Alaric's gaze remained fixed on the darkness where the Queen's golden head had vanished. The prickle of unease at the back of his neck wasn't from the cold; it was the realization that he had been looking for the wrong kind of blade.
Cersei didn't do anything without a purpose, and Jaime didn't threaten common wards unless they were already in his sights. Her mention of the "fever"—the way she let the word hang in the air like a foul scent—made his stomach turn.
It hit him then, a cold realization that made his blood feel like slush. She wasn't just guessing; she was hunting. She suspected there was something between him and Sansa. She had seen the way they stood together.
He had been so focused on an ambush—preparing for steel in the night or a "bandit" attack on the road—that he had completely ignored the most dangerous weapon in a Lannister's arsenal: a lie.
It wouldn't be hard for them. In the North, a man's word was his life, but in King's Landing, truth was whatever the Queen said it was. They didn't need to kill him in a fair fight. They just needed to accuse him.
He looked at Sansa's pale, delicate profile as she stared into the dying fire. If they accused him of "overstepping"—of forcing himself on the future Queen—there would be no trial. Robert Baratheon, in his cups and his rages, would call for Alaric's head before the sun set.
Even worse, they could use the Princess Myrcella. A single scream from a tent, a well-placed witness, and Alaric Thorne would be transformed from a Sworn Shield into a monster in the eyes of the entire realm.
In that city of vipers, his strength wouldn't save him. Shadow could tear out twenty throats, and the other guards might die to protect him, but what then? He'd be a fugitive, an exile, and Sansa's reputation would be scorched to ash alongside him. The Starks would be too shamed to even lift a banner in his defense.
He had been measuring his power in terms of how many men he could kill. He hadn't realized that the Lannisters were measuring his life in terms of how easily they could ruin it.
"Alaric?" Sansa's voice broke through his spiral of thought. She reached out, her fingers just barely touching his sleeve. "You've gone so quiet. Your eyes... you look like you're miles away."
Alaric forced his breathing to slow, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword until the leather creaked. He looked down at her, seeing not just a girl he cared for, but the target Cersei had painted on both their backs.
"I'm right here, Sansa," he said, his voice a low, rough grate. "But the road just got a lot shorter. We need to be careful. "
Alaric did not look back at the warmth of the fire, instead fixing his gaze on the flickering Lannister torches in the distance . A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He had been playing the game of soldiers, while Cersei was playing the game of reputations; he would not make that mistake again .
Inside his mind, He connected to Blood Scout.
...
The massive golden wheelhouse and its trailing caravan finally ground to a halt at the banks of the Trident. Here, the air hung heavy with the scent of river mud and crushed grass—a humid, stifling change from the crisp, frozen pine of the North.
Near the Ruby Ford, Sansa walked the riverbank with her chin held high. Her stiff Northern collar served a dual purpose: maintaining her dignity and concealing the marks Alaric had left upon her skin. Beside her, Joffrey strutted with the vanity of a peacock. The sunlight caught his golden hair as he droned on about the supposed "glories" of King's Landing.
"When we arrive, my lady, I shall command a tourney in your honor," Joffrey boasted, his voice thin and reedy. "I shall unhorse every knight who dares to even look upon you."
"You are too kind, Your Grace," Sansa replied. Her voice was a flat, practiced mask of courtly grace, though beneath the surface, her stomach churned with revulsion.
Joffrey's eyes flicked dismissively toward Alaric. "And once we are wed, I'll see you assigned a proper guard. We can send this dog of yours back to the North where he belongs."
Alaric heard the barb but remained indifferent. He felt no need for pride; he knew exactly what the future held for the Prince. For now, Joffrey was nothing more than a convenient source for MP harvesting. He would endure the boy's arrogance a little longer, knowing the scales would soon tip. Sansa merely nodded, following Alaric's specific instructions to agree with everything the Prince said to keep the peace.
The quiet of the river was shattered as they rounded a bend into a clearing. There stood Arya, caked in dried mud, swinging a heavy wooden branch against the butcher's boy, Mycah.
"Stop this at once!" Joffrey shrieked, his face flushing a blotchy, indignant red. He drew Lion's Tooth, the steel flashing with lethal, unearned malice. "A peasant striking a lady of the blood? I'll have your hand for this, boy!"
Joffrey advanced on the butcher's boy with a slow, predatory gait. Mycah stood frozen, his face pale beneath a layer of river silt. From behind the Prince, Sansa watched with a simmering revulsion she could barely contain; every step Joffrey took made her skin crawl.
The point of Lion's Tooth leveled at Mycah's cheek. The boy was trembling so violently that his wooden switch slipped from his fingers and clattered into the mud. "I didn't hit her, m'lord," he whimpered. "We was only playing."
"Don't call him 'm'lord'," Arya snapped, her jaw set. "He's a prince, and he's a liar! Mycah did nothing!"
Joffrey didn't even look at her. A cruel, thin sneer touched his lips as he pressed the steel into the boy's skin. A single bead of crimson bloomed against the gray mud on Mycah's face. "I wonder," Joffrey mused, his voice dropping to a cold whisper, "if a butcher's boy bleeds like a pig."
"Leave him alone!" Arya screamed.
She lunged. Using both hands, she swung her wooden branch in a desperate arc. It connected with the back of Joffrey's head with a dull, sickening crack.
The Prince gasped, stumbling into the reeds. When he spun back around, his face was distorted—a mask of sheer, humiliated fury. "You hit me," he breathed, his voice cracking with indignity. "You filthy little—" He lunged, swinging the live steel of Lion's Tooth in a wild, lethal sweep.
Sansa stood paralyzed. She knew the weight of the law and the lethal reach of the Lannisters. This is death, she thought, her pulse thundering in her ears. She's striking the Crown Prince.
"Arya, run!" Sansa's cry was lost, drowned out by a low, guttural growl that seemed to vibrate through the very earth.
A grey blur erupted from the brush. Nymeria didn't snarl or snap; she simply launched. The direwolf's jaws clamped onto Joffrey's sword arm with a bone-deep crunch. The sound that tore from the Prince's throat was no longer human—it was the thin, pathetic shriek of a terrified child.
"Get it off! Get it off me!" Joffrey wailed, his sword falling forgotten into the muck as he collapsed to his knees, his golden finery dragging in the dirt.