebels?" Lord Frey asked, eyebrows raised, a fsing smug smile growing. "Fools, the lot of them, rallying at the notion of a ghost, and a woman at that too. I know you have some sort of plot in the works, but if you were truly wise you will put an end to that bloody woman, her and her singing."

It was only at his last word that they all fell silent, and his sons began to frown as they paid attention. They'd been too focused on the conversation in the room, and it was only upon its end that they really listened, and noticed that the room really was silent. No talk, and no echoed singing.

Eddmina Stark had stopped singing. Like a canary down a coal mine, her silence only meant one thing to the Frey's: danger.

Lord Tywin was content to shrug it off, still not sure why one grieving pregnant woman had them all on tenterhooks. He went to speak again, until he was disturbed by the door of the hall slamming open, and a guard rushed in. It was the same one who'd left to escort Lady Westerling to the tower cell, yet he did not have his other men with him, nor did he have Lady Westerling, and when he hurried into the hall there was a haunted look in his eyes as he sweated and panted for breath.

"My Lords, there's been a... I'm afraid to say there's been an incident," the Frey announced warily, looking utterly terrified. "I, erm... we..."

"Get on with it," Lord Walder demanded boredly, as if guards reported incidents to him on the daily.

"I... We couldn't stop her," he told them without telling them anything. "She insisted on going in alone, we told her it was a bad idea, that the girl's mad but she's not a fool. She didn't listen, my lords!"

"Just say what has happened," Ser Kevan said impatiently, yet far gentler than Tywin would have asked.

"She's killed Lady Westerling," the Frey blurted out.

***

Eddmina couldn't remember how Lady Sybell Westerling ended up lifeless on the floor of her cell, but she knew it was something to do with her, and possibly why her hands ached.

Strangling, it seemed like something she'd do. She'd done it a lot since the wedding apparently, but most of the time she couldn't remember doing it, like a dark cloud took over her and only passed when the deed was done. She never knew why people ended up going to the gods whenever they came to see her, why guards had to come and drag their bodies away without looking at her as if scared to provoke. It was as if the dark cloud was trying to protect her from the horrors of who she was becoming, or not wanting her to remember more hardships as they were happening to her. Sometimes the details came back in the dead of the night, if she dared fall asleep and the gods saw fit to not torture her with images of the wedding or her family, and sometimes she knew she had only been protecting herself or avenging her losses. Sometimes she knew she was acting after being provoked, and it was those occasions that she knew she had done the right thing. She didn't know why Lady Westerling lay on her floor, her eyes vacantly staring at the roof while her hands clutched her bruised throat, but the longer Eddmina stared at her, the more she convinced herself it had been right.

Still though, the sight of the woman made her feel ill, and the longer she stared the more the dark cloud began to fade. She began to hum to herself, as if a song could take her mind away from it all. She hid in the corner of the room, wrapping her arms around her belly as she screwed herself into a ball as if to make herself disappear. It might have worked, had she been able to look away and see anything other than Lady Westerling's cold eyes staring back at her.

"It is all your fault," Lady Sybel had announced the moment she had walked into the room. "All my sweet children are dead, and it is all your fault."

"Not all," Eddmina had said briefly before going back to her song, settling herself in the seat of the window sill to avoid looking at her.

"You are a vile creature sent from the very pits of the seven hells," lady Sybell had shot venom at her. Eddmina did nothing but sing to herself. "Ignorant, rude, self-centered and self-righteous. Any mother would be disappointed to have you as a daughter."

'Not my mother,' Eddmina had thought, then winced and sang louder as she heard her mother begging for her children's lives once more.

"Stop your bloody singing at face me properly!" She had demanded. Eddmina didn't respond. "So this is how the north and the great House Stark falls, one mad woman locked away to rot. Good. I knew from the moment I met you that this was the fate you deserved. I knew even then that you would end up here, I just thought it would feel better, and you would beg."

"What am I begging for?" Eddmina had asked in between hummed verses. She had too many questions, too many bitter remarks, but speaking them would bring fury, and she wanted to stay calm, rubbing a soft circle with her fingertips through the fabric of her dress onto her bump where the babe had just kicked. "I'm a busy woman, get to the point and get out."

"You should be begging for mercy, you traitor!" She had snarled, before laughing bitterly. "Though, I don't suppose you have much life. All of them are dead and gone, good, at least you know how it feels, but my losses are your fault."

"Your sons died brave deaths, they died protecting their king," Eddmina replied cooly. If she said king, if she didn't say his real name, or think too much about it, or him or... it may not hurt too much. "I'm sorry for their losses."

"Robb Stark was not their king, he was a traitor!" Lady Sybell snapped at that. For the first time all day, Eddmina stopped humming, but she didn't look away from her window. "So was your mother, and those stupid Tyrell's, and the rest of your ugly northern friends. They died traitors deaths that they all deserved, and you deserve to rot with them. My boys did not deserve it, and neither did... she is dead because of you. If not for you I could have protected her, I could have kept her safe until the plan was carried out and she would have merely been a widow to be remarried to a Lannister, but you-"

"Do you want to get to the point?" Eddmina cut in, still not looking. If she looked, then she wasn't sure she could trust her temper.

"My Jeyne is dead because of you," Lasy Sybell announced coldly, sounding as if she was in tears. She noticed how Eddmina froze, and for the first time glanced her way in surprise. "You didn't know? The moment she heard what happened to your traitor brother she wept, and would hear no sense. I wrote to say I would come to take her home, that the whole mess was over and she could be safe again, but you and all those other dirty northerners put notions in her head about love and she flung herself into the river. It is your fault!"

