GOT: My Secret Lover is sansa-Chapter 110

...

The midday sun baked the white marble of the Great Sept of Baelor. Below the steps, a sea of smallfolk surged against the gold cloaks, their roars deafening as they hurled rotten fruit and jagged stones at the prisoner.

Two gold cloaks hauled Eddard Stark up the wide stone steps. His grey tunic was stained dark with sweat and filth, his right leg dragging uselessly behind him.

Sansa stood near the edge of the wooden scaffold, her fingers twisted so tightly into her silk skirts that her knuckles ached. She kept darting frantic glances at Queen Cersei, waiting for the promised words.

Cersei stood serene above the chaos. She wore crimson silk heavy with gold embroidery, her hands resting calmly before her. She watched the crippled Lord of Winterfell with a faint, satisfied smile.

Ned swayed at the edge of the platform. He looked out over the screaming mob, his face drawn and hollowed, before drawing a jagged breath.

"I am Eddard Stark," his voice rasped, scraping over the roar of the crowd. "I come before you to confess my treason."

Sansa’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Her breath shuddered out in a quiet, desperate exhale. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"I betrayed my friend, King Robert," Ned continued, forcing the words out. "I sought to steal the throne from his true heir, King Joffrey."

The square erupted in a frenzy of jeers and shouted curses.

Joffrey stepped to the edge of the platform. The sunlight caught the gold of his crown and the bright, arrogant smirk on his face. He raised a hand, and the gold cloaks slammed the butts of their spears against the stone to quiet the mob.

"My mother asks me to let Lord Stark live," Joffrey projected, his voice ringing across the square. He gestured lazily toward Sansa. "Lady Sansa also begs for her father’s life."

Cersei gave a slow, approving nod.

Joffrey looked down at Ned’s bowed head. The smirk vanished, replaced by a cold, cruel sneer.

"But they have the soft hearts of women. So long as I am your King, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!"

The mob unleashed a deafening, bloodthirsty roar.

Cersei froze. Her serene smile shattered. She lunged forward, tossing her pristine composure to the wind as she dug her manicured fingers into Joffrey’s velvet sleeve.

"Joffrey, no," Cersei hissed, her voice sharp with sudden, raw panic. "Stop them. We need him alive!"

She yanked hard on his arm. "Joffrey, listen to me—"

Joffrey ripped his arm from her grip. He didn’t spare her a single glance. His eyes were wide and burning as he stared down at the execution block. "Do it!" he shrieked over the din.

...

Hundreds of miles away, in the stifling quiet of the Reach, Alaric went perfectly still.

Master. It is time. The telepathic whisper scraped against his mind, cold and hollow.

Alaric closed his eyes. The dim canvas of the tent vanished. A wall of oppressive heat, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the sharp tang of sun-baked sewage slammed into his senses. He opened the eyes of his Blood Scout, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the screaming mob in the Great Sept of Baelor.

Above him, the tragedy was already in motion. Sansa, trembling violently against the railing. Cersei, her manicured mask shattered by frantic panic. And Ser Ilyn Payne, his skeletal face completely impassive as he marched toward Eddard Stark, the Valyrian greatsword Ice gleaming in his grip.

Through the scout, Alaric slipped a hand into the filthy rags of his beggar’s cloak. His fingers closed around a jagged, freezing stone. A Corpse Swap Token.

Two gold cloaks shoved Ned to the white marble. The Lord of Winterfell bowed his head, his lips moving in a silent, final prayer.

Ilyn Payne raised the massive blade high. The sun caught the dark, smoky ripples of the steel.

Alaric crushed the stone.

A fraction of a millisecond before the greatsword descended, the shadows pooling beneath the wooden scaffold writhed. Nyx, the shadow wolf hiding directly beneath Sansa’s feet, tore a hole in the darkness.

The real Eddard Stark dropped straight through the solid oak planks, swallowed entirely by the void.

A deafening, wet crunch echoed across the plaza.

Ice sheared clean through the decoy’s neck. The severed head bounced heavily across the pristine white marble, leaving a thick, dark smear of blood.

The mob erupted into a bloodthirsty, deafening roar.

Sansa’s eyes rolled back. She collapsed, her head striking the wooden boards with a dull thud. Cersei didn’t even flinch to catch her. The Queen stood paralyzed, staring at the spreading pool of crimson with dead, horrified eyes.

Down in the crush of the crowd, the beggar turned his back on the scaffold and melted into the shadowed alleys.

Far below the Great Sept, deep within the damp, forgotten dirt of the city’s underbelly, a tear in the darkness ripped open against the tunnel ceiling.

Eddard Stark slammed into the wet earth.

He gasped, a violent, rattling sound. His hands flew to his own throat, his fingers digging frantically into his flesh. He felt the heavy pulse pounding beneath his skin. His head was attached. There was no blood. He was breathing.

The slow, heavy crunch of boots echoed in the pitch-black tunnel.

Alaric, wearing the scarred, filthy face of the Blood Scout, stepped out of the gloom. He looked down at the gasping, disoriented Lord of Winterfell.

"On your feet, Stark," the scout rasped, Alaric’s cold, dead cadence bleeding directly through the borrowed throat.

Ned stared up at the filthy, scarred face of the beggar, his chest heaving as he struggled to push himself up from the muck. "What... what happened? I was on the block. I heard the steel—"

"You died," the scout rasped, Alaric’s cold cadence bleeding through the stranger’s throat. The beggar reached down, seizing Ned by the tunic and hauling him roughly to his feet. "A hundred thousand people just watched your head bounce across the marble. If you want to see your youngest daughter again, move."

The beggar reached into the pitch-black alcove of the tunnel and produced a heavy, foul-smelling brown cloak, tossing it at Ned’s chest. "Cover your face."

Ned caught the coarse wool, his hands trembling violently. Above them, muffled by tons of earth and stone, the rhythmic, bloodthirsty roaring of the mob still vibrated in the tunnel ceiling. Ned dragged the heavy fabric over his shoulders, pulling the deep hood down over his face to hide his recognizable features.

He leaned heavily against the damp dirt wall, favoring his shattered leg. "Who are you?" Ned demanded, his voice echoing hollowly in the dark. "The scaffold... the wood opened. How—"

The beggar didn’t answer. He didn’t blink. The dead, empty eyes simply stared at the Lord of Winterfell for a fraction of a second before the man turned on his heel and walked deeper into the gloom.

Ned swallowed the rest of his questions. He ground his teeth together, pushed off the wall, and forced his ruined leg to bear his weight.

He followed the stranger through the claustrophobic dark. Every step sent a blinding flare of agony up his thigh, his boots dragging heavily through the stagnant, freezing puddles of the undercity. The muffled cheers of King’s Landing slowly faded into the dripping silence of the catacombs.

They walked without a single word until the tunnel abruptly ended at a wall of solid earth. Set into the dirt was a thick, iron-banded oak door.

The beggar stopped. He raised a dirty finger and pointed at the rusted iron latch.

"Inside," the scout ordered flatly.

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