V

Joffrey’s finger pulled the trigger, and the tightly drawn string slid along the frame of the crossbow, sending the bolt into its short flight. With a quiet wet sound, the bolt’s metal tip plunged into Ros’ tender flesh, giving her a push, and the girl’s eyes flew wide open as an excruciating, unfathomable pain shot through her lower belly. Ros doubled over as much as the belt up above allowed her and let out a painfully loud cry, crossing her legs in a futile attempt to ease the overwhelming pain burning in her hips. The pain in her right arm and in her leg ceased to exist, it seemed to her; even the torturous sensation in her shattered knee was lost, all of them making room in her mind for the agonizing feeling low in her stomach. Ros was screaming her lungs out, shaking in pain, yet she couldn’t hear her own voice. Her eyes were wide open, but for her, the room around her stopped existing. All but one of the sensations faded, leaving her alone with the maddening feeling of the bolt’s feathered shaft embedded deep in her body, sticking out of her lower stomach.

Hanging from the belt by her arms, Ros was bawling wildly, her mind balancing on the verge of unconsciousness. Every hectic breath she was taking was echoing in the wound as her stomach was moving, and soon her voice turned raspy, long screams of pain becoming dry creaks coming out of her throat. For a brief moment, she felt her mind slip into blackness, only to be woken up by the very same pain a moment later. There was another sensation now, Ros felt… A feeling of blood streaming down her skin, smearing her tunic and welling up at the triangle of her crotch by her tightly crossed legs, then streaming down her inner thighs. A nauseatingly sticky, warm feeling of her life leaking out of her body.

This awfully sobering thought seemed to be the one that finally started to guide her mind back to reality amid the all-enveloping feeling of pain. Still whimpering with her hoarse throat, Ros moved her hips back, further onto the edge of the bed – and found herself unable to hold back one more scream, feeling the tip of the bolt sticking out of her buttock press against the soft covers, making the shaft inside her body move and sending a new jolt of pain through her hips. She immediately leaned forward, by a sheer miracle managing to bring herself into a pose that wasn’t causing any more grinding or moving of any of the arrows she was stuffed with. Ros licked her trembling lips, tasting the salty tears streaming down her face, and felt blood seeping out of the tooth-shaped indents on her lower lip. Trying her best to make her breaths as shallow as possible since every one of them was resonating sharply in her stomach, and still whimpering from the pain, she looked down, the next moment suddenly feeling terribly lightheaded and immediately looking away. The sheer sight of the bolt sticking out of her hips, even if out of focus from all the tears welling up in her eyes, was enough for the pain to be perceived as twice as intense, making her whole body shudder.

And, of course, there was Joffrey… There was nothing that Ros wanted more than to never see the monster again. The pain was truly awful – but the worst part was the knowledge that the sadist she was locked in the room with was still there and in complete control. Ros shuddered, feeling his presence right in front of her. There he was, standing a foot or two away. She’d die before looking him in the eye, she thought.

Joffrey’s hand reached for the fletching of the bolt, and Ros barely contained a cry when he grabbed it, instead hissing loudly through her clenched teeth. He was waiting for her to beg him, Ros knew it. She wouldn’t give him that pleasure.

The King pushed the bolt further into the wound, and all the thoughts in her mind shattered into pieces, flashes of blinding pain filling her head instead. Clenching her teeth so hard that one of them suddenly cracked in her mouth, Ros squealed loudly, her toes curling and her fingernails digging into the leather belt tying her to the baldaquin frame. The bolt in her body started moving back out, guided by Joffrey’s hand, and one more heartfelt scream escaped her lungs, her whole body shaking in convulsions and fighting back against the cause of the mind-boggling pain. “Let me go!” her hysterical shriek resounded across the room. “Let me go!”

Ros hadn’t heard Joffrey step away from her, and she hadn’t seen him walk back to his seat; the only indication that her desperate plea had had any effect was the sudden release of the pressure on the bolt embedded in her body. Very cautiously leaning back against the bedside and breathing carefully with her chest, Ros looked up at her arms and broke down in tears, a bitter realization finally hitting her. Whatever insanity was driving Joffrey, whatever tortures she had yet to endure from him, one thing suddenly became awfully clear. No maester in the world could help her escape this dreaded room alive.