Perhaps it was. Poor Jeyne. Poor sweet, kind, foolish Jeyne. She loved her husband beyond sense and reason, and whatever plots and ploys had joined her to the northern king never mattered to her. All that mattered was her husband, and it was a love that had driven both of them to an early grave. Eddmina wanted to feel sad, but there was already far too much sadness in her to feel any sort of addition to it. It felt as if she was entirely empty, and had just been hollowed out once more.

"I am sorry for your loss," she had responded, because it was the right thing to say. "I was very fond of her. She would have been a good queen."

"She was never a queen, because your brother was never a king," lady Sybell announced, marching over to her, grabbing her matted braid to force her to look at her. Eddmina closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "He was a traitor, died a traitors death, and will be remembered as such, as will your father, and mother, and-"

"I would stop now, if I were you," Eddmina advised calmly, feeling her skin itch as she could feel lady Westerling's breath on her face. She tried to move away, but she was pulled in closer. "Stop. Let go of me."

"What will you do? Look at you, you're a state," Lady Westerling had sneered, spitting at her. Eddmina flinched, mostly because she could feel something stirring inside of her and was unsure if she would be able to stop herself were she aggravated again. "I wonder how it feels to be you. Driven mad by the ghosts of your traitor family, locked away from the world, knowing you'll die in this room, as will that creature inside you. You're helpless in here, you don't even know what's happening outside these walls. Do you even know what's happening in the Reach, where your son is?"

"Stop," Eddmina demanded firmly, screwing her hands into fists without even knowing. "Stop, now."

"He could be gone, and you wouldn't know," she continued. "I could ride down there myself and throw him into the river like you did to my Jeyne, and you wouldn't even be able to stop me. I could throw that broken husband of yours in the river too, and what will you do? You'll stay up here and sing, and rot, and not be any wiser."

Eddmina said nothing. She tried to swallow the rage, but it was hard to try and forget everything she had been forced to think. Insults to herself meant nothing, but to her family, and threats to her loved ones...

"Maybe I'll make myself a nice winter cloak too out of your pet," Lady Westerling suggested.

Eddmina wasn't sure why that was her final straw. She couldn't remember what she did to end up tackling Lady Westerling to the floor, or how she ended up on top of her. It was highly unlikely, given that she was not in the right condition to be brawling, but she always seemed to manage an upper hand, and that occasion was no different as she sat upon Lady Westerling's stomach, pinning her to the floor as she punched her face, then wrapped her hands around her throat, listening with a smile to her choked pleas.

"Who is begging now?" She whispered with a cold smile as she saw the fear in the woman's eyes. "My brother was a King. Remember that."

'Remember him,' she thought with fury. 'Remember Robb Stark, my other half, my better half.'

No one would insult him and not feel her wrath. No one would insult her mother, her father, her brothers and sisters, Garlan, Lord Tyrell, Dacey, all her northern friends. No one would threaten Willas, or Uther, or Honour, or any of the other Tyrell's. As she tightened her grip and felt the woman beneath her go slack, she knew she met her end thinking of the King in the North, and that was enough to make Eddmina smile. Then, the dark cloud parted, the rage faded as quick as it came, and the memory of what she had done became patchy and blurred.

As bits of it came back, she wished it had stayed away. Was that who she was now, a vengeful murderer? Someone who would snap at one mention of her lost loved ones? It terrified her, but at the same time, she found she didn't care. How did she know that Lady Westerling wouldn't have made good on her word and gone to Highgarden to hurt all those Eddmina would surely never see again? She had at least made sure it would never happen, because Lady Westerling was going nowhere.

Eddmina started singing again the moment some Freys came to remove the body, making sure to stare at them in the eyes as they quickly shuffled around and left as soon as they could. It was almost nice scaring them, as much as she knew such feelings would have disgusted her before. Scaring them worked, because they left her alone then for at least a few hours, and she managed a few hours of sleep curled up on her bed, even it it was torture. It was a dream worse than seeing the wedding again, because instead her mind gave her Willas and Uther, and the two of them were asking her when she would be coming home.

'Soon, my boys,' she thought longingly, and soon found herself weeping.

She didn't allow herself to think of them often, and thankfully didn't get chance to think of them then, as she was woken by two guards banging into her room. They gave her no chance to get up on her own, though that was taking longer each morning anyway, as they instead grabbed her arms and hauled her to her feet before dragging her away. It was her first time out of the tower in months, and despite the constant pacing her legs began to ache from the walking, though they gave her no chance for a steady pace, wordlessly dragging her down the stairs and through the corridors. Perhaps there was one on each side of her to keep her moving, knowing she would have struggled otherwise, or perhaps it was because only one guard didn't seem like enough when dealing with her. Either way, it hardly mattered as they reached her destination, a door to a supposedly random solar, unmarked and unnamed, and one of them let go of her briefly to open the door while the other shoved her inside roughly, forcing her knees to collide with the flagstone floor, her hands going out to catch her. She cursed, her knees screaming on impact, and the babe kicked away nervously inside of her, but as she heard the door slam shut she looked around frantically, only to see the room set out with a table and chairs set for dinner, and sat at the table was the last person she had ever expected to meet.

Tywin Lannister looked exactly as she had expected. Cold, collected, terrifying, and like an older, more stern version of his son. He was commanding, sitting at the head of the table looking as if the seat he occupied was a throne and not simply one the Freys had pulled out of storage. His armour was cleaned and buffed so it shone, but she could see clear signs of battle wear, and she knew it was not simply an outfit for show. Against her better judgement she had found his son handsome, and the same could certainly be said for him no matter how much he disgusted her, but there was something cold about him that Jaime didn't possess, something that made it so easy and natural to be scared of him. He was exactly as she had assumed him to be for all the months she had spent plotting against him, which was more unnerving than she expected.

