Chapter 16

Winterfell,
The North

Not bound by space or time, at least not in this dramatic multiverse, I found myself quite easily at the godswood just as Sansa Stark was supposed to wed Ramsay Bolton. Beautiful, I thought, even as I led my party of vampires and humans together in a sudden nighttime raid on the Boltons’ new holdfast of Winterfell. Sansa was just about to join hands with Ramsay and bind herself to her intended before the Old Gods of the Forest when we burst forth as if from nowhere (though really through the portal).

I fell upon Roose Bolton first and sank my fangs into him while Justen and Damon slaughtered many of his guards. At my signal, Jenny and Carrie bit Ramsay together and Bancey seized Myranda. Roose kept struggling, but as I drained him, the fight began to leave his spirit. While he watched helplessly, just as the husband of Ramsay’s mother did, Ramsay himself perished, clawing desperately to keep the fangs out of his neck. More of my company kept butchering the Winterfell garrison wholesale, my whores doing a particularly efficient job of slicing throats in the darkness.

“Watch, just as one of your peasants did, while you raped his wife and he slowly hanged to death, while the bastard that you got on said wife is exsanguinated. It is futile, fighting me. I’m neither living nor dead, but Nosferatu, the Undead, a vampire, a ghoul, a creature of the night and of darkness. We live off the blood of living mortals, our natural prey. The Red Wedding is avenged. The North Remembers. The Starks send their regards. Winter is here for you now. Now, die, you faithless dog!” I finished the job by severing his head with my cutlass.

I laughed wickedly as the life left Ramsay Bolton before everyone’s eyes. I gestured for Myranda while Sansa and Theon stood in front of me, shaking in their boots. I licked my lips for a little more blood and then kissed Myranda before starting to glamor her.

“Myranda, look at me. You now serve Theon Greyjoy and will let him use you as he wishes, but first, you’ll shave him and bathe him often. He reeks, after all, but after what you cost him, you owe him your fealty and service,” I instructed Myranda before turning to Theon.

“Reek, look at me. You are no longer Reek. You are Theon Greyjoy once more. You are foster brother to Lady Sansa Stark. You will apologize to her for taking Winterfell. You will also confess that you killed and burned those two boys, passing them off as Bran and Rickon Stark, both of them very much alive. You will stand by Lady Sansa, counsel, guard, and succor her in all things.

“Forsake the Iron Islands and your pathetic father, who is about to die at your uncle’s hand, anyway. You are Ironborn no more. You are a man of the North. Your true father was Ned Stark, the man who raised you. Balon Greyjoy rejected you, twice no less. You are of the North and you will atone for the rest of your days for your crimes against it by defending your foster family, House Stark. Receive from me the gift of Myranda’s service. She helped Ramsay cut you, after all,” I glamored Theon to make him comply.