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked again and sobbed, closing her eyes. Joffrey was walking in circles around the room again – Ros could hear his boots rustling against the floor. Her hips and stomach felt like they were on fire, each breath resounding low in her belly with the sharpest pain she had ever felt. “Why?” Measured sounds of footsteps were the only thing she could hear in response. Her closed eyes did little to stop salty tears from flowing freely down her cheeks. The mechanical sounds of the crossbow string being pulled reached her ears, and Ros wept louder, still keeping her eyes tightly shut. Chest? Stomach? What could possibly be more painful than the wounds he had already inflicted, Ros wondered bitterly?

The bolt darted towards her with a harsh sound, and Ros bellowed in pain as the projectile ripped the tendons in her right arm halfway between her wrist and her elbow, getting stuck in her flesh again. The girl thrashed around, unable to hold still as a terrible cramp spread through her arm; the feeling of the leather belt digging into her wrist became outright unbearable as her right hand was twitching in the tight knot up above. Fingernails on her left hand dug into the leather in a semi-conscious attempt to release the pressure put on her right arm; with each deep breath and each cry of pain that escaped Ros’ lips, the molten hot fire deep in her stomach burned brighter, its flames licking the tender flesh inside her. Wiggling from the sharpest pain that seemed to take over her whole body, howling and twitching from cramps that were moving down her arm, Ros suddenly had a brief thought flash in her head that she’d rather just die than endure this torture anymore. Fingers of her left hand finally gripped the leather of the belt tightly, and Ros exhaled sharply, still whimpering from the pain, but finally managing to rest her buttocks firmly on the edge of the bed again and put at least some pressure away from the pierced muscles of her right arm.

She’d rather die… A neverending stream of tears was flowing out of her eyes as she was leaning on the bed, stuffed with crossbow bolts and lamenting her situation. The pain was absolutely mind-boggling; it was with genuine surprise that Ros found herself still capable of somewhat coherent thoughts. Perhaps it was her mind’s odd way of protecting her from going insane from the pain, she thought. And yet, the pain was still there… It pulsated in her wounds, it traveled along her veins, it was seeping into her mind, blinding her, making her want to scream with every breath she was taking and desperately seek release. Any release would do. The same bitter thought slithered into her mind again and, oddly, didn’t cause any protest. If anything, Ros found herself to be accepting it with tears in her eyes. She’d rather die than endure all this pain. The realization didn’t come as a shock; Ros sobbed loudly, finding this idea morbidly reasonable. And the worst thing of all… She felt that it was a comforting one. Suddenly, death felt like freedom. And wasn’t freedom from this pain all that she had left to hope for?

She opened her eyes and stared at the floor of the bedroom in front of her, tears obscuring her vision. Spying on Baelish for Varys was not all that big of a mistake, in retrospect, even if it was worse than some others. Coming to King’s Landing was the biggest and the most terrible of them all, Ros admitted. It had brought her nothing but trouble and pain. That day when she and Daisy had come into this dreaded room, that other day when the Queen had her locked in a dark dungeon for reasons she never truly found out… And finally, this day, when the boy King didn’t even have the courage to commit all these atrocities without tying her. And why?! The intrusive question couldn’t leave her mind, tormenting her just like any of these bolts sticking out of her flesh. If only this had a reason, any twisted reason, Ros thought bitterly. It would give at least some sense and meaning to her inevitable end.

“Why?” she whispered quietly, looking up at Joffrey. “Your… Your Grace,” she winced involuntarily as she pronounced his title. “Please. Please, Your Grace,” she sobbed, staring at him. “Don’t I deserve to know?”

Joffrey tilted his head sideways, observing her with interest. After a few seconds, he shrugged and reached for the lever, then attached it to the crossbow. His hands were shaking nervously as was loading the weapon – Ros didn’t even have to blink her tears away to see that. “Lord Baelish must have found you… expendable,” Joffrey made sure to stress the word, and Ros felt her heart sink in her chest. It was an odd reaction, it occurred to her. Joffrey said nothing new; she had realized this a long time ago… Yet somehow, coming out of Joffrey’s mouth, the words sounded morbidly final.

The King lifted the weapon up, and Ros closed her eyes, trembling in anticipation. A few moments ago she could have sworn she was ready for it, accepting it, yet with the crossbow pointed at her, all the courage immediately left her. There seemed to be no way to look in the eyes of death bravely, Ros realized. A quiet whimper escaped her lips after a few seconds of tense silence in the room – and, almost immediately after that, the string of the crossbow sent the feathered bolt into flight, and it whizzed past Ros’ body, slamming hard into the far right bedpost behind her with a loud thud.