Even so, she forced herself not to be scared of him. The man may be terrifying, but she and her brother had run strategic rings around him for near on a year. She and her brother had the kingdoms on their knees while the man sat at the table couldn't catch up to them without betrayals, and so Eddmina stumbled to her feet, smoothing her ragged dress out as if it was the finest silk, and held her head up high. She did not bow or curtsy, not as a princess, and so instead crossed the room and took the seat opposing him without invitation. From a certain point of view, it was now her who sat at the head of the table.

"Good day, my Lord," she addressed him calmly and without a smile. "What brings you to the Riverlands?"

He did not answer, not in favour of instead looking her up and down. She looked a mess, they both knew that. Her hair was matted and she was still marked with bloodstains, but Eddmina knew better than to acknowledge it.

There were three armed Lannister guards stood at the back if the room. They were staring at her coldly, their hands wrapped around the hilts of their swords. Eddmina looked at them, each of them, studying their faces. She liked to do that to whatever Freys came into her room just to see how long it could take to break them and unnerve them. The Lannister men were unflinching, but so was she, and she barely noticed Lord Tywin pouring her a goblet of water, sliding it in front of her as he took a seat opposite her. She didn't look at him, not in favour of glaring at the goblet. She considered throwing it at his head, or launching it at one of the guards, but decided against such rash actions, wanting to wait before she struck.

"It is not poison," Lord Tywin stated bluntly when he saw her staring at it. It was the first time he'd spoken, and his voice was as cold as she'd expected. "If I wanted you dead I would have had you killed months ago."

"Very courageous of you," she flashed a quick sarcastic smile before her face fell back into cold stoicism. "The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword, but I suppose noble western men do not deem the blood of young ladies worthy to spill themselves."

"Please, you stopped being seen in these kingdoms as a young lady the moment you swore yourself as a princess and marched off to war, you do not get the luxury of acting as an innocent," he let out a single cold laugh as he spoke, one that would have been patronising were he speaking to anyone else; Eddmina didn't care about that sort of thing anymore. "Poison would be a nice end for you besides. If you heard the ways my grandson the king intends on treating you, you would be begging for poison."

'And if you heard the ways I intend on killing your grandson then you would understand why every Frey man cowers at the sight of me,' Eddmina thought, but said nothing.

"I would say it is nice to make your acquaintance at last, but you and I both know that is a lie," Lord Tywin continued when she remained silent. When she didn't reply to that either, merely staring at him, he tried not to sigh, unused to people not cowering or treating him indifferently. "I would apologise for the conditions you've been kept in, but from whst I've heard you've made this place your own."

'You made me watch my family be murdered brutally then didn't even give me the mercy of letting me die too,' she thought, fighting the urge to clench her jaw. 'You endure what I have and not become a monster.'

"It is rude to not speak when spoken to, least of all to a Lord," he snapped finally, hating her silence. "I thought your parents would have raised you with better manners-"

"Don't you dare speak about my parents," she snapped too, unable to help the open palm that smacked down into the table, the sound echoing in the room and making the guards tighten their grip on their swords as she clenched her jaw. "My parents are dead, because of you. Do you really think they would care if I strangled the life out of you simply because it is not ladylike?"

For some reason, that seemed to impress him. She hated it, hated that her temper had been such a show that his mouth formed a thin, faint smile. It made her want to hurt him more. Forget strangling, she wanted to tear his throat out with nothing but her teeth. She wanted to hit his stupid smug face until it was nothing but pulp. She'd done worse to a Frey simply because he looked at her funny, what would stop her from acting out her final vengeance on the man who truly was behind her fate?

Three armed Lannister guards would stop her, as well as the tiny pair of feet she felt kick at her. The sensation made her remember herself, remember that she was not simply staying alive for herself. If she was she might have found a way to throw herself from the tower, but no, she had someone else to protect, someone else who for another three months would be protected solely by her. She didn't give a damn about herself, but her son, the last piece she had of her husband and the final reminder that she had once enjoyed an almost happy life... he had to be protected, at all costs. At the feeling of him inside, she stopped, swallowed down her fury, and sat back in her seat.

Instinct made her hands go to her stomach, despite the fact it drew Lord Tywin's attention. He stared at her in a way that would have made her squirm were she not so used to being stared at like a caged animal, until he looked back up at her face. A credit to him, he never broke eye contact; neither did she.

"I told Lord Frey to ensure you drank the moon tea," he told her, waiting for her fury. Eddmina wanted to shrug, but instead stared at him blankly. "I asked Lady Westerling to ensure it too, when she went to Riverun. Very smart of you to notice the tea, and to send her away."

'I didn't notice the tea, it was Garlan,' she thought, grief stinging her like nettles. 'Brave, beautiful, wonderful Garlan the Gallant. I have him to thank for saving me from being manipulated by you from afar. Gods, I miss him. Gods, I'll make you pay for taking him from me.'

"Apologies for my refusal to drink it," Eddmina shrugged. "And apologies for killing her."

"Did she suggest going to the Reach and harming your family?" Lord Tywin asked bluntly, and it caught her off guard it was so true. After a moment, she nodded. "It was all she spoke of on the road. It was why she wanted to come, to inform you of her daughter's fate. She did not think you capable of murder, least of all murdering her. I assure you though, your Tyrell family is more than safe, for now. That is one of the reasons why I am here, as their continued safety relies solely upon how you conduct yourself now and in the coming weeks."

At the mention of the Tyrell's she sat up straighter, bristling at the subtle underlying threat. Lady Westerling had been right, she knew nothing of them, and knew nothing of what they were doing. Willas could be asserting himself as Lord, rallying his banners and marching north in revenge, or they could all be dead or under siege. They Freys hadn't told her anything about them, mostly because after a few weeks they all became too scared to even speak to her. Lord Tywin was her way of information, even if he was using it to manipulate her into compliance.

