We court our own Captivity / Than Thrones more great and innocent; SANSAERY

Body's sweet like sugar venom

Sansa wasn't hungry.

She had zero desire to eat, and even less appetite for the strained excuse for polite conversation the women beside her were bandying back and forth over the dinner table, smiles belonging to words that they most definitely weren't saying. The tension in the room was so thick that Sansa could taste it.

Cersei Lannister, that fearful, beautiful Queen, presided over their table. Margaery Tyrell preened at her right, while Sansa shrank in her chair at the Queen's left.

Dutiful to a fault, Sansa had not said so much as two words since she'd been shown into the Queen's chambers, murmuring a respectful greeting as she came in. Doing as she was bid, she'd taken her place at the royal table with the same feeling of paralyzed obligation that had washed over her upon receiving the Queen's summons to dinner that morning.

"My grandmother and I have been discussing the wedding, and we hope to fully involve the city smallfolk in the celebration," Margaery Tyrell was saying.

She leaned toward the Queen, dress shimmering gold and green in the flickering candlelight. She was a sweet, blossoming thing; looking at her, Sansa felt as old as stone. "During the procession through the city streets, we'd like to throw flowers and have been thinking of roses, of course, as well as chrysanthemums for fidelity, gladiolus for luck..."

She had been diminished, reduced to a mote of dust in Margaery's shadow. She is the one that you want, Sansa thought towards the Queen, fiercely willing herself invisible. Feast on her, my replacement, and let me be. The page had been turned on her own story, and all Sansa wanted was to be forgotten. Yet she'd been called here for some unknown reason, to bear witness to this exchange between queen and queen-to-be.

"Oh yes," Cersei Lannister said, a single muscle pulsing in her jaw. She looked toward Sansa. "Don't you think that sounds lovely, Sansa? Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Yes, your Grace," Sansa murmured, lowering her head in feigned demureness. Really, her stomach twisted like a knife, and she couldn't stand to meet the Queen's raking eyes. Across the table, Margaery Tyrell beamed at Sansa with a smile spread as thick as honey, as if Sansa's response meant all the world to her.

This is ridiculous, Sansa thought with a sharp, sick, indignant thrill. They act as if I had anything to contribute, as if I were their equal. As if I were important.

Trying to avoid further attention, Sansa reached for her glass, reflecting on the tiny drama playing out before her. Here was Cersei, fingers tightly gripping the clawed hand rest of her chair-but why was she so angry? She, after all, had been the one who'd summoned Sansa and Margaery to dine.

Then again, the Queen had been unfathomable to Sansa since she'd stopped playing the sweet mother-to-be. When Sansa had first met the Queen at Winterfell a thousand years ago, when the Queen's dead husband had come to make Sansa's dead father Hand, Cersei had seemed gentle and fair. She remained beautiful, that was true. But behind that hard, lovely exterior was a woman whose love reached only to her own children.

Sansa had come to dread the Queen even more since the betrothal to Joffrey had been broken; before, at least, she'd known what Cersei ultimately intended for her. Now... well. The Queen had taken to looking at Sansa as if she were something fragile just waiting to be broken, and spoke to her with in a way that alternated between cosseting, pity, and bare scorn. Her presence made Sansa almost unbearably nervous.

And here, across the table, was another confusing puzzle of a woman. Sansa had only known Margaery a matter of days, but it was already clear that the Tyrell girl was perceptive, sharp, and capable of a poignant kindness that showed itself like shards of shimmering glass.