Ros flinched, opening her eyes and staring at Joffrey in disbelief. As always, the King was smiling… This time, it was something other than that look of fascination and excitement that Ros had learned to despise. It was satisfaction. A twisted, sadistic satisfaction of a boy picking the wings off flies and looking at their reaction. Joffrey knew, Ros realized. He knew exactly what thoughts were running through her head. Killing her? Ros couldn’t hold back a loud sob as she realized what a fool she had been to think that Joffrey was going to give her that luxury. He would keep her alive with all this terrible pain in her body and these terrible thoughts in her head, and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. She clenched her jaws tightly to keep herself from bursting out in tears completely. If he wasn’t going to give her what she craved, she sure as hell wasn’t going to give him what he wanted to see.

“Where are you from?” Joffrey asked casually, reaching to the table for the lever.

“Dorne… Your Grace,” Ros spoke quietly. Admitting that she was from the rebellious North would just give him a legitimate justification for all of this, she thought. Home… Now that Joffrey brought that up, her thoughts traveled home, carrying her far away from this dark room and from this pain. The village she had grown up in, those high, centuries-old stone walls of Winterfell in the distance… Even that bawdy house she used to work in – all of this felt so dear… and so far away.

She never should have left it behind.

“Dorne?!” Joffrey exclaimed in surprise, putting the feathered bolt into the groove. “That’s… I’d never think of that,” he admitted. “I’ve never seen a red-haired Dornish,” he grinned. Ros barely held back a bitter chuckle, despite the situation. Joffrey held the crossbow up, and Ros inhaled, looking at the weapon pointing at her and fighting the urge to look away. If this, by some miracle, was the one bolt that would take her life at last, she wanted to see it fly towards her, she finally decided.

“I want you to choose,” Joffrey broke the silence, still aiming at the girl. “Your left arm, or your left leg.”

Ros shuddered, a shiver running down her spine. Gods, what a twisted inventive young mind… She closed her eyes and gulped, remaining silent. Arm, leg… Did it even matter anymore? Ros wasn’t even sure she would feel a difference now. Looking at Joffrey, she kept her lips sealed, feeling her chin trembling.

“I said, choose!” the King yelled, and Ros shuddered, staring at the loaded weapon in his hands. “Choose, or I’ll choose your head!”

Ros didn’t make a sound, but the light of hope in her eyes that had faded a long time ago shone brighter. ‘Choose my head, boy,’ she thought, looking at Joffrey.

“Your left arm, or your left leg,” he repeated.

‘My head. Please,’ Ros barely managed not to say it out loud. Joffrey gripped the frame of the crossbow with his hands tighter impatiently, looking at her. Ros blinked, trying to see him clearly. The tears in her eyes were making it hard to see where the weapon was pointing.

Suddenly, the young King’s finger jerked the trigger, and the feathered bolt darted towards the bed, smashing into the wooden bedpost to the left from Ros and making her flinch and gasp loudly. “You had to choose!” Joffrey yelled in frustration, and Ros felt tears starting to pour down her cheeks again, sobbing. So much for thinking that she had cried all of them out already… “You…” Joffrey hissed through his teeth and stammered for a moment, as if he realized something. “You disobeyed an order from your King!” he huffed, furious, starting to wind up circles around the room again in front of her with the crossbow in his hands. “Do you know the punishment for that?” He walked towards the table and reached for the lever again.

Ros inhaled loudly, wincing from the pain in her stomach. All she wanted was a reason… and there was none. There was no reason at all for all this madness, no answer for the ‘Why?’ that tormented her, there was nothing but the meaningless entertainment for the King. Gods, how she had hoped there would be something… A crime she would have had committed unknowingly, some plotting that she would have been wrongfully accused of… but not this! Not this wicked bloodlust of a boy trying so hard to come up with an excuse for stuffing her full of crossbow bolts.

Ros looked at him again. Joffrey was standing in front of her, loading the weapon. She blinked a few times to see him clearly. Joffrey lifted the crossbow again, aiming at her, and she stared back at him, wondering bitterly whether he was planning to kill her tonight at all. If only there was a way to make him, if only there was a way to guide his aim straight into her head or heart, Ros thought. What twisted thinking guided his hands, what could he possibly see in her suffering? Ros squinted her eyes, looking at Joffrey wrapped in his fancy embroidered costume. There was something peculiar, something odd about the way he was standing, about the way the fabric was clinging to his hips… Ros gulped, suddenly realizing what it was, and looked into his eyes with a disgusted expression on her face, a sickening feeling creeping up on her.