She wanted to hit him, strangle him, gouge his eyes out with the knife that sat on the platter of food, but she also wanted to know about the world outside of her room. Even mentioning the Tyrell's frustrated and enraged her, but she knew to keep calm, knew to embrace the rare chance to find out whet was truly happening.

"Currently I am in the process of negotiating terms with the new Lord of Highgarden," he began, getting up from the table to retrieve a few documents, sliding the pieces of parchment over to her as he sat back down. When he caught her look of faint confusion he looked at her with chilly amusement. "I am not a wasteful man. I see no point in disposing of another house just because two of them proved themselves to be traitors."

"So their alliance with King Renly meant nothing then?" Eddmina asked, enjoying the brief upper hand as she saw his jaw tighten, called out for misinformation.

"Renly is dead, as is any other chance of an uprising from the Stormlands," he told her firmly. Eddmina tried not to show how much that bothered her; what did that mean in terms of Lord Stannis, or Lord Edric who was with Sansa and Harrion? "The Reach is a crucial part of the seven kingdoms, one that King Joffrey is keen to make amends to and reignite the friendship with."

"Amends wouldn't need to be made had you not killed the Lord of Highgarden and his son, and had the King not killed my father and his men then I would not have asked my husband to march to war with me," Eddmina told him scathingly, feeling her heart burn with bitter fury, desperate not to let the truth be ignored. "The new Lord of Highgarden loved his brother more than anything in this world. One of the Freys told me they tossed his body out into the fields to rot in the rain. Do you think the new Lord of Highgarden will be open to making amends over that sort of dishonour?"

"He already has," Lord Tywin said bluntly, and Eddmina would have been a liar if she said it didn't take her back. "I've sent men to go and retrieve the body of Ser Garlan to have the bones be returned to his family, and the same will happen with the late Lord Tyrell. Ser Garlan might have been a traitor to the crown but he should be put to rest with the rest of house Tyrell, and it was never my intention for Lord Mace to be here let alone die here. Their bodies will be a gesture of goodwill."

"And what about my family? Will you send my brother to rest with his ancestors in the crypt?" She couldn't help but ask, fists clenching on her lap. "And what will you do with the new Lord of Highgarden's wife? Do you think he will accept friendship with the crown when the people who butchered his father and brother still hold his wife captive here like an animal?"

"Robb Stark's body will be dealt with however you see fit, another gesture of goodwill, and the Lord of Highgarden is not currently married," he answered her calmly, gesturing down at the parchment in front of her.

Her chest in a vice, she glanced down at it, unsure of what he was talking about and unsure of what she was looking at. She skimmed the words, seeing things like 'annulment', 'betrayal of morals' and 'unworthy wife'. Denial sickened her, and so she lifted the page up, reading it thoroughly, desperate for it to not be real. When her eyes saw the signature at the bottom of the page, when she saw the neat scrawl of his name, Eddmina fought the urge to stroke the ink, kiss the name, anything that would have made her feel closer to her husband who she spent her days and nights longing for. To do such things would have made her look a fool, especially given what his signature was there for. She had seen his handwriting enough times, remembering all the letters he'd sent to her when she was new to the Reach and he wanted to make her feel safe. The words of the letter were not written by him, a contract drawn up by someone else, but it was definitely him who had signed it. It was definitely him who had given permission and consent for the High Septon to sever their marriage.

Sometimes she dreamed of Willas rescuing her. She dreamed of him holding her close, kissing her, the pair of them weeping over their losses together yet knowing they could rebuild and be by each other's side as they mourned. She imagined hugging Uther and promising to never let him go again, and she imagined having her second son in Highgarden in safety, with her husband at her side holding her hand, his mother at the other side. It was a dream she knew was foolish, because four months had passed and she continued to rot without rescue. She had thought it was because he had assumed her dead, perished with everyone else in the wedding, not knowing that she was still alive and waiting for him. She had never considered an alternative, until it was in her hands and staring her down unavoidably.

Willas didn't think her dead. He did not think her a lost cause gone to the heavens with his father and brother and all her family. No, he hated her. He knew she was alive, and he hated her, hated her enough to abandon her in the grip of her enemies, hated her enough to want ties severed forever. He was half Hightower, a house that respected gods and the traditions of religion, respected the vows sworn in front of the gods, and he had sworn to protect her and never be parted lest those who tried to tear them apart be cursed. To put her aside despite all of that, to risk his soul and betray his gods... He had to blame her for his father and brother. He had to blame her for all the mess that had fallen onto them. In her darkest moments she often wondered what Leonette and Lady Alerie would think, if they would hate her knowing her husbands had been killed trying to save her, but she had never considered her own husband would turn against her. Yet, the proof of it was right there, in the contract of annulment signed by 'Lord Willas of House Tyrell'.

Surely he didn't hate her. Surely all the times he'd told her he loved her meant something. What of all the kisses, all the nights of passion and affection? One of those nights had resulted in the baby she carried, the one who was kicking at her constantly, the one Willas had proclaimed love and adoration for before even meeting. She'd given him one son already too, one that he doted on and swore to do anything for. Could he really forget all of that and set her aside to meet her fate alone?

Of course he could. His signature was right in front of her.

She felt her stomach turn, felt her skin burn and her head spin. Her chest was tight as her heartbeat thundered, and they were all the telltale signs of a nervous attack. She'd not suffered one for so long, her body instead suffering no feeling at all as she was robbed of emotion save anger, and that made the impact of the symptoms far worse. Willas setting her aside made her feel like she was dying. Perhaps she was. She'd given him her heart, and he had crushed it mercilessly. Half of her belonged to him, while the other half she was always so sure was Robb's. Without the two of them, she was nothing. There was nothing left of her.

