She was grateful for her chair because his words again, like on the night he'd spoken Arya's name, made her dizzy. Her captivity in King's Landing had chipped away at her identity. Everywhere she turned, there were barrages of reminders: the Starks are traitors. The Hound had been right. She had stopped using her own words and she'd begun to trill and echo theirs. She would curse her own blood if it staved off a beating. It wasn't until the Vale, months free of that fear, that she was starting to feel proud again. Proud, but unable to show it.

But just to hear someone saying something decent about a Stark? Fantastical.

"I'm afraid a great number of us prove to be unkind." Nobility. She'd gone to court expecting that all lords behaved like chivalrous knights and that princes were paragons. Now she knew that in reality, the heroes rarely won. The victories went to monsters. It was how she knew this fledgling plan was doomed already. "But we have our exceptions." A wary beat. "Not that I dare to include myself amidst their shiniest ranks."

Sansa would not speak the word. Bastard. Nor would she even dare its gentler euphemisms. But she alluded to it, feeling a fissure in her heart for lying to him. If a little lie felt this bad, how would she cope with the bigger ones?