How could she not have noticed that before?

“Y-you monster,” she whispered, staring at him in disbelief, her lips shaking. Everything fell into place… But it was the truth that Ros immediately wished she had never uncovered. And yet, she should have realized it a long time ago, she scolded herself. Granted, during her time in Littlefinger’s pleasure house she had met people who loved being in control and causing pain. Those people may have been rough and fairly violent at times, but in the end, all they truly wanted was to screw her, not harm her. Joffrey, however… Ros remembered his touch on her thigh; a surprisingly gentle, true, yet such a very awkward touch. Joffrey did not desire her body in the slightest, she realized. She could spread her legs for him, and he would be unfazed. Her blood and her screams, on the other hand…

“What is that?” Joffrey asked, tilting his head. “I didn’t hear you.”

Ros closed her eyes, slowly exhaling. Joffrey wouldn’t just end her life. He would torture her for hours on end, bolt by bolt, slowly draining life and sanity out of her… and, worse yet, getting off on it.

Unless…

“You are a monster,” Ros hissed louder through her teeth, shivering and closing her eyes. “A sick fuck who…”

A bolt smashed into the bedpost to the right from her, and the loud thud made her gasp and flinch, squirming from the pain that the sudden movement produced. Her eyes flew open; Joffrey was impatiently loading the crossbow with the lever again. “Sorry, you were saying?” he grinned, looking at her, and reached to the bucket. Ros whimpered quietly, hesitating. It was one thing to succumb meekly to your fate and let the torturer have his fun… it was something else to seal your fate with your own words.

“You’re a sadistic, twisted, sick fuck of a bastard!” she shouted in her hoarse voice, unable to hold back a pathetic whimper of pain immediately afterwards. Joffrey froze for a moment with a bolt in his hand, staring at her. Ros held his gaze. Without a word, Joffrey placed the bolt into the groove and lifted the weapon up, taking a step towards Ros and aiming at her. His face conveyed an entirely different emotion now, Ros noticed; even the earlier frustration at her ‘disobeying his order’ hadn’t produced such an expression of barely contained rage as his face was showing right now.

Still silent, Joffrey reached for the trigger. The tightly drawn string sent the bolt towards its target, and a moment later Ros screamed as the projectile pierced her left arm close to the elbow, severing tendons and getting stuck deep in her flesh. She shook from the terrible pain, feeling her arm twitching in a cramp; suddenly, she felt that she was sliding down from the edge of Joffrey’s bed, the blood-soaked fabric of the tunic under her hips becoming awfully slippery – and her arms, both stuffed with bolts, couldn’t hold her weight anymore. Ros made a futile attempt to press her left foot against the floor to stop sliding down from the bed, but it was in vain – her buttocks slipped off the edge, and the girl screamed with all her might, feeling a fierce tug on her destroyed arms up above as she was hanging freely from the leather belt now, combined with the god-awful feeling of the tip of the bolt protruding from her buttock scraping against the side of the bed. Both of her legs, the injured and the unharmed, were sliding across the floor desperately as she fought against the horrible pain, writhing around by the side of the King’s bed and howling wildly.

She had barely noticed Joffrey putting the crossbow down onto the table and walking towards her. She only truly felt his presence next to her when he suddenly reached to her neck and squeezed her throat, his fingers pressing hard into her delicate skin. With a grunt, Joffrey pulled her up by the neck, and Ros gagged, fighting for air and staring up at him with despise. As soon as her hips were above the edge of the bed, though, the King let go, and the girl wheezed, immediately gulping for air and the next moment grimacing with a loud moan from the pain that shot through her belly. Sitting on the side of the bed and stretching her left leg out to prevent sliding back down as her arms were in no state to support her, Ros was breathing heavily with her chest, whimpering on every breath and staring at Joffrey standing in front of her.

Looking her in the eye, Joffrey took one more step closer, and his right hip pressed against the fletching of the bolt sticking out of her hips, pushing it deeper into her flesh. Ros couldn’t help but scream in his face, tears immediately streaming from her eyes again as she felt the shaft moving deep inside her. Joffrey kept staring at her, rage seeping out of his eyes. “What did you call me?” he asked quietly, and Ros sobbed, fighting the tears choking her and looking up at him. There was no way back.

