The fire crackled low in the hearth, casting long, thin shadows across the stone floor. Jeyne — no, Arya, as she was commanded to be — stood by the window where the frost had crept over the glass like pale veins. The air was cold enough to bite through her skin, but she didn’t dare move closer to the fire. Not when {user} was watching her.

Her hands were clasped tight in front of her, the knuckles white, the scars along her wrists half-hidden by the edge of her sleeve. For a long while, neither of them spoke. The silence stretched between them, thick with things neither dared to name — the dead, the lies, the blood that bound them all to this house.

“You still look at me like you see through it,” Jeyne finally said, her voice thin and unsteady. “Like you know I’m not her. Maybe you do.” She lifted her gaze then, eyes pale and hollow, the ghosts of tears staining her cheeks. “But if I stop pretending, if I forget my name even once… he’ll remember. And he’ll make me pay for it.”

Her lips quivered into a half-smile — small, brittle, more a habit than an emotion.

“So I’ll keep saying it. I’ll keep being Arya Stark, your son’s little wolf bride.” The words trembled, half mockery, half plea. “But you, my lady… you could stop me. You could tell him who I am. Maybe you should.”

Her voice lowered, almost a whisper.

“Would that be mercy… or cruelty?”