She couldn't crumble, wouldn't crumble, not in front of Lord Tywin. He was watching, waiting for her to break. Perhaps he would have enjoyed it, seeing the woman compared to him so often prove she was just a foolish girl after all. Perhaps he would have liked to see the girl so many men feared and cowered over reduced to a sobbing mess by no one but him. It would have made him feel powerful, knowing he was the one to break her at last. It was the stubborn desire to not give him any pleasure that forced her to stay upright and not shed any tears.

"What do you expect me to do with this?" She asked, hating how croaked her voice was.

"It needs your signature to be final," he told her, thankfully not drawing attention to the fact she was obviously trembling. "Lord Tyrell will be remarried to a woman of my choosing to ensure a lasting alliance between the Crown and the Reach. Perhaps my own daughter will be offered to him."

Eddmina let out a snort of a laugh at that, earning nothing but a cold glare. She couldn't help it, bitterness seizing what was left of her heart. If Willas had truly left her, then it really was Cersei Lannister he deserved. He'd commented that he found Ser Jaime attractive, he was sure to like his twin sister well enough. Two people who'd hated their first spouses, perhaps Willas and Cersei deserved each other.

"Lord Tyrell's sister will be offered to the King, who is willing to overlook any treason on her part for her beauty," Lord Tywin continued, ignoring the horror in her eyes; Margaery was her sister, meeting the fate her other sister had endured and escaped. "He said himself, she was simply doing what she was told, as any good woman does. Now, Lady Stark, do you wish to prove yourself good?"

'I'd rather you execute me,' she thought, until she felt another kick.

"What is the point of a remarriage to a Lannister if Lord Tyrell already has an heir?" She asked, enjoying finding any hole in his perfect plan to pick at, even if it did draw attention to her son.

"Lord Tyrell doesn't wish any ill on the boy, but understands it is not in his best interest to keep him as heir," Lord Tywin explained, unfazed. She hated him, hated how collected and calm he was. "Lord Frey expressed an interest in fostering, but I thought it best that the boy be sent to the Wall, out of the way of any attention. As your son, he is technically an enemy to the crown, so the fate of a prisoner is mercy, really."

The days had lost meaning, but she never forgot anything when it came to Uther. She didn't know what he was doing, if he was safe and well looked after, but she knew he was approaching nineteen months, and knew that if the crown considered a boy of his age an enemy then it was no mighty monarchy. She wondered if bitterness and hatred to her meant Willas was neglecting him, thinking it an easy enough task since the boy looked so much like her he would be a constant reminder, but that felt too cruel. For all her faults, for all her crimes, Uther was not to blame. Surely Willas was logical enough to see that.

He might not mistreat him, but disinheriting him was abuse enough. Did that make Uther a bastard? Uther Flowers instead of Uther Tyrell? It reminded her of another bastard she knew, and the thought of Jon made her not feel like life was as much of a lost cause. Jon would still love her regardless of her crimes, surely, and if Jon loved her then he would love Uther too.

"There's great honour in the Night's Watch," she replied stubbornly. "At the Wall my son would have his uncle to watch over him. Jon would take care of him."

"I highly doubt it," he replied with a short, cold laugh. He caught her blank expression, caught the subtle confusion in her eyes, her desperate denial, and smiled coldly once more. "Do you not know? Lord Commander Jon Snow is dead."

Eddmina tried to stay calm, tried to stay collected, but in truth she had never known pain like it. Her eyes stung instantly, her chest constricted, and her vision became overcome with fuzzy marks and black spots. She was dying, surely. She had to, surely she had to be. She couldn't keep existing in a world where people kept getting torn from her.

Jon. Her Jon. Her lovely half-brother who deserved so much better than he always got, the boy she always viewed as a bonus twin. She loved him as much as her twin, loved him so dearly because he was so precious to her. He couldn't be gone from the world. Her last brother. Her last sibling, save Sansa if her northern quest hadn't already killed her. How could Jon be dead? Her brother's heir, the uncrowned King in the North, killed without acknowledgment of his duty to his kingdom and family.

It felt foolish, but in her weaker moments, in the dead of night after suffering nightmares that would have had a weaker person wishing for death, Eddmina often allowed herself to daydream that her Uncle Brynden found the Will of Inheritance she had told her King to leave in Riverrun. She imagined him informing Jon of his new duties, and the pair of them rallying the few Riverlanders and Northerners left to march behind him to free her from the Twins. She imagined herself reclaiming Winterfell with Jon and crowning him King herself while the northerners cheered, the way they had done for Robb. In that vision she saw herself stood with Willas, with their two sons, and it was only considering that final detail that she realised none of it was possible anymore. No one was coming to rescue her. They were all either dead, or considered her dead.

All hope of a life outside of the Twins seemed to be snuffed out like a dying ember, and Eddmina felt herself slump back in her seat against her will. She didn't want to seem weak, didn't want anyone to think that she had given up, but her family were all gone, and her marital family wished she was gone. Without them, without the ones who gave her heart a reason to beat, what was the point?

Revenge was a pretty good point. Making her enemies hurt and bleed was an appealing thought, but it seemed like such a great monumental task. Merely looking up from the table felt like an effort, and she knew in that moment that a little part of her died.

"What do you intend to do with me?" She asked tiredly, not looking up to see his smug expression of victory. "If you intend on killing me, please get on with it."