“A bastard,” she hissed back with hatred after a short pause, staring into the King’s eyes. “I have fucked scum from all over the North and I’ve fucked more noble perverts from this shithole you call King’s Landing than there are days you have lived,” a triumphant grin appeared on Ros’ weary face, “and you are the most disgusting, twisted, fucked in the head bastard in all Seven Kingdoms. Oh, if only they had known… perhaps they would have saved the Mad King title for you!”

Joffrey exhaled loudly in her tear-stained face, staring at her. Even in the dim light of the chandeliers in the room Ros could see veins appear on his forehead; his nostrils opened wider as he breathed heavily, his hand moving along her shoulder to her neck again. Halfway along her collarbone it stopped, though, as Joffrey bit his lip, staring into her eyes for a moment then looking down, focusing on the bolt sticking out of her hips.

Joffrey’s hand reached down and grabbed the shaft of the projectile, and the girl hissed loudly in his face, unable to keep quiet as a jolt of pain shot through her hips. Without saying a word, the King clenched the bolt tighter and pushed it deeper into Ros. A sharp scream escaped her lips as her whole body arched unnaturally, cold sweat of pain running down her spine. Joffrey jerked the bolt back towards himself, and for a brief moment, Ros felt as if her heart stopped beating as a terrible, unthinkable pain ran through her body. The metal tip of the bolt sticking out of her buttock disappeared inside the exit wound as it was pulled back, ripping through her flesh with the tiny sharp hooks on its backside.

Looking her in the face, Joffrey licked his lips and thrust the bolt deeper into her again, then immediately pulled it towards himself – and plunged it further into her flesh once more, beginning to rhythmically pound her hips with the projectile… And for Ros, the whole world faded away. All that was left was Joffrey’s heavy breath in front of her and flashes of inhuman, unimaginable pain with every thrust of the bolt tearing through her. Sharp metal edges and splinters of wood were digging into her tender flesh and ripping it apart as the bolt was penetrating her womb in unthinkable, morbid fashion with squishy wet sounds. Amid all the blinding pain that absorbed her, Ros could barely feel blood pouring out of both sides of the gruesome wound and from between her thighs, writhing around in agony and letting out absolutely inhuman, blood-curdling screams of pain. By now, no coherent thoughts were left in her head; only the instinctive, animalistic reactions to being sawn alive with a sharp crossbow bolt. But soon enough, even the wild screams faded. Ros was opening her mouth soundlessly, staring past Joffrey’s face and shuddering with every movement of the bolt deep inside her, quiet dry creaks sometimes escaping her lips. The leather belt that was tying her to the baldaquin frame had fresh, deep nail marks all over it. Her teary eyes were showing no other emotion but the purest pain.

VI

… Ros didn’t know how much time had passed before eventually, one by one, her sensations started to slowly return to her. She didn’t even know for how long Joffrey had been penetrating her with the bolt – she had no memory left of it except for bright flashes of separate moments. Joffrey squeezing her shoulder. Joffrey grabbing the bolt. A blinding flash of pain. His heavy breath. Metal cutting through her flesh. His hateful eyes. A flow of blood. Dryness in her throat. Her heart skipping a beat. Blood. So much pain. So much blood.

A quiet clank was a sound that came from reality rather than recollections, though. Ros felt like she couldn’t even open her eyes without wanting to scream her lungs out. Squinting, she stared past the veil of tears at the source of the sound. Joffrey was sitting in his seat comfortably, a cup of wine in his hand and a loaded crossbow in his lap. Oddly, Ros felt no emotion at this sight; all of it had been drained out of her along with all the blood and replaced with the pain, it felt to her. If anything, she couldn’t help but scoff bitterly at her situation. So much for tempting death.

“You’re from the North, aren’t you?” Joffrey questioned calmly and took a sip from the cup. “How did you put this… ‘I have fucked scum from all over the North’, I believe?”

Ros stared down at the floor between them. “Yes,” she spoke quietly, hearing her voice creak and feeling her throat hurt from such a simple word. “I am.”

Joffrey nodded with a satisfied look. “I thought so. Lying Northern whore, with your poisonous rumors,” he smacked his lips and put the cup down onto the tabletop, then gripped the handle of his crossbow and stood up from his seat. “For all the crimes you have committed, I, Joffrey of the House Baratheon, the First of My Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, hereby sentence you to die.”

