In the dungeon, Lynn's figure vanished into the darkness at the end of the passage.
His final words echoed through the empty corridor like the vilest curse.
Every word seemed to become a sharp carving blade, gouging deep into Ramsay's heart.
"He said he was very disappointed."
"He thinks you don't deserve to be his son."
"He's planning to father another one."
The smile on Ramsay's face froze, inch by inch, then cracked apart.
Something seemed to shatter in those pale blue eyes, always so elegant and composed.
"Ha..."
A dry syllable squeezed out of his throat.
He slowly lowered his head, looking at the stone slab before him, at the "masterpiece" he took such pride in.
He had always believed that everything he did was to prove himself to that man.
To prove that he, Ramsay Snow, was more of a Bolton than any other Bolton, even if he was a bastard!
He hunted living people with hounds, treating their terror as the sweetest music.
With a precise flaying knife, he stripped the skin from his enemies, composing their screams into the most magnificent symphony.
He had thought his father would appreciate his "art."
He had thought his father would be proud of his "talent."
He had even imagined it countless times.
When he presented Winterfell to his father and turned the two girls of House Stark into his most faithful hounds, a faint smile of... approval would appear on his father's eternally icy face.
He dreamed of nothing more than making his father smile at him, acknowledge him.
But in the end, all he had received was "disappointment."
Unworthy.
Father another one.
Those few words stabbed deep into his brain, churning all his pride, all his efforts, all his "art" into a filthy slurry.
In that man's eyes,