A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin

commands.”
    But no sooner had one Kingsguard departed than another one returned. Ser Boros Blount was red-faced and puffing from his headlong rush up the steps. “Gone,” he panted, when he saw the queen. He sank to one knee. “The Imp . . . his cell’s open, Your Grace . . . no sign of him anywhere . . .”
    The dream was true.
“I gave orders,” she said. “He was to be kept under guard, night and day . . .”
    Blount’s chest was heaving. “One of the gaolers has gone missing too. Rugen, his name was. Two other men we found asleep.”
    It was all she could do not to scream. “I hope you did not wake them, Ser Boros. Let them sleep.”
    â€œSleep?” He looked up, jowly and confused. “Aye, Your Grace. How long shall—”
    â€œForever. See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch.”
He is in the walls. He killed Father as he killed Mother, as he killed Joff.
The dwarf would come for her as well, the queen knew, just as the old woman had promised her in the dimness of that tent.
I laughed in her face, but she had powers. I saw my future in a drop of blood. My doom.
Her legs were weak as water. Ser Boros tried to take her by the arm, but the queen recoiled from his touch. For all she knew he might be one of Tyrion’s creatures. “Get away from me,” she said.
“Get away!”
She staggered to a settle.
    â€œYour Grace?” said Blount. “Shall I fetch a cup of water?”
    It is blood I need, not water. Tyrion’s blood, the blood of the
valonqar
.
The torches spun around her. Cersei closed her eyes, and saw the dwarf grinning at her.
No
, she thought,
no, I was almost rid of you.
But his fingers had closed around her neck, and she could feel them beginning to tighten.

BRIENNE
    I am looking for a maid of three-and-ten,” she told the grey-haired goodwife beside the village well. “A highborn maid and very beautiful, with blue eyes and auburn hair. She may have been traveling with a portly knight of forty years, or perhaps with a fool. Have you seen her?”
    â€œNot as I recall, ser,” the goodwife said, knuckling her forehead. “But I’ll keep my eye out, that I will.”
    The blacksmith had not seen her either, nor the septon in the village sept, the swineherd with his pigs, the girl pulling up onions from her garden, nor any of the other simple folk that the Maid of Tarth found amongst the daub-and-wattle huts of Rosby. Still, she persisted.
This is the shortest road to Duskendale,
Brienne told herself.
If Sansa came this way, someone must have seen her.
At the castle gates she posed her question to two spearmen whose badges showed three red chevronels on ermine, the arms of House Rosby. “If she’s on the roads these days she won’t be no maid for long,” said the older man. The younger wanted to know if the girl had that auburn hair between her legs as well.
    I will find no help here.
As Brienne mounted up again, she glimpsed a skinny boy atop a piebald horse at the far end of the village.
I have not talked with that one,
she thought, but he vanished behind the sept before she could seek him out. She did not trouble to chase after him. Most like he knew no more than the others had. Rosby was scarce more than a wide place in the road; Sansa would have had no reason to linger here. Returning to the road, Brienne headed north and east past apple orchards and fields of barley, and soon left the village and its castle well behind. It was at Duskendale that she would find her quarry, she told herself.
If she came this way at all.
    â€œI will find the girl and keep her safe,” Brienne had promised Ser Jaime, back at King’s Landing. “For her lady mother’s sake. And for yours.” Noble words, but words were easy. Deeds were hard. She had lingered too long and learned too little in the city.
I should have set out earlier . . .