Ros pursed her lips. As far as pain and tortures went, she was almost ready for more of them with an odd sense of fatalism now, she felt. After all that had happened, there was no such pain that could frighten her anymore, it seemed to her. But all of these Joffrey’s theatrics that accompanied it, though… Disgusting excuses of a cowardly boy who wasn’t even willing to admit that he was doing all this for the pleasure of his flesh. The real torture. But if it was easier for Joffrey to twist things this way, it suddenly occurred to her, perhaps it would be easier for her as well? The whole life is a theater, she reasoned. Everyone acts and lies and everyone pretends to believe. Perhaps there was nothing wrong in pretending to believe in just one more lie, compared to a lifetime of them?

“I will execute you personally,” Joffrey continued, his voice breaking for a moment. “Ask for forgiveness for your words, and it will be a good death. I promise,” he added after a short pause in an unusually soft tone. “If you don’t,” he raised his voice again, “I will show you no mercy, as a traitor like you deserves.”

Ros exhaled quietly, still staring at the floor. Treason. There it was. A pitiful, miserable excuse… And yet, an excuse she was willing to – wanting to – accept. After all this pain, after all these tortures there was nothing that she wanted anymore but to have a justification, and this one sounded so tempting. The real, sickening truth behind all these atrocities was too awful, too unbearable to accept, and her mind was desperately clinging to the faintest hopes for any other explanation. Treason was just as good as any. The few shards of rationality that were left in her mind were screaming at her, accusing her of delusion, but she wasn’t listening. For the first time since she had entered this dreaded room, Ros felt a faint touch of peace and acceptance. There finally was a good enough reason for all of this gutting pain. Ros closed her eyes with a sigh. It was so easy. She just had to believe it. Just for long enough.

And, at the same time, there was no reason to try to outmaneuver Joffrey anymore. Treason is never treason for a traitor who believes in her cause. Letting it go was the only option.

“Your… Your Grace,” she whispered, hearing her voice disappear halfway through the phrase as her throat produced nothing but dry gurgles. “Your Grace,” she repeated slightly louder. “I was wrong.” Tears started to stream down her face again, and she sobbed loudly and winced from the pain. “I was wrong, I—”

Ros wailed quietly, closing her eyes. She could hear her own voice in her head screaming at her for calling this self-proclaimed judge and executioner His Grace. A part of her mind was cursing her for this, but a bigger part couldn’t care less. This way, there was peace, solace and closure. It was all that mattered in the end.

“I was wrong to call you that,” she continued. “You… you are the one true King by blood, Your Grace.” Her vision slowly focused on the bolt protruding out of her, a blood-smeared shaft swaying with every faint breath she took. “You are the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and… I’m sorry, Your Grace, I don’t know the words,” she wept, staring at the red feathers at the end of the bolt. “I’m so sorry. I would say them if I knew them. Please, mercy, Your Grace.” The more she kept looking at the projectile, the more lightheaded she felt. “Mercy.”

Joffrey stood silent with the crossbow in his hands, listening to her. “What is your name?” he asked quietly after heavy silence had filled the room again. “Tell me.”

Ros sobbed loudly, looking at scarlet blood dripping onto the floor between her legs. “Ros, Your Grace,” she whispered and raised her head, looking at the King standing in front of her. “It’s Ros.”

“Very well, then,” Joffrey spoke unexpectedly loudly and gulped, then raised the crossbow and looked at the girl along its frame. Ros stared at the tip of the bolt lying in the groove and held her breath. Would she have the time to feel anything, she wondered? Would she even register it flying towards her?

Joffrey slowly tilted his head sideways, his mouth opening just a little as he squinted his eyes, looking at Ros. Suddenly, after a few more seconds, he scoffed sharply and lowered the weapon, looking at the bolt protruding out of her stomach. “You…” he hissed and pursed his lips, his eyes filling with rage again. Ros exhaled quietly, looking at him with her eyes wide open. “What have you done?!” Joffrey extended his free arm towards her, pointing at her hips, and the girl shuddered, staring at him in shock and feeling her heart start pounding in her chest from anxiety again, a feeling she had hoped had finally abandoned her just a couple minutes ago. “That’s… You… You’ve ruined the covers, you cunt!”