"No, Lady Stark, you are too important to waste," he corrected her, and she hated how patronised she felt, feeling like a little girl. "There is anarchy in the north, someone needs to show the northerners who are left that there is a new order being put in place. With your marriage now dissolved, I will see you married to my son Jaime. Given the fact he is still a prisoner in Riverrun I will assume you are already acquainted."

"Better than you'd think," she muttered without thought, and felt a slither of smug joy when she caught his badly disguised confusion.

"He will be Lord of Winterfell through you, you will make the northerners accept him," he continued as if she'd never interrupted him.

"Good luck getting northerners to do anything they don't want to do," she said after a snort of a laugh. He glared at her.

"You will make them, or they will all die," he told her, so cold it made her almost nervous. "Your eldest son with Jaime will be heir to Casterly Rock, while the second will be heir to Winterfell. Both of them will have the name Lannister. Given that you've already proven yourself able and fertile I'd hope the two of you would produce a great many sons, though I understand it may be a wait before you birth any Lannisters. Once your current pregnancy is over and your child is dealt with-"

"You'll do nothing to this child," she snapped, the faint threat reigniting her enough to sit up and meet his eye, her jaw tightened. She thought fast, hating where her mind went, yet she was still bitter enough from the betrayal that she decided she didn't care and would do anything to pricgect herself and her babe. "You harm my child then you harm your own grandchild. Do you really think I carry my former husband's babe when Ser Jaime Lannister was within the same keep and only too happy to entertain me?"

She hated herself. The lie made her want to retch and heave, and she wanted to run to the nearest godswood and apologise profusely for such sins of lying and pretending to be an adulteress. She'd once hated liars, yet she became one so easy to save herself. Whst a disgrace she was.

No, it hadn't been to save herself. It had been to save the baby inside her, the one thing that had kept her alive and forced her to keep going. Lord Tywin hadn't even finished his thought as to what would happen to the child, but she refused to let him go on. If Willas had abandoned her then she decided he held no claim over her and the babe and what she did to keep them alive. If Willas had abandoned her then she saw no issue in cashing in on his insecurity of her liking Ser Jaime to use to her advantage. When she'd been found in the cells the night of the attack huddled with Ser Jaime, Willas had worried that people would assume an illicit affair had taken place, and Eddmina found herself hoping that it was tangible enough to keep her child safe. When she briefly wondered what Ser Jaime would think to her lie, she remembered him saying that neither of them would be alive without the other, and she decided that she was merely using that debt to her advantage.

Lord Tywin looked at her as if she was disgusting, then he looked at her almost impressed. She hated that more than she hated herself. She hated it more than she hated the idea of being married to someone they wasn't Willas, least of all a Lannister, least of all the Lannister that had started the whole war that killed all her loved ones. Yet, Willas had thrown her aside, and Eddmina had little choice in the matter. If she complained or rebelled then Lord Tywin could change his mind on Uther's fate, and so she knew she had no choice but to go along with it all, but if she had to, then she wanted to manipulate it to be in her favour.

"I never expected such a breach of vows from the daughter of Ned Stark," Lord Tywin mused, looking at her as if seeing her properly for the first time.

She kept her gaze fixed on him, kept her expression convincing, but at the mention of her father's name she couldn't help but feel like a true traitor, and a single tear slipped down her cheek. What would her father think? Gods, he would hate her too. Better to die with honour than give your soul away and live an empty life. And her mother... she would be so disappointed too.

"I am not my father," Eddmina said, her voice nothing more than a whisper. With the back of her hand she wiped her cheek, and glared at him once more, steeling herself to continue the lie. She was not a great actress, but with her child's life on the line she knew she could cope, and so feigned innocence as she spoke, "I know it was wrong. I swore to be faithful to that man, but he cared little for me. I gave him a son as all good wives are told to do, and he respected me for it, but there was little passion between us, as I was warned. Everyone told me before we wed that Lord Tyrell was... boring. Your son, however... You must think me a foolish girl, unable to keep her wits when it comes to a handsome man, but I had needs, and your son was only too happy to accommodate them. In hindsight I suppose it was a good thing, for we were blessed, and now I do not have to pretend this babe belongs to such a strange and dull man. You can ask Jaime yourself, I'm sure he'll tell you all about my visits to his cells."

He looked as if he couldn't think of anything worse than asking his son about acts of passion, and she was glad for that, concerned that Jaime wouldn't go with the lie that her child's life depended on. The lie made him her child's father, a thought that would have broken her heart were it not already destroyed and shredded to pieces. Perhaps Lord Tywin was more than happy to accept her lie as truth because he thought so little of Willas that committing adultery against him was so believable, and it was something that would have angered her more had he not broken her heart. Instead she was left not caring what was thought of him, or what the lie meant for their child.

The thought of her babe bearing the surname Lannister sickened her, but then, Willas had abandoned her and left her for dead, so suddenly the name Tyrell was equally disgusting. She was entirely alone, left to do what she could to survive. Better to have a living child with the name of her enemy than a dead one.

"I thought Ser Jaime was still being held as a prisoner in Riverrun," Eddmina asked, trying to feign concern for him, until she realised who else was in that keep, and concern became too real. "My Uncle Brynden, is he..."

"An unyeilding, stubborn old fish," he remarked, gesturing to the parchment underneath Willas' form of annulment. Eddmina glanced at it, her breath catching in her throat as she saw it was a letter from the man himself. "He demands your safe return, though has nothing to trade it for. You are to write to him and tell him that you are safe, well, and willing to cooperate, and encourage him to do the same. Tell him to return my son, hand the keep over to the Freys, and I will show him mercy."

"I cannot ask him to leave Riverrun," she shook her head, knowing her uncle's fierce stubbornness.

"You will, or I will rethink my mercy for you, your child, and your son in the Reach," he told her coldly, and she knew it was not a threat, it was a promise.

