“You look pale, Sansa," Cersei observed. "Is your red flower still blooming?""Yes""How apt. The men will bleed out there, and you in here.”

“Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease. Do you want to be loved, Sansa?”“Everyone wants to be loved.”“I see flowering hasn’t made you any brighter,” said Cersei. “Sansa, permit me to share a bit of womanly wisdom with you on this very special day. Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same.”

“Sansa lowered her head. “The blood frightened me.”“The blood is the seal of your womanhood. Lady Catelyn might have prepared you. You’ve had your first flowering, no more.”Sansa had never felt less flowery. “My lady mother told me, but I . . . I thought it would be different.”“Different how?”“I don’t know. Less . . . less messy, and more magical.”Queen Cersei laughed. “Wait until you birth a child, Sansa. A woman’s life is nine parts mess to one part magic, you’ll learn that soonenough . . . and the parts that look like magic often turn out to be messiest of all.”

“Yes,” I said, looking back up as the sun settled into the sky, the red blooming from it like flower petals. “It has already begun.”

“If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”

“Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice there bloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh.”