Ros whimpered pathetically, gingerly looking down at the bolt. Dark red blood was leaking out of the wounds, streaming down her skin. Ros could feel everything. She could feel the flow crawling against her groin and her buttocks, she could feel the blood-drenched fabric of her tunic clinging to her body, she could feel the stream of blood trickling from between her legs and down her inner thighs; finally, she could feel all this wetness pooling up under her hips, forming a dark red puddle that was giving the very air around her the heavy smell and taste of iron. A pool of blood in the rich covers of the King’s bed.

Ros gulped and raised her head, staring at Joffrey in fear. A grimace of fury was painted on the young King’s face, and the girl shuddered at the sight, realizing what she had done. Every single bolt in her body was deserved, every last one of them was there for a reason. She had to be thankful for the punishment… instead, all she had done in return was ruin the bedsheets with a bloodstain.

Not just a traitor. An ungrateful one.

“Your Grace,” she whispered in shock, staring into the King’s eyes and hearing her voice break. “I… I am so sorry, Your Grace…” She felt tears start welling up in her eyes again.

“You’re sorry?” Joffrey scoffed and tilted his head, looking at her. “Well, what does it matter now?!” he exclaimed loudly, and the girl flinched, closing her eyes and feeling her chin tremble. Her fingers wrapped around the leather belt tighter, and she made a clumsy attempt at pulling herself up from the edge of the bed – an attempt that ended with a cramp running along her pierced arms and Ros dropping back down into the puddle of blood with a wet sound, howling from the jolts of pain that shot through her entire body.

“No, no, no, no,” Joffrey chuckled condescendingly, and Ros froze, staring at him. “What is the point of that now?” The King scoffed and started to walk in circles nervously around the room again, glancing at the girl. Ros couldn’t take her eyes off him, her teeth digging into her lower lip. “What is the point?!” Joffrey suddenly kicked a tall metal stand next to his seat with an unlit candle on top of it, and Ros gasped as the unstable piece of furniture crashed down loudly onto the floor from the King’s outburst.

“I-I just wanted to—”

“I don’t care what you wanted to do!” Joffrey screamed back at her, and Ros flinched, feeling the all-too-familiar wetness of tears on her cheeks. She blinked and took a deep breath cautiously with her chest; tears were choking her, turning her breath into a series of short and quiet gasps.

Suddenly, Joffrey exhaled loudly and raised the crossbow again, and Ros froze in place, looking at the weapon through her tears. A kind, almost sympathetic grin illuminated the young King’s face, and Ros couldn’t help but smile back at him weakly, feeling the anxiety in her chest fade away again. “Thank you,” she mouthed soundlessly. He was a merciful King, after all, and no words could describe the relief she was feeling now. Even after all that she had done, even after her ungratefulness, he was merciful. He shouldn’t have been; she didn’t deserve it. And yet he was.

“You can sit all you want.”

The crossbow clicked quietly, and before a slightest suspicion could creep into Ros’ mind, the feathered bolt darted towards her body and smashed precisely into her pubic mound, shattering the bone and slicing through the delicate flesh between her legs before finally coming to a full stop, deep inside the wooden plank under the blood-soaked layers of bed sheets.

Ros’ mouth opened in a silent scream as her body arched, her legs immediately closing tightly around the fletching of the bolt sticking out of her mound. As pulsating waves of terrible pain rushed up her body, a sound finally escaped her lips; an inarticulate high-pitched raspy squeal, a pitiful attempt of her ruined vocal cords at expressing the agonizing sensation that was radiating from her destroyed crotch. Ros’ whole body shook in convulsions as the mind-boggling pain washed over her; her thighs were opening and closing as the muscles in her legs were contracting, red feathers of the bolt between them quickly becoming dyed into the darker shade of the girl’s blood. Shaking and squealing, wiggling around on the bolt that was pinning her to the bed and only tearing the wound wider, Ros felt the all-enveloping pain, the one that had taken over her entire body by now, the one flaming in her arms, in her leg, in her womb and now in her groin, start burning the last shards of her sanity away… and it was so far from the cleansing, welcome pain that she had been longing for, hoping that it would bless her with deliverance. How could she have been so wrong, Ros realized in horror, feeling it taking over her. This pain was anything but cleansing. It was so awful… Unthinkably awful. With tears in her eyes, she desperately tried to fight it, to push it out of her mind, but it was too late. The soft brushing of the bolt’s fletching against her inner thighs was the only distinct sensation that lingered for a little longer before fading away like all the others, and then, pain was all that there was left.

The wailing that resounded across the room was a desperate scream of madness, above all else.