It scared her, but equally enraged her. Who was he to take her Uncle's home? Who was he to threaten the lives of her children? Her own life meant very little to her, not after experiencing all that had happened in the war and at the wedding, but her children...

"You will write to him, have him surrender, then upon Jaime's return the pair of you will marry," he told her simply, his words mroe like commands than requests. "You will sign the contract of annulment, and then you will be taken back to your rooms to wait for your uncle to cooperate."

"Before I do," she began, enjoying the way he tried not to let her hear him curse under his breath. It felt like a game, battling between defeat and sudden surges of confience to keep defying him, and at that point she was on the up. "I have a few questions. Answer them and I will consent to your requests."

"You'll consent to the requests or I will have you meet your brothers fate," he told her through gritted teeth. His frustration with her subtle rebellion only fuelled her.

"You won't though, will you? I'm too valuable, without me how else will you get the north under your control?" she countered, managing a knowing smirk. "That's why you had them spare me, isn't it? You made me watch them kill all those I love, made my husband hate me enough to cast me aside. You cut me off from everyone so I would be traumatised enough to go along with whatever plot you had. If I had died with Robb the way I should have done, you would have had no one to use, no one as a hostage to bend the north to your will. Is that so?"

"That is why I asked for them to spare your mother as well," he confirmed, clearly enjoying the obvious pain she felt at the mention of her mother. "I intended on them leaving the pair of you alive. I am not wasteful, nor do I enjoy the murder of ladies."

"Plenty of ladies have died at your request though, haven't they?" she hit back quickly, desperate to hide her grief for her mother, the complicated, agonising weight that haunted over her, the guilt that she had not even known what fate met her mother, the woman who gave her life and begged for it to be spared. "Plenty of innocents."

"No one in attendance at that wedding who was killed was an innocent," he replied calmly. She wondered what it was like, to be so arrogant and self-righteous you came across as nothing but insufferable and delusional. "You were all traitors to the crown. How many unnecessary deaths did that wedding prevent? Better to kill a few dozen men at a dinner than a few thousand in a war."

"A war you were losing," she snarled. "That is why you did it, not for some bid for peace, but because you knew you were losing. Two teenagers were running rings around you, destroying your reputation. A girl was constantly compared to you for her intellect, a boy half your age was praised as a better fighter, and rather than playing with honour and proving yourself, you betrayed every moral that the seven kingdoms stands for."

"If it meant preserving your family name and your legacy-" he began to explain calmly, but she cut him off with a mere shake of her head.

"My family name means nothing to me, the legacy of my family means nothing," she told him, baffled that her life's truth seemed so ridiculous to a man supposedly obsessed with family. "The only reason I cared about being a Stark was for the others who bore that name. Their blood is on your hands in some way or other. Robb, Jon, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon. My mother, my father. I fought that war for them, to save them, not for what the history books may write about us one day."

"Then any comparison and similarity that fools drew between the two of us was nothing more than idiocy," he remarked, with a laugh that sounded equally smug and relieved. "Are you done with your questions? Done acting like a spoilt child?"

"How do you sleep at night?" she spat at him, then realised she sounded stupid. She clenched her jaw, took a deep breath with her eyes screwed shut, then looked at him with ice once more. "Give me a quill, please."

Her hand trembled as she signed her name on the annulment. It felt like setting fire to the last three years of her life, the years that were the most complicated, as they had not only been her hardest but her happiest. It felt like burning all that she had built, all the progress she had made in herself. The bricks of who she had built herself to be had begun to crumble the moment she was torn from her twin and her other loved ones, but signing the form felt like accepting that everything she had ever been told had been a lie. Willas must have never loved her. He'd told her he loved her, he'd torn down all her defences and trepidations, helped her through so many insecurities and fears. He'd known her fear of being lied to about love, yet lied anyway. Part of her felt betrayed, but another felt relieved, knowing she had fears for a reason, knowing she could only trust herself. If he had lied, then she wanted nothing more to do with him, even if she had loved him so dearly, and thankfully her name next to his meant she never had to see him again.

The trembling hadn't ceased by the time she began her note to her uncle, which meant the ink got smudged. Jaime had called her a freak for that, but thinking of Jaime only made her hand shake more. That was why she kept the letter short and sweet, telling Brynden nothing but how she loved him dearly and couldn't bare to lose anyone else, begging him to accept the conditions she had been given. She hoped that he would lose his stubborn fury long enough to remember that he loved her and would do anything to protect the two of them, but then she wondered if his love had been a lie too. Gods, had she ever been truly loved without condition, without lie?

She didn't bother spell checking it, nor did she look at either sheet of parchment as she slid them across the table towards Lord Tywin. A little of her fire had gone when writing both, feeling like a coward, like a fool. She should have gone down fighting, stayed true to her beliefs and her cause, the way her father and brothers died. Instead she had shrivelled against the weight of threat, making her feel as if everyone's deaths had been for nothing. Alone in the world, she should have battled Lord Tywin rather than caving in, yet sat on the table in front of her were two sheets of parchment that were proof enough of her foolish cowardice.

What a spineless, gutless monster she was. Countless Freys she could kill, one spear-tongued woman strangled by her own hands, her brother's murderers blood still staining her hands, but the moment it came to Lord Tywin and politics, she crumbled. Fool. Stupid, weak-willed fool. She felt as if she'd signed her life away, even if the two parchments technically promised her life. That life didn't matter though, as the only life she had wanted was the one she was meant to build with her husband and their sons, with her brothers and sisters, with the Tyrells in the sunshine of the Reach. It was impossible, destroyed by her own selfish hand, and so she condemned herself to an existence. Death was more honourable, surely.

