The wild joy and smugness on Ramsay's face cracked, inch by inch.
"Huh?"
Those ten "Blood Guards," once his last hope and the means to turn the tables.
Were they now watching him silently, wearing "smiles" full of mockery and ridicule?
Those were not the smiles of normal humans.
They were stiff, eerie grins, pulled into shape by cold muscles.
Their eyes, burning with blue flames, had lost their former lifelessness. Instead, they held the same cat-and-mouse amusement as Lynn's.
"No... how could..."
Ramsay instinctively stepped back, but tripped over his father's grotesque "masterpiece" and fell ignominiously into the pool of blood.
Warm, sticky blood soaked through his ragged prisoner's clothes. That familiar smell of blood now sent waves of nausea and dizziness through him.
It had always been his favorite smell.
Now, it chilled him to the core.
He was truly afraid.
"Move! I told you to move!"
Ramsay panicked completely, issuing frantic commands, screaming and roaring with every ounce of strength he had.
"Kill him! Kill Lynn!"
Yet the ten dead men merely watched him in silence, the "smiles" on their faces growing stranger.
They seemed to be enjoying a jester's final, pitiful performance before his death.
"Why..."
"Why is this happening?"
Ramsay broke down completely.
He could not understand.
He had successfully ordered one of them to smash the chair! He had successfully ordered them to flay Roose Bolton!
Why had they all betrayed him now?!
He could not understand!
"Because they were never yours to begin with."
Lynn's voice rang out in the deathly silent banquet hall.
He slowly rose from his armchair, leisurely straightened his collar, then walked toward Ramsay, who lay sprawled in the pool of blood, utterly bereft of hope.
"Reek, did you really think you could take anything from me?"
"I'm the