"May I ask one more question?" she asked, swallowing her hatred down even though her voice shook. Lord Tywin looked bored, ready to have her taken away, but he sighed, and nodded. "My mother. No one told me what happened to her. No one told me how she died, all I heard was that the Freys had wasted one and I assume that was her. How did she die?"

Lord Tywin sat there in silence for a moment staring at her. At first she thought he was processing how best to tell her such an awful fact. It was a cruel thing to tell a child how their parent had died, and she thought perhaps he was trying to muster up some compassion to tell her as gently as possible. Except, there was no such thing as compassion in him, nothing but cold disregard in his eyes for her. As his silence stretched for longer, she realised it was not him buying time to answer her as kindly as he could manage, it was instead him refusing to answer.

Eddmina saw every night how her father died. Bran and Rickon's deaths haunted her through the letter that delivered the news. Lord Tyrell had died for her. Dacey had died with her name on her lips. Garlan died in her arms. Robb died looking at her. All she wanted to know was how her mother died, since she had been so focused on Robb instead. All she wanted was closure so that her ghost could haunt over her instead of the guilt that suffocated her for not knowing. It was all she wanted as a grieving daughter, to simply know how and what she was grieving. The lack of knowledge was a brewing madness, and his outright refusal was what tipped the scales, as her hands slapped down on the desk once more and she rose to her feet.

Perhaps she would look more fearsome were she not heavily pregnant. Perhaps if she was in armour or the colours of her house she might look more serious. Yet there she was, her hair a tangled, matted birds-nest, her hands marked with filth and blood, her eyes shadowed and bloodshot. She had nothing to hide behind, nothing to assist in carving out an image or a reputation. She had always tried to be neat and well put together, but with all of that stripped away, she was nothing but the burning grief and desire for revenge. How quickly she could flip from maudling coward to hellbent avenger. The Freys were right, she truly was a madwoman, nothing but an animal waiting for any opportunity to attack.

"Are you sure you wish for this course of action?" she spoke with venom. He stared at her coldly. "I think you would be better in killing me. I think you left the wrong Stark alive."

"Lady Eddmina-" he began, looking at her as if she was a fool.

"Lord Tywin," she mimicked, glaring at him. She remembered hating the comparison, hating the name, yet in that moment she longed to be as similar as possible, wanting to do nothing but haunt over him with himself. "You left me alive to use me, but I think that was the wrong decision and one you will one day regret because whatever you do with me from now you damn yourself. Hang me, send me to the executioners block, have me spend the rest of my life in chains, clothe me in red silk and parade me around with your son as a trophy of victory, you do nothing but martyr me. I will exist forever, and whatever you do to me will haunt over you by anyone who hears my name and remains loyal to my family."

She was watching him close enough to see the subtle way he glanced behind himself, offering his armed guards a nod. They nodded back, and the three took a step closer, as did the two guards behind her, the ones manning the door. She raised her hands, as if to show how little of a threat she was. Funny, considering she was imagining using the same hands to wrap around the Lord of the West's neck, imagining the Great Lion dying the exact same way as so many lesser men. She couldn't help but smile at that. The thought alone brought her enough satisfaction, to the point she was happy to remain non-violent.

"I will do nothing," she continued. "I do not care what happens, I don't care if I spend the rest of my life in chains or crimson silks, whichever you prefer. I will attempt no violence against you, but make no mistake, if you so much as think of harming either of my children then I will run through all seven hells and make you and every single person who has Lannister blood suffer a life of misery and pain. My brothers and friends and all those who perished in your massacre of a wedding will haunt over you for the rest of your days, and I will join them at a moment's notice. That is my promise, my lord. Now do what you wish, but curse yourself either way."

Lord Tywin said nothing else, continuing with his silence. He regarded her with a blank expression, as if she had said nothing at all, before he signalled to the guards once more, gesturing to her flippantly. They stepped toward, seizing her by her upper arms so harsh she knew she would be bruised, almost lifting her off her feet, forcing her to their will as they proceeded to pull her from the room and marching her back up to her room.

She almost felt a fool again, concerned that her words had been dramatic and had gone unheard. Perhaps she had done nothing but make herself look like an idiot, a half-wit mad hysteric. The thought of letting her grief get the better of her to transform her into an embarrassment was frustrating, and resigned herself to being known as nothing but a coward with a temper.

It was several hours later in the evening when she changed her mind upon hearing voices outside her door. She was used to two at most, two Freys sent by their father to keep watch just in case. Yet, that night, she heard three, then four, then six. A few hours later there were more voices, the sound of clinking armour, and men discussing hours of shifts. Sometimes the Freys who stood guard were there for hours on end, but from the vague chatter she overheard, it sounded as if those men had been told to only guard for a few hours at a time, hearing something about them needing to be 'kept alert' and 'ready at anytime'. It took a moment to wrap her head around the fact that there were triple the amount of guards she was used to, and that those guards were under strict instruction to remain vigilant. It would have made her feel claustrophobic and hopless, feeling so unnecesarrily watched over, but she knew what it really meant, and that made her smile.

The truth was that Lord Tywin wanted her guarded heavily. The truth that she had made Tywin Lannister afraid.

That did not stop her singing.

****
Word count: 13209
****

Authors note:

The songs that Eddmina sings in this chapter are 'There's a Storm A Comin' by Richard Hawley and 'Francesca' by Hozier. Both are incredible artists who I adore.

Thank you for all the love this book has been shown over the last few chapters, they've been massive to write and it means so much that people have taken the time to read/vote/comment. If you have enjoyed this chapter please do let me know what you think, and any predictions for where you think this will go I'd absolutely love to read!

Thank you all so